A soldier's after-action mission report can sometimes leave out vital observations that could be valuable in planning future operations. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is exploring the use of soldier-worn sensors and recorders to augment a soldier's recall and reporting capabilities. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is acting as an independent evaluator for the Advanced Soldier Sensor Information System and Technology (ASSIST) project.
Recent tests at the U.S. Army Aberdeen Test Center in Aberdeen, Md., involved sensor-clad soldiers on unscripted patrol through simulated Iraqi villages populated with people representing bystanders, shopkeepers and insurgents. The sensors were designed to capture, classify and store data such as the sound of acceleration and deceleration of vehicles, images of people (including suspicious movements), speech and types of weapon fire.
A capacity to give locations using the Global Positioning System, an ability to translate Arabic signs and text into English, and on-command video recording were also demonstrated. Sensor system software is expected to extract keywords and create an indexed multimedia representation of information collected by different soldiers. The soldiers wearing the sensors will make an after-action report based on memory and then supplement that report with information from the sensor data.
"Soldiers endure tremendous physical and psychological stresses, which can make it difficult to remember details about what they experienced over prolonged missions," said Craig Schlenoff, NIST's ASSIST project coordinator. "We hope that ASSIST will keep our soldiers safer and increase the probability of mission success."
Groves of academe: New superconductor discovered by Duke engineers, in theory
After an exhaustive data search for new compounds, researchers at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering have discovered a theoretical "metal sandwich" that is expected to be a good superconductor. The new lithium monoboride (LiB) compound is a binary alloy consisting of two layers of boron -- the "bread" of the atomic sandwich -- with a lithium metal "filling" in between, the researchers said. Once the material is synthesized, it should be superconductive at a higher temperature than other superconductors in its class, according to their results.
"To the best of our knowledge, this alloy structure had not been considered before," said Stefano Curtarolo, professor of mechanical engineering and materials sciences. "We have been able to identify synthesis conditions under which the LiB compound should form. We believe that if the material can be synthesized, it should superconduct at a higher temperature, perhaps more than 1% greater, than any other binary alloy superconductor."
"The significance of the work is not only the discovery of lithium monoboride itself, but also that this opens the door to finding derivatives that could aid in the search for additional novel superconductors," added Aleksey Kolmogorov, lead author of the study.
Superconductors have the potential to produce more efficient electronics and electric generators, according to the researchers. The materials also have unique magnetic capabilities that may enable their use in transportation applications, such as maglev trains that glide over their tracks with virtually no friction.
However, today's superconductors perform only when cooled to extremely low temperatures near absolute zero, which is -459.67 degrees Fahrenheit, or 0 degrees Kelvin. This requirement makes their use prohibitively expensive, the researchers said.
"It's a very thin line, because as you try to increase the temperature at which a material becomes superconducting, the material tends to lose its stability," Kolmogorov said.
"It was like spotting a $100 bill on the street," Curtarolo. "It seemed impossible that this could be real and that no one had seen it before."
Difference engines: Get the word
Word processing, which is the computer application that has most dramatically changed the lives of office workers, had its beginnings in the Middle Ages with efforts to automate the writing process. The invention of printing and movable type was the initial step. But for the individual, the first major advance from manual writing was the typewriter.
Christopher Latham Sholes, with the assistance of two colleagues, invented the first successful manual typewriter in 1867. It began to be marketed commercially in 1874. This model printed on the underside of the roller, so the typist could not view his work until he had finished.
The shift key, which made it possible to type both capital and lower-case letters with the same keys, was added to typewriters in 1878; printing on the upper side of the roller came in 1880; and the tab key was added in 1897.
Thomas Edison patented an electric typewriter in 1872, but the first workable model was not introduced until the 1920s. M. Shultz Co.'s introduction of the automatic or repetitive typewriter in the 1930s was perhaps the greatest step from the typewriter toward modern word processing. The Shultz machine's main innovation was automatic storage of information for later retrieval. It was a sort of "player typewriter," punch-coding text onto paper rolls, similar to those used in player pianos, that could later be used to activate the keys of the typewriter in the same order as the initial typing. With the automatic typewriter, it was possible to produce multiple typed copies of form letters without the intermediary of carbons, photocopiers or typesetting.
In 1964, IBM brought out the MT/ST, which combined the features of its Selectric typewriter with a magnetic tape drive. On the tape, information could be stored, replayed, corrected and reprinted as many times as needed. This development marked the beginning of word processing as it is known today.
In the early 1970s, Linolex, Lexitron and Vydec introduced pioneering word-processing systems with CRT display editing. A CRT-based system introduced by Wang Laboratories Inc. in 1976 popularized word processing.
With the rise of personal computers, in particular the IBM PC and PC compatibles, software-based word processors running on general-purpose commodity hardware gradually displaced dedicated word processors.