Remote Room Research Articles

A Viennese Exponent of Understatement: Personal reflections on Friedrich Cerha

I First Met Friedrich Cerha and his wife Traude in December 1956. After a concert given by the International Society for Contemporary Music—at that time still considered a small group of conspirators—in a remote room at the Musikakademie, my mentor Hanns Jelinek took me to the Gmoa-Keller on the Heumarkt to introduce me to the leaders of Vienna's musical avant-garde.

Vibration telemetering system

There is dislosed a vibration telemetering system capable of measuring adverse vibrations of installations or equipment in a plant such as a nuclear power plant. The system includes a vibrometer which measures the vibrations in a non-contacting fashion. The direction at which the vibrometer faces is adjusted by an angle adjusting mechanism which is mounted on a travelling unit running along a predetermined inspection route in the plant. A measured signal from the vibrometer is transmitted to a remote control room through a communication system and is used for evaluating whether or not the state of the plant is normal. The remote control room can control the travelling unit and the angle adjusting mechanism through the communication system in order to monitor the vibrations of a plurality of places along the predetermined inspection route.

Networking of microcomputers in the radiology department.

A microcomputer may be installed in any of several areas in a radiology department or office to automate data processing. Such areas include the reception desk, the transcription office, the quality-control station, and remote or satellite radiography rooms. Independent microcomputers can be interconnected by networking, using small hardware and software packages and cables, to effect communication between them, afford access to a common data base, and share peripheral devices such as hard disks and printers. A network of microcomputers can perform many of the functions of a larger minicomputer system at lower cost and can be assembled in small modules as budgetary constraints allow.

Improving the Performances of Silicon Detector Electronics in High Energy Experiments by Optoelectronic Transmission of Analog Signals between Beam Line and Counting Room

The optoelectronic link described here transmits short analog signals from the beam line of the accelerator where the detectors and the front-end circuits are located to a remote counting room. Features of the electronic link that turn out to be important in high energy applications of silicon detectors are the distorsionless transmission of short signals, which results in improved counting rate capabilities and insensitivity to environment noise. This paper describes the design criteria employed to realize an optoelectro nic link with good linearity, high stability and very low intrinsic noise. The application of the link as a part of an analog processor for low noise data acquisition from solid state active targets is discussed.

Woodrow Wilson and the Presidency

Arthur S. Link, et al., eds. The Papers of Woodrow Wilson. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Volume 25,1912 (1978), 672 + xxiv pp. Volume 27,1913 (1978), 599 + xxxii pp. Volume 28,1913 ( 1978), 629 + xx pp. Volume 29, December 2, 1913-May 5,1914 (1979), 592 + xx pp. Volume 30, May 6-September 5, 1914 (1979),526 + xx pp. Volume 31, September 6-December 31, 1914 (1979), 592 + xxii pp. Political figures often stand in fear of the judgment of history. Reflecting upon his academic career, Woodrow Wilson in 1912 recalled that when he had been an historian, he had been able to "sit on the side lines and look on with a certain degree of complacency upon the men who were performing in the arena of politics." He had taken satisfaction in the fact that "after the game is over some quiet fellow like myself will sit down in a remote room somewhere and tell the next generation what to think" about the politicians. That knowledge, however, took on new meaning once he entered public life. "Now that I am myself exposed," he observed, "I think of that quiet jury sitting in those rooms surrounded by nothing but shelves and books and documents. I think of the anticipated verdict of another generation" (25: 197). The verdict which Wilson pondered is of course never final, and the evidence now available to "that quiet jury" of which he spoke has grown to enormous proportions. The task of arriving at a fresh assessment of Woodrow Wilson will be facilitated immensely, however, by the availability of the documentary collection now being produced at Princeton University by Arthur S. Link and his associates.

Geophagia in response to stress and arthritis

Geophagia, the consumption of nonnutritive dirt, has previously been shown to be increased when rats have been made acutely ill. The present paper reports two experiments in which geophagia in response to stress and arthritis was measured. In the first experiment, experimental rats were injected with Freund's Complete Adjuvant (FCA), a mineral oil suspension of killed Mycobacterium butyricum. They ate significantly more kaolin (a nonnutritive substance) than controls, suggesting that geophagia is a behavioral measure of illness. In a second study, kaolin consumption was similarly elevated in stressed and/or arthritic animals as well as in control rats living in the same room. Nonstressed controls housed in a remote room ate significantly less kaolin than rats in all other groups. It was concluded that geophagia may occur in response to any homeostatic alteration (stress state). Furthermore, this state can presumably be communicated to naive rats from adjacently-housed stressed animals. Geophagia was postulated to occur in animals who experience a generalized stress response since this state may involve gastro-intestinal malaise.

Paper 6: Hydraulic Control of Valves in Tankers

The 47 800-ton vessel Altair of the Compagnie Navale des Pétroles (C.N.P.) was the first oil-tanker to be equipped with a hydraulic remote-control system of cargo valves. The vessel was delivered at the beginning of May 1959. The opening and closing operations of the valves were controlled from a central panel which was fitted with manually operated directional control valves. The panel was located in the cargo valves' remote-control room which also housed the indispensable remote-controlled level-indicator board. Since then the application of hydraulic remote-controlled valves has become widespread and has taken one of two forms : that of a centralized control system or that of directional control valves located on the deck. Remote-controlled valves are either gate valves operated by a hydraulic cylinder, or butterfly valves operated by a hydraulic rotary actuator. The application of remote-control also allowed the setting up of the ‘free-flow’ system which uses hydraulically operated bulkhead valves. The first ‘free-flow’ oil-tanker was the Sirius of the C.N.P.; it was delivered in 1961. At present it appears that there exists an ever-increasing trend towards automation in the loading and unloading of tanker cargoes. This is accomplished by electrically operated directional control valves, which are connected with electrically programmed systems or with electronic servo-controls.

Man and the Machine

Future transport systems are difficult to predict, but one can perceive three main possibilities. The first is that transport will become entirely automatic, so that where, for example, one now has an automatic pilot during flight, one will also have automatic take-off and automatic landing. Flights will be pre-programmed, and will require no supervision in the vehicle itself or even from a remote-control room. Whether or not such a system is practicable is not within the scope of this paper; but there does not appear to be any purely mechanical problem connected with it that could not be overcome. However the production of equipment of the necessary reliability raises formidable human problems. problems. Not the least among these is the difficulty of maintaining rigorous standards of inspection; another is the rationalization and speeding up of faultfinding and repair procedures. It looks as though if we were to dispense with the human element in one sphere, its importance in another would be enhanced.

Oxygen Preparation from Sodium Peroxide: A Dangerous Experiment

A few days ago oxygen was prepared in the course of a lecture experiment by allowing water from a drop funnel to fall upon some ordinary sodium peroxide (not specially purified) in a flask. On applying a glowing splint there was an immediate and terrific explosion, which was heard throughout the Department and was regarded by those in the more remote rooms as a student's reminder that November 5 was not far distant. The flask was entirely pulverised and the demonstrator was badly cut with flying glass. Fortunately, no students were injured.