Interview with John Robinson Pierce

An interview in three sessions in April 1979 with John R. Pierce, often referred to as the father of the communications satellite. A leading applied physicist, Pierce went to work for Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1936 after receiving his PhD in electrical engineering from Caltech. He spent the next thirty-five years there, where he made important contributions to the development of the traveling-wave tube and the reflex klystron, rising to become executive director of Bell's Research-Communications Principles Division. Pierce was also a pioneer in communications satellites, playing a key role in the development of two of the earliest, Echo and Telstar. In this interview he recalls his undergraduate education at Caltech in the late twenties and early thirties, the early years at Bell, radar work during the war, and the beginnings of America's satellite program. Pierce was also a prolific author of science fiction, sometimes under the pen name J. J. Coupling. In the mid-1960s, he served on the President's Science Advisory Committee (PSAC). He retired from Bell Labs in 1971 and returned to Caltech as a professor in the Division of Engineering and Applied Science, and he comments on the changes (and the similarities) he found in undergraduate education at Caltech. While at Bell, Pierce developed a lifelong interest in computer-generated music and psychoacoustics, the science of consonance and dissonance; in the latter part of the interview, he discusses his work with Max Mathews on music synthesis. A year after this interview was conducted, he became professor emeritus at Caltech, and in 1983 he joined Stanford's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) as a visiting professor. Pierce died on April 2, 2002, in Mountain View, California

Functionality and history of electronics in regards to the performance practice of the following works: Temazcal (1984), Javier Álvarez, and Memory Palace (2012), Christopher Cerrone

Master's Project (M.Mu.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2016The Electroacoustic pieces; Temazcal (1984), by Javier Alvarez (b.1956), and Memory Palace (2012) by Christopher Cerrone (b.1984), each employ different types of electronic technologies in their realization through performance. This paper will discuss the origin and history of the technology applied respectively in the works. I will examine the role of percussion within the works, specifically in regards to learning and problem solving through technological challenges in order to effectively perform the compositions. By looking at Temazcal and Memory Palace through the context of their historical significance as electroacoustic works, the inherent functionality of the technology employed in each, and the resultant performance practices that have subsequently developed, a greater musical appreciation and understanding of electroacoustic works, in general, is possible

Help I'm surrounded

A dimly lit auditorium, the smell of popcorn and hot-dogs accompanied by the sound of fizzy drinks slurped through straws; the lights dim and a hush of expectation descends, sound fades in from all around, drawing the audience into the illusion of another reality. This is the world of the cinema, but is it possible to recreate this cinematic surround sound experience in the home? In order to address this question it is necessary to understand what is meant by "cinematic" surround sound and to consider some of the challenges faced by those seeking to translate it to the home environment. This article examines these issues through an exploration of the development of surround sound in the cinema and its transference to the home and concludes with a tentative look towards possible future developments

Let a hundred flowers bloom! Decentralization and innovation

Which is more likely to encourage creativity and innovation: a centralized or a decentralized system of support? That is, should large organizations and recognized experts determine who gets funding for their ideas? Or should small businesses, patrons, and foundations provide the primary support for innovation? In " Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom! Decentralization and Innovation," Nakamura looks at the case for both sides using economic analysis, empirical studies, and anecdotal evidence

Shedding light on a living lab: the CLEF NEWSREEL open recommendation platform

In the CLEF NEWSREEL lab, participants are invited to evaluate news recommendation techniques in real-time by providing news recommendations to actual users that visit commercial news portals to satisfy their information needs. A central role within this lab is the communication between participants and the users. This is enabled by The Open Recommendation Platform (ORP), a web-based platform which distributes users' impressions of news articles to the participants and returns their recommendations to the readers. In this demo, we illustrate the platform and show how requests are handled to provide relevant news articles in real-time