omniomni/omni-engineering huggingface dataset:
Swingnose crossing. A swingnose crossing or moveable point frog is a device used at a railroad switch to eliminate the gap at the common crossing (a.k.a. frog) which can cause damage and noise.

Fixed crossing 
On a fixed railway crossing, the wheels need only drift by a small angle, say 1 in 20, before the vehicle may start to go in the wrong direction at the V of a V-crossing. This problem can limit the maximum speed of vehicles using the crossing.

In addition, the open gap at a fixed V-crossing forms a weak point on the railway line where the heavily loaded wheel must bump across the resulting gap of about , supported only by the portion of the wheel tread which is on the wing rail. This pounds the rail so much that the steel can deform and/or wear away. This damage may easily spread to other components including the wheels, and the noise can be a nuisance. Scheduling repair of damage can also be a problem in high traffic locations.

Swingnose crossings virtually eliminate the gap at V-crossings allowing for higher vehicle speeds.

The swingnose crossing overcomes the problem of the gap by moving the point of the V-crossing from side to side, synchronised with the selected direction of the turnout. The wheels are supported the entire way on their treads, and do not produce noise and vibration that would otherwise occur.

Swingnose crossings are also useful where heavy rail and light rail vehicles, which have different wheel profiles, share the same track.

Swingwing crossing 
A variety of swingnose crossing, suitable for locations where a branch line turns off a higher-speed line, is the swing wing crossing. In this device, the V-crossing does not need its own motor but is moved by the flange of an approaching wheel on the branch track. It returns to its normal position when the diverging train has passed, pushed by a damped spring.

Parameters 

Swingnose crossings would be used for V-crossings finer than about 1 in 20, and for axle loads in excess of 25 tonnes.

Operation 

Swingnose crossings need to operate at the same time as the main turnout switches to which they belong. This may require excessive effort for manual operation, and require a point motor.  The main turnout and the swingnose crossing will require separate machines.

Switched diamond 

A switched diamond is a diamond crossing in which the fixed frogs are replaced by moveable frogs.

See also 

 Flange-bearing frog

References 

Rail junction types
Bouveault–Blanc reduction. The Bouveault–Blanc reduction is a chemical reaction in which an ester is reduced to primary alcohols using absolute ethanol and sodium metal.  It was first reported by Louis Bouveault and Gustave Louis Blanc in 1903.  Bouveault and Blanc demonstrated the reduction of ethyl oleate and n-butyl oleate to oleyl alcohol. Modified versions of which were subsequently refined and published in Organic Syntheses.

This reaction is used commercially although for laboratory scale reactions it was made obsolete by the introduction of lithium aluminium hydride.

Reaction mechanism
Sodium metal is a one-electron reducing agent.  Four equivalents of sodium are required to fully reduce each ester, although two more equivalents are typically consumed in deprotonating the product alcohols to alkoxides.  Ethanol serves as a proton source.  The reaction produces sodium alkoxides, according to the following stoichiometry:
   +   6 Na   +   4    →      +      +   4 
In practice, considerable sodium is consumed by the formation of hydrogen.  For this reason, an excess of sodium is often required. Because the hydrolysis of sodium is rapid, not to mention dangerous, the Bouveault-Blanc reaction requires anhydrous ethanol and can give low yields with insufficiently dry ethanol. The mechanism of the reaction follows:

Consistent with this mechanism, sodium-ethanol mixtures will also reduce ketones to alcohols.

This approach to reducing esters was widely used prior to the availability of hydride reducing agents such as lithium aluminium hydride and related reagents.  It requires vigorous reaction conditions and has a significant risk of fires, explaining its relative unpopularity.  One modification involves encapsulating the alkali metal into a silica gel, which has a safety and yield profile similar to that of hydride reagents.  Another modification uses a sodium dispersion.

See also
Acyloin condensation – The reductive coupling of esters, using sodium, to yield an α-hydroxyketone
Akabori amino-acid reaction – The reduction of amino acid esters, by sodium, to yield aldehydes
Birch reduction – For the reduction of alkenes using sodium
Bouveault aldehyde synthesis – Another organometallic reaction by Bouveault where a Grignard reagent is converted to an aldehyde

References

External links 
 Animation of the Bouveault–Blanc reduction

Free radical reactions
Organic redox reactions
Name reactions
PowerAnimator. PowerAnimator and Animator, also referred to simply as "Alias", the precursor to what is now Maya and StudioTools, is a highly integrated industrial 3D modeling, animation, and visual effects suite. It had a relatively long track record, starting with Technological Threat in 1988 and ending in Pokémon: the Movie 2000 in 1999. PowerAnimator ran natively on MIPS-based SGI IRIX and IBM AIX systems.

History 
PowerAnimator was launched in 1988.

In 1997, John Gibson, Rob Krieger, Milan Novacek, Glen Ozymok, and Dave Springer were presented with the Scientific and Engineering Award for their contributions to the geometric modeling component of the PowerAnimator system. The citation was:
"The Alias PowerAnimator system is widely regarded in the computer animation field as one of the best commercially available software packages for digital geometric modeling. Used by many motion picture visual effects houses, it has been a benchmark for comparison of modeling tools and has had a major influence on visual effects and animation."

Television and film

PowerAnimator was used to create the water creature in the 1989 film The Abyss, as well as the T-1000 character in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, at a cost of $460,000 per minute. It was also used heavily for the many visual effects of the 1996 film Independence Day. PowerAnimator also served as the solution used to produce South Park episodes digitally before production was moved to Maya starting with Season 5.

Game development 
PowerAnimator was also used in game development, in particular as a part of Nintendo 64's SGI-based developers kit. It saw some use for modeling, texturing, animation and realtime effects for other titles and platforms as well.

Notable titles:
 Crash Bandicoot
 Casper
 Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger
 Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom
 Quake
 Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee

References

External links 
 Animation Software Companies and Individuals In CGI

1988 software
Animation software
3D graphics software
IRIX software
British Rail Class 168. The Class 168 Clubman is a British diesel-hydraulic multiple unit passenger train used on Chiltern Line services between London Marylebone and the West Midlands. The trains were built by Adtranz at the Derby Litchurch Lane Works in several batches from 1998.

The first batch was classified 168/0 under TOPS and resembled the Class 165 units previously built by BREL York. The Networker-design cab was an interim solution pending the design of a completely new cab for further Turbostar batches. Subsequent builds, subclassed as 168/1 and 168/2, were constructed at the same time as the Class 170 Turbostar and thus are part of the Turbostar family of trains.

History 
Network SouthEast originally planned the Class 168 for its expansion of service on the Chiltern Main Line to Birmingham Snow Hill or New Street. These units were planned to have a higher top speed of  and better acceleration than the Class 165 Networker Turbo DMU trains. In the event, privatisation intervened before Network SouthEast acquired any trains.

In September 1996, Chiltern Railways ordered four trains from Adtranz at a cost of £34 million, first units ordered by any train operating company since the privatisation of the UK rail industry. These Clubman 168/0 trains were delivered as 3-car sets but later lengthened to 4-car sets.

One unit has been converted to hybrid operation as of 2022, but is to be reverted to normal specifications following failed operations.

In 2023, Chiltern announced the refurbishment of the entire class 168 fleet, costing £10.7 million. The units are receiving new carpets, reupholstered seats, 5G Wi-Fi & charging points, as well as a new revised livery. The first unit to be refurbished was unveiled on 10 October 2024.

Variants
Three different variants of the 168 were produced - 168/0, 168/1 and 168/2. Both Classes 168/1 and 168/2 are actually of the same design as the Class 170 Turbostar DMU trains, mainly due to the redesigned cab ends. The nine Class 170s that Chiltern obtained from First TransPennine Express were converted by Brush Traction to operate with the Class 168 fleet, and redesignated as Class 168/3. 168329 has been converted by Porterbrook into a diesel/battery hybrid. It was tested in 2021 on the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway and entered service as "HybridFlex" in February 2022.

Fleet details

Named units
The following units been named:
168001 Adrian Shooter
168215 Marylebone Station 125 Years

References

Further reading

168
Adtranz multiple units
Train-related introductions in 1998
Field emission gun. A field emission gun (FEG) is a type of electron gun in which a sharply pointed Müller-type emitter is held at several kilovolts negative potential relative to a nearby electrode, so that there is sufficient potential gradient at the emitter surface to cause field electron emission. Emitters are either of cold-cathode type, usually made of single crystal tungsten sharpened to a tip radius of about 100 nm, or of the Schottky type, in which thermionic emission is enhanced by barrier lowering in the presence of a high electric field. Schottky emitters are made by coating a tungsten tip with a layer of zirconium oxide (ZrO2) decreasing the work function of the tip by approximately 2.7 eV.

In  electron microscopes, a field emission gun is used to produce an electron beam that is smaller in diameter, more coherent and with up to three orders of magnitude greater current density or brightness than can be achieved with conventional thermionic emitters such as tungsten or lanthanum hexaboride ()-tipped filaments. The result in both scanning and transmission electron microscopy is significantly improved signal-to-noise ratio and spatial resolution, and greatly increased emitter life and reliability compared with thermionic devices.

References

Vacuum tubes
Tungsten
Queen's metal. Queen's Metal, an alloy of nine parts tin and one each of antimony, lead, and bismuth, is intermediate in hardness between pewter and britannia metal. It was developed by English pewtersmiths in the 16th century; the recipe was initially a secret and was reserved for pieces made for the English royal family.

References

Fusible alloys
Tin alloys
Lead alloys
Antimony alloys
Bismuth alloys
World Trade Centre Montreal. The World Trade Centre Montreal (in French, Centre de Commerce mondial de Montréal) is a shopping centre, office and hotel complex located in the Quartier international district of Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Completed in 1992 by Arcop, it is an example of a 'horizontal skyscraper' and a leading example of urban renewal, architectural preservation and rehabilitation. The complex united several smaller Victorian-era commercial buildings (including the city's historic Bank of Nova Scotia building and Canada Steamship Lines building) by encasing them in a larger form, in this case a massive glassed-in atrium running the length of what was once Fortification Lane, itself the site of the city's colonial defensive walls. In a kind of post-modern hommage, a remnant of the Berlin Wall, given to the city in 1992, is on public exhibit within the complex. The complex includes other historic elements, such as a fountain by French architect and sculptor Dieudonné-Barthélemy Guibal (1699–1757) also donated to the city in 1992. At the far end of the centre is the Montreal InterContinental Hotel.

From the exterior it appears as a quintessential late-19th century Montreal business block with a diverse collection of buildings in different styles. Once inside the rear sections of those buildings have been oriented on to a vast open space, replete with reflecting pool, cafés, boutiques and other diverse services. The interior is united in its impressive open volume and natural lighting, it reveals itself in layers - for the uninitiated the interior space is often thoroughly unexpected.

The centre is connected to Montreal's underground city and to Square-Victoria-OACI metro station towards the West and Place d'Armes and Place Riopelle to the East.

External links
Montreal World Trade Centre — 747 Victoria Square
World Trade Centre

Arcop buildings
Office buildings completed in 1992
Office buildings in Montreal
Old Montreal
Montreal
1992 establishments in Quebec
Paul Neill. Paul Neill (September 6, 1882 – October 1968) was an American electrical engineer at Bell Labs in the 1940s. He is credited with helping to invent the TNC and Type N connectors used for microwave and RF communications. He joined Bell in 1916 after spending 12 years at the Westinghouse Electric Company. He retired from Bell on September 30, 1947.

See also
RF connector
Carl Concelman

References

External links

1882 births
1968 deaths
Scientists at Bell Labs
American electrical engineers
20th-century American inventors
GE U33B. The GE U33B is a diesel-electric locomotive that was offered by GE in 1966, featuring a 16-cylinder motor. It is  long.

Original owners

External links
 Sarberenyi, Robert. GE U33B Original Owners.

U33B
B-B locomotives
Diesel–electric locomotives of the United States
Railway locomotives introduced in 1966
Freight locomotives
Standard gauge locomotives of the United States
GE U23C. The 2300 horsepower GE U23C diesel-electric locomotive model was first offered by GE in 1968, and featured a V-type 12 cylinder version of the standard GE FDL diesel motor.  Designed as a competitor to EMD's SD38 and SD39 series, it was intended for heavy transfer, drag and hump service where speed was not a priority.  Other than six tall hood doors matching six power assemblies per side, there are very few features which distinguish the U23C from the U30C.  The U30C has eight tall hood doors per side, a function of the V16 within.

A total of 73 units were built at Erie including 20 for export to Brazil. An additional 150 units were built by GE de Brazil from 1972 to 1976, some as kits supplied by GE.

Original owners

Preservation 
• LS&I #2300 is preserved at the Arkansas Railroad Museum in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. It is the only known surviving example of a U23C in North America.

References

External links
 
 Sarberenyi, Robert. GE U23C Original Owners

U23C
C-C locomotives
Diesel–electric locomotives of the United States
Railway locomotives introduced in 1968
Standard gauge locomotives of the United States
Broad gauge locomotives in Brazil
Diesel–electric locomotives of Brazil
Stanford Research Systems. Stanford Research Systems is a maker of general test and measurement instruments. The company was founded in 1980, is privately held, and is not affiliated with Stanford University.

Stanford Research Systems (SRS) manufactures all of their products at their Sunnyvale, California facility.
SRS produces scientific and engineering instruments for a number of different fields. Many of the products fall under the general category of "signal recovery". These products are primarily sold to industry, university, and government labs, or sold as OEM components to other manufacturers.

Electronic Products

 Analog PID controllers
 Audio analyzers
 Programmable temperature controllers
 Lock-in amplifiers
 Laser-diode controllers
 Low-noise preamplifiers
 High-voltage power supplies
 Gated integrators and boxcar averagers
 Synthesized function and clock generators
 Digital delay and pulse generators
 Frequency counters
 FFT spectrum analyzers
 LCR meters
 Thermocouple monitors
 Programmable filters
 Compact rubidium (atomic) frequency standards

Other Products
 Quartz crystal microbalances
 Melting-point apparatus
 Nitrogen laser
 Optical chopper
 Low-vibration optical shutters
 Vacuum gauges and controllers
 Residual gas analyzers (quadrupole mass spectrometers) and controllers
 Cryogenic temperature-measurement instrumentation

External links
 Stanford Research Systems

Companies established in 1980
Companies based in Sunnyvale, California
Electronics companies of the United States
Electronic test equipment manufacturers
GE B23-7. The GE B23-7 is a diesel locomotive model that was first offered by GE in late 1977. Featuring a smaller 12 cylinder version of the FDL engine, it is the successor to GE's U23B produced from early 1968 to mid 1977, but at  long is exactly . longer. It competed with the very successful EMD GP38-2.  General Electric also produced a variant, the BQ23-7, No. 5130-5139, for the Seaboard Coast Line. A total of 537 B23-7's were built for 9 U.S. customers and 2 Mexican customers.

A B23-7A is a 12-cylinder B23-7 with horsepower boosted to 250 per cylinder or 3,000 horsepower.  In 1980 the Missouri Pacific ordered three B23-7A's (#'s 4667-4669, later UP #'s 257-259) and tested them system-wide.  The result was the GE model B30-7A, B30-7 with a 12-cylinder FDL prime mover.  They were not renumbered into the B30-7A series on the MP because they lacked Sentry Wheel Slip and had different engine governors.

13 B23-7's were built by GE of Brazil in Dec.1979 for United South Eastern Railways(FUS) no.522-524 and National Railways of Mexico(NdeM) no.9130-9139. 17 B23-7s were built from GE kits in Mexico as Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México no.10047-10052 and no.12001-12011.

Southern Railway's 54 units had Southern's "standard" high-short-hoods.

Preservation
Ohio Central #4092 is owned by the Age of Steam Roundhouse

Original owners

References

B23-7
B-B locomotives
Diesel–electric locomotives of the United States
Railway locomotives introduced in 1977
Freight locomotives
Standard gauge locomotives of the United States
Standard gauge locomotives of Mexico
Diesel–electric locomotives of Mexico
Diesel–electric locomotives of Brazil
Broad gauge locomotives in Brazil
BOSU. A BOSU Balance Trainer (or BOSU ball) is a fitness training device, invented in 1999 by David Weck. It consists of an inflated rubber hemisphere attached to a rigid platform.  The device is often used for balance training.  When the dome side faces up, the BOSU ball provides an unstable surface while the device remains stable.  This combination of stable/unstable allows a wide range of users, from the young, elderly, or injured to the elite level athlete.  With the dome side up, the device can be used for athletic drills and aerobic activities. The device can be flipped over so that the platform faces up.  In this position, the device is highly unstable and can be used for other forms of exercise.

The name initially came from an acronym standing for “Both Sides Up" - a reference to the two ways a BOSU ball can be positioned.  It is also referred to as the "blue half-ball", because it looks like a stability ball cut in half. The acronym now favored by the creators is "BOth Sides Utilised".

Criticism and benefits

In a scientific experiment conducted at Eastern Illinois University in 2009, twelve men performed various physical exercises (back squat, deadlift, overhead press, and curl lifts) with and without the BOSU ball. Using the BOSU ball did not create a real difference in the activity of their muscles. Therefore, it was concluded that the BOSU ball did not bring a significant improvement for these physical exercises and that these exercises performed on stable grounds were as efficient as the ones performed on the BOSU ball. A second study which concentrated on single-leg stance shows very similar results (no difference in muscle activity with and without the BOSU ball). However, an unstable surface increases activation of the rectus abdominis and allows for greater activity per exercise when compared to a stable surface. Exercises such as a curl-up on an exercise ball yields a greater amount of electromyography (EMG) activity compared to exercises on a stable platform.

References

External links
BOSU homepage
BOSU inventor's homepage

Exercise equipment
Exercise-related trademarks
Jagdfaust. The Sondergerät SG 500 Jagdfaust ("hunting fist") or Jägerfaust ("hunter's fist") was an experimental airborne anti-bomber recoilless rifle designed for use in the Me 163 Komet rocket plane by the German Luftwaffe during World War II.

Design 
The Jagdfaust design was based on the Schräge Musik, the manually triggered upward-firing air-to-air cannon extensively deployed with the Luftwaffe night fighter squadrons.

The Komet was so fast that pilots found it difficult to fire enough cannon rounds to destroy a bomber in a single pass. The Jagdfaust was developed to address this problem. A 5 cm shell was mounted in a launch tube held in place by a pair of thin pins. Four such tubes were mounted vertically (to fire upward) in each wing. To ensure it would be fired at the correct time, the weapon featured a simple form of automated trigger in which an optical photocell detected the dark silhouette of an Allied bomber replacing bright blue sky and triggered the firing of the armed Jagdfaust guns. When the weapon fired, the force of the launch would break the pins holding the tube in place and the heavy tube would be ejected downward to offset the momentum of the explosive force of the shell. As a result, the plane's flight was not affected.

The Jagdfaust used a 5 cm Minengranate shell, whose thin walls traded fragmentation for additional explosives; when detonated within an aircraft with sheet metal skin, the skin would be blown off to devastating effect. The entire weapon was designed for economy. Because it was intended for short range use, the shell had an aerodynamically inefficient shape that could be easily forged or stamped. Its tolerances were loose, as its long-range accuracy was not an issue. Instead of a driving band, the shell flared at its base and was machined to engage the rifling. The launch tube was made of soft unalloyed steel since it would not need to keep its rifling over repeated firings. The shell used a simple type of fuse instead of the more complex and expensive AZ 39 Safety Fuse. It was probably shipped pre-assembled and ready to install.

Operational history
The weapon system is credited with one kill: on April 10, 1945 Fritz Kelb downed an RAF Lancaster using it. Though initial results were promising, the war ended before it could see extensive deployment. It is believed only two aircraft were ever outfitted with it.

See also 
 List of weapons of military aircraft of Germany during World War II
 Wunderwaffe

References

Further reading 
 Ransom Stephen, Cammann Hans-Hermann, Jim Laurier: Jagdgeschwader 400: Germany's Elite Rocket Fighters (Aviation Elite Units). Osprey Publishing. .
 Mantelli - Brown - Kittel - Graf: Messerschmitt Me 262 Schwalbe. Volume 23 of Aircraft of World War II. Edizioni R.E.I., 2015. .

Anti-aircraft guns of Germany
World War II artillery of Germany