Recent Articles
Reproduced below are the opening paragraphs of two technical articles among several that I have published. I've added links to the full articles.
I have also had articles published in Celebration of Life, a compendium of writing produced by Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and in the Boston Broadside, the magazine of the Society for Technical Communication.
You may like to visit my blog, The Bridge. It's light-hearted and word-centered. I hope you enjoy it.
Frozen Smoke - The World's Lightest Solid
The Astonishing Properties and Uses of Aerogels
Frozen smoke and solid smoke; nicknames for aerogel, an ephemeral solid substance that comprises over 99 per cent air. Can it show there may be life on other planets?
Aerogels are not new. Dr. Samuel Kistler is acknowledged as the creator of the first aerogel around 1930 and he published a paper in Nature, Vol. 127, No. 3211, pg. 741, copyright May 16, 1931.
An aerogel is created when the liquid part of the gel is replaced by a gas. In a gel such as Jell-O ®, proteins form chains and build a matrix that incorporates water, which is the biggest component of the gel. However, if the water is left to evaporate naturally, the gel shrinks and hardens. Dr. Kistler found a way to replace the fluid in the gel without causing any breakdown of the matrix. Using the technique is known as supercritical drying, the liquid is slowly drawn off without causing the solid matrix in the gel to collapse from capillary action, as would happen with conventional evaporation.
The result is an extremely low-density solid with several remarkable properties, most notably its effectiveness as a thermal insulator and its extremely low density. It is usually described as feeling like expanded polystyrene (styrofoam) or the green flower foam called Oasis. It is dry and rigid, unlike a "wet" gel.
Read more at Suite101: Frozen Smoke - The World's Lightest Solid: The Astonishing Properties and Uses of Aerogels
The Benefits of Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007
An Introduction to the InfoPath Form Development Application
Microsoft InfoPath 2007 is a part of the MS Office 2007 suite of applications. It allows the development of electronic forms that, once deployed, allow the collection, processing, and storage of data. The benefits of InfoPath include:
- XML structure
- Easy-to-use design interface
- Data validation
- Data connections
- Rules
- Workflows
- Conversion of existing Word-based and Excel-based forms
- Form Views
- Digital Signing
- InfoPath Forms and Templates
In InfoPath, the form template and the captured form data are rendered in XML, or extensible mark-up language. Simply put, XML is a data structure that identifies individual blocks of data with easy-to-understand tags.
For example, the username "Thomas" may be identified as <username>Thomas</username>, where <username> and </username> are the opening and closing tags for that item of data. XML is widely used and easily readable in its native form.
Read more at Suite101: The Benefits of Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007: An Introduction to the InfoPath Form Development Application
Original Articles. Constant-Content.