Data collected this spring from more than 13,000 users of the World Wide Web suggests commercial online services are significantly broadening the population using this rapidly growing part of the Information Superhighway. The work is believed to be the first to examine the impact of Web access provided through major national services such as Prodigy.
Web access offered by the large national services and expansion of local Internet service providers is helping change the age, gender, income, occupation and other demographics of Web users. Though African-Americans remain poorly represented, the research suggests more women are now entering the traditionally male-dominated computer network.
"The respondents we are seeing now are less technically-oriented and more likely to be female than those we have seen in the past," said James E. Pitkow, a College of Computing researcher who has been studying demographic trends on the Web for more than a year. "Overall, there are more people coming from outside the educational domain. This shows that the people browsing the Web are becoming more like the general population."
Another key finding: Since similar research was conducted in October 1994, Windows has replaced Unix as the predominant computer operating system for those browsing the Web.
The information was gathered from questionnaires posted on the Web from April 10 to May 10. At the time the questionnaires were posted, only Prodigy had made its Web browser software widely available, and approximately 20 percent of those answering the questions entered the Web through that service. The researchers advertised the questionnaire on Prodigy, and in other Internet locations and popular sites on the Web.
"We found that Prodigy brings both a younger population and an older population, compared to the typical Internet user," Pitkow explained. "The service brings a larger population in the K-12 age, as well as more older and professional people."
Georgia Tech is one of six members of the Field Emission Display Consortium working to develop next-generation field emission display technology. The consortium, led by Texas Instruments, Inc. of Dallas and Raytheon Co. of Lexington, Mass., also includes EG&G Power Systems of Covina, Calif; Lockheed Sanders, Inc., of Nashua, N.H.; and MRS Technology, Inc., of Chelmsford, Mass.
Field emission displays, a newly developed display technology, are suited for applications ranging from miniature displays for cockpit instrumentation to laptop or desktop computer displays. Field emission displays are expected to provide greater power efficiency, wider viewing angles and operating temperature ranges, and lower manufacturing costs compared to today's standard active matrix liquid crystal displays.
Consortium researchers will:
The consortium recently received funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and will also receive support from the Georgia Research Alliance and industry.
You've heard of smart highways, smart cars, smart homes and even smart credit cards. Now aerospace engineers at the Georgia Institute of Technology want to bring you smart guitars.
If they are successful, musicians could one day use "smart structures" built into inexpensive acoustic guitars to create sound as rich as that produced by high quality instruments costing thousands of dollars. The smart structures -- material systems with the ability to change their mechanical properties -- also would provide a better method for customizing guitars and tuning them for different performance halls.
Dr. Sathya Hanagud and other Georgia Tech researchers use smart structures for simplifying helicopter control systems and reducing harmful vibration in complex structures. In the guitar, they use similar sensors, electronic controllers and piezoelectric actuators to alter the manner in which the guitar's wooden components vibrate.
In good guitars, the second mode doesn't have much damping, says doctoral student Steve Griffin. "We realized that if we could reduce the damping in a bad guitar, we could perhaps make it sound like a good guitar," he adds.
Griffin used a model of guitar acoustics he developed to make a smart structure system duplicating the amount of damping built into expensive guitars. Using a sensor, simple electronic controller and a small piece of piezoelectric actuator, he tested a prototype control system on a crude single-string cookie tin guitar. Griffin then developed a full-fledged control system for a $200 guitar, which noticeably improves the sound of the chords he plays.
Though they have demonstrated the principle, Hanagud and Griffin say they have a long way to go before musicians will get their fingers on the strings of a smart guitar. The next step will be improving stability of the electronic controller, which Griffin built for approximately $20. The control scheme also must also be fine enough for precise control by musicians.
Patent protection has been sought for the technique through Georgia Tech's Office of Technology Licensing.
Further information is available from Dr. Sathya Hanagud, School of Aerospace Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332-0150. (Telephone: 404/894-3040) (E-mail: sathyanaraya.hanagud@aero.gatech.edu
Deciding how to evaluate, repair or rehabilitate older and/or historic buildings can be difficult for their owners, who often lack information about resources, treatment materials and techniques.
Georgia Tech's Center for Public Buildings helps owners and managers make better maintenance and preservation decisions. The center develops standardized and automated methods for evaluating older buildings, or archaic building materials. It has produced several PC-based applications for national programs of building evaluation, and created the first expert system in the historic preservation field. The center provides a full range of assistance and information on addressing the challenges of preserving these special structures.
The center's research is supported by government and private sponsors. It works with groups including the U.S. Department of the Interior, the U.S. General Services Administration, the National Park Service and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The center also participates in the leadership of several national historic preservation organizations.
Carpet's feet-friendly fibers could become even friendlier to the environment with the application of Georgia Tech's studies of carpet drying during manufacturing.
Researchers from the School of Textile and Fiber Engineering, School of Mechanical Engineering, and Institute of Paper Science and Technology are studying the drying process with funding from the National Textile Center and the National Science Foundation. Computer models of the process will be developed and used to optimize drying technologies and methods.
"If we can establish where the water is, and how it moves in the carpet, we will be in a position to devise techniques to remove the water faster and more efficiently," says associate professor Wallace Carr. "This could make cost and energy savings possible."
Carpet gets wet when it is immersed in dyeing and finishing (e.g. stain blocker) solutions. Most carpet is dried as it moves through large, natural-gas heated drying ovens that can measure about 15 x 60 feet.
Researchers will identify the distribution of water in wet textiles and how that moisture leaves carpet using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance imaging (NMR) -- the same Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) technology used in medical applications. They will test their model's validity using a laboratory drying system that closely simulates industrial moisture removal processes.
Other potential applications include the development of improved baby diapers and the enhancement of moisture management in engineered footware for athletes.
A Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) employee has been honored with a 1995 American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) Award of Merit, and also was made a Fellow of that organization.
Jim Walsh, director of Georgia Tech's Waste Reduction and Environmental Compliance Program, was among 20 ASTM members presented the award and title this year. He was recognized for "distinguished service and outstanding participation in ASTM technical committee activities," according to ASTM Standardization News. Walsh was nominated by an ASTM committee on biotechnology and biomass, and was selected by ASTM's board of directors. ASTM has about 35,000 members.
Among Walsh's accomplishments are developing standards for biomass testing that make it possible to characterize biomass just as one does coal. He also helped devise guidelines for alcohol that can be mixed with gasoline, and has contributed to standard development for manufacturing the latest anaerobic digesters used in waste treatment.
Walsh holds bachelor's and master's degrees in aerospace engineering from Georgia Tech, and a master's degree in systems management from the University of Southern California. He is also a registered professional engineer. Before coming to Georgia Tech, he worked for EBASCO Services and served in the U.S. Air Force. Walsh's work covers waste handling, treatment, minimization and recycling, as well as pollution prevention. He also researches the design and analysis of advanced pollution control systems for food processing wastes and biomass energy systems.
Walsh's future goals include contributing to and implementing ISO 14000 standards for environmental management systems. Similar to ISO 9000, the 14000 rules set standards companies must meet to trade with the European Community and other countries. But the 14000 standards relate to environmental safety and health compliance, while the 9000 standards govern quality programs.
The ISO 14000 standards may level the playing field for the United States when it competes with companies that supply cheap labor, Walsh noted. He and GTRI colleagues Paul Schlumper and Roc Tschirhart are finding ways to help industries audit their own compliance -- they are working on a project with the Georgia Manufacturing Extension Alliance (GMEA) through Georgia Tech's Economic Development Institute.
A researcher in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering has been honored with the Judith A. Resnik Award by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), in recognition of his work in space engineering.
Dr. Paul Steffes was recognized for "contributions to an understanding of the Venus atmosphere through innovative microwave measurements." For more than a decade, his work in planetary atmospheres has been a major focus of his academic career. Steffes' research has concentrated on laboratory measurements of the microwave absorptive and refractive properties of the simulated atmospheres of Venus and the outer planets.
Most recently Steffes and his former student, Dr. Jon M. Jenkins of the SETI Institute/NASA Ames Research Center, conducted the Magellan Radio Occultation Experiments, using the spacecraft's microwave telecommunications system for measuring the Venus atmosphere.
Steffes has also made contributions in studying satellite interference location and noninvasive monitoring of blood glucose levels for diabetics. He is director of Georgia Tech's Satellite Earth Station, which plays a vital role in continuing education, and he founded the Radio Astronomy and Propagation Laboratory, where the atmosphere of any planet in the solar system can be simulated and microwave properties measured.
Established by the IEEE Board of Directors in 1986, the Judith A. Resnik Award recognizes an electrical engineer for contributions to space engineering and is one of the Society's major field service awards. The award is named in honor of IEEE member Judith Resnik, who was a mission specialist on the NASA Space Shuttle Challenger, which exploded on January 28, 1986. Dr. Resnik was a biomedical engineer and staff Fellow with the National Institutes of Health when she was selected by NASA in 1978 to join the space program.
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