Science of Survival: Tiny Quakes Reveal Deadly Patterns
	Ariel Way Acquires GovBuys
	Open Standards Consortium Teams Up With CoreNet Global

Long before an earthquake and tsunami struck Japan with catastrophic force on March 11, killing 13,000 people and causing $300 billion in damage, scientists at the California Institute of Technology were laboring to find clues that could serve as early warnings to predict when earthquakes will occur and thereby reduce the loss of life.

Wenzheng Yang, a post doctoral scholar in geophysics at Cal Tech in Pasadena, Calif., is among the group of international scientists striving to find answers that could ultimately help to save office towers, apartment mid-rises and other buildings, and the human beings who work and live in them. He studies tiny quakes that occur along the fault lines of California’s coast, tracking data from sensors placed miles away from population centers, where human movement and noise could taint the collected data.

“People in Southern California that have real estate may be on the fault or not. People want to know the potential seismic hazard here,” says Yang. “My research is about studying small earthquakes. Micro earthquakes. The earthquake in Japan, magnitude 9, that’s like one seismic event for a thousand years.”

In a person’s lifetime, he or she may experience or hear of such a major quake just once or twice. Because they occur so infrequently, it’s very difficult to gather data about the large quakes, says Yang. Meanwhile, thousands of small quakes occur every year, although people cannot feel them. “In Pasadena, the smallest quake that people can feel is a magnitude 3. But there are nearly 1,000 magnitude 1 earthquakes in the same area each year.”

Many small quakes occur on any given day. This morning, a magnitude 2.5 quake was recorded a mile from Ocotillo, in Southern California, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Another quake, magnitude 2.2, struck three miles from Malibu, according to USGS.

Those small quakes are fertile with information, and researchers use seismometers to study them and gather data. “There is a relationship between a large earthquake and a very small earthquake which is very, very important for us to explore — the chance that a large earthquake could occur in this area,” says Yang.

Some 300 seismometers placed from Southern to mid-California track the micro quakes and feed data to Cal Tech’s Seismological Laboratory. “Usually, we put the seismometer in a remote area or on a mountain, close to bedrock,” says Yang. If the area becomes more active, the researchers expect an increase in activity of larger earthquakes, too.

Ariel Way, a Florida technology, communications and services company, has purchased Bethesda, Md.-based Government-Buys, a company that specializes in facilitating transactions between government agencies and industry partners and contractors.

“Gary Block, the founder of GovBuys, and his team have built an impressive operation which specializes in providing telecommunications and IT products and services to government agencies, industry partners and contractors,” said Arne Dunhem, chairman, president and CEO of Ariel Way.

“The market size of the federal government business alone is over $16 billion per year,” says Dunhem. GovBuys also has established strong ties in the health care industry. “Gary will continue as a key member of our government team," Dunhem noted.

"GovBuys is very strategic to us, and we believe we can grow rapidly through the opportunities that GovBuys presents with new customers and contracts. GovBuys revenues the last few years have been between $5.5 million and $9.9 million.”

The Open Standards Consortium for Real Estate (OSCRE) has signed an agreement with CoreNet Global to advance the use of technology to benefit the commercial real estate industry and each organization’s members.

The two groups plan to become better acquainted with each other’s goals and to use their membership expertise to deliver best practices in using technology and in sharing data.

OSCRE and CoreNet Global will collaborate and coordinate their research and development efforts in order ensure that standards are reached and maintained in their areas, according to the groups.

CoreNet Global has long been committed to standardized data use for corporate real estate, says Richard Kadzis, vice president of strategic communications at CoreNet Global. “Real estate information technology that integrates with the enterprise is now more critical than ever with more complex lease accounting standards taking shape, so OSCRE’s mission has never been more important in this regard.”