Warm water extends from Laptev Sea to North Pole

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The NOAA NESDIS image below shows sea surface temperature anomalies of well over 1ºC extending to the North Pole.


The image below gives a world view, showing SST anomalies at the top end of the scale in the Laptev Sea.


The top end of the scale on the above image is 5ºC (or 9ºF).



The visualizations above and below uses a much higher scale. Even this higher-end scale doesn't appear to fully capture the dire situation we are in.


Above image shows warm water entering the Arctic Ocean through the Bering Strait and from the North Atlantic. For months to come, the Gulf Stream will keep pushing warm water into the Arctic Ocean (i.e. water that is warmer than the water in the Arctic Ocean). It takes some time (i.e. months) for the warm water from the north Atlantic to arrive in the Arctic Ocean.

Last year, methane emissions started to become huge in October and this lasted for some six months. The image below, from an earlier post, shows methane eruptions from the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean on October 16/17, 2013.


The image below, from another earlier post, shows methane eruptions from the seafloor of the Arctic Ocean on October 31, 2013.


The image below, from yet another earlier post, shows methane levels as high as 2662 parts per billion on November 9, 2013.


This year, there is even more ocean heat present, especially in the north Atlantic and the north Pacific. On September 29, 2014, methane levels as high as 2641 parts per billion were recorded and it looks like worse is yet to come.


The video below, Sea floor methane hydrate climate hazard, is an extract produced by Peter Carter from a presentation by Miriam Kastner, uploaded 7 August 2008 at Youtube.



The situation is dire and calls for comprehensive and effective action, as discussed at the Climate Plan blog.


Post by Sam Carana.

Machine Vision Sensor Trends

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IMV Europe publishes its Vision Yearbook 2014/15 with many interesting articles (pdf version). "Taking the pulse of the industry" is a collection of short summaries on industry trends from various companies. Few quotes:

Henning Tiarks, head of product management at Basler:

"The year 2015 will be an exciting one for modern cameras and camera technology again! ...It will be the first time the whole range of standard resolutions, from VGA to five megapixels and above, is expected to be covered by CMOS technology. CMOS will therefore become relevant for all existing and new applications in machine vision, as well as in applications outside the factory floor such as medical or intelligent traffic systems."

Guy Pas, VP worldwide for instruments sales at FLIR Systems:

"For many years Flir Systems has made efforts to make thermal cameras more affordable and accessible. This is a trend that will continue in 2015. Because of this increased affordability, it will be possible to deploy multiple cameras for a variety of applications and more customers will be able to benefit from the economies of scale."

Lou Hermans, COO at CMOSIS:

"The demand for very high-resolution area image sensors for machine vision applications is expected to continue to grow. This growth is mainly fueled by the expanding need for inspection of LCD panels used in smart phones, tablets and TVs. These screens are not only becoming bigger, but also the resolution is continuously increasing. This combination is at the basis of the demand for 50+ megapixel resolution inspection cameras and image sensors.

Frame rate requirements are in the 10 frames per second range – out of reach of most CCD-based camera solutions. Although most camera users and producers would prefer global shutter based CMOS solutions, a fair amount of these applications can also be realized with rolling shutter type pixel-based image sensors. ...The realisation of smaller, high-performance global shutter pixels will remain a challenge. It implies that image sensor manufacturers have to migrate to more advanced and more expensive CIS process technologies.

I also expect a growing demand for image sensors optimized for wavelengths outside the visible spectrum, more in particular for the capture of UV and NIR images. UV imaging is mainly driven by the needs of the semiconductor industry whereas NIR imaging is by non-obtrusive machine vision applications. I expect that the demand for UV sensitive imagers will accelerate the development of backside-thinned and illuminated CMOS image sensors in industrial and professional applications. Although backside illuminated imagers are now the standard in mobile phone camera applications, they are still the exception in machine vision area. The larger pixels of machine vision imagers do not benefit much in terms of QE increase in the visible when using backside illumination. The limited performance increase cannot justify the significantly higher price. For UV however, the QE increase is significant and customers are willing to pay the higher price.

The introduction of backside illuminated devices in industrial cameras is also delayed because few foundries are ready to support backside thinning and processing for such low-volume applications. For the same reasons, I do not expect to see so-called stacked backside illuminated CMOS image sensor technology to be applied shortly in dedicated machine vision image sensors."

Nicholas James, imaging product line manager at Edmund Optics:

"In the past year imaging and automation customers have been adopting larger, higher resolution sensors. One-inch format sensors have become more readily available, and the machine vision industry is moving toward four and six-megapixel resolution versions of these larger sensors. The market will continue to push upward toward the nine- and 12-megapixel options – and even higher as technology evolves."

Dale Deering, senior program manager at Teledyne Dalsa:

"One of the most significant trends in imaging today is the continued evolution of CMOS image sensors as the technology of choice for general machine vision applications. A complementary trend is the reduction in the cost of processing image data within the camera – the price of FPGAs, microprocessors and memory continues to drop, while speed and capability continue to increase."

Terry Arden, CEO of LMI Technologies:

"For LMI, we have identified two major segments of growth for 3D sensing technology. The first is the 3D scanning market where 3D scanners are used to build real world models of objects. The second segment is the 3D inspection market where 3D smart sensors are used to scan, measure, and pass or fail parts in an assembly process within a factory."

Frank Grube, president and CEO of Allied Vision Technologies:

"One emerging market segment on the cusp of a major change due to the introduction of machine vision is the transportation industry, an industry which has long suffered from an inability to collect quantifiably accurate infrastructure level information. With the introduction of MV technologies, the transportation industry could collect data multiple times per second, providing a quantity and quality of data not only cheaper than a magnetic loop, but considerably more robust than any other current sensor technology."

Michael Gibbons, director of sales and marketing at Point Grey

"New CCD and CMOS sensor technologies have also evolved in the last few years and have dramatically influenced the development of completely new types of imaging and machine vision systems. The number of global shutter CMOS sensors available in the market has increased and CCD technology, such as Sony’s new line of EXview HAD CCD II sensors, has also become more advanced, providing improved quantum efficiency, reduced smear, and increased sensitivity, including into the near infrared."

Sebastien Teysseyre, head of the marketing and solution creation team at e2v:

"as applications are moving away from the factory floor and its controlled environment, the imaging sensors are exposed to extreme and possibly harsh environmental conditions, such as fog, rain and snow. Technically, we know how to get a decent image in these conditions by using high power lasers and gated image intensified CCD cameras, but these solutions are physically large, fragile and expensive, limiting their adoption to high-end, niche market applications. It is very likely that, based on the initial results, in 2015 we’ll demonstrate that a CMOS-based system can be used instead of a gated tube intensifier, removing the barrier to entry for many applications."
1:26 PM

e2v Announces Imaging Business Re-org

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e2v announces that its imaging business has grown by 26% last year. Following the growth, e2v splits ita imaging business into two: Professional Imaging and Space Imaging.

The Professional Imaging business, led by Francois Thouret, and now incorporating the newly acquired AnaFocus CMOS business, will focus on commercial imaging products and services, including machine vision, medical imaging, science and thermal imaging markets. Francois Thouret says "The acquisition of AnaFocus is a key milestone on our journey to grow our business. The acquisition strengthens our position and market share by extending our value proposition for customer specific CMOS image sensors into high-growth market segments."

The Space Imaging business, led by Marc Saunders, will further develop e2v’s relationships with global space agencies, including ESA, NASA, JAXA, Airbus Defence and Space, Thales Alenia Space and Ball Aerospace. e2v’s Space Imaging business has already seen over 70 new jobs created in the past year (following a £3.8m Regional Growth Fund grant). Marc Saunders comments: "The changes we are making, with the creation of more agile customer-focused business areas, will put us in the best possible position to accelerate growth."
11:46 AM

The Limits of Diversity

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This month's Scientific American devotes twenty pages to articles on diversity in science—the shameful lack thereof, and what can be done about it. One piece is a kind of confessional by a Lockheed Martin engineer who quickly moved into management and found that as she chose staff from widely varying backgrounds, the quality of her group's work increased.  Other articles cite social-science studies that show diverse organizations are not only more socially just; they do better science and engineering too.  The reader of these paeans to diversity could not be blamed for taking away the impression that diversity is like goodness:  you simply can't have too much of it.  Is that true?  Or are there limits to diversity?

What does diversity mean?  It has both an objective aspect, and a subjective or political aspect.  In the strict sense of diversity meaning merely "difference," one can objectively measure diversity in genetic makeup, diversity in hair color, or diversity in virtually any other measurable characteristic that a group of things or people has.  This scientific aspect allows statisticians to crank out reams of charts showing the degree of gender diversity in the number of Ph. D.'s granted, ethnic diversity in hiring practices, and so on.  So in this scientific sense, diversity is a quantifiable, measurable thing.

But when we ask what kinds of diversity are significant in the sense addressed by the Scientific American authors, the list narrows to political and cultural hot-button matters:  gender, race, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and so on.  Scientists and engineers must deal with these matters not as mythical objective professionals, but as human beings.  And in so doing, the issue becomes an ethical, political, and even philosophical one.

The idea of virtue is not a scientific concept, but it is one of the best ways to describe a certain class of characteristics involving choice, as Aristotle says.  I think Aristotle would class diversity as a type of virtue because a diverse organization is better with regard to social justice than a non-diverse one, and (as the social scientists have shown), diverse scientific organizations do science and engineering better than non-diverse ones.  Making something intrinsically good and also better at what it does are the two main aspects of a virtue (again, according to Aristotle), and diversity qualifies on both counts.

The next question is this:  can you have too much diversity?  Most virtues represent a mean or rough average between the two extremes of excess and deficiency.  Assembling a competent technical organization with a mind to diversity represents a compromise between extremes.  In the decades before diversity in its modern sense was recognized as an organizational goal, those in charge (usually white males) picked the best people they could while following the cultural norms of their time.  These norms generally (but not always) excluded women and minorities, and tended to perpetuate the demographic makeup of the organization, while making it extremely hard or impossible for non-whites and non-males to enter.  This was bad. 

However, you can imagine an opposite extreme.  The perfectly diverse organization would have diversity statistics identical to those of the largest applicable sample group:  the state, the nation, or even the world.  William F. Buckley is supposed to have said he'd rather be governed by the first hundred names in the Boston phone book than by the entire faculty of Harvard University, and in this proposal, at least, he was favoring the opposite extreme of diversity I am talking about.  But if diversity is the onlycriterion of selection, the specialized competencies that a research or engineering organization needs will be absent, except by chance, and it will fail to achieve its objective, unless its only objective is to show that it is acceptably diverse.

The U. S. National Science Foundation has in recent years spent a substantial portion of its resources encouraging diversity in various ways.  To the extent that these efforts have righted previous injustices committed either consciously or through unconscious bias against certain groups, they are to be applauded.  But there is nothing scientific about the choices of which measures of diversity to work on. 

In a secular democracy, these choices are made politically.  And making politics your ultimate authority can land you in unpleasant places, as scientists in Russia and Germany have found.  A crackpot biologist named Lysenko got his hands on the political levers of control in the old USSR in the 1920s. Lysenko thought acquired characteristics could be inherited, and for the next forty years, any Soviet biologist who disagreed with Lysenko about evolution was liable to disappear into the Siberian work camps.  And the Nazi party in Germany took delight in calling Einstein's theory of relativity "Jewish physics."  Such blatant overruling of science by politics can always happen if those in charge value political goals more than the integrity of science.

I am personally about as un-diverse as you can get: an old white male conservative Christian Texan.  An organization composed of people like me would score close to zero on any diversity index you care to name.  I view the diversity project as an attempt, however flawed, to show the type of love that wills the good of the beloved to people who would otherwise be kept from flourishing to the best of their abilities.  There is nothing wrong with this type of love.  It is the type of love Jesus Christ exhorted his followers to show to each other.  But implementing diversity in a way that helps those who need that type of help without inflicting harm or the loss of opportunity on others is an inherently complex task.  The only way to do it perfectly would be to have perfect insight into the problem of social justice, and only God has that.  Any human attempt at diversity represents a compromise between using resources to increase diversity, versus using resources to address the task at hand.  And those promoting diversity should remember that it is possible to have too much of a good thing.

Sources: The October 2014 issue of Scientific American includes Stephanie C. Hill's article "In pursuit of the best ideas:  How I learned the value of diversity," on pp. 48-49.  I also referred to Wikipedia articles on Lysenkoism and "Deutsche physik" ("German physics").

101 Electronics projects Download || ECE final year projects || Electronics Engineering projects || Electronics project ideas

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Contact us for this projects , mention the title in subject 

Matlab projects also done at low cost..

1.     Auto Intensity Control of Street Lights
2.     Automatic Irrigation System on Sensing Soil Moisture Content
3.     Programmable Switching Control for Industrial Automation in Repetitive Nature of Work
4.     Automatic Wireless Health Monitoring System in Hospitals for Patients
5.     Precise Digital Temperature Control
6.     Optimum Energy Management System
7.     Security System Using Smartcard Technology
8.     PC Based Electrical Load Control

9.     Secret Code Enabled Secure Communication Using RF Technology
10.                        Density Based Traffic Signal System
11.                        Line Following Robotic Vehicle
12.                        TV Remote Operated Domestic Appliances Control
13.                        Password Based Circuit Breaker
14.                        Programmable Load Shedding Time Management for Utility Department
15.                        Object Detection by Ultrasonic Means
16.                        Street Light that Glows on Detecting Vehicle Movement
17.                        Tampered Energy Meter Information Conveyed to Concerned Authority by Wireless Communication
18.                        Distance Measurement by Ultrasonic Sensor
19.                        Portable Programmable Medication Reminder
20.                        Programmable Energy Meter for Electrical Load Survey
21.                        Security System With User Changeable Password
22.                        Networking of Multiple Microcontrollers
23.                        Solar Powered LED Street Light with Auto Intensity Control
24.                        SCADA (Supervisory Control & Data Acquisition) for Remote Industrial Plant
25.                        Parallel Telephone Lines with Security System
26.                        Using TV Remote as a Cordless Mouse for the Computer
27.                        Movement Sensed Automatic Door Opening System
28.                        Railway Level Crossing Gate Control through SMS by the Station Master or the Driver
29.                        GSM Based Monthly Energy Meter Billing via SMS
30.                        DTMF Based Load Control System
31.                        Synchronized Traffic Signals
32.                        Pick N Place with Soft Catching Gripper
33.                        Fire Fighting Robotic Vehicle
34.                        War Field Spying Robot with Night Vision Wireless Camera
35.                        Theft Intimation of the Vehicle Over SMS to Owner Who Can Stop the Engine Remotely
36.                        Closed Loop Control for a Brushless DC Motor to Run at the Exactly Entered Speed
37.                        Automatic Surveillance Camera Panning System from PC
38.                        Flash Flood Intimation Over GSM Network
39.                        RFID security access control system
40.                        Integrated Energy Management System Based on GSM Protocol with Acknowledgement Feature
41.                        Cell Phone Based DTMF Controlled Garage Door Opening System
42.                        Display of Dialed Telephone Numbers on Seven Segment Displays
43.                        Non Contact Tachometer
44.                        RFID based attendance system
45.                        Line Following Robotic Vehicle Using Microcontroller
46.                        Automatic Dialing to Any Telephone Using I2C Protocol on Detecting Burglary
47.                        Life Cycle Testing of Electrical Loads by Down Counter
48.                        GSM Based Energy Meter Reading with Load Control
49.                        BLDC Motor Speed Control with RPM Display
50.                        Predefined Speed Control of BLDC Motor
51.                        Stamp Value Calculator for Postage Needs
52.                        Dish Positioning Control by IR Remote
53.                        Hidden Active Cell Phone Detector
54.                        Long Range FM Transmitter with Audio Modulation
55.                        Railway Track Security System
56.                        Sun Tracking Solar Panel
57.                        Remote Jamming Device
58.                        Wireless Electronic Notice Board Using GSM
59.                        IR Obstacle Detection to Actuate Load
60.                        Automatic Dusk to Dawn (Evening on to Morning Off)
61.                        Rhythm Following Flashing Lights
62.                        Thermistor Based Temperature Control
63.                        Object Counter with 7 Segment Display
64.                        Incoming Phone Ring Light Flasher
65.                        Solar Power Charge Controller
66.                        Wire Loop Breaking Alarm Signal
67.                        Video Activated Relay to Control the Load
68.                        Touch Controlled Load Switch
69.                        Time Delay Based Relay Operated Load
70.                        Electronic Eye Controlled Security System
71.                        Fastest Finger Press Quiz Buzzer
72.                        Pre-programmed Digital Scrolling Message System
73.                        Speed Checker to Detect Rash Driving on Highways
74.                        Home Automation Using Digital Control
75.                        Four Quadrant DC Motor Speed Control with Microcontroller
76.                        Intelligent Overhead Tank Water Level Indicator
77.                        Speed Synchronization of Multiple Motors in Industries
78.                        Pre Stampede Monitoring and Alarm System
79.                        Unique Office Communication System Using RF
80.                        PC Controlled Scrolling Message Display for Notice Board
81.                        Touch Screen Based Industrial Load Switching
82.                        Touch Screen Based Home Automation System
83.                        Speed Checker to Detect Rash Driving on Highways
84.                        RF Based Home Automation System
85.                        Wireless message Communication Between Two Computers
86.                        Obstacle Avoidance Robotic Vehicle
87.                        Solar Powered Auto Irrigation System
88.                        Auto Metro Train to Shuttle Between Stations
89.                        Touch Screen Based Remote Controlled Robotic Vehicle for Stores Management
90.                        Metal Detector Robotic Vehicle
91.                        RFID Based Passport Details
92.                        Beacon Flasher Using Microcontroller
93.                        Discotheque Light Stroboscopic Flasher
94.                        IR Controlled Robotic Vehicle
95.                        Automatic Bell System for Institutions
96.                        Cell Phone Controlled Robotic Vehicle
97.                        RFID Based Device Control and Authentication Using PIC Microcontroller
98.                        Theft Intimation of Vehicle Over SMS to Owner Who Can Stop the Engine Remotely
99.                        Street Light that Glows on Detecting Vehicle Movement
100.                   Density Based Traffic Signal System Using PIC Microcontroller
101.                   Solar Energy Measurement System