HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: u108502@beta.lanl.gov (Andrew Poutiatine)
Subject: Re: How many ft in a mile?
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 22:01:14 GMT

In article <1993Jan12.164058.28960@dragon.acadiau.ca> 901371d@dragon.acadiau.ca (Danny Didio) writes:
>I'm from Canada and on one of my asignment's we are using
>ft miles etc insted of metric.
>The text says nothing of conversion?
>Can anyone help me on the subject as soon as posible, the assignment
>is due tommoro.

In the standard US mile there are 5,280 feet.  
P.S. I don't know if there are other type of miles defined, or for that matter
other than standard feet, but this conversion is for the ones we use normally.
-Andrew 
Newsgroups: sci.engr.mech
From: prabhu@cae.wisc.edu (Vittaldas Prabhu)
Subject: Re: What % of engineers are women?
Organization: U of Wisconsin-Madison College of Engineering
Distribution: usa
Date: 10 Jan 93 03:24:30 CST


I worked for a while after my ungergrad in the R&D division of a
computer engineering firm in India. This is hard to belive,
all my 5 collegues were women!  
I had aksed them why they took up engg and the unanimous
reply was they "loved Physics and Math and tinkering".
By the way our group dealt with hardware.  

*********************************************************************
        Vittal V. Prabhu        University of Wisconsin-Madison
        prabhu@cae.wisc.edu     vittal@sal.wisc.edu
*********************************************************************

Newsgroups: sci.engr.mech
From: lawrence@combdyn.com (Lawrence Chen)
Subject: Re: What % of engineers are women?
Organization: Combustion Dynamics Ltd.
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 18:12:31 GMT

In article <1993Jan8.165828.1@stc10.ctd.ornl.gov> cj4@stc10.ctd.ornl.gov (Julie Choate Moore) writes:
>Speaking as a Mech E who did *awful* in thermo, but pretty well in mechanicms,
>stress analysis, etc, I'd definitely agree with the "social conditioning"
>statement.  I am the daughter of an Elec. Engr., and was brought up in an
>environment that encouraged spatial relation type things--he liked to work
>on his '65 Barracuda, *I* like(d) (still do) to work on cars.  Most
>women/girls just don't have that environment growing up.  I'm glad I did!
>
>Speaking also for the class of '84, we had only 2 or 3 (or so) women outa 100
>(or so) (see, I can't remember the exacts, either! :-)) of Mech Engrs at the 
>Univ. of TN. 
>
>For the orig. poster, I'd try calling some local colleges or perhaps the Engr
>societies to get an idea of the numbers of us women folk in engineering these
>days.
>
>As for the "typical male" statements made on this thread, I don't see why you
>guys would *want* women in your classes--most women who enter engineering are
>sooooo smart that they blow the typical male minds away (ref. post on high
>percentage of women in engr honor societies) and what male likes to be put in
>his place by a smarter woman?  (Start your flamethrowers...)  BTW, I *wasn't*
>one of those curve busters! (remember, I said, "*most* women who enter
>engineering...)
>
>Julie Moore
>cj4@stc10.ctd.ornl.gov
>My opinions. 

I wasn't going to get into this thread....especially since I'm not a Mech.

I'm a Electrical/Computer Engineer....in our class (1990) of about 80, we
had 6 women.  In the Computer specialization route we have 20 people, and
one 1 female....though we did start with 2....one dropped because somebody
told her that she'd still be able to get a computer job without taking the
extra course load.  And she did, right in the first month of 4th year.

I found that most of the women that entered Engineering when I was a student
either had parents in Technology or Engineering, or were mature students.

And, I'm of the opinion that women make better Engineers....but
that's just my opinion.

Too bad there aren't any in this company....There just hasn't been any women
Engineers applying in Combustion Dynamics Research.
-- 
 --EMAIL-----------------------------PHONE-----------FAX------------
 | WORK: lawrence@combdyn.com      | (403)529-2162 | (403)529-2516 |
 | HOME: dreamer@lhaven.uumh.ab.ca | (403)526-6019 | (403)529-5102 |
 -------------------------------------------------------------------
  disclamer = (working_for && !representing) + (Combustion Dynamics Ltd.);
From: rohling@westwood.mech.ubc.ca (Gerry Rohling)
Newsgroups: sci.engr.mech
Subject: Request for NC code software
Date: 13 Jan 1993 00:33:37 GMT
Organization: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: westwood.mech.ubc.ca
Keywords: CAD/CAM CNC Milling

Does anyone know of a good reference for creating toolpath instructions
for the pocketing of arbitrary shapes on a milling machine. I am looking
for some C code or an algorithm to implement creating APT code given a
number of boundary curves and a cutter diameter.

Thanks in advance.

=========================================================================
Gerry Rohling                              e-mail: rohling@mech.ubc.ca
Department of Mechanical Engineering       
University of British Columbia             [ watch this space ...     ]
CANADA        
=========================================================================

Newsgroups: sci.engr.mech
From: a722756@roper.mc.ti.com (W. Donald Rolph)
Subject: Re: What % of engineers are women?
Originator: a722756@roper.mc.ti.com
Organization: Texas Instruments / Attleboro Mass / USA
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 22:50:31 GMT


Julie, since you tweaked, I cant resist.

I have observed that on the average women engineers are better than their male
counterparts.  I have always speculated that it was because a woman who became an
engineer really wanted to become an engineer, society usually didn't make it
easy, whereas at least some male engineers end up in engineering as an 
afterthought.

I would be curious if my apparent observations on the drive of women engineers 
match your experience?
-- 

Regards.
 
Don Rolph  a722756@pan.mc.ti.com WD3 MS10-13 (508)-699-1263
Newsgroups: sci.engr.mech
From: bainbridge@stpaul.ncr.com (Robert Bainbridge)
Subject: Heat loss software
Summary: Locate PC based heat loss software
Organization: Architecture
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 21:26:00 GMT

This may be the incorrect group to post this inquiry; if so,
please excuse me.

My son-in-law is involved with HVAC installation and is
trying to locate PC based software that will perform heat
loss calculations for residential and light commercial
applications.  Any information that on the location of this
type of software would be helpful.

Thanks in advance.
Newsgroups: sci.engr.mech
From: schenn@mars.lerc.nasa.gov (Lisa Henn)
Subject: Re: What % of engineers are women?
Followup-To: sci.engr.mech
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: NASA Lewis Research Center
Distribution: usa
Date:  9 Jan 1993 22:30 EDT  

In article <1012735.14992>, isjl@rs1.tcs.tulane.edu (Jason Liuzza) writes...

<This part is Julie's>

>>As for the "typical male" statements made on this thread, I don't see why you
>>guys would *want* women in your classes--most women who enter engineering are
>>sooooo smart that they blow the typical male minds away (ref. post on high
>>percentage of women in engr honor societies) and what male likes to be put in
>>his place by a smarter woman?  (Start your flamethrowers...)  BTW, I *wasn't*
>>one of those curve busters! (remember, I said, "*most* women who enter
>>engineering...)


>As interesting as this thread is, would it not be more appropriately 
>placed in say alt.soc.feminism?

Eh, I would deem it "equally appropriate" for either group, as we are talking
about women _and_ engr.mech (She _did_ mention thermo in a part I deleted)
I suspect she wasn't trying to oppress anyone, merely being sarcastic for the
humor value.

>Newsgroups: Julie's commentary
>Followup-To: Julie's commentary

Tsk, tsk--talk about trying to start a flame war!

L
Lisa Henn
Analex Corporation
schenn@e4310h01.lerc.nasa.gov
-----------------------------
Disclaimer:  These are not my employer's, nor NASA's, nor George Bush's, nor
	     Dan Goldin's, nor Dan Quayle's, nor etc's opinions.
Newsgroups: sci.engr.mech
From: burtp@aix.rpi.edu (Philip Nason Burt)
Subject: Re: What % of engineers are women?
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 17:31:39 GMT

In article <79583@hydra.gatech.EDU> gt3066c@prism.gatech.EDU (WATERS,SHELDON) writes:
>In a fly-by-night, seat-of-the-pants statistical analysis (I counted them)
>of my Thermo class this morning:
>
>			16 Women
>			54 Total Students (male,female, and otherwise)
>			-----------------
>			29% ratio of women in a ME Thermo class
>
>I don't know how accurate this is, just thought it might help.

In a Finite Element Methods II class (grad meche/civil class) yesterday:

	about 3 women
	about 50 men

	figure out the percentage yourself!

>
>Sheldon Waters
>gt3066c@prism.gatech.edu
>
>-- 
>Sheldon Waters 				/////////////////////////////
>Internet: gt3066c@prism.gatech.edu	/////////////////////////////
>

******************************************************************************
*    ><>        phil burt        <><    *            burtp@rpi.edu           *
******************************************************************************
Newsgroups: sci.engr
From: an1060@anon.penet.fi
Subject: Continuum Mechanics Book Wanted
Organization: Anonymous contact service
X-Anonymously-To: sci.engr
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 21:32:37 GMT

X-Anon-To: sci.engr


Hello All,

Does anyone have a copy of: 

Mathematics Applied to Continuum Mechanics, by Segel & Handelman.

For those who attended RPI, this is the book used for Foundations of
Applied Mathematics II (FOAM II).

I am looking for an original copy, i.e. published by Macmillan,
the book is black hardcover with green lettering (yes, quite unattractive)...

If you have one in very good condition, please contact me.

Respond to:  mantell@ams.sunysb.edu

Thanks...

Abe Mantell


-------------------------------------------------------------------------
To find out more about the anon service, send mail to help@anon.penet.fi.
Due to the double-blind system, any replies to this message will be anonymized,
and an anonymous id will be allocated automatically. You have been warned.
Newsgroups: sci.engr
From: dennis@medusa.dseg.ti.com (dennis womack)
Subject: just a test
Reply-To: dennis@medusa.dseg.ti.com
Organization: Texas Instruments, Inc.
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 22:27:25 GMT

just a test folks #2
From: jeremy@cs.adelaide.edu.au (Jeremy Webber)
Newsgroups: sci.engr.control
Subject: Re: References on servo-control needed
Date: 13 Jan 93 08:29:06
Organization: Digital Arts Film and Television
NNTP-Posting-Host: chook.cs.adelaide.edu.au
In-reply-to: erik@til.com's message of Fri, 8 Jan 1993 18:08:13 GMT

In article <1993Jan8.180813.8379@til.til.com> erik@til.com (Erik Horstkotte) writes:

   Are you interested in the possibility of using fuzzy control?  If so,
   you might want to check out one of the documents on TIL's fuzzy logic
   email server - v1i2motr.txt.  This is an article on a comparison
   between PID and fuzzy control of a servo motor system, excerpted from
   one of TIL's company newsletters - the complete newsletter issue is
   also on the server as v1i2.ps.Z.

Thanks, I now have 4 copies of this.  Please don't send me any more!

	-jeremy
--
--
Jeremy Webber			   Internet: jeremy@cs.adelaide.edu.au
Digital Arts Film and Television,	     jeremy@chook.ua.oz.au
1 Ledger St, Beverley, SA 5009,       Phone: +61 8 347 4691
Australia			        FAX: +61 8 347 4692
Newsgroups: sci.engr.control
From: benson@siemens.com. (Dan Benson)
Subject: Image/Video use in process control
Organization: Siemens Corp. Res., Inc.
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 20:32:28 GMT

I would like to know if anyone knows of control management
systems that make use of image or video information. Also,
I would like to learn about possible uses of visual media
in process control applications. Any and all information
is greatly appreciated.

Regards,

--
Dan Benson                           Siemens Corporate Research, Inc.
(609) 734-3668                       755 College Road East
dbenson@siemens.siemens.com          Princeton, NJ  08540
Newsgroups: sci.engr.control
Subject: Stability problem in NARMA identification
From: pini1@chen.bgu.ac.il (pinchas tandeitnik )
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 00:26:33 GMT
Organization: Ben Gurion University, Beer Sheva, Israel



  Stability problem in NARMA identification
  -----------------------------------------

I'm doing a nonlinear system identification of the follow process:
	Y[n]=f{Y[n-1],Y[n-2],....X[n],X[n-1],...}
In the learning phase of open-loop I can reach avery small error criteria.
From the open loop learning I can see that the system is learning on the
wright direction, when I close the loop I have stability problem.
  I'll be interested to hare any ideas or  solution to this problem (articles
and books).

			thanks
				Pini Tandetnik



Newsgroups: sci.engr.control
From: adams@liszt.berkeley.edu (Adam L. Schwartz)
Subject: Re: Absolute minima theorems
Organization: U.C. Berkeley -- ERL
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 18:49:12 GMT

In article <1993Jan8.140544.25242@noao.edu> nroddier@noao.edu (Nicolas Roddier) writes:
>	I'm looking for some theorems that would garantee that an
>	optimization is an absolute minimum. E-L methods give some
>	necessary conditions for an optimzation to be an extremum.
>	How about some sufficient conditions for being the absolute
>	minimum.

I take it by E-L you mean Euler-Lagrange which means your talking
about optimal control problems (optimization usually means optimizing
over a finite set of parameters as opposed to finding an optimal
control which is infinite-dimenstional).

The Hamiliton-Jacobi equation gives a sufficient condition for an
absolute minimum.  However, it usually can't be solved because its a
system of nonlinear, partial differential equations.  Furthermore, it
depends on being able to compute an absolute minimum of another
function.  As soon as you try to use calculus to compute the minimum
of this other function (i.e.  setting the derivative to zero) you
automatically sacrifice the ability to find the "absolute" or global
minimum.  The only way around this is to start with a convex problem
(like Linear-Quadratic regulator).

If you're willing to settle for a local minimum, there are strengthened
versions of the Pontryagin maximum principle (like E-L) which provide
sufficient conditions for a local minimum.

-Adam Schwartz
adams@robotics.berkeley.edu



Newsgroups: sci.engr.control,comp.ai.fuzzy
From: irwin@aptronix.com (Scott Irwin)
Subject: Re: Model Free Controllers
Organization: Aptronix Inc
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 18:39:32 GMT

In article <C0I0Fq.G5u@netnews.jhuapl.edu> cristja1@netnews.jhuapl.edu (John A. Cristion) writes:
>Does anyone know of any papers or ongoing research in the area of
>model free (i.e., no assumption about plant dynamics) controllers.
>I'm especially interested in the contol of nonlinear and/or time-
>varying dynamics.  Please post responces here of e-mail me. 
>			
>
>				Thanks in advance,     John
>-- 
>    	John A. Cristion
>	cristja1@aplcomm.jhuapl.edu
>	The Johns Hopkins University/Applied Physics Laboratory
>	Johns Hopkins Rd., Laurel, MD 20723

To: cristja1@netnews.jhuapl.edu
Subject: Re: Model Free Controllers
Newsgroups: sci.engr.control
Organization: Aptronix Inc
Cc: 
Bcc: 

Fuzzy logic is a model-free approach to controllers and is especially well suited for non-linear problems.  Aptronix, Inc. 
has done much research and development as well as applications using fuzzy logic.  You can contact us at 408-428-1888
for more info.  Our Email address is info@aptronix.com and you can leave a message with your address and I will be happy to
send you some more information about us.

Scott  
irwin@aptronix.com


Newsgroups: sci.engr.control
From: rairan@ecf.toronto.edu (RAI Ranjan)
Subject: Re: Linear System Text
Organization: University of Toronto, Engineering Computing Facility
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 05:15:13 GMT

Thanks to all the people who responded to my request regarding good
Linear Systems Texts.  In my previous post I mentioned the Callier
and Desoer text.  Many people loved that text and some people hated
it, but everyone agreed that it goes into some heavy mathematics.
I agree.  The course I'm taking right now is an intro. course, and
we will not be going into nearly as much detail as Callier/Desoer 
do.  It's not a good first textbook on the subject, but I would 
love to read it after I complete this course.

Some other books mentioned by my prof. were "Linear Systems" by 
Thomas Kailath and the text by C.T. Chen.  Of all the texts that
people cited, Kailath's book recieved by far the most praise.  
Alot of respondents called it a classic, a must for anyone 
interested in control.  I will definitely check this one out.
C.T. Chen's book has a comprehensive state space treatment, which
is what I am mainly interested in, but it costs 95 big ones at our
bookstore.  I think I'll pass on this one.

The recent book by Wilson J. Rugh also received quite alot of
favourable reviews.  It was said that this book has many good
exercises, which makes it particularly attractive to me.

I think I'll be doing grad. work in discrete-event systems, but
I certainly would like to have as broad a knowledge of control
theory as possible;  so I will also check out Professor Sontag's
"Mathematical Control Theory: Deterministic Finite Dimensional 
Systems".  It is probably not the best book for what I am doing
right now, but I would like to peruse it someday when I have more
time.

Thanks again for helping me out.

-- 
Ranjan Rai                             <rairan@ecf.toronto.edu> 
Engineering Science 9T3                <rr@odin.control.toronto.edu> 
University of Toronto                    
Newsgroups: sci.engr.control
From: rairan@ecf.toronto.edu (RAI Ranjan)
Subject: Linear Systems Text
Organization: University of Toronto, Engineering Computing Facility
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 19:42:27 GMT

Hello.  I like to get some feedback ;) on what people think of the text 
Linear System Theory by Frank Callier and C. Desoer.  I have just started
a Intro. to Linear Systems course, and there is no required textbook for the 
class.  The professor mentioned that this book might be good as a supplement
to his lectures.  

So do people think it's worth the $75 Cdn., or do you think there is 
some better (and cheaper) text out there I should be aware of?

By the way, I have completed the usual systems and signal analysis courses,
a course in classical control theory, in which we we used "Feedback and 
Control Theory" by Doyle, Francis and Tannenbaum as the text, and my math
background is sufficient.  Also, I plan on doing control stuff in grad
school.

Many thanks for your help. 
-- 
Ranjan Rai                             <rairan@ecf.toronto.edu> 
Engineering Science 9T3                <rr@odin.control.toronto.edu> 
University of Toronto
From: neilfp@astro.ocis.temple.edu (Neil F. Palumbo)
Newsgroups: sci.engr.control
Subject: HELP Quadratic Eqns
Date: 10 Jan 93 20:02:46 GMT
Organization: Temple University
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]

[ Article crossposted from sci.math ]
[ Author was Neil F. Palumbo (neilfp@astro.ocis.temple.edu) ]
[ Posted on Sat, 9 Jan 1993 17:25:20 GMT ]

I have a set of equations of the form:

			s'*Ai*s + Bi*s + ci = 0, i=1,2,...,100

The unknown is the vector s (the same unknown vector in all 100 eqns).
The Ai's are square (100x100) matrices, the Bi's are (100x1) vectors,
and the ci's are constants. s is of course a (100x1) vector. Can anyone
suggest an approach to simultaneously solving this set of equations? Please
e-mail me with your responses. Thanks in advance...

				Neil
Newsgroups: sci.engr.control
From: lima@sol.ral.rpi.edu (Pedro Lima)
Subject: Re: Image Control
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 15:18:11 GMT

One of the most successful ESPRIT projects funded by the EEC developed
a control system for a glass melting furnace which uses images from a
camera installed inside the furnace for control and report purposes.
The images are processed and pattern recognition algorithms help to
determine the quality of the flame, eventually helping to determine
the cause for a malfunction. Other information provided for an algorithm
that optimizes the parameters of PID controllers used in the low level
control system are parameters relative to the flame, such as its length
and width. The images also contain information about the presence of
unmelted glass parts.

The prototype was already tested with significant savings of fuel. Before,
the information was seldom used by an operator to check the flame.
Due to this success, the funding of the project is to be continued.

I have here two references about the vision part of this work (also involving
control optimization and expert control). For more information, please
send email to
	jasv%kappa.ist.utl.pt@inesc.pt

1. J. P. Costeira, J. P. Fernandes, M. V. Heitor, J. Sentieiro, J. Simo~es,
	J. A. Victor, "A Vision System for Analysis and Classification of
	Industrial Flames", 6th CIM-EUROPE Conf., Lisbon, May 1990

2. J. Victor, J. Costeira, J. Tome', J. Sentieiro, "A Computer Vision System
	for the Characterization and Classification of Flames in Glass 
	Furnaces", Proc. of the 1991 IEEE IAS Meeting, Dearborn, Michigan,
	Oct 91. To be published in IEEE Trans. on Ind. Appl.

I forgot to mention that the name of the ESPRIT project is AIMBURN and
the vision system was developed by two groups of Lisbon Technical University,
the ISR (Institute of Systems and Robotics) and CTAMFUL (Center for
Applied Thermodynamics and Fluid Mechanics of Lisbon University).

Pedro Lima
lima@ral.rpi.edu
From: jeremy@cs.adelaide.edu.au (Jeremy Webber)
Newsgroups: sci.engr.control
Subject: References on servo-control needed
Date: 8 Jan 93 09:45:03
Organization: Digital Arts Film and Television
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: chook.cs.adelaide.edu.au

Can anybody give me good references on servo-control written for a
non-engineer?  I have an application where an electric motor needs to
follow a trajectory accurately and am looking for a better control
solution than the one I have.  The application uses a computer to derive
a torque command to a motor controller.

Unfortunately all the books I have on the subject are written for
fourth-year or postgrad engineering students, who are conversant with
Laplace transforms and other obscure (to me) mathematical theory.  I
really need a how-to manual rather than a theory book.

Thanks,
	Jeremy
--
--
Jeremy Webber			   Internet: jeremy@cs.adelaide.edu.au
Digital Arts Film and Television,	     jeremy@chook.ua.oz.au
1 Ledger St, Beverley, SA 5009,       Phone: +61 8 347 4691
Australia			        FAX: +61 8 347 4692
Newsgroups: sci.engr.control