Where do tattoo needles come from? Once upon a time, there was a great inventor called the Wizard of Menlo Park. His name was Thomas Edison. One day, he built an electric pen designed to relieve clerks of the drudgery of duplicating documents. It had a sharp vibrating needle inside that traced text written on a sheet of paper. The needle punctured the text 50 times per second and turned it into a stencil. Ink would seep through the tiny holes and replicate the writing on sheets placed underneath. The invention, patented in 1876, didn’t exactly catch on, but it presaged the copy machine and, in the hands of artists, revolutionized tattooing.
Browsing through Gene Barretta’s fascinating new illustrated book on Edison, Timeless Thomas: How Thomas Edison Changed Our Lives, there’s barely an industry that has not been touched by Edison’s genius. The book is primarily for kids, but parents and grandparents will find inside much that is new and surprising. Yes, Edison built the light bulb, but he also developed an alkaline battery for the first electric vehicles, and launched the movie business in his Menlo Park lab by building the first film studio, called Black Maria, and the first motion picture camera. Less glamorous, but equally revolutionary were his power plants, cement kilns, and vending machines.
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[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/TimelessThomas1.jpg" class="imagePlugin"]Edison built the first phonograph but he did not stop there. He installed a small version of the machine inside the first talking doll.[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/TimelessThomas2.jpg" class="imagePlugin"]Before there was Hollywood, there was Menlo Park. Edison developed the technology behind the first movies.[/image]
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Barretta does a great job bringing all of these inventions to life. He juxtaposes each colorful page dedicated to an Edison idea with a page showing the invention’s modern use.
Timeless Thomas is Barretta’s third book dedicated to inventors. He has written and illustrated books about Benjamin Franklin, Now & Ben: The Modern Inventions of Benjamin Franklin, and Leonardo da Vinci, Neo Leo: The Ageless Ideas of Leonardo da Vinci. He says that Edison belongs in their company. “He has been an idol of mine and I wanted to give the kids the same thrill,” Barretta says. “I wanted them to get acquainted with the world they are living in.”
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Eine Kleine Knock Music: GE Engineer Used Music Theory to Prevent Engine Damage, Then Turned Sounds of Engine Trouble into Music
Good engineers have many handy tools hanging from their belts. Jeff Bizub has a degree in music theory. “Music theory is the engineering behind the art,” Bizub says. He used the theory to build a software version of his ear. It listens for knocking sounds inside massive GE engine cylinders. The sounds herald errant gas explosions that can cause cracks and severe engine damage. Bizub transcribed his knocking recordings into notes and set them in a short musical piece titled Knock Music.
Bizub is a senior product engineer at GE’s Waukesha engine plant. But he also holds a degree in music theory from the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. A few years ago, he tried to solve a problem afflicting large spark ignition engines. These engines work the same way as the engine inside ordinary passenger cars, but are much larger. The Waukesha 275GL* gas engine, for example, generates 4,800 horsepower and clocks in at 66,000 pounds. It can power a small power plant.
The cylinders of such engines are so large, almost 11 inches in diameter, that the heat and pressure inside can ignite hot gas squeezed against the wall of the cylinder before the flame from the sparkplug at the center gets to it. That’s when trouble starts. There are now two flame “fronts” traveling in opposite directions, one from the wall and the other from the center. When these fronts crash into each other, they make the walls of the cylinder vibrate, emitting a characteristic knocking sound. This is called “knock.” Uncontrolled knocking can cause dangerous piston and engine damage, not to mention less power and more emissions.
Engineers used to listen for just the one frequency of the knocking sound but Bizub, who has perfect hearing, had a different idea. “The engine is like a musical instrument,” he says. “The shape of a flute or a clarinet plays a dramatic role in the sound they produce.” What if he could use music theory to decipher and tame knocking?
Bizub started running tests with an engine going into knock in GE’s Waukesha engineering lab. “I put my ear against the cylinder and could hear even with earmuffs on the multiple frequencies inside," he says. "I knew that there was a center frequency related to bore size, but as with any instrument you’ll have multiple vibrations that will occur.”
Some of the knocking frequencies were inaudible to an untrained ear. But what if he built a machine with perfect pitch that could hear knock and also ignore false positives. “The first line of defense is to determine very accurately when it is true knock and not some other noise,” he says. Bizub convinced his boss to buy a 16-channel digital recorder in a music store for $1,200. He also purchased a suite of music software to analyze the spectrum and the frequency of the knocking sounds, and a 64-band equalizer to amplify the inaudible frequencies related to knock. “The idea was to capture these sounds as wave files, analyze them with the music software, and plot out what’s going on,” he says.
Bizub and a team of researchers used the results to write industrial software and algorithms that now sit inside a module attached to every Waukesha engine, listen for knocking, and adjust and retard ignition if they hear the tell-tale knock sound. The device is called Engine System Manager* (ESM). The ESM has much better signal to noise ratio that standard methods. It detects knocks more accurately and at lower, less dangerous amplitudes. It keeps the engine humming, adjusting ignition timing proportionally to the severity of the knocking.
But Bizub did not stop there. “When I was hearing the knocking frequencies, I was hearing notes,” he says. “When you study composition music theory, you work on ear training and transcribe sounds in your head to musical pitches so you can understand them further.” He took engine knocking samples, one from a big bore rich burn engine and the other from a lean burn machine, added some echo for ambiance, and called the score Knock Music. “Like electronic music or early R&B rap music, I was stringing samples together and creating something new,” he says. “I can’t take credit for writing the music because really the engines wrote it.”
* Trademark of the General Electric Company
Knock, Knock: Jeff Bizub turned sounds of engine trouble into music. “When I was hearing the knocking frequencies, I was hearing notes,” he says.
Bizub is a senior product engineer at GE’s Waukesha engine plant. But he also holds a degree in music theory from the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. A few years ago, he tried to solve a problem afflicting large spark ignition engines. These engines work the same way as the engine inside ordinary passenger cars, but are much larger. The Waukesha 275GL* gas engine, for example, generates 4,800 horsepower and clocks in at 66,000 pounds. It can power a small power plant.
The cylinders of such engines are so large, almost 11 inches in diameter, that the heat and pressure inside can ignite hot gas squeezed against the wall of the cylinder before the flame from the sparkplug at the center gets to it. That’s when trouble starts. There are now two flame “fronts” traveling in opposite directions, one from the wall and the other from the center. When these fronts crash into each other, they make the walls of the cylinder vibrate, emitting a characteristic knocking sound. This is called “knock.” Uncontrolled knocking can cause dangerous piston and engine damage, not to mention less power and more emissions.
Engineers used to listen for just the one frequency of the knocking sound but Bizub, who has perfect hearing, had a different idea. “The engine is like a musical instrument,” he says. “The shape of a flute or a clarinet plays a dramatic role in the sound they produce.” What if he could use music theory to decipher and tame knocking?
Bizub started running tests with an engine going into knock in GE’s Waukesha engineering lab. “I put my ear against the cylinder and could hear even with earmuffs on the multiple frequencies inside," he says. "I knew that there was a center frequency related to bore size, but as with any instrument you’ll have multiple vibrations that will occur.”
Some of the knocking frequencies were inaudible to an untrained ear. But what if he built a machine with perfect pitch that could hear knock and also ignore false positives. “The first line of defense is to determine very accurately when it is true knock and not some other noise,” he says. Bizub convinced his boss to buy a 16-channel digital recorder in a music store for $1,200. He also purchased a suite of music software to analyze the spectrum and the frequency of the knocking sounds, and a 64-band equalizer to amplify the inaudible frequencies related to knock. “The idea was to capture these sounds as wave files, analyze them with the music software, and plot out what’s going on,” he says.
Bizub and a team of researchers used the results to write industrial software and algorithms that now sit inside a module attached to every Waukesha engine, listen for knocking, and adjust and retard ignition if they hear the tell-tale knock sound. The device is called Engine System Manager* (ESM). The ESM has much better signal to noise ratio that standard methods. It detects knocks more accurately and at lower, less dangerous amplitudes. It keeps the engine humming, adjusting ignition timing proportionally to the severity of the knocking.
But Bizub did not stop there. “When I was hearing the knocking frequencies, I was hearing notes,” he says. “When you study composition music theory, you work on ear training and transcribe sounds in your head to musical pitches so you can understand them further.” He took engine knocking samples, one from a big bore rich burn engine and the other from a lean burn machine, added some echo for ambiance, and called the score Knock Music. “Like electronic music or early R&B rap music, I was stringing samples together and creating something new,” he says. “I can’t take credit for writing the music because really the engines wrote it.”
* Trademark of the General Electric Company
Monday, June 18, 2012
Ken and the Art of Jet Engine Maintenance: How Father-Daughter Team Learned to Fix Jet Engines on the Kansas Prairie
Kenny Glasgow has never set foot in an executive suite but that didn’t stop him from flying to work. In the 1960s, Glasgow was fixing jet engines at GE’s Strother Field plant in Kansas, and saved up wages for a small Cessna 150 two-seater plane. “One fall the Arkansas River flooded and the road to Strother was closed for a several days,” Glasgow says. “I had about a quarter of a mile of alfalfa just east of the house. You could land down there when it wasn’t too tall. So I just flew to work.”
Glasgow gets things done. He spent almost four decades at GE, getting in on the ground level as a “heavy helper” in the maintenance department, and soaring to a leadership job on GE’s classified work for the B-2 stealth bomber. “The company raised my family,” he says. “It turned out to be heaven sent.”
Glasgow, now 75, grew up on a farm six miles from Strother that his grandfather settled in 1871. “Wrench turning was not all that unfamiliar,” he says. “On the farm, you kept most of your things running yourself.”
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[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/KennyGlasgow1.jpg"]
Radioman: Kenny Glasgow sporting a flight jacket outside his barracks in Argentia, Newfoundland. Glasgow served in the U.S. Navy as a radioman on surveillance planes flying over the north Atlantic from 1954 until 1958. He joined GE in 1961.
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[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/KennyGlasgow2.jpg"]
Kenny Glasgow with his daughter Kathryn. “My father swears that aviation is in our blood,” Kathryn says.
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He joined the NAVY from high school, and after active duty as a radioman on the Warning Star surveillance planes he found work on an oil rig. When the rig shut down, “my brother and I were looking in the paper for something to do to get groceries,” Glasgow says.
GE’s Strother engine repair and assembly plant was a decade old when the Glasgow brothers started, earning $1.78 ½ per hour. “That was a pretty good wage at the time,” Glasgow says.
He started by working nightshifts, drilling holes in concrete hangar floors to install machinery. But he soon advanced and started servicing and testing GE’s J73 and J85 jet engines. He learned on the job, from technical manuals and from other workers. “The foremen knew because most of them had done the job before,” Glasgow says. “They came through the ranks.”
He also learned from engineers at the plant. “It took me quite a while to be able to listen at the level they were talking, but once I caught on, they were like a walking book of knowledge,” Glasgow says.
In the late 1960s, Glasgow bought the Cessna and took his family on flying expeditions. One of his daughters, Kathryn, was smitten. “I remember spending weekends polishing that thing,” she says. “It was our family time. My father swears that aviation is in our blood.”
Kathryn got introduced to GE and Strother as a girl. “We’d bring dad dinner and get to spend a little more time with him,” she says. When it was her turn to graduate from high school, she went straight to the plant. “I don’t know how to explain it, but I always knew that I wanted to work here,” Kathryn says.
Like her father, Kathryn started at the bottom and now leads a team that repairs engines for Apache and Black Hawk helicopters. “There weren’t many women here when I was hired,” she says. “My dad was a protector, he was not afraid to say something to somebody.”
Glasgow taught her how to fix airplanes, shape tools, and find new solutions to problems. “He expected a lot, he wanted you to know a lot,” she says. When Kathryn decided to apply for an inspector job, she says, her father challenged her to read a measuring tool, the C – micrometer. “She could not do it, but by golly she learned quickly,” Glasgow laughs.
Glasgow retired from Strother in 1998, when the B-2 work was over. With more than 800 employees, the plant is one of the largest employers on Cowley County, Kansas. “This is a small community,” Glasgow says. “It’s like a family operation.”
Glasgow gets things done. He spent almost four decades at GE, getting in on the ground level as a “heavy helper” in the maintenance department, and soaring to a leadership job on GE’s classified work for the B-2 stealth bomber. “The company raised my family,” he says. “It turned out to be heaven sent.”
Glasgow, now 75, grew up on a farm six miles from Strother that his grandfather settled in 1871. “Wrench turning was not all that unfamiliar,” he says. “On the farm, you kept most of your things running yourself.”
[slides image_align="left"]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/KennyGlasgow1.jpg"]
Radioman: Kenny Glasgow sporting a flight jacket outside his barracks in Argentia, Newfoundland. Glasgow served in the U.S. Navy as a radioman on surveillance planes flying over the north Atlantic from 1954 until 1958. He joined GE in 1961.
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/KennyGlasgow2.jpg"]
Kenny Glasgow with his daughter Kathryn. “My father swears that aviation is in our blood,” Kathryn says.
[/image]
[/slides]
He joined the NAVY from high school, and after active duty as a radioman on the Warning Star surveillance planes he found work on an oil rig. When the rig shut down, “my brother and I were looking in the paper for something to do to get groceries,” Glasgow says.
GE’s Strother engine repair and assembly plant was a decade old when the Glasgow brothers started, earning $1.78 ½ per hour. “That was a pretty good wage at the time,” Glasgow says.
He started by working nightshifts, drilling holes in concrete hangar floors to install machinery. But he soon advanced and started servicing and testing GE’s J73 and J85 jet engines. He learned on the job, from technical manuals and from other workers. “The foremen knew because most of them had done the job before,” Glasgow says. “They came through the ranks.”
He also learned from engineers at the plant. “It took me quite a while to be able to listen at the level they were talking, but once I caught on, they were like a walking book of knowledge,” Glasgow says.
In the late 1960s, Glasgow bought the Cessna and took his family on flying expeditions. One of his daughters, Kathryn, was smitten. “I remember spending weekends polishing that thing,” she says. “It was our family time. My father swears that aviation is in our blood.”
Kathryn got introduced to GE and Strother as a girl. “We’d bring dad dinner and get to spend a little more time with him,” she says. When it was her turn to graduate from high school, she went straight to the plant. “I don’t know how to explain it, but I always knew that I wanted to work here,” Kathryn says.
Like her father, Kathryn started at the bottom and now leads a team that repairs engines for Apache and Black Hawk helicopters. “There weren’t many women here when I was hired,” she says. “My dad was a protector, he was not afraid to say something to somebody.”
Glasgow taught her how to fix airplanes, shape tools, and find new solutions to problems. “He expected a lot, he wanted you to know a lot,” she says. When Kathryn decided to apply for an inspector job, she says, her father challenged her to read a measuring tool, the C – micrometer. “She could not do it, but by golly she learned quickly,” Glasgow laughs.
Glasgow retired from Strother in 1998, when the B-2 work was over. With more than 800 employees, the plant is one of the largest employers on Cowley County, Kansas. “This is a small community,” Glasgow says. “It’s like a family operation.”
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Community Health Pioneer Says GE Grant Will Help Cut Primary Care Doctor Shortage
Dr. H. Jack Geiger in a cotton field near Mound Bayou, Mississippi.
When Dr. H. Jack Geiger opened America’s first community health clinics in the cotton fields of segregated Mississippi and a poor Boston neighborhood, five decades ago, many of his patients had never seen a doctor. “There were enormous gaps in the health status of the African American, Native American and Hispanic populations, minority groups, and poor whites as well,” Geiger says. “There was a lot of need and community health centers were invented to deal with that need.”
More than a thousand of such centers across the country now serve 17 million minority and low-income patients. They stand as a testament to Geiger’s pioneering work, but need still remains. The United States is facing a looming deficit of primary care physicians. According to some estimates, the country will be short of 40,000 primary care doctors by 2020. This trend, combined a sharp rise in medical costs, “is not just a problem for vulnerable populations,” Geiger says. “It’s rapidly becoming a problem for the whole nation.”
Geiger says that U.S. medical care is “badly skewed to the extent that we are oversupplied with specialists,” and that “developed nations that have strong primary care networks are delivering not only the best primary care but also the most efficient.”
The GE Foundation has committed $50 million for more than 70 community health centers in 20 states to improve access to healhtcare. This week the foundation also made a $2.3 million grant to the National Medical Fellowship (NMF), where Geiger is a board member. The grant will help train future primary care physicians, nurses and doctor’s assistants at five community health centers in Los Angeles, Phoenix, Nashville, and Jackson, Mississippi. Students will learn clinical skills in neighborhoods with shortage of doctors and receive mentoring from local staff. The goal of the grant is to help launch a pipeline of primary care physicians to community centers around the country.
Geiger says that twice as many students applied as there were places for the first round. “There are few if any programs like this,” Geiger says. “It is this kind of team workforce that will be increasingly the way that medical care is delivered in the future.”
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
All That Glitters is LED: London’s Tower Bridge Dons New “Diamond” Coat for Queen’s Jubilee
Teams of lighting designers and electricians spent the last six months crawling across the granite ledges and steel suspension chains of London’s landmark Tower Bridge, stringing some 6,500 feet of energy-efficient LED linear lights, 18,000 LEDs, and 1,000 junction boxes with 16,500 feet of cable. There is one thing left to do.
This evening, London Mayor Boris Johnson will turn on the lights to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. The bridge will gleam in “diamond” white throughout the weekend for the royal celebration, but the light show’s just beginning. Next up: During the 45 days of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games held in the British capital this summer, the bridge will sport giant Olympic rings and Paralympic agitos symbols.
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[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge1.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
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[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge2.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
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[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge3.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
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[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge4.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
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[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge5.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
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[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge6.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
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[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge7.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
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[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge8.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
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[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge9.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
[/image]
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge10.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
[/image]
[/image]
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The new lighting system, which is using GE architectural LED systems, will remain in place for the next 25 years. It replaces a quarter of a century old legacy system and will cut the landmark’s energy consumptions by 40 percent. The French firm Citelum, whose lighting designs illuminated the Eiffel Tower and the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, and the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, built the lighting set up.
The GE LED technology lets Citelum blend many shades of colors of variable intensity. The lights can be “heat formed” to fit a variety of architectural needs and enhance the Victorian gothic turrets, stone towers, and walkways that make this the 117-year old bridge one of the world’s most recognizable sights.
GE, a sponsor of the 2012 London Olympics, partnered with EDF Energy on the project. GE's support for the games runs from uninterruptable power generators for the main Olympic stadium to advanced medical diagnostic equipment. GE will also provide a large number charging stations for a fleet of Olympic electric vehicles.
This evening, London Mayor Boris Johnson will turn on the lights to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. The bridge will gleam in “diamond” white throughout the weekend for the royal celebration, but the light show’s just beginning. Next up: During the 45 days of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games held in the British capital this summer, the bridge will sport giant Olympic rings and Paralympic agitos symbols.
[slides image_align="left"]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge1.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge2.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
[/image]
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge3.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
[/image]
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge4.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
[/image]
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge5.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
[/image]
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge6.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
[/image]
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge7.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
[/image]
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge8.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
[/image]
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge9.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
[/image]
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/DiamondBridge10.jpg"]
Bright Lights, Big City: The new LED lighting for London's Tower Bridge will be 40 percent more energy efficient than the legacy system it replaced.
[/image]
[/image]
[/slides]
The new lighting system, which is using GE architectural LED systems, will remain in place for the next 25 years. It replaces a quarter of a century old legacy system and will cut the landmark’s energy consumptions by 40 percent. The French firm Citelum, whose lighting designs illuminated the Eiffel Tower and the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, and the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, built the lighting set up.
The GE LED technology lets Citelum blend many shades of colors of variable intensity. The lights can be “heat formed” to fit a variety of architectural needs and enhance the Victorian gothic turrets, stone towers, and walkways that make this the 117-year old bridge one of the world’s most recognizable sights.
GE, a sponsor of the 2012 London Olympics, partnered with EDF Energy on the project. GE's support for the games runs from uninterruptable power generators for the main Olympic stadium to advanced medical diagnostic equipment. GE will also provide a large number charging stations for a fleet of Olympic electric vehicles.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Facebook for the Body: Your Organs May Soon Report Their Status Over New Generation of Wireless Medical Sensors
Mike Harsh, chief technology officer for GE Healthcare, tells the story of a doctor who had trouble placing a stethoscope to the chest of a cardiac patient and listen his heart because of a tangle of cables coming from monitoring devices attached to his torso. “You sort of understand what the problem is,” Harsh says. “People wear so many wires. It just tethers them right to their beds.”
But Harsh is trying to cut those wires the way of the telephone receiver cord. GE's vision is to develop a new generation of wireless sensors that attach to the body like a Band Aid. They would draw power from a tiny integrated battery and use radio waves to communicate with a receiver either in the patient’s pocket or in his hospital room. Outside the hospital, the information aggregated locally from the sensors could be relayed into a cellular network and automatically provide doctors and hospitals with round-the-clock patient monitoring and an uninterrupted flow of data.
“It’s just like those hands-free Bluetooth head-sets, except we now transmit physiological signals rather than voice,” Harsh says. “That’s what makes this so interesting.”
[slides image_align="left"]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/MBAN1.jpg"]
Body Language: Wireless Medical Body Area Networks (MBANs) aim to eliminate tangles of cables transmitting data from monitoring devices placed on the patient’s body.
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[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/MBAN2.jpg"]
Body Language: Wireless Medical Body Area Networks (MBANs) aim to eliminate tangles of cables transmitting data from monitoring devices placed on the patient’s body.
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[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/MBAN3.jpg"]
Body Language: Wireless Medical Body Area Networks (MBANs) aim to eliminate tangles of cables transmitting data from monitoring devices placed on the patient’s body.
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This week, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which regulates the use of U.S. radio spectrum, will rule on freeing up two radio bands for the devices. “You’ve heard people talk about the Internet of Things,” said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. “You’ve heard about machine-to-machine connected devices. Well, here’s an example of these concepts coming to life. This is a big deal and we’re just at the beginning.”
Scientists at GE Global Research and at GE Healthcare’s Life Care Solutions unit started developing wireless sensors for so-called Medical Body Area Networks (MBANs) several years ago. Harsh says the two proposed MBAN frequency bands are “sitting right next to” radio spectra used by Bluetooth and ZigBee technology. “The available silicon chipsets today can be pulled just a little bit” to cover the MBAN bands, Harsh says. “That opens up the consumer electronics space and the manufacturers of all the silicon would help us enter the space to really drive the costs down.”
As costs fall and always-on wearable medical monitors spread from hospitals to patient’s homes, their impact could be colossal. “This will allow us to look at a large amount of data and start to do analytics, not just on ECG, but we can pull in respiration, or pulse oximetry,” says Harsh.
GE’s analytical software then can start sifting the diverse data from many patients and look for patterns. “You look for the signature of something that might happen based on the data that is coming in,” Harsh says. “That’s really what we’re talking about. When you look at cost, access, and quality, it hits all three right in the sweet spot.”
Disclaimer: This is a technology in development that represents ongoing research and development efforts. These technologies are not products and may never become products. They are not for sale, and have not been cleared or approved by the FDA for commercial availability.
But Harsh is trying to cut those wires the way of the telephone receiver cord. GE's vision is to develop a new generation of wireless sensors that attach to the body like a Band Aid. They would draw power from a tiny integrated battery and use radio waves to communicate with a receiver either in the patient’s pocket or in his hospital room. Outside the hospital, the information aggregated locally from the sensors could be relayed into a cellular network and automatically provide doctors and hospitals with round-the-clock patient monitoring and an uninterrupted flow of data.
“It’s just like those hands-free Bluetooth head-sets, except we now transmit physiological signals rather than voice,” Harsh says. “That’s what makes this so interesting.”
[slides image_align="left"]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/MBAN1.jpg"]
Body Language: Wireless Medical Body Area Networks (MBANs) aim to eliminate tangles of cables transmitting data from monitoring devices placed on the patient’s body.
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/MBAN2.jpg"]
Body Language: Wireless Medical Body Area Networks (MBANs) aim to eliminate tangles of cables transmitting data from monitoring devices placed on the patient’s body.
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/MBAN3.jpg"]
Body Language: Wireless Medical Body Area Networks (MBANs) aim to eliminate tangles of cables transmitting data from monitoring devices placed on the patient’s body.
[/image]
[/slides]
This week, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which regulates the use of U.S. radio spectrum, will rule on freeing up two radio bands for the devices. “You’ve heard people talk about the Internet of Things,” said FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. “You’ve heard about machine-to-machine connected devices. Well, here’s an example of these concepts coming to life. This is a big deal and we’re just at the beginning.”
Scientists at GE Global Research and at GE Healthcare’s Life Care Solutions unit started developing wireless sensors for so-called Medical Body Area Networks (MBANs) several years ago. Harsh says the two proposed MBAN frequency bands are “sitting right next to” radio spectra used by Bluetooth and ZigBee technology. “The available silicon chipsets today can be pulled just a little bit” to cover the MBAN bands, Harsh says. “That opens up the consumer electronics space and the manufacturers of all the silicon would help us enter the space to really drive the costs down.”
As costs fall and always-on wearable medical monitors spread from hospitals to patient’s homes, their impact could be colossal. “This will allow us to look at a large amount of data and start to do analytics, not just on ECG, but we can pull in respiration, or pulse oximetry,” says Harsh.
GE’s analytical software then can start sifting the diverse data from many patients and look for patterns. “You look for the signature of something that might happen based on the data that is coming in,” Harsh says. “That’s really what we’re talking about. When you look at cost, access, and quality, it hits all three right in the sweet spot.”
Disclaimer: This is a technology in development that represents ongoing research and development efforts. These technologies are not products and may never become products. They are not for sale, and have not been cleared or approved by the FDA for commercial availability.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Cheese Lights the Whey: Biogas from Dairy Farm, Brewery and Landfill Turns Wisconsin Hospital into Renewables Powerhouse
The Crave Brothers dairy farm in Waterloo, Wisconsin, makes tubs of celebrated mascarpone cheese. Across the state, City Brewery in La Crosse brews millions of cases of winning ales and lagers. But Wisconsin’s Gundersen Lutheran Hospital gets excited about the stuff that doesn’t pass the smell test.
Gundersen takes biogas produced from cheese whey and brewing waste, as well as landfill methane, and turns it into megawatts of electricity in GE’s Jenbacher engines. The pioneering hospital has been investing in renewable electricity and conservation and has set a goal to become 100 percent energy independent by 2014.
[slides image_align="left"]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/JenbacherHospital6.jpg"]
Pretty on the Inside: Intermediate flanch from GE's Jenbacher engine. There are over 1,300 GE Jenbacher gas engines running on biogas installed around the world. They generate more than 6.8 million megawatt-hours of electricity per year.
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/JenbacherHospital2.jpg"]
Pretty on the Inside: Jenbacher engine block.
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/JenbacherHospital3.jpg"]
Pretty on the Inside: Jenbacher gas mixer cones.
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/JenbacherHospital4.jpg"]
Pretty on the Inside: Jenbacher crankshaft.
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/JenbacherHospital5.jpg"]
Drill, Baby, Drill: GE machinist is using a high-precision CNC drilling machine to manufacture a crankshaft for the Jenbacher engine.
[/image]
[/slides]
This helps the environment - the landfill and the brewery used to flare off the gas - and it’s also good for business. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates American hospitals spend $5 billion, or at least 15 percent of their profits, on energy costs. Hospital pavilions are also more than 2.5 times more energy and CO2 intensive than office buildings. “Our goal is to show that we can be environmentally sound and improve our finances at the same time,” Jeff Thompson, Gundersen’s CEO told Fast Company recently.
The hospital’s Jenbachers, which are part of GE’s ecomagination portfolio, started generating renewable power and heat at the dairy farm and the brewery in 2009. Last week, Gundersen’s 350,000 square-foot clinic in Onalaska became possibly the nation’s first energy-independent medical campus. The clinic gets all the power it needs from yet another Jenbacher burning methane produced by the La Crosse County landfill. For GE, the Onalaska story gets even better. The landfill Jenbacher powers two GE digital mammography screening units that the clinic installed last year.
Electricity from biogas and wind now covers about 30 percent of Gundersen’s total power demand. The La Crosse landfill project alone will produce more than $7 million in revenue over the next decade, the hospital estimates. Those are real savings which Gundersen can pass to patients. “The landfill requires initial investment, but in six-and-a-haIf years it will be completely paid for, and we’ll have several hundred thousand dollars less each year in energy costs,” CEO Thompson told Fast Company. “If the cost of energy skyrockets, it won’t hurt our patients and our community.”
Gundersen takes biogas produced from cheese whey and brewing waste, as well as landfill methane, and turns it into megawatts of electricity in GE’s Jenbacher engines. The pioneering hospital has been investing in renewable electricity and conservation and has set a goal to become 100 percent energy independent by 2014.
[slides image_align="left"]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/JenbacherHospital6.jpg"]
Pretty on the Inside: Intermediate flanch from GE's Jenbacher engine. There are over 1,300 GE Jenbacher gas engines running on biogas installed around the world. They generate more than 6.8 million megawatt-hours of electricity per year.
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/JenbacherHospital2.jpg"]
Pretty on the Inside: Jenbacher engine block.
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/JenbacherHospital3.jpg"]
Pretty on the Inside: Jenbacher gas mixer cones.
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/JenbacherHospital4.jpg"]
Pretty on the Inside: Jenbacher crankshaft.
[/image]
[image src="http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/JenbacherHospital5.jpg"]
Drill, Baby, Drill: GE machinist is using a high-precision CNC drilling machine to manufacture a crankshaft for the Jenbacher engine.
[/image]
[/slides]
This helps the environment - the landfill and the brewery used to flare off the gas - and it’s also good for business. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates American hospitals spend $5 billion, or at least 15 percent of their profits, on energy costs. Hospital pavilions are also more than 2.5 times more energy and CO2 intensive than office buildings. “Our goal is to show that we can be environmentally sound and improve our finances at the same time,” Jeff Thompson, Gundersen’s CEO told Fast Company recently.
The hospital’s Jenbachers, which are part of GE’s ecomagination portfolio, started generating renewable power and heat at the dairy farm and the brewery in 2009. Last week, Gundersen’s 350,000 square-foot clinic in Onalaska became possibly the nation’s first energy-independent medical campus. The clinic gets all the power it needs from yet another Jenbacher burning methane produced by the La Crosse County landfill. For GE, the Onalaska story gets even better. The landfill Jenbacher powers two GE digital mammography screening units that the clinic installed last year.
Electricity from biogas and wind now covers about 30 percent of Gundersen’s total power demand. The La Crosse landfill project alone will produce more than $7 million in revenue over the next decade, the hospital estimates. Those are real savings which Gundersen can pass to patients. “The landfill requires initial investment, but in six-and-a-haIf years it will be completely paid for, and we’ll have several hundred thousand dollars less each year in energy costs,” CEO Thompson told Fast Company. “If the cost of energy skyrockets, it won’t hurt our patients and our community.”
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