• NICE acquires Orsus

    NICE, a leading provider of security solutions, acquires Orsus, a pioneer in situational awareness, for an all-cash $22 million; critical incidents have led organizations to make massive investments in a wide range of security technologies and in corresponding manpower; trouble is, these security tools often exist in different silos, which lead to information overload, making it difficult to get the complete picture and manage critical incidents effectively; the combined NICE-Orsus solution addresses this problem

  • Aussie telco says it is ready for the next Black Saturday

    The bushfires in Victoria, Australia on 7 February took 173 lives, ravaged thousands of hectares of land, and burned down hundreds of houses; providers Telstra and Optus were both hit hard by the fires too, with communications outages across fixed-line and mobile networks, Internet exchanges and power stations; Telstra says its systems are now more robust

  • Climate change threatens Canada North's infrastructure

    Climate change is felt more acutely in the arctic, and a Canadian government’s report says that winter roads melting earlier in the spring could force communities to airlift supplies, while increased snowfall and changing ice conditions can add stress to buildings as well as energy and communications infrastructure

  • Dutch build sand dunes to fight rising seas

    More than eighteen million cubic meters of sand are dredged from the bottom of the ocean and brought back to land to form new dunes; the new dunes — each 30 to 60 meters wide, and rising up to 10 meters above sea level — are built along a 20-kilometer stretch of the shore

  • Nuclear leaks at Three Mile Island investigated

    There was another radioactive leak at Three Mile Island, the scene of the U.S. worst nuclear power accident; NRC said on Sunday there was no threat to public health or safety; investigators this weekend were trying to determine the cause of radiological contamination inside the nuclear facility’s containment building

  • Predicting the effect of a nuclear weapon dropped on an urban area

    Current models of nuclear effects use wind direction and wind speed to draw a predicted cone-shape area of fall-out; new research results show that these models are too simple in some ways — for instance, they do not include the complex dynamics of wind movements around buildings, which can concentrate fall-out preferentially in certain areas

  • Judge: Corps' mismanagement doomed homes in New Orleans

    The judge’s 156-page decision could result in the federal government paying $700,000 in damages to three people and a business in those areas — but it also sets the stage for judgments worth billions of dollars against the government for damages suffered by as many as 100,000 other residents, businesses, and local governments in those areas who filed claims with the corps after Katrina

  • What tropical countries can teach the U.K. about flood management

    Climate change has caused a change in the patterns of rainfall in the United Kingdom: rather than a procession of predictable showers, a new type of rain emerged — localized storms, dropping a lot of water in one place over a short period of time; villages and towns were overwhelmed; tropical countries have had a long experience with the type of rainfall

  • DHS unveils critical infrastructure Web site

    Designed to provide stakeholders and the public with easily accessible information about their role in safeguarding critical infrastructure and key resources (CIKR); the new CIKR Resource Center will offer information on Web-based seminars on the tools, trends, issues, and best practices for infrastructure protection and resilience; resources concerning potential vulnerabilities for chemical facilities; and guidance for all response partners on how best to prepare for and provide a unified response to disasters and emergencies

  • Oregon's bridges to be readied for the Big One

    There are 2,671 bridges in Oregon’s highway system; researchers develop a computer model which, for the first time, gives state authorities bridge-by-bridge estimates of damage, repair cost, and traffic delay costs associated with a shattering western Oregon quake; the new tool would allow engineers to prioritize which of the state’s bridges should get seismic upgrades

  • New Army Corps of Engineers' policy instructs project designers to take rising sea levels into account

    The Army Corps will from now on incorporate estimates of rising sea levels in all its plans for flood control, navigation, and other water projects; the corps has had a planning policy for rising sea levels since 1986, but the instructions were less than a page long, buried in a 1,000-page document and largely ignored; the new policy is articulated in a 44-page stand-alone document

  • Cyber threats now targeting traditional companies

    U.S. companies, even small and medium size, are more and more exposed to cyber threats from organized crime, foreign intelligence services, and probably terrorist organizations; 85 percent of U.S. critical infrastructure is owned and operated by private companies — and these companies are especially vulnerable to determined attacks which may ruin or seriously disrupt company operations

  • E.coli helps mend cracked pipes

    Aberdeen University students show how specific strains of E. coli, which are not deadly or poisonous to humans, could be used automatically to mend cracks that occur in household water pipes, cooling pipes in laboratory experiments, or water pipes in power plants

  • U.K. agency to increase flood protection

    The number of properties in England and Wales at significant risk of flooding could increase from 570,000 in 2009 to over 900,000 by 2035 at current levels of flood-defense investment; the Environment Agency says it is planning for the long haul, saying it is already planning to manage a predicted 1 meter rise in sea levels, and a predicted 10 percent increase in wave heights and wind speeds, both of which will increase the threat from coastal surges

  • ASCE holds its 5th ASCE Forensic Engineering Congress

    The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) says that the unifying theme of the event will be a reflection on a quarter century of construction pathology — understanding why and how structures fail