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Hard Start Political chatter has only one theme at the moment: Labour's woes and the life expectancy of its besieged leader. The premise of all this talk is the assumption that Labour will lose the next general election. Sorry to state the obvious, but if Labour is on course for a sound defeat, doesn't that mean the Tories are on their way to victory? In which case, while it's certainly more fun guessing the runners and riders to take over from Gordon, isn't it time we took a hard look at the party which seems set to rule this country in just two years' time?Admittedly, it's a knack the commentariat, like the Labour front bench, has lost. The Tories were so useless for so long, scrutiny of Conservative ideas in the Hague-IDS-Howard era came to seem like a futile exercise, covering Tory speeches a job for the sketchwriters only.That won't do now. The Labour party of Neil Kinnock was submitted to microscopic examination in the lead-up to the 1992 election. Indeed, the genius of the Conservative campaign in that year was to make the election a referendum on the opposition, rather than the government, a decision in which Labour was found wanting. At present, those still loyal to Brown insist that 2010 will be different from the local polls and last week's Crewe byelection because it will not be a plebiscite on Labour but a choice between the two parties. But fashioning the contest that way won't happen all by itself. It will require training the klieg lights on the Conservatives - starting right now.There is plenty to be exposed. Last September, most Tories quaked at the prospect of an early election, knowing that the facade constructed by David Cameron concealed either a blank space or a tangle of contradictions. Despite the turnaround in their fortunes, those tensions and empty holes remain. Take the area where, along with greenery, Cameron has built his credentials as a new kind of compassionate Conservative: his concern for our "broken society". With IDS's report on "Breakdown Britain" in his back pocket, Cameron encourages voters to believe that the country is cracking up - descending into a netherworld of split families, feral youths and rising crime - and it needs the Tories to put it back together again.Yet what are the tools available to a Westminster politician anxious to do such work? There are hundreds, but what they have in common is that they're in the toolbox marked central government. The trouble for Cameron is that he has disavowed these means, thanks to a philosophy that still sees the state as problem rather than solution.Thus in a pitch for centre-left voters in the Independent earlier this month, the Tory leader proclaimed his determination to make Britain more family friendly: "That includes paying couples to live together rather than apart, and more help for parents in the crucial early years, through reforms such as a massively expanded health visitor service and flexible parental leave."Putting aside the fact that Cameron wants to take Britain out of the European social chapter, which guarantees some of the employment protections essential for family life, how would he achieve these admirable goals? "In all these areas," he wrote, "instead of using the old-fashioned mechanisms of top-down state control, we will use the modern mechanisms of civil society - whether it's businesses ... social enterprises ... or charities and community groups."Sounds lovely, but how does he expect charities to provide a "massively expanded health visitor service"? Which businesses, exactly, are going to pay for that couples' bonus? Has Cameron found the social enterprises who will take care of "early years" help for all Britain's children?Reliance on the public realm rather than the public sector, as Cameron puts it, sounds very appealing. But it assumes a capacity that Britain's civil society, for a variety of reasons, does not have. This is not America, with its vast army of church-based volunteers. Expecting the voluntary sector to mend Britain's "broken society" while disavowing a central role for government is to make a promise that cannot be kept.
2008-05-28 11:35:32

Flash Bracelets Canon Andrew White's family home is not exactly a rambling rectory, but with its peaceful village setting, immaculately tended garden and homely clutter, it is, by most people's definition, idyllic and utterly conventional.The problem for Canon White is that he is not a conventional man.When, as he is occasionally given to do, he opines to his wife, a former lawyer, that perhaps he should be a normal parish priest, her response is always the same. “They couldn't cope with you and you couldn't cope with them,” she tells him.Canon White is the so-called Vicar of Baghdad. Though nominally he resides in rural Hampshire, his church, St George's, is situated 3,000 miles away, amid the razor wire and bombed-out buildings of Iraq's capital. He spends an average three days a month with his wife and two young sons in the UK; the rest of the time, he is at his home away from home, a Portakabin inside Baghdad's heavily fortified green zone - the six square miles that houses all foreign, military and diplomatic staff in what remains the world's most dangerous city.This Sunday, an ITV documentary gives an extraordinary insight into Canon White's double life. Rageh Omaar, the veteran Iraq war correspondent, presents him as a charismatic and indisputably brave man.St George's - the only Anglican church still standing in Iraq - is located a mile outside the green zone. To travel there for his weekly services, Canon White is accompanied by a 20-strong entourage of armed guards. He is clearly adored by his 1,500-strong congregation, who call him their “abouna” - father. But ministering to them is not his sole focus. “I do God on Saturday and Sunday. The rest of the week, I work on reconciliation,” he says.Part priest, part peace-broker, Canon White was the Church of England's Middle East envoy during Lord Carey of Clifton's tenure as the Archbishop of Canterbury. Today he is regarded as a vital intermediary between coalition forces and Iraq's myriad factions. His work, funded by, among others, the Pentagon, regularly brings him face to face with insurgents and hostage-takers. He has been hijacked, kidnapped and held at gunpoint and the film leaves us in no doubt that, regardless of the flak jacket that he wears with his dog collar, any day could be his last. It is compelling viewing, but it also begs the question: why, particularly as a family man, does he choose to place himself at such risk? My interview with Canon White takes place during his fleeting trip home to publicise, with Lord Carey, an appeal for the five “forgotten” British hostages in Iraq.It's mid-afternoon and his boys, aged 11 and 9, are still at school. His wife is tending their new puppy. (For security reasons, I'm asked not to name any of them except their cocker spaniel called Rabi.) Canon White is in his study, a room brimming with mementoes of his work and travels.A collection of crosses - gifts from bishops and other religious leaders - adorn one wall. Elsewhere, awards, including the US Cross of Valour sit alongside photographs of him with Tony Blair and Sir John Major. On his desk are a clutch of mobile phones - he has different numbers for different countries and different contacts - and a half-used strip of tablets. Canon White has multiple sclerosis, a condition that he mostly keeps hidden, the only giveaways being the stick that he occasionally uses for his balance and his voice, which, because of damage to his hearing, has developed a slight drag.He copes with MS, he says, in the way that he copes with everything: “By keeping going and not worrying about it.” His height (he's more than 6ft) and his sartorial flamboyance (his sober suit is teamed today with multicoloured beaded bracelets given to him by Iraqi children and an oversized silver crucifix) make him a conspicuous presence.I imagine he must have been flattered to learn that ITV were devoting an hour-long documentary to his work. “Can I be honest?” he says. “I didn't know they were. They told me they were doing a film about Iraq five years on [from the war], and then, at the end, they said, ‘by the way, we've made one about you'.” A check with the ITV press office confirms this.Now 43, Canon White grew up in Bexley, Kent, the middle of three children. His father was a senior civil servant at the Treasury, his mother didn't work. The family were Baptists, but at the age of 10, White switched to the Church of England after becoming friendly with an elderly housebound lady who was an Anglican. He sounds as if he was a child who knew his own mind. “No,” he says, “I was just odd.” He paints a picture of a boy who was incapable of mixing with his peers. “I didn't do children's things. I was always much more interested in people who were old.” When I ask if his brother and sister were similarly strange, he tells me that his sister was a severe anorexic. Her illness clearly put a huge strain on the family. He recalls his parents taking her to countless doctors and hospitals to get her treated. “She was crazy and because of that I tried to keep away from home,” he says. “Home was not a happy place.”On Canon White's lapel is a small badge denoting him as a Fellow of Harvard. He's also a Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge. This tickles him because he was never more than an average academic. He wanted to work in anaesthetics, but, realising he would not make it to medical school, elected to train as an operating department practitioner - a skilled member of the anaesthetist's support staff - at St Thomas' Hospital in London. “I loved it at St Thomas' - it was all I had ever dreamt of,” he says. However, one night, having passed his exams, he walked out during a break on his shift, looked across at Big Ben, said his evening prayers “and like a flash of lightning, I was aware I had to go into the Church. I didn't want to. I was so happy at St Thomas', but it was a clear calling”.Within two years, he had enrolled at Ridley Hall, Cambridge, a theological college. He calls it the “vicar factory”. “When I got there, I realised that the Church was quite boring and irrelevant. No, I knew that beforehand,” he says, mischievously. “I often say that I became a vicar because I was too bored sitting in the pew.”Canon White is a natural maverick who uses irreverence and self-deprecation to deflect tensions and bypass stuffy protocols. These skills have served him well in the Middle East and, I imagine, they also made him a larger-than-life curate and vicar in Battersea and Clapham, which is where he worked after his ordination in 1990, and where he met his wife.“I spotted her from the pulpit,” he says. “I was preaching and I thought, ‘I like what I see'.” Six weeks later, he took her out on a punt on the River Cam and proposed. What was the attraction? “It wasn't her cooking,” he says with characteristic flippancy. “But it was love at first sight.”On Sunday, August 31, 1997 - he remembers the date easily because it was the day Diana, Princess of Wales died - he was chatting to parishioners after morning service at Clapham when two police officers told him the body of his 30-year-old brother Mark had been washed up on a beach in Dover. “He had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, but he wouldn't face up to it or take any treatment. Then one day, he disappeared.” The family were never able to establish whether his death was suicide.Canon White's own MS diagnosis came two years later - a date he remembers clearly because it was the same day that his second son was born. “I was taken to the maternity unit in a wheelchair to be there for his birth. I remember that, yeah...” he says, his voice trailing off. He had been having problems with his vision and balance, and he had known that MS was the likely cause, but the diag- nosis must have been devastating.
2008-05-28 11:34:09

electrical tape If you have consolidated your CDs into a book, binder, organizer, etc. then you probably don't have need for those jewel cases anymore. Until now...You can turn them into coasters! Better yet, oversized coasters! They are SO perfect for all sizes of drinkware and you can customize them for your events, interior styling, etc. Better yet-yet (I don't think that is an actual phrase), customizing them is a craft activity that can be shared with friends and family, including the kids!When it comes to customizing them, the world is your oyster. It's a really easy project that can involve minimal to maximum effort on your part. 1. Dismantle jewel case by popping out the CD holder insert. You now have 2 parts - the exterior casing and the holder insert. Set the insert aside for later. 2. Remove the paper insert from the back and save it for a tracing card. If it's flimsy, trace it onto thicker paper or cardboard and use the thicker version for your tracing tool. 3. Insert contents. Possibilities include, but not limited to: * Images from magazines * family photos * wrapping paper * scrapbook or construction paper * pasted artwork from the kids * pebbles, rice, silk flowers pulled apart, small beads, etc. I bet you can think of many other content possibilities!# Images and artwork can be traced with the tracing card and cut to fit the backside of the jewel case. You can also place bits of paper like confetti, silk flowers pulled apart, etc. To secure, snap the CD holder insert back into place.# The front can have an image cut to fit as well OR you can fill the CD holder with rice, pebbles, herbs, more silk flowers, etc. Use your imagination and try different things!# Depending if your jewel case is clear or has the black CD holder, your coaster will have a different appeal. The clear ones are fun because you can get a layered affect with your customized contents.# To finish it off, you can polish up the sides with ribbon, trim, colored electrical tape, etc. OR, you can leave the sides untrimmed. # If you DO leave them untrimmed, you have the option to easily switch the contents to customize for your next event. If you seal it up by gluing ribbon on, it's more permanent. So far, I am finding that tiny pieces of double stick tape placed at each corner and in the center of the sides is working great to hold the ribbon on - and then I can change the insides if I want more easily.
2008-05-28 11:32:00

Planar Systems, a provider of specialty display solutions, announced that its electroluminescent (EL) display technology will be incorporated in the VMC-SmartDisplay developed by Seattle-based Vehicle Monitor (EL Display).The VMC-SmartDisplay is designed to make it easier and faster for specialty vehicle manufacturers to graphically display the intelligence in their vehicles' data buses, to increase users' productivity and uptime. This new collaboration supports Planar's continued investment in EL specialty display technology and expands the Planar line of innovative displays for transportation market applications.Industrial vehicles operate in harsh environments, experiencing high-duty cycle, heavy vibration and extreme temperatures. Market demands for increasing productivity requirements have pushed the adoption of vehicle messaging, automated reporting and vehicle tracking systems. When combined with the trends of rising fuel costs and more emissions regulations, vehicle designers are pushed to explore increasingly complex vehicle control systems.The VMC-SmartDisplay will combine Planar's EL display technology, which has more than 25 years of proven durability in harsh conditions, with embedded software and a microprocessor to interface with a vehicle's data bus and analog sensors. The VMC-SmartDisplay software provides key operating, safety and maintenance information to the driver, and dispatcher in real time."The VMC-SmartDisplay is an excellent example of how EL display technology and software can be combined to display vehicle intelligence and simplify the management of valuable equipment," said Doug Barnes, general manager and vice president of Planar's industrial business unit. "This collaboration with Vehicle Monitor Corp. is a significant step to fulfilling Planar's ongoing strategy of pursuing display opportunities in the specialty transportation market and building partnerships with our customers.""Planar has been a proven partner for us," said Mike Van Schoiack, president and chief technology officer of VMC. "By combining the display, vehicle data bus and software expertise of both companies, we can more effectively provide an integrated solution for the challenges faced by this growing market."
2008-05-28 11:30:08

Buck-boost converter topologies fit into a wide range of applications. Whether you are charging a battery from a battery, powering a string of LEDs, or running a handheld device from a single cell, the buck-boost topology can provide an important weapon in your arsenal of design tricks. Whether you need low cost, high efficiency, or low noise, some version of buck-boost topology can solve the problem. And, if your buck-boost design works for multiple products, you can save yourself the considerable effort of designing separate power supplies for each load voltage. However, as with any type of design, the buck-boost-converter brings its share of design challenges.For example, consider one common application for buck-boost converters: battery-to-battery charging, such as using a car battery to charge a 10.8V NiMH (nickel-metal-hydride) battery (Figure 1a). At first blush, you might think that you could use a low-dropout linear regulator for this task because the regulator’s 10.8V voltage is close to the 12V lead-acid battery’s voltage. If the car is running, however, the battery’s charging voltage is 13.75 to 14.2V, indicating that you might need to use a switching regulator to prevent power loss. You might still think that a simple buck regulator should do the job. However, NiMH batteries receive their charge from a constant current, so their cell voltages rise to 1.4 to 1.6V per cell. Thus, for a nine-cell, 10.8V pack, the charge-termination voltage must reach 12.6V. A modern synchronous-buck regulator that can deliver power with 100-mV drop might still do the job, but this approach assumes that the car is running. In a real-world application for test equipment that diagnoses cars, however, you must assume that some cars won’t start. A lead-acid automobile battery charges at 13 to 14V, but the no-load voltage is 12V. Clearly, you cannot charge a nine-cell NiMH battery to its 12.6V termination with a 12V source and a buck regulator.The automotive-test-equipment application may be esoteric, but system designers face a far more common problem: how to power a 3.3V handheld electronic system from one lithium-ion cell (Figure 1b). Consider a handheld computer that uses Windows. Its digital electronics, including memory, must operate from a 3.3V power supply, and one lithium-ion cell delivers 3 to 3.7V of power, so it may be tempting to just operate 3.3V ICs at 3V. However, digital processes are less forgiving than analog when it comes to power-supply-voltage range—to the point that some manufacturers refuse to characterize chips at 3V.Another approach employs two lithium-ion cells; this method has several disadvantages, however. First, consider that a battery is a more problematic power source than a cell. You must worry about reliability: If either cell fails in an open circuit, the system loses power. If either cell short circuits, the internal fusible link blows—and let’s hope it blows before a fire breaks out. In any case, after a short circuit, your product cannot function. Just as troublesome is the problem of balancing the cells’ charge. Because batteries are metal-plating devices, you charge them by plating lead, lithium, or nickel from the cathode to the anode. When you discharge the battery, the metal or metal ions discharge from the anode to the cathode. Another problem occurs when you recharge the battery: If one cell in a string accepts less charge, it limits the pack’s output. With two lithium-ion cells, this approach would limit the charge voltage to 8.4V. But this approach does not ensure that exactly 4.2V exists across each cell. To ensure that amount of voltage, you must implement complex and expensive charge-balancing circuits that charge and discharge each cell at the optimum voltage. For these reasons, most modern handheld products use a single cell. Because lithium-ion cells output 3 to 3.7V, handheld devices requiring 3.3V are appropriate applications for buck-boost converters.Other broad applications for buck-boost converters are automotive-LED drivers (Figure 1c). They share the same battery-voltage-range issues as the automotive-test equipment. Indeed, even more important restrictions exist for automotive use. When the car is starting, the battery may sag to 8V as it cranks the starting motor. A charger circuit for automotive-test equipment would have to function for a longer time than it takes a car to start. If the power converter is operating a string of brake lights, however, you would not want the output of the circuit to drop out due to input-voltage swings. Buck-boost architectures can handle those cold-cranking periods, as well as a 40V transient from a clamped-load-dump event.A similar application is driving LED-flash units in a cell phone (Figure 1d). The forward voltage of the LED may be higher or lower than that of a single-cell lithium-ion cell. A buck-boost topology ensures that the flash LED receives the same current no matter what the state of the battery and no matter what process variations of the LED change its forward voltage. “Look at a cell-phone camera where an LED is used in a flash application, perhaps one where you can drive a 0.5A through the LED,” says Sam Nork, a design manager at Linear Technology. “Under those conditions, the forward-voltage drop of the LED is around 3.6V. Depending on temperatures, part variations, and battery conditions, that [situation] is a classic case where you would like a buck-boost converter to get the best performance.” The same design benefits apply to LED flashlights that use lithium-ion cells for power.Although you might think of buck-boost converters when dealing with a widely variable input voltage, they also work well in applications in which the output voltage varies due to component variations. Rohit Tirumala, staff application engineer at Supertex, points out that some general-lighting applications use an inexpensive 24V “brick” supply. Although the input voltage is fairly regulated, the output voltage across an LED string can vary widely from part to part. “Because of the LED-voltage variation, the string of LEDs might require a buck or a boost,” he says. “For example, each LED can vary by as much as 1V. The forward voltage can be 3 to 4V, so a six-LED string might require 18 to 24V.”Brian Wengreen, product-marketing manager at Analog Devices, points out that Panasonic and other lithium-ion-battery manufactures are creating modified battery chemistries that produce more energy as the battery discharges from 3 to 2.5V. “A cell phone or camera that operates from a single [lithium-ion] cell may have a zoom lens or some sort of actuator that requires a steady voltage that provides torque to a mechanical system,” he says. These camera manufacturers use buck-boost converters in this case because they can wring that last bit of energy from the battery.These examples show how buck-boost converters provide power as both the input- and the output-voltage requirements vary. These converters are also versatile. “Some engineers want to have different models of product that use the same power supply,” says Tirumala. “One model might use four LEDs; one model might use six LEDs. They can use the same buck-boost power supply, [so] the cost will go down, and the volumes will increase.” He also points out that a buck-boost converter works well when you are using a rectified ac waveform as your input power (Figure 1e). One such application is an LED replacement for the ubiquitous 12V halogen bulb, such as an MR16. The halogen-lamp fixture drives the bulb with an ac or rectified-ac waveform. By using a buck-boost circuit in the base of the replacement-LED bulb, designers can ensure a more constant average current as the input voltage varies.Delve into detailsKnowing that so many applications exist for buck-boost circuits, it behooves diligent analog-system engineers to learn more about them. Start with the terminology. An isolated-flyback converter can provide a fixed output voltage even as the input voltage swings higher and lower than the output. Yet no one refers to a flyback converter as a buck-boost converter. Another example is the PFC (power-factor-correction) circuit in an offline power supply. Even though the first stage is a boost converter and the second stage is a buck, engineers rarely refer to this architecture as a buck-boost converter. Capacitor Wiring buck-boost circuits, such as National Semiconductor’s LM3355, exist, but most designers think of inductive converters when they hear the term “buck-boost.” Other sophisticated converter topologies, such as the isolated TeslaConverter from Tesla, can perform the buck-boost function, but engineers also do not refer to them as “buck-boost” converters.The classic buck-boost is a single-switch converter with an inverting architecture (Figure 2a). Because it is inverting, the circuit can have an output voltage either higher or lower than the input voltage, no matter which voltage is changing or whether both are changing. When the switch closes, the inductor builds up a current. When the switch opens, the inductor still tries to flow that current, so the switch side of the inductor goes negative, and the inductor current then charges up the output capacitor to a voltage that is negative with respect to the input voltage. With a 5V input, the circuit would work just as well, producing –4 and –6V (Figure 2b). As with most other power architectures, there are many valid variations on the single-switch converter. By rearranging the inductor, you can make a negative-to-positive buck-boost converter (Figure 2c). Like simple buck or boost architectures, the buck-boost converter can operate in either continuous or discontinuous mode.The simple inverting buck-boost topology certainly works, but one drawback is that the switching action of the power transistor creates a high current ripple in the input capacitors. California Institute of Technology Professor Slobodan Cuk solved this problem in 1976 when he invented the Cuk-converter topology (reference 1 and reference 2 and Figure 3). By adding a second inductor and using a capacitor to transfer the energy, the Cuk converter surrounds the switch with inductors. Because the input capacitor feeds the nonswitching side of an inductor, no input current changes faster than a triangle wave. Similarly, the circuit feeds the output capacitor with the nonswitching side of a second inductor, so a triangle wave of current also charges those capacitors, yielding less ripple voltage and, therefore, less heat in the capacitors. Although using two inductors is more expensive, you can often use lower-value input and output capacitors, which can provide cost savings. The slower-changing capacitor currents cause the circuit to generate less EMI (electromagnetic interference) and RFI (radio-frequency interference)—a boon for automotive applications. The slow-input-current variation means that you can eliminate the use of an input capacitor, and, because the current over the car’s wiring is a triangle wave, the converter circuit does not generate much objectionable electrical noise.One limitation of both conventional buck-boost and Cuk converters is that, unlike a SEPIC (single-ended-primary-inductance-converter), they invert the input voltage. Like the Cuk converter, the SEPIC uses two inductors (Figure 4). The SEPIC transposes the position of the inductor and the diode so that the output voltage is positive. The downside is the inductor and the diode are in the opposite place from those in the Cuk converter and thus impress a higher instantaneous rate of current change across the output capacitor. The SEPIC also provides a noninverted output voltage, so you can adapt almost any boost-converter IC to a SEPIC topology. Some companies, including Linear Technology, label parts, such as the LT1513, as SEPIC ICs.One benefit of both the Cuk and the SEPIC architectures is that they do not allow power to flow back through the converter because they include a capacitor that transfers the energy from the input to the output. This feature may provide a significant benefit in battery charging. The capacitor prevents current from flowing from the battery backward though the part and into the input.Another application that needs the input and output voltages to be the same polarity is a circuit that converts a 4.2 to 2.5V lithium-ion cell voltage to 3.3V. You could use SEPICs in this application, but they commonly have efficiency of only 82 to 85%. When trying to squeeze every last bit of energy from a lithium-ion cell, this efficiency is unacceptable. In this case, designers can turn to a four-switch synchronous-buck-boost architecture (Figure 5). This topology uses only one inductor but four power transistors to make the inductors serve as buck or boost converters, depending on the input voltage. The input and output current may experience greater ripples than those for a Cuk converter, but handheld devices now use ceramic power capacitors that have low ESR (equivalent-series resistance) and ESL (equivalent-series inductance) so the ripple currents create no associated ripple voltage. As you might imagine, the challenge with the synchronous-buck-boost converter is control. Two power switches act to convert between buck and boost modes. The other two transistor switches are synchronous rectifiers just as they are in synchronous-buck or synchronous-boost converters. All four transistors must switch seamlessly as the converter slews between the buck and the boost modes.The handheld-system market, with its high volumes and good margins, has caused many vendors to rise to the challenge of making synchronous buck-boost converters. “We have taken that traditional four-switch buck-boost and broken it up into two control loops to give you either a boost converter or a buck converter,” says Michael Day, an applications manager at Texas Instruments. “We have optimized the control system to provide maximum efficiency at a 3.6V input voltage.” According to Day, some conventional four-switch buck-boost topologies operate all four switches at once when the input and output voltages are close to each other.Carl Nelson, an analog designer at Linear Technology, calls this mode “flyback” because the part stores energy in the inductor and then switches it into the output capacitor. The TI TPS63000 uses its two control loops to operate either the buck or the boost switches but never all four. This approach allows the units to achieve better than 95% efficiency over a wide input range. As the part switches between buck and boost operation, it may seem as though all four switches are operating at once, but the part is first performing one buck cycle and then a boost cycle. As soon as the input and output voltages diverge, the part locks into one mode of operation. Because the part never operates in four-switch mode, the synchronous FETs are simply serving as low-loss diodes.Similarly, Linear Technology offers the LTC3440, which debuted in 2001 and now includes more than a dozen parts. The company also offers the LTM4605 module, whose efficiency never falls below 93%, along with a buck-boost controller that allows you to use four external transistors. The LTC3780 can take as much as 36V on the input, so you can use it in automotive and industrial applications requiring the buck-boost function.Because the number of applications using lithium-ion batteries is growing, many analog-design companies are making parts to buck and boost the battery voltage. For example, Analog Devices recently released the four-switch H-bridge-synchronous ADP2503 and ADP2504 buck-boost converters with a switching frequency of 2.5 MHz. The devices use an average-current-mode architecture to improve transient response, providing good load regulation and preventing overshoot when delivering a sudden current surge. Like other synchronous-buck-boost parts, the ADP2503 can provide power from one lithium-ion cell and maintain more-than-92% efficiency. The part also has a low quiescent current, so efficiency remains high even at low output-power levels. Another device, National Semiconductor’s LM3668, bucks or boosts a lithium-ion cell to 3.3V or similar voltage, outputs 1A, and switches at 2.2 MHz.IC vendors have reduced the complexity and the design challenge of compensating a system that may have as many as four poles in the power path. This feature allows system designers to concentrate on the architecture of the products rather than the minutiae of the control algorithms for a power converter. Cuk, SEPIC, and buck-boost topologies are all becoming as easy as the ubiquitous buck regulator to use. Be sure to consider these topologies in your next design.
2008-05-28 11:25:42

electron transformer When outsourcing company Keane Inc. hired Jyoti Taneja 10 months ago to work in its Gurgaon, India, offices, her parents were worried. The 22-year-old Ms. Taneja would be taking calls from American customers of U.S. health-insurance companies, finishing her shift at 2:30 a.m. Hoping to reassure their young hire's parents about her safety, her supervisors at Keane paid several visits to Ms. Taneja's family home in nearby New Delhi. They outlined the security measures Keane takes to protect employees, such as providing a shuttle service to and from work, and having security escorts accompany young women who are riding home alone. "All of that adds to my mom and dad's confidence," Ms. Taneja says. Facing a shortage of workers, India's outsourcing specialists are pulling out the stops. In a culture where twenty-somethings often live with their parents and seek their blessing on major life decisions, family outreach has become a critical recruiting and retention tool, along with offering more-flexible work hours, higher salaries and continuing education. Such efforts "create a bond, not just between the employees and the organization, but also with the families, and is key to our retention strategy," said Ritu Anand, a human-resources executive at Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., one of India's largest technology and outsourcing companies, in an email. India's technology-services and outsourcing industry generated $33 billion in revenue last year and is expected to continue growing at a fast clip, as U.S. and European companies increasingly farm out customer service and software development, as well as such functions as billing, payroll, benefits administration and insurance-claims review. That growth has led to stiff competition for labor. Outsourcing firms are constantly trying to recruit new college graduates and lure young talent away from one another. Employee turnover rates have jumped, with half of the employees at Indian customer-service operations changing jobs annually. Like many other young call-center workers, Ms. Taneja has fielded several calls from headhunters offering her a salary increase. But having settled in at Keane and won over her parents, she isn't moving. "I do get plenty of calls, but I'm not interested," she says. "I don't want to start all over." Keane, which is based in San Ramon, California, and operates in 10 countries, goes to great lengths to win parents' confidence. The company, which employs 14,000 people world-wide and has $1 billion in annual revenue, invites parents to attend orientation sessions for the 200 to 300 new hires in India that start every few weeks.
2008-05-28 16:28:07

Electric Clip Dutch experimental string instrument designer Yuri Landman has announced his creation of a seven-string electric guitar known as Springtime, which Landman produced for Blood Red Shoes guitarist Laura-Mary Carter. The instrument features one bass string, three wound guitar strings for chording and three unwound strings intended for unison tuning and the creation of a rapidly vibrating tone. Each of the three string groups has its own amplifier output, though the 3-way switching system also allows for stereo or mono amplification. The tail bridge is constructed to increase overtone possibilities. One of the primary design intentions was for the instrument to produce sounds simulating three musicians. Landman delivered the prototype of the instrument to Carter at a Blood Red Shoes performance in Nijmegen, Holland, on May 19, 2008 (the instrument is mentioned in a video clip of the performance). The U.K.-based group released their debut album, Box Of Secrets (Mercury, 2008), last month. Landman has built experimental-style string instruments for groups such as Liars (the Moodswinger), Sonic Youth (Moonlander) and Half Japanese (Bachelor QS) and will lecture at the Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona, Spain, about his instruments, string resonance, third-bridge guitar playing (such as Sonic Youth's screwdriver technique) and the relation of modern punk noise to old Chinese scale systems.
2008-05-28 16:25:34

ELECTRICAL TRANSFORMER The lowly soybean has found a calling higher than tofu and tamari sauce. It's being used to insulate equipment bringing electricity to millions of homes. More than 100 utilities are using soy-based oil as a safer, eco-friendly alternative to petroleum coolants in electrical transformers, which convert high-voltage power from a plant to a lower voltage for consumers.Supporters of soy instead of mineral oil for electrical transformers hope to prevent fires that happen almost daily around the United States. Supporters of soy instead of mineral oil for electrical transformers hope to prevent fires that happen almost daily around the United States.(Credit: Coastal Electric Cooperative) Fires occur nearly every day around the country due to problems with transformers, say proponents of soy oil. On May 2, flames leapt 15 feet above street level through a manhole in Cambridge, Mass, temporarily shutting down Harvard Square. Soy oil is less flammable than those from petroleum and, if aflame, burns for less time. "If you have a catastrophic failure from any source, from lightning or an explosion or whatever, you want this oil to be there," said Glenn Cannon, director of the Step Up coalition urging utilities to switch to soy. "Do you want to be the utility that has a toxic fire all over the place, or do you want to say, 'This is soybean food grade oil?'" Soy oil also helps transformers to perform better and last twice as long as others, he said. Cannon is a former manager of Iowa utility Waverly Light and Power and holds five patents on vegetable-based oils. He began exploring soy following a 1994 spill of 20 gallons of petroleum transformer oil that cost Waverly nearly $30,000 to clean up PCBs and other contaminants. Annual U.S. consumption of transformer oils amounts to some 60 million gallons, he said. Electricity providers in Spain and Norway are big customers of soy oil, whose demand rose by 80 percent between 2006 and 2007, according to Cooper Power Systems, which makes high-voltage electrical hardware for utilities. Agricultural giant Cargill provides soy-based Envirotemp FR3 fluid to Cooper Power Systems, which uses and sells it to other transformer manufacturers. Spent soy transformer oil is recyclable for use in biofuel or for lubricants used in trucks, said Cannon. Mineral-based transformer oil, on the other hand, contains cancer-linked ingredients and pollutes ecosystems when spilled. Every year, 250,000 gallons of the fluid leak from electrical equipment, according to Step Up. Thousands of gallons poured into the ground and waterways due to Hurricane Katrina, but the EPA didn't require utilities to report the mess because a national catastrophe was involved, Cannon said. Long a staple of so-called health food stores, soy is increasingly called upon for mechanical and industrial applications. It's well known and controversial as an ingredient in biofuels. Companies exploring alternatives to petroleum for other industrial oils include Green Earth Technologies, which sells 'green' motor oils for cars and boats that is made from waste animal fats.
2008-05-28 16:24:16

Tag: Sanitizer New York, New York (May 12, 2008) Surya Brasil, known for its premier organic and natural cosmetics, announces the introduction of its new organic Moisturizing Hand Sanitizer. A unique product that does more than kill germs, the new formula is made with special plant ingredients from Brazil, which include Aloe for its soothing and healing properties, Jua, a cleansing and refreshing fruit and Acai, a powerful moisturizer and antioxidant rich in protein, omega-9 fatty acid and Vitamin E. According to Bettina Bond, National Educator, ¡°Not only does this product accomplish the job of ridding unwanted germs from the skin, it protects the hands by including plants that soften and moisturize the skin. Most sanitizing products have the effect of killing the germs but it leaves you feeling as if all the moisture has gone out of the dermis and often there is a stickiness that is unpleasant.¡± The fresh, pleasant scent is derived from a blend of essential oils including Lavender, Peppermint and Ylang Ylang.Surya Brasil¡¯s Moisturizing Hand Sanitizer is certified organic through Eco Cert and is cruelty-free. Known to be gentle on sensitive skin, the Moisturizing Hand Sanitizer kills 99.99% of germs on the hands when conveniently applied any place, any time. No rinsing is required. The product does not contain mineral oil, parabens, petrochemicals, carbomer, synthetic fragrance or artificial coloring. Dermatologically tested and hypoallergenic, the sanitizer is available in two sizes: pocket size tube (2.02 fl oz/60 ml) for $4.99 SRP and desktop bottle (6.76 fl oz/200 ml) for $14.99. Twelve tube displays are available for merchandising in stores.Surya Brasil has been operating successfully in Brazil for over 25 years supplying cosmetics founded on a vision of internal beauty that embraces the Ayurvedic principle: Know how to live in harmony with nature and oneself using elements that do not harm the body. Surya Brasil products are available at health food stores, pharmacies, beauty supply outlets and other fine stores throughout the world. Besides its headquarters in Sao Paulo, Surya Brasil has offices in the USA and in India and also exports to Saudi Arabia, Cyprus, England, France, Belgium, Japan, Greece, Portugal, Chile and Uruguay, among others. For more information, call 877.997.8792 or see www.suryacosmetics.com
2008-05-27 09:29:31

Tag: Pouring Machine A criminal complaint has been filed against a Winfield High School student for pouring urine into an ice machine April 30.Tyler Eugene Conklin, 18, a senior, is charged with endangering the food supply, a class A nonperson misdemeanor. The penalty is one year in the county jail and a fine of up to $2,500, according to the complaint filed this morning in Cowley County District Court in Winfield.Conklin has been "summoned" to appear in court at 9 a.m. May 27 as opposed to being arrested and having to post a bond to be released from the county jail.The single count complaint alleges that Conklin unlawfully and knowingly exposed a processed food to a contaminate, to-wit: ice. The machine produced ice used at a tennis match.Conklin did not return to school. School officials will not make an announcement whether he will be allowed to participate in commencement activities."He is still a student and that is a disciplinary issue," spokesperson KayLynn Smith said Wednesday.
2008-05-27 10:50:30