Pangaea Information Technologies - News & Events

The Commission for Environmental Cooperation release Taking Stock Online

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 12:20:57 -0500

The Commission for Environmental Cooperation release Taking Stock Online:

Pangaea Information Technologies, Ltd. has been supporting the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) for the past three years in developing the North American Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers (NAPRTRs) data search and mapping tool which is a critical system for the Taking Stock program. We at Pangaea are extremely proud of the work that we have done as well as the overall effort from CEC. Here is the official press release from CEC:

On behalf of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), we are pleased to inform you of the official release of the Taking Stock Online (www.cec.org/takingstock), as of today, July 13^th, 2010.

Taking Stock Online, published today, presents the latest integrated data set (2006 data) from North America’s pollutant release and transfer registers (PRTRs) and features an integrated, multi-year database covering over 500 toxic substances and almost 100 major industrial sectors reporting to the PRTRs of Canada, Mexico and the United States. The site also features new tools to assist in data analysis, including a tool to explore data on pollutants transferred across national borders.

The CEC’s Taking Stock Online site is updated annually and allows users to:

Explore information on industrial pollutant releases and transfers;
Generate reports in a variety of formats including pie charts and spreadsheets;
Create maps and view them using Google Earth;
Analyze PRTR data with respect to other information such as watersheds, rivers and lakes, and population centers using geospatial data from the North American Environmental Atlas (http://www.cec.org/naatlas).

Today’s release of online PRTR data and analytical tools will be complemented with further analyses and information in the CEC’s Taking Stock report to be released later this year. It will feature a special analysis of North American industrial pollutant releases to water, with a more detailed look at the sources and amounts as well as their potential impacts on the environment.

Thank you for your continued interest in the North American PRTR project.

Pangaea's Joint Incident Command System (JICS) deployed at Vigilant Guard Exercise 2010

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 18:51:25 -0500

Multiple areas of Chicago will be used for a five-day training exercise, some road closures

SPRINGFIELD- More than 50 local, state, federal and private agencies will take part in a major week-long domestic emergency response exercise testing their ability to respond to multiple disasters in the Chicago area.

Illinois Prairie North 2010, which is a part of the Vigilant Guard series, will run from Sunday, June 13, to Thursday, June 17. This joint training exercise is designed to test civilian and military responses and coordination should multiple incidents occur throughout Illinois. It is a full-scale exercise, so residents can expect to see emergency responders looking and acting as if this was a real homeland security/domestic response mission.

This realistic training exercise is necessary to ensure that Illinois is prepared to protect the public from, and mitigate the consequences of, an act of terrorism or other major disaster. All the different agencies are expected to learn valuable lessons on how to best work together if or when a real disaster should befall the area.

“This is what we call ‘training as we fight,’” said Maj. Gen. William L. Enyart, the Adjutant General of the Illinois National Guard. “In a real disaster, all of these agencies would play an important role. We owe it to the people of Illinois to learn to work together to respond in the most effective and efficient way possible.”

Illinois National Guard members from throughout the state helped plan the exercise along with their domestic emergency response partners. Three “table-top” exercises were conducted prior to the full-scale exercise.

On Sunday, June 13, the exercise will begin with a simulated commercial airplane crash on its way to Midway Airport. The simulated plane crash will occur in the downtown area of Oak Lawn. There will be multiple local agencies responding to the simulated crash, with debris and mass casualties scattered throughout the area.

Toyota Park in Bridgeview will be the staging area for the Illinois Army and Air National Guard, where they will have their accommodations and park their vehicles starting Monday, June 14. The Salvation Army in Elk Grove Village will be the area command center for the exercise. The area command is where all command-related activities will occur. The Office of Emergency Management of Chicago (OEMC) will be practicing setting up a remote command center at Soldier Field to manage the resources needed to respond to the large-scale event within the Chicago area.

On Tuesday, June 15, there will be a simulated meth lab takedown on Green and York Streets in Bensenville. The Illinois National Guard’s Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, High-Yield Explosives (CBRNE) Enhanced Response Force Package (CERFP) and the 5th Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Team (CST) will be responding to the call along with multiple local agencies. There will be a suspected dispersion device with traces to a meth lab in the area.

Wednesday, June 16, will involve multiple locations. The Bensenville area will be restricted to only those with approved credentials. Within the area, there will be numerous simulated terrorist attacks to include tactical takedowns of suspected terrorists by the Illinois’ Tactical Response Team, simulated building collapses with trapped victims, high angle and structural collapse rescue, mass decontamination and medical care by the Illinois National Guard CERFP and 5th CST. Another location will be at Rush University Medical Center. Rush medical staff and the Illinois National Guard Soldiers and Airmen will receive suspected biological agent patients to decontaminate and medically evaluate.

There will also be a press conference at Rush University Medical Center regarding Homeland Security response at 1 p.m., June 16.

On Wednesday evening the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) will have a rail car evacuation swat incident on 15th and Clark Streets in Chicago. Multiple local agencies will be involved in this scenario. Chicago Police Department will be on heightened security as a K-9 unit detects simulated explosives manufactured by a terrorist group on a CTA train. A simulated explosion will cause possible contamination requiring police, search and rescue teams, hazardous materials teams and fire response. This is expected to happen from 10 p.m. Wednesday to 4 a.m. Thursday. There will be some road closing during this timeframe.

On Thursday, June 17, there are two situations planned. There will be another takedown situation in the Bensenville area and also a simulated chemical explosion at Nalco in Chicago. Multiple local agencies will be responding to the Bensenville area and the Illinois National Guard’s CERFP and 5th CST will be responding to the Nalco explosion.

Be aware of road closures and detours during these exercise events.

Local, state, federal, private and international agencies involved in the exercise include:

Illinois National Guard
U.S Department of Homeland Security
Federal Emergency Management Agency, Region V Federal Bureau of Investigation National Guard Bureau
- Joint Interagency Training and Education Center

Illinois Emergency Management Agency
Illinois State Police
Illinois Environmental Protection Agency Bio Watch Jurisdictional Coordinator - Chicago
Statewide Terrorism & Intelligence Center
State Weapons of Mass Destruction Team
State of Illinois Terrorism Taskforce (ITTF)
Michigan National Guard Civil Support Team
Illinois Emergency Services Management Association Illinois Emergency Medical Response Teams
Illinois Law Enforcement Alarm System (ILEAS)
Mutual Aid Box Aid System (MABAS)
State of Illinois Incident Management Teams Illinois Fire Services Institute MCHC/Illinois HELPS
American Red Cross
Salvation Army
City of Chicago:
- Office of Emergency Management and Communication
- Chicago Department of Aviation
- Chicago Police Department
- Chicago Bomb and Arson Investigation Unit
- Chicago Fire Department / Hazmat
- Chicago Transit Authority
Cook County Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management Cook County Medical Examiner
Du Page County Emergency Management
City of Oak Lawn:
- Oak Lawn Emergency Management Agency
- Oak Lawn Police Department
- Oak Lawn Dispatch Center
- Oak Lawn Fire
- Oak Lawn Public Works
Evergreen Park Fire Department
North Palos Fire Department
Chicago Ridge Fire Department
Hometown Fire Department
Bridgeview Fire Department
Burbank Fire Department
Park Fire Department
Bedford Park Fire Department
Region VII, Regional Health Care Coordination Center, Advocate Christ
Christ Advocate Medical Center
Rush University Medical Center
Advocate South Suburban Hospital
Ingalls, Silver Cross
Morris Hospital - St James
Palos Community Hospital
Provena St. Joes
Advocate Christ
Provena St. Mary’s
Advocate South Suburban
Metro South, Morris

For questions regarding Operation Guard North, please contact the Public Affairs Office at ngilstaffpao@ng.army.mil or 217-761-3569. If after hours, please contact the Illinois National Guard Joint Operations Center at 217-761-3941.

MEDIA ADVISORY
DEPARTMENT OF MILITARY AFFAIRS
ILLINOIS ARMY AND AIR NATIONAL GUARD
1301 North MacArthur Boulevard
Springfield, Illinois 62702-2399

NEWS RELEASE # 060810-109
TEL: (217) 761-3569
DATE: June 8, 2010
FAX: (217) 761-3527
CONTACT: Public Affairs Office
Email:ngilstaffpao@ng.army.mil

The medical community embraces open source tools for emergency response in Haiti

Mon, 24 May 2010 13:31:56 -0500

The medical community embraces open source tools for emergency response in Haiti:

Relief organizations have turned to open source and free web based tools for mapping and providing locational awareness to support the relief effort in Haiti. Pangaea has been advocating for this approach for several years and is pleased to see open source solutions embraced by governmental and NGO’s alike.

Pangaea is pleased to welcome Kateryna Khapatko

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 17:15:00 -0500

Ms. Khapatko recently joined Pangaea as an application developer and QA engineer. Ms. Khapatko has 3 years of experience in the developing and testing of complex software applications using web 2.0 technologies. Prior to joining Pangaea, Ms. Khapatko worked a QA engineer for a business intelligence firm where she developed and deployed test strategies, test plans, test designs, test cases and test reports, developed a UI testing framework and automated functional/regression testing methods for front end, web services and database components as well as bug tracking, fixing and testing. Prior to that engagement, Ms. Khapatko worked as an application developer for a software development firm where she developed and tested web based solutions for content management based applications. Ms Khapatko holds a B.S. in Computer Science from European University, Lviv, Ukraine and an M.S. in Computer Science from Maharishi University of Management, Fairfield, IA.

Pangaea is moving

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:49:28 -0600

Pangaea is pleased to announce that we are moving our offices to the second floor of the building effective March 12 2010. The move provides us with over 30% more space which will allow us to accommodate our projected growth over the next 5 years. Our new address will be:

Pangaea Information Technologies, Ltd

219 W. Chicago Ave

2nd Floor

Chicago, IL 60654

Our telephone and fax numbers will remain the same.

MAJ Troy Scott, a True American Hero

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:32:44 -0600

MAJ Troy Scott, a True American Hero:

Pangaea is honored to have had the opportunity to work with MAJ Troy Scott. It is a true honor and pleasure to provide support to people of MAJ Scott’s character and integrity. We at Pangaea feel fortunate to be able to work along side of our men and women in uniform.

Obama to announce plan to respond to bioterrorism

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 11:54:11 -0600

Obama to announce plan to respond to bioterrorism:

This announcement is further proof that we need to leverage and integrate existing and planned applications and decision support tools to provide early detection and management of incidents involving biological and chemical threat agents. Pangaea has existing systems (GUARDIAN and JICS) that address these needs and could serve as integral surveillance and management tools to ensure that we are able to quickly detect potential incidents and support intelligent management decisions which will help to minimize the impact and more importantly, save lives.

Congratulations

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 17:36:00 -0600

Pangaea would like to thank and congratulate two of our own for their dedicated service. Chris Kowal has just completed his 12th year at Pangaea (and is hitting the ground running for year 13), and this week marks the 10th anniversary of Shon Doseck joining the Pangaea team. Thanks to Chris and Shon for all of their hard work over the years and I look forward to new milestones in the future.

Happy New Year

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 11:06:51 -0600

We at Pangaea would like to wish everyone a joyous, healthy and prosperous New Year. We are thankful to all of our clients and business partners for making 2009 a successful year despite the trying economic conditions. As we enter 2010 we are fortunate to be in a position to enjoy continued growth. We constantly hear politicians on both sides of the aisle discuss how small business is the backbone of this country and the key to full economic recovery in spite of the fact that none of them ever do anything to promote small business. This country is beholden to multi-national, bottom line driven corporations and powerful special interest groups. In spite of this, small business continues to thrive and succeed, battling government red tape and large corporate entities whose rigid, out-dated management techniques are designed to prevent the innovation and agility required to navigate in these difficult and changing times.

Pangaea Holiday Dinner

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 17:02:43 -0600

The annual Pangaea Holiday Dinner wiil be held Friday December 18 at Trattoria Trullo in Lincoln Square. We look forward to seeing everyone and celebrating another successful year.

Distribute ILI Surveillance

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:03:00 -0600

Distribute ILI Surveillance:

This is an interesting project developed by the International Society for Disease Surveillance (ISDS). This application is a step in the right direction to provide national disease surveillance although it only focuses on ILI. The following description is from the Distribute website:

Distribute, a project of the International Society for Disease Surveillance (ISDS), is a distributed, influenza surveillance system that uses summarized, influenza like illness (ILI) syndrome data from existing visit level syndromic surveillance systems developed by public health agencies. It is dedicated to real-time data evaluation, allowing for more rapid surveillance and improved decision making. This project utilizes anonymous visit count data submitted from a variety of public health departments and organizations, in conjunction with Google charts and visualizations and a web services tool kit developed at the University of Washington named Shoki, to generate a real-time display of summarized daily data.

Pangaea welcomes Helen Araya

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:41:00 -0600

Ms. Araya recently joined Pangaea as an application developer. Ms. Araya has over 3 years of experience in developing software applications using web 2.0 technologies as well as the design and development of relational databases for large and complex datasets. Prior to joining Pangaea, Ms. Araya worked a software engineer for an IT consulting firm where she developed an online travel application as well as an inventory management system. Prior to that, Ms Araya worked as an application developer for the Ministry of Finance in Asmara, Eritrea where she developed the Ministry’s Personnel System to manage employee records. Ms Araya holds a B.S. in Computer Science from University of Asmara, Asmara, Eritrea and an M.S. in Computer Science from Maharishi University of Management, Fairfield, IA. We are pleased to have Helen as part of the Pangaea team.

CDC expands flu-tracking efforts

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:21:41 -0600

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has a number of initiatives to attempt to track Influenza Like Illness (ILI) and in particular outbreaks of H1N1. On Sept. 1, CDC began securely exchanging public health data daily via the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN). The pilot project is gathering flu symptom data from health care providers in Indiana, New York and Washington state.The full article can be found at:

http://fcw.com/Articles/2009/10/26/CDC-expands-flu-tracking-efforts.aspx

Pangaea Information Technologies, Ltd. has been working on a project in collaboration with Rush University Medical Center called GUARDIAN (Geographic Utilization of Artificial Intelligence in Real-Time for Disease Identification and Notification) which provides an AI based approach to detecting diseases including ILI and H1N1. GUARDIAN is currently generating daily and weekly reports on likely and confirmed H1N1 cases.

GUARDIAN uses a variety of techniques — from simple code look-up-tables to advanced natural-language processing algorithms — to transform and standardize these disparate data sources into a relational, hierarchical data structure that is optimized for infectious disease modeling. Additionally, GUARDIAN has a flexible and modular architecture in addition to a real-time web-based user interface. This allows GUARDIAN to be used for monitoring of any set of infectious diseases in real-time (in addition to the daily and weekly summary reports that it generates).

Automated Real-Time H1N1 Monitoring

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:29:29 -0600

On October 28th, GE Healthcare announced that they had received a grant from the CDC to perform “near real-time” monitoring of the spread of the H1N1 influenza virus. This project pulls daily reports from patient data already being collected in GE’s Centricity EMR system to send to the CDC. The advantage of this system is that GE is able to leverage the medical data that they are already collecting on an estimated 14 million patients. The obvious disadvantage is that their system is specifically limited to data from hospitals and clinics that are already using GE’s system for their EMR.

For the past few years, Pangaea Information Technologies has been working on a project in collaboration with Rush University Medical Center called GUARDIAN (Geographic Utilization of Artificial Intelligence in Real-Time for Disease Identification and Notification) which takes a different approach to solving this problem. Like GE’s system, GUARDIAN is currently generating daily reports on likely and confirmed H1N1 cases. However, the GUARDIAN system is not tied to a particular EMR. During its development, GUARDIAN has interfaced with EMRs from EPIC, Picis and Cerner using the industry-standard HL7 messaging protocol.

GUARDIAN uses a variety of techniques — from simple code lookup-tables to advanced natural-language processing algorithms — to transform and standardize these disparate data sources into a relational, hierarchical data structure that is optimized for infectious disease modeling. Additionally, GUARDIAN has a flexible and modular architecture in addition to a real-time web-based user interface. This allows GUARDIAN to be used for monitoring of any set of infectious diseases in real-time (in addition to the daily and weekly summary reports that it generates).

GE’s contribution to the CDC’s H1N1 surveillance is a major improvement over the analysis of 2-week-old data that they were previously limited to. However, we at Pangaea believe that the ability to interface with any medical record system and the flexibility to quickly add/update disease-modeling profiles will make the GUARDIAN system a more powerful and useful biosurveillance system for the next major outbreak.

The Parsons and Pangaea team were awarded a contract to develop the next version of the Range...

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0500

The Parsons and Pangaea team were awarded a contract to develop the next version of the Range Complex Master Planning Tool (RCMP-T) for the U.S. Army under the Parsons U.S. Army Sustainable Range Program (SRP) contract. The RCMP-T is a web based application that serves the SRP community by providing installations a capability of developing, staffing, and publishing a comprehensive Range Complex Master Plan (RCMP) for their respective installations and/or areas of responsibility. An RCMP is a requirement of AR 350-19, The Sustainable Range Program. The RCMP is a detailed master plan for an installation and/or area of responsibility covering current and projected live fire and non-live ranges, special training facilities, training areas, and the infrastructure required to support SRP’s planning efforts.

Pangaea was awarded a contract under a grant with Rush University Medical Center from the U.S....

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0500

Pangaea was awarded a contract under a grant with Rush University Medical Center from the U.S. Army Medical Research and ACQ Activity, Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center to continue the development for GUARDIAN (Geographic Utilization of Artificial Intelligence in Real-Time for Disease Identification and Notification). GUARDIAN is a real-time, scalable, extensible, automated, knowledge-based biological threat agent (BTA) detection and diagnosis system. The purpose of GUARDIAN is to conduct rapid analysis of multiple parameters contained in medical records collected by hospital emergency departments in real time in order to detect probable specific disease occurrence. The goal of this system is to assist clinicians in detecting potential BTAs as quickly and effectively as possible based on pre-diagnostic data in order to better respond to and mitigate the potential effects of a large-scale outbreak.

Pangaea was awarded a contract to develop the Joint Incident Command System (JICS) from the...

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0500

Pangaea was awarded a contract to develop the Joint Incident Command System (JICS) from the Illinois Army National Guard 5th WMD Civil Support Team under a partnership with Rush University Medical Center. The JICS application is a data acquisition, analysis, management, and reporting tool that enables and assists first response managers, clinicians, and consequence management personnel in their decision making process regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) incidents within the state of Illinois. The objective of this application is to enhance the decision making process of personnel at all levels of WMD response and management by integrating multi-agency health and science information in real time while implementing the basis for a data repository, management and reporting system relevant to WMD response.

Please visit Pangaea at Booth # 23 (with our partners, Pinnacle Mapping Technologies, Inc.) at...

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0500

Please visit Pangaea at Booth # 23 (with our partners, Pinnacle Mapping Technologies, Inc.) at the 2009 U.S. Army Sustainable Range Program (SRP) Workshop in Indianapolis, IN, 6-10 July 2008. Pangaea will be delivering a presentation on the U.S. Army SRP Remote Sensing Center concept on Monday July 6 at 9:00 AM in Room 209. The SRP Workshop is a forum for the scientific exchange of technologies, ideas, experiences and lessons learned that relate to the application of sustainable management of military training and testing lands to support the Army’s mission readiness.

Pangaea would like to welcome Mr. Cory Kozielski to the Pangaea team. Mr. Kozielski recently joined...

Sun, 01 Feb 2009 00:00:00 -0600

Pangaea would like to welcome Mr. Cory Kozielski to the Pangaea team. Mr. Kozielski recently joined Pangaea as a Senior Military Analyst and RTLP SME. Prior to joining Pangaea, Mr. Kozielski served his country for over 20 years as a decorated, battle tested Operations Sergeant major and Battalion Master Gunner. His responsibilities included planning, coordinating, and monitoring all training for Transition Teams conducting a 60 day pre-deployment training sequence; simultaneous training of up to 600 soldiers on 24 Transition Teams assigned to the Battalion per 60 day cycle in support of Coalition Forces Land Component Command (CFLCC). Mr. Kozielski wrote and implemented an SOP for his Battalion that was adopted by the entire Brigade (BDE) as the standard for all Live Fire Training. He wrote and designed the Program of Instruction (POI) for the Mounted Combat Patrol (MCP) for the Fort Riley Training Mission utilized by the entire Brigade. He planned and oversaw all associated live fire training within the battalion. Mr. Kozielski also has extensive experience in resource management and soldier safety. Mr. Kozielski is the recipient of numerous awards and medals including the Joseph M. Hibbs Award which awarded to the most outstanding Instructor at the U.S. Armor Center, FT. Knox, KY.

Pangaea is pleased to announce that Bill Simons has joined Pangaea as a Senior Analyst/Subject...

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0600

Pangaea is pleased to announce that Bill Simons has joined Pangaea as a Senior Analyst/Subject Matter Expert. Mr. Simons recently retired from 20 years of distinguished military service as the U.S. Army Master Gunner and Senior NCO. Mr. Simons has over 20 years experience in the US Army in progressively challenging command and staff positions. He is a recognized Army Trainer, doctrine developer, combat proven troop leader, and a program manager. Mr. Simons holds a B.A. in Management from American Military University and is currently pursuing a Masters in Public Administration. Pangaea is proud to have Mr. Simons as a member of their team.