Its purpose is to enhance access by disabled and aging people to next-generation computer and information systems. The consortium provides a mechanism for these industries to stay abreast of developments worldwide through an annual meeting, regular updates, and on-site tutorial and outreach programs. Benefits to industrial sponsors include access to research results from combined funding, advanced technology, technical and annual reports, and degree candidates and faculty. Sponsors may participate in annual technology transfer meetings, faculty exchanges, advanced training of students, and may have special rights to patents and inventions. Plasma-aided manufacturing, the use of electrically charged particles in the manufacturing process, is used to produce new materials with unusual and superior properties, develop new chemical compounds and processes or alter and refine materials and surfaces.
Applications range from microchip fabrication to tool hardening.
Wisconsin Public Utility Institute strives to foster a better understanding of the electric, gas and tele-communications industries and the public policies affecting them. This understanding is sought through research, seminars, roundtable discussions, conferences, visiting scholar programs, and other public service programs. Its programs and services communicate the diversity of views that exist on current policy issues, particularly the leading-edge public policy issues that will affect the future of those industries and the customers they serve. Educational activities also support development of the skills and methods in business and government strategy and operations as those industries change. The Institute was formed in 1982 through a cooperative effort of people from utilities, the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin, citizen and environmental organizations, and utility consulting firms.