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Virtual reality (VR) has recently become established as a suite of technologies capable of serving many companies′ future needs in design practice, training and organizational communication. Two years after the launch of a major British collaborative project involving 17 blue‐chip companies, VR is set to become adopted by many as their “information technology of choice” for the next century – some even aiming to establish in‐house facilities before the end of 1996. Proposes that, properly implemented, VR is capable of giving personnel at all company levels, who have a wide variety of educational backgrounds or skills, intuitive access to complex, computer‐mediated processes. Discusses some of the practical solutions to a commercially‐driven selection of demonstrator projects, while attempting to dispel some of the myths associated with VR, such as the necessity to don head‐mounted displays and instrumented gloves.

Think this morning's board meeting was tough? Try getting into the boxing ring with Peter Lawrence.

Aims to clarify the use of “nuclear” robots with special reference to one UK contractor (Magnox) and the cost‐effectiveness of its decommissioning programme.

Goes through the protocol of the use of robots in the disposal of contaminated scrap.

Justifies the use of a built‐to‐order modular linear (Cartesian) robot system required by Magnox.

Provides valuable advice for handling nuclear materials, especially reactors.

For some special manipulators such as the ones work at the space station, nuclear or some other unmanned environments, the overload, collision, vibration, temperature change or release of the internal stress would affect the structural parameters. And thus the operation precision might constantly decrease in long-term use. In these unmanned environments, the unattended manipulators should calibrate itself when they execute high precision operations or proceed self-maintenances. The purpose of this paper is to propose an automatic visual assistant on-line calibration (AVOC) method based on multi-markers.

A camera fixed on the end of the manipulator is used to measure one to three identification points, which forms an unstable multi-sensor eye-in-hand system. A Gaussian motion method which combines the linear quadratic regulator control and extended Kalman filter together is proposed to make the manipulator track the planned trajectories when its inaccurate structural parameters form uncertain motion errors. And a Monte-Carlo method is proposed to form a high precision and stable signal acquisition when the visual system has measurement errors and intermittent signal feedback. An automatic sampling process is adopted to select the optimal measurement points basing on their variances.

Data analysis and experiment results prove the efficiency and feasibility of the method proposed in this paper. With this method, the positioning accuracy is largely promoted from about 2 mm to 0.04–0.05 mm.

Experiments were carried out successfully on a manipulator in a life sciences glove box that will work at the Chinese space station. It is a low cost and efficient manipulator calibration method. The whole autonomic calibration process takes less than 10 min and requires no human intervention. In addition, this method not only can be used in the calibration of other unmanned articulated manipulator that works in deep ocean, nuclear industry or space but also be useful for the maintenance work in modern factories owing a lot of industrial robots.

This article highlights current research at the Leatherhead Food Research Association which is relevant to shelf‐life assessment of food products. One area is to improve the quality and safety of fish ‐ both fresh and cold‐smoked. Food MicroModel, a computer software package which aids in the prediction of the microbiological safety and spoilage potential of food products, is described. New methods capable of predicting the stability of oils and fats to oxidation, which can be a significant cause of reduced shelf‐life in fat‐containing foods, are described. Novel analytical instruments, known as electronic noses, have been shown to have potential, as has a total antioxidant activity test. Temperature control in factories is often a compromise between product safety and the need to maintain reasonable employee working conditions. This is no longer a problem with the development of glove box technology, which separates the two environments. The final study discussed in this article is the development of accelerated shelf‐life tests for chocolate products.

Part of the luxury one associates with a Jaguar luxury car is the quality wood finish of the consul facias, glove boxes, door cappings and various trim areas. The finish consists of veneers of burr walnut, figured walnut or burr elm, according to the particular model, applied to wood, plastics or steel plate, depending upon the paricular component.

The study's purpose was to gather scientist end‐user perceptions of their impending phased move to a new facility within a US national laboratory site.

The researchers, a college faculty member and three undergraduate student interns, visited 59 laboratories and asked an open‐ended question. Based on assessments of subjects' responses, the raters independently assigned ratings to subjects.

A total of 57 ratings were given by three undergraduate intern raters for 19 scientist subjects. Raters selected the relatively positive, Pragmatic rating for the majority of subjects. Some inter‐rater reliability was found.

The relatively small subject sample and case study nature of this work limits the ability to generalize. However, this case study fills a gap in the body of knowledge regarding scientists' perceptions of laboratory moves and contributes to facility management education by documenting the successful involvement of undergraduates in field studies.

This research provides end‐user evidence necessary for developing or communicating move protocols at this site as well as others. The methodology developed in this study may be adopted at other laboratories and facilities with a large number of knowledge workers.

This facility management research strives to support scientists in their work and therefore contributes to the fulfilment of a national laboratory's mission.

This unique study involves undergraduate interns in a research project at a national laboratory and contributes to the understanding of facility management issues related to laboratory environments and scientist end‐users. Prior to this study, little scientific research regarding laboratory end‐users was found.

The work on friction in high vacuum was started some years ago in Dr. F. P. Bowdens laboratory in Cambridge University, using an apparatus designed by the late Dr. J. E. Young. The object has been to examine the frictional behaviour of surfaces covered with known films, undisturbed by the contamination always present in a normal atmosphere. A general account of the work was given in Dr. Howe's paper at the Conference on Lubrication and Wear (1957) entitled “Vapour Lubrication and the Friction of Clean Surfaces”. Dr. Rowe was educated at Culford School and Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he took Mechanical Sciences Tripos in 1944 and Natural Science Tripos Part II (Physics) in 1950. He wrote a thesis on “Adhesion of Clean Metals” in Dr. Bowden's laboratory at Cambridge in 1953. From 1944–46 he was engaged on miniaturisation at the Telecommunications Research Establishment and for the next two years was at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment working on cyclotron design. He currently leads a small group interested in friction, lubrication and wear, at Tube Investments Research Laboratories, Cambridge. He is a member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers and the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker.

In the past several years, CH₃NH₃PbI₃ perovskite material has been extensively evaluated as an absorber layer of perovskite solar cells due to its excellent structural and optical properties, and greater than 22% conversion efficiency. However, improvement and future commercialization of solar cells based on CH₃NH₃PbI₃ encountered restrictions due to toxicity and instability of the lead element. Recently, studies on properties of lead-free and mixture of lead with other cations perovskite thin films as light absorber materials have been reported. The purpose of this paper was the fabrication of CH₃NH₃Sn₁-xPbxI₃ thin films with different SnI₂ concentrations in ambient condition, and study on the structural, morphological, optical, and photovoltaic performance of the studied solar cells. The X-ray diffraction studies revealed the formation of both CH₃NH₃PbI₃ and CH₃NH₃SnI₃ phases with increasing the Sn concentration, and improvement in crystallinity and morphology was also observed. All perovskite layers had a relatively high absorption coefficient >104 cm⁻¹ in the visible wavelengths, and the bandgap values varied in the range from 1.46 to 1.63 eV. Perovskite solar cells based on these thin films have been fabricated, and device performance was investigated. Results showed that photo-conversion efficiency (PCE) for the pure CH₃NH₃PbI₃sample was 1.20%. With adding SnI₂, PCE was increased to 4.48%.

In this work, the author mixed tin and lead with different percentages in the perovskite thin film. Also, the preparation of these layers and also other layers to fabricate solar cells based on them were conducted in an open and non-glove box environment. Finally, the effect of [Sn/Pb] ratio in the CH₃NH₃Sn₁-xPbxI₃ layers on the structural, morphological, optical, electrical and photovoltaic performance have been investigated.

CH₃NH₃Sn₁-xPbxI₃ (x = 0.0, 0.25, 0.50, 0.75, 1.0) perovskite thin films have been grown by a spin-coating technique. It was found that as tin concentration increases, the X-ray diffraction and FESEM images studies revealed the formation of both CH₃NH₃PbI₃ and CH₃NH₃SnI₃ phases, and improvement in crystallinity, and morphology; all thin films had high absorption coefficient values close to 104 cm⁻¹ in the visible region, and the direct optical bandgap in the layers decreases from 1.63 eV in pure CH₃NH₃SnI₃ to 1.46 eV for CH₃NH₃Sn0.0.25Pb0.75I3 samples; all thin films had p-type conductivity, and mobility and carrier density increased; perovskite solar cells based on these thin films have been fabricated, and device performance was investigated. Results showed that photo-conversion efficiency (PCE) for the pure CH₃NH₃PbI₃sample was 1.20%. With adding SnI2, PCE was increased to 4.48%.

The preparation method seems to be interesting as it is in an ambient environment without the protection of nitrogen or argon gas.