Smart Data for Smarter Firefighters, Part 1

Photo found on Wikimedia Commons courtesy of Keith4048.

By Bart van Leeuwen

在1970年代后期,周日早晨在荷兰阿姆斯特丹的弥撒之后,我的父母会走到我祖母的家中享用常规咖啡。我大约三岁,坐在越野车里。在沿途经过消防局时,我会扭回我的后背,试图不错过机会看到消防车滚出。每个男孩都想成为一名消防员,但是有时候我们逐渐想到了另一个职业。我选择了机械工程,尽管无论如何我最终都从事信息技术(IT)业务。可能是我父亲在IBM的职业生涯以及自1984年以来就与计算机接触的情况与此有关。我继续找到了自己的公司,深入研究了这个叫做“互联网”的东西。

Still, I could not stop thinking about those red fire trucks. In 1995, I graduated from the fire academy and received my basic firefighter diploma, and I became a proud volunteer in the town in which I lived. After moving and switching to another fire department, I decided to pursue a career position; the Amsterdam Fire Department was hiring! On September 10, 2001 (yes, the irony), I started at the academy. In early 2002, I got my first permanent station assignment: Bernard, Haarlemerplein, the oldest still operational fire station in the country (established circa 1879).

Although I had finished my probie period by then, I stiill was appointed as a mentor (although I considered all the guys at the station as my mentor); most of them had more years in the service than I had birthdays, but a guy named Cees got the “official” role. One of the first things he said was, “Bart, we never have a fire at normal people.” I had no clue what he was talking about! My experience in my volunteer positions was mainly car crashes, car fires, industry fires, and your occasional residential fire. All the people seemed rather normal to me.

我花了大约六个星期的时间才了解CEES的含义:大城市城市消防是意外的;188金博网网址多少没有“正常”。多年来,我开始意识到为什么我要考虑正常实际上不正常。

有关的:Roden on The Scope of TechnologyDittmar on Fire Technology for a Safer TomorrowRicci和Marcarelli使用技术生存

Fast forward to today. I’m writing this article in the same fire station my parents used to walk by every Sunday morning after mass. I’ve made it up the ranks to be a senior firefighter and station instructor, and I’m a prospective lieutenant waiting for a position to open up.

大多数成员的消防第二occupation. And for me, being in the IT business has been a great combination with the fire service. I’ve always separated my company interests and fire service interests to where I find myself being asked by my business peers how to explain the concept of information sharing with a firefighter narrative. To me, explaining all the possible benefits of sharing information with a working fire as a background sounded like a fun thing to do. Little did I know what I was getting myself into with this presentation.

确保演讲是一个现实的possible, I started to look into the fire service’s position of information gathering. I was shocked! One aspect of the fire service’s wealth of information that made me take notice was that it appeared that we may be going into places where we shouldn’t go. When I addressed my concerns at the fire department, I had a hard time getting the message through; by that time, most senior people in our command didn’t write their own e-mails, let alone understand a thing as “data on the web.” I had to go back to the drawing board and come up with a better explanation of where my problems lay; once I found out, the information started to resonate.

I thought, “I’m afraid that something will happen to either me or one of my colleagues, and in the end we will find out that all the information needed to prevent the accident from happening was known in our own organization or at our partners”

This resonated with even the non-e-mail-writing commanders, but how did I get to the point I where could articulate my fear?

Our society has become more and more reliant on digital information. Now, all of our basic, everyday transactions involve some form of digital information exchange such as credit card payments, weather report checks, outings on Facebook, and so on. And, this mass sharing of digital information has also transformed the way our government operates; all the information about our fire department’s work environment including maps, hydrant locations, lot ownership, and so on is most likely available in digital format.

Fifteen years ago, there was no feasible way of obtaining floor plans to buildings other than to send someone to an archive and pick up a paper copy. So, during incidents, you were aware of some gap of information, but you played the cards you got dealt. Now, not only are these floor plans available digitally, but so are data on construction materials, information on the hazardous behavior of modern insulation, electrical systems, registered businesses in the building and their hours of operation…I could go on and on.

我最担心的是,有很多数据可用,我们将开始失去洞察力。那么,有多少数据?当前的估计表明,每两年我们收集两倍以前的数据量。让我们看一下这个抽象但指数的表达。

Consider that you start out your firefighting career with five books. Two years later, you’ll have 15 books [twice the amount you had collected before (10 books) + the five you already had], At that pace, you will have collected a staggering 71,744,535 books over a 30-year career; that is more than the Library of Congress! The chances of finding increased, better information about our environment are growing exponentially. As a result, my fear grows exponential as well.

如果您从书籍方程式中创建图表,它将表明,大约20年后,事情开始变得真正失控了。我们没有大规模收集大约20年的信息!我对这种数据增长及其对我们工作的影响的恐惧刚刚开始显示。

是什么导致了大规模数据爆炸?我会说是传感器。这些小型,廉价,连接的传感器开始吐出有关其设计用于测量的任何内容的数据,并且它们生成的数据量几乎无法理解。例如,新的波音787 Dreamliner客机堆满了传感器,现在可以创建more than one-half a terabyte of data per flight。您可以用这一数量的数据填充800个紧凑型光盘!

这个“大数据”和消防服务已经大惊小怪。但是,我们甚至还没有接近大数据。那么,这款波音梦想服者及其数据传感器与我们的工作有何关系?这项技术实际上正在入侵我们的家庭工作环境,例如恒温器,我们的安全凸轮,烟雾探测器,智能电表,太阳能电池板,受管制的冰箱等。而且,大多数大型商业建筑具有复杂的建筑控制系统,可以确定温度和湿度的水平,直至三英尺。我们面临着一个世界上的建筑物实际上可以与我们交谈的世界!

那么,在这些建筑物中扑灭大火时,我们会使用什么?具有五年审核周期的静态预列!我们必须变得比这更聪明,我们必须拥抱智能数据才能创建更聪明的消防员。

Bart van Leeuwen是一名21年的消防队老兵,也是荷兰阿姆斯特丹市的高级消防员。20多年来,他一直是Netage的所有者,该公司为他提供了提供操作信息的看法,并适应了不断增长的可用数据和战术方法中所需的更改。188金博网网址多少他协助消防部门以将技术视为推动者而不是答案的方式解决他们的信息问题。经过验证的信息管理技术与新范式(如语义Web技术)相结合,以更智能,敏捷的方式处理信息流。您可以在bart@netage.nlor through Twitter at @semanticfire.

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