Charles Concordia
Article Abstract:
Charles Concordia, at almost age 91, is to receive the 1999 IEEE Medal of Honor in 6/99. His creativity reached into all aspects of electric power systems. He went from high school to work at General Electric, where he graduated eight years later in 1934 from the three-year Advanced Engineering Program. He immediately began to teach in the same program and he has since had a teaching avocation. He has been tremendously helpful to others at GE and elsewhere. Power systems engineering is mutidisciplinary in an inherent way and Concordia's career has bridged various disciplines. He notes that now power work is not so much technical as legal and political and that a power engineer needs legal knowledge. The greatest opportunities, he says, are outside the US now. Africa lacks a power policy, but most of his work is in Asia and South America, in big power projects and small. Developed countries, he suggests should learn from that past, avoiding mistakes already made. A story about Concordia's Rolls Royce, which he kept for 20+ years making it an economical choice, is included in the article.
Publication Name: IEEE Spectrum
Subject: Engineering and manufacturing industries
ISSN: 0018-9235
Year: 1999
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Viewpoint: ATM vs. Gigabit Ethernet
Article Abstract:
For some time there has been debate over whether asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) or Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) will come out ahead in the marketplace. The question is not which is better, but where each fits. GbE fits into in the local area network (LAN). ATM is better suited to wide-area network use. Higher bandwidth networking technologies in general are first put into use in corporate LAN backbones to resolve network bottlenecks; costs come down and a more general group gets the new technologies after a while. ATM and GbE will be in LAN backbones but the latter with scalability and familiarity on its side will be a driving force for LAN activity increase. Several LAN equipment vendors have endorsed it and standardization has been completed. When the IEEE 802.3ab project is finished in 1999 GbE can operate over category -5 unshielded twisted pair cable, the most common in networks. Internet telephony is discussed. Diagram shows generic flow control, virtual path identifier, virtual channel identifier, cell loss priority, and header error control.
Publication Name: IEEE Spectrum
Subject: Engineering and manufacturing industries
ISSN: 0018-9235
Year: 1999
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Ethernet's winning ways
Article Abstract:
Ethernet networks, which are said to save money and simplify operations, are increasingly used in manufacturing automation and process control. An industry observer estimates that the market for Ethernet networks that connect factories to business operations and supply chain management will be worth $3.5 billion. Meanwhile, the manufacturing and process control market will become nearly 100 percent Ethernet.
Publication Name: IEEE Spectrum
Subject: Engineering and manufacturing industries
ISSN: 0018-9235
Year: 2001
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