The ACHR NEWS sat down with ACCA CEO Bart James and ACCA Vice President of Membership, Advocacy, and Events Sean Robertson at the recent ACCA conference. The trio discussed issues that are affecting HVACR contractors including regulations, legislation, and business management.

In the latest episode of The NEWSMakers podcast, Kyle Gargaro, editorial director for The ACHR NEWS, talks to WaterFurnace CEO John Thomas.

Kyle Gargaro, editorial director, The ACHR NEWS, traveled to Oklahoma City to talk with Climate Control Group COO Kevin McNamara about the state of the geothermal industry.

With the geothermal market enjoying an enormous surge in popularity due to financial incentives and its reputation for sustainability, now is the time for contractors to strike while the iron is hot and add geothermal to their offerings.

Efficient refrigeration and HVAC systems are essential to energy management and operational cost of residential, commercial, or industrial buildings.

It is 2018, and this is not your father’s rooftop equipment. The old, reliable system taking up space on the roof has become so much more.

Frank Bacchetta of Total Comfort Group talks about how his company uses data to improve the customer experience.

Though getting enough people to work in the HVAC industry has been an issue for quite a while, women have been greatly underrepresented. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 2% of the HVAC workforce is women. Amy O’Grady from Women in HVACR talks about what needs to happen for more women to get into the HVAC industry.

Small- to medium-sized buildings make up about 94% of all commercial buildings in the U.S., according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, yet only 13% of those buildings have a building automation system.

At the AHR Expo, manufacturers talked about what’s fueling their design of smart products and ensuring they are simpler, more integrated, and save energy and time.

Smart HVAC products today need simplicity, seamless integration, while also achieving a reduction in energy usage.

The expected surge in smart thermostat sales will have equipment manufacturers, many of whom have their own proprietary controls, competing with the well-known universal thermostat brands, such as Nest, Honeywell, and ecobee.

This climate control solution ensures balanced, room-by-room comfort throughout the home.

For residential HVAC contractors, smart homes are a fast-growing market that offers opportunity for profit.

What is the best approach to providing a holistic smart home experience for consumers?

One innovation leading the way in home comfort and efficiency is an air-to-water monobloc heat pump, which offers a blend of efficiency, sustainability, and cutting-edge technology.

This episode features a discussion with Dan Grossman about an essay paper he wrote for this year's OOPSLA conference. The paper is about an analogy between garbage collection and transactional memory. In addition to seeing the beauty of the analogy, the discussion also serves as a good introduction to transactional memory (which was mentioned in the Goetz/Holmes episode) and - to some extent - to garbage collection.

In this Episode we're discussing patterns for small memory software with the authors of the like-named book Charles Weir and James Noble. We look at various aspects of the small memory problem: How can you manage memory use across a whole system? What can you do when you have run out of primary storage? How can you fit a quart of data into a pint pot of memory? How can you reduce the memory needed for your data? How do you allocate memory to store your data structures? Answers to all those questions are provided in this Episode, and of course in their book.

This episode is a conversation with "Uncle Bob" Bob Martin about agile software development and software craftsmanship specifically. We talk about the history of the term, the reasons for coming up with it some of the practices and the relationship to other agile approaches. We conclude our discussion with an outlook on some of todays new and hyped programming languages.

Travis Kimmel and Kevin Goldsmith discuss the correspondence between organizational design and software architecture. Their conversation covers: what Conway’s Law is; Kevin’s experiences in different organizational structures (e.g., Avvo, Spotify, Adobe, and Microsoft) and how those structures influenced the software architecture; what the “Reverse Conway Maneuver” is and how organizations can leverage it; how organizations can evolve existing architectures.

Kishore Bhatia discussed Ethereum and Smart Contracts with John Crain. Topics include: understanding the motivations for a decentralized computing model, Application architecture on Ethereum, development frameworks and tools. John’s experience developing and launching his own product Pixura on Ethereum mainnet, approaches,

Tim Coulter, the founder of Truffle (Ethereum DApp development framework) discusses the Truffle framework for Ethereum SmartContracts and Decentralized App development. Kishore Bhatia spoke with Tim Coulter about: Ethereum Decentralized Apps (DApps)...

Paul Smith discusses the Crystal Programming Language and the Lucky web framework with Jeremy Jung.

Jeffery D Smith, author of Operations Anti-Patterns, DevOps Solutions, talks about how things can go wrong in development organizations and what DevOps has to offer with host Robert Blumen.

Roberto Di Cosmo, Computer Science professor at University Paris Diderot and founder of the Software Heritage initiative, discusses how to protect against sudden loss from the collapse of a "free" source code repository provider, how to protect...

Jon Smart, author of the book Sooner Safer Happier: Patterns and Antipatterns for Business Agility, discusses patterns and anti-patterns for the success of enterprise software projects. Host Brijesh Ammanath speaks with him about the various common...

Steve Smith, founder and principal architect at Nimble Pros, joins host Jeff Doolittle for a conversation about software quality. The episode begins with a discussion of why software quality matters for businesses, customers, and developers. Steve explains some patterns and practices that help teams design for quality. They discuss in detail the practices of testing and quality assurance, and the conversation wraps up with suggestions for fostering a culture of quality in teams and organizations. Brought to you by IEEE Computer Society and IEEE Software magazine.

In the wake of AIPAC’s ouster of two pro-Palestine congressional Democrats, a Jewish American digs into the reality of Zionist influence in American politics.

According to the actor and activist: “The choice is very clear: Do we vote for the future, or do we vote for burning up the planet?”

A coalition of churches has achieved some successes in resisting and mitigating against rent gouging and displacement after Hurricane Ian.

A criminal record keeps many qualified candidates out of work; these coffee companies are helping clear the first hurdle.

A paradigm shift for our economy begins when we name and see the anti-democratic bias that lies at the heart of our capital-centric system.

Christine Ahn and Marie Berry report back from the powerful Feminist Peace Summit, held in Denver recently.

Even while trying to appeal to white women, Donald Trump and J.D. Vance continue to push policies that will harm them—and all women.

In an Election Day conversation, Serene Khader reflects on how women were mobilized by attacks on their bodily autonomy, and what post-election organizing can look like.

Lauren Layfield investigates sexism, finding out what it is and how it can affect us.

The government has announced plans to make it illegal to smoke outside schools and hospitals, and in children's playgrounds in England. They have also said that some outdoor places could become vape-free.

De-Graft has this week's Happy News to put a smile on your face. We have an enormous Spider-Man, some happy rodents and a feathered duo brightening up a school.

Children in some areas of Pakistan are facing school, park and zoo closures, amongst other restrictions, as smog continues to affect the area.

The CareerTech Testing Center (CTTC) works closely with instructors, industry representatives and credentialing entities to identify and develop assessments and assessment preparation materials that are aligned with recognized industry standards.

It's unbelievable that 2016 is here and the school year is half over, but that also means we are closer to the busiest time of year for those of us in the assessment industry.

I hope everyone has created and follows a secure assessment policy, but if not, John Kleeman, founder of Questionmark, created Ten tips for Securing Your Assessment System, which provides a secure foundation for your assessment system.  It seems security breaches most often occur as we get busy and are more prone to creating shortcuts in our work, but a "system" should help minimize these errors.  Please read John's post in its entirety and address any weaknesses in your assessment security:

What can you do to make your assessment system more secure? How can you avoid a disruptive data breach where people’s personal information is disclosed? Using a vendor who takes security seriously reduces risk, as I wrote in my blog article Eight ways to check if security is more than skin deep. But security involves both vendor and user. This post gives ten good practice tips on how you as a user or administrator of an assessment system can reduce the risk of data breaches.

1. Don’t give yourself or other administrators unnecessary privileges. Follow the principle of least privilege. It may sound counter-intuitive, but most administrative users don’t need access to all capabilities and data within your system. Limiting access reduces the impact of a data breach if an account is compromised or someone makes a mistake. If you are using Questionmark, allocate appropriate roles to limit people to what they need.

2. When someone leaves the project or organization, remove their access. Don’t allow someone who has left your team to still have access to your assessment data.

3. Follow good password security. Do not share passwords between people. Do not use the same password for two accounts. Choose strong passwords and change them periodically. If someone asks you for your password, never, ever give it. And if a web page doesn’t look right, don’t type your password into it.

4. Install all the patches and secure the system. A common cause of security breaches is failing to install the latest versions of software, and attackers exploit known vulnerabilities. You need to be proactive and always install the latest version of system and application software, set up good technical security and follow the vendor’s recommendations.

If you haven’t got the time or resources to do this properly, move to a cloud solution. In a cloud SaaS solution like Questionmark OnDemand, the vendor is responsible for updating Windows, updating the application, monitoring security and ensuring that everything is up to date.

5. Install good quality antivirus / anti-malware software. Reportedly there are nearly a million new or variant malware and viruses produced each day. Protect your computer and those of your co-workers with up to date, professional software to address this threat.

6. Protect any downloaded data. Questions, assessments and reports on results are generally safer on a server or in an on-demand service than on a workstation. If you need to download data locally, set up security procedures to protect it and try to ensure that any download is temporary only.

7. Dispose of data properly. Deleting a file on a computer doesn’t erase the data, it simply erases the index to it. If you use a reputable service like Questionmark OnDemand, if a disk is repaired or reaches end of life, it will be securely destroyed for example by degaussing. But if you download data locally or use installable software to manage your assessments, you need to do this yourselves. A recent study suggested that about half of used hard drives sold online contain residual data. Make sure this is not your assessment data!

8. Be careful about clicking on a link or attachment in an email. Phishing attacks use email or malicious websites (clicking on a link) to collect sensitive information or infect your machine with malware and viruses. Such attacks could even be aimed at your organization or assessment activity directly (this is called spear phishing!). Think before clicking.

9. Be aware of social engineering. Social engineering is when someone tries to trick you or someone else into a security breach. For example someone might ring up and claim to be a student who wants their results, but really is an imposter. Or someone might spoof an email from your boss asking for the questions for the next test to review. Be wary of strange phone calls or emails that ask for something urgent. If something seems suspicious, clear it with a security professional before you give them info or ask a caller to hang up and call them back on an official number.

10. Conduct security awareness training. If you’re not already doing this, organize training sessions for all your authors, proctors, administrators and other users to help them be security aware. if you can, deliver tests after the training to check understanding. Sharing this blog article with your co-workers would be a great way to start.

To see more Questionmark posts click HERE.

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The post Calculation Example of Small Photovoltaic (PV) Residential Stand-Alone System appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

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The post An Overview Of Smart Power Grid appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

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The post Smart Grids and The New Age of Energy appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

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The smart network will set up a virtuous cycle for distributed generators and energy storage devices. It will grow the market by opening up more niches where distributed energy is economically competitive. This growth will lead to economies of scale... Read more

The post Driving Distributed Energy with Smart Networks appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

From a communication point of view, each system plays the role of either supplier or consumer of information, or more typically both. In addition to this intersystem communication, these systems consist of subsystems with specific internal communications. The following paragraphs... Read more

The post Conceptual Model of Smart Grid Framework by IEC appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

Power utilities use telecommunication systems either as a support for grid assets’ operation or as the enabler for voice communications among operating staff. The main objective of utility telecommunications is to connect remote premises and staff with central premises and... Read more

The post Five telecommunication systems embedded in smart grid applications and services appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.

January 12
Declaration of Independence
The text of the Declaration of Independence, including a brief description of the document and a list of the signatories.

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The post Dos and don’ts in site testing and commissioning distribution and transmission plants appeared first on EEP - Electrical Engineering Portal.