Emerging aerospace technologies

The United States Government has a long history of promoting the advancement of technology to strengthen the economy and national defense. An example is NASA, which was formed in 1958 to establish and maintain U.S. space technology leadership. This leadership has resulted in technological benefits to many fields and the establishment of new commercial industries, such as satellite communications. Currently, NASA's leading technology development at Ames Research Center includes the Tilt Rotor XV-15, which provides the versatility of a helicopter with the speed of a turboprop aircraft; the Numerical Aerodynamic Simulator, which is pushing the state of the art in advanced computational mathematics and computer simulation; and the Advanced Automation and Robotics programs, which will improve all areas of space development as well as life on Earth. Private industry is involved in maintaining technological leadership through NASA's Commercial Use of Space Program, which provides for synergistic relationships among government, industry, and academia. The plan for a space station by 1992 has framed much of NASA's future goals and has provided new areas of opportunity for both domestic space technology and leadership improvement of life on Earth

Emerging technologies in physics education

Three emerging technologies in physics education are evaluated from the interdisciplinary perspective of cognitive science and physics education research. The technologies - Physlet Physics, the Andes Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS), and Microcomputer-Based Laboratory (MBL) Tools - are assessed particularly in terms of their potential at promoting conceptual change, developing expert-like problem-solving skills, and achieving the goals of the traditional physics laboratory. Pedagogical methods to maximize the potential of each educational technology are suggested.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Journal of Science Education and Technology; 20 page

Research Trends & Emerging Technologies for Genealogists

This study examines current research methods utilized by genealogists, and seeks to discover the impact of emerging tools and technologies on their information seeking needs and behaviors. When it became clear that there is a shortage of scholarly studies identifying the use of newer technologies (i.e. blogs, social media, and apps), an original survey for genealogists was created. Over four hundred genealogists were surveyed regarding their use of both traditional research methods (methods that have existed for many decades) and Internet/electronic resources, in order to demonstrate which new trends are emerging. The data from the survey might lessen the gap in current scholarly research. Technology is constantly changing, and the findings show which trends are currently being utilized the most by genealogists. The results indicate that genealogists are definitely using more technology to research their family trees. In fact, they adapt fairly quickly to new methods, relying heavily on technology and the Internet to conduct research and share information. Due to the ease of using technology, fewer and fewer genealogists rely on in-house visits to repositories to access original documents. The research concludes with a discussion on where the use of technology for genealogical research is headed, and what genealogists hope to accomplish by using new tools and technologies

Plasmonics for emerging quantum technologies

Expanding the frontiers of information processing technologies and, in particular, computing with ever increasing speed and capacity has long been recognized an important societal challenge, calling for the development of the next generation of quantum technologies. With its potential to exponentially increase computing power, quantum computing opens up possibilities to carry out calculations that ordinary computers could not finish in the lifetime of the Universe, while optical communications based on quantum cryptography become completely secure. At the same time, the emergence of Big Data and the ever increasing demands of miniaturization and energy saving technologies bring about additional fundamental problems and technological challenges to be addressed in scientific disciplines dealing with light-matter interactions. In this context, quantum plasmonics represents one of the most promising and fundamental research directions and, indeed, the only one that enables ultimate miniaturization of photonic components for quantum optics when being taken to extreme limits in light-matter interactions.Comment: To appear in Nanophotonic

Communication Subsystems for Emerging Wireless Technologies

The paper describes a multi-disciplinary design of modern communication systems. The design starts with the analysis of a system in order to define requirements on its individual components. The design exploits proper models of communication channels to adapt the systems to expected transmission conditions. Input filtering of signals both in the frequency domain and in the spatial domain is ensured by a properly designed antenna. Further signal processing (amplification and further filtering) is done by electronics circuits. Finally, signal processing techniques are applied to yield information about current properties of frequency spectrum and to distribute the transmission over free subcarrier channels