omniomni/omni-engineering huggingface dataset:
White box (software engineering). A white box (or glass box, clear box, or open box) is a subsystem whose internals can be viewed but usually not altered.  The term is used in systems engineering, software engineering, and in intelligent user interface design, where it is closely related to recent interest in explainable artificial intelligence.

Having access to the subsystem internals in general makes the subsystem easier to understand, but also easier to hack; for example, if a programmer can examine source code, weaknesses in an algorithm are much easier to discover. That makes white-box testing much more effective than black-box testing but considerably more difficult from the sophistication needed on the part of the tester to understand the subsystem.

The notion of a "Black Box in a Glass Box" was originally used as a metaphor for teaching complex topics to computing novices.

See also
 Black box
 Gray-box testing

References

Software testing
White box (computer hardware). In computer hardware, a white box is a personal computer or server without a well-known brand name.

The term is usually applied to systems assembled by small system integrators and to homebuilt computer systems assembled by end users from parts purchased separately at retail. In this sense, building a white box system is part of the DIY movement.

The term is also applied to high volume production of unbranded PCs that began in the mid-1980s with 8 MHz Turbo XT systems selling for just under $1000.

In 2002, around 30% of personal computers sold annually were white box systems.

Operating systems 

While PCs built by system manufacturers generally come with a pre-installed operating system, white boxes from both large and small system vendors and other VAR channels can be ordered with or without a pre-installed OS. Usually when ordered with an operating system, the system builder uses an OEM copy of the OS.

Whitebook or Intel "Common Building Blocks" 
Intel defined form factor and interconnection standards for notebook computer components, including "Barebones" (chassis and motherboard), hard disk drive, optical disk drive, LCD, battery pack, keyboard, and AC/DC adapter. These building blocks are primarily marketed to computer building companies, rather than DIY users.

Costs 

While saving money is a common motivation for building one's own PC, today in the US it is generally more expensive to build a low-end PC than to buy a pre-built one from a well-known manufacturer.

See also 
Beige box
Enthusiast computing
Homebuilt computer
White-label product

References 

Computer enclosure
Electronics manufacturing
Personal computers
Computer jargon
William J. Kossler Award. The Captain William J. Kossler, USCG Award is given by the American Helicopter Society (AHS) International for "the greatest achievement in practical application or operation of rotary wing aircraft, the value of which has been demonstrated by actual service during the preceding calendar year." The award consists of one certificate for the selected individual or crew and honors the memory of William J. Kossler, a U.S. Coast Guard airman, aeronautical engineer and early advocate of helicopters in USCG operations. 

The annual award was first given in 1951, to Col. Richard T. Knight, U.S. Air Force.  Other individual recipients have included Don R. Berlin, James M. Gavin, Keith B. McCutcheon and Paul A. Yost, Jr.  

Group or crew recipients have included "USSR Military and Civilian Helicopter Pilots Flying Initial Operations at Site of Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster, April-May, 1986", "Army National Guard Aviation, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita (2006)",  "Australian Search and Rescue Helicopters/Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race (1999)" and "Canadian Air Force Flight Crew of Labrador 303, 413 Squadron (1997)".

See also

 List of aviation awards

References

Aviation awards
United States Coast Guard Aviation
Crystal earpiece. A crystal earpiece is a type of piezoelectric earphone, producing sound by using a piezoelectric crystal, a material that changes its shape when electricity is applied to it.  It is usually designed to plug into the ear canal of the user.

Operation
A crystal earpiece typically consists of a piezoelectric crystal with metal electrodes attached to either side, glued to a conical plastic or metal foil diaphragm, enclosed in a plastic case. The piezoelectric material used in early crystal earphones was Rochelle salt, but modern earphones use barium titanate, or less often quartz. When the audio signal is applied to the electrodes, the crystal bends back and forth a little with the signal, vibrating the diaphragm. The diaphragm pushes on the air, creating sound waves. The plastic earpiece casing confines the sound waves and conducts them efficiently into the ear canal, to the eardrum. The diaphragm is generally fixed at its outer edge, relying on bending to operate. The air path in the earpiece is generally a horn shape, with a narrowing column of air which increases the air displacement at the eardrum, increasing the volume.

Application
Crystal earpieces are usually monaural devices with very low sound fidelity, but high sensitivity and impedance.  Their peak use was probably with 1960s era transistor radios and hearing aids.  They are not used with modern portable media players due to unacceptable sound quality.  The main causes of poor performance with these earpieces are low diaphragm excursion, nonlinearity, in-band resonance and the very short horn shape of the earpiece casing. The resulting sound is very tinny and lacking in bass.  Modern headphones use electromagnetic drivers that work similarly to speakers, with moving coils or moving iron cores in a magnetic field.

One remaining use for crystal earpieces is in crystal radios.  Their very high sensitivity enables them to use the very weak signals produced by crystal radios, and their high impedance (on the order of 20 kilohms) is a good match for the typical crystal radio.  They have also been used as microphones, with their high output requiring less amplification.

Crystal earpieces can also be used as rudimentary, low voltage, audio circuit troubleshooting tools; it is sufficient to touch the tip of the earpiece's audio connector on a point of interest while simultaneously touching the other (sleeve) connection with one's finger. The high impedance of the earpiece means that any audio-range signal applied to the tip of the connector will be heard in the earpiece. This quick-and-dirty technique can remove the need for setting up and probing with an oscilloscope or connecting an amplifier to the test point in the first instance.

References

Headphones
Audio electronics
Electrodialysis reversal. Electrodialysis reversal (EDR) is an electrodialysis reversal water desalination membrane process that has been commercially used since the early 1960s. An electric current migrates dissolved salt ions, including fluorides, nitrates and sulfates, through an electrodialysis stack consisting of alternating layers of cationic and anionic ion exchange membranes. Periodically (3-4 times per hour), the direction of ion flow is reversed by reversing the polarity of the applied electric current.

Current reversal reduces clogging of membranes, as salt deposits in the membrane gets dissolved when the current flow is reversed. Electrodialysis reversal causes a small decrease in the diluted feed quality and requires increased complexity infrastructures, as reversible valves are required to change the flow direction of diluted and concentrated streams. However, it greatly increases ion exchange membranes durability, and membrane cleaning prevents electrical resistance increase of membrane as deposits accumulate in the membrane pores.

The polarity reversal of EDR alternately exposed membrane surfaces and the water flow paths to concentrate with a tendency to precipitate scale and desalted water that tends to dissolve scale. This allows the process to operate with supersaturated concentrate streams up to specific limits without chemical additions to prevent scale formation.

See also
Reversed electrodialysis (RED)
Osmotic power

References

External links 
 Article: Water issues prompt new look at desalination 

Water desalination
Membrane technology
Research Institute of Computer Science and Random Systems. The Institut de recherche en informatique et systèmes aléatoires is a joint computer science research center of CNRS, University of Rennes 1, ENS Rennes, INSA Rennes and Inria, in Rennes in Brittany. It is one of the eight Inria research centers.

Created in 1975 as a spin-off of the University of Rennes 1, merging the young computer science department and a few mathematicians, more specifically probabilists, among them Michel Métivier, who was to become the first president of IRISA.

Research topics span from theoretical computer science, such as formal languages, formal methods, or more mathematically oriented topics such as information theory, optimization, complex system... to application-driven topics like bioinformatics, image and video compression, handwriting recognition, computer graphics, medical imaging, content-based image retrieval.

See also 
French space program

Space program of France
Aerospace engineering organizations
Computer science institutes in France
France
Research institutes in France
French National Centre for Scientific Research
1975 establishments in France
French UMR
Fitzpatrick Center. The Fitzpatrick Center for Interdisciplinary Engineering, Medicine and Applied Sciences—colloquially referred to as FCIEMAS (pronounced "eff-see-mas") —opened in August 2004 on the West campus of Duke University. Research facilities focus on the fields of photonics, bioengineering, communications, and materials science and materials engineering.  The aim of the building was to emphasize interdisciplinary activities and encourage cross-departmental interactions.  The building houses numerous wet bench laboratories (highlighted by a nanotechnology research wing), offices, teaching spaces, and an Irish themed café Twinnie's. FCIEMAS contains: a three-story,  atrium; 206-seat auditorium;  of laboratory space;  of conference space; and the Duke Immersive Virtual Environment (one of seven in the world).  The construction of FCIEMAS took more than three years and cost more than $97 million.

See also 
 Duke University Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy

References

External links

Duke University campus
2004 establishments in North Carolina
CIAO. Component-Integrated ACE ORB, a CORBA Component Model (CCM) implementation
 CIAO: Columbia International Affairs Online, an electronic database from Columbia University Press
 CIAO (AM): Radio station at 790 kHz in Brampton, Ontario
 CHLO (AM): Radio station at 530 kHz in Brampton, Ontario, that once held the CIAO call sign

See also 
 Ciao (disambiguation)
Airlift (dredging device). An airlift is device based on a pipe, used in nautical archaeology to suck small objects, sand and mud from the sea bed and to transport the resulting debris upwards and away from its source. It is a type of suction dredge. A water dredge or water eductor may be used for the same purpose.

Typically, the airlift is constructed from a 3-metre to 10 metre long, 10 cm diameter pipe. A controllable compressed air supply vents into the inside, lower end of the pipe (The input end always being the lower end). Compressed air is injected into the pipe in one to three second bursts with an interval long enough to let the resulting bubble to rise to the higher, output end of the pipe. The bubble moves water through the pipe sucking debris from the lower end and depositing it from the upper end of the pipe. Ejected debris can be either cast off (as in simply removing overburden) or collected in a mesh cage for inspection (as more often is the case in nautical archaeology). It is often designed to be hand-operated by a diver.

Airlift pumps are used by water utilities, farmers and others to extract water from deep wells. In such cases the pipes can be 30, 60 or more meters deep underground. Airlift pumps are governed by the physics of two-phase flow.

See also

References

Underwater work equipment

ru:Эрлифт
Jesse Sullivan. Jesse Sullivan (born c. 1966) is an American electrician best known for operating a fully robotic limb through a nerve-muscle graft, making him one of the first non-fictional cyborgs.

His bionic arm, a prototype developed by the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, differs from most other prostheses, in that it does not use pull cables or nub switches to function and instead uses micro-computers to perform a much wider range of complex motions.  It is also the first prototype which enables him to sense pressure.

History
As an electrician, Jesse Sullivan accidentally touched an active cable that contained 7,000-7,500 volts of electricity.  In May 2001, he had to have both his arms amputated at the shoulder.

Seven weeks after the amputation, Jesse Sullivan received matching bionic prostheses from Dr. Todd Kuiken of the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.  Originally, they were operated from neural signals at the amputation sites, but Jesse Sullivan developed hyper-sensitivity from his skin grafts, causing great discomfort in those areas.  Jesse Sullivan underwent neural surgery to graft nerves, which originally led to his arm, to his chest.  The sensors for his bionic arms have been moved to the left side of his chest to receive signals from the newly grafted nerve endings.

While the prototype is being strengthened, Jesse Sullivan does day-to-day tasks using an older model.

See also 
 Claudia Mitchell

References

"Bionic arm 'transformed my life'" - BBC News
"Man With $6 Million 'Bionic' Arm" - ABCNews
Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago

External links
Jesse Sullivan powers robotic arms with his mind

Cyborgs
American amputees
1950s births
Living people
American electricians
Inotera. Inotera Memories, Inc.  () was a company incorporated as a joint venture between Nanya Technology Corporation and Infineon (later Qimonda) in Taiwan in January 2003. The company was acquired by Micron Technology in 2016. It was renamed to Micron Technology Taiwan, Inc. and became one of Micron's manufacturing locations.

History

In 2008, Micron Technology acquired a 35.5% stake in Inotera from Qimonda as Qimonda underwent restructuring. The Company reached full conversion to 70 nm shrink technology at the end of June 2008 and started pilot production of Micron’s 50 nm stack process technology from the third quarter of 2009 in order to further improve the productivity and to reduce manufacturing unit cost.

In January 2013, Micron announced an amendment to the joint development agreement with Nanya that gave Micron access to all of Inotera's manufacturing output based on market pricing.

In December 2016, Micron completed the acquisition at a transaction value of approximately US$4.0 billion.

References

External links
Micron.com - Inotera Is Now Micron

Semiconductor companies of Taiwan
Companies based in Taoyuan City
Micron Technology
Taiwanese companies established in 2003
Electronics companies established in 2003
Bottle scraper. The bottle scraper (known as both a flessenschraper (bottle scraper) and flessenlikker (bottle licker) in Dutch) is a Dutch kitchen tool similar to a small spatula. It is designed to scrape the contents of long bottles that would be impossible to reach with other kitchen tools. Although the tool is sold in Norway and has even been described in some accounts as having originated there, it was introduced in the Netherlands around 1954 by a Dutch family-owned company Tijger Plastics NV founded in 1950 and nowadays operating as Coram NV. The bottle scraper was patented on 31 March 1967 and it is cited as a quintessentially Dutch tool as well as an example of Dutch thrift.

The scraper is made of a long shaft, frequently around  in length. On one side is a small flexible rubber spatula head roughly  across set perpendicular to the shaft. The head is flexible and usually has a rounded half-circle shape one side useful for scraping round bottles and jars and a flat side with two right angles useful for scraping out cartons. The head is flexible so that it can be pushed into and pulled out of bottles whose mouth is smaller than the fully expanded head of the scraper but larger than the shaft.

It is a common tool in kitchens in the Netherlands and available in many kitchen stores and supermarkets — although this may vary by region. It is almost entirely unused and unknown outside of that country.

Historically, vla (a popular dairy product with the consistency similar to custard or yoghurt) was sold in long glass bottles. Vla was frequently delivered by milkmen in bottles similar to the long, tapered-neck milk bottles used in many places in the world. However, while the use of the milk bottle streamlined production and distribution practices, the shape of the  container made it hard to extract the last bits with spoons, spatulas, or other kitchen utensils. The Dutch solution was the bottle scraper, which was perfectly suited to fix this problem.

Vla is now primarily sold in cartons which reduces the need for a bottle scraper or make the design less efficient (e.g., bottles have rounded walls while cartons frequently have square bases with 90 degree angles). Modern bottle scrapers include a spatula-side with right angles useful for scraping vla out of these containers as well. Additionally, the  scraper has come to occupy an important role in Dutch kitchens in variety of other purposes being used for scraping the contents of many other bottles and jars (for example, nut butters and other spreads). Much of the Dutch population is familiar with the bottle scraper and skilled in its use.

References 

Food preparation utensils
Culture of the Netherlands
Bond paper. Bond paper is a high-quality durable writing paper similar to bank paper but having a weight greater than 50 g/m2. The most common weights are 60 g/m2 (16 lb), 75 g/m2 (20 lb) and 90 g/m2 (24 lb). The name comes from its having originally been made for documents such as government bonds. It is now used for letterheads and other stationery and as paper for electronic printers. Widely employed for graphic work involving pencil, pen and felt-tip marker, bond paper can sometimes contain rag fibre pulp, which produces a stronger, though rougher, sheet of paper.

See also
 Coated paper, also high-quality, but bond paper may be coated or uncoated
 Inkjet paper
 Tracing paper

References 
 Webster's Third New International Dictionary
 Chamber's Science and Technology Dictionary, p. 103 

Printing and writing paper
Paper
Automatic curb sender. The  automatic curb sender was a kind of telegraph key, invented by William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin for sending messages on a submarine communications cable, as the well-known Wheatstone transmitter sends them on a land line.

In both instruments, the signals are sent by means of a perforated ribbon of paper but the cable sender was the more complicated, because the cable signals are formed by both positive and negative currents, and not merely by a single current, whether positive or negative.  Moreover, to curb the prolongation of the signals due to electromagnetic induction, each signal was made by two opposite currents in succession: a positive followed by a negative, or a negative followed by a positive. The aftercurrent had the effect of "curbing" its precursor.

For some time, it was the only instrument delicate enough to receive the signals transmitted through a long cable.

This self-acting cable key was brought out in 1876, and tried on the lines of the Eastern Telegraph Company.

References 

Telegraphy
Thinsulate. Thinsulate is a brand of synthetic fiber thermal insulation used in clothing. The word is a portmanteau of the words thin and insulate, trademarked by 3M. The material is made by the 3M Corporation and was first sold in 1979. It was originally marketed as an inexpensive alternative to down; at the time, 3M claimed it was twice as warm as an equivalent amount of any natural material.

Originally designed for clothing, it later became popular as an acoustic damping material. In 1997, 3M generated US$150 million in annual revenue from the product. Its development originated from other microfibre products made by 3M. It has been used in US army clothing since the mid 1980s.

Description 
Thinsulate fibers are about  in diameter, which is thinner than the polyester fibers normally used in insulation for clothing such as gloves or winter jackets. Advertising material suggests that Thinsulate is more effective due to the increased density of fibers with decreased size of fibers compared with more traditional insulation. Like most insulation materials, the gaps between fibers not only reduce heat flow, but also allow moisture to escape. The insulation properties are beneficial for retaining some of the heat produced by the body for comfortable warmth while the moisture produced, most likely sweat, is supposed to evaporate. It retains its insulating properties when wet.

The thermal resistance R-value provided by Thinsulate products varies by the specific thickness and construction of the fabric.  Values (US units) range from 1.6 for 80-gram fabric to 2.9 for 200-gram fabric. Thinsulate is considered "the warmest thin apparel insulation" available. In fact, when equal thicknesses are compared, it provides about 1½ times the warmth of down and about twice the warmth of other high-loft insulation materials.

Material safety data sheets from the manufacturer show that different varieties of Thinsulate are made from different mixtures of polymers, but most are primarily polyethylene terephthalate or a mixture of polyethylene terephthalate and polypropylene. Other materials in some include polyethylene terephthalate-polyethylene isophthalate copolymer and acrylic.

Thinsulate is now used in the fabric roof of the convertible automobile, the Porsche Boxster. The extra layer not only reduces heat loss but has also reduced noise levels inside the car by 3 decibels. It is also used in the roof of the Jaguar F-Type sports car. It features in the upholstery of Saturn sedans, Ford F-150 pickups, Buick Park Avenues, and F-16 fighters.

It is used in a wide variety of clothing products, such as footwear, gloves, hats, and coats. It became popular in outerwear jackets as early as 1985. The fibers are thinner in diameter than polyester fibres, so the material is used as a waterproof synthetic alternative to down.

In 2015 Thinsulate was named a recipient of an ISPO Award as a Top 10 Insulation.

References

See also
 PrimaLoft

External links 
 

Synthetic fibers
3M brands
Products introduced in 1979
Insulators