Word: disks
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...ailment, as its name suggests, is generally traceable to an impairment of one or both of the temporomandibular joints. These olive-size structures, composed of bone and a cushioning cartilage disk, are located at the points where the jaw meets the skull. TMJ may be triggered by infection, arthritis, a blow to the head, shouting at a football game, even chomping on a bagel. A major contributing factor is emotional stress that leads to teeth clenching or grinding. Excruciating pain radiating through the head and neck, earaches and muscle spasms are the most frequent complaints...
...inch scar running in front of the ear. Now surgeons are increasingly using arthroscopy, a technique originally devised to correct knee damage. They insert the arthroscope, a thin telescopic tube, through an incision in the jaw and use tiny instruments to wash out debris, reposition the disk or cut away scar tissue. The operation takes about an hour and leaves a mark no larger than a freckle. Proponents believe the availability of the procedure may increase the percentage of TMJ patients who choose surgery from 10% to as much...
...first glance, the union of the personal computer and the compact disc would seem to be a perfect match. The same CD that holds an hour of Mendelssohn or Madonna can be used to store more information than a thousand floppy disks. But the coupling of the two technologies has been stalled by a kind of Catch-22. Computer owners will not buy the special disk drives required to play CDs on their desktop machines until they know there is something worth playing. And software publishers are reluctant to develop new CD programs until there are enough disk drives...
...what it can deliver now in financial returns and improved productivity. In April 1986, IBM brought on line its first expert system, called DEFT (for Diagnostic Expert-Final Test). Its task: to perform the mundane but critical job of diagnosing problems during the final testing of the giant disk drives that store information for IBM's mainframe computers. Since then the testing system has been adapted as a diagnostic tool for IBM service experts and to perform a variety of different tests on IBM equipment. IBM's initial cost: roughly $100,000. The payoff: $12 million in annual savings...
After the company's first shot -- the DEFT system to diagnose troubles in IBM's giant disk drives -- proved a bull's-eye, IBM Chairman John Akers became an enthusiast. He gave Schorr the green light to promote expert systems throughout the company. IBM now has 50 knowledge systems up and running, and Schorr expects that number to double each year for the next few years...