February 2007 Archives

During its existence, NACA [National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics ] produced thousands of (technical) reports, many of which still have relevance to today’s researchers and engineers in aeronautics and aerodynamics. While many of the reports are only available in hardcopy, in the last decade or so, a substantial number of the reports - over 14,000 - have been digitised and made available online.

These digitised reports are still available despite the demise of the NACA Reports Server. They can now be accessed from the NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS). http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp (Princeton University Library also houses a very substantial number of these reports in print or on microfiche.) Resource (below), via docuticker http://www.docuticker.com http://aerade.cranfield.ac.uk/newsletter0207/page3.html

NAE Celebrates National Engineer’s Week Feb. 18-24 is National Engineer’s Week. During this week, professional and educational organizations collaborate to raise awareness of engineering’s benefit to society and to promote education in math, science, and technology. To read more: http://www.nas.edu/headlines/20070216.html

Professor Ed Coyle spoke at the Lunchtime Seminar on Teaching Science and Technology to Nonscientists today. He described a great program which he founded at Purdue University in 1995. His idea is to mutually benefit the community and the university by assessing technology needs with community organizations, and the university proposing solutions by devising engineering projects. Funding is by grant from society or foundation. Professors and students design, develop and manage the project. The projects involve committments of a year anyway, and credit is given for successful completion.

Prof. Edward J. Coyle can be reached at Electrical Engineering in the E-QUAD or ejc@Princeton.EDU He is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Visiting Professor for Distinguished Teaching of Electrical Engineering and the Center for Innovation in Engineering Education.

He is helping to launch projects in Princeton. Prof. Catherine Peters is leading a group of students in “Green retrofitting” an old building at the Stony Brook Watershed Association. Prof. Michael Littman is instructing Princeton Young Achievers in rebuilding a 19th century clock from a tower in Trenton. Here is a link to the Purdue website: http://webscript.princeton.edu/~epics/main.php?section=main&sel=main

Princeton University Library doesn’t collect sets of standards per se, with the exception of our subscription to IEEE Xplore, which does include IEEE standards. We do have an older ASTM collection and indexes. The standards we have are listed in the Main Catalog. We will be happy to obtain any standard that we don’t have via individual request through our Interlibrary Loan service. We will borrow or purchase the standard.

A useful index to standards can be found on the homepage for Engineering Village II, http://www.engineeringvillage2.org/controller/servlet/Controller?EISESSION=1_12bf89211097ae0fe6608ses2&CID=quickSearch&database=1 at the lower left: IHS Standards http://global.ihs.com/?RID=EV2

ISI Thomson Scientific owns TechStreet, another useful index to standards: http://www.techstreet.com/

These 2 commercial services sell standards. You may find standards listed at the web pages of the specific organization, for example: ASME or ASTM, etc. You may be able to buy them for less, directly from the society if you want to purchase any yourself.

The Victoria University community is today mourning the death of alumnus and Nobel Laureate Professor Alan MacDiarmid who died yesterday (7 February 2007).

Vice-Chancellor, Professor Pat Walsh, says Professor MacDiarmid’s death is a great loss to New Zealand and to the international science community.

“He made a great contribution to science and education. Although his discoveries, including those in conductive polymers which won him the Nobel Prize, will continue to improve lives around the world, and advancements will continue, this is small consolation to his family and colleagues at this sad time. New Zealand, Victoria, the scientific community and his family have lost a great scientist and a great man.”

For an autobiography of Professor MacDiarmid see: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2000 /macdiarmid-autobio.html

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2000/