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Desmodromic valve

 * In general mechanical terms, the word desmodromic is used to refer to mechanisms that have different controls for their actuation in different directions.

A desmodromic valve is a reciprocating engine poppet valve that is positively closed by a cam and leverage system, rather than by a more conventional spring.

The valves in a typical four-stroke engine allow the air/fuel mixture into the cylinder at the beginning of the cycle and exhaust spent gases at the end of the cycle. In a conventional four-stroke engine, valves are opened by a cam and closed by return spring. A desmodromic valve has two cams and two actuators, for positive opening and closing without a return spring.

Etymology
The word comes from the Greek words desmos (δεσμός, translated as "bond" or "knot") and dromos (δρόμος, "track" or "way"). This denotes the major characteristic of the valves being continuously "bound" to the camshaft.

Idea
The common valve spring system is satisfactory for traditional mass-produced engines that do not rev highly and are of a design that requires low maintenance. At the period of initial desmodromic development, valve springs were a major limitation on engine performance because they would break from metal fatigue. In the 1950s new vacuum melt processes helped to remove impurities from the metal in valve springs, increasing their life and efficiency greatly. However, many springs would still fail at sustained operation above 8000 RPM. The desmodromic system was devised to remedy this problem by completely removing the need for a spring. Furthermore, as maximum RPM increases, higher spring force is required to prevent valve float, leading to larger springs (with increased spring mass, and thus greater inertia), cam drag (as the valve springs require energy to compress, robbing the engine of power), and higher wear on the parts at all speeds, problems addressed by the desmodromic mechanism.

Design and history
Fully controlled valve movement was conceived during the earliest days of engine development, but devising a system that worked reliably and was not overly complex took a long time. Desmodromic valve systems are first mentioned in patents in 1896 by Gustav Mees. Austin's marine engine of 1910 produced 300 bhp and was installed in a speedboat called "Irene I"; its all-aluminium, twin-overhead-valve engine had twin magnetos, twin carburettors and desmodromic valves. The 1914 Grand Prix Delage and Nagant (see Pomeroy "Grand Prix Car") used a desmodromic valve system (quite unlike the present day Ducati system).

Azzariti, a short-lived Italian manufacturer from 1933 to 1934, produced 173 cc and 348 cc twin-cylinder engines, some of which had desmodromic valve gear, with the valve being closed by a separate camshaft.

The Mercedes-Benz W196 Formula One racing car of 1954–1955, and the Mercedes-Benz 300SLR sports racing car of 1955 both had desmodromic valve actuation.

In 1956, Fabio Taglioni, a Ducati engineer, developed a desmodromic valve system for the Ducati 125 Grand Prix, creating the Ducati 125 Desmo.

He was quoted:

"The specific purpose of the desmodromic system is to force the valves to comply with the timing diagram as consistently as possible. In this way, any lost energy is negligible, the performance curves are more uniform and dependability is better."

The engineers that came after him continued that development, and Ducati held a number of patents relating to desmodromics. Desmodromic valve actuation has been applied to top-of-the-range production Ducati motorcycles since 1968, with the introduction of the "widecase" Mark 3 single cylinders.

In 1959 the Maserati brothers introduced one of their final designs: a desmodromic four-cylinder, 2000cc engine for their last O.S.C.A. Barchetta.

Comparison with conventional valvetrains
In modern engines, valve spring failure at high RPM has been mostly remedied. The main benefit of the desmodromic system is the prevention of valve float at high rpm.

In traditional spring-valve actuation, as engine speed increases, the inertia of the valve will eventually overcome the spring's ability to close it completely before the piston reaches top dead centre (TDC). This can lead to several problems. First, the valve does not completely return to its seat before combustion begins. This allows combustion gases to escape prematurely, leading to a reduction in cylinder pressure which causes a major decrease in engine performance. This can also overheat the valve, possibly warping it and leading to catastrophic failure. Second, and most damaging, the piston collides with the valve and both are destroyed. In spring-valve engines the traditional remedy for valve float is to stiffen the springs. This increases the seat pressure of the valve (the static pressure that holds the valve closed). This is beneficial at higher engine speeds because of a reduction in the aforementioned valve float. The drawback is increased forces on all valvetrain components and increased friction and associated temperature and wear. It does not decrease power because nearly all work put into compressing the spring is later released as the spring is allowed to uncompress.

The desmodromic system avoids some of the shortcomings of spring-loaded valves because it is not subject to the high loads associated with compressing stiff springs. However, it must still overcome the inertia of the valve itself, and that depends on the mass distribution of the moving parts. The effective mass of a traditional valve with spring includes one-half of the valve spring mass for symmetric springs and all of the valve spring retainer mass. However, a desmodromic system must deal with the inertia of the two rocker arms per valve, so this advantage depends greatly on the skill of the designer. Another disadvantage is the contact point between the cams and rocker arms. It is relatively easy to use roller tappets in conventional valvetrains, although it does add considerable moving mass. In a desmodromic system the roller would be needed at one end of the rocker arm, which would greatly increase its moment-of-inertia and negate its "effective mass" advantage. Thus, desmo systems have generally needed to deal with sliding friction between the cam and rocker arm and therefore may have greater wear. The contact points on most Ducati rocker arms are hard-chromed to reduce this wear. Another disadvantage is the difficulty in incorporating hydraulic valve lash adjusters to a desmodromic system; thus frequent valve clearance (lash) adjustments are required. Additionally, each valve requires two lash adjustments - one for the opening rocker and another for the closing rocker. However, it is rare for most high RPM engines with conventional spring-loaded valvetrains to incorporate hydraulic lash adjusters – so they too require periodic checks and adjustments of valve lash.

Disadvantages
Before the days when valve drive dynamics could be analyzed by computer, desmodromic drive seemed to offer solutions for problems that were worsening with increasing engine speed. Since those days, lift, velocity, acceleration, and jerk curves for cams have been modelled by computer to reveal that cam dynamics are not what they seemed. With proper analysis, problems relating to valve adjustment, hydraulic tappets, push rods, rocker arms, and above all, valve float, became things of the past without desmodromic drive.

Today most automotive engines use overhead cams, driving a flat tappet to achieve the shortest, lightest weight, and most inelastic path from cam to valve, thereby avoiding elastic elements such as pushrod and rocker arm. Computers have allowed for fairly accurate acceleration modelling of valve-train systems.

Before numerical computing methods were readily available, acceleration was only attainable by differentiating cam lift profiles twice, once for velocity and again for acceleration. This generates so much hash (noise) that the second derivative (acceleration) was uselessly inaccurate. Computers permitted integration from the jerk curve, the third derivative of lift, that is conveniently a series of contiguous straight lines whose vertices can be adjusted to give any desired lift profile.

Integration of the jerk curve produces a smooth acceleration curve while the third integral gives an essentially ideal lift curve (cam profile). With such cams, which mostly do not look like the ones "artists" formerly designed, valve noise (lift-off) went away and valve train elasticity came under scrutiny.

Today, most cams have mirror image (symmetric) profiles with identical positive and negative acceleration while opening and closing valves. However, some high speed (in terms of engine RPM) motors now employ asymmetrical cam profiles in order to quickly open valves and set them back in their seats more gently to reduce wear. As well, production vehicles have employed asymmetrical cam lobe profiles since the late 1940s, as seen in the 1948 Ford V8. In this motor both the intake and exhaust profiles had an asymmetric design. More modern applications of asymmetrical camshafts include Cosworth's 2.3 liter crate motors, which use aggressive profiles to reach upwards of 280 brake horsepower. An asymmetric cam either opens or closes the valves more slowly than it could, with the speed being limited by Hertzian contact stress between curved cam and flat tappet, thereby ensuring a more controlled acceleration of the combined mass of the reciprocating componentry (specifically the valve, tappet and spring). In contrast, desmodromic drive uses two cams per valve, each with separate rocker arm (lever tappets). Maximum valve acceleration is limited by the cam-to-tappet galling stress, and therefore is governed by both the moving mass and the cam contact area. Maximum rigidity and minimum contact stress are best achieved with conventional flat tappets and springs whose lift and closure stress is unaffected by spring force; both occur at the base circle, where spring load is minimum and contact radius is largest. Curved (lever) tappets of desmodromic cams cause higher contact stress than flat tappets for the same lift profile, thereby limiting rate of lift and closure.

With conventional cams, stress is highest at full lift, when turning at zero speed (initiation of engine cranking), and diminishes with increasing speed as inertial force of the valve counters spring pressure, while a desmodromic cam has essentially no load at zero speed (in the absence of springs), its load being entirely inertial, and therefore increasing with speed. Its greatest inertial stress bears on its smallest radius. Acceleration forces for either method increase with the square of velocity resulting from kinetic energy.

Valve float was analyzed and found to be caused largely by resonance in valve springs that generated oscillating compression waves among coils, much like a Slinky. High speed photography showed that at specific resonant speeds, valve springs were no longer making contact at one or both ends, leaving the valve floating before crashing into the cam on closure.

For this reason, today as many as three concentric valve springs are sometimes nested inside one other; not for more force (the inner ones having no significant spring constant), but to act as snubbers to reduce oscillations in the outer spring.

An early solution to oscillating spring mass was the mousetrap or hairpin spring used on Norton Manx engines. These avoided resonance but were ungainly to locate inside cylinder heads.

Valve springs that do not resonate are progressive, wound with varying pitch or varying diameter called beehive springs from their shape. The number of active coils in these springs varies during the stroke, the more closely wound coils being on the static end, becoming inactive as the spring compresses or as in the beehive spring, where the small diameter coils at the top are stiffer. Both mechanisms reduce resonance because spring force and its moving mass vary with stroke. This advance in spring design removed valve float, the initial impetus for desmodromic valve drive.

Examples
Famous examples include the successful Mercedes-Benz W196 and Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR race cars and, most commonly, modern Ducati motorcycles.

Ducati motorcycles with desmodromic valves have won numerous races and championships, including Superbike World Championships from 1990 to 1992, 1994–96, 1998–99, 2001, 2003–04, 2006, 2008 and 2011. Ducati's return to Grand Prix motorcycle racing was powered by a desmodromic V4 990 cc engine in the GP3 (Desmosedici) bike, which went on to claim several victories, including a one-two finish at the final 990 cc MotoGP race at Valencia, Spain in 2006. With the onset of the 800 cc era in 2007, they are generally still considered to be the most powerful engines in the sport, and have powered Casey Stoner to the 2007 MotoGP Championship and Ducati to the constructors championship with the GP7 (Desmosedici) bike.

title: Desmodromic valve


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Ben Pollack

Ben Pollack (June 22, 1903 – June 7, 1971) was an American drummer and bandleader from the mid-1920s through the swing era. His eye for talent led him to employ musicians such as Benny Goodman, Jack Teagarden, Glenn Miller, Jimmy McPartland, and Harry James. This ability earned him the nickname the "Father of Swing".

Early years
Pollack was born in Chicago, learned to play drums in high school and formed groups on the side, performing professionally in his teens. He joined the New Orleans Rhythm Kings in Chicago in 1923 and later joined the Los Angeles-based Harry Bastin Band.

In 1924, he returned to Chicago, where he played for several bands, including Art Kessel's, which ultimately led to his forming a band, the 12-piece Venice Ballroom Orchestra, there in 1925, also known as ben Pollack and his Californians, which had some performances broadcast on WLW radio in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Over time the band included Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Jack Teagarden, and Jimmy McPartland. One of the earliest members of his band was Gil Rodin, a saxophonist whose business acumen served him well later as an executive for the Music Corporation of America.

From about 1928, with involvement from Irving Mills, members of Pollack's band moonlighted at Plaza-ARC and recorded a vast quantity of hot dance and jazz for their dime store labels — Banner, Perfect, Domino, Cameo, Lincoln, Romeo — under the names Mills' Merry Makers, Goody's Good Timers, Kentucky Grasshoppers, Mills' Musical Clowns, The Lumberjacks, Dixie Daises, The Caroliners, The Whoopee Makers, The Hotsy Totsy Gang, Dixie Jazz Band, and Jimmy Bracken's Toe Ticklers. Combining Pollack's regular recordings with these side groups made Pollack's one of the more prolific bands of the 1920s and 1930s.

Pollack's band played in Chicago and moved to New York City in 1928, having obtained McPartland and Teagarden around that time. This outfit enjoyed immense success, playing for Broadway shows and winning an exclusive engagement at the Park Central Hotel. Pollack's band was involved in extensive recording activity at that time, using a variety of pseudonyms in the studios. The orchestra also made a Vitaphone short subject sound film.

Pollack, in the meantime, had fancied himself as more of a bandleader-singer type instead of a drummer. To this end, he signed Ray Bauduc to handle the drumming chores. The band was booked by the Park Central Hotel in New York, during which time they became known as Ben Pollack and his Park Central Orchestra. Benny Goodman and Jimmy McPartland left the band in mid-1929. They were replaced by Matty Matlock on clarinet and Jack Teagarden's brother, Charlie, on trumpet. Eddie Miller was also signed as a tenor saxophonist in 1930.

Breakup and reformation
The band broke up in 1935. Many of its members soon formed a group led by Bob Crosby, brother of Bing Crosby.

Pollack formed a new band with Harry James and Irving Fazola. With James he wrote the hit "Peckin'". In the early 1940s, he organized a band led by comedian Chico Marx. He started Jewel Records, opened restaurants in Hollywood and Palm Springs, appeared as himself in the movie The Benny Goodman Story, and made a cameo in The Glenn Miller Story.

Pollack's bands from the 1920s through the 1940s included Benny Goodman, Bud Freeman, Dick Cathcart, Eddie Miller, Frank Teschemacher, Freddie Slack, Glenn Miller, Harry James, Irving Fazola, Jack Teagarden, Jimmy McPartland, Joe Marsala, Matty Matlock, Muggsy Spanier, and Yank Lawson.

Personal life
Pollack and Doris Robbins, who had no children, were divorced in 1957. In later years, after suffering a series of financial losses, Pollack grew despondent and hanged himself in his home in Palm Springs in 1971. He was buried in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

Labels
In 1926, Pollack began recording for the Victor Talking Machine Company. A 1927 newspaper ad promoted "a new Victor organization – Ben Pollack and His Californians."

Pollack left Victor in late 1929 and recorded for Hit of the Week (1930), the dime store labels (Banner, Cameo, Domino, Lincoln, Perfect, Romeo) (1930–1931), Victor (1933), Columbia (1933–1934), Brunswick, Vocalion and Variety (1936–37), and Decca (1937–1938).

Most of these records are listed in discographical books (such as Brian Rust's Jazz Records) as by Irving Mills. Jack Teagarden's Music lists them as a "Ben Pollack Unit".

Compositions
Pollack co-wrote the jazz standard "Tin Roof Blues" in 1923 when he was a member of the New Orleans Rhythm Kings. The band's trombonist George Brunies is also credited as a composer. In 1954, Jo Stafford recorded "Make Love to Me", which used Pollack's music from "Tin Roof Blues". "Make Love to Me" was No. 1 for three weeks in Billboard magazine and No. 2 in Cashbox. The song was also recorded by Anne Murray and B. B. King.

Filmography

 * Presenting Lily Mars (1943) – saxophonist in Bob Crosby's Orchestra (uncredited)
 * Dark City (1950) – bettor (uncredited)
 * Disc Jockey (1951) – himself
 * The Glenn Miller Story (1954) – himself
 * The Benny Goodman Story (1956) – himself

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Ben Pollack


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Swift fox

The swift fox (Vulpes velox) is a small light orange-tan fox around the size of a domestic cat found in the western grasslands of North America, such as Montana, Colorado, New Mexico, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. It also lives in southern Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta in Canada, where it was previously extirpated. It is closely related to the kit fox (V. macrotis) and some mammalogists classify them as conspecific. However, molecular systematics imply that the two species are distinct. Interbreeding between the two species does occur where their ranges overlap (eastern New Mexico and western Texas), but this hybridization is quite restricted in scope.

The swift fox lives primarily in short-grass prairies and deserts. It became nearly extinct in the 1930s as a result of predator control programs, but was successfully reintroduced later. Currently, the conservation status of the species is considered by the IUCN as Least Concern owing to stable populations elsewhere.

Like most canids, the swift fox is an omnivore, and its diet includes grasses and fruits as well as small mammals, carrion, and insects. In the wild, its lifespan is 3 to 6 years, and it breeds once annually, from late December to March, depending on the geographic region. Pups are born anywhere from March to mid-May, and are weaned at six to seven weeks old.

Description
The swift fox has a dark, grayish, tan coloration that extends to a yellowish tan color across its sides and legs. The throat, chest, and belly range from pale yellow to white in color. Its tail is black-tipped, and it has black patches on its muzzle. Its ears are noticeably large, like those of the kit fox, although slightly farther apart than on the head of the latter. It is about 12 inches (30 cm) in height, and 31 inches (79 cm) long, measuring from the head to the tip of the tail, or about the size of a domestic cat. Its weight ranges from around five to seven pounds. Males and females are similar in appearance, although males are slightly larger.

Distribution and habitat
The swift fox lives in short-grass prairies and western grassland. They form their dens in sandy soil on open prairies, in plowed fields, or along fences. It is native to the Great Plains region of North America, and its range extends north to the southern Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada, and south to Texas. It reaches from western Iowa to Colorado, Kansas, Wyoming, Nebraska, and Montana.

Conservation status
The swift fox was once a severely endangered species, due to predator control programs in the 1930s that were aimed mostly at the gray wolf and the coyote. The species was extirpated from Canada by 1938, but a reintroduction program started in 1983 has been successful in establishing small populations in southeast Alberta and southwest Saskatchewan, despite the fact that many reintroduced individuals do not survive their first year. Nonetheless, by 1996, 540 foxes had been released around the Alberta-Saskatchewan border and Milk River Ridge areas, parts of the species' original native range. Four years later, those introduced foxes had tripled in number, making the program one of the most successful endangered species reintroduction programs in the world. In May 1999, the Species at Risk Act listed the swift fox as an endangered species in Canada, giving the species further protection for growth. A small, but stable and growing population continues to live freely in the southeastern regions of Alberta, and southwestern regions of Saskatchewan. Canada's national recovery strategy plan was revised in 2008 by the National Swift Fox Recovery Team, with projections of a long-term goal by 2026, "to restore a self-sustaining swift fox population of 1,000 or more mature, reproducing foxes that does not experience greater than a 30% population reduction in any 10-year period".

Exact population numbers of the swift fox are unknown, but it is known that they currently inhabit only 40% of their historic range. In addition to its populations in Canada, there are also swift fox populations in the United States, ranging from South Dakota to Texas. In 1995, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined that the fox warranted an endangered listing, but other higher priority species precluded its listing. This prompted state wildlife agencies within the fox's range to create the Swift Fox Conservation Team, which worked to implement better swift fox management and monitoring programs. Populations in the United States are stable in the central part of its range, and it is not considered endangered in the United States. The IUCN Red List characterizes it as of Least Concern.

Behavior and ecology

In the wild, the swift fox usually lives 3–6 years, but may live up to 14 years in captivity. It is primarily nocturnal, spending only evenings and nighttime above ground in the summer. Daytime activities are usually confined to the den, but it has been known to spend the warm midday period above ground during the winter. Due to the harsh winter conditions where the swift fox can be found, there is an increase in mortality rates. The swift fox is more heavily dependent on its den than most North American canids, using them as shelter from predators. These dens are usually burrows that are two to four meters in length. It has been known to run very fast, at speeds of over 50 km/h. or up to 60 km/h The coyote is the swift fox's main predator, but often chooses not to consume the swift fox. Other predators include the American badger, golden eagle, and bobcat. It is also vulnerable to trapping and poisoning, as well as death on highways.

Reproduction
Swift foxes are a socially monogamous species, although multiple breeding strategies have been observed. The adult swift fox's breeding season varies with region. In the southern United States, it mates between December and February with pups born in March and early April, while in Canada, the breeding season begins in March, and pups are born in mid-May. The male swift fox matures and may mate at one year, while the female usually waits until her second year before breeding. Adults live in pairs, and although some individuals mate for life, others choose different partners each year. Gestation takes around 51 days, and four to five kits are born.

The swift fox only has one litter annually, but may occupy up to thirteen dens in one year, moving because prey is scarce or because skin parasites build up inside the den. Sometimes it makes other burrows from other bigger animals, even though it is completely capable of digging one on its own. Pups are born in the den and typically remain there for approximately one month. A newborn pup's eyes and ears remain closed for ten to fifteen days, leaving it dependent on the mother for food and protection during this time. It is usually weaned around six or seven weeks old and remains with its parents until fall. Recent research has shown that social organization in the swift fox is unusual among canids, since it is based on the females. Females maintain territories at all times, but males emigrate if the resident female is killed or removed.

Diet
Like most foxes, the swift fox is an omnivore. Rabbits, mice, ground squirrels, birds, insects, other arthropods, lizards, amphibians, fish and eggs are staples. Grasses and fruits round out its diet. However, like any efficient forager, the swift fox takes advantage of seasonal foods. During the summer, adults eat large amounts of insects, including beetles and grasshoppers, and feed their young with larger prey items. Deer and other carrion killed by other animals may also be important food sources.

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Carly Fiorina

Cara Carleton "Carly" Fiorina (Sneed; born September 6, 1954) is an American businesswoman and politician, known primarily for her tenure as chief executive officer (CEO) of Hewlett-Packard (HP) from 1999 to 2005. Fiorina was the first woman to lead a Fortune Top-20 company.

In 2002, Fiorina oversaw what was then the largest technology sector merger in history, in which HP acquired rival personal computer manufacturer, Compaq. The transaction made HP the world's largest seller of personal computers. HP subsequently laid off 30,000 U.S. employees. Nonetheless, the number of employees exceeded the pre-merger figure and grew to 150,000 during her tenure. In February 2005, she was forced to resign as CEO and chair following a boardroom disagreement. She subsequently served as Chair of the philanthropic organization Good360.

Fiorina ran unsuccessfully for the United States Senate in 2010 and the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. Fiorina was an adviser to Republican Senator John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. In 2010, she won the Republican nomination for the United States Senate in California, but lost the general election to incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer. Fiorina was a candidate in the 2016 Republican presidential primary, and was for seven days the vice-presidential running mate of Ted Cruz until he suspended his campaign. In 2020, Fiorina endorsed the presidential campaign of Democrat Joe Biden.

Early life and education
Cara Carleton Sneed was born on September 6, 1954, in Austin, Texas, the daughter of Madelon Montross (née Juergens) and Joseph Tyree Sneed III. The name "Carleton", from which "Carly" is derived, has been used in every generation of the Sneed family since the Civil War. At the time of her birth, Fiorina's father was a professor at the University of Texas School of Law. He would later become dean of Duke University School of Law, Deputy U.S. Attorney General, and judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Her mother was an abstract painter. She is mainly of English and German ancestry, and was raised Episcopalian. Her paternal great-great-great-grandfather, Joseph P. Sneed, was a Methodist minister and educator in Texas. Her paternal great-great-great-great-uncle built the Constantine Sneed House in Brentwood, Tennessee, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Carly was a Brownie but did not become a Girl Scout due to her family's frequent moves. She attended Channing School, in London. She later attended five different high schools, including one in Ghana, graduating from Charles E. Jordan High School in Durham, North Carolina. At one time she aspired to be a classical pianist. She received a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and medieval history at Stanford University, in 1976. During her summers, she worked as a secretary for Kelly Services. She attended the UCLA School of Law in 1976, but dropped out after one semester. She worked as a receptionist for six months at a real estate firm, Marcus & Millichap, moving up to a broker position. When she married in 1977, she and her husband moved to Bologna, Italy, where he was doing graduate work; there she did English tutoring to Italian businessmen.

In 1980, Fiorina received a Master of Business Administration, in marketing, from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, College Park. In 1989 she obtained a Master of Science degree in management from the MIT Sloan School of Management, under the Sloan Fellows program.

AT&T and Lucent
In 1980, Fiorina joined AT&T as a management trainee, selling telephone services to big federal agencies. In 1990, she became the company's first female officer as senior vice president overseeing the company's hardware and systems division, eventually heading its North American operations.

In 1995, Fiorina led corporate operations for Lucent Technologies, Inc., a spin-off from AT&T of its Western Electric and Bell Labs divisions into a new company. In that capacity, she reported to Lucent chief executive Henry B. Schacht. She played a key role in planning and implementing the 1996 initial public offering of a successful stock and company launch strategy. The spin-off became one of the most successful IPOs in U.S. history, raising US$3 billion.

Later in 1996, Fiorina was appointed president of Lucent's consumer products sector. In 1997, she was named group president for Lucent's US$19 billion global service-provider business, overseeing marketing and sales for the company's largest customer segment. That year, Fiorina chaired a US$2.5 billion joint venture between Lucent's consumer communications and Royal Philips Electronics, under the name Philips Consumer Communications (PCC). In the edition of October 12, 1998, of Fortune magazine, Fiorina was named "The Most Powerful Woman in American Business".

Lucent added 22,000 jobs and revenues grew from US$19 billion to US$38 billion and the company's market share increased in every region for every product. According to Fortune magazine, Lucent increased sales by lending money to their own customers, writing that "In a neat bit of accounting magic, money from the loans began to appear on Lucent's income statement as new revenue while the dicey debt got stashed on its balance sheet as an allegedly solid asset". Lucent's stock price grew 10-fold.

Hiring
In July 1999, Hewlett-Packard Company named Fiorina chief executive officer, succeeding Lewis Platt and prevailing over the internal candidate Ann Livermore. Matthew Boyle of Fortune magazine said of Fiorina's hiring as HP's first woman CEO that, "Carly Fiorina didn't just break the glass ceiling, she obliterated it, as the first woman to lead a FORTUNE 20 company."

Writing in Fortune magazine in August 2015, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld described the hiring as the result of "a dysfunctional HP board committee, filled with its own poisoned politics, hired her with no CEO experience, nor interviews with the full board." Fiorina received a larger signing offer than any of her predecessors, including: US$65 million in restricted stock to compensate her for the Lucent stock and options she left behind, a US$3 million signing bonus, a US$1 million annual salary (plus a US$1.25–US$3.75 million annual bonus), US$36,000 in mortgage assistance, a relocation allowance, and permission (and encouragement) to use company planes for personal affairs. Fortune also named her the most powerful woman in America for five consecutive years.

Separating Agilent Technologies from HP and proposed PWC acquisition
Although the decision to spin off the company's analytical instruments division pre-dated her arrival, one of her first major responsibilities as chief executive was overseeing the separation of the unit into the stand-alone Agilent Technologies. Fiorina proposed the acquisition of the technology services arm of PricewaterhouseCoopers for almost US$14 billion, but withdrew the bid after a lackluster reception from Wall Street. Following the collapse of the dot-com bubble, the PwC consulting arm was acquired by IBM for less than US$4 billion. HP later acquired Electronic Data Systems, another technology services company, which some considered a validation of Fiorina's strategy.

Compaq merger
In early September 2001, in the wake of the bursting of the Tech Bubble, Fiorina announced the acquisition of PC maker Compaq with US$25 billion in stock, which, at the time, was the second largest producer of personal computers, after Dell. HP stock traded down by 30% on the news of the merger. The Compaq merger created the world's largest personal computer manufacturer in terms of units shipped.

Fiorina was frequently at odds with HP's board of directors, and she had to fight with the board for the merger. Walter Hewlett (the son of company co-founder William Hewlett) was a source of particularly strong opposition. Hewlett originally voted with the other board members to approve the Compaq deal, but he later changed his mind. He launched a proxy fight against Fiorina's efforts which Fiorina won with a "razor-thin margin" of 51.4% of the shareholders, with the institutional shareholders providing the bulk of the support. Fiorina was supported in the proxy battle by other board members, including Richard Hackborn, Philip M. Condit, George A. Keyworth, II, and Robert Knowling. Fiorina proceeded to reorganize HP and merge the parts of it that she kept with Compaq.

The merger was met initially with almost universal skepticism. The February 7, 2005, issue of Fortune described her merger plan as "failing" and the prognosis as "doubtful". Business professor Robert Burgelman and former HP executive vice president, Webb McKinney, who led HP's post-merger integration team, analyzed the merger and concluded that it was ultimately successful. In 2008, former acting CEO of Compaq Ben Rosen stated that although Fiorina lacked the skills to run the merged company, her successors made it work. HP was able to integrate Compaq's operations and emerge as the world's largest seller of personal computers. The industry soon fell into decline, leading to further difficulties for the company. HP eventually wrote off US$1.2 billion from the acquisition as the personal computer market declined. Looking back, a 2011 The New York Times article described it as "one of the more questionable deals of the time."

Allegations of sales to Iran despite sanctions
In 1997, prior to Fiorina's joining the company, HP's Dutch subsidiary formed a partnership with a company in Dubai, Redington Gulf, which sold HP's products in Iran. Under Fiorina's leadership at HP, the company sold millions of dollars worth of printers and computer products to Iran through the foreign subsidiary, while U.S. export sanctions were in effect. After the story was initially reported by The Boston Globe in 2008, the SEC sent a letter of inquiry to HP, who responded that products worth US$120 million were sold in fiscal 2008 arguing that the sales did not violate export sanctions because they were made through a foreign subsidiary. According to former officials who worked on sanctions, HP was using a loophole by routing their sales through a foreign subsidiary. HP ended its relationship with Redington Gulf after the SEC inquiry.

Providing HP servers to the NSA
In a September 2015 interview with Michael Isikoff, Fiorina said that, in the weeks following the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, she received a phone call from Michael Hayden, then the director of the National Security Agency, asking her assistance in providing HP computer servers to the NSA for expanded surveillance. Hayden confirmed that he had made the request for HP servers as part of Stellar Wind, a 2001–2007 NSA warrantless surveillance program, but the details were not revealed to Fiorina at the time. Fiorina "acknowledged she complied with Hayden's request, redirecting trucks of HP computer servers that were on their way to retail stores from a warehouse in Tennessee to the Washington Beltway, where they were escorted by NSA security" to the agency's Fort Meade headquarters. In 2015, Fiorina said: "I felt it was my duty to help, and so we did," adding, "They were ramping up a whole set of programs and needed a lot of data crunching capability to try and monitor a whole set of threats. ... What I knew at the time was our nation had been attacked." Hayden also requested that Fiorina provide advice to the agency "on how the CIA could maintain its undercover espionage mission in a culture of increasing government leaks and demands for greater public accountability and openness." According to Fiorina, she advised the agency to be "as transparent as possible, about as much as possible".

Changes to HP culture
Fiorina's predecessor at HP had pushed for an outsider to replace him because he believed that the company had become complacent and that consensus-driven decision making was inhibiting the company's growth. Fiorina instituted three major changes shortly after her arrival: replacing profit sharing with bonuses awarded if the company met financial expectations, a reduction in operating units from 83 to 12, and consolidating back-office functions.

Fiorina faced a backlash among HP employees and the tech community for her leading role in the demise of HP's egalitarian "The HP Way" work culture and guiding philosophy, which she felt hindered innovation. Because of changes to HP's culture, and requests for voluntary pay cuts to prevent layoffs (subsequently followed by the largest layoffs in HP's history), employee satisfaction surveys at HP – previously among the highest in America – revealed "widespread unhappiness" and distrust, and Fiorina was sometimes booed at company meetings and attacked on HP's electronic bulletin board.

According to The Fiscal Times, Fiorina and others have argued that she "laid the groundwork for some of HP's progress under her successors", and that she shook the culture at HP so that it could compete in the Internet Age.

iPod+HP
In January 2004, Fiorina announced an agreement with Apple founder Steve Jobs for the iPod+HP – a co-branded iPod sold through HP's retail channels. As part of the agreement, HP was forbidden from selling a competitor to the iPod until August 2006 and HP agreed to pre-install iTunes on every computer sold. Two days before Fiorina announced the HP+iPod, Jobs announced a new product, the iPod mini, catching Fiorina off guard. HP did not sell the newer versions of the iPod in a timely fashion, leaving them to sell an outdated device for several months. In addition, Apple began selling its own iPods through the same retail channels. As a result, at the peak of the program, iPod+HP sales represented only a small portion of total iPod sales. In July 2005, soon after Fiorina resigned as CEO, her successor Mark Hurd ended HP's agreement with Apple, within days of taking office, a "highly symbolic decision" that was well-received as a return to innovation by HP.

Steven Levy, writing in 2015 on the agreement, wrote that "Steve Jobs blithely mugged her and HP's shareholders. By getting Fiorina to adopt the iPod as HP's music player, Jobs had effectively gotten his [iTunes] software installed on millions of computers for free, stifled his main competitor, and gotten a company that prided itself on invention to declare that Apple was a superior inventor. And he lost nothing ..."

Layoffs
In January 2001, HP laid off 1,700 marketing employees. In June 2001, Fiorina asked employees to either take pay cuts or use their allotted vacation time to cut additional costs, resulting in more than 80,000 people signing up and saving HP US$130 million. Despite these efforts from employees, in July Fiorina announced that 6,000 jobs would be cut, the biggest reduction in the company's 64-year history, but those cuts would not actually occur until after the Compaq merger was announced. In September 2001, Fiorina said she intended to cut an additional 15,000 jobs in the event of a merger with Compaq.

In all, Fiorina laid off 30,000 U.S. employees. According to PolitiFact, those 30,000 layoffs were "as a result of the merger with Compaq...." By 2004 the number of HP employees was about the same as the pre-merger total of HP and Compaq combined, and that 2004 number included roughly 8,000 employees of other companies acquired by HP since 2001. Altogether, under Fiorina's leadership, HP had a net gain of employees, including employees from mergers as well as hires in countries outside the United States.

In 1999, when Fiorina became CEO of HP, the company had 84,800 employees. After the merger with Compaq, the company had a total of 145,000 employees worldwide. At the time of her resignation in 2005, after HP had acquired several other companies, HP had about 150,000 employees.

Forced resignation
HP's revenue doubled and the rate of patent filings increased due to mergers with Compaq and other companies during Fiorina's stint as CEO. In addition, HP's cash flow increased by 40%, to around $6.8 billion. However, the company underperformed by a number of other metrics: there were no gains in HP's net income despite a 70% gain in net income of the S&P 500 over this period; the company's debt rose from US$4.25 billion to US$6.75 billion; and its stock price fell by 50%, exceeding declines in the S&P 500 Information Technology Sector index and the NASDAQ. By contrast, stock prices for IBM and Dell fell by 27.5% and 3% respectively during this time. The Compaq acquisition was not as transformative as Fiorina and the board had envisioned: in the merger proxy, they had forecasted that the PC division of the merged entities would generate an operating margin of 3.0% in 2003, while the actual figure was 0.1% in that year and 0.9% in 2004.

In 2004, HP fell dramatically short of its predicted third-quarter earnings, and Fiorina fired three executives during a 5 AM telephone call. In early January 2005, the Hewlett-Packard board of directors discussed with Fiorina a list of issues that the board had regarding the company's performance and disappointing earning reports. The board proposed a plan to shift her authority to HP division heads, which Fiorina resisted strongly. A week after the meeting, the confidential plan was leaked to The Wall Street Journal. According to BusinessWeek's Ben Elgin, directors were also concerned about the board's inability to work effectively with Fiorina.

Less than a month later, the board brought back Tom Perkins and forced Fiorina to resign as chair and chief executive officer of the company. The company's stock jumped 6.9 percent on news of her departure, adding almost three billion dollars to the value of HP in a single day.

In her book Tough Choices, she referred to board members' behavior as "amateurish and immature". Larry Sonsini, who investigated the leak related to Fiorina's forced resignation, described the board in his report to Fiorina as being "dysfunctional."

On May 13, 2008, HP, under then-Chief Executive Mark Hurd, confirmed that it had reached a deal to buy Electronic Data Systems, the largest since the Compaq purchase. The price was a reported $12.6 billion. At the time of the announcement, Loren Steffy of The Houston Chronicle suggested that the EDS acquisition after Fiorina's tenure was evidence that her failed plan to acquire part of Pricewaterhouse Coopers was justified.

Under the company's agreement with Fiorina, which was characterized as a golden parachute by Time magazine, and Yahoo! Finance, Fiorina received a severance package valued at US$21 million, which consisted of 2.5 times her annual salary plus bonus and the balance from accelerated vesting of stock options. According to Fortune magazine, Fiorina collected over US$100 million in compensation during her short tenure at HP.

Business leadership image
In 2003, Fiorina was named by Fortune Magazine the most powerful woman in business, a position she held for five years. In 2004, she was included in the Time 100 ranking of "most influential people in the world today" and named tenth on the Forbes list of The World's 100 Most Powerful Women. In 2005, The Wall Street Journal described Fiorina as the epitome of "an alluring, controversial new breed of chief executive officers who combine grand visions with charismatic but self-centered and demanding styles". The same year, Wharton School of Business professor Michael Useem opined, "Fiorina scored high on leadership style, but she failed to execute strategy".

Following her forced resignation from HP, several commentators ranked Fiorina as one of the worst American (or tech) CEOs of all time. In 2008, InfoWorld grouped her with a list of products and ideas that flopped, declaring that her tenure as CEO of HP was the sixth worst tech flop of all time, and characterizing her as the "anti-Steve Jobs" for reversing the goodwill of "geeks" and alienating existing customers. During Fiorina's tenure as CEO, HP leased or purchased five planes, including two Gulfstream IVs, to replace four aging aircraft, only one of which had the range to fly overseas. One Gulfstream IV, acquired at a cost of US$30 million and available for Fiorina's "exclusive" use, became a rallying point among HP employees who complained of Fiorina's expensive self-promotion and top-down managerial style during a time of company layoffs. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld of Yale School of Management said in August 2015 that problems with Fiorina's leadership style were what caused HP to lose half its value during her tenure.

Others have defended her business leadership decisions and viewed the Compaq merger as successful over the long term.

Autobiography
In October 2006, Fiorina published an autobiography entitled Tough Choices, about her career and her views on issues, what constitutes a leader, how women can thrive in business, and the role technology will continue to play in reshaping the world. A review by NPR Books noted that "The book covers Fiorina's rise and fall as America's most powerful female executive."

Earlier books by others about Fiorina's role in the merger at HP included: Backfire, (2003) by Peter Burrows, and Perfect Enough: Carly Fiorina and the Reinvention of Hewlett-Packard, (2003), by George Anders. A 2003 review by The New York Times of these books said, "Two new books about the deal and its main champion – Hewlett-Packard's chair and chief executive officer, Carly Fiorina – show that there is much investors can glean immediately from this merger."

Other organizational involvement
In October 2007, Fiorina signed with the Fox Business Network as a business commentator.

After resigning from HP, Fiorina served on the board of Revolution Health Group and computer security company Cybertrust in 2005. In 2006, she became a member of the board of directors for chip maker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), but resigned from that board on November 30, 2009, with the company saying this was "because she planned to devote her full time and energy" to her Senate campaign. She had attended 17% of the TSMC directors' meetings in 2009 and 20% of TSMC directors' meetings in 2008. She served as a member of the MIT Corporation from 2004 to 2012. She was a member of the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in 2005. She is an honorary fellow of the London Business School. In July 2012, Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia appointed her to the James Madison University Board of Visitors. In 2015, Fiorina received an honorary degree and delivered the commencement address at Southern New Hampshire University.

Fiorina is the chair and CEO of Carly Fiorina Enterprises, a business and charitable foundation. A spokesperson described Fiorina Enterprises as "...a nonprofit enterprise that helped Fiorina structure speaking engagements and appearances while providing the public with information about her activities..." The San Francisco Chronicle reported that, as of July 2009, she had "never registered her Carly Fiorina Enterprises to conduct business in California, either with the California secretary of state or the clerk of Santa Clara County, where Fiorina lives."

Good360
In April 2012, Fiorina became chair of Good360, a 501(c)(3) nonpartisan nonprofit organization in Alexandria, Virginia, which helps companies donate excess merchandise to charities. Good360 has been consistently ranked by Forbes magazine as one of the top 10 most efficient charities, and ranked as the 33rd largest charity in the United States. Good360 is "the largest product donation marketplace in the world. We help companies take excess inventory and then distribute that excess inventory to 37,000 vetted charities around this country."

In September 2014, Fiorina led an effort by Good360 to get American corporations "to help combat the Ebola virus in West Africa – by donating specific items." She left the organization when she declared her presidential candidacy in 2015.

One Woman Initiative
Fiorina served as Fund Chair of One Woman Initiative (OWI), a partnership between the private sector and government agencies, including the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the United States Department of State (DoS). OWI describes itself as "An International Women's Empowerment Fund" that seeks to "support existing initiatives in Muslim majority countries and countries with large Muslim populations" and "focus on key empowerment issues including entrepreneurship, political leadership, and the rule of law." OWI said it would raise funds in order to give grants to achieve these objectives, with contributions managed through a separate section 501(c)(3) designated organization.

In June 2009, USAID announced that OWI grants totaling over US$500,000 had been made to grassroots organizations in Azerbaijan, Egypt, India, Pakistan, and the Philippines.

Opportunity International
On February 14, 2013, Opportunity International announced a partnership with Fiorina and OWI to provide financial resources, education and training to two million women living in poverty. Fiorina was referred to as Global Ambassador to Opportunity International. On May 4, 2015, Opportunity International announced that Fiorina was resigning from the Board after the announcement of her presidential candidacy.

Fiorina Foundation
Fiorina is the chair and CEO of the Fiorina Foundation, a charity that has donated to causes including Care-a-Van for Kids, a transportation program to aid seriously ill children, and the African Leadership Academy, an educational institution in South Africa. The foundation 'enables corporations, spokeswomen entrepreneurs and philanthropists alike to address some of the world's most challenging issues,' according to Fiorina's Web site, carlyfiorina.com."

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that "Records also show that her Fiorina Foundation has never registered with the Internal Revenue Service or the state attorney general's charitable trust division, which tax-exempt charities are required to do. A spokeswoman commented that "Fiorina and her staff believed the foundation was not required to file with the IRS because it accepted no outside contributions and donated only her personal wealth to worthy causes."

Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
In 2017, Fiorina joined the board of trustees for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. In December 2020, she was elected the chair of the board of trustees.

Political career
Fiorina has never held public office, but said that her status as an outsider is a positive attribute, given that in her opinion, professional politicians have failed to deliver to the American people, stating in an interview with Fox News in 2015 that "82% of the American people now think we need people from outside the professional political class to serve in public office."

Republican National Committee fundraising chair and 2008 campaign
In 2006, Fiorina worked as an advisor for Republican Senator John McCain's presidential campaign. The New York Times noted that while she did not want to run, she was an executive who could possibly become a candidate for president. On March 7, 2008, Fiorina was named fundraising chair for the Republican National Committee's "Victory" initiative. She was reportedly a "point person" for the McCain campaign on issues related to business and economic affairs. Fiorina's severance package from Hewlett-Packard in 2005 was viewed by some as a political liability during the campaign. Referring to the McCain campaign, Newsweek described Fiorina as "the most prominent surrogate on economics issues in any of the major campaigns."

Earlier that day, she defended the selection of Sarah Palin as McCain's running mate and said that Palin was being subjected to sexist attacks, a charge she repeated a few days later in response to one of the Saturday Night Live parodies of Sarah Palin.

When asked during a radio interview on September 15, 2008, whether she thought Palin had the experience to run a major company like Hewlett-Packard, Fiorina answered "No, I don't. But that's not what she's running for. Running a corporation is a different set of things." When questioned about her answer, she answered, "I don't think John McCain could run a major corporation." Fiorina further said that none of the candidates on either ticket had the experience to run a major corporation. After media coverage of Fiorina's comments, she "disappeared from public view" and planned television appearances were cancelled, although she continued to chair the party's fundraising committee. Responding to Barack Obama's victory over Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Primary, Fiorina sought to attract more women to the Republican camp by praising Clinton's effort.

Vice presidential campaign speculation
In early 2008, she was referred to in media sources as a potential vice presidential candidate, In discussing the possibility of Fiorina becoming McCain's running mate, political analyst Stuart Rothenberg pointed out her potential downside, stating that she "is rather easy to sketch out" because she would "become a talking point for Democrats" who would focus on Fiorina's generous severance package from when she had left HP and her management style. Rothenberg concluded that Fiorina was "like a dream come true" for Democratic opposition researchers.

Defense Business Board and Central Intelligence Agency
Fiorina performed unpaid service on the Defense Business Board, which looked at staffing issues, among others, at The Pentagon.

Fiorina spent two years leading the Central Intelligence Agency's External Advisory Board, from 2007 to 2009, and became chair of that board, when the board was first created in 2007 by then-CIA director Michael Hayden during the George W. Bush administration.

2010 U.S. Senate candidacy for California
On November 4, 2009, Fiorina formally announced her candidacy in the 2010 Senate election in a bid to unseat incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer. Fiorina's campaign in the Republican primary for that seat received a number of endorsements, including one from Sarah Palin in the form of a Facebook note. Her campaign ad about Republican rival Tom Campbell featuring a "Demon Sheep" – created by Fiorina advertising consultant Fred Davis III – generated largely negative international publicity. After the ad went viral, the California Democratic Party created a parody of the ad depicting Fiorina herself as a demon sheep.

On June 8, 2010, Fiorina won the Republican primary election for the Senate with over 50 percent of the vote, beating Campbell and State Assemblyman Chuck DeVore.

A Los Angeles Times search of public records indicated Fiorina had failed to vote in most elections. Fiorina responded: "I'm a lifelong registered Republican but I haven't always voted, and I will provide no excuse for it. You know, people die for the right to vote. And there are many, many Californians and Americans who exercise that civic duty on a regular basis. I didn't. Shame on me."

The Los Angeles Times noted that Fiorina had conservative positions on certain social issues. She personally opposed abortion, except in cases of rape, incest, or endangerment of the mother's life. As a private citizen, she stated that she voted for Proposition 8, which defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman. Following an August 4, 2010, federal court ruling that Proposition 8 was unconstitutional, Fiorina expressed disagreement with the ruling, saying that California voters spoke clearly against same-sex unions when a majority approved the proposition in 2008. She stated that she opposed litmus tests for Supreme Court nominations and did not favor a federal "personhood" amendment. Fiorina had called global warming a "serious issue" but said that the science surrounding it is inconclusive, saying "I think we should have the courage to examine the science on an ongoing basis." In a campaign ad, Fiorina likened Boxer's concerns over global warming to worrying about "the weather." Fiorina accepted contributions from the coal industry as well as Koch Industries. Fiorina opposed the cap-and-trade legislation supported by Boxer, and thought efforts to control greenhouse gases would cost 3 million jobs and are "massively destructive".

In financial disclosures, Fiorina identified her net worth at between US$30 million and US$120 million, and by October 22, Fiorina had contributed a total of US$6.5 million to her own race.

Sarah Palin was set to appear at a GOP fundraiser two weeks ahead of the November 2 election, but neither Meg Whitman (the Republican nominee for Governor of California) nor Fiorina – both big-name Republicans – planned to attend. The prediction was that Palin's primary endorsement would jeopardize her general election candidacy.

Boxer won the general election, defeating Fiorina 52.2% to 42.2%.

"Unlocking Potential Project" PAC
Fiorina launched and developed a political action committee (PAC) known as "Up-Project" (short for "Unlocking Potential Project") from 2011 to 2014. The stated mission of the organization was "...to engage women with new messages and new messengers by focusing on personal interactions with voters and going beyond the traditional methods of identifying, persuading and turning-out voters..." In November 2014, The Washington Post reported that "Helping Fiorina chart her political future are consultants Frank Sadler, who once worked for Koch Industries, and Stephen DeMaura, a strategist who heads Americans for Job Security, a pro-business advocacy group in Virginia"; The Up-Project website lists Fiorina as chair.

American Conservative Union Foundation and CPAC
On October 1, 2013, Al Cardenas, chair of the American Conservative Union (ACU), appointed Fiorina as chair of the American Conservative Union Foundation (ACUF), the ACU's educational arm. The ACU is a conservative 501(c)(4) organization, while the ACUF is its affiliated 501(c)(3) foundation, which organizes the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

Fiorina was co-chair of CPAC 2014, making a speech at the conference. At CPAC 2015, Fiorina again made a speech at the conference. It was speculated that Fiorina would announce her candidacy for the Republican nomination for president in that speech, but Fiorina did not, instead making her official announcement months later, on May 4, 2015, in a television and promotional video, therein repeating her talking points from CPAC and including an attack on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

Fiorina resigned as ACU Foundation chair in early 2015.

U.S. presidential campaign, 2016
Fiorina ruled out running for the U.S. Senate in 2016, but refused to rule out running for president in 2016 or Governor of California in 2018. In November 2014, The Washington Post reported that Fiorina was "actively exploring" a run for president. Her business background and status as the only CEO and the only woman in a "sea of suited men" were mentioned as positives, though Republican strategists pointed to her poor 2010 Senate performance, unpaid campaign debt, and dismissal from HP as "considerable challenges" to her prospects. In March 2015, Fiorina said on Fox News Sunday that there was a "higher than 90% chance" that she would run for president in 2016.

On May 4, 2015, Fiorina announced her candidacy during an interview on Good Morning America, with George Stephanopoulos. Fiorina entered the race with immediate criticism of Hillary Clinton. It was reported that the GOP saw Fiorina as "the tip of the spear" in its attack of the Clinton campaign because she was uniquely positioned to isolate her criticisms of Clinton from claims of gender bias.

Shortly after Fiorina announced her entry into the 2016 presidential race, in a replay of her 2010 senatorial race, the social media and editorial outlets questioned her tenure as HP's CEO as a basis for her run for president, focusing around US job cuts and offshoring that Fiorina directed during her tenure at HP, and contrasting it with the high compensation bonuses she received from the company. Campaign Manager, Sarah Isgur Flores, deflected the job cut criticism saying, Fiorina "worked hard to save as many jobs as possible."

On August 6, Fiorina participated in Fox News's first GOP debate. Failing to qualify for one of the Fox News prime-time debate slots, she was relegated to the debate airing earlier the same day. Fiorina's performance led news sources to conclude she had won the early debate. Following the debate, several pundits correctly predicted that her polling numbers would surge. On August 9, Fiorina reported an uptick in fundraising support. In an online poll by NBC and SurveyMonkey on August 10, Fiorina came in fourth of the seventeen Republican contenders with 8% of the sampled Republican primary voters saying they would support her in a primary or a caucus, a gain in support of six points from previous polling data. At another debate in September, hosted by CNN, Fiorina misrepresented a Planned Parenthood sting video, describing a grisly scene which was not in the video. She was sharply criticized for this in the media; the gaffe consumed much of the post-debate coverage. Planned Parenthood responded that she had lied, saying it was "not the first time Carly Fiorina has lied." PolitiFact chief editor Angie Drobnic Holan mentioned this particular lie in a December 2015 comparison of the presidential candidates with regard to their truthfulness. In the comparison, Fiorina scored 50% falsehood, the sixth worst performance.

The National Review pointed out her role as foil to Hillary Clinton, saying "Carly Fiorina is no doubt getting attention because of her unique background, but more and more people are staying to listen because she has something fresh to say", and that "Fiorina also seems to relish the role of being the most pointed critic of Hillary Clinton.... She contrasts her background as a 'problem solver' with Clinton's record as a professional politician." The Nation commented, "With so-called women's issues poised to play an unprecedented role in the upcoming election, Republicans need someone who can troll Hillary Clinton without seeming sexist." Meg Whitman, then CEO of Hewlett-Packard, stated that in her opinion Fiorina was not qualified to be President of the United States, stating that a business background is important but that having worked in government is also important, and that "it's very difficult for your first role in politics to be President of the United States".

As part of her financial disclosures related to her candidacy, Fiorina reported a net worth of US$59 million, with US$12 million in income in 2013. International Business Times estimates Fiorina's net worth between US$30 million and US$120 million.

Her performances in early debates for the Republican primary nomination, particularly her rebukes of front-runner Donald Trump in the September 16, 2015, debate, earned her a significant spike in the polls from 3% to 15% post-debate,  but her polling numbers dropped to 4% by October, and to 3% in December. On February 10, due to weak results in the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries, Fiorina announced that her campaign was suspended. On March 9, 2016, Fiorina endorsed Texas Senator Ted Cruz for President, saying she was "horrified" by Donald Trump, and that Cruz was the only candidate that could stop him.

Vice presidential campaign and aftermath
On April 27, 2016, Cruz announced that, if he were selected as the party's presidential nominee, he would choose Fiorina as his vice presidential running mate, but after losing the Indiana primary six days later, he suspended his campaign, making her vice-presidential candidacy the shortest in modern American history.

Fiorina received one electoral college vote for vice president from a faithless elector in Texas. Following Trump's election, Fiorina was considered for the position of Director of National Intelligence during the 2016 transition period. In 2020, Fiorina endorsed Joe Biden's presidential campaign due to her disapproval of President Donald Trump.

Political positions
When she first entered politics as a Senate candidate in November 2009, Carly Fiorina was "considered to be a moderate Republican with little history on social issues" and her views changed during her run for Senate and her run for President in 2016. In 2017, she has described herself as conservative. In 2020, Fiorina announced that she would vote for Joe Biden for President. FiveThirtyEight, a non-partisan organization which analyzes candidates' positions and conducts polling, considered Fiorina to be within the moderate and establishment wings of the GOP.

Social issues
Fiorina is anti-abortion. She expressed support for legislation to ban abortions 20 weeks after fertilization, with an exception for cases of rape, incest, or danger to the life of the mother. In 2010, she said that Roe v. Wade was settled law, but later reversed that position. Fiorina supported overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion in the United States, allowing states to set their own abortion policies. She does support embryonic stem-cell research if the embryos were not created for that purpose.

In a February 2015 speech, Fiorina acknowledged the scientific consensus that climate change is real and caused by human activity, but expressed skepticism that government can affect the issue, and has "implied that targeting the coal industry will not solve the problem".

Fiorina said in May 2015 that "drug addiction shouldn't be criminalized" and cited "decriminalizing drug addiction and drug use" as an example of a successful reform. Fiorina opposes the legalization of marijuana, but says that she believes in states' rights, and that as president she will not enforce the federal ban on marijuana in Colorado, where voters have legalized marijuana as a matter of state law.

While running for president, Fiorina has been a critic of the Common Core State Standards. In September 2015, Fiorina said: "No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, Common Core – they're all big, bureaucratic programs that are failing our nation." This was a reversal of her position on federal education policies during her 2010 campaign for U.S. Senate from California. In that campaign, Fiorina issued a position paper in which she "strongly advocated for metric-based accountability in schools" and "praised No Child Left Behind as setting high standards, and Race to the Top for using internationally-benchmarked measures."

In California, Fiorina supported the DREAM Act, which would allow children brought to the U.S. by their parents when they were under the age of 16 to secure permanent U.S. residency and a path to citizenship, if they graduate from college or serve in the armed forces.

Carly Fiorina opposed same-sex marriage, but supported civil unions. She later said that she hoped the nation would support Obergefell v. Hodges, the decision legalizing same-sex marriage, and also respect individuals' consciences. In November 2009, during a The Wall Street Journal interview, Fiorina said that she voted in favor of Proposition 8, a California ballot proposition that banned same-sex marriage in that state. During the 2010 United States Senate election in California, Fiorina was endorsed by GOProud, a gay conservative organization. In 2010, Fiorina stated that she supported the Defense of Marriage Act, but also supported civil unions. She supported the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell. In 2015, Fiorina reaffirmed her support for civil unions with the same government benefits accorded to married persons. She does not support a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. In 2017, Fiorina headlined the 40th anniversary of Log Cabin Republicans, a political action committee which supports LGBT rights. In her address, she said, "Everyone has to be free to be who they are."

Fiorina believes employers should decide whether they should provide paid maternity leave to their employees and it should not be mandated by the government, noting that some companies in the private sector are already doing so. She also pointed out that HP, while she was CEO, offered paid maternity leave.

Foreign and military policy
Fiorina has criticized the international nuclear agreement with Iran, saying that Iran is "at the heart" of evil in the Middle East; that the agreement is a "flawed deal"; and that "there is a lot of reason to be suspicious" of it. Fiorina also suggested that verification provisions in the agreement were insufficient and that approval of the agreement by the international community and the U.S.'s negotiating partners was suspect because Russia and China have an interest in gaining access to Iran's economy and the European Union "has negotiated, frankly, a number of weak deals." Fiorina opposes the normalization of U.S.-Cuba relations, telling Hugh Hewitt that if elected she would close the U.S. embassy in Havana.

In a January 2015 discussion with an Iowa political blogger, Fiorina said of the Chinese: "They're not terribly imaginative. They're not entrepreneurial. They don't innovate. That's why they're stealing our intellectual property." Fiorina supports keeping the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba open. In September 2015, Fiorina "offered a vigorous defense of CIA waterboarding," a tactic used by the United States during the George W. Bush-era War on Terror. Fiorina's interest in national security issues led to her name being floated for the position of Director of National Intelligence by Donald Trump during the 2016 transition period.

Economic and fiscal Issues
Fiorina was critical of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) health care reform legislation during the debate in 2009 that led to the act's passage. Fiorina has supported repealing the ACA during both her 2010 Senate run in California, and in her 2015 presidential campaign. Fiorina has called the law "deeply flawed" and a "vast legislative overreach." Fiorina supports an individual mandate that would require individuals to carry "high-deductible 'catastrophic care' insurance plans and use federal dollars to subsidize state-based high-risk pools to provide care for those who otherwise cannot afford it."

Fiorina has stated that "there is no constitutional role for the federal government to be setting minimum wages" and that the minimum wage "is a classic example of a policy that is best carried out in the states" because economic conditions in New Hampshire vary significantly from more expensive economic conditions in Los Angeles or New York. Florina also believes that raising the federal minimum wage would "hurt those who are looking for entry-level jobs".

Fiorina opposes net neutrality rules adopted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), and has said she would "roll back" that policy: "Regulation over innovation is a really bad role for government." Fiorina has repeatedly criticized the rules, arguing that "the FCC just issued – without anyone commenting on it or anyone voting on it – 400 pages of new regulations over the Internet. It's not good, it's not helpful."

Fiorina "generally believes that reducing government regulations helps to spur the economy". She has condemned the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, saying in April 2015 that "We should get rid of Dodd-Frank and start again." Fiorina has been questioned by some in the media for stating that not "a single regulation has ever been repealed." Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post said that, "Important parts of the economy have been deregulated in recent decades. While the repeal of a specific rule is relatively rare, there are certainly examples."

Fiorina favors lowering tax rates, simplifying the tax code, and closing loopholes that she says mostly benefit wealthy taxpayers. Florina has said "the government needs to take in less tax money, not more." During her 2010 Senate campaign, Fiorina "called for eliminating the estate tax and capital gains taxes for investments in small businesses, and lowering marginal tax rates." Fiorina opposes proposals to increase the federal gas tax or state gas taxes in order to fund the Highway Trust Fund, asserting in a February 2015 The Wall Street Journal op-ed that "Any gas tax hike, big or small, will harm American families and hurt economic growth." Fiorina opposed the federal stimulus package of 2009 intended to create short-term job growth and invest in infrastructure, education, health, and renewable energy, calling it a waste of taxpayer money. Fiorina has said she would cut the pay of federal workers and base their compensation on performance. She also advocates zero-based budgeting for the federal budget, which would start the annual budgeting process for each department from a baseline of zero.

Fiorina favors expanding the H-1B visa program. Writing in opposition to proposals she considered protectionist in a 2004 The Wall Street Journal op-ed, Fiorina said that while "America is the most innovative country," it would not remain so if the country were to "run away from the reality of the global economy." Fiorina said to Congress in 2004: "There is no job that is America's God-given right anymore. We have to compete for jobs as a nation."

Personal life
Fiorina (then Cara Carleton Sneed) married Todd Bartlem, a Stanford classmate, in June 1977. They divorced in 1984. In 1981, she was introduced to AT&T executive Frank Fiorina, who told her on their third date that she would one day be running the company. She married him in 1985; it was the second marriage for both. Fiorina has said that they wanted to have children together but "that wasn't God's plan". Frank Fiorina took early retirement from AT&T in 1998 at age 48 to travel with and support his wife in her career.

Frank Fiorina had two daughters, Traci and Lori Ann, from his first marriage. Their mother, Patricia, was awarded custody of both children following the divorce. Carly helped her husband raise his daughters. Lori Ann struggled with alcoholism, prescription drug addiction and bulimia. She died in 2009 at age 35.

In February 2009, Fiorina was diagnosed with stage II breast cancer. She underwent a double mastectomy at Stanford Hospital in March 2009, followed by chemotherapy, which caused her to temporarily lose her hair, and later radiation therapy. She was given "an excellent prognosis for a full recovery." In late 2009, during her campaign for the United States Senate seat held by Barbara Boxer, Fiorina humorously told a group of supporters: "I have to say that after chemotherapy, Barbara Boxer just isn't that scary anymore."

According to the financial disclosures filed by Fiorina's campaign in June 2015, she and her husband have a combined net worth of $59 million. Fiorina has released the income tax returns that she and her husband jointly filed in 2013 and 2012; in those years, the Fiorinas reported income of almost $2 million and $1.3 million, respectively.

Fiorina and her husband live in a home in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Mason Neck, Virginia, overlooking the Potomac River. The house and grounds were valued at $6.6 million in 2015. At the time of the 2010 Senate election, Fiorina and her husband lived in Los Altos Hills, California, a San Francisco Bay area suburb. Between 2005 and 2012, Fiorina and her husband also owned a condominium in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, where they lived for roughly half the year; they sold the condo for $5.3 million.

Discussing her religious faith, Fiorina said that she is Christian. Specifically, she said that "she was raised Episcopalian but is not a regular churchgoer."

title: Carly Fiorina


text:
IBM hexadecimal floating-point

Hexadecimal floating point (now called HFP by IBM) is a format for encoding floating-point numbers first introduced on the IBM System/360 computers, and supported on subsequent machines based on that architecture,  as well as machines which were intended to be application-compatible with System/360.

In comparison to IEEE 754 floating point, the HFP format has a longer significand, and a shorter exponent. All HFP formats have 7 bits of exponent with a bias of 64. The normalized range of representable numbers is from 16−65 to 1663 (approx. 5.39761 × 10−79 to 7.237005 × 1075).

The number is represented as the following formula: (−1)sign × 0. significand × 16exponent−64.

Single-precision 32-bit
A single-precision HFP number (called "short" by IBM) is stored in a 32-bit word:

 * - style="text-align:center"
 * style="width:20px"|1
 * style="width:20px"|
 * style="width:50px"|7
 * style="width:20px"|
 * style="width:20px"|
 * style="width:210px"|24
 * style="width:20px"|
 * style="text-align:left"|(width in bits)
 * - style="text-align:center"
 * colspan="1" style="text-align:center;background-color:#FC9"|S
 * colspan="3" style="text-align:center;background-color:#99F"|Exp
 * colspan="3" style="text-align:center;background-color:#9F9"|Fraction
 * colspan="1" style="text-align:center;background-color:#FFF"|
 * - style="text-align:center"
 * 31
 * 30
 * 24
 * 23
 * 0
 * align="left"|(bit index)*
 * colspan="8"| * IBM documentation numbers the bits from left to right, so that the most significant bit is designated as bit number 0.
 * }
 * colspan="8"| * IBM documentation numbers the bits from left to right, so that the most significant bit is designated as bit number 0.
 * }
 * }

In this format the initial bit is not suppressed, and the radix (hexadecimal) point is set to the left of the significand (fraction in IBM documentation and the figures).

Since the base is 16, the exponent in this form is about twice as large as the equivalent in IEEE 754, in order to have similar exponent range in binary, 9 exponent bits would be required.

Example
Consider encoding the value −118.625 as an HFP single-precision floating-point value.

The value is negative, so the sign bit is 1.

The value 118.62510 in binary is 1110110.1012. This value is normalized by moving the radix point left four bits (one hexadecimal digit) at a time until the leftmost digit is zero, yielding 0.011101101012. The remaining rightmost digits are padded with zeros, yielding a 24-bit fraction of .0111 0110 1010 0000 0000 00002.

The normalized value moved the radix point two hexadecimal digits to the left, yielding a multiplier and exponent of 16+2. A bias of +64 is added to the exponent (+2), yielding +66, which is 100 00102.

Combining the sign, exponent plus bias, and normalized fraction produces this encoding:

 * - style="text-align:center"
 * style="width:20px;text-align:center;background-color:#FC9"|S
 * style="width:90px;text-align:center;background-color:#99F"|Exp
 * style="width:250px;text-align:center;background-color:#9F9"|Fraction
 * style="text-align:center;background-color:#FFF"|
 * - style="text-align:center"
 * style="text-align:center;background-color:#FEC"|1
 * style="text-align:center;background-color:#CCF"|100 0010
 * style="text-align:center;background-color:#CFC"|0111 0110 1010 0000 0000 0000
 * style="text-align:center;background-color:#FFF"|
 * }

In other words, the number represented is −0.76A00016 × 1666 − 64 = −0.4633789… × 16+2 = −118.625

Largest representable number

 * - style="text-align:center"
 * style="width:20px;text-align:center;background-color:#FC9"|S
 * style="width:90px;text-align:center;background-color:#99F"|Exp
 * style="width:250px;text-align:center;background-color:#9F9"|Fraction
 * style="text-align:center;background-color:#FFF"|
 * - style="text-align:center"
 * style="text-align:center;background-color:#FEC"|0
 * style="text-align:center;background-color:#CCF"|111 1111
 * style="text-align:center;background-color:#CFC"|1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111
 * style="text-align:center;background-color:#FFF"|
 * }

The number represented is +0.FFFFFF16 × 16127 − 64 = (1 − 16−6) × 1663 ≈ +7.2370051 × 1075

Smallest positive normalized number

 * - style="text-align:center"
 * style="width:20px;text-align:center;background-color:#FC9"|S
 * style="width:90px;text-align:center;background-color:#99F"|Exp
 * style="width:250px;text-align:center;background-color:#9F9"|Fraction
 * style="text-align:center;background-color:#FFF"|
 * - style="text-align:center"
 * style="text-align:center;background-color:#FEC"|0
 * style="text-align:center;background-color:#CCF"|000 0000
 * style="text-align:center;background-color:#CFC"|0001 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
 * style="text-align:center;background-color:#FFF"|
 * }

The number represented is +0.116 × 160 − 64 = 16−1 × 16−64 ≈ +5.397605 × 10−79.

Zero

 * - style="text-align:center"
 * style="width:20px;text-align:center;background-color:#FC9"|S
 * style="width:90px;text-align:center;background-color:#99F"|Exp
 * style="width:250px;text-align:center;background-color:#9F9"|Fraction
 * style="text-align:center;background-color:#FFF"|
 * - style="text-align:center"
 * style="text-align:center;background-color:#FEC"|0
 * style="text-align:center;background-color:#CCF"|000 0000
 * style="text-align:center;background-color:#CFC"|0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
 * style="text-align:center;background-color:#FFF"|
 * }

Zero (0.0) is represented in normalized form as all zero bits, which is arithmetically the value +0.016 × 160 − 64 = +0 × 16−64 ≈ +0.000000 × 10−79 = 0. Given a fraction of all-bits zero, any combination of positive or negative sign bit and a non-zero biased exponent will yield a value arithmetically equal to zero. However, the normalized form generated for zero by CPU hardware is all-bits zero. This is true for all three floating-point precision formats. Addition or subtraction with other exponent values can lose precision in the result.

Precision issues
Since the base is 16, there can be up to three leading zero bits in the binary significand. That means when the number is converted into binary, there can be as few as 21 bits of precision. Because of the "wobbling precision" effect, this can cause some calculations to be very inaccurate. This has caused considerable criticism.

A good example of the inaccuracy is representation of decimal value 0.1. It has no exact binary or hexadecimal representation. In hexadecimal format, it is represented as 0.19999999...16 or 0.0001 1001 1001 1001 1001 1001 1001...2, that is:

 * - style="text-align:center"
 * style="width:20px;text-align:center;background-color:#FC9"|S
 * style="width:90px;text-align:center;background-color:#99F"|Exp
 * style="width:250px;text-align:center;background-color:#9F9"|Fraction
 * style="text-align:center;background-color:#FFF"|
 * - style="text-align:center"
 * style="text-align:center;background-color:#FEC"|0
 * style="text-align:center;background-color:#CCF"|100 0000
 * style="text-align:center;background-color:#CFC"|0001 1001 1001 1001 1001 1010
 * style="text-align:center;background-color:#FFF"|
 * }

This has only 21 bits, whereas the binary version has 24 bits of precision.

Six hexadecimal digits of precision is roughly equivalent to six decimal digits (i.e. (6 − 1) log10(16) ≈ 6.02). A conversion of single precision hexadecimal float to decimal string would require at least 9 significant digits (i.e. 6 log10(16) + 1 ≈ 8.22) in order to convert back to the same hexadecimal float value.

Double-precision 64-bit
The double-precision HFP format (called "long" by IBM) is the same as the "short" format except that the fraction field is wider and the double-precision number is stored in a double word (8 bytes):

 * - style="text-align:center"
 * style="width:20px"|1
 * style="width:20px"|
 * style="width:50px"|7
 * style="width:20px"|
 * style="width:20px"|
 * style="width:320px"|56
 * style="width:20px"|
 * style="text-align:left"|(width in bits)
 * - style="text-align:center"
 * colspan="1" style="text-align:center;background-color:#FC9"|S
 * colspan="3" style="text-align:center;background-color:#99F"|Exp
 * colspan="3" style="text-align:center;background-color:#9F9"|Fraction
 * colspan="1" style="text-align:center;background-color:#FFF"|
 * - style="text-align:center"
 * 63
 * 62
 * 56
 * 55
 * 0
 * align="left"|(bit index)*
 * colspan="8"| * IBM documentation numbers the bits from left to right, so that the most significant bit is designated as bit number 0.
 * }
 * colspan="8"| * IBM documentation numbers the bits from left to right, so that the most significant bit is designated as bit number 0.
 * }
 * }

The exponent for this format covers only about a quarter of the range as the corresponding IEEE binary format.

14 hexadecimal digits of precision is roughly equivalent to 17 decimal digits. A conversion of double precision hexadecimal float to decimal string would require at least 18 significant digits in order to convert back to the same hexadecimal float value.

Extended-precision 128-bit
Called extended-precision by IBM, a quadruple-precision HFP format was added to the System/370 series and was available on some S/360 models (S/360-85, -195, and others by special request or simulated by OS software). The extended-precision fraction field is wider, and the extended-precision number is stored as two double words (16 bytes):

 * colspan="8" |High-order part
 * - style="text-align:center"
 * style="width:20px"|1
 * style="width:20px"|
 * style="width:50px"|7
 * style="width:20px"|
 * style="width:20px"|
 * style="width:320px"|56
 * style="width:20px"|
 * style="text-align:left"|(width in bits)
 * - style="text-align:center"
 * colspan="1" style="text-align:center;background-color:#FC9"|S
 * colspan="3" style="text-align:center;background-color:#99F"|Exp
 * colspan="3" style="text-align:center;background-color:#9F9"|Fraction (high-order 14 digits)
 * colspan="1" style="text-align:center;background-color:#FFF"|
 * - style="text-align:center"
 * 127
 * 126
 * 120
 * 119
 * 64
 * align="left"|(bit index)*
 * colspan="8" |Low-order part
 * - style="text-align:center"
 * colspan="4"|8
 * 56
 * style="text-align:left"|(width in bits)
 * - style="text-align:center"
 * colspan="4" style="text-align:center;background-color:#CCC"|Unused
 * colspan="3" style="text-align:center;background-color:#9F9"|Fraction (low-order 14 digits)
 * colspan="1" style="text-align:center;background-color:#FFF"|
 * - style="text-align:center"
 * 63
 * colspan="2"|...
 * 56
 * 55
 * 0
 * align="left"|(bit index)*
 * colspan="8"| * IBM documentation numbers the bits from left to right, so that the most significant bit is designated as bit number 0.
 * }
 * 56
 * 55
 * 0
 * align="left"|(bit index)*
 * colspan="8"| * IBM documentation numbers the bits from left to right, so that the most significant bit is designated as bit number 0.
 * }
 * colspan="8"| * IBM documentation numbers the bits from left to right, so that the most significant bit is designated as bit number 0.
 * }

28 hexadecimal digits of precision is roughly equivalent to 32 decimal digits. A conversion of extended precision HFP to decimal string would require at least 35 significant digits in order to convert back to the same HFP value. The stored exponent in the low-order part is 14 less than the high-order part, unless this would be less than zero.

Arithmetic operations
Available arithmetic operations are add and subtract, both normalized and unnormalized, and compare. Prenormalization is done based on the exponent difference. Multiply and divide prenormalize unnormalized values, and truncate the result after one guard digit. There is a halve operation to simplify dividing by two. Starting in ESA/390, there is a square root operation. All operations have one hexadecimal guard digit to avoid precision loss. Most arithmetic operations truncate like simple pocket calculators. Therefore, 1 − 16−8 = 1. In this case, the result is rounded away from zero.

IEEE 754 on IBM mainframes
Starting with the S/390 G5 in 1998, IBM mainframes have also included IEEE binary floating-point units which conform to the IEEE 754 Standard for Floating-Point Arithmetic. IEEE decimal floating-point was added to IBM System z9 GA2 in 2007 using millicode and in 2008 to the IBM System z10 in hardware.

Modern IBM mainframes support three floating-point radices with 3 hexadecimal (HFP) formats, 3 binary (BFP) formats, and 3 decimal (DFP) formats. There are two floating-point units per core; one supporting HFP and BFP, and one supporting DFP; there is one register file, FPRs, which holds all 3 formats. Starting with the z13 in 2015, processors have added a vector facility that includes 32 vector registers, each 128 bits wide; a vector register can contain two 64-bit or four 32-bit floating-point numbers. The traditional 16 floating-point registers are overlaid on the new vector registers so some data can be manipulated with traditional floating-point instructions or with the newer vector instructions.

Special uses
The IBM HFP format is used in:

 * SAS 5 Transport files (.XPT) as required by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for New Drug Application (NDA) study submissions,
 * GRIB (GRIdded Binary) data files to exchange the output of weather prediction models (IEEE single-precision floating-point format in current version),
 * GDS II (Graphic Database System II) format files (OASIS is the replacement), and
 * SEG Y (Society of Exploration Geophysicists Y) format files (IEEE single-precision floating-point was added to the format in 2002).

As IBM is the only remaining provider of hardware using the HFP format, and as the only IBM machines that support that format are their mainframes, few file formats require it. One exception is the SAS 5 Transport file format, which the FDA requires; in that format, "All floating-point numbers in the file are stored using the IBM mainframe representation. [...] Most platforms use the IEEE representation for floating-point numbers. [...] To assist you in reading and/or writing transport files, we are providing routines to convert from IEEE representation (either big endian or little endian) to transport representation and back again." Code for IBM's format is also available under LGPLv2.1.

Systems that use the IBM floating-point format

 * IBM System/360 and successors
 * RCA Spectra 70
 * English Electric System 4
 * GEC 4000 series minicomputers
 * Interdata 16- and 32-bit computers
 * SDS Sigma series
 * Data General minicomputers
 * ICL 2900 Series computers
 * Siemens 7.700 and 7.500 series mainframes and successors

The decision for hexadecimal floating-point
The article "Architecture of the IBM System/360" explains the choice as being because "the frequency of pre-shift, overflow, and precision-loss post-shift on floating-point addition are substantially reduced by this choice." This allowed higher performance for the large System/360 models, and reduced cost for the small ones. The authors were aware of the potential for precision loss, but assumed that this would not be significant for 64-bit floating-point variables. Unfortunately, the designers seem not to have been aware of Benford's Law which means that a large proportion of numbers will suffer reduced precision.

The book "Computer Architecture" by two of the System/360 architects quotes Sweeney's study of 1958-65 which showed that using a base greater than 2 greatly reduced the number of shifts required for alignment and normalisation, in particular the number of different shifts needed. They used a larger base to make the implementations run faster, and the choice of base 16 was natural given 8-bit bytes. The intention was that 32-bit floats would only be used for calculations that would not propagate rounding errors, and 64-bit double precision would be used for all scientific and engineering calculations. The initial implementation of double precision lacked a guard digit to allow proper rounding, but this was changed soon after the first customer deliveries.

title: IBM hexadecimal floating-point


text:
List of hospitals in Washington (state)

This is a list of hospitals in the U.S. state of Washington, sorted by city and hospital name.

The first hospital in the modern-day state of Washington was established at Fort Vancouver in 1858, serving fur traders and local indigenous people.

title: List of hospitals in Washington (state)


text:
Thermoluminescence

Thermoluminescence is a form of luminescence that is exhibited by certain crystalline materials, such as some minerals, when previously absorbed energy from electromagnetic radiation or other ionizing radiation is re-emitted as light upon heating of the material. The phenomenon is distinct from that of black-body radiation.

Physics
High energy radiation creates electronic excited states in crystalline materials. In some materials, these states are trapped, or arrested, for extended periods of time by localized defects, or imperfections, in the lattice interrupting the normal intermolecular or inter-atomic interactions in the crystal lattice. Quantum-mechanically, these states are stationary states which have no formal time dependence; however, they are not stable energetically, as vacuum fluctuations are always "prodding" these states. Heating the material enables the trapped states to interact with phonons, i.e. lattice vibrations, to rapidly decay into lower-energy states, causing the emission of photons in the process.

Use in dating

The amount of luminescence is proportional to the original dose of radiation received. In thermoluminescence dating, this can be used to date buried objects that have been heated in the past, since the ionizing dose received from radioactive elements in the soil or from cosmic rays is proportional to age. This phenomenon has been applied in the thermoluminescent dosimeter, a device to measure the radiation dose received by a chip of suitable material that is carried by a person or placed with an object.

Thermoluminescence is a common geochronology tool for dating pottery or other fired archeological materials, as heat empties or resets the thermoluminescent signature of the material (Figure 1). Subsequent recharging of this material from ambient radiation can then be empirically dated by the equation:

Age = (subsequently accumulated dose of ambient radiation) / (dose accumulated per year)

This technique was modified for use as a passive sand migration analysis tool (Figure 2). The research shows direct consequences resulting from the improper replenishment of starving beaches using fine sands. Beach nourishment is a problem worldwide and receives large amounts of attention due to the millions of dollars spent yearly in order to keep beaches beautified for tourists, e.g. in Waikiki, Hawaii. Sands with sizes 90–150 μm (very fine sand) were found to migrate from the swash zone 67% faster than sand grains of 150-212 μm (fine sand; Figure 3). Furthermore, the technique was shown to provide a passive method of policing sand replenishment and a passive method of observing riverine or other sand inputs along shorelines (Figure 4).

title: Thermoluminescence


text:
User talk:Beeftrax

Welcome
Hello, welcome to Wikipedia.

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If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian!

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Again, welcome! - UtherSRG 20:51, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

title: User talk:Beeftrax


text:
Power up

Power up may refer to:

 * Power-up, a video gaming term
 * FIRST Power Up, the 2018 FIRST Robotics Competition game
 * POWER UP, an American nonprofit organization
 * "Power Up" (song), a 2018 song by Red Velvet from their EP Summer Magic
 * Power Up (album), 2020 studio album by AC/DC
 * Power Up Tour, a 2024 tour by AC/DC
 * PowerUP (accelerator), accelerator boards for Amiga computers

title: Power up