What Would Steve Jobs Think About the State of GIS Mapping in the Mainstream?


Richmond, Virginia (PRWEB) July 26, 2012

Timmons Group, a leader in enterprise geospatial products and services, is pleased to announce an upcoming webinar focusing on the state of GIS applications in the mainstream today. The webinar will take place on Tuesday, July 31, from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. EST. You are invited to join Timmons Group staff to discuss how to better target your audience, create intuitive user experiences, make beautiful maps, simplify your application, and reintroduce the map to the web! We will use practical examples to demonstrate how the latest technology can solve todays geospatial challenges.

Join Chris Gerecke, Director of Enterprise Solutions for Timmons Group, to talk about the top ten ways to enhance and streamline the user experience of your geospatial application. Chris will pose the question – What would the late Steve Jobs of Apple think about the state of todays GIS mapping applications? Jobs, a known visionary in user experience and user interface design, prioritized that experience in Apples products. Our webinar will attempt to answer that question by showing how the GIS industry stacks up in terms of creating an appealing and intuitive user experience for the masses.

Does your mapping website need a help manual? Can non-GIS users successfully use your 200 layers and 20 tools? Shouldnt your site seamlessly transition to an iPad and other mobile devices? If you answered yes to any of the previous questions, then join our webinar and discussion.

To register for the webinar, please visit http://webinars.timmonsgis.com.

About Timmons Group

Timmons Group is a leading provider of geospatial, information architecture and engineering services focusing on developing intuitive, enterprise geospatial web applications, highly-usable, cross-device mobile applications, and integrated, geospatially-enabled enterprise solutions. Timmons Group develops solutions across multiple platforms, including Adobe Flex/Flash, Microsoft Silverlight, JavaScript, HTML5, and native mobile operating systems. Timmons Group is a privately held ENR 500 company and maintains a strong business partner relationship with Esri. Timmons Group has been a recipient of both the Esri Business Partner of the Year award and the Esri Foundation Partner of the Year award. For more information, visit http://www.timmonsgis.com.







ShoreGroup Announces Optimized CaseSentry Virtual Deployment Profile for Management of Cloud Services

New York, NY. (PRWEB) June 12, 2012

NEW YORK, NY. June 12, 2012 ShoreGroup, Inc., a premier professional services and software solutions firm, today announced the availability of an optimized virtual CaseSentry Systems Management deployment profile giving service providers greater scalability and flexibility in cloud management capacity. ShoreGroups virtual CaseSentry (vCS) management architecture allows for multi-tenant deployment that combines the benefits of true data segregation and security with seamless growth as service providers grow their clientele. Through integration to ShoreGroups FieldWatch management console, service providers have a multi-tenancy aggregation endpoint for centralized incident management. With the new virtual deployment profile the processor requirement per instance is reduced to as low as 500 MHz while reduced data store of call detail records and operational metrics is supported. The combination enables a higher density of CaseSentry instances to reside on each server, thereby reducing the physical server count, power consumption and related cost.

The new virtualized CaseSentry deployment profile also includes the full integration of Advanced Logic Profiles (ALPs) available in a traditional CaseSentry system. CaseSentry ALPs are a set of patented elements performing stateful processing on millions of simultaneous, complex systems and network management flows to determine the precise root cause of an incident. Traditional event driven management platforms lack stateful monitoring and cannot accurately process duplicate events, out-of-order events, and long time periods between related events, which results in improper modeling of complex application behavior causing both false-positive and false-negative results when chaining together assurance logic. Incorporation of ALPs in the virtualized CaseSentry deployment profile provides the effective management and visibility that service providers require to maintain the highest level of availability within their hosted and cloud environments.

By taking advantage of the optimized virtual CaseSentry deployment profile, service providers supporting complex unified communications and contact center services can take advantage of stateful flow processing to profitably support Day 2 or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings, said Christos Klardie, ShoreGroups Director of Contact Center Engineering. In this CaseSentry deployment model, service providers get the best of both worlds, a small footprint with powerful query and analysis capability providing the insight that operations personnel require.

About ShoreGroup, Inc.

ShoreGroup provides industry-leading management applications, maintenance services, professional services and product solutions for unified communications and contact centers, virtualized data centers and networks.

ShoreGroup develops innovative, automated management software applications on its dynamic CaseSentry

The Nemetschek Engineering Group Releases Scia Engineer 2012

Brussels, Belgium (PRWEB) July 25, 2012

The Nemetschek Engineering Group is pleased to announce the availability of Scia Engineer 2012. Scia Engineer 2012 provides significant improvements for structural and civil engineers who are to migrate to, or improve their 3D workflows.

Scia Engineer 2012 offers advances in structural modeling, analysis, design and documentation, as well as a number of enhancements to improve the engineer’s day-to-day workflows, says Dr. Jean-Pierre Rammant, CEO, Nemetschek BU Engineering Group. And, with improved support for IFC and Open BIM, we’re making it easier for engineers to plug analysis and design into today’s collaborative 3D workflows.

The release focuses on four key areas of development:

1.

WSO2 Workshop on Using the WSO2 API Manager Comes to Colombo


Palo Alto, CA (PRWEB) July 25, 2012

Many traditional service-oriented architecture (SOA) and integration platforms enable rapid development, but they provide little support for collaboration, sharing and re-use. As a result, IT teams often experience rapid portfolio proliferation and sprawl rather than enhanced business agility. In a hands-on workshop for IT professionals, WSO2 will explore how to use the WSO2 API Manager (currently in beta) to address these challenges and optimize an organizations API interactions.

To participate in the one-day workshop, Discover the WSO2 API Manager, attendees will need to bring a laptop capable of running a virtual machine (4 GB memory recommended). The workshop will be held in Colombo on Wednesday, August 8, 2012, from 9:00 a.m. 4:00 p.m. To register, visit http://wso2.com/events/workshops/2012-august-colombo-discover-the-wso2-api-manager-practical-workshop.

Discover the WSO2 API Manager

The workshop is designed for IT architects and developers seeking to understand how to use WSO2 API Managers capabilities for publishing APIs, creating and managing a developer community, and scalably routing API traffic. Attendees will get hands-on experience in how to install, configure, use and manage the WSO2 API Manager product. Additionally, participants will learn how to take advantage of advanced features, such as creating service-level agreements (SLAs).

Key topics will include:

Passive House Retreat Wins 2012 EcoHome Design Award


Boston, MA (PRWEB) July 25, 2012

The Passive House Retreat, a modern green home by ZeroEnergy Design and AEDI Construction, received a Grand Award in the 2012 EcoHome Design Awards hosted by Hanleywood’s EcoHome Magazine. Aligned with the magazines philosophy, the award recognizes homes constructed using sustainable building practices and demonstrating innovative design and thoughtful use of site and materials.

EcoHome Design Award issue: http://mydigimag.rrd.com/publication/?i=118562&page=1

The new vacation residence located in a beautiful community on the New England coast features high performance and efficient use of space in a small package. The home is LEED Gold & Energy Star certified, built to the Passive House standard, and consumes only one tenth of the energy for heating compared to a similar new home built to code.

ZeroEnergy Design created a sleek, simple, gable roofed structure, and proposed the Passive House standard, which is a building performance standard that yields an extremely low-energy home. A combination of exceptional insulation, air sealing, high performance windows, and solar gain reduces the heating requirements to a fraction of a typical home, and uses only a very small heating system. The homeowners, whose extended families owned large, drafty, energy inefficient homes, immediately understood that the Passive House standard would provide both the energy savings and the increased comfort. They now enjoy a space with no wintertime drafts and very constant temperature throughout the home.

The Passive House Retreat is an example our firm’s ongoing commitment to pair a simple appealing aesthetic with exceptional energy performance said Stephanie Horowitz, AIA CPHC, Managing Director of ZeroEnergy Design.

The key project team members include ZeroEnergy Design for green architecture, Passive House consulting and mechanical design, and AEDI Construction for general contracting.

About ZED:

ZeroEnergy Design is a green architecture, mechanical design and energy consulting firm specializing in new construction and major renovations. The distinct union of great design and energy performance is enabled by a multidisciplinary team whose expertise spans architecture, mechanical engineering and finance. This integrated design approach makes ZED uniquely equipped to originate designs that are tailored to a clients requirements, environmental ideology, and unique sense of style.

http://www.ZeroEnergy.com







University of New England to Offer Students New Gateway to Global Opportunities With Morocco Campus


Portland, Maine (PRWEB) June 25, 2012

University of New England Chair of the Board, Mark Doiron, and Associate Provost for Global Initiatives, Professor Anouar Majid, signed an agreement Friday, June 22, that formalizes UNEs plans to globalize the university with a campus in Morocco. The UNE delegation included President Danielle Ripich and Mike Morel, former chair of the UNE Board.

Doiron and Majid signed the papers on the leafy campus of the American School of Tangier (AST), the oldest American school in Morocco, where UNEs newest campus is slated to open a year from now.

President Ripich states: UNE is preparing students to be innovators, leaders and problem-solvers in our increasingly global society. By establishing a presence in the Moroccan city of Tangier, we are creating the cultural and educational opportunities that make this possible.

Associate Provost Majid said that UNEs presence in Tangier will add a new chapter to the historic friendship that unites the United States and Morocco, and that such a project will build the foundations of a much-needed dialogue between the West and the Muslim world.

U.S. policymakers have been struggling to reach out to the Arab and Muslim worlds, said Majid, but we, at UNE, have decided to live up to our ideals and invest in friendship. Our presence in Tangier, the meeting point of Europe, Africa, and the Arab world, will build trust and allow our students to discover multiple cultures and languages at once.

UNEs new campus is within walking distance to downtown Tangier, the Mediterranean Sea, and the citys beaches, hotels, soon-to-be built marina, and major cultural activities. The city of Tangier is the historic gateway to Morocco, home to an international contingent of painters and writers, and is now emerging as one of the major economic and cultural hubs in the country.

UNEs Tangier campus will house academic programming as well as student and staff residences in buildings that reflect both Moroccos traditional architecture and the high-quality standards of UNEs facilities in Maine.

UNEs unique program is offered at no additional cost to students. UNE students can choose to spend a semester or a full academic year in Morocco, living on campus or with host families while taking courses in the sciences, humanities and languages. Moreover, students can stay on track with their majors curricular requirements by taking lab courses and other classes onsite or online. From Tangier, students can travel to other parts of Morocco, connect with UNEs programs in Spain, and explore other European countries and cities.

To strengthen UNEs presence in Morocco and the region, President Danielle Ripich and Professor Houdaifa Ameziane, the President of University Abdelmalek Essaadi, the main public university system in the province of Tangier, also signed an agreement to explore faculty exchanges, research collaborations and common projects.

With its diverse geography, Morocco is at the crossroads of civilizations and languages. The main cultures of the Mediterranean basin from the Phoenician to the Muslim, the Arab and the Berber, the European and the African have mingled in Morocco to create a colorful and rich society, famous for its world-class cuisine, its kaftans, and its legendary hospitality. A stable and mature nation, Morocco offers an ideal setting to examine some of the major issues facing the world today, such as water scarcity, the future of energy, and the tensions between Islam and the West.

About University of New England

The University of New England is an innovative health sciences university grounded in the liberal arts. UNE has internationally recognized scholars in the liberal arts, sciences, health and medicine; offers more than 40 undergraduate, graduate and professional degree programs; and is home to Maines only medical school. Its two other distinctive campuses, in Biddeford and Portland, Maine, offer student-centered interprofessional programs in the College of Pharmacy, Westbrook College of Health Professions, College of Osteopathic Medicine, College of Arts and Sciences, and College of Graduate Studies. The College of Dental Medicine will enroll its inaugural class in 2013. For more information, visit http://www.une.edu.







More Architecture Planning Press Releases

BOKA Powell-Designed Forest Park Medical Center at Frisco Square Completed


Frisco, Texas (PRWEB) July 25, 2012

BOKA Powell LLC, a Dallas-based architecture and design firm, has completed work on the Forest Park Medical Center at Frisco Square. The four-story, 141,500 sq. ft. full-service surgical hospital features VIP patient suites, an upmarket restaurant offering healthy choice cuisine, and an upscale ambiance, starting with a circular drive that leads to a grand lobby.

The typical Forest Park Medical Center patient has high service expectations, and we wanted our design to respond accordingly. We gathered inspirational ideas by touring four and five-star resorts and spas around the country, said Don Powell, principal of BOKA Powell. We worked to emulate the richness, drama and lighting quality of what we saw, as our goal was to create a first-class environment where patients can heal most comfortably.

The development includes 56,000 square feet of medical office space on two floors, over 34,000 square feet of retail space for restaurants and shops, and a 600-car parking structure. The hospital features 12 operating rooms, 40 patient rooms and 14 VIP patient suites with attached family areas.

Every aspect of the hospital, from the stunning fountain and motor court at the entrance, to the grand lobby to the luxury patient rooms, provides the ambiance of a resort spa, said Sean Kirton, project manager with BOKA Powell.

The team incorporated early 20th century building details with modern finishes to design the exterior, which celebrates the drama of the art deco period with an eclectic, contemporary style that complements Frisco Squares urban character.

This project sets a new standard for healthcare in the U.S., said Nick Summerville, chief operating officer of the Neal Richards Group, developer of the project. Its demonstrative of Forest Park Medical Centers philosophy which delivers world-class healthcare in a hospitality-rich environment.

BOKA Powell completed the project for the Neal Richards Group. Click here for images of Forest Park Medical Center at Frisco Square: http://www.bokapowell.com/#/healthcare/5/

About BOKA Powell

BOKA Powell is a nationally recognized architectural design, planning and interior design firm, with office locations in Dallas, Fort Worth and Austin, TX. BOKA Powells areas of focus include health care, hospitality, commercial office, higher education, multi-family and mixed use planning and design. Other recent BOKA Powell health care projects include the Texas A&M Health Science Center in Bryan, the JPS Health Network in Ft. Worth and the Methodist Hospital for Surgery in Addison. http://www.bokapowell.com

About Neal Richards Group

The Neal Richards Group is a client-focused real estate development firm that provides highly integrated and experienced project management services; strategic development and management consulting; and real estate investment services for corporations, builders, investors and individuals. http://www.nealrichardsgroup.com







Related Architecture Design Press Releases

Decision Management Solutions is Proud to Welcome Gagan Saxena as Vice-President of Consulting Services


Palo Alto, CA (PRWEB) July 25, 2012

Decision Management Solutions, the leading professional services firm specializing in decision management, today announced that Gagan Saxena has joined as Vice President of Consulting Services and Principal Consultant. Gagan specializes in technology driven business transformation and brings more than 20 years of experience to his new role. He has assisted organizations with Business Design, Market Analysis, Business Process Reengineering, Organization Change Management, Technology & Information Strategy, Contract Management, Enterprise Architecture and Program Management.

We look forward to Gagans leadership in meeting the growing demand for our Decision Management consulting services, said James Taylor, CEO. An increasing number of businesses are being forced to be more agile, adaptive and analytical due to the new empowered social customer, the opportunity created by Big Data and by lowered barriers to entry for powerful decision-making technology. Our Decision Management framework allows enterprises to approach these challenges in a coherent fashion.

In his most recent role as the Chief Information Officer at Apple Vacations, Gagan initiated a new consumer sales organization based on Decision Management technologies. An intelligent core delivers real time personalization of the consumer experience based on a comprehensive set of business rules driving product and pricing presentation. A wide variety of travel product supplier systems have been integrated to provide the most relevant offers for consumers. Automated decisioning uses data from web analytics, social media and competitive monitoring bureaus. Most importantly a new organization structure, processes, skill-sets and performance metrics have been designed to support the advanced technology stack.

Decision Management is poised for rapid growth as a natural link between business strategy and business operations. This is a powerful new way to consider business design that aligns business processes, enterprise data and numerous technologies in the most business-friendly fashion. I am excited to join James Taylor and team as we build out our consulting capabilities in this field, said Gagan Saxena.

Gagan is experienced in business technology management in healthcare, financial services, telecommunications and services industries. He has managed several rollouts of SAP ERP systems to locations across the US as well as numerous e-commerce and web implementations. Gagan also created and led an Enterprise Architecture group for business technology alignment and to explore innovations in business and in technology.

An active Tweeter himself, Gagan assists with social business strategy and champions enterprise 2.0 collaboration constructs. Related areas of interest include big data, cloud solutions, mobile strategy, digital marketing and integrated customer experience. Gagan is member of various communities like Social Business Pioneers, The Connected Company, Business Model Generation and NextWork from Wired Magazine among others.

Gagan has spoken at various events including IBMs IMPACT, SAPs Blueprint to a Billion, Cloud Security Alliance, Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA), CIO Executive Summit, Hospitality Technology Expo (HITEC), CIO Forum & Executive IT Summit. He also lectures at a number of graduate and post graduate classes. Gagan blogs at StructuredThoughts.com

For more information on Decision Management Solutions please contact info(at)decisionmanagementsolutions(dot)com

About Decision Management Solutions

Decision Management Solutions is the leading professional services firm specializing in Decision Management, a proven approach for rapid and cost effective deployment of predictive analytics and business rules technology in operations. http://www.decisionmanagementsolutions.com







Texas Energy Network (TEN) Announces Membership in Key Energy Data Standards Organizations; Releases Standards for Carrier Deployment of LTE for Energy Communications

Houston, TX (PRWEB) July 25, 2012

Citing ownership and control of the network core as a key element of service, Texas Energy Network, LLC announced today carrier deployment standards for LTE networks on the oilfield. Gregory M. Casey, Chief Executive Officer of TEN stated; “TEN is releasing these standards as guidelines for energy companies seeking to use LTE to transmit data. TEN’s network is being built to a carrier class standard and we think its important that our energy customers know what that means compared to some other service that may portend to provide critical infrastructure wireless service.” Casey was business unit head of Qwest/US West’s carrier access business before starting TEN.

The first key element of carrier class service is control of the LTE Evolved Packet Core(EPC). An LTE network uses an eNodeB (evolved node B, essentially an LTE base station), a MME (mobile management entity), a HSS (home subscriber server), a SGW (serving gateway), and a PGW (a packet data network gateway). With the exception of the eNodeB, everything is considered as part of the EPC (evolved packet core) network. At the tower the eNodeB connects to the EPC.

The MME and the HSS basically handle all duties regarding subscriber access to the network. It handles all the authentication, roaming rules for subscribers, etc. The SGW essentially acts like a giant router for subscribers, passing data back and forth from the subscriber to the network. The PGW provides the connection to external data networks. The most common data network the PGW provides a connection to is the internet.

Therefore, ownership and control of the EPC is essential. Allen Shipman, Vice President of Engineering and Operations at TEN stated, “network control is essential when providing data transmission to critical infrastructure companies such as the energy industry. If the network isn’t controlled and is maintained by a third party, its not secure and certainly not carrier class.” Shipman is noted for his architecture of the 50,000 mile Broadwing fiber network now owned by data heavyweight Level 3.

Other key elements beside ownership and control that are essential to the provision of carrier class service are: 1) ownership and control of backhaul links over licensed spectrum, 2) ringed network topology to provide system continuity in the case of backhaul failure, 3) redundant core routers in the case of failure, 4) secure tower deployment and several other design elements. These standards will be announced on TEN’s website in September.

TEN also announced membership in two key energy data standards organizations, Energistics and PIDX. Energistics is a global industry consortium that facilitates an inclusive user community for the development, adoption and maintenance of collaborative, open standards for the energy industry in general and specifically for oil and gas exploration and production. Its website can be found at http://www.energistics.org. PIDX provides a global forum for delivering the process, information and technology standards that facilitates seamless, efficient electronic business within the oil and natural gas industry and its trading community. Its website can be found at http://www.pidx.org. Greg Casey also noted “TEN is the first carrier to become a member in both organizations. Our intention is to not only efficiently transport data at high speeds but to facilitate the use of data in energy company work flows. Membership in these organizations gives us access to key energy data constituents.”

Starting first in the Permian Basin and the Eagle Ford shale play, TEN is delivering 4G LTE to the oil and gas industry to enable the promise of the “Digital Oilfield”. The company’s website can be found at http://www.texasenergynetwork.com.