Abstract: There is described a method for interrogating optical fiber comprising fiber Bragg gratings (“FBGs”), using an optical fiber interrogator. The method comprises (a) generating an initial light pulse from phase coherent light emitted from a light source, wherein the initial light pulse is generated by modulating the intensity of the light; (b) splitting the initial light pulse into a pair of light pulses; (c) causing one of the light pulses to be delayed relative to the other of the light pulses; (d) transmitting the light pulses along the optical fiber; (e) receiving reflections of the light pulses off the FBGs; and (f) determining whether an optical path length between the FBGs has changed from an interference pattern resulting from the reflections of the light pulses.

Abstract: A transfer line for a GCMS arrangement, the transfer line comprising: a transfer probe having a probe bore to receive a GC column; a sealing cap movably mounted at a first end of the transfer probe; and a resilient element arranged to bias the sealing cap away from the first end of the transfer probe.

Abstract: In a cloud computing environment, a storage space management system provides for uniform collection of usage statistics for storage disks and storage consumers, including usage statistics for a consumers' storage buckets, where a storage bucket represents a logical container of files, objects or other types of stored data for a given consumer. The system enables automated evaluation of space usage policy against the collected statistics. The system enforces the evaluated policy determinations, including queueing jobs that manage storage disk eligibility for storing data and jobs that direct traffic from storage consumers to storage disks that have sufficient storage available.

Abstract: In a cloud computing environment, a storage space management system provides for uniform collection of usage statistics for storage disks and storage consumers, including usage statistics for a consumers' storage buckets, where a storage bucket represents a logical container of files, objects or other types of stored data for a given consumer. The system enables automated evaluation of space usage policy against the collected statistics. The system enforces the evaluated policy determinations, including queueing jobs that manage storage disk eligibility for storing data and jobs that direct traffic from storage consumers to storage disks that have sufficient storage available.