Systems Briefs

Auditioning a new deck for a landmark bridge
With two towers reaching 700 feet into the sky and a span that stretches nearly a mile, the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge is a familiar beacon to travelers driving from New Jersey to New York City.

Meeting HD’s demands with a faster algorithm
In their insatiable demand for faster, smaller and more mobile communications gadgets, says Zhiyuan Yan, consumers are straining the capacity of information technology.

A systems view for healthcare
American medicine leads the world in most fields of clinical research, training and practice, said a 2008 report by the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Engineering, but nearly 100,000 Americans nevertheless die each year because of “broken healthcare processes.”