LEED for Homes Point Categories

The LEED for Homes voluntary rating system awards certification based on point totals in eight categories. (Download the checklist for point requirements.) The categories and requirements are developed through a rigorous consensus-based process, including a period of USGBC member balloting.

Innovation & Design Process
Location & Linkages
Sustainable Sites
Water Efficiency
Energy & Atmosphere
Materials and Resources
Indoor Environmental Quality
Awareness & Education

Innovation & Design Process
Sustainable design strategies and measures are constantly evolving and improving. New technologies are continually introduced to the marketplace, and up-to-date scientific research influences building design strategies. Occasionally, a strategy results in building performance that greatly exceeds that required in an existing LEED credit. Other strategies may not be addressed by any LEED prerequisite or credit but warrant consideration for their sustainability benefits.

Green home-building strategies and techniques are most effectively implemented as part of an integrated design process, with input from individuals involved in each phase of the project. Good design can keep costs down and ensure proper integration of green techniques and achievement of project goals.

One aspect of home design that is often overlooked is the assessment and mitigation of long-term durability risks to the home. Durability failures are a significant cost and cause of stress for both builders and homeowners, but many easy and low-cost strategies are often overlooked because builders do not consider durability in the up-front design.

The Innovation & Design Process (ID) credit category encourages project planning and design to improve the coordination and integration of the various elements in a green home.

Credits can be earned for innovative designs, exemplary performance or regional best-practices that can be shown to produce quantifiable environmental and human health benefits.

The three Innovation & Design Process credits in the LEED for Homes Rating System are:

Integrated Project Planning
Durability Management Process
Innovative or Regional Design.


Location & Linkages
Home-building projects have substantial site-related environmental effects, in terms of both the impact to the site itself and the impacts that stem from the location of the site. The Sustainable Sites credit category focuses on the former; Location & Linkages addresses how builders can choose site locations that promote environmentally responsible land-use patterns and neighborhoods.

Location & Linkages (LL) credits reward builders for selecting home sites that have more sustainable land-use patterns and offer advantages over conventional developments. Land is used more efficiently, reducing the acreage needed for new housing. Fragmentation of farmland and forest and other natural areas is minimized. Well-sited developments need less infrastructure, especially roads and water and sewer lines. And such developments promote a range of sustainable transportation options, including walking, cycling and mass transit, thereby reducing dependence on personal automobiles.

LL credits can be earned in either of two ways:

Pathway 1: LL 1, LEED for Neighborhood Development.
The LEED for Neighborhood Development program certifies “smart-growth” housing development. The pilot phase of this program is expected to conclude in late 2008, after which new projects can register and receive credit for selecting a home site in a certified development.

Pathway 2: LL 2–6.
Projects that either cannot or choose not to participate in the LEED for Neighborhood Development program can earn points in this category by pursuing the following strategies:

LL 2: Site Selection
LL 3: Preferred Locations
LL 4: Infrastructure
LL 5: Community Resources
LL 6: Access to Open Space


Sustainable Sites
Green building goes beyond the built structures because the use of the site and its natural elements can have a significant environmental impact. The Location & Linkages category awards projects for choosing a preferable site; the Sustainable Sites category awards projects for minimizing site impacts.

Early decisions about how to incorporate the home into the site can have significant long-term effects on local and regional ecosystems, as well as demand for water, chemicals and pesticides for site management. Good design decisions can result in attractive, easy-to-maintain landscaping that protects native plant and animal species and contributes to the health of local and regional habitats.

Depending on how a home is integrated into the site, normal rainfall can be a problem, causing soil erosion and run-off of chemicals and pesticides or an opportunity to offset potable water demand and recharge underground aquifers. Surrounding plants can be a burden, requiring regular upkeep, watering and chemicals, or an enhancement that provides shade, aesthetic value, habitat for native species and a mechanism for absorbing carbon and enriching the soil.

Site design should take into consideration the aesthetic and functional preferences of the occupants, but also long-term management needs, preservation principles and potential impacts on local and regional ecosystems.

The six Sustainable Sites (SS) credits in the LEED for Homes Rating System:

Site Stewardship
Landscaping
Local Heat Island Effects
Surface Water Management
Non-toxic Pest Control
Compact Development


Water Efficiency
In the United States, approximately 340 billion gallons of fresh water is withdrawn per day from rivers and reservoirs to support residential, commercial, industrial, agricultural and recreational activities. This accounts for about one-fourth of the nation’s total supply of renewable fresh water. Almost 65 percent of this water is discharged to rivers, streams and other water bodies after use and, in some cases, treatment.

Additionally, water is withdrawn from underground aquifers. In some parts of the United States, water levels in these aquifers have dropped more than 100 feet since the 1940s.

On an annual basis, the water deficit in the United States is currently estimated at about 3,700 billion gallons. In other words, Americans extract 3,700 billion gallons per year more than they return to the natural water system to recharge aquifers and other water sources.

Water for domestic use may be delivered from a public supplier or be self-supplied isby a well. Self-supplied domestic withdrawals are an estimated 3,590 million gallons per day.

The Energy Policy Act of 1992 mandated the use of water-conserving plumbing fixtures and fittings to reduce water use in residential, commercial and institutional buildings. Water efficiency measures in new homes can easily reduce water usage by 30% or more. In a typical home, savings of 30,000 gallons of water a year can be achieved very cost-effectively. This results in average annual water utility savings of about $100 per year.

As communities grow, increased demand for water leads to additional maintenance and higher costs for municipal supply and treatment facilities. New homes that use water efficiently have lower water use fees and reduced sewage volumes. Many water conservation strategies involve either no additional cost or rapid paybacks; biological wastewater treatment, rainwater harvesting and gray water plumbing systems, on the other hand, often involve more substantial investment.

The Water Efficiency (WE) category in the LEED for Homes Rating System has three kinds of credits:

Water Reuse
Irrigation Systems
Indoor Water Use

Energy & Atmosphere
Data from the home-building industry indicate that close to 1.5 million new homes are built each year, and that the average size of new homes has doubled in the past 50 years. As a result, total U.S. fossil energy use in homes has been steadily increasing. The average American consumes five times more energy than the average global citizen, 10 times more than the average Chinese person, and nearly 20 times more than the average Indian.

Conventional fossil-based generation of electricity releases carbon dioxide, which contributes to global climate change. Coal-fired electric utilities emit almost one-third of the country’s anthropogenic nitrogen oxides, the precursor of smog, and two-thirds the sulfur dioxide, which causes acid rain. They also emit more fine particulate material than any other activity in the United States. Because the human body is incapable of clearing fine particles from the lungs, these emissions are contributing factors in tens of thousands of cancer and respiratory illness-related deaths annually. Natural gas, nuclear fission and hydroelectric generators all have adverse environmental impacts as well. Natural gas is a major source of nitrogen oxides and greenhouse gas emissions. Nuclear power increases the potential for catastrophic accidents and raises significant waste transportation and disposal issues. Hydroelectric generating plants disrupt natural water flows, resulting in disturbance of habitat and depletion of fish populations.
Buildings consume approximately 37% of the energy and 68% of the electricity produced in the United States annually, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. In 2006, total emissions from residential buildings were responsible for 1.2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, or 20% of the U.S. total.

Scientists predict that left unchecked, emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases from human activities will raise global temperatures by 2.5ºF to 10ºF over the 21st century. The effects will be profound and may include rising sea levels, more frequent floods and droughts and increased spread of infectious diseases. To address the threat of climate change, greenhouse gas emissions must be slowed, stopped and reversed. Meeting the challenge will require dramatic advances in technologies and a shift in how the world economy generates and uses energy.

Absent significant improvements in environmental performance, the residential building sector will be a major contributor of global CO2 emissions. Homes have a lifespan of 50 to 100 years, during which they continually consume energy and produce CO2 emissions. Further, the U.S. population and economy are projected to grow significantly over the coming decades, increasing the need for new homes. To meet this demand, approximately 12 million new homes are projected to be constructed by 2015.

Building green homes is one of the best strategies for meeting the challenge of climate change because the technology to make substantial reductions in energy and CO2 emissions already exists. The average certified LEED home uses 30% to 40% less electricity and saves more than 100 metric tons of CO2 emissions over its lifetime. Modest investments in energy-saving and other climate-friendly technologies can yield homes and communities that are healthier, more comfortable, more durable, energy efficient and environmentally responsible places to live.


Materials & Resources
The choice of building materials is important for sustainable homebuilding because of the extensive network of extraction, processing and transportation they require. Activities to produce building materials may pollute the air and water, destroy natural habitats and deplete natural resources. Construction and demolition wastes constitute about 40% of the total solid waste stream in the United States. Good design decisions, particularly in the framing of homes, can significantly reduce demand for framing materials, as well as the associated waste and embedded energy. Without even changing the home design, a project can save framing materials and reduce site waste by planning appropriately and communicating the design to the framing team through detailed framing documents and/or scopes of work.

Sources should be evaluated when materials are selected for a project. Reclaimed (i.e., salvaged post-consumer) materials can be substituted for new materials, saving costs and reducing resource use. Recycled-content materials reuse waste products that would otherwise be deposited in landfills. Use of local materials supports the local economy and reduces the harmful impacts of long-distance transport. Use of third-party-certified wood promotes good stewardship of forests and related ecosystems. Use of low-emitting materials will improve the indoor air quality in the home and reduce demand for materials with added volatile, toxic compounds.An increasing number of public and private waste management operations have reduced construction debris volumes by recycling these materials. Recovery activities typically begin at the job site, with separation into multiple bins or disposal areas. In some areas, regional recycling facilities accept commingled waste and separate the recyclable materials from those that must go to the landfill. These facilities can achieve waste diversion rates of 80% or greater.

The Materials & Resources (MR) category in the LEED for Homes Rating System has three components:

Material-Efficient Framing
Environmentally Preferable Products
Waste Management



Indoor Environmental Quality
Americans spend on average 90% of their time indoors, where levels of pollutants may run two to five times — and occasionally more than 100 times — higher than outdoors, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Similarly, the World Health Organization reported in its Air Quality Guidelines for Europe that most of an individual's exposure to many air pollutants comes through inhalation of indoor air. Many of the pollutants found indoors can cause health reactions in the estimated 17 million Americans who suffer from asthma and 40 million who have allergies, contributing to millions of days absent from school and work.

Homeowners are just beginning to realize the link between their health and their homes. Hazardous household pollutants may include carbon monoxide, radon, formaldehyde, mold, dirt and dust, pet dander, and residue from tobacco smoke and candles. Many homeowners also store various chemicals inside their homes as well, including pesticides, fertilizers, solvents, grease, oils, degreasers, gasoline, antifreeze, strong detergents, thinners and oil-based paints.
Over the past 20 years, research and experience have improved our understanding of what is involved in attaining high indoor environmental quality and revealed manufacturing and construction practices that can prevent problems from arising. Preventing indoor air quality problems is generally much less expensive than identifying and solving them after they occur. Generally, there are three types of strategies: source removal, source control and dilution.

Source removal is the most practical way to ensure that harmful chemical compounds are not brought into the home. Evaluating the properties of adhesives, paints, carpets, composite wood products and furniture and selecting materials with low levels of potentially irritating off-gassing can reduce occupant exposure. Scheduling deliveries and sequencing construction activities can reduce exposure of materials to moisture and absorption of off-gassed contaminants. (Low-emissions materials are addressed under Materials & Resources.)

Source control strategies focus on capturing pollutants that are known to exist in a home. For example, filtering the supply air stream removes particulates that would otherwise be continuously recirculated through the home. Protection of air-handling systems during construction and a building flushout prior to occupancy further reduce the potential for problems.

Dilution involves the use of fresh outside air to ventilate a home and exhaust pollutants to the outdoors. This may also help control moisture within the home. Most new homes in the United States do not have mechanical fresh-air ventilation systems. The typical air-handling systems in new homes merely recirculate the air within the home, continuously pumping indoor pollutants through the home rather than exhausting them.

Another aspect of indoor air quality is occupant comfort. The proper installation of automatic sensors and controls to maintain proper temperature, humidity and ventilation in occupied spaces helps maintain optimal air quality. Surprisingly, sensors to alert a home’s occupants to deadly carbon monoxide concentrations are frequently not required by current codes but should be included in all new homes. Letting occupants fully and effectively control their thermal environment can reduce hot-cold complaint calls and generally raise satisfaction levels.

The Indoor Environmental Quality (EQ) credit category encourages builders to prevent air pollution and improve air quality and comfort in the homes they build.

Alternative Compliance PathwaysThe two parallel pathways through the 10 EQ credits in the LEED for Homes Rating System are illustrated in Table 1 and summarized below.

Pathway 1: ENERGY STAR with Indoor Air Package

Projects that participate in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR with Indoor Air Package initiative automatically qualify for 13 points. Up to 7 additional points are available if the following credits are also completed:

EQ 4.2: Enhanced Outdoor Air Ventilation
EQ 5.2: Enhanced Local Exhaust
EQ 5.3: Third-Party Testing
EQ 7.2 or 7.3: Better or Best Air Filters
EQ 8.2: Indoor Contaminant Control

Pathway 2: Prescriptive Approach

The following strategies can earn points in this credit category:

EQ 2: Combustion Venting
EQ 3: Moisture Control
EQ 4: Outdoor Air Ventilation
EQ 5: Local Exhaust
EQ 6: Distribution Systems
EQ 7: Air Filtering
EQ 8: Contaminant Control
EQ 9: Radon Protection
EQ 10: Garage Pollutant Protection


Awareness & Education
The LEED for Homes Rating System addresses the design and construction of new green homes — roles that are the responsibility of the home designer and the builder, respectively. But the environmental impact of a home continues throughout its life-cycle, well beyond the initial design and construction decisions. Most new homes are expected to last 50 to 100 years, during which the occupants will consume energy, water and other resources. They therefore play a substantial role in the resource use of a home over its lifetime.

Some homebuyers may know very little about green home construction. They may be unaware of the green features in the home, or they may be unfamiliar with how to use and maintain them. Without adequate training, the full benefits of the LEED measures likely will not be achieved.

This credit category promotes broad awareness among homebuyers and tenants that LEED homes are built differently and need to be operated and maintained accordingly. Because the operations and maintenance tasks in multifamily buildings may be performed by a building manager, this credit also addresses the need for appropriate education of building managers.

The two Awareness & Education (AE) categories in the LEED for Homes Rating System are Education of the Homeowner or Tenant and Education of the Building Manager.

How Politics, Backstabbing Can Ruin the Office

by

Ambrose Clancy

Long Island Business News

Published: August 7, 2009

A veteran devil gives an apprentice in the trade a description of hell on earth, telling him to picture a place “where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance and resentment.”

The devil, in C.S. Lewis’ “The Screwtape Letters,” is talking about a bureaucratic office, and if any of the above dysfunction describes where you work, take cold comfort, you’re not alone.
Ellen Cooperperson, president of Hauppauge’s Corporate Performance Consultants, said in her 25-year career she’s calculated that 80 percent of offices are dysfunctional, with that figure backed up by management research.

We asked her and other experts why good places go bad.

Nobody’s Talkin’
Cooperperson consulted on the Bank of New York-Mellon Financial merger in the summer of 2007. A chief concern was how the newly combined company would function once the bell rang on Wall Street. But people at both firms panicked they’d be pink slipped or, if they survived, what roles they’d have, who they would report to, etc. The panic was expressed by deafening silence.

So Cooperperson invited employees into a room where six elephant piñatas hung.

“Literally making them recognize the elephants in the room,” Cooperperson said. “After smashing them, everyone’s concerns were addressed.”

She described offices as a “network of conversations,” and healthy offices embrace debate as part of those conversations. Fear of debate means a lack of trust; with no debate, gossiping and backbiting are the only conversations remaining. Therefore managers have to upgrade the quality of those conversations.

Trust has to be established by management, but the employee can take the bull by the horns, said Vicky Oliver, author of “Bad Bosses, Crazy Co-Workers & Other Office Idiots.”

“Nothing’s served by being passive. Don’t ignore situations,” Oliver said.
'
Matthew Cordaro, Dean of Dowling College’s Townsend School of Business believes in regularly scheduled meetings.

“And nothing should be sugarcoated,” he said, meaning the present and the future of the organization must be discussed regularly. Another toxic form of communication is private huddling and criticizing people not present.

Fish Rot From the Head Down
Leaders are responsible for an office’s atmosphere, and a poisonous office usually means no accountability at the top, Cooperperson said.

“The ultimate consequence of avoiding accountability is inattention to results until it becomes systemic,” she said. “Goals are not achieved but there are a lot of excuses why.”

Robert Riggio, author of “The Practice of Leadership,” has written about clueless leaders such as the one played by Steve Carell on TV’s “The Office,” who are blind to an awful situation. Then there are managers who simply don’t care. They’re worse, since they delegate poorly and reward incompetency.

Cordaro believes leaders must fight for their people. He recalled 1987 when the Long Island Lighting Co. was melting down, and how employees suffered from the company’s terrible image. Leaders ignored staff morale and that made the situation even more catastrophic.

Another leader working the dark side is one who believes in the concept of divide and rule, said Robert Bornstein, a professor at Adelphi’s Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies.

“Pitting staff members against each other to motivate them creates sibling rivalry and is a great distraction,” Bornstein said. “There’s confusion about roles and responsibilities.”

It’s the System, Stupid
Cooperperson once had an assignment to work with an aloof and arrogant manager running sales at the Long Island headquarters of an international corporation. She found a division with such resistance to this manager that people were making fun of him to the point where an unofficial part of orientation for new hires included hearing negative stories about him.

“It was a mutiny, with the office dead in the water,” she said.

The solution was to work with the manager, who made amends and then took on the larger challenge of “fixing” the organization.

“When someone says, ‘Fix him,’ I know it’s a much larger problem,’” Cooperperson said.

No Plan, Stan
“A good office takes a lot of work, but it also takes a theory,” Bornstein said. “It’s not just being clear, communicative and consistent in your behavior, but having an underlying framework for what you do.”

There are two successful approaches, he added, one Japanese and one American.

“A successful Japanese office is where everyone is nurtured,” Bornstein said, referring to studies published in “Psychology Applied to Work,” by Paul Muchinsky.

A successful American model is one where goals are crystal clear and incentives are completely spelled out and delivered.

In an MBA program run by Professor James Freeley at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, students study Continuous Process Improvement, a technique that constantly identifies the causes of problems, avoiding the need to merely put out fires all week long. One of CPI’s principles is a Japanese principle known as “kaizen,” which means every person in the office is involved in problem solving. Most importantly, no blame is assessed for problems. The focus is entirely about finding a solution. CPI is also forward looking, and thus helps avoid dead ends or over-the-cliff disasters in offices. It also strives to remove all work that has no positive impact on the organization’s goals.

But office systems are like exercise; no matter if you practice yoga or jumping jacks, it’s not going to work unless it’s done every day and reviewed regularly.

Principally It’s About Principals
Leaders have to set an example by acting ethically, not only with all of their employees but with everyone who interacts with the office, Cordaro said.

“Being successful is of course essential, and having a good reputation as a principled company creates a good working environment to achieve that success,” he said.

Silk Purse From A Sow’s Ear
How do you remediate a toxic office? Author Oliver believes offices should start with the concept that youth must be served. Serious mentoring programs should be installed to keep the office from devouring its young.

“It’s enormously important for a young person to find an older person who takes an interest in their career development,” she said. And it focuses on both the veteran employee and the newbie.

“Mentoring should be part of the organizational system, but unfortunately, in most offices, it’s not.”

Cooperperson believes “courageous conversations” should commence immediately.

“People are scared in the beginning,” she said. “It’s, ‘Oh, my God, we’re going to have to tell the truth?’ But you must get the old conversations, the old stories out of the way and put them to rest to make way for the future.”

Paul Brennan, Prudential Douglas Elliman Hampton’s regional manager, said a real estate office differs in some ways from other offices, but there are enough similarities to learn something.

“Changing an office full of wounded egomaniacs is difficult,” Brennan said. “You have to be an example and practice humility to keep people’s egos in check.”

If the theory of squeaky wheels getting the grease is in place, it will be a chaotic mess. “That’s a nightmare when everyone catches on to it,” Brennan said. “You have to be fair to everyone and turn it around by again acting with some humility.”

And if that doesn’t work?

“Get yourself into therapy,” Brennan said.

Building Green History

Any study to understand what green building is could not begin without first learning why this trend began. A future student of history could unwisely skip over the answers on how we came as a society to embrace this technology and go straight to lessons on constructing green buildings. However, doing so would undercut the valuable journey that to know where we are going one must know where we have been.

Ironically, we tend to identify/label many things green as new ideology/invention when in fact some of our green technologies and products derive from ancient times. Water conservation products like rain barrels and other catchment devices dates back thousands of years when the Romans used systems to collect water runoff for using in pools and bats. Passive solar design has been around since the beginning of building construction. Architects today often design structures to utilize the sun's solar heat to reduce energy costs over the building's life cycle. However, before the era of modern air conditioning and heating, architects knew how to use the sun for it's benefits and how to shelter against it for its negatives as some of our earlier commercial building features clearly demonstrate this with their orientation and design. It seems like there is a new 'green" product on the market popping up everyday promoting itself as natural or organic. Before the Industrial Age eventually yielded the wide use of chemicals, synthetics, and other inorganic compounds to manufacturer millions of consumer goods, man-kind often used natural products for common taks such as cleaning, bathing, cooking, and painting.

From the previous examples, it may seem that a minor part of green building and green living today includes simply bring back the 'old ways". However building green is much more than that. The history of our modern green movement in the U.S. has its birth in the 1960's and '70's when the environmental movement was getting started.

The 1960's produced influential writers like Rachel Carson who was a biologist and wrote Silent Spring in 1962. A bestseller of its time, her book about pesticides is often cited as one of the major influences for like minded environmentalists, activists, politicians, architects, and lawyers of that period. Her book helped lead to government investigations of the chemical industry and eventually helped inspire (among others) the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by 1970.

In the 1970's, the U.S. faced the hard lessons from imported oil. In 1973, the oil embargo brought high fuel costs andcaused many people to rethink the use of petroleum. In addition to worrying about fuel costs, others began to examine the environmental impact on fossil fuels on our environment. Inspired by these issues and more, a few architects achieved some modern accomplishments in building green during this era. As an example, the Gregory Bateson Building in California was built in 1978 and has photovoltaic panels, underfloor cooling, and zone limate control.

These issues behind building green are vast to say the least. At the heart of the green building movement in the 1970's and into the 1980's was the key term "sustainable" accompanied by the top priority of sustainable design. During these two decades architects along with government agencies like the EPA, Department of Energy (DOE), plus other organizations were instrumental in laying the foundation work towards studying and improving sustainable design in buildings and addressing environmental issues of today. their work is one of the primary reasons sustainable design is the major strategy in the green buildings of the 21st century.

Insuring Green Risks

Industry Questions

The "Green Revolution" has brought about many changes to not only the building industry but to others including the insurance sector. The insurance industry is certainly not without questions when it comes to insuring green risks. Which companies are going to underwrite these risks? What coverage will be available? What are the unknowns with insuring green risks? What outcomes can we predict? Will new types of claims result from these exposures? Will insurance professionals need formal training for green risks? I can go on and on with these questions but the state of the current building iindustry requires answers from insurers. Green risks are here NOW and building owners, property managers, risk managers and the restoration industry among others are looking at the insurance industry NOW to offer market solutions to the very special characteristics of these green risks.

The level of "green" involvement by the insurance industry ranges from two extremes: those doing absolutely nothing to companies selling policies created to specifically insure the materials, methods, and processes featured in green risks. In the middle there are insurers who have begun to encourage some green measures in only their business operations (recycling, carpools, van pools, etc...) while others are in the early stages of researching and developing green insurance products to offer their clients. Those companies who are ahead of the others in this market are already offering some kind of coverage, i.e. Travelers, CHUBB, and Farmers insurance companies.

Even for those writing green policies, there may be questions lurking. Frankly, insuring green risks is new territory for the industry and insurers will need time and experience protecting these risks to truly understand all their implications and be able to accurately rate these policies. It is reasonable to say that no one has the clear answers yet on what outcome the insurance industry will see. Will total claim expenses be lower on these risks than non-green ones? Will premiums be lower on green risks compared to non-green risks? Will green buildings/homes harm non-green buildings/home values by making them obsolete? What issues will be tested in court over green coverage?

For the claims professional assigned a loss on a green risk, there will be questions? Is there a green policy in effect? What special provisions does it offer? are limits adequate to rebuild a green risk in the event of a large catastrophic loss? What special expenses will the insurance policy in force cover? will commissioning or recommissioning expenses be covered? Will the policy cover re-certification costs on green risks? will the policy cover added delays to in rebuilding due to the re-certification process? Will qualified restoration contractors in green buildings and green programs be available? Again, the list of questions could go on and unfortunately some of the answers to these questions must come later after the industry is more committed and claim experience develops. It may be too unrealistic to suggest that claim issues we face today won't be the same exact issues we will address in a few years as this section of the market evolves, adapts, and matures. As long as the industry can offer consistent reasonable coverage for green risks at a reasonable premium, then green insurance should expand and be around as long as green risks remain. What must happen in the meantime to get us there is yet another question.

Insurance Industry Response

The following is just a snapshot of products being offered by property insurers in the United States. The following review of policies/endorsements should help illustrate the current types of coverages in the market. Some insurers offer green policies or endorsements at additional premium and may require other underlying coverage. It is important to mention the products offered by various insurers are not standard policies or endorsements; not every company offers identical coverages.

The information below is only a summary review of the current green market and are not the titles or actual endorsement/policy. Limits, special provisions, and special deductibles could still apply.

Homeowner

- Coverage for loss of income or extra expenses resulting from physical damage to alternative energy systems:

These endorsements may provide limited coverage when net metering is lost because of a covered peril and the insured has to purchase electricity that otherwise would not be needed because the structure is generating its own electricity. There could be coverage to inspect, reconnect (and permit fees) assessed by a utility company or other when the alternative energy system is back on.

- Enhanced coverage to landscape - trees, shrubs, plants:

Some endorsements increase the limit of liability for covered trees, shrubs, and plants (in the aggregate and per item) and offer greater limits to "eco-landscaping" which includes plants that provide shade to the home, hardscape, HVAC or other to reduce energy costs.

-Upgrade to green coverage:

Covers costs to upgrade green components in the event of a partial or total loss. Areas which may focus on include energy efficiency, water efficiency, indoor air quality, and sustainability. These upgrades include Energy Star lighting, appliances, HVAC, windows, low or dual flow toilets, low flow faucets, no VOC interior paint, and recycled content building materials. Sustainability coverage may upgrade the home to a green program standard such as the Energy Star Home (builders Option Package), pay for testing, and more. some of these endorsement may provide the homeowner to keep any rebates or other government/utility incentives for upgrading. Other companies may offer endorsements to upgrade to LEED for Home standards, hire Leed AP, and certification fees if total loss occurs.

Some companies may offer a premium discount when insuring an existing LEED certified or other home.


Commercial

- Green upgrade coverage:

Covers cost to upgrade standard materials with green components such as no VOC paints, Green Label carpet, Energy Star products, Energy Star roofs, and Water Sense fixtures to name a few. If a total loss, some policies may cover the cost to rebuild the property under the criteria of a green rating program.

- Green certified building coverage:

Covers buildings already certified under a green program. Coverage may include provisions for vegetative roofs, alternative power systems and water systems. In addition, coverage may be available to hire a LEED AP, recoup loss of income from net metering losses, and recycling debris. Finally, there may be coverage to hire an engineer for commissioning and perform other tests. Some companies may offer coverage fr certification with other rating systems like Green Globe.

- Green manufacturers property endorsement:

May cover the cost for non-green manufacturing facilities to upgrade to green equipment, materials, and business personal property after partial or total loss.

- Green certified manufacturing property insurance:

May cover the cost of green manufacturing facilities to be restored to their original LEED rating and may cover the upgrade to a higher LEED rating too.

- Green coverage for business personal property:

Covers the cost to replace non-green business personal property with green products or materials.

- Debris removal expense endorsements:

Pays additional debris removal expenses incurred to salvage and recycle debris from a covered property loss. These endorsement may have limited amounts of coverage.

- Delay in completion of a project:

May provide some coverage for loss when a project completion is delayed due to the certification process from using a program like LEED.

- Energy efficient tax credit endorsement:

May provide coverage for tax credits lost on certain qualified energy efficient components following covered causes of loss to covered property. These endorsements may have limited amounts of coverage.

Claims Checklist

Some strategies in green building programs have little effect on the claims professional. There isn't much we can do to alter the orientation of a building for passive solar design, but that decision might have counted towards the buildings certification. Decisions made to manage soil erosion and preserve natural habitats during construction are again areas which may have no real implication s for insurers. However, decisions such as to lay Green Label carpeting, install recycled content materials, use only low or no VOC building materials, or install an Energy Star roof system will concern the claims person eventually. Furthermore, the implementation of high efficiency appliances, plumbing, lighting, ad electrical systems will affect us too. Finally, we cannot rule out that claims adjusters will be exposed to solar, wind, and other types of renewable energy systems and water saving systems.

The green measures that are anticipated to affect our industry are the ones insurance professionals should be familiar with and be prepared to assess loss to. Green building programs are "climate-specific" and tailored for conditions in particular regions. What may be a common green practice in the northeast U.S may not be a good practice in the southwest U.S. Following this logic, claims professionals should be familiar with the green measures and programs in their market/region. The knowledge a claims adjuster in New York obtains over time may vary from the knowledge a claims adjuster in San Diego receives. While the fundamentals of many green building programs are similar, the methods to achieve common goals in these are not.

Another borrowed idea from green building programs that the claims professional can use is checklists. Most green building programs utilize a checklist when designing and constructing projects. Checklists help ensure the project meets its goals and certification. This process should also be followed by the claims professional when assessing a loss on a green risk. The claims person should have a prepared list of specific questions to address on claims involving green risks.

Shades of '1984': Amazon Removing E-Books from Kindles

The New York Times'David Pogue reports that Amazon has decided to pull certain copies of electronic books from its shelves. In doing so, however, Amazon has also pulled them off of Kindles its customers own, and who had already purchased the books in question. Pogue notes a complaints page where Amazon users have begun posting confused messages, trying to figure out why their e-books have disappeared. The publisher apparently decided to remove the books from its electronic catalog and Amazon followed suit.

The irony, of course, is which author was pulled from Amazon's electronic shelves: George Orwell, whose 1984 and Animal Farm basically defined institutional paranoia. And, the fact that Amazon rarely comments on its decisions makes the action even more sinister.

Billy Joel, Elton John: Midsummer double hitters!

5 Days

In preparation of the concert Tuesday night in Chicago

From billyjoel.com

Midsummer 2009 finds Billy Joel continuing the rapturously received series of concert dates that he and touring partner Sir Elton John commenced in early March. Beginning in Florida and sweeping through the heartland before notching some major Canadian cities, the tour’s venues have gradually shifted from indoor arenas towards bigger outdoor stadiums. The tour’s outdoor debut in Washington, D.C., held a special resonance as it also marked the inauguration of live music at Nationals Park, a year-old baseball facility that serves as home to the Washington Nationals. Despite construction delays on the city’s Metro system and a brief threat of rain as dusk settled in on the park, by show time an excited crowd had filled the bleachers and covered infield. The show began in its usual impressive fashion, with seasoned mimic Billy doing a fine job of channeling Elton on several verses of “Your Song”, and Sir Elton returning the favor on “Just the Way You Are”. Then with, Elton attempting to accompany his own “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me” on his massive Yamaha convert grand, came a mishap that was distracting to say the least. As recounted by Washington Post contributor Chris Klimek in his review:

John called a timeout after that opening two-fer while a roadie tried to fix a stuck sustain pedal on the royal piano. As John cursed, relief pitcher Joel played an impromptu and funny "Battle Hymn of the Republic." Joel even crawled under his fuming co-star's piano to try to help solve the problem himself. It was one of the most crowd-pleasing moments of the evening, with three hours to go. "At least you know we're not on tape!" Joel quipped. "This is an authentic rock-and-roll [expletive]. You don't see many of these anymore!" Turning back to his own ever-ready Steinway (which gets a meticulous daily inspection from piano tech Wayne Williams, the same man who catches Billy’s flung microphone stand after “Still Rock `N Roll To Me” each night), Billy and band roared into his own portion of the set. The Post account picks up the saga: John finally withdrew while Joel fielded his band for a 65-minute set that opened with a swaggering "Prelude/Angry Young Man." As the entire spectacle was seen by Adam Mazmanian of The Washington Times in his July 13 review, “Piano men John, Joel rally over mishaps”:

In the end, the glitch proved to be a little bit of spilt milk in a 33-song musical feast that left all but the most gluttonous adult contemporary fans sated. Mr. Joel's set featured a rapid fire spray of crowd-pleasers, executed without too much frippery or noodling. There is a relentless drive to the melodies in "Movin' Out," "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me," "Don't Ask Me Why" that Mr. Joel mines to great effect in performance with bombastic piano playing and an energetic singing style. First attempted in 1994, the Face 2 Face tour's pairing of Mr. John and Mr. Joel almost had to happen. The two are nearly exact contemporaries — Mr. John is 62; Mr. Joel is 60 — and they occupy similar spots in the public imagination as leading piano men in a world of guitar heroes. That kind of rally bode well for the several remaining big-venue stops on the current tour leg, and anticipation was high both amongst the Joel troops and of course, the awaiting fans for tonight’s visit (followed by another show July 21) to the city’s historic Wrigley Field. With epochal converts in his native New York forming a good part of the Joel lore—his Yankee Stadium show in '90 was perhaps topped only by last year’s “Last Play At Shea”—baseball parks have been very, very good for Billy. His good pal Sir Paul McCartney is playing the New York Mets’ new Citi Field stadium this Friday, an event which was likely to see Billy in attendance, and the tour’s upcoming arrival at the New England Patriots’s Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Mass.

With both piano prodigies sharing a determination to deliver a rocking show every night out, dates in the coming days in New York State and Billy’s traditional stronghold of Philadelphia promise to generate further buzz around a tour that is consistently topping the Billboard tally of top-grossing road acts. As a local reviewer found noted after attending an energetic gig in Columbus, Ohio:

Fifteen years ago, singer-pianists Billy Joel, 60, and Sir Elton John, 62, first toured together, including an appearance before more than 60,000 fans at Ohio Stadium.

In 2003, they hit the road again to more than 18,000 fans in Nationwide Arena. So the third time they've been "Face 2 Face" (the tour's name) may not have been as memorable an event as that first concert, but musically, it was just as great.

The No Responsibility Society
Suing Because Your Daughter Is Texting So Much She Didn't Notice The Open Pothole

From the Houston, We Have A Problem Dept

A bunch of news outlets have been reporting on various versions of this story -- and I have to admit, it sounds so ridiculous that it reads like an urban legend. I was hesitant to even write about it at first, but with so many mainstream media sources covering it, perhaps it really did happen. It was reported in the NY papers last week. Basically, a girl who claims she was so focused on text messaging while working fell into an open manhole in Staten Island. Now, that should be embarrassing enough, but the really crazy part is the claim that the girl's parents are planning to sue the city for not adequately protecting their daughter from herself. At least they're not suing the mobile carrier or mobile device maker as well...The kid should be sued for being stupid and wasting the taxpayers dollars on the manpower to help her out.

Change: Painful but Necessary

This is a great article written by the President of DKI. Advanced Restoration Corp. is a proud member of DKI. Just figured I would share this with everyone. It's a battle I face everyday.

Change: Painful but Necessary

By Dale Sailer

President of DKI

For years, I have been a champion for change. Starting with the first time I heard Dr. Robert Kriegel preach to a large audience of executives nearly two decades ago that “if it ain’t broke, break it”, I have been very vocal that personal or business plans that do nothing more than seek to sustain the status quo represent nothing more than well-worn recipes for eventual decline and failure.

Our world – politically, professionally and personally – is in a constant state of flux. The pace of life becomes overwhelming at times for even the most calm and organized person. We often feel that if we could just stop and rest for a while – coast, if you will – we could get a better handle on things. The problem with this is that the business world doesn’t afford any enterprise the opportunity to be complacent. Running in place while everyone else is moving forward doesn’t usually result in a successful outcome.

This lesson has been painfully playing out on a national stage over the last twelve months, and in fact for much longer. The painful reality is that the recent rash of bankruptcy filings across many industries are not the result of policies and actions over the last five months, or even the last nine years, but rather the inability of certain industries and institutions to support and drive internal change.

The American auto industry is a classic example of this failure. For nearly half a century Detroit has either dramatically delayed or overtly killed every meaningful innovation or idea that would have resulted in either significant gains in operational efficiency or considerable gains in market share. Why? The primary reason is because it was easier and more comfortable to maintain the status quo rather than make uncomfortable change, whether affected through labor strikes, lobbying efforts, or any of a number of different actions. The clear result is a domestic industry that has, in essence, given away the market to foreign competitors while wallowing in outright financial ruin.

Government is no different, as inefficiency and deficits mount uncontrollably at the city, state and federal levels. The age old reason remains the same - because regardless of party affiliation, the status quo guarantees a politician’s re-election. While their constituents want ‘change’, none of them actually want any change that has any perceived negative impact on them individually. Thus no change ends up being preferred to any change. And until someone in elected government has the actual political will to drive change at the risk of NOT being re-elected, meaningful change will never come.

Now despite being a champion of change generally, and specifically within the DKI organization, I will fully admit that actual change is hard. I learned this first hand when I received a new laptop after using the same old trusted one for nearly four years. I was quite comfortable with my technology life, familiar with the ‘old’ software my laptop ran, and knowledgeable with all the shortcuts necessary to make it hum. Life was good. I realized that with every passing day, the risk of my computer crashing for good increased exponentially, but I admit that I pushed off change as long as possible. But ultimately, I knew that change was necessary.

My new laptop is clearly not yet my friend. Newer versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint are frustrating in that they are different than the older versions I am used to. New ‘features’ feel like new ‘barriers’ to productivity. All my Internet cookies are gone, as are all my ‘quick fill’ email addresses – both will need to be slowly rebuilt. My new keyboard is bigger (meaning clunkier), has a different ‘feel’, and all the computer’s ports are in a different place. In short, I am a long way from my comfort zone and I don’t like it.

However I do see the light at the end of the tunnel. I am actually quickly getting used to the newer applications’ functionality and I am finding new solutions to problems that I couldn’t solve before. My new laptop is faster and my screen is much, much easier to see. And with some new software now loaded, I can actually communicate more effectively with my work colleagues and my customers. So while change represented a very short-term step backward, and has clearly been uncomfortable, it is also very clear that in the medium to long-term, I will make giant leaps forward in productivity and before I know it, my technology life will be as comfortable as it ever was.

You can rest assured that as a corporate organization, DKI is always seeking ways to change for the better. We do not have an interest in being complacent and remaining in our comfort zone. Rather, we constantly assess our business so that we can deliver new products and services so that our customers -whether contractor, insurance carrier, risk manager, property manager or supplier -can rely on us to help them remain ahead of their respective competitors. While the ride may not always be comfortable, the view from the front is a lot more exciting than it is from the back. I look forward to traveling with you out front.

Can Someone Explain How Video Games Are Worse For Kids Than Plain TV?

For years, video games have been a convenient scapegoat for politicians to use in complaining about the sort of thing "kids these days" do on a daily basis. In the past, it's been other things -- from TV to music to comic books. But, these days, video games pop up an awful lot. So I guess it should come as no surprise at all that a recent study I read in the newspaper said that parents put much greater limits on how much time kids can spend playing video games than they do on TV or movies.

Of course, this seems entirely backwards to me. Now I do not have children but I know what kind of crap is on TV. I can't imagine someone making the arguement of MTV over video games. Not that parents should let young kids just randomly play any video game, but if they're playing age-appropriate video games, you would think that would be a lot better than just sitting there watching TV with no interactivity whatsoever. Plenty of studies have shown that the interactivity of video games helps kids improve hand-eye coordination, problem solving skills and since video games have gone online, their social skills. While online the kids form 'clans," which are groups of their friends that get together and battle it out against other clans.

There are many educational video games as well. So why not encourage that? It's not examined in the studies, but I'd guess that the constant complaining about these "awful video games" has an impact on a busy parent. And the sensationalized media just plays it up and takes it to a new level.

RIP: Steve McNair

My heart goes out to Steve McNair's family, friends, and teammates. Just woke up to the news this morning on my way to get coffee. He was one of my favorite players growing up. McNair played college football at Alcorn State, where he won the 1994 Walter Payton Award as the top player in NCAA Division I-AA. He was drafted third overall by the NFL's Houston Oilers in 1995. He wore my fav #9. A class act who led the Tennessee Titans to their only Super Bowl in 1999 and shared the NFL MVP Award with Peyton manning in 2003. One of only 3 NFL Players to throw for 30,000 yards and run for 3,500. The other two players are Fran Tarkenton and Steve Young. That is great company to be in. And he was one of the toughest competitors that ever put on a NFL jersey. He will be missed.

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AFP) — Former National Football League quarterback Steve McNair and an unidentified woman have been found shot dead. He was 36.

Police said they were called to a home in Nashville's downtown area where the former Tennessee Titans and Baltimore Ravens quarterback and the woman were involved in a double shooting.

Police said McNair was found on the couch in the home and suffered several gunshot wounds. The woman had a single gunshot wound and had the gun nearby her.

Officials said they don't have a motive for the shooting.

"We are saddened and shocked to hear the news of Steve McNair's passing today," Titans owner K.S. "Bud" Adams said.

"He was one of the finest players to play for our organization and one of the most beloved players by our fans.
"He played with unquestioned heart and leadership and led us to places that we had never reached, including our only Super Bowl. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family as they deal with his untimely passing."

A three-time Pro Bowl selection, McNair shared the most valuable player of the NFL award in 2003.

In 161 games (153 starts), McNair threw for 31,304 yards on 2,733- of-4,544 passing, with 174 touchdowns. He also ran for 3,590 career yards and 37 TDs.

McNair last played in the NFL in 2007 for the Ravens. He is a former third overall pick by Houston in the NFL's 1995 entry draft.

"I will remember Steve's smile, his laugh, his ability to cook -- the man could cook -- and just the human being that he was," said former Titans running back Eddie George.

"We had some great times together, wonderful personality. The football thing was one thing and I remember his playing days, but just the human being. He brought so much joy to so many people. He was a consummate pro and he was a gentleman."

Emotional Robots: Will We Love Them Or Hate Them?

03 July 2009 by Hazel Muir

NewScientist.com

Magazine issue 2715. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.

SUNDAY, 1 February 2009, and 100 million Americans have got only one thing on their minds - the Super Bowl. The Pittsburgh Steelers are poised to battle the Arizona Cardinals in the most popular televised sporting event in the US. In a hotel room in New York, 46 supporters gather to watch the game, munching burgers and downing beers. Nothing strange about that, of course, aside from the machines that are monitoring these sports fans' every move and every breath they take.

The viewers are wearing vests with sensors that monitor their heart rate, movement, breathing and sweat. A market research company has kitted out the party-goers with these sensors to measure their emotional engagement with adverts during commercial breaks. Advertisers pay $3 million for a 30-second slot during the Super Bowl, so they want to be as confident as they can be that their ads are hitting home. And they are willing to pay for the knowledge. "It's a rapidly growing market - our revenues this year are four times what they were last year," says Carl Marci, CEO and chief scientist for the company running the experiment, Innerscope Research based in Boston, Massachusetts.

Innerscope's approach is the latest in a wave of ever more sophisticated emotion-sensing technologies. For years, computers in some call centres have monitored our voices so that managers can home in on what makes us fly into a wild rage. The latest technologies could soon be built into everyday gadgets to smooth our interactions with them. In-car alarms that jolt sleepy drivers awake, satnavs that sense our frustration in a traffic jam and offer alternative routes, and monitors that diagnose depression from body language are all in the pipeline. Prepare for the era of emotionally aware gadgets.

Outside of science fiction, the idea of technology that reads emotions has a brief, and chequered, past. Back in the mid-1990s, computer scientist Rosalind Picard at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology suggested pursuing this sort of research. She was greeted with scepticism. "It was such a taboo topic back then - it was seen as very undesirable, soft and irrelevant," she says.

Picard persevered, and in 1997 published a book called Affective Computing, which laid out the case that many technologies would work better if they were aware of their user's feelings. For instance, a computerised tutor could slow down its pace or give helpful suggestions if it sensed a student looking frustrated, just as a human teacher would.

She also suggested that wearable computers could sense emotion in a very direct way, by measuring your heart and breathing rate, or the changes in the skin's electrical conductance that signal emotional arousal. Wearable "mood detectors" could help people identify their stress triggers or communicate how they are feeling to others.

The most established way to analyse a person's feelings is through the tone of their voice. For several years, companies have been using "speech analytics" software that automatically monitors conversations between call-centre agents and customers. One supplier is NICE Systems, based in Ra'anana, Israel. It specialises in emotion-sensitive software and call-monitoring systems for companies and security organisations, and claims to have more than 24,000 customers worldwide, including the New York Police Department and Vodafone.
As well as scanning audio files for key words and phrases, such as a competitor's name, the software measures stress levels, as indicated by voice pitch and talking speed. Computers flag up calls in which customers appear to get angry or stressed out, perhaps because they are making a fraudulent insurance claim, or simply receiving poor service.

Voice works well when the person whose feelings you are trying to gauge is expressing themselves verbally, but that's not always the case, so several research teams are now figuring out ways of reading a person's feelings by analysing their posture and facial expressions alone.

Many groups have made impressive progress in the field, first by training computers to identify a face as such. Systems do this by searching for skin tone and using algorithms to locate features like the corners of the eyes and eyebrows, the nostrils and corners of the mouth (see diagram).

The computer can then keep track of these features as they move, often classifying the movements according to a commonly used emotion encoding system. That system recognises 44 "action units" representing facial movements. For instance, one might represent a smile - the mouth stretches horizontally and its corners go up. Add to that an eye-region movement that raises the cheeks and gives you crow's feet and now you have a beaming, genuinely happy smile rather than a stiff, polite one.

Using these techniques, computer programs can correctly recognise six basic emotions - disgust, happiness, sadness, anger, fear and surprise - more than 9 times out of 10, but only if the target face uses an exaggerated expression. Software can accurately judge more subtle, spontaneous facial expressions as "negative" or "positive" three-quarters of the time, but they cannot reliably spot spontaneous displays of the six specific emotions - yet. To accurately interpret complex, realistic emotions, computers will need extra cues, such as upper body posture and head motion.

That's because facial expressions alone are ambiguous. A smile on your face might actually signal embarrassment if it's also accompanied by a downward pitch of the head, for instance. A backward head motion is one part of an expression of disgust. But if someone combines that with a downward movement of the mouth and one raised shoulder, they're conveying indifference. "If I just looked at the face and saw the mouth going down, I would score it as sadness. But the combination with the shoulder and head motion is 'I don't care'," says Maja Pantic, who studies computer recognition of expressions at Imperial College London.
Pantic's team eventually hopes to find ways of fusing information from body gestures and facial expressions together in real time to read emotions accurately, although she concedes it may be an impossibly complex challenge. "This research is still so very new," she notes.

Basic emotions
In the meantime, they are studying the dynamics of how expressions change, to see if this can help computers identify emotions more accurately. Intuitively, most people know that a faked smile is more exaggerated than a real one, and switches on and off more abruptly. Facial-tracking technology has confirmed that, and also revealed some more subtle differences (you can see a video comparing fake and real smiles at www.newscientist.com/issue/2715).

These subtleties came to light in a 2004 study of 81 adults by Jeffrey Cohn and Karen Schmidt at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania (International Journal of Wavelets, Multiresolution and Information Processing, vol 2, p 1). They used tracking technology to compare forced smiles with spontaneous smiles provoked by comedy videos. This showed that spontaneous smiles are surprisingly complex, with multiple rises of the mouth corners.

Other teams have been highly successful at the opposite end of the emotional spectrum: pain detection. Computers are surprisingly good at distinguishing fake pain from the real thing, according to a study published this year by Gwen Littlewort of the University of California, San Diego, and colleagues.
Her team investigated whether facial expression software could distinguish people in real pain (because their hands were in iced water) from others asked to fake pain. The computer correctly classified real or fake pain 88 per cent of the time. When the team asked 170 untrained volunteers to make the judgement, they were right only 49 per cent of the time - no better than complete guesswork.

This year, Pantic and her colleagues hope to find out whether computers can accurately recognise the signs of lower back pain from facial expressions and body posture. They hope that computers might be able to distinguish between real physiological pain and the pain someone might perceive, quite genuinely, if they expect to feel pain or are depressed, but have no physiological cause for it. It could lead to more reliable ways of assessing whether painkillers are effective. "If you get a prescribed medication for acute pain, we would be able to monitor whether these medicines are actually working just by observing a person's behaviour," says Pantic.

One group of researchers has developed emotion-reading technology for a particularly vulnerable group of people. Picard and Rana el Kaliouby of MIT have built an "Interactive Social-Emotional Toolkit" (iSET), designed to help children with disorders linked to sensory processing, such as autism, to understand emotions in other people. A camera monitors the face of someone the child is talking to, and identifies 31 facial and head movements. Software interprets the combination of movements in terms of six states: agreeing, disagreeing, concentrating, thinking, interested and confused.

Then a laptop-sized screen displays six labelled bubbles that grow or shrink accordingly. If someone's nodding and smiling during the conversation, the agreeing bubble grows. If the listener looks away, a growing red bubble signals disagreement or disinterest. The team will began randomised trials of the technology this month. For 15 weeks, one group of five autistic children will use the iSET, while two control groups will use either an interactive DVD that teaches emotional awareness or have only standard classroom training. Before and afterwards, the researchers will test how well the children identify emotional expressions unaided by the iSET to see if the technology helps them learn to identify emotions for themselves.

Patronising paperclips
Not everyone welcomes these developments. William Gaver, a designer at Goldsmiths, University of London, concedes some of the applications may be beneficial, but fears emotion-sensing computers will be used in patronising ways. Who could forget Microsoft's cringe-making "paperclip" that offered help with writing letters: Microsoft wisely killed it off because people found it so irritating. But what if some emotion-triggered reincarnated "Mr Clippy" started popping up everywhere?

"The nightmare scenario is that the Microsoft paperclip starts to be associated with anything from the force with which you're typing to some sort of physiological measurement," says Gaver. "Then it pops up on your screen and says: 'Oh I'm sorry you're unhappy, would you like me to help you with that?'"

Emotion sensors could undermine personal relationships, he adds. Monitors that track elderly people in their homes, for instance, could leave them isolated. "Imagine being in a hurry to get home and wondering whether to visit an older friend on the way," says Gaver. "Wouldn't this be less likely if you had a device to reassure you not only that they were active and safe, but showing all the physiological and expressive signs of happiness as well?"

Picard raises another concern - that emotion-sensing technologies might be used covertly. Security services could use face and posture-reading systems to sense stress in people from a distance (a common indicator a person may be lying), even when they're unaware of it. Imagine if an unsavoury regime got hold of such technology and used it to identify citizens who opposed it, says Picard. There has already been progress towards stress detectors. For instance, research by Ioannis Pavlidis at the University of Houston, Texas, has shown that thermal imaging of people's faces can sense stress-induced increases in blood flow around the eyes.

His team analysed thermal videos of 39 political activists given the opportunity to commit a mock crime - stealing a cheque left in an empty corridor, made payable to an organisation they strongly opposed. They had to deny it during subsequent interrogation, and were threatened with financial penalties and punishments of loud noise if the interrogator caught them lying (empty threats at it turned out, for ethical reasons). Computer analysis of the videos correctly distinguished the 15 innocent and 24 guilty "suspects" 82 per cent of the time.
Another fledgeling technique, called laser Doppler vibrometry, measures tiny stress-related changes in respiration and heartbeat from afar - indicators that are sometimes used to gauge whether a person is stressed, and hence possibly lying.

Picard says that anyone utilising emotion-sensing systems should be obliged to gain informed consent from the people they plan to "read". At least that way, whether you find it patronising, creepy or just plain annoying, you can hit the big "off" button and it will, or at least should, leave you and your emotions in peace.

I know how you feel
DO YOU reckon you're a master of reading another's true feelings? Many people think they are, but only about 1 in 100 of us are naturally gifted at recognising emotions in someone who's trying to conceal them, says Paul Ekman, a psychologist formerly at the University of California, San Francisco.

Ekman made his name when he identified the facial expressions of the seven key emotions that are universal, regardless of nationality or culture - happiness, sadness, fear, anger, disgust, contempt and surprise. He also acts as a consultant to law-enforcement agencies, advising them on how to spot liars from clues in their facial expressions, speech and body movements.

It takes considerable effort to be a good human lie detector. To begin with, it is essential to know your subject's "baseline" behaviour when they're not stressed. Then look for deviations from this when they're under interrogation. Ekman points out that not everyone is the same. For example, some people look fearful regardless of their emotions.

So there are no absolute signs that people are definitely lying, but here are some of Ekman's top tips for spotting a fraud:

DO THEY HAVE RHYTHM?
Clues in the voice include unusually long or frequent pauses. People who are having trouble deciding exactly what to say usually use fewer hand gestures to reinforce their speech - they're less likely to "conduct" their speech by waving their hands.

LOOK OUT FOR FLICKERS
People can't help showing their true feelings for a fraction of a second. For example, a person might try to conceal their feelings of contempt, but give it away with a fleeting raised lip on one side, so look out for these micro-expressions. (Test your ability to interpret micro-expressions at http://www.facetest.notlong.com/)

SPOT THE GESTURAL SLIPS
Some gestures, called "emblems", have a precise meaning within a cultural group. Examples include a shoulder shrug with upward palms, communicating "who cares" or "I'm helpless". Usually people make them obvious, but when lying, they may display an incomplete emblem. They might rotate their hands upwards on their lap - a subconscious fragment of the shrug that betrays their feeling of helplessness at not lying well.

Hazel Muir is a freelance writer based in the UK

4th of July Fireworks Safety Tips for Kids

Everyone have a Happy and Safe Fourth of July. Here are some tips to keep in mind. All common sense stuff I know.

One of the reasons why the Fourth of July is so enjoyable is because of the perfect combination of warm weather and time spent with the family. It is the perfect backdrop to create memories so it is not surprising that fireworks are often used to cap off the memories made. To ensure that the celebration continues, it is important that everyone, particularly kids, are well-informed about the rules of fireworks safety.

As beautiful as they are, fireworks can be a cause of injury. Research has shown that in one year, there were 9,300 reported incidents of firework-related injuries in the United States. Even worse, deaths can result from improper handling. Most of these are cases due to direct contact such as burns or eye damage, but it can also be because of ingestion such as in poisoning.
The safest way to enjoy the show without the danger is by simply taking the family to see a public fireworks display. That way, the lighting is left in the hands of the professional. This is particularly important because in some states, lighting fireworks at home is illegal. If you still want to go and light it up, check with the fire department first if you are allowed to do so.

When it comes to kid safety tips during a 4th of July fireworks, take note that children should never be allowed to handle the explosives themselves. The use of firecrackers, rockets, and even the seemingly harmless sparklers are too dangerous. In fact, sparklers can reach a temperature of 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit, which is hot enough to melt metals such as gold.

In addition to this, always use fireworks outside where there is enough space and never point them towards the face and hair. Sparks can easily ignite them and lead to injuries. Fireworks are also known to backfire or even fly off in a different direction. Keep a water source such as a garden hose in a nearby area in case of an emergency.

Teach your kids not to use fireworks when near flammable items such as leaves and trees. They easily ignite and cause the fire to spread. In fact, the National Fire Protection Association says that local fire departments answer to more than 50,000 calls of fire caused by fireworks each year.

Fireworks that are used should only be the legal ones. Teach your kids to identify them by checking to see if they have the name of the manufacturer and instructions. Illegal fireworks are often unlabeled. In addition to this, keep away from banned fireworks like the blockbuster and quarter pounder. On this note, never try to tweak with the fireworks to make them stronger than they are.

When it comes to handling the fireworks, kids should be instructed to only light one at a time. Do not try to experiment by trying to light them in glass or metal containers. This can cause it to explode, sending shrapnel flying. Also, do not let children relight fireworks that appear to be duds. These can still explode while on the hand.

In case of an injury, it is important to seek medical attention immediately. If it is the eye that was hit, under no circumstance should it be touched because it can result in more harm. Even running the eye under water can exacerbate the situation. Burn spots should be placed under cold running water.

These 4th of July Fireworks safety tips are not just useful for kids. Even those who are young at heart can benefit from them during the holiday.

If you do have a fire that causes property damage over the weekend due please do not hesitate to call. We are always On-Call 24/7. Call your insurance agent immediately. They will notify your insurance company.

Green Computing: Save Ink & Paper with GreenPrint World Edition

Even though we have technologies such as PDF’s, e-mail, and SharePoint sites that make it possible to achieve a paperless office, it seems like there is a never ending stream of printing going on, especially in the office environment. Today we'll introduce you to GreenPrint, an easy and free way to be more eco-friendly and save costs at the same time.

GreenPrint is designed to save printer ink, reduce unwanted pages, help reduce environmental damage, and save you money by catching pages before they go to the printer and optimize them to reduce waste.

Installing GreenPrint
Before installing you will need .Net Framework installed on your PC for GreenPrint to work. If you don’t it will download and install it for you. Most people should already have this installed, but it's good to know that it's a requirement.

You will be prompted to choose the default printer to use with GreenPrint during installation. Your default printer will be change to GreenPrint, which will then use the printer you choose on this step as the default physical printer to pass through.

Using GreenPrint
After everything is set up, GreenPrint runs quietly in the taskbar until ready to print. As a test I went to print out a webpage… note that GreenPrint is the default printer where all documents should be printed to.

GreenPrint will launch and analyze the page or pages you are printing out.

In the main user interface is where we can remove unnecessary images or text. Since this would print on 4 pages total you can choose to view all 4 or view them one at once or different combinations.

It functions very similar to most PDF viewers and gives you tools to remove pages, text, or images that you don't want to print, so you can save paper and ink. (for instance, if you look in this screenshot you'll see that the bottom page is useless and it would make sense to just remove it from printing)

The other feature is to print a document to PDF format which in itself saves a ton of paper and ink as some of the more technically inclined co-workers prefer a digital copy versus printing out 10 copies for every meeting.

With this option you can also leave in the extra pictures and / or text in if you want. Just click on the PDF button next to the Print button at the top. Then just browse to the location to store it.

The results are just as good as using other utilities like PDF Creator or the Microsoft Office 2007 PDF Add-in.

There is a very cool reporting feature that tells you how much money was saved and the positive environmental affects.

Conclusion
GreenPrint is a very cool utility which offers several options for eliminating needless images and text from documents. It is designed to help save paper, ink, and energy which is great for the environment. If that is not enough incentive to use it, then just consider the fact it will save you money as well. GreenPrint works on XP and Vista (32bit only) and there is also a beta version for Mac OSX.

GreenPrint World Edition is free and ad supported, the ads have humanitarian and environmental focus which is pretty cool versus random advertisements. To get ad free you will need to purchase the Home Premium or Enterprise version. The license also allows free email tech support, frequent version updates, and allows commercial use for your business.

Download GreenPrint World For Windows & Mac