security label

May 9, 2012—Managers at the Killure Bridge Nursing Home, located in Waterford, Ireland, strive to make their residence a place where its inhabitants—some of whom have dementia—can feel free to walk around the facility without a risk to their safety. The nursing home, built in 2004, utilized a nurse-call system to send messages to staff members, but wanted real-time locating functionality that would provide employees with a view of every occupant’s location, and that would issue an immediate alert in the event that a resident wandered away. The solution—consisting of Ekahau RFID tags and real-time location system (RTLS) software, as well as Motorola Solutions Wi-Fi access points—and was installed by Dimension Network Systems, a Dublin systems integration company.

About 10 of the nursing home’s 79 residents suffer from dementia, says Mary Burke, Killure Bridge Nursing Home’s director of care, and occasionally wander through the doors. Therefore, to ensure the residents’ safety, workers regularly walked through the facility searching for individuals at risk of wandering. The concern, she says, was that staff members could spend time looking for someone inside the facility who had actually slipped out the door and could be in harm’s way. The nursing home thus sought a solution that could sound an alarm before such an incident could occur. Such a system would not only increase safety, Burke says, but also save time that the staff previously spent walking throughout the building searching for residents. “We have three or four people who are very high-risk,” she states. “If I haven’t seen them for an hour or so, I often want to do a check.”

In addition, the facility wanted to be able to track its own staff—for example, locating a particular nurse or other employee—and allow workers to find Burke when necessary.

The Ekahau system that Dimension Network Systems provided, in November 2011, consists of 10 T301BD badge tags for staff members and 10 T301W wristband tags for residents. Each of the 20 tags transmits an ID number at regular intervals via a Wi-Fi connection, to multiple Wi-Fi access points connected to a Motorola RFS6000 wireless local area network (LAN) switch, and installed throughout the facility by Dimension Network Systems. Ekahau’s Positioning Engine software calculates the tag’s location based on the data received by the Wi-Fi nodes. Ekahau Vision software then manages the read data, linking a tag’s ID number with the individual who has that tag, and determining when an alert may need to be triggered, explains Siobhan Stynes, Dimension Network Systems’ director. Throughout the day, the software also stores each person’s location history.

Eon, Germany’s largest utility, said lower gas purchasing costs and higher returns from its Russian power plants in the first quarter more than offset the adverse effect of lower electricity prices in Europe and Germany’s nuclear shutdown.

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (ebitda) crept up 9 per cent to €3.8bn in the first three months of the year, while revenues jumped 28 per cent to €35.7bn, in part because of higher energy-trading volumes.

Eon saw its bottom line battered last year by Germany’s volte-face in nuclear-energy policy, a move that saw the Düsseldorf-based group redouble its efforts to seek new growth outside Germany and its other traditional European markets.

With underlying net income, adjusted for one-off effects, up 27 per cent at €1.7bn, Eon said it had cleared the worst effects of Germany’s accelerated nuclear phase out, announced after the nuclear disaster in Japan in March of last year.

“We’re now past the worst,” said Marcus Schenck, chief financial officer, about Berlin’s decisions to shut down eight of 19 nuclear reactors last year and bring forward the closure of the country’s last nuclear power station from 2036 to 2022.

But he added Eon still needed to be “resolute about meeting our current challenges” and implement “the changes we’ve initiated” – including the sale of assets such as gas pipeline unit Open Grid Europe and cutting up to 11,000 of 80,000 jobs.

The unexpected closure of some of Germany’s nuclear plants and lower electricity use on the back of an economic slump in Europe lowered ebitda by around €250m, Eon said, although these effects were more than compensated elsewhere.

Eon’s success in renegotiating expensive gas-supply contracts raised ebitda by €340m, while an increase in generating capacity in Russia, where Eon operates a string of power plants, raised underlying profit there 30 per cent to €200m.

As a result, Eon confirmed its outlook for the year, with ebitda expected to fall into the €9.6bn-€10.2bn range, and underlying net profit expected to hit between €2.3bn and €2.7bn.

Both metrics would also rise in 2013, the company said.