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New spatial data analysis tools added to Locus EIM software

The new graduated symbol and graduated color legend tools allow for creation of sophisticated maps showing environmental data

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., 11 May 2015 — Locus Technologies (Locus), the leader in cloud-based environmental compliance and information management software, has announced the addition of powerful new data analysis tools to the eGIS portion of its Environmental Information Management (EIM) software. The new tools support creation of graduated color and graduated symbol legends when posting analytical results, groundwater levels, and field measurements to the map.

With the graduated color tool, when users post data to the map, they have the option to color code the map symbols by having each result placed into one color ‘bin’ based on the result value. Users can classify the results using one of four different methods: equal interval (each bin has same numerical interval with user specified number of bins); defined interval (each bin has same numerical interval with user specified interval); percent (each bin represents the Nth% of the total result range, for example quantiles or quintiles or deciles); or standard deviation (each bin represents the # of standard deviations from the mean for the result value). There are further options for specifying min and max values for the bins and for picking linear or log scales. If users are comparing results to an action limit, they can also classify results based not on the result but on the exceedance factor (result/action limit).

The graduated symbol tool works the same as the graduated color tool, except instead of color coding results, users can have the symbols change sizes based on the result. By using these new legend tools, users can create sophisticated maps that help visualize their environmental compliance data and quickly see data hotspots or outliers.

 

ABOUT LOCUS EIM
The Locus EIM SaaS offers enterprise environmental information management for analytical data for water quality, chemicals, radionuclides, geology and hydrogeology. EIM provides the whole solution and supports workflow from sample planning, collection, analysis, data validation, visualization and reporting. Locus Mobile is fully integrated with EIM and provides for real time field data collection and synchronization with EIM.

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Locus’ Intellus Promotes Big Data Transparency: More Than 14 Million Environmental Sampling Records from National Laboratory Are Now Available Online

Previously contained in a dozen independent databases, the integrated records of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) — are now stored in one location, the publicly-accessible website Intellus.

Through the Locus EIM platform public facing website, Intellus, the general public can now access remediation and environmental data records associated with the Office of Environmental Management’s (EM’s) legacy nuclear cleanup program.

Containing more than 14 million records, Locus’ Intellus has consolidated Los Alamos National Laboratory’s (LANL’s) information that was previously handled in multiple independent databases. The centralized, cloud-based solution directly attributed to an estimated $15 million in cost savings for LANL through 2015.

The public facing site also ensures users have real-time access to the most recent data. The same data that scientists and analysts use to base important environmental stewardship decisions off of. Through tools and capabilities such as automated electronic data validation, interactive maps, and the ability to include data from other third-party providers and environmental programs, Intellus provides the ultimate platform to view LANL’s environmental data without compromising the core EIM system that LANL scientists use on a daily basis.

Locus has always advocated for the power of data transparency via the cloud. When you apply the most extensive security protocols to a cloud-based system, it can be a winning combination for data management and public trust.

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Locus to Attend and Co-present with Honeywell at the NAEM 2013 EHS and Sustainability Software Conference

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Innovation, collaboration are hallmarks of Asheville’s science and high tech industries

“There seems to be a lot more focus on collaboration and building the community rather than just the bottom line. People are more willing to come together for work and to share their expertise.” — Dr. Todd Pierce, Director, Geographic Information Systems, Locus Technologies

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Locus Technologies Forms Alliance with UNC Asheville’s NEMAC to Advance Cloud Software Solutions in the Areas of Weather, Climate Change Data, GIS, and Visualization Technologies

SAN FRANCISCO, California, 21 February 2012 — Locus Technologies (Locus), an industry leader in web-based environmental, energy, and compliance software, and UNC Asheville’s National Environmental Modeling and Analysis Center (NEMAC), an applied environmental research center that creates tools to address the challenges and opportunities of human interaction with the environment, announced a broad alliance today.

Locus and NEMAC signed a letter of cooperation to establish a working relationship that will leverage both organizations’ resources in applied research, web development activities, cloud computing, and science delivery collaborations. The joint research activities will focus on the areas of weather and climate data, geographic information systems (GIS), visualization technologies, augmented reality, subsurface and environmental monitoring and modeling, software programming, and cloud hosting environments. Additionally, Locus agrees to support undergraduate student internship opportunities during students’ tenure at UNC Asheville, as well as post-graduation.

Locus’ software provides effective, ongoing management of environmental and energy information to organizations. NEMAC has been focused on research of similar environmental issues, but on a larger scale. NEMAC has been a leader in bringing together academic, government, and public sectors through collaboration, and in using science communication and delivery to develop decision-making tools for local and regional planners, decision makers, and the public.

“We see tremendous potential for process improvements for both Locus’ enterprise customers and NEMAC’s government partners by combining resources and integrating results of climate change and other large-scale monitoring into Locus’ enterprise-centered applications. Integration of the information on weather and climate change monitoring will enable organizations to easily analyze, optimize, and mitigate their energy and emissions,” said Jim Fox, Director of NEMAC.

“Our clients can leverage NEMAC’s strategic climate and weather expertise and Locus’ enterprise information management platform to more effectively align goals, strategy, and the successful execution of emission reduction and energy conservation measures,” said Neno Duplan, President and CEO of Locus Technologies. “Working closely with NEMAC, Locus will offer robust, scalable, secure solutions that provide large commercial, industrial, and utility businesses, as well as government entities, the ability to better manage environmental information, energy, and emissions, and, ultimately, perform forecasting of future energy, water, or resource consumption based on weather pattern changes and forecasts.”

“At Locus, we pride ourselves on bringing the right people, technology, and systems together to deliver the innovative, integrated software and services our customers require. During the evaluation of NEMAC research projects, it became readily apparent that there was a compelling opportunity to improve our customers’ experience through a collaboration with a national leader in environmental information research,” said Dr. Todd Pierce, Locus’ director for GIS services, who will be responsible for managing the relationship between the two organizations. “Through our alliance with NEMAC, we hope to integrate and expand the Locus ePortal platform with visualizations and tools developed by NEMAC to deliver joint solutions to the public and private sector,” added Pierce.

 

ABOUT NEMAC
UNC Asheville’s National Environmental Modeling and Analysis Center (NEMAC) specializes in science communication and the development of decision support tools for local and regional planners, decision makers, and the public. NEMAC’s goal is to help people understanding the relevance and importance of complex issues such as climate and weather, forest health, natural hazards, land use planning, and the wise use of our energy and water resources. Our tools, developed with the assistance of UNC Asheville undergraduate research students, include web applications, interactive geographic information system (GIS) applications, multimedia delivery technologies, and print media. These collaborative projects provide meaning to scientific data. NEMAC and its many partnerships bring students, scientific professionals, and local decision makers together to help solve problems facing society.

For more information, visit www.nemac.unca.edu or email nemac@unca.edu.

Dr. Todd Pierce Rejoins Locus Technologies

Locus Technologies Establishes Asheville, NC Operations

SAN FRANCISCO, California, June 15, 2011 — Locus Technologies (Locus), the industry leader in Web-based water, energy, and environmental software, announced today that Dr. Todd Pierce rejoined the company in their newly established office in Asheville, NC. Dr. Pierce will lead Locus’ Web-based Geographic Information Services and Augmented Reality Group.

Dr. Todd Pierce returns to Locus as Director of Geographic Information Systems. Dr. Pierce has over twenty years of experience in geographical information systems and Web programming and holds a doctorate in geography from the University of Oxford, U.K. He previously worked for Locus from 2003-2007, when he developed the mapping components of Locus’ EIM application. Dr. Pierce is now coming back to Locus to manage the implementation of all R&D for Locus GIS applications. He will lead efforts to develop subsurface 3D visualization, Augmented Reality (AR), and real-time sensing into Locus’ GIS-based applications.

Locus believes that GIS technology coupled with AR creates a new framework for studying water, energy, and global climate change issues by allowing users to inventory and display large, complex spatial datasets. GIS can also be used to analyze the potential interplay between various factors, getting us closer to a true understanding of enterprise sustainability.

While GIS is already widely used by planners, engineers, and scientists to display and analyze all forms of location-referenced data, it has not been used effectively to link subsurface, surface and atmospheric data in a single system on the Web. Since every aspect of climate change and sustainability affects or is affected by geography and geology, be it at a global, regional, or local level, interplay among geography, geology, hydrology, and atmosphere is very important for a holistic view of enterprise environmental impact. Web-based GIS linked to large data sets in Locus EIM is the single most powerful integrating tool for inventorying, analyzing, and ultimately managing and reporting this extremely complex problem. The key to understanding our dynamic climate and related energy and environmental issues is creating a framework to take many different pieces of past and future data from a variety of sources and meshing them into a single system. That is exactly what Locus has done.

Neno Duplan, President and CEO of Locus, commented, “Our company’s strength is directly related to our innovative and experienced environmental professionals. I am pleased that Dr. Todd Pierce has re-joined our firm to lead our Asheville operations. Todd’s previous work as a research scientist with UNC Asheville’s National Environmental Modeling and Analysis Center (NEMAC), where he developed Web mapping tools for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the U.S. Forest Service, and state and local agencies, is relevant to work he will lead at Locus.”

“We have a growing technology cluster here in Asheville. The presence of a highly sophisticated workforce was a critical factor in establishing a Locus base of operations in this community. I am excited to be back to Locus and to continue my work to bring the power of GIS and Web-based visualization to Locus’ cloud applications. We are at a point in the evolution of the technology and its broad application where the next logical step is development of a GIS-based framework for earth systems modeling that includes subsurface, surface and atmospheric information in a single system. Such a system that Locus pioneered crosses academic, scientific, and industrial domains to serve as a platform for a comprehensive water, energy, climate, and sustainability management system,” said Dr. Todd Pierce.

“Our world faces unprecedented challenges, and GIS technology is poised to provide enterprises the necessary tool to collect, manage, and analyze the myriad of analytical, biological, and regulatory data in a very transparent and visual way. GIS technology has proved to be invaluable in driving intelligent decision making. Todd will continue building on extensive work that has already been done to integrate Locus’ many applications, from hydrogeology to climate science, and apply GIS technology to address complex subjects such as water quality management, GHG inventories, data model development, waste management, carbon accounting, and climate change visualization. Every organization that is looking to be credible with respect to all their environmental reporting needs will need a tool like this,” added Duplan.

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Locus Technologies Awarded Contract to Manage Los Alamos National Laboratory Environmental Information and Data

Locus SaaS software to manage data for nation’s largest laboratory

SAN FRANCISCO, California and LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico, March 21, 2011  — Locus Technologies (Locus), the industry leader in Web-based environmental software, announced today that it has been awarded a contract from Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) to manage LANL’s environmental data in Locus’ Cloud. The contract is worth up to $2 million from 2011 through an additional four option years.

LANL is a United States Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratory, managed and operated by Los Alamos National Security (LANS), located in Los Alamos, N.M. The 37-square-mile laboratory is one of the largest science and technology institutions in the world; it conducts multidisciplinary research for fields such as national security, outer space, renewable energy, medicine, nanotechnology, and supercomputing. LANL is one of two laboratories in the United States at which the government conducts classified work toward the design of nuclear weapons.

The Locus EIM software will help LANL organize and manage its future environmental compliance and monitoring activities using SaaS. By centralizing the data collected during current remediation and surveillance efforts, Locus’ EIM software will enable the facility to more efficiently address legacy site contamination, both chemical and radioactive, across multiple locations. EIM will allow Los Alamos to take a better aggregate view of its environmental challenges and make better planning decisions for environmental stewardship.

Activities that EIM will organize include environmental data of all media types, comparison of historical contamination levels; planning and performing sampling, processing, and analysis of environmental media; providing institutional coordination, integration, and communication of all environmental monitoring activities, data, and documentation; implementing regulatory and action standards and policy with line organizations; and interacting with government agencies, stakeholders, the public, and Indian tribes on environmental resource management issues.

Locus designed its EIM software specifically to meet challenging water-quality management issues, covering both analytical chemistry and the management of radionuclides data in a complex hydro-geological setting. EIM will also provide a web-based GIS system for Los Alamos data that will be available to the general public, bringing ease of use and complete transparency to complex data sets.

“With more than 37 square miles of complex geology and hydrogeology, Los Alamos National Laboratory is home to 14 major canyon systems that affect the Rio Grande, and the complexity and size of Los Alamos operations make environmental compliance a top priority. We are very proud that LANL has determined that EIM has the robust functionality to meet the facility’s formidable data management requirements. After the National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford (SLAC), Los Alamos is the second U.S. Department of Energy site to be managed in EIM. We are very excited to work with LANL’s talented team of professionals on this important long term project,” said Neno Duplan, President and CEO of Locus.

LANL has created byproduct waste since the 1940s. Its past practices for disposing of waste, while meeting the standards of the day, are not up to today’s standards. Investigations, cleanup, and remediation are now under way, and the Lab has dramatically reduced its waste generation from ongoing work.

“High-quality environmental data is one of the key drivers that will help us meet our cleanup goals,” said Alison Dorries, division leader for the Lab’s Waste and Environmental Services organization. “Moving forward, our data will help us be more sustainable and better stewards of the environment. Organizing these massive volumes of data, and making them available to the public, will help demonstrate our commitment to openness and environmental compliance.”

 

ABOUT LOS ALAMOS NATIONAL LABORATORY
Los Alamos National Laboratory, a multidisciplinary research institution engaged in strategic science on behalf of national security, is operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC, a team composed of Bechtel National, the University of California, The Babcock & Wilcox Company, and URS for the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration. Los Alamos enhances national security by ensuring the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, developing technologies to reduce threats from weapons of mass destruction, and solving problems related to energy, environment, infrastructure, health, and global security concerns.

LANL news media contact: Fred deSousa, (505) 665-3430, fdesousa@lanl.gov

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New Locus Web Module Organizes Geological Information: Organize, Display and Report Geo-Data with eGeo

Organize, Display and Report Geo-Data with eGeo

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., March 24, 2008 — Locus Technologies (Locus), the industry leader in web-based environmental data and information management services, announced today the expansion of its award winning ePortal software with a new module, eGeo, which organizes geological and geotechnical data on the web.

eGeo is available to Locus’ existing Environmental Information Management (EIM) customers immediately and free of charge.

eGeo eliminates the need for third-party borehole log applications, fence diagrams, or CAD drawings and for yet another disconnected database application, login and software license. eGeo is fully integrated with Locus’ award winning EIM Web 2.0 analytical data management system and with the Locus ePortal, providing users with single sign-on access to a powerful set of geo-data management tools.

Geological site investigation processes generate tremendous amounts of data, including geological quality and geotechnical properties. Field investigation results such as borehole drilling, geophysical testing, Cone Penetrometer Testing (CPT) and Standard Penetration Testing (SPT) all must be collected and analyzed. This information needs to be validated, managed, reported and preserved. Ironically, while companies invest millions of dollars to collect their data, rarely is it well-organized or readily accessible.

Previously, geo-data, such as borehole logs, were entered into expensive stand-alone software applications, spreadsheets or CAD systems that had little or no data analysis capability. Users could not easily retrieve this content or correlate it with similar geological and analytical chemistry data. Data had to be downloaded, merged and analyzed as precious time was lost and consulting hours piled up.

Locus’ eGeo, an integrated module in Locus’ ePortal, is a web-based application that instantly delivers, sorts, and assembles geo-data into highly nuanced reports, boring logs, CPT logs, SPT Logs, cross sections, charts, and maps—including raster image overlays, and mashups with Google Maps and pictures. As a result, geological information can be quickly visualized and analyzed.

“eGeo and our other software tools meet a huge need in the field of geotechnical and geological data management,” said Locus President and CEO, Dr. Neno Duplancic. “By offering up graphical, mapping, and other applications in our portal, users are able to view, download, and print information from each application in a uniform manner,” continued Duplancic. “This exciting new functionality comes without the need to store large image files on the server end, minimizing storage and Internet traffic requirements.” said Duplancic.

“Our tools give corporate managers something new, a means to quickly view and click through any aspect of the environmental status of their sites from within a single application. Geologists, geotechnical and environmental engineers, and site owners can use eGeo to look at their data with the same ease that oil companies use multi-million software applications to visualize and map underground oil reserves,” said Duplancic.

“Information management technologies based on Web 2.0 technology can help businesses and governments characterize environmental problems faster and more easily so that valuable resources can be spent designing solutions instead of searching for information or synchronizing disconnected applications, spreadsheets or databases.” Duplancic said.

Map software pinpoints environment hotspots

Services utilize convergence of tools like Google Earth, EPA data