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AI Predicts Manhole Explosions In New York City
reillymj writes "Every so often, a 300-pound manhole cover blows sky high in Gotham, followed sometimes by a column of flame and smoke. (There are a few hundred 'manhole incidents' per year in the city, not all of them this dramatic.) Researchers from Columbia University applied machine learning algorithms to Con Edison's warren of aging electrical wires and sewage access points around Manhattan. As the system learns where dangerous mixtures of sewer gas and decrepit wiring are likely to come in contact, it makes forecasts about trouble spots, including where the next explosion may occur. The team has just completed rankings for manholes in Brooklyn and the Bronx, and plans to return to Manhattan's grid, armed with the most recent inspection and repair data." The research was published in the July issue of Machine Learning.
I thought those manhole popping incidents were due to the heavy microwave emitter vaporizing the water?
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
I wonder if anybody has ever died from being hit on the head with one of these, seems it is likely. Shouldn't there be a way to secure the covers to the ground with a bolt that would at least cause the cover to not fly up but just turn over in case of an explosion?
You can't handle the truth.
I predict massive manhole manhole cover blowouts and big explosions anywhere within a mile radius of the next Michael Bay movie.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
The skyline and culture for Gotham always seemed more like New York City. wikipedia also identifies Gotham City with NYC: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotham_City#Origin_of_name
Metropolis, meanwhile, appeared Midwestern in the early comics, although wikipedia claims that they haven't been consistent: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis_(comics)
New York is Metropolis.
Chicago is Gotham.
Gotham is New York. This is a popular name for the city that dates from the Nineteenth Century (Washington Irving in 1807 to be precise).
The association with Bat Man is due to a DC writer's decision to invoke this nickname of the actual city of New York to evoke its essence in the fictional city.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Southern California Edison requires two ventilating pylons for each manhole. They are much bigger than you might expect, and need to be spaced apart. It greatly increases planning complexity.
Methane build-up is only one cause though. Venting that causes ...odors... that people tend to not want to be near. The more common cause is failure of oil-filled equipment ranging from link switches to transformers to oil-insulated cables. When these go you need someplace for the explosion to expand to... or you will destroy everything in the manhole.
This is an interesting solution to the problem, but I have trouble understanding how it is more effective than root-cause analysis and post-incident review of data they already have. It isn't like the combination of factors is the problem... more like aging and over-burdened equipment that should already be on a predictive-maintenance plan.
One time I witnessed one of these explosions in Boston, and let me tell you, it's quite impressive! It was a hot August day and I was standing about 20 ft away from it, when out of nowhere, BOOMBOOMBOOM! There were actually a series of explosions that knocked the manhole cover a foot or two in the air each time, and each time the cover came back down perfectly on the hole, as if nothing ever happened. There was a college kid who was even closer to it than I was. He was just a few feet away when it happened and I could see that it shook him up pretty badly.
I asked the workman who was there a short time later what exactly had happened and he said a transformer had blown.
but can it predict whether it lands heads or tails?
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Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
An investment in repairing decaying infrastructure and even putting in new infrastructure is not a zero sum game. Let the infrastructure decay long enough and you will no longer be able to support industry and commerce, leading to an exponential rate of decay. Meanwhile, working laborers will be able to afford to consume and increase the growth of industry and commerce.
The New deal gave us a national network of interstates, bridges and highways that have dramatically increased the productivity of the nation as a whole for the last 50 years. These were only designed to last about 50 years. Now after 30+ years of neglect and decay they are falling apart. Now more than ever, we need a reinvestment in national infrastructure. I am not talking about just roads and bridges; but power, water and information distribution systems as well.
Con Edison blind-tested the team’s model by withholding information on a recent set of fires and explosions. The top 2 percent of manholes ranked as vulnerable by the algorithm included 11 percent of the manholes that had recently had a fire or explosion, Rudin notes.
According to the article, there are about 51,000 manholes in New York. A few hundred explosions occur every year. (Lets say 300). So the algorithm listed (51,000*.02)=1020 manholes that were high risk. Out of that 1020 manholes, they were correct on (300*.11)=33 manholes.
In my industry, we would call this a complete failure. Even the weather forecaster would call this a failure. It reminds me of Demolition Man
Chief George Earle: We can just wait for another code to go red. And when Phoenix performs another Murder Death Kill, we'll know exactly where to pounce.
John Spartan: [sarcastic] Great plan.
Chief George Earle: [not realising the sarcasm] Thank you.
Erwin: He likes your plan, Chief!
...err, foreigners. Don't use words like "manhole" in headlines. My native tongue isn't English, and you don't want to know what kind of associations comes to a foreign mind while reading the word "manhole".
On second thought, let's not go to Camelot. It is a silly place.