Ampex is an American electronics company founded in 1944 by Alexander M. Poniatoff as a spin-off of Dalmo-Victor; the name AMPEX is a portmanteau, created by its founder, which stands for Alexander M. Poniatoff Excellence. Today, Ampex operates as Ampex Data Systems Corporation, a subsidiary of Delta Information Systems, consists of two business units; the Silicon Valley unit, known internally as Ampex Data Systems, manufactures ruggedized, high-capacity, high-performance digital data storage systems capable of functioning in harsh environments on land, in the air, at sea, in space. The Colorado Springs, Colorado unit, referred to as Ampex Intelligent Systems, serves as a laboratory and hub for the company's line of industrial control system cyber security products and services and its artificial intelligence/machine learning technology, available across all of the company's products. Ampex's first great success was a line of reel-to-reel tape recorders developed from the German wartime Magnetophon system at the behest of Bing Crosby.

Ampex became a leader in audio tape technology, developing many of the analog recording formats for both music and movies that remained in use into the 1990s. Starting in the 1950s, the company began developing video tape recorders, introduced the helical scan concept that make home video players possible, they introduced multi-track recording, slow-motion and instant playback television, a host of other advances. Ampex's tape business was rendered obsolete during the 1990s, the company turned to digital storage products. Ampex moved into digital storage for DoD Flight Test Instrumentation with the introduction of the first, true all digital flight test recorder. Ampex supports numerous major DoD programs with the US Air Force, US Army, US Marines, US Navy and other government entities. Ampex works with all major DoD primes and integrators including Boeing, General Atomics, Northrop and many others; the new Ampex is attempting to do more with the data stored on its network attached storage devices.

This includes adding advanced encryption for more secure data storage. Russian-American inventor Alexander Matthew Poniatoff established the company in San Carlos, California, in 1944 as the Ampex Electric and Manufacturing Company; the company name came from his initials plus "ex" to avoid using the name AMP in use. During World War II, Ampex was a subcontractor to Dalmo-Victor, manufacturing high quality electric motors and generators for radars that used alnico 5 magnets from General Electric. Ampex was set up in an abandoned loft-space above the Dalmo-Victor plant. Near the end of the war, while serving in the U. S. Army Signal Corps, Major Jack Mullin was assigned to investigate German radio and electronics experiments, he discovered the Magnetophons with AC biasing on a trip to Radio Frankfurt. The device produced much better fidelity than shellac records; the technological processes in tape recording and equipment developed by German companies before and during the 1939-45 War had copyrights which were voided after Germany's 1945 surrender and defeat.

Mullin acquired two Magnetophon recorders and 50 reels of BASF Type L tape, brought them to America, where he produced modified versions. He demonstrated them to the Institute of Radio Engineers in San Francisco on May 16, 1946. Bing Crosby, a big star on radio at the time, was receptive to the idea of pre-recording his radio programs, he disliked the regimentation of live broadcasts, much preferred the relaxed atmosphere of the recording studio. He had asked the NBC network to let him pre-record his 1944-45 series on transcription discs, but the network refused. In June 1947, pitching the technology to the major Hollywood movie studios, got the chance to demonstrate his modified tape recorders to Crosby; when Crosby heard a demonstration of Mullin's tape recorders, he saw the potential of the new technology and commissioned Mullin to prepare a test recording of his radio show. Ampex was finishing its prototype of the Model 200 tape recorder, Mullin used the first two models as soon as they were built.

After a successful test broadcast, ABC agreed to allow Crosby to pre-record his shows on tape. Crosby appointed Mullin as his chief engineer and placed an order for $50,000 worth of the new recorders so that Ampex could develop a commercial production model from the prototypes. Crosby Enterprises was Ampex's West Coast representative until 1957; the company's first tape recorder, the Ampex Model 200, was first shipped in April 1948. The first two units, serial numbers 1 and 2, were used to record Bing Crosby's show; the American Broadcasting Company used these recorders along with 3M Scotch 111 gamma ferric oxide coated acetate tape for the first-ever U. S. delayed radio broadcast of Bing Crosby's Philco Radio Time. Ampex tape recorders revolutionized the radio and recording industries because of their superior audio quality and ease of operation over audio disk cutting lathes. During the early 1950s, Ampex began marketing one- and two-track machines using 1⁄4-inch tape; the line soon expanded into three- and four-track models usin

Flocking is the process of depositing many small fiber particles onto a surface. It can refer to the texture produced by the process, or to any material used for its flocked surface. Flocking of an article can be performed for the purpose of increasing its value in terms of the tactile sensation, aesthetics and appearance, it can be performed for functional reasons including insulation, slip-or-grip friction, low reflectivity. Flocking is used in many ways. One example is in model building, where a grassy texture may be applied to a surface to make it look more realistic, it is used by model car builders to get a scale carpet effect. Another use is on a Christmas tree. Other things may be flocked to give them a texture similar to velvet, velveteen, or velour, such as t-shirts, gift/jewelry boxes, upholstery. Besides the application of velvety coatings to surfaces and objects there exist various flocking techniques as a means of color and product design, they range from screen printing to modern digital printing in order to refine for instance fabric, clothes or books by multicolor patterns.

Presently, the exploration of the flock phenomenon can be seen in the fine arts. Artist, Electric Coffin, is known for their many colorful flocked works, including a 50-foot piece in Facebook's Seattle headquarters. Flocking in the automotive industry is used for decorative purposes and may be applied to a number of different materials. Many rally cars have a flocked dashboard to cut down on the sun reflecting through the windscreen. A view on the present state-of-the-art of flocking can be found in the first international exhibition "Flockage: the flock phenomenon" in the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum in Bournemouth. In the photographic industry, flocking is one method used to reduce the reflectivity of surfaces, including the insides of some bellows and lens hoods, it is used to produce light-tight passages for film such as in 135 film cartridges. Flock consists of synthetic fibers. Flock print feels a bit elevated; the length of the fibers can vary in thickness which co-determines the appearance of the flocked product.

Thin fibers produce thicker fibers a more bristle-like surface. High-quality model cars are known to use flocking for decorative purposes. Premium model maker AUTOart is well known for its use of flocking in their model cars. Flocking is defined as the application of fine particles to adhesive coated surfaces by the application of a high-voltage electric field. In a flocking machine the "flock" is given a negative charge whilst the substrate is earthed. Flock material flies vertically onto the substrate attaching to applied glue. A number of different substrates can be flocked including textiles, woven fabric, paper, PVC, sponge and automotive plastic; the majority of flocking done worldwide uses finely cut synthetic fibers. A flocked finish imparts a decorative and/or functional characteristic to the surface; the variety of materials that are applied to numerous surfaces through different flocking methods create a wide range of end products. The flocking process is used on items ranging from retail consumer goods to products with high technology military applications.

Historians write that flocking can be traced back to circa 1000 B. C. E; when the Chinese used resin glue to bond natural fibers to fabrics. Fiber dust was strewn onto adhesive coated surfaces to produce flocked wall coverings in Germany during the Middle Ages. In France, flocked wall coverings became popular during the reign of Louis XIV of France. Flocking can expose workers to small nylon particulates, which inhaled can cause flock worker's lung, a type of interstitial lung disease. Other exposure in the flocking industry can include acrylic adhesives, ammonium ether of potato starch, heat transfer oil, tannic acid, zeolite. Finishing Surface finishing

Georges Amsel was a French physicist, Director of Research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research. Georges was born on May 7, 1933 in Budapest, Hungary to Sara Amsel. After having been deported from Hungary in 1944, finding refuge in Switzerland in 1945, he undertook high-school studies in Geneva and in Paris, continuing on in the Physics Laboratory of Ecole Normale Supérieure to obtain his doctorate in nuclear physics in 1963. During his doctoral study, under the guidance of Pierre Aigrain he researched the possibilities for charged particle detection offered by semiconductor diodes and developed some of the first such detectors in 1959, he was invited to the first conference on semiconductor detectors, held at Ashville, NC, in 1960, where he presented the first Rutherford backscattering spectrometry to be obtained with a semiconductor detector. During this period, he studied low-energy nuclear reactions on stable isotopes, developing anodizing methods for manufacturing thin, self-supporting oxide films enriched in specific stable oxygen isotopes in collaboration with David Samuel at the Weizmann Institute in Israel.

With these targets, he discovered the narrow resonances in the 18O15N nuclear reaction. These discoveries were put to use in the field of stable isotopic tracing of atomic transport processes during thin-film growth and transformation. In 1968, he headed the installation of the HVEC AN2500 accelerator in the Solid State Physics group of the Ecole Normale Supérieure, it was one of the first nuclear particle accelerators to be installed in a condensed matter physics laboratory rather than in a nuclear physics laboratory. During this time, he laid down the foundations of the stochastic treatment of charged particle energy loss processes, opening the way to rapid and accurate calculations of excitation curves obtained around narrow nuclear resonances, providing an approach to calculating the overshoot on the leading edge, due to the Lewis effect, he has helped in setting up several IBA laboratories around the world and was the director of AGLAE, the accelerator at the Louvre museum dedicated to analysis of cultural heritage materials.

1964, CNRS Bronze Medal. 1971, CNRS Silver Medal. 1984, Hevesy Medal. 1987, SERVANT prize of the French Academy of Sciences. 1989, Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters. 1993, Félix Robin prize from the French Physical Society. Member of Société Française de Physique, Institute of Physics. Georges Amsel's research works