WV Executive

West Virginia’s mountains and valleys are full of endless surprises. Wildlife roams freely through our forests, adventurous recreation awaits at every turn and the beauty of the changing seasons draws tourists from all over to experience the wonder of our spring and autumn colors. West Virginia’s workforce and work ethic is unmatched. The entrepreneurial spirit in the Mountain State is endless and unhindered by the current recession.

Our natural resources are fueling and powering other states and even other countries. We are primed and ready for new businesses and we are looking to the future with a positive attitude.

Our potential doesn’t top out with tourism and energy, though. The technology sector in the Mountain State has proven to be a vital part of the state’s economy. From NASA to the Department of Defense, from biometrics and homeland security to 3-D visualization and simulation, the warfighter, the astronaut and the environment are only a few of the many who are benefiting from the work taking place in West Virginia’s technology industry.

A Technology Free-For-All
The Mock Prison Riot is a program of the National Institute of Justice, United States Department of Justice and an initiative of the West Virginia High Technology Consortium Foundation.

The Mock Prison Riot is a four-day, comprehensive law enforcement and corrections tactical and technology experience held every spring at the decommissioned West Virginia Penitentiary in Moundsville. The event includes 44,000 square feet of exhibit space, tactical training scenarios, technology demonstrations, technology assessments and evaluations, certification workshops, a skills competition and multiple opportunities for feedback, networking and camaraderie on a global scale.

The Mock Prison Riot is the only venue of its kind where law enforcement and corrections practitioners can touch, see and actually deploy technologies from the showcase under real-world conditions, utilizing the grounds of the penitentiary to maximum advantage. Mock Prison Riot services are offered at no charge to attendees.

Technology developers interact with law enforcement and corrections practitioners on every level, from actually deploying technologies from the showcase in tactical training scenarios throughout penitentiary grounds to dynamic and interactive technology demonstrations. Communication is critical and guaranteed. Candid feedback and suggestions for improvements from end-users and subsequent modifications are what help shape the future of technologies and tactics in the law enforcement and corrections industry, saving technologists time and money in the product development process. In turn, practitioners have direct input regarding the development of the tools they need to safely and effectively perform their jobs. Ultimately, the goal is to bring better, safer and more affordable technologies to the marketplace.

Law enforcement and corrections practitioners and technology developers come from all over the country and the world for this one-of-a-kind event. For more information, visit www.mockprisonriot.org. The next Mock Prison Riot is scheduled for May 2010.

Cyberinfrastructure Technology Comes to Cabell County
The Visualization Lab at Marshall University, known as VISE (Virtual Interactive Simulation Environment), has become a significant resource for the business community in Huntington. Established by the Center for Environmental, Geotechnical and Applied Sciences, VISE provides a variety of services that include content creation, programming, hosting and training to support the application of 3-D visualization and virtual worlds in areas of simulation, training, conferencing, social networking and the arts. Visualization takes advantage of the human eye’s broad bandwidth into the mind that allows users to see, explore and understand large amounts of data/information in a moment’s time.

The primary objective of VISE was initially to create an effective environment for mine safety training without the hazards and expense of a real mine or emergency situations. With highly accessible, enabling and emerging technologies, VISE blends virtual and real worlds into an immersive interactive environment for a rich variety of applications in industry, education and government. One of the state-of-the-art features of the lab is its video-based motion tracking system from Organic Motion that requires no markers, special patterns or other sensors. Organic Motion technology captures the full 3-D skeletal motion of a person in real-time which can then be used to animate an avatar, navigate a scene or control other elements in a virtual environment.

VISE is exploring other virtual world platforms with improved physics simulation, higher-definition graphics and better integration with conventional content creation tools. The lab is also assessing a variety of panoramic and 3-D capture (scanning) technologies to help replicate real scenes and structures in virtual environments.

Visualization is a key technological component of the cyberinfrastructure being developed at Marshall University and provides researchers with powerful new tools and capabilities that will improve scholarly productivity and enable knowledge breakthroughs and discoveries not otherwise possible. VISE is continually exploring opportunities to work with university faculty, staff and students to incorporate this technology into courses, student projects, research and campus events.

Keeping Children Safe
When the West Virginia High Technology Consortium Foundation announced that the AmberView program used for locating missing children would be discontinued, parents and public servants across West Virginia voiced their concern that the state’s children would lose a valuable line of protection. In response, SecurLinx, a Morgantown-based firm who acted as an advisor and technology partner to the AmberView program, stepped up to offer an improved alternative called AmberVision to communities that wanted to continue their use of the critical product.

“In every missing child case, time is the critical factor in a successful outcome,” says Barry Hodge, SecurLinx CEO. “Distributing the right information and a photo through as many outlets as quickly as possible improves the odds for a safe recovery and the return of the child to their family. We designed and developed AmberVision to achieve that goal.”

SecurLinx’s AmberVision product is an online service available nationwide that provides all the functionality of AmberView but lessens the burden on West Virginia’s schools while bringing powerful new tools to bear in the event that a child goes missing.

Working with schools, parents and law enforcement, AmberVision provides secure and structured username and password access so that AMBER Alert coordinators can issue an AMBER Alert for an enrolled child within minutes to all law enforcement agencies, media outlets and the general public. The data is also accessible to parents, guardians and local law enforcement authorities in missing person situations not rising to the level of an AMBER Alert. Both AMBER Alert coordinators and local law enforcement can build notification lists to distribute alerts. In all cases, the information is secure and totally controlled by parents and guardians.

In areas where schools agree to participate in AmberVision, local police receive free facial recognition technology that uses smart phones and in-car computers, 3-D face-rendering technology and a secure infrastructure enabling rapid communication with other law enforcement organizations, the media and the public at large.

The program costs parents $11.99 per year and enrollment is available at www.ambervision.org. Schools that support AmberVision receive half of all revenues and the police in their area receive free software and are trained to use the system. “In recognition of the special role West Virginia’s dedicated public servants and educators have played in the development of AmberVision, we are offering the program through West Virginia schools free of charge this school year,” says Hodge. “In future years, subsidized school children will continue to be eligible for free enrollment in AmberVision.”

The benefits offered by AmberVision extend beyond missing child cases. People of any age can enroll in AmberVision, making it a powerful tool in addressing West Virginia’s recently-enacted Silver Alert statute dealing with elderly missing persons that may be suffering the effects of dementia or Alzheimer’s disease.

FMW's SLIC is Astronaut-Approved
Each time astronauts upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), the new equipment rides to orbit on specialized pallets called carriers. The Super Lightweight Interchangeable Carrier (SLIC) is a new breed of equipment carrier that will allow the space shuttle to transport a full complement of scientific instruments and other components to Hubble. The last successful shuttle mission to Hubble in 2009 was also the first mission for SLIC.

What does this mean for West Virginia?

A big pat on the back, given that the SLIC used in the mission was manufactured at FMW Composite Systems in Bridgeport.

FMW, headquartered in the Mid Atlantic Aerospace Complex in Bridgeport with a second manufacturing facility in Preston County, is a leading provider of composite engineering and manufacturing services. FMW teamed with other companies and utilized the services and equipment at the Robert C. Byrd Institute to make this project successful.

Carriers like SLIC cradle Hubble’s new cargo in the space shuttle’s payload bay, protecting it from the stress of launch and the trip to orbit. They also serve as temporary parking places for hardware during spacewalks. Once the mission is complete, they provide storage space and protection for the old equipment’s journey back to Earth. At the 2009 Teaming To Win Conference, guest speaker Astronaut John Grumsfeld detailed the benefits of the composite carrier to the last mission and how it helped him and the entire crew by carrying more tools and equipment to service Hubble.

The carrier pallets currently used by NASA in space shuttle flights are typically made of aluminum honeycomb and face sheets and weigh between 3,000 and 4,500 pounds per pallet. The new lightweight composite structure is 1,700 pounds and compatible with all Hubble carrier avionics while the honeycomb surface can accommodate various payloads using post-bonded inserts. The goal of the SLIC is to show how advanced composite materials can be used to shave 1,000 pounds or more off the weight of a traditional pallet. This technology will save money and missions while allowing astronauts to carry more equipment to allow for further change-outs and upgrades.

Made of carbon fiber with a cyanate ester resin and a titanium metal matrix composite, SLIC is the first all-composite carrier to fly on the shuttle. FMW’s opportunity to support NASA in the HST Program has created new opportunities for West Virginia and has allowed the introduction of new space age material technologies that are important to the state, the nation and our science communities.

Polymer Production Seeks Alternative Materials
Modern technology and culture have become increasingly dependent on plastics for their outstanding range of uses, such as bottles and food packaging, building materials and automotive and aircraft components. The Mid-Atlantic Technology, Research and Innovation Center (MATRIC) has been active in developing new technologies that hold promise for the continued success of the plastics industry.

The two common problems with plastics are the increasing cost of petroleum, which is the source of most plastics, and the concern over the accumulation of these materials in the environment, including landfills and the ocean. MATRIC is attacking these problems on two fronts: inventing new routes to polymers based on renewable raw materials and improving technology for the production of polymers that degrade in the environment. Biomass-based raw materials can be significantly less expensive than petroleum, and polymers made from these raw materials are often more readily biodegradable than conventional plastics.

One approach to producing polymers from renewable raw materials involves breaking down natural materials into smaller components, modifying them and then joining them to form a polymer product with the desired properties. As an example, starch can be broken down into sugar. Fermentation of the sugar can produce a variety of products, depending on the specific yeast or bacterial organism used, but one notable target is lactic acid. Polymerization of lactic acid yields polylactic acid (PLA), a clear biodegradable plastic with increasing demand for food packaging applications. MATRIC has worked with a commercial PLA producer to improve their productivity and recover additional value from their processes. MATRIC is working with another company to commercialize technology based on fermentation-derived succinic acid, a chemical building block with many potential polymer applications.

Sugars can also be converted to useful polymer precursors (monomers) by chemical conversion processes. MATRIC has worked with the Iowa Corn Promotion Board and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to develop technology for converting corn sugar into isosorbide, a monomer that has considerable promise for creating polymers with improved performance. This product could replace a substantial quantity of petroleum-derived monomers.

Through these activities, MATRIC is seeking to bring improved technology and materials from laboratory concepts to commercial reality. The consumer, the producer and the environment will all benefit from these advances.

Creating Clean Water
NGInnovations (NGI) was founded in 2006 as a green technology company dedicated to developing leading-edge priority technology solutions and enabling water used or produced in the oil, gas and mining industry to be processed for reuse or returned to the environment in an acceptable manner. Two of the NGI-developed technologies available for use today are the NGPure Recovery Unit, used in high total dissolved (TDS) water like that found in the Marcellus Shale, and the NGPure Separation Unit, which is used in lower TDS water common to more shallow drilled wells and ponds.

When drilling for natural gas in the Marcellus Shale began five years ago, NGI realized it must focus its efforts on developing solutions to remediate contaminated fluids by processing large amounts of water that are used in and produced from drilling activity. The mining industry is encountering intense scrutiny on their handling of water associated with industry activities and NGI’s NGPure technology can assist in rectifying this problem.

Over the last few years, deep natural gas shale plays drilling in some areas of the country have created a concern about the availability of water that can be used both domestically and in the ongoing exploration for oil and natural gas drilling to include well fracturing operations. Drilling of the shell plays throughout the nation has demonstrated that the volume of needed water has risen to more than 6 billion gallons of water yearly and appears to be expanding.

NGI’s one founding goal was to create environmentally acceptable leading-edge proprietary technologies addressing water solutions for the oil, natural gas and mining industry, as well as many other domestic and industrial users. NGI’s developed technologies are the “NGPureTM Recovery Unit,” which is used for extremely high TDS concentrations of water contaminates, and the “NGPureTM Separation Unit,” which is used in the lower TDS levels of contamination. Both units allow the quick reuse of water required for drilling and/or fracturing well activities and the treatment of coal mine water for the washing of coal in preparation plants, including cleanup of water ponds discharging into local streams. The NGI cutting-edge technology addresses the issues that have recently been captured in news headlines and is presently being used to assist in the remediation of some of the present issues involving contamination streams.

NGI has submitted for U.S. and world patents, demonstrating several methods for the process treatment of contaminated water that would allow the water’s reuse in the various industrial and domestic purposes.

NGPureTM Recovery Unit has created additional markets for produced by-products, such as salt and heavy salt brine, that can be used for industrial uses. NGPureTM Separation and Recovery Units have been designed in such a matter that they may be either portable or fixed facilities to address the required volumes of the user.