Property:Milestone Distinguishing Features
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What features set this work apart from similar achievements? Milestones must be unique and distinguished from other similar things that have been achieved. This property has the type text
Pages using the property "Milestone Distinguishing Features"
Showing 24 pages using this property.
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| Krka – Šibenik Electric Power System + | Ganz & Co had previously built an alternator in Rome Tivoli (A1) - a single-phase generator which remained in operation for a limited time. The Power Plant Jaruga 1 (in the Krka-Šibenik system) held Ganz's first multi-phase generator (A2). Furthermore, the Krka-Šibenik system was unique in many ways. Several Zipernowsky, Bláthy and Déri (who, at the time, all worked for Ganz) inventions were first used in Šibenik: ZBD transformers, Blathy watt-meters, etc. The transmission line was also quite interesting. Built on wooden poles it had 6 wires: 4 power conductors (double two-phase line) and a communication (telephone) line. As the power system was set to operation on the night of 28 August 1895, the telephone line (on the transmission poles) was used for communication between the |
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| LORAN + | Loran is a hyperbolic system of navigation by which difference in distance from two points on shore is determined by measurement of the time interval between receptions of pulse- modulated synchronized signals from transmitters at the two points. Both ground waves and sky waves can be used to provide coverage over an extensive area with few stations, depending on design frequencies. An important advantage of loran at the time of its development during World War 2 was that a ship could use loran without breaking radio silence. Loran transmitting stations work in pairs. Synchronization is achieved by letting the signals of the master station, control those of the slave station. To help overcome the disadvantage of requiring two transmitting stations for a single family of hyperbolic lines of positions, loran forms a chain of stations, so that each station except the end ones operate with the station on either side to form an intersecting lattice of position lines. To find his way, a loran navigator on a ship had to be trained, have a loran receiver-indicator, and a set of loran nautical charts or loran tables. Standard loran was initially developed primarily for navigation over water. It was also used for air-borne navigation. [[Image:Loran chart.png|center]] Today's loran operates on one of several frequencies between1700 and 2000 kHz. It enjoys propagation characteristics determined primarily by soil conductivity and ionosphere conditions. Both ground wave and sky waves can be used to provide coverage over an extensive area with few stations. Usually, stations of a pair are located 200 to 400 miles or more. At one time, 1000 to 1400 miles apart separated several station pairs. Transmitters now in use radiate about 100kw and give a ground-wave range over seawater of about 700 nautical miles in the daytime. The daytime range over land is seldom more than 250 miles even for high-flying aircraft and is scarcely 100miles at the surface of the earth. At night the ground-wave range oversea water is reduced to about 500 miles by the increase in atmospheric noise, but sky waves, which are almost completely absorbed by day, become effective and increase the reliable night range to about 1400miles. Generally, a number of stations are located so as to form a chain, with all but the end station in the group being double pulsing. In most parts of the world, signals can be received from at least two pairs of stations making it possible for a mariner to determine a fix using loran alone. [[Media:Pierce Loran.pdf|A full and complete description of the evolution of loran is provided in the attached article by JA Pierce entitled "An Introduction to Loran"]] |
| Line spectrum pair (LSP), an essential technology for high-compression speech coding, 1975 + | It is possible to transmit prediction coefficients directly. Quantizing predictive coefficients, however, needs many bits for maintaining the LPC spectral shape. It is also difficult to avoid the risk of instability of the coding system. Partial auto correlation (PARCOR), invented by Dr. F. Itakura and Dr. S. Saito in 1972, enables an easy stability check but still needs many bits of quantization to maintain the LPC spectral shape. It is possible to reduce bit consumption for quantizing PARCOR by applying adaptive bit allocation and variable length coding schemes. Both schemes are, however, extremely sensitive to transmission channel errors. LSP, an alternative representation technology for prediction coefficients, was invented by Dr. F. Itakura in 1975 [2]. It enables a simple stability check and can maintain the LPC spectrum shape with around 30% less bit consumption than PARCOR, even without using adaptive bit allocation or the variable length coding schemes [3] – [7]. This is because the quantization distortion of LSP has smaller and more natural influences on LPC spectral shape than PARCOR. Thus, small LPC spectral distortion is achieved by efficient coding of LSP in combination with prediction, interpolation, and vector quantization. |
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| Mainline Electrification of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, 1895 + | All prior application of electric power to rail operation involved the use of street railways, elevated lines (Chicago), subways (London), or was limited to the movement of freight cars at slow speeds over street railway or privately-owned spur trackage to industrial plants located thereon. |
| Marconi First Wireless Experiments, 1894-1895 + | Marconi's first experiments in wireless telegraphy were aimed at communicating without wires at increasing ranges. With this goal, he took the instruments that were being used for important experiments on electromagnetic waves in different universities out of the laboratory, in order to overcome natural obstacles. In the garden of his fathers villa, he was finally able to overcome the Celestini hill, at a distance of about 2 km. His use of the grounded antenna and of a very sensitive coherer were two crucial elements for the accomplishment. |
| Mark 1 Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (ASCC) by Howard Aiken and IBM + | The Mark 1 was unique. |
| Mercury Spacecraft MA-6 + | Col Glenn's flight was the second manned orbital spaceflight. The first was USSR Yuri Gargarin's orbital spaceflight. However, Glenn's space flight was set apart by the electrical and electronic systems invented by the MAC engineers, some being members of IRE and then subsequently IEEE. Its systems epitomize the field of interest of the IEEE Aerospace and Electronics Systems Society. Project Mercury's electronics included Navigation and control instruments; auto pilot; rate stabilization and control, manual proportional control system and Fly-By-Wire (FBW)manual-electrical system. The FBW manual-electrical systems proved critical to Friendship 7's mission success because a yaw attitude control jet apparently clogged at the end of the first orbit, forcing astronaut Glenn to abandon the automatic control system for the manual-electrical fly-by-wire system. (ref http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/history/mercury/ma-6/ma-6.html) |
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| Pearl Street Station + | The Pearl Street Station was a seminal event which precludes similar achievements. |
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| RAMAN EFFECT + | Sir C. V. Raman was a remarkable personality in science. His sixty seven years of scientific life was filled to the brim of which twenty six years he worked at Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS), Calcutta - the golden era described by Professor Raman. During the period he not only did pioneering work in the different branches of Physics including the well-known scattering of light but also he was the founder of a school of Physics by attracting a band of devoted and brilliant workers from different parts of the country. Professor Raman was awarded the coveted Nobel Prize for the effect named after him [1-10] in 1930. Working at IACS he discovered that when a beam of coloured light entered a liquid, a fraction of the light scattered by that liquid was of different colour. He then showed that the nature of the coloured scattered light was dependent on the type of the sample present. In his 1930 Nobel lecture [11] he remarked “… the character of the scattered radiation enable us to obtain an insight into the ultimate structure of the scattering substance….the new field of spectroscopy has unrestricted scope in the problems, relating to structure of matter. We may also hope that it will lead us to a further understanding of the nature of light and interaction between light and matter”. The Raman Effect is a major piece of evidence in favor of the quantum theory. The universality of phenomenon and the advent of laser have made Raman spectroscopy the basic tool in most branches of science and medicine. The Raman Effect is a fundamental nonlinear phenomenon of interest in engineering, nonlinear physics, and applied mathematics, and it may lead to important practical applications as well as to the progress of fundamental nonlinear science. The applications of Raman technologies may be mentioned; such as frequency conversion, the design and development of novel approaches, like the implementation of long distance quasi-lossless transmission schemes, fundamental aspects of nonlinear optics, the interaction of the Raman effect with parametric processes like Four-wave mixing, and how this can be controlled to increase the efficiency of supercontinuum radiation generation. The possibility of shifting energy from one frequency to another using the inherent properties of the material is a very attractive one, and in the field of optical communications it finds its most immediate application in the development of Raman amplifiers. References: 1) C. V. Raman, Molecular Diffraction of Light, University of Calcutta, 1922 2) C. V. Raman and K. S. Krishnan, Nature, 121, (1928) 501-502 3) C. V. Raman, Nature, 121, (1928) 619 4) C. V. Raman and K. S. Krishnan, Nature, 121, (1928) 711 5) C. V. Raman, Indian J. Phys. , 2, (1928) 387-398 6) A. S. Ganesan, Indian J. Phys., 4, (1929-30) 281-348 7) S. Bhagavantam, Indian J. Phys., 5, (1930) 236-307 8) C. V. Raman and K. S. Krishnan, Indian J. Phys., 2, (1928) 399-419 9) C. V. Raman and K. S. Krishnan, Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond., A 122, (1929) 23-35 10) K. W. F. Kohlrausch, Der Smekel-Raman Effekt, Verlag von Julius Springer, Berlin, 1931 11) Nobel Lectures in Physics, 1922-1941, Elsevier Publishing Company; New York, (1965), 263-277 |
| Rincon del Bonete Hydroelectric Plant and Transmission System + | It was the biggest and most ambitious project in the History of the country, and of paramount social and economic significance, given the complete lack of fossil fuels in the country. The big reservoir was at the time (and for many years) the biggest artificial lake in Latin-America, almost 1% of the surface of the whole country! Technologically speaking, the uruguayan engineers that were investigating, working, and buying the necessary parts in the US, had to reformulate the original german project to accommodate US-delivered turbines, generators, transformers, etc. Considerable knowledge of the engineering principles involved and a good dose of ingenuity were necessary, at a time when the war efforts dictated fabrication and transportation priorities, and restricted severely the availability of materials and the delivery of heavy equipment. |
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| SAGE (Semi Automatic Ground Environment) + | SAGE, or Semi-Automatic Ground Environment, was developed for the United States Air Force from 1950 to 1957 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Digital Computer Laboratory, the Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratory, and MIT's Lincoln Laboratory. The work required scientific research in many different fields: computer hardware and software, radar, communications, and so on. During the period from 1950 to 1958, MIT and Lincoln Laboratory did much of the scientific research but others played important roles as well, for example, the Cambridge Research Laboratory (AFCRL), who’s work cannot be addressed at this time. Engineering is never a solo activity and as expected other companies were involved in successfully launching SAGE. The contract for manufacturing the AN/FSQ-7 computers was awarded to IBM. Western Electric Company provided buildings and internal power supply and communications. Phone lines were provided by the Bell System. System Development Corporation (SDC) was responsible for the software which consisted of 500,000 lines of assembly language. SAGE was unique in that it was engineered in response to a specific contract. Its uniqueness is evident by the many innovations attributed to SAGE as follows: [3] 1- HARDWARE DESGN: Magnetic-core memory. Digital phone-line transmission. Digital track-while-scan. 2- SOFTWARE TECHNIQUES: Multiple simultaneous users. System data structures. Structured program modules. Global data definitions. Table-driven software. Software debugging tools. Data description language. 3- USER INTERFACES: Interactive graphic displays. Light-pen input. On-line common database. 4- HIGH-RELIABILITY OPERATIONS Marginal checking. Internal parity checking. Built-in test data reduction. |
| Sharp 14-inch thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal display (TFT-LCD) for TV, which has ushered in TFT LCD industry + | At the very beginning of a-Si-TFT-LCD business startup, this work clearly showed a-Si-TFT-LCD have the potential to replace monster CRT in the coming information age by its superior characteristics: flatness, light-weight, small power consumption, high saturation full-color rendition, high readability in high ambient light, realized on the 14-in. display size, the most dominant size in the contemporary market by using the technology which was developed to mass-produce twenty 3-in. TFT-LCD TV panels laid out on the mother glass of 300mm x 320mm dimensions. The high display quality was brought about by the fierce battle and cooperation between TFT-LCD research group and TV business group. TV business group knew the market and joined the development project from the very beginning and gave a clear display quality target to TFT-LCD research group to achieve and make the TFT-LCD a viable display technology against CRT dominance. TFT-LCD research group accepted the challenge and made it. |
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| TIROS 1 + | Being the first weather satellite, TIROS 1 equipment had to meet weight constraints and be rugged to withstand launch and space environments. Following the USSR launch of Sptunik in 1957, USA officials were challenged in a space race and sought a successful project to respond. Television cameras employed small imaging sensor, the ½” Vidicon developed by RCA Laboratories in 1956 with sufficient light sensitivity and resolution for this mission. Under classified contracts, the camera electronics were transistorized to reduce the size and weight had been successfully demonstrated in early military tests by the USA ABMA Program. Following a series of classified presentations in late 1957 in Washington DC by RCA Labs a team to DoD and CIA at the highest levels, to USAF system consultants, and the U.S. House committee of jurisdiction, the U.S. Government approved the initiative and began to mobilize a space meteorological mission. RCA Labs continued work on the camera space lens, shutter systems were matched to the mission and the electronics miniaturized to meet the data rate formats. The launch vehicles with sufficient thrust to reach suitable observation altitudes were developed for Cold War military applications. The Thor Able rocket development by the USAF groups and the Douglas Aircraft, were combined with of the USN Vanguard program and matched to achieve suitable performance. ARPA directed the ABMA to transfer management of the space development components to USASCDRL, at Fort Monmouth, NJ, who had directed development of WWV worldwide time base tracking networks, planned the command and data acquisition system for the mission. RCA Camden developed under contracts rugged and light weight video recorders for TIROS 1. When NASA was to be formed, RCA created the Astro Electronics Products unit, that developed the spacecraft system including the structure, power system, communications system and dynamics controls to control the spacecraft momentum for normal space observations of earth and supplied the compatible Command and Data Acquisition to Fort Monmouth’s Camp Evans facility for deployment at primary and secondary stations. |
| The 20 inch Diameter Photomultiplier Tubes + | The following technological features do it: 1. Large diameter Diameter of 20 inch (508 mm) makes it possible to achieve a photosensitive coverage of 20 % of the surface of a cylindrical Cherenkov detector with 15.6 m diameter and 16.1 m height filled with the purified water. [1, 5, 7, 8, 9] 2. Direct immersion of the PMTs in the Water A total of 1071 PMTs are placed around the water tank (15.6 m diameter x 16.1 m height) filled with 3000 metric tons of purified water. The PMTs are immersed directly in the water. The PMTs must withstand the water pressure, must prevent the water from leaking into the tubes, and must maintain the electric insulation to be able to maintain the device voltage across the PMT above 2000 V, for over a period of about 10 years. [1, 6, 8, 9] 3. High gain The gain of the PMT defined by the ratio of the anode output current to the emitted photo current is 10⁷ at 2000 V between the anode and the cathode. The gain of 10⁷ makes it possible to detect single-photon event taking place in the Cherenkov radiation detector. Electron trajectory simulation in a water tank was used, at the early phase of the development in 1979-1980, to find the optimum electrode configuration of the photocathode, focusing electrode, and the first dynode. [4, 10] 4. Quantum efficiency A quantum efficiency of 22 % at the wavelength of 400 nm is obtained with using the photocathode formed by depositing a thin layer of antimony on the inner surface of the tube by vacuum evaporation. The antimony layer is then activated by evaporating the alkali metal in vacuum on to the layer. [4, 5, 6] 5. Uniformity The anode uniformity depends mainly on two factors, i.e., the uniformity of the photocathode quantum efficiency and that of the collection efficiency between the photocathode and the first dynode. The change of anode uniformity over the large view angles is within ±40 %. [4, 5, 6] 6. Mean transit time The mean transit time is found to be 90 ns. [4] 7. Transit time spread The transit time spread (TTS), which is a distribution of transit time for a single PMT, is an important parameter when timing information is required. TTS is found 7 ns at FWHM. [4] 8. Number of the PMTs in a Cherenkov radiation detector A total of 1071 units of the PMTs are employed to construct the Kamiokande II, cylinder-shape Cherenkov radiation detector with a height of 16.1 m filled with the purified water, as mentioned earlier in 9.1. Of the 1071 PMTs, 948 units are viewing the space inside the cylinder with a diameter of 15.6 m (fiducial volume of 2040 tons of the water), while 123 units viewing a thin tubular space just outside the cylinder filled with the purifier water. The outside tubular space gives rise to signals responding to radiations from the rocks in earth surrounding the detector and radiations of stray particles from the space. After appropriate signal processing, the signal-to-noise ratio of the signal from the 948 PMTs for detection of neutrinos hitting the fiducial volume was improved considerably. Tightly controlled TTS (7 ns) permits the use of a large number (1071) of PMTs in a Cherenkov detector. Because the TTS of all the units of PMTs is well controlled, it is possible to calculate the direction of cone axis of Cherenkov radiation from the output signals of 948 PMTs with a high degree of precision. [1, 8, 9, 10] |
| The Birthplace of Silicon Valley + | The development of the first silicon based semiconductor devices in Silicon Valley, In addition the hiring of an outstanding team of semiconductor scientists, many of which later on founded Fairchild Semiconductor. |
| The First Optical Fiber Laser and Amplifier + | Other early solid-state lasers, such as the ruby laser demonstrated by Theodore Maiman in 1960, another IEEE Milestone, were made of bulk materials. The fiber laser uniquely transmitted the light it generated along a light-guiding core, concentrating its energy in a small area inside the glass, and making it easy to transfer light from a fiber laser into a passive optical fiber for transmission. This became important when fiber-optic communications emerged in the 1970s, because optical signals needed to be amplified after passing through tens of kilometers of glass. Initially that required converting the signals into electronic form for amplification, but building upon Snitzer's work, David Payne and others developed optical fiber amplifiers that could directly boost signal strength across a wide range of wavelengths, allowing high-speed transmission across continents and under oceans. That technology is today the backbone of the global telecommunication technology. Fiber lasers also have proved exceptionally well suited for efficiently generating high-quality beams with powers reaching many kilowatts in strength, greatly expanding the applications of lasers in cutting, welding and other machining of materials from plastics to metals. |
| The Floating Gate EEPROM, 1976-1978 + | EPROM, EEPROM and NOR flash were important technologies that filled the need for a non-volatile storage medium. NAND Flash provided a denser and more scalable medium than NOR. NAND was initially considered a niche product since its serial access was considered inferior to NOR’s random access. However, this serial characteristic gave NAND a block storage feature like that of a disk drive. NAND’s unreliable characteristics, particularly over time, were able to be overcome by “System Flash.” |
| The first satellite broadcasting to the public + | Direct broadcasting from a satellite in geostationary orbit to home receivers equipped with a small antenna was not the usual form of satellite communication at that time, and it represented a significant advance in satellite transmission capabilities. The satellite broadcasting provided clear beautiful TV pictures over a very large area, covering not only the main islands of Japan but also remote islands. The pictures were free of any ghost images from signals off reflected buildings and mountains. After a few years, even high definition TV (HDTV) broadcasting was provided. |
| The world’s first low-loss optical fiber for telecommunications + | This breakthrough work established the optical fiber category. There were no similar achievements at the time of the invention. In recognition of this achievement, the three scientists responsible for inventing low-loss optical fiber – Dr. Robert Maurer, Dr. Peter Schultz, and Dr. Donald Keck – have been inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame and were awarded the National Medal of Technology. |
| Toshiba T1100, a pioneering contribution to the development of laptop PC, 1985 + | As for portable computing devices prior to T-1100, Compaq released Portable I in 1982, but it came with size of the suitcase, 12.5kg weight, separate display and keyboard. Therefore, although it was portable, it was not light enough to call lap-top. In Japan, HC-20 of Seiko released in 1982 and PC8201A of NEC released in 1983 were about 1.7kg handheld device, but were 8 bit BASIC machine not compatible with IBM PC/AT. T-1100 was the first clam-shell lap-top computer with IBM-PC/AT compatibility and workable without AC power. |
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| Unidirectional Microphone + | The Unidyne microphone was the first directional microphone that used a single dynamic mic element. Using a single element reduced the size, weight, and manufactured cost, increased reliability, and significantly improved the acoustical performance. The Unidyne spawned even more popular models. The Unidyne II, a smaller version of the Unidyne, was introduced in 1951. The Unidyne III, grandchild of the Unidyne, was introduced in 1959. It is the most widely used professional microphone in the world and has been the microphone of choice for every U.S. President since Lyndon Johnson. And in 2013, a Unidyne III microphone is used on the International Space Station for live TV and Internet interviews with the crew. |
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| Whirlwind Computer + | By 1947, Forrester and collaborator Robert Everett completed the design of a high-speed stored-program computer for the project. Most computers of the era operated in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_computer bit-serial mode], using single-bit arithmetic. |
| Wireless Transmission between Fixed Antenna and Moving Trains, 1913 + | Michael C. Duffy's account of this test in Electric Railways 1880-1990 states that the test performed on November 21, 1913 was the first demonstration that wireless communication between between fixed stattions and moving trains was practical and reliable. Tests prior to then, such as those in 1909, were judged to be too primitive for dependable results. The 1913 experiments demonstrated that wavelengths of 600m-3000m and power of 1kW-5kW provided adequate communications for the train and fixed stations transmitters and receivers. It was also demonstrated that that a single tower (station) could communicate with a moving trin for over a distance of 130 miles. A series of stations could be used to cover a much longer range. This technology was rapidly adopted after its utility was shown. A severe storm in 1914 in the United States crippled most train transportation except for those lines already using wireless communication. |
| Worlds First Reliable High Voltage Power Fuse + | This fuse design was much more reliable than previous power fuses. At the time, breakdowns in electrical substations were common, negatively impacting service reliability for customers of electric utilities. Often, the problems were found to be attributable to poorly performing fault protection equipment. The inspiration for the device came to the inventors—two Commonwealth Edison engineers, Nicholas J. Conrad and Edmund O. Schweitzer—after they investigated a fire at the Fisk Street Generating Station. They concluded that the cause of the fire was a power fuse failure. Schweitzer and Conrad’s fuse design differed from predecessors through its use of a special arc-extinguishing liquid that assured proper interruption of short circuits, and a fusible element that offered unmatched precision in operating only when called upon. The fuse was constructed to withstand the very high temperatures associated with interrupting high-current faults, and was sufficiently rugged so it could be applied outdoors. The Schweitzer and Conrad Liquid Power Fuse played a major role in the adoption of outdoor distribution substations—a central component of electrical transmission and distribution systems today. |
