Simplicity requires greater imagination in the modern world of advanced technologies. The air bridge at Gatwick Airport satisfies the requirements of the airport, the aircraft and the passengers in a simple but very distinctive way. It is the combination of these requirements that determined its shape and the ambitious manner...
Death Valley in California is the desert that finished off many of the early pioneers heading for the West Coast in their horse-drawn wagons. Today, the 'Valley of Death' is the name given to the gap between the great plains of research funding and the orange groves of manufacturing. The...
The world is changing rapidly around us. Some companies that once dominated global industry no longer exist, and newcomers arise every week. Companies that wish to survive and grow must change to fit new ways of working, and adapt to the immense differences that the growth in telecommunications and transport...
The concept of science communication has moved on a lot in the past 15 years, with a growing body of research data and some thoughtful studies on the issue. Perhaps engineering is happy to leave it to the scientists to communicate with the media. That is a mistake. Science and...
Research and development creates value, but only when its ideas are commercialized. However, R&D departments often find it difficult to get even the best ideas adopted by others, and hence this value is wasted. This paper discusses the reasons for this, and gives examples of techniques used to get buy-in...
The body of this paper consists of transcripts of the three speakers' presentations and the reports from the break out groups. The speakers' visual aids are included to facilitate understanding. The three presentations to the workshop vividly and eloquently illustrated the differences between the sectors in their handling of the...
The actions needed to further distributed generations are being addressed with urgency, in a systematic way, and progress is becoming evident. The Government's targets for renewables, and for combined heat and power plant CHP, present a major challenge for distribution networks and their owners. Efficient future investment is not enough;...
The White Paper advocates a series of policies designed to encourage energy conservation and efficiency, the development of renewable energy, security of supply, and progressive reduction of fuel poverty. Since these policies inevitably thread their way through almost all aspects of our lives, there is always a risk that they...
Humankind places great demands on the Earth's life support systems that can no longer be sustained. As a result, we are facing a range of environmental problems, including loss of bio-diversity, resource depletion and global warming. Changing the way in which people behave in ways that are acceptable to society...
This paper provides information on the advances in Biomedicine. Combining techniques from the microchip industry with advances in biomedicine, British engineers have devised biological microchips biochips that can provide rapid and inexpensive diagnosis of a growing number of medical conditions. A UK-based company Randox Laboratories Ltd has pioneered the biochip...
This paper discusses and provides details about a new system used in the aircraft manufacturing. Rolls-Royce, the company responsible for the unique propulsion system that enables the Harrier to rise or descend vertically, is developing the next generation of vertical lift. The Rolls-Royce Lift System creates a STOVL-capable aircraft without...
Imagine a world where your mobile phone display is soft tailored into your shirt sleeve or where your office window blind is instantly transformed into a giant interactive display screen. This paper discusses and provides information on how the possibilities of organic polymer light emitting diodes PLEDs are becoming a...
Boston's Central Artery project moved major roads underground without disrupting nearby railways. To ease some of the worst urban traffic congestion in the USA, the C/AT project involves putting much of the city's main highway network underground. As a landmark in infrastructure redevelopment, it is scheduled for full completion in...
Ultrasound is used regularly throughout to treat sporting and other soft tissue injuries. However, many of the 10,000 ultrasound physiotherapy units currently in use fail to deliver within 30 per cent of the indicated power and some do not work at all. The only way to ensure that patients receive...
Traditional stereo sound reproduction relies on two loudspeakers to create a sound image. Better understandings of the way in which the brain interprets and locates sounds - along with advances in digital signal processing - make it possible to recreate 'surround sound' without a large array of loudspeakers. The resulting...
This paper elaborates and provides details about the resource potential and the economics of concentrating solar power as a strategic element for sustainable energy and water supply security. In 2000 the world population reached 6 billion people and the latest forecasts expect that this figure will rise to approximately 10...
In the past, the technologies used in well engineering have been relatively simple. The well was drilled and the hardware selected, installed down the hole and locked in place. The production then started but the well remained passive. It was essentially just down-hole plumbing - albeit on a grand scale....
Will Government targets for renewable electricity generation ever be met? How much will this policy cost? All currently available generating technologies have their own characteristics, which are valued differently. If an energy policy is designed to truly subsidies the positive aspects and penalizes the negative, policy makers must understand the...
This paper seeks to understand what makes complex software and IT projects different from, and potentially more difficult than, other typical engineering projects, with a view to improving success rates. This paper is concerned with large scale IT projects with a significant and complex software component. For simplicity, the term...
Today, the number of mobile telephones in use represents more than two thirds of the inhabitants of the Western world, and the number in use is growing very quickly in the rest of the world. Several large-scale epidemiological studies made directly on mobile telephones, which by themselves transmit an energy...
