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Visualizing the Virginia Earthquake (and its aftershocks)

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 05:28:32 +0000

The Virginia Earthquake generated a lot of media coverage and interest because of both the magnitude of the seismic event (5.8) and the fact that it happened in an area that historically does not have large earthquakes. It was felt up and down the East Coast of the US, and even shook our offices here in Pittsburgh, PA. One of the other parts of this story is that the epicenter of the quake was within a few miles of a major nuclear reactor, known as the North Anna Power Station, which is operated by Dominion. According to Reuters, the plant lost power and three diesel generators were require...

Read more here: Visualizing the Virginia Earthquake (and its aftershocks)

Rhiza CEO Co-Authors Presidential Report on Ecosystem Protection

Thu, 28 Jul 2011 14:30:44 +0000

For over a year, I've been serving on a working group of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). Our working group was comprised of leaders from educational and non-profit institutions, as well as corporations large and small, who all had expertise in matters of ecosystem preservation, environmental economics and information systems. During this time I've had the privilege of working with these people to draft a set of policy recommendations that were recently presented to President Obama. The result of our work, titled Sustaining Environmental Capital: Protec...

Read more here: Rhiza CEO Co-Authors Presidential Report on Ecosystem Protection

At Rhiza, Every Day is Take Your Kids to Work Day

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 20:24:03 +0000

Today is Take Your Child to Work Day, but that's every day for me! Rhiza has a great "Babies to Work" program which means that our employees can take their infants to work with them up until they are six months old. Ada is nine weeks old and she has been coming to work with me since her third week. I have paid maternity leave, but rather than take it all at once, I chose to taper up my time at work, going from very part time to nearly full time. I've managed to keep up with work projects, but keep my schedule to infant-sized portions. Ada eats, naps, and plays at the office. Most of...

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FracTracker Researchers Win Awards

Thu, 21 Apr 2011 15:44:35 +0000

From our friends at Pitt's Center for Healthy Environments and Communities comes news that several researchers have won awards as a result of their work with FracTracker.org, which is powered by Rhiza Insight. The researchers and their projects were: Samantha Malone, BCHS - "Implementation of FracTracker.org: A GeoWeb platform to manage and communicate shale gas information" - Poster | PowerPoint Drew Michanowicz, EOH - "Temporal Trends and Spatial Distribution of Air Quality in Western Pennsylvania in the 2000s" - Poster Kyle Ferrar, EOH - "Natural Gas Wastewater Treatment: Efflue...

Read more here: FracTracker Researchers Win Awards

Civic Footprint Mapping in Calgary Using Rhiza Insight

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 19:16:38 +0000

We love it when our customers sing our praises! A really interesting non-profit organization in Toronto, Canada called Framework has been using our Rhiza Insight software to help in the mapping and measurement of people's Civic Footprint. You can read about their experience using Rhiza Insight to take all of the 2010 Calgary Vital Signs data to see emerging trends for the city. It's great to see our software being used by so many innovative organizations in the non-profit, for-profit and government sectors! If you have something to say about your experience using Rhiza Insight, please le...

Read more here: Civic Footprint Mapping in Calgary Using Rhiza Insight

Onix Networking Announces it will Resell Rhiza Insight Online Mapping Software

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 22:14:03 +0000

We're very proud to announce a new partnership with Onix Networking, who will now be reselling our Rhiza Insight software, with a focus on government sales. Rhiza's a software should appear on the GSA Schedule and several other government contracts very soon. The official release is below: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Onix Networking announces it will resell Rhiza Insight Online Mapping Software Westlake, Ohio – March 21, 2011 – Onix Networking, a leading information technology provider, today announced it has become an authorized reseller of the Rhiza InsightTM suite of products. Rhiza b...

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Updated: US Nuke Plants and All Earthquakes Since 1973

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 15:47:06 +0000

Earlier this week, I published a map that showed where all of the power plants were in the United States and the last seven days of seismic activity globally. I received a lot of great comments from people, both here and on our Facebook Page. The biggest request seemed to be for more earthquake data that covers a larger time period. I finally found a source of this data that shows all major earthquakes since 1973 tracked by the USGS. I took that data and used our Rhiza Insight software to visualize the data. You'll see that I segmented the earthquakes by Richter Scale, and made each segment...

Read more here: Updated: US Nuke Plants and All Earthquakes Since 1973

The Changing Location of NFL Power Schools

Tue, 15 Mar 2011 17:31:55 +0000

I needed a break from refreshing the news constantly about the Japanese earthquake disaster. So here's a little something that really has no great importance in the larger scheme of things: a picture of where the power schools for NFL players sit. I ran across a pair of datasets that attempted to rank the top 25 colleges both by their historical success in producing NFL players and their current success in producing NFL players. The former is measured by overall number of players (the dataset also contains number of Hall of Fame players), the latter by number of active players. I plotted...

Read more here: The Changing Location of NFL Power Schools

Map It: Nuclear Power and Earthquakes in the United States

Mon, 14 Mar 2011 22:59:59 +0000

With Japan's nuclear reactors on the brink of potential meltdown, I've been thinking a lot about the nuclear power plant that is about 20 miles from my house... and the over 100 nuclear power plants that are spread throughout our country. Many of these are located near some of the most densely populated areas in the United States, and most are fairly old. What would happen if a natural disaster like the one that struck Japan, struck here? I don't have any expert answer to that question, but I did think that it might be useful to fire up our Rhiza Insight web app and start looking at some data...

Read more here: Map It: Nuclear Power and Earthquakes in the United States

Mapping the Japanese Earthquakes

Mon, 14 Mar 2011 16:10:40 +0000

We've all been watching the news from Japan with concern. I've personally found the imagery and video footage completely overwhelming, both emotionally and from the perspective of trying to understand exactly what happened. One bit of information that I kept hearing was that aftershocks to the main earthquake event were happening as frequently as several times per hour. I wondered what it would look like to visualize all of the seismic activity in Japan, and of course went online to get the answer. I went to the Earthquake Hazard Program of the USGS and found a dataset of all seismic events...

Read more here: Mapping the Japanese Earthquakes