Property:Proposed Milestone Abstract

From IEEE Milestones Wiki

200-250 word abstract describing the significance of the technical achievement being proposed, the person(s) involved, historical context, humanitarian and social impact, as well as any possible controversies the advocate might need to review.

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Showing 20 pages using this property.
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"The 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics honors “groundbreaking inventions in the field of laser physics” on opposite ends of the time and intensity scale." "Arthur Ashkin of the United States invented “optical tweezers,” which use low-power laser beams to manipulate tiny objects such as living cells." "Working at Bell Labs in 1970, Ashkin first showed that the pressure of lasers emitting tightly focused, stable beams of light could move small particles. The following year, he showed that an upwards pointing laser beam could provide enough of a push on a small particle to offset the force of gravity. But that levitation found only limited use because other forces such as Brownian motion in water can easily push such a small particle out of the laser beam’s path. In 1986, Ashkin and a Bell Labs team including Steven Chu developed optical tweezers. Their invention featured a short-focus lens that created a strong gradient in the laser beam capable of trapping particles from tens of nanometers to tens of micrometers, even in water. That technique was soon used to demonstrate feats including laser cooling of atoms, for which Steven Chu shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics." [Ref 1] 2018 Nobel Physics Prize for Pioneering Laser Work The honorees, recognized for work on ultrashort, ultrapowerful laser pulses, and delicate laser manipulation of tiny biological structures, include the first woman to get the physics prize since 1963 Jeff Hecht 02 Oct 2018  +
<p style="text-align:justify">The X-band real-aperture side-looking radar of the Cosmos-1500 spacecraft was placed into orbit in 1983 and worked for 3 years. This was the first space radar of that type, providing an order wider swath than preceding Seasat synthetic-aperture radar, at the expense of the lower resolution. Additionally, it generated microwave images on board and delivered them directly to the users via a dedicated radio-frequency channel. It was conceived and designed by the team led by Anatoly Kalmykov at the Institute of Radiophysics and Electronics NASU in Kharkiv. This radar sensor system, operational at the 650-km polar orbit, was aimed at research into ocean waving, icing, and storm tracking. However, its most remarkable and broadly covered impact was the provision of safe navigation in Arctic and Antarctic, especially in the polar night conditions, due to steady flow of the moderate-resolution microwave images of the sea ice and free water areas. This resulted in two successful rescue operations performed by the icebreakers equipped with the receivers of orbital data. At all stages of the radar development and operation, Kalmykov played crucial role, spearheading his team efforts and overcoming the technical and political obstacles. Due to success of that system, the same radar was later produced in small series in Ukraine and used at six USSR/Russian and two Ukrainian ocean-sensing spacecraft until 2004. This led to establishment of Ukraine as a nation, able to develop orbital radar sensor systems, and highlighted invaluable opportunities of orbital microwave imagery in oceanography and polar navigation.</p>  +
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At the 1891 International Electrotechnical Exhibition, Oskar von Miller, Michael Dolivo-Dobrowolsky from AEG, Germany and Charles Eugene Lancelot Brown from Oerlikon, Switzerland, demonstrated the world’s first long distance (175km), high voltage (15kV), highly efficient (75%) Lauffen-Frankfurt electrical energy transmission of 300 HP, using the three-phase alternating current. At that time (i.e., in the late 1880s and in the 1890s) the quite well developed and widely used direct current (DC) electricity production and distribution technology limited the transmission distances to single kilometers and required the construction of many local low-power plants, supplying consumers divided into separate networks, forming isolated islands. This practically excluded the use of the hydroelectric power, which needed to be transmitted over long distances. On the other hand, the new alternating current (AC) technology, which due to a possibility of transformation the energy to high voltages for the long-distance transmission, was not yet accepted and met with strong resistance. The 1891 Lauffen-Frankfurt electrical energy transmission provided convincing and necessary evidence of the economic and technical feasibility of supplying power generated at remote locations to industrial and residential centers. This demonstration directly influenced the establishment of the dominant worldwide role of electric power transmission using three-phase alternating current systems.  +
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Back in 1976, having exhausted the optimization of the available manual and automatic (strowger-type) facilities, ANTEL’s ( the state-owned local telecommunications utility) technical section in charge of the growing Telex service--led by Eng Juan Carlos Miguez and later by his assistant Eng Rodolfo Fariello—boldly decided to commission the design and construction of a full- electronic program controlled exchange to serve the public traffic to the incipient electronic industry in Uruguay. Juan Miguez had previously worked for 3 years in Siemens, Munich in the full-electronic Telex EDS project and got to know -from the inside- the realities of developments and sales of non-existent products based on nice brochures. Antel authorities approved the concept, which included an up-front payment to partially cover the long design and construction phase. The system was specified and a consortium formed by the companies CONTROLES (HW oriented, formerly GMS) and INTERFASE (SW oriented, formerly ISIS) was selected in a public bid. A generation of brilliant Engineers--Juan Grompone, Nestor Mace, Jaime Jerusalmi, Enrique Salles, among others--educated at the public University UDELAR under the excellent mentorship of Professor Ricardo Perez Iribarren, had founded those enterprises that took the challenge. With ANTEL’s technical guidance and financial support, they successfully had the first 128-line prototype in service in 1980; quickly expanding to several 1024 units satisfying -through major international carriers- all international traffic demands and giving reliable service to the whole country. In 1990, a similar system was configured as an X-25 packet switch providing national and international traffic; TCP/IP was incorporated in 1995, giving the country its first public access to Internet. Internet growth made those services obsolete and they were decommissioned in 2012. This endeavor was an exceptional proof of applying good engineering principles and practices to the develop of advanced products, with no previous knowledge or experience: just an appropriate specification of the needs and the international standards to follow. In summary, the support of the state-owned Telecom, ANTEL was fundamental, and the locally designed, and built equipment gave the country reliable, modern, digital communications for years. It also resulted in a spillover to the whole local Electronic Industry, which resulted not only in engineering and technological jobs creation, but also in a plethora of successful products for the local market, some of which have been also exported. The project is also mentioned in a book that could noy be found: Sutz, J. (1986) El auge de la industria electrónica profesional uruguaya: raíces y perspectivas, Cuadernos del CIESU Nº 52, Ediciones de la Banda Oriental, Montevideo.  
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By the middle of 1980s very basic notions of regularization, back propagation and the multi-scale averaging method known as convolution had been conceived by various researchers including a small group at the University of Toronto to imitate vision in biological systems. However, these methods typically required computational resources far beyond what was then available. After a brief postdoctoral position at Toronto, Yann LeCun joined Bell Labs, the world’s leading communication R&D center at the time. It was in this setting and under the guidance of Larry Jackel, that a 1st practical convolutional neural network was designed and implemented by LeCun and his collaborators (later named LeNet) for handwriting recognition. This was the 1st non-trivial classification system able to perform computer vision using the deep neural network (DNN) architecture. It is remarkable to note that almost all of the key computational components that are taken for granted in use of DNNs for computer vision today: convolution (for dimensionality reduction), regularization (to handle numerical stability), back propagation (for gradient-based learning) and pruning (to reduce the number of parameters in a DNN) were all incorporated in this first demonstration of computer vision, a cognitive task that up to that time had not been performed by any machine. Two and one half decades later, with the wide availability of powerful graphical processing units, these same collection of techniques initiated the AI revolution of the early 21st century.  +
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Commissioned in 1973, The Heavy Ion Accelerator Facility (HIAF) is a unique scientific facility that combines voltages of up to fifteen million volts with some of the most accurate beam control and detection technology in the world. HIAF consists of a fifteen million volt tandem electrostatic accelerator with an additional six million volt linear accelerator loop. Driven by Australia’s largest and highest energy ion accelerator, ions ranging from hydrogen to plutonium can be accelerated. Eleven adaptable beam lines and myriad detector systems allow a wide variety of experiments to be performed. <br><br> This facility has aided humanity in achieving technical excellence in diverse domains throughout its history. No wonder that researchers from all over the globe come to use the power and precision of the Heavy-Ion Accelerator to explore a wide range of topics, from exploration of fundamental dynamics of nuclear reactions to analysis of environmental samples, dark matter detectors to developing new medical therapies.  +
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Discussions about packet-switched networks had been going on for a decade; however, “inter-networking” of distinct networks really started in late 1972 with Robert Kahn’s ideas for interoperation that were elaborated more concretely with Vinton Cerf in 1973. <br> <br> In late 1973, Cerf and Kahn submitted their paper “A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunication” for publication in the <i>IEEE Transactions on Communications</i> scientific journal. Appearing in May 1974, the paper described the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) that supported the interconnection of multiple packet-switched networks to form an internet. Split later into TCP and the Internet Protocol (IP), TCP and IP became core components of the global Internet of today. Launched operationally in 1983, the 2023 Internet now links about 5.3 billion people and many billions more devices, many of which enable access to millions of applications of the World Wide Web (WWW) that rides atop the Internet.<br> <br> The Internet’s development inspired or grew new businesses that made hardware and software products for implementing and using the Internet such as routers, optical fiber networks, Wi-Fi, cloud computing services, and many other WWW-enabled products such as search engines and social media applications. Since 1973, many innovators have created the protocols, networks, devices, and businesses that now make up the global Internet.<br> <br> TCP and IP were contemporary with two other internetworking proposals: X.25/X.75 from the ITU-T (then the CCITT), and the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) protocols from the Organization for International Standardization (ISO). Over time, the competition among these choices settled largely in favor of the Internet’s TCP/IP.  +
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During 1951-52, Grace Hopper earned a Ph.D. in both mathematics and mathematical physics from Yale. As a programmer, she invented the A-0 system, an early compiler. Grace Hopper wrote a series of specifications that functioned as a linker/loader and was called an A-0 Compiler. It was a pioneering achievement of Automatic Programming as well as a pioneering utility program for the management of subroutines. For each subroutine, programmers wrote some specs. The reason it got called a compiler was that each subroutine was given a "call word," because the subroutines were in a library, and when programmers pull stuff out of a library programmers compile things. It was designed to let people write quickly the specs for a mathematical program, one time usually a one-time execution, and get an answer fast. And the main purpose was to get programs out fast and get answers fast. Based on the A-0 compiler, Grace Hopper led teams that developed FLOW-MATIC, a computer language that led to COBOL(Common Business-Oriented Language). The A-0 Compiler influenced the development of Arithmetic and Business Programming Languages as well as COBOL and became the dominant high-level language for business, government, and military applications. These standardized, user-friendly innovations promoted wider, transformative adoption of computerization in modern life. Dr. Grace Murray Brewster Hopper (1906-1992): A legacy of innovation and service Grace Hopper was the recipient of more than 40 honorary degrees, and many scholarships, professorships, awards, and conferences are named in her honor. In 1972 she received Yale’s Wilbur Lucius Cross Medal. In 1991 President George Bush awarded Hopper the National Medal of Technology, the nation’s highest technology award; she was the first woman to be honored as an individual. In 1996 the Navy commissioned the U.S.S. Hopper, a guided missile destroyer. Kurt Beyer, author of “Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age,” suggests that Hopper achieved so much attention and even “celebrity” late in life because a A congressman from Illinois saw an interview with Hopper on “60 Minutes” in 1983. After seeing the interview he successfully introduced a bill to have Hopper promoted to the rank of commodore. At the age of 79, Hopper retired as a rear admiral. She was the oldest serving officer in the U.S. Armed Forces. That same year she went to work as a senior consultant in public relations at the Digital Equipment Corporation, where she worked up until a year before her death in 1992. Hopper was buried with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery. In 2016 Hopper posthumously received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, in recognition of her remarkable contributions to the field of computer science. 2-17-2017 - Yale News Karen N. Peart: 203-980-2222 The Compiler is one of the fundamental technologies in the history of computing. The invention of the compiler made it possible to write high-level computer programs, which in turn led to increased programmer productivity and reduced rates of error. This review examines the Milestone-Proposal for recognizing the invention of the compiler. “The compiler translated human-readable English keywords or commands into machine-readable instructions or code, thus creating well-defined communication between human programmers and computers. Ragib Hasan, Ph.D., IEEE Member Grace Hopper was one of the first programmers on the MARK1. In 1952 she invented the COMPILER, which translated readable English keywords or commands into machine-readable instructions or code. Hopper’s FLOW_MATIC programming language to English commands and user-defined data names was used in the UNIVAC1 in 1957. Grace Hopper’s FLOW-MATIC compiler used in the UNIVAC1, helped shape the development of COBOL (COmmon Business Oriented Language) which became popular worldwide.  
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During the 1960s, the US ballistic missile defense (BMD) community had developed a need for wideband observables technology to assess re-entry vehicles and decoys. In 1970, the ALCOR (ARPA-Lincoln C-Band Observables Radar) became operational at the Kwajalein Missile Range in the central Pacific. ALCOR served as a test facility for wideband radar techniques under development at Lincoln Laboratory and other organizations in the BMD community. The development of ALCOR from 1970 to 1987 was a significant technical achievement, as it was the first system to demonstrate feasibility and practicality of long-range wideband three-dimensional imaging of satellites from a ground-based radar. ALCOR’s first images were of the Soviet Salyut-1 space station, which were produced in 1971 using inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) techniques – those images are still classified and not available for public release. In 1973, ALCOR radar system images were used to diagnose deployment problems of the U.S. Skylab space station. In 1987, ALCOR demonstrated the first near real-time wideband waveform imaging of space objects. The ALCOR radar demonstrated a benefit to humanity as it provided ground-based wideband imaging technology for better understanding of re-entry vehicles, decoys, satellites, and space debris. Following the development of ALCOR, this wideband imaging technology was picked up worldwide. The German Research Establishment for Applied Science (FGAN) Research Institute for High Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques (FHR) Tracking and Imaging Radar (TIRA), built in the 1990s, uses comparable wideband technology and ISAR algorithms and today generates many space-object images that are viewable in the public domain.  +
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During the period of virtual national isolation of Japan in terms of diplomacy, Gennai Hiraga obtained a broken imported electrostatic generator in Nagasaki. <br> He had spent six years repairing and restoring in Tokyo the first friction-induced electrostatic generator in Japan when he finally succeeded in 1776. He used it as a reference to build several such devices which was called Elekiteru, two of which are still in existence. At that time, the Elekiteru was used as a spectacle and medical device. <br> He did not just repair and restore the original. He improved upon it to create additional Elekiterus on his own. <br> The older method of spatial insulation by hanging or supporting with a string was improved to using pine resin as insulation material. <br> Transmitting the rotation of the handle to drive the generator was done originally by tying large and small circular pulleys with a string. Gennai improved it to use wooden gears instead. <br> Two Elekiteru devices produced by Gennai Hiraga are still in existence.: one at the Postal Museum operated by Japan Post in Tokyo and the other at the Gennai Hiraga Memorial Museum in Kagawa Prefecture. The device in Tokyo has been designated as an important cultural property of Japan by the Japanese government. <br> The device Gennai Hiraga created in Japan made following generations of inventors and the curious minded get acquainted with the behavior of static electricity and get ready to tackle electrical engineering in a modern setting in the 19th century.  +
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Encryption is essential in protecting privacy of citizens in communication via the internet and many other communication channels. Additionally, cryptography is used to secure the remote control and management of devices and infrastructure critical in modern society: the electricity grid, the Internet itself, software updates in computers and appliances, control systems in cars, buses and trains, etc. Rijndael, after having been selected AES by NIST has played a central role worldwide to protect information from unauthorized access. Virtually all present-day systems that need cryptography use AES/Rijndael.  +
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Honorary Professor Yasuharu Suematsu, Tokyo Institute of Technology, realized the single-mode semiconductor laser characterized by unwavering single-mode operations even under high-speed modulations, in the minimum-loss wavelength band suitable for ultra-high-capacity and long-haul optical fiber transmissions. Preferential laser materials in the minimum-loss-wavelength band for silica fibers, namely, the 1.5-µm region were also developed. Then, he realized the single-mode operation even under high-speed direct modulation in the wavelength band of 1.3 and 1.5 µm with basis of the long-wavelength laser material and the single-wavelength resonator. The invention was opened to industries and was intended for early commercialization of long-distance fiber communication systems. These achievements opened door for high-capacity optical fiber communications and contributed to the evolution of the Internet ICT society today. It is noted that some of the structures had been widely used for optical communication systems in later years. The pioneering work on long-wavelength single-mode lasers in optical fiber communications played a pivotal role in catapulting humanity into an era underscored by information and communication technology. In addition, an electrically-tunable single-mode semiconductor laser has been widely used as a light source for dense wavelength division multiplexing systems and for digital coherent communications. The achievement opened a door for broadband optical communications in global high-capacity networks, which constitute the backbone of the internet.  +
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Hyperion Research estimates that the total economic value of Linux supercomputing pioneered by Bader has been over $100 trillion over the past 25 years. Hyperion Research: Special Study: The Economic and Societal Benefits of Linux Supercomputers Earl Joseph, Melissa Riddle, Tom Sorensen, Steve Conway April, 2022 https://davidbader.net/publication/2022-hyperionresearch/  +
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In 1914 the Marconi Kahuku wireless telegraph station was the world’s largest wireless communications center and is a registered national historic landmark. It played a critical role in providing the Hawaiian Islands with worldwide wireless telegraphic and later telephonic communications. The Hawaiian government learned that in March 1899 Marconi transmitted the first wireless messages across the English Channel between France and England and wanted it for transmitting messages between inter-island due to the failure of inter-island cable communication due to the deep ocean waters between islands. Marconi wireless telegraph stations were brought to Hawaii in 1899 forming Inter-Island Telegraph which later became Hawaiian Telecom Company. In June 1900 the first message was sent four miles from Iolani Palace to the Kaimuki station and was the first wireless transmission west of the Rocky Mountains. Five of the Hawaiian Islands were connected for the first time and the Kahuku station was constructed on the north shore of Oahu. For long range wireless telegraph signals, Marconi Corporation proposed “A Wireless Gridle around the Earth” using Kahuku station to connect stations on the US mainland with Japan/Asia. On Sep 24, 1914 the Kahuku long range station sent its first message to the President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson and by 1916 it was transmitting to Funabashi Station in Japan connecting Japan to the US mainland with wireless communication.  +
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In 1964, Gov Burns of Hawaii, bulldozed a crude road to allow Gerard Kuiper, Director of Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, access to the top of Puu Poliahu cinder cone on Mauna Kea for seeing tests. Kuiper concluded Mauna Kea was the best site in the world for ground-based astronomy. Due to the site elevation 13,796 feet (4,205 meters), it is above 40% of Earth's atmosphere and nearly 90% of atmospheric water vapor, which absorbs infrared wavelengths important for planetary surface characterization. Located near the equator, it enables observation of almost all the sky. Dedicated on June 26, 1970, the University of Hawaii 88-inch computer controlled, astronomical telescope became the world’s highest. Providing much useful data in support of the Apollo missions to the moon in the 1970s and planetary missions, as well as stellar and galactic observations. In 1992, the discovery of the Kuiper Belt, distant objects beyond Neptune, led to the demotion and declassification of Pluto as a planet. The platform was also used to develop new tools for telescopes that are now industry standard on telescopes around the world including the Mauna Kea Keck observatory completed in 1992. The 2020 Nobel Prize award acknowledged the prestigious Mauna Kea Keck facility pioneering discovery that our galaxy has at its center a supermassive black hole (Sagittarius A) led by Andrea Ghez of UCLA. Today, it is fully automated with robotic remote control from UH-Hilo.  +
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In October 1967, Shigeichi Negishi of Nichiden Kogyo manufactured and sold the world’s first karaoke machine. This machine included melody recorded on 8-track magnetic media, an audio device that could mix the singer’s voice with the melody, and a charging mechanism, so-called coin timer, that allowed the owner to charge the singer. It was the first karaoke machine and the origin of modern karaoke machines. Subsequently, karaoke machines were placed in the premises of restaurants that serve liquor, bars and so-called snack bars and hotel banquet halls, where they were used often as entertainment for drinking parties. In the 1980s, with the development of laser discs, it became possible to display images and lyrics on a screen for the first time. Karaoke until then only offered instrumental melody only. In the mid-1980s, soundproofed karaoke boxes emerged as a new business model. Online karaoke, which began to gain popularity in 1992, became a major driving force behind broadband communications. Today, karaoke has grown into a major industry in Japan, worth hundreds of billions of yen, and has expanded its market worldwide.  +
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In the 90s, the '''UN''', for humanitarian purposes, called for the establishment of radio services to spread education to people in less developed countries such as those in Africa and Asia. No affordable integrated circuits suitable for mass manufacturing were available and, therefore, no cheap digital receivers could be made for digital radio content services to address the '''UN''' recommendations. Suitable telecom infrastructures did not exist; they were lacking powerful transmission means at a continental level (to cover the whole of Africa, and India for example). Terrestrial transmissions (with medium/long waves) were only possible to receive at night, being very unreliable and not suitable for systematically planned student education. To solve this problem, the most viable solution to address the UN's call was to start satellite digital audio transmission; however, this required significant technical and financial investments. Without digital radio satellite receivers embodying integrated circuit technologies, these investments, even if affordable, would be wasted. To help with that, in 1996 STMicroelectronics, thanks to years of background research and its own fabrication of test chips, devised three integrated circuits which were essential for affordable satellite digital radio reception. These were instrumental in achieving frequency demodulation, baseband processing, and compressed audio decoding. In 1997, they were fully functional and, when connected together, enabled the radio receiver’s mass production by OEMs. Worldspace and Sirius XM Radio services adopted them and provided reliable educational services in Africa, India, and then in the USA. Today, these chips are still in production and actively allow users to listen to radio services throughout the USA.  +
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In the early 19th Century, Darjeeling was identified as Summer Retreat for British officials and distinguished people of Bengal Province. With the passage of time developmental activities in the area started with establishment of Rail connection, road infrastructures, Tea industries leading to slow growth of population. During the last quarter of 19th Century, utilization of Electrical Energy was also envisaged by the Municipality for betterment of living conditions of Darjeeling Town and better functioning of the growing Tea Industries and its workers. It was decided to initiate steps for installation of a hydroelectric power station at Sidrapong, harnessing water flow of three small streams. The piece of land was given by the Maharaja of Burdwan Sri Binoy Chandra Mahatab, for setting up the power plant. The first hydroelectric installation named, Sidrapong Hydroelectric Power Station located at the foothills of Arya Tea Estate 12 km from Darjeeling town about 3,500 feet above sea-level, was conceived. The project work for the installation of the power station was carried out by Messrs. Kilburn & Co. and completed within one year. The company had to import all machines and turbines from England. Erection of the machineries in those days was not an easy task in hilly area like Darjeeling due to lack of proper road connectivity. So, all equipment, machinery and turbines had to be transported manually which was a Herculean task by any means and still inconceivable in the present day. Finally on 10th February, 1897, Mr. C. C. Stevens, then acting Lieutenant Governor of Bengal, commissioned the power station. Thus began the functioning of the 2 × 65 kW Sidrapong Hydel-Power Station, the first Hydel Power station in Indian Sub-continent. In the first phase, electricity was distributed to Burdwan Palace, Governor House, Mall Road, Jail, Eden Hospital and Tea Garden Manager’s Bungalows. According to local people, whose predecessors worked in the project for four generations, ‘On the D-day, People lined up from Darjeeling town to have a glimpse of the power station. The project was not only a matter of achievement but also gave livelihood to various local residents thereby providing socio-economic upliftment. With electricity the quality of life of common people was immediately improved, their economic potential was also unleashed. This project paved the road for further development with positive effects through various pathways. Erstwhile West Bengal State Electricity Board (WBSEB) (now West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Co. Ltd.) took over the operation of the station on 30th January 1978. In the 1980s, the station was damaged due to a massive landslide and remained closed for a decade, but again it was revived in 1997 to mark its centenary. The plant is still in operating condition, though its capacity has de-rated due to age-old machineries. The plant completed its 125 glorious years of operation on 10th of November, 2022.  
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In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the data traffic of optical fiber communication systems increased rapidly due to the explosive spread of the Internet, the increasing of the transmission capacity by the introduction of new multiplexing technology was required strongly. The optical wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) is a technology for transmitting multiple light with different wavelengths into an optical fiber. One of the key devices for realizing WDM transmission is an arrayed-waveguide grating (AWG) wavelength multi/demultiplexer. NTT invented the AWG wavelength multi/demultiplexer using silica-based planar lightwave circuit technology in 1992. NEL and PIRI improved the AWG technology to mass production and commercialized in 1996. Since the silica-based AWG has many advantages, such as large wavelength channel scale, small size, mass productivity, long-term reliability and low cost, it has been adapted into the commercial optical fiber communication systems worldwide. As a result, silica-based AWG made a great contribution to the expansion of the transmission capacity of commercial optical fiber communication systems due to the introduction of WDM technology in the late 1990s. The transmission capacity per an optical fiber has increased dramatically from several tens to a hundred times. The silica-based AWGs have accelerated the expansion of transmission capacity and are now widely used in high-capacity WDM optical fiber networks worldwide.  +
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In the mid 19th century, as the field of electrical engineering was evolving, there was great interest in the measurement of electrical components viz. resistance, inductance and capacitance. Michael Faraday and Joseph Henry independently discovered inductance in 1831/32. James Clerk Maxwell introduced a ballistic deflection method for measuring inductance in 1865. This was a variation on the Wheatstone Bridge (1843) for measuring resistance. The first bridge to measure inductance was the Maxwell Bridge based on the principle of balancing the L/R time constant of the inductor against a known RC time constant of a capacitor. Several modifications followed and the most famous one was the Anderson Bridge (1891) named after Alexander Anderson, Professor of Natural History at the Queen’s College, Galway, now known as the University of Galway. ]. The Anderson Bridge became the de facto bridge for measuring inductance, as described in the U.S. Bulletin on the Bureau of Standards. The Maxwell Bridge, was based on the deflection of a ballistic galvanometer, which was difficult to calibrate due to its dependance on a moving coil to detect small movements near the balance points. The Anderson Bridge removed this obstacle by balancing the L/R time constant of an unknown inductor with the stable RC time constant of a capacitor. The Anderson Bridge remained the standard bridge for measuring inductance until the advent of digital methods in the 1970’s. Most undergraduate textbooks up until that time referenced the Anderson Bridge for the measurement of inductance.  +