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Technology Update
Yale Mathematician Earns Presidential Science Medal
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Business New Haven
3/6/2000
By: BNH
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NEW HAVEN - President Clinton has awarded Yale University Mathematician Ronald Coifman the National Medal of Science, the highest recognition of its kind in the country.
“This is like winning the lottery,” said Coifman, Yale's Phillips Professor of Mathematics, considered a world leader in the field of harmonic analysis.
The National Medal of Science recognizes the discoveries and lifetime achievements of the nation's top scientists. It is the latest of many awards for Coifman, who said he had been attracted to mathematics for as long as he could remember because of a fascination with patterns.
Coifman is noted for his pioneering work in wavelet packets, mathematical shorthand for compressing and restoring virtually any image or sound. His wavelet packets have been used by the FBI and Scotland Yard to compress fingerprint files to a more manageable size. The FBI shrank its massive database of more than 300 million fingerprints to a fraction of its original size yielding a savings of $25 million in optical storage discs alone.
Coifman's importance was explained in the presidential award: “He introduced tools powerful enough to solve key problems in pure mathematics, yet sufficiently simple and flexible to become the basis for new, fast algorithms to handle the problems of wave propagation, data storage, denoising and medical imaging.”
Thomas Group Takes Auctioning Online
GUILFORD - Since 1947, the Thomas Group has been conducting industrial auctions throughout North America, its primary focus being on surplus machinery resulting from the closure of all types of manufacturing plants. The standard auction pattern for more than 50 years has been plant closures, followed by advertising, then an on-site auction.
Last year, however, Thomas began to explore a new way to auction. It conducted four projects which included live Internet bidding in addition to the onsite attendees, resulting in ten to 15 percent of sales migrating to Internet bidders.
Thomas employs a bidding procedure developed by Livebid, a unit of Amazon.com. The service provider receives a fixed fee plus a percentage of Internet sales. Each bidder must pre-register and meet agreed-upon financial conditions in order to be assigned a bidder number. The time from the bidder's click to the auctioneer's ear is approximately four seconds.
Tom Gagliardi, senior managing partner of the Thomas Group, says his company is merely surfing the wave of the future. “We believe that Internet bidding will completely replace on-site bidding. At this time, Internet bidders are generally bidding on very late-model equipment or equipment which they have hired a third party to pre-inspect, thereby personally avoiding the hassle, time and expense to travel to the sale site. Still, many auction buyers like to do their own inspection and actually enjoy the interaction with other auction attendees.
“We will, however, be conducting the first industrial auction exclusively via live Internet bidding on April 20,” Gagliardi says. “We will be selling printing and graphics equipment located at various consignors' sites throughout North America. Pre-inspection will be available at each location and all bidding will be conducted live on the Internet, right from our office. One thing we are sure of: This is definitely just the beginning.”
LogoSoftwear.com Customizes Sportswear Online
CHESHIRE - LogoSoftwear's new web site, logosoftwear.com, enables customers to purchase embroidered and imprinted sportswear without a minimum order or setup restrictions. Customers have access to thousands of embroidery-ready logos directly online through the company's proprietary Logo Search program, and can combine these logos with their own personalized names and phrases.
Logosoftwear calls its business model “mass personalization,” an Internet solution that automates the purchasing process. According to company president Frank Nevins, this automated purchasing process significantly reduces the costs and inefficiencies associated with the conventional custom sportswear process.
IMA Expands to South America
SHELTON - IMA, a global provider of synchronized, multi-channel e-business solutions, has announced plans to expand its technology base in South America's financial and telecommunications market through a new alliance with Switch, SA.
One of South America's leading providers of call-center solutions, Switch has joined IMA's leverEDGE Sales Partner Program to resell IMA's suite of traditional and electronic customer relationship-management solutions. The Santiago, Chile-based company serves some of the largest financial and government institutions, as well as telecommunications, automotive and insurance companies in Chile, Peru, Argentina and Bolivia. Clients include BankBoston, Citibank and ENTEL.
“Switch selected IMA as a global technology partner due to their market leading products and e-business vision,” said Switch CEO Heriberto Covarrubias. “We have seen first-hand the migration of communication from traditional voice-based channels to electronic and Web-based channels. IMA's Crm and eCRM solutions will allow us to provide our existing and new customers with a more flexible and comprehensive business solution, extending from the back office to the front office.”
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