Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Is Induction Charging the Future of FMCG Packaging?
Retail marketing is going to be taking a huge leap forward if new technology recently showcased becomes part of the consumer shopping experience in the next few years.
A company called Fulton Innovation have developed technology that uses induction power to create light up packaging for food packaging, demonstrating this on cereal packets. The products were showcased at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and wowed spectators. The retail marketing world is extremely excited by this jump forward in technology as it presents the opportunity to not only create dazzling, eye-catching displays, but also to use the induction technology to give battery-free demonstrations.
Induction technology can power toys to play on their own as displays, an example was shown with a pack of batteries charging themselves on an induction shelf, ready to be bought and used immediately. What's outstanding is the way that this technology can be used within food packaging. A packet of soup which has a heating coil built in is able to cook the soup once placed on an induction shelf, perfectly and to the manufacturers recommendations.
Fulton Innovation are confident that this technology is not just a gimmick and that it will move forward packaging design. This is definitely something that can push forward shop display units and it's only a matter of time before you see it being used by some of the most forward-thinking consumer brands. The technology has a lot of potential as well; information can be embedded in the products printed circuit. This can then be downloaded by consumers to get the freshness date and nutritional information. When used online this information can supply info about inventory ingredients and the even produce recipe suggestions. As well as being of benefit to the consumer, stores can also benefit from this new technology. Product quantities can be tracked, expiration dates monitored and new stock automatically ordered when supplies are low.
Although still in its infancy there is a huge amount of potential for this kind of technology. It runs on 80% efficiency and at the moment does not look like it will be outside of the big brand's price range. But the first brands that do jump onto this new technology for packaging and point of purchase displays are sure to get extra sales and also lots of press just on the novelty factor alone. It's going to be an interesting one to watch and the consumer reaction will show just how successful this could prove to be.
About us: The SPS Group are a group of companies specialising in retail marketing. We design and manufacture complete and effective point of purchase displays for brands and retailers such as shop display units, resulting in more products sold by our customers.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Building Simple Electronic Projects Makes Learning Basic Electronic Theory and Skills Fun
There are two schools of thought when it comes to teaching electronics. The first school of thought is that it is important to develop a solid foundation in basic electronic theory before tackling any hands-on activities. The other school favors the hands-on approach that combines learning theory while conducting experiments and while building practical projects. Personally, I favor the latter approach and I have incorporated it in all the Adult Ed classes that I have taught over the years. Building simple electronics projects allows the student to see electronic theory in action, and it allows them to develop essential skills like soldering, disordering, working with pc (printed circuit) boards, etc.
Electronics is a hobby that the whole family can enjoy. Nevertheless, before tackling your dream project, you need to learn some basic theory, develop some practical skills, and build up your electronics workshop. One of the first skills you will need to learn is how to properly solder and unsolder electronic components because components and pc boards can be damaged if it is not done properly. Using excessive amounts of heat can loosen the copper traces on a pc board and destroy components like diodes and transistors. The good news is that soldering is an easy skill to master. Carl's AK-100 Learn to Solder Kit is one of those simple electronics projects that not only teach you how to solder, it teaches you another essential skill, how to read color codes, while building a working electronic siren. This kit also provides you with all the tools and supplies you will need to handle any basic soldering job that you will encounter in assembling any electronic kit. The good news is that it will cost you less than $20 and applicable S & H costs.
After you have mastered the art of soldering and after having added a professional grade 30-watt soldering iron and a pair of diagonal pliers to your tool collection, you are ready to tackle another project. Why not surprise your lady with a custom-built music box for Christmas. Well you can buy the box and then install the electronic playback unit that you have built from a kit. Carl's Music Box kit is another of those simple electronics projects that allows you to practice the skills that you have already learned while developing new skills and mastering new theory. You can select any one of a dozen romantic tunes for it to play when your loved one opens the box or you can set it to cycle through all twelve tunes. Again, you can build this kit for less than $20, of course that does not include the cost of the jewelry box that you install it in.
The fun has just begun. Enjoy your newfound hobby of building simple electronics projects. Carl's is just one o many online sources for electronic kits, tools, and supplies. A simple Google search will turn up hundreds.
Wendy Pan is an accomplished niche website developer and author.
To learn more about simple electronics projects [http://electronickitsforamateurs.info/building-simple-electronic-projects-makes-learning-basic-electronic-theory-and-skills-fun], please visit Electronic Kits for Amateurs [http://electronickitsforamateurs.info] for current articles and discussions.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Electronic Music History and Today's Best Modern Proponents!
Electronic music history pre-dates the rock and roll era by decades. Most of us were not even on this planet when it began its often obscure, under-appreciated and misunderstood development. Today, this 'other worldly' body of sound which began close to a century ago, may no longer appear strange and unique as new generations have accepted much of it as mainstream, but it's had a bumpy road and, in finding mass audience acceptance, a slow one.
Many musicians - the modern proponents of electronic music - developed a passion for analogue synthesizers in the late 1970's and early 1980's with signature songs like Gary Numan's breakthrough, 'Are Friends Electric?'. It was in this era that these devices became smaller, more accessible, more user friendly and more affordable for many of us. In this article I will attempt to trace this history in easily digestible chapters and offer examples of today's best modern proponents.
To my mind, this was the beginning of a new epoch. To create electronic music, it was no longer necessary to have access to a roomful of technology in a studio or live. Hitherto, this was solely the domain of artists the likes of Kraftwerk, whose arsenal of electronic instruments and custom built gadgetry the rest of us could only have dreamed of, even if we could understand the logistics of their functioning. Having said this, at the time I was growing up in the 60's & 70's, I nevertheless had little knowledge of the complexity of work that had set a standard in previous decades to arrive at this point.
The history of electronic music owes much to Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007). Stockhausen was a German Avante Garde composer and a pioneering figurehead in electronic music from the 1950's onwards, influencing a movement that would eventually have a powerful impact upon names such as Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Brain Eno, Cabaret Voltaire, Depeche Mode, not to mention the experimental work of the Beatles' and others in the 1960's. His face is seen on the cover of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", the Beatles' 1967 master Opus. Let's start, however, by traveling a little further back in time.
The Turn of the 20th Century
Time stood still for this stargazer when I originally discovered that the first documented, exclusively electronic, concerts were not in the 1970's or 1980's but in the 1920's!
The first purely electronic instrument, the Theremin, which is played without touch, was invented by Russian scientist and cellist, Lev Termen (1896-1993), circa 1919.
In 1924, the Theremin made its concert debut with the Leningrad Philharmonic. Interest generated by the theremin drew audiences to concerts staged across Europe and Britain. In 1930, the prestigious Carnegie Hall in New York, experienced a performance of classical music using nothing but a series of ten theremins. Watching a number of skilled musicians playing this eerie sounding instrument by waving their hands around its antennae must have been so exhilarating, surreal and alien for a pre-tech audience!
For those interested, check out the recordings of Theremin virtuoso Clara Rockmore (1911-1998). Lithuanian born Rockmore (Reisenberg) worked with its inventor in New York to perfect the instrument during its early years and became its most acclaimed, brilliant and recognized performer and representative throughout her life.
In retrospect Clara, was the first celebrated 'star' of genuine electronic music. You are unlikely to find more eerie, yet beautiful performances of classical music on the Theremin. She's definitely a favorite of mine!
Electronic Music in Sci-Fi, Cinema and Television
Unfortunately, and due mainly to difficulty in skill mastering, the Theremin's future as a musical instrument was short lived. Eventually, it found a niche in 1950's Sci-Fi films. The 1951 cinema classic "The Day the Earth Stood Still", with a soundtrack by influential American film music composer Bernard Hermann (known for Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho", etc.), is rich with an 'extraterrestrial' score using two Theremins and other electronic devices melded with acoustic instrumentation.
Using the vacuum-tube oscillator technology of the Theremin, French cellist and radio telegraphist, Maurice Martenot (1898-1980), began developing the Ondes Martenot (in French, known as the Martenot Wave) in 1928.
Employing a standard and familiar keyboard which could be more easily mastered by a musician, Martenot's instrument succeeded where the Theremin failed in being user-friendly. In fact, it became the first successful electronic instrument to be used by composers and orchestras of its period until the present day.
It is featured on the theme to the original 1960's TV series "Star Trek", and can be heard on contemporary recordings by the likes of Radiohead and Brian Ferry.
The expressive multi-timbral Ondes Martenot, although monophonic, is the closest instrument of its generation I have heard which approaches the sound of modern synthesis.
"Forbidden Planet", released in 1956, was the first major commercial studio film to feature an exclusively electronic soundtrack... aside from introducing Robbie the Robot and the stunning Anne Francis! The ground-breaking score was produced by husband and wife team Louis and Bebe Barron who, in the late 1940's, established the first privately owned recording studio in the USA recording electronic experimental artists such as the iconic John Cage (whose own Avante Garde work challenged the definition of music itself!).
The Barrons are generally credited for having widening the application of electronic music in cinema. A soldering iron in one hand, Louis built circuitry which he manipulated to create a plethora of bizarre, 'unearthly' effects and motifs for the movie. Once performed, these sounds could not be replicated as the circuit would purposely overload, smoke and burn out to produce the desired sound result.
Consequently, they were all recorded to tape and Bebe sifted through hours of reels edited what was deemed usable, then re-manipulated these with delay and reverberation and creatively dubbed the end product using multiple tape decks.
In addition to this laborious work method, I feel compelled to include that which is, arguably, the most enduring and influential electronic Television signature ever: the theme to the long running 1963 British Sci-Fi adventure series, "Dr. Who". It was the first time a Television series featured a solely electronic theme. The theme to "Dr. Who" was created at the legendary BBC Radiophonic Workshop using tape loops and test oscillators to run through effects, record these to tape, then were re-manipulated and edited by another Electro pioneer, Delia Derbyshire, interpreting the composition of Ron Grainer.
As you can see, electronic music's prevalent usage in vintage Sci-Fi was the principle source of the general public's perception of this music as being 'other worldly' and 'alien-bizarre sounding'. This remained the case till at least 1968 with the release of the hit album "Switched-On Bach" performed entirely on a Moog modular synthesizer by Walter Carlos (who, with a few surgical nips and tucks, subsequently became Wendy Carlos).
The 1970's expanded electronic music's profile with the break through of bands like Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream, and especially the 1980's when it found more mainstream acceptance.
The Mid 1900's: Musique Concrete
In its development through the 1900's, electronic music was not solely confined to electronic circuitry being manipulated to produce sound. Back in the 1940's, a relatively new German invention - the reel-to-reel tape recorder developed in the 1930's - became the subject of interest to a number of Avante Garde European composers, most notably the French radio broadcaster and composer Pierre Schaeffer (1910-1995) who developed a montage technique he called Musique Concrete.
Musique Concrete (meaning 'real world' existing sounds as opposed to artificial or acoustic ones produced by musical instruments) broadly involved the splicing together of recorded segments of tape containing 'found' sounds - natural, environmental, industrial and human - and manipulating these with effects such as delay, reverb, distortion, speeding up or slowing down of tape-speed (varispeed), reversing, etc.
Stockhausen actually held concerts utilizing his Musique Concrete works as backing tapes (by this stage electronic as well as 'real world' sounds were used on the recordings) on top of which live instruments would be performed by classical players responding to the mood and motifs they were hearing!
Musique Concrete had a wide impact not only on Avante Garde and effects libraries, but also on the contemporary music of the 1960's and 1970's. Important works to check are the Beatles' use of this method in ground-breaking tracks like 'Tomorrow Never Knows', 'Revolution No. 9' and 'Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite', as well as Pink Floyd albums "Umma Gumma", "Dark Side of the Moon" and Frank Zappa's "Lumpy Gravy". All used tape cut-ups and home-made tape loops often fed live into the main mixdown.
Today this can be performed with simplicity using digital sampling, but yesterday's heroes labored hours, days and even weeks to perhaps complete a four minute piece! For those of us who are contemporary musicians, understanding the history of electronic music helps in appreciating the quantum leap technology has taken in the recent period. But these early innovators, these pioneers - of which there are many more down the line - and the important figures they influenced that came before us, created the revolutionary groundwork that has become our electronic musical heritage today and for this I pay them homage!
1950's: The First Computer and Synth Play Music
Moving forward a few years to 1957 and enter the first computer into the electronic mix. As you can imagine, it wasn't exactly a portable laptop device but consumed a whole room and user friendly wasn't even a concept. Nonetheless creative people kept pushing the boundaries. One of these was Max Mathews (1926 -) from Bell Telephone Laboratories, New Jersey, who developed Music 1, the original music program for computers upon which all subsequent digital synthesis has its roots based. Mathews, dubbed the 'Father of Computer Music', using a digital IBM Mainframe, was the first to synthesize music on a computer.
In the climax of Stanley Kubrik's 1968 movie '2001: A Space Odyssey', use is made of a 1961 Mathews' electronic rendition of the late 1800's song 'Daisy Bell'. Here the musical accompaniment is performed by his programmed mainframe together with a computer-synthesized human 'singing' voice technique pioneered in the early 60's. In the movie, as HAL the computer regresses, 'he' reverts to this song, an homage to 'his' own origins.
1957 also witnessed the first advanced synth, the RCA Mk II Sound Synthesizer (an improvement on the 1955 original). It also featured an electronic sequencer to program music performance playback. This massive RCA Synth was installed, and still remains, at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, New York, where the legendary Robert Moog worked for a while. Universities and Tech laboratories were the main home for synth and computer music experimentation in that early era.
1960's: The Dawning of The Age of Moog
The logistics and complexity of composing and even having access to what were, until then, musician unfriendly synthesizers, led to a demand for more portable playable instruments. One of the first to respond, and definitely the most successful, was Robert Moog (1934-2005). His playable synth employed the familiar piano style keyboard.
Moog's bulky telephone-operators' cable plug-in type of modular synth was not one to be transported and set up with any amount of ease or speed! But it received an enormous boost in popularity with the success of Walter Carlos, as previously mentioned, in 1968. His LP (Long Player) best seller record "Switched-On Bach" was unprecedented because it was the first time an album appeared of fully synthesized music, as opposed to experimental sound pieces.
The album was a complex classical music performance with various multi-tracks and overdubs necessary, as the synthesizer was only monophonic! Carlos also created the electronic score for "A Clockwork Orange", Stanley Kubrik's disturbing 1972 futuristic film.
From this point, the Moog synth is prevalent on a number of late 1960's contemporary albums. In 1967 the Monkees' "Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd" became the first commercial pop album release to feature the modular Moog. In fact, singer/drummer Mickey Dolenz purchased one of the very first units sold.
It wasn't until the early 1970's, however, when the first Minimoog appeared that interest seriously developed amongst musicians. This portable little unit with a fat sound had a significant impact becoming part of live music kit for many touring musicians for years to come. Other companies such as Sequential Circuits, Roland and Korg began producing their own synths, giving birth to a music subculture.
I cannot close the chapter on the 1960's, however, without reference to the Mellotron. This electronic-mechanical instrument is often viewed as the primitive precursor to the modern digital sampler.
Developed in early 1960's Britain and based on the Chamberlin (a cumbersome US-designed instrument from the previous decade), the Mellotron keyboard triggered pre-recorded tapes, each key corresponding to the equivalent note and pitch of the pre-loaded acoustic instrument.
The Mellotron is legendary for its use on the Beatles' 1966 song 'Strawberry Fields Forever'. A flute tape-bank is used on the haunting introduction played by Paul McCartney.
The instrument's popularity burgeoned and was used on many recordings of the era such as the immensely successful Moody Blues epic 'Nights in White Satin'. The 1970's saw it adopted more and more by progressive rock bands. Electronic pioneers Tangerine Dream featured it on their early albums.
With time and further advances in microchip technology though, this charming instrument became a relic of its period.
1970's: The Birth of Vintage Electronic Bands
The early fluid albums of Tangerine Dream such as "Phaedra" from 1974 and Brian Eno's work with his self-coined 'ambient music' and on David Bowie's "Heroes" album, further drew interest in the synthesizer from both musicians and audience.
Kraftwerk, whose 1974 seminal album "Autobahn" achieved international commercial success, took the medium even further adding precision, pulsating electronic beats and rhythms and sublime synth melodies. Their minimalism suggested a cold, industrial and computerized-urban world. They often utilized vocoders and speech synthesis devices such as the gorgeously robotic 'Speak and Spell' voice emulator, the latter being a children's learning aid!
While inspired by the experimental electronic works of Stockhausen, as artists, Kraftwerk were the first to successfully combine all the elements of electronically generated music and noise and produce an easily recognizable song format. The addition of vocals in many of their songs, both in their native German tongue and English, helped earn them universal acclaim becoming one of the most influential contemporary music pioneers and performers of the past half-century.
Kraftwerk's 1978 gem 'Das Modell' hit the UK number one spot with a reissued English language version, 'The Model', in February 1982, making it one of the earliest Electro chart toppers!
Ironically, though, it took a movement that had no association with EM (Electronic Music) to facilitate its broader mainstream acceptance. The mid 1970's punk movement, primarily in Britain, brought with it a unique new attitude: one that gave priority to self-expression rather than performance dexterity and formal training, as embodied by contemporary progressive rock musicians. The initial aggression of metallic punk transformed into a less abrasive form during the late 1970's: New Wave. This, mixed with the comparative affordability of many small, easy to use synthesizers, led to the commercial synth explosion of the early 1980's.
A new generation of young people began to explore the potential of these instruments and began to create soundscapes challenging the prevailing perspective of contemporary music. This didn't arrive without battle scars though. The music industry establishment, especially in its media, often derided this new form of expression and presentation and was anxious to consign it to the dustbin of history.
1980's: The First Golden Era of Electronic Music for the Masses
Gary Numan became arguably the first commercial synth megastar with the 1979 "Tubeway Army" hit 'Are Friends Electric?'. The Sci-Fi element is not too far away once again. Some of the imagery is drawn from the Science Fiction classic, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?". The 1982 hit film "Blade Runner" was also based on the same book.
Although 'Are Friends Electric?' featured conventional drum and bass backing, its dominant use of Polymoogs gives the song its very distinctive sound. The recording was the first synth-based release to achieve number one chart status in the UK during the post-punk years and helped usher in a new genre. No longer was electronic and/or synthesizer music consigned to the mainstream sidelines. Exciting!
Further developments in affordable electronic technology placed electronic squarely in the hands of young creators and began to transform professional studios.
Designed in Australia in 1978, the Fairlight Sampler CMI became the first commercially available polyphonic digital sampling instrument but its prohibitive cost saw it solely in use by the likes of Trevor Horn, Stevie Wonder and Peter Gabriel. By mid-decade, however, smaller, cheaper instruments entered the market such as the ubiquitous Akai and Emulator Samplers often used by musicians live to replicate their studio-recorded sounds. The Sampler revolutionized the production of music from this point on.
In most major markets, with the qualified exception of the US, the early 1980's was commercially drawn to electro-influenced artists. This was an exciting era for many of us, myself included. I know I wasn't alone in closeting the distorted guitar and amps and immersing myself into a new universe of musical expression - a sound world of the abstract and non traditional.
At home, Australian synth based bands Real Life ('Send Me An Angel', "Heartland" album), Icehouse ('Hey Little Girl') and Pseudo Echo ('Funky Town') began to chart internationally, and more experimental electronic outfits like Severed Heads and SPK also developed cult followings overseas.
But by mid-decade the first global electronic wave lost its momentum amidst resistance fomented by an unrelenting old school music media. Most of the artists that began the decade as predominantly electro-based either disintegrated or heavily hybrid their sound with traditional rock instrumentation.
The USA, the largest world market in every sense, remained in the conservative music wings for much of the 1980's. Although synth-based records did hit the American charts, the first being Human League's 1982 US chart topper 'Don't You Want Me Baby?', on the whole it was to be a few more years before the American mainstream embraced electronic music, at which point it consolidated itself as a dominant genre for musicians and audiences alike, worldwide.
1988 was somewhat of a watershed year for electronic music in the US. Often maligned in the press in their early years, it was Depeche Mode that unintentionally - and mostly unaware - spearheaded this new assault. From cult status in America for much of the decade, their new high-play rotation on what was now termed Modern Rock radio resulted in mega stadium performances. An Electro act playing sold out arenas was not common fare in the USA at that time!
In 1990, fan pandemonium in New York to greet the members at a central record shop made TV news, and their "Violator" album outselling Madonna and Prince in the same year made them a US household name. Electronic music was here to stay, without a doubt!
1990's Onward: The Second Golden Era of Electronic Music for the Masses
Before our 'star music' secured its hold on the US mainstream, and while it was losing commercial ground elsewhere throughout much of the mid 1980's, Detroit and Chicago became unassuming laboratories for an explosion of Electronic Music which would see out much of the 1990's and onwards. Enter Techno and House.
Detroit in the 1980's, a post-Fordism US industrial wasteland, produced the harder European influenced Techno. In the early to mid 80's, Detroiter Juan Atkins, an obsessive Kraftwerk fan, together with Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson - using primitive, often borrowed equipment - formed the backbone of what would become, together with House, the predominant music club-culture throughout the world. Heavily referenced artists that informed early Techno development were European pioneers such as the aforementioned Kraftwerk, as well as Yello and British Electro acts the likes of Depeche Mode, Human League, Heaven 17, New Order and Cabaret Voltaire.
Chicago, a four-hour drive away, simultaneously saw the development of House. The name is generally considered to be derived from "The Warehouse" where various DJ-Producers featured this new music amalgam. House has its roots in 1970's disco and, unlike Techno, usually has some form of vocal. I think Giorgio Moroder's work in the mid 70's with Donna Summer, especially the song 'I Feel Love', is pivotal in appreciating the 70's disco influences upon burgeoning Chicago House.
A myriad of variants and sub genres have developed since - crossing the Atlantic, reworked and back again - but in many ways the popular success of these two core forms revitalized the entire Electronic landscape and its associated social culture. Techno and House helped to profoundly challenge mainstream and Alternative Rock as the preferred listening choice for a new generation: a generation who has grown up with electronic music and accepts it as a given. For them, it is music that has always been.
The history of electronic music continues to be written as technology advances and people's expectations of where music can go continues to push it forward, increasing its vocabulary and lexicon.
Alien Skin is one modern proponent of electronic music and if you are keen to explore the development of this art form and how it has successfully splintered into different genres, in this case atmospheric, eerie & cinematic dark pop, download the latest couple of Alien Skin singles for free. You may do so by going to http://www.alienskinmusic.net/free
How to Protect Your Electronics From Heat
1.0 INTRODUCTION
In our modern society, we have become very dependent upon our electronic gadgets and appliances. Most households (in the U.S) have Personal Computers with an Internet Connection. If we solely looked at the Personal Computer, we do a lot of thing with this product.
- We communicate with our friends, family members and business associates.
- We conduct financial transactions (e.g., buy or sell products on line)
- We create all kinds of documents (which are very important to our personal and business finances/operations)
- We store and play music (in the form of *.mp3 files)
- We (increasingly) store pictures that have sentimental value (and could be tough to replace if lost).
For many people, anytime their "computer dies", it becomes a major inconvenience in their lives. If you were to look at some other electronic systems that we typically have in our homes, such as
- DVD Players
- Gaming Systems (e.g., Playstation, X-Box, Nintendo, Wii, etc.)
- Audio Entertainment Equipment
- Video Recording Equipment (for you people that like to post videos on YouTube.
- Appliances (such as Central Air Conditioning Systems, Heat Pumps, Microwave Ovens, etc.)
- HDTVs (e.g., LCD or Plasma)
All of these items entertain us, enlighten us and provide us with comfort. These products each require a considerable amount of money to purchase. Further, repairing and/or replacing these products is also quite expensive. Hence, I am quite amazed that people do not do more to protect their investment (in these electronic systems) and do whatever they can to extend the operating life time of these products.
In general, there are three (3) different destructive mechanisms that will either destroy or greatly reduce the operational life-time of your electronics. These three destructive mechanisms are
- Heat
- Electrical Surge/Spike Events, and
- Electrical Noise
In this article, we are going to talk about HEAT. As we discuss Heat, we will cover the following topics.
- How is Heat destructive to your electronics?
- What can we do about heat - How to Protect Your Electronics from Heat and Extend the Operating Life of our Electronics?
2.0 HOW IS HEAT DESTRUCTIVE TO YOUR ELECTRONICS
Heat is an artifact of electronics. All electronic systems generate heat. Electronic systems accept electrical power (current and voltage) from the power line (via the electrical outlet). The electronic system uses a portion of this electrical power to perform work (e.g., the function that you want it to perform, e.g., play a DVD, cook a bag of popcorn, etc). The remaining portion of this electrical power is converted into heat.
However, heat is also an enemy of electronic systems. Few things are more effective in reducing the operating life-time of an electronic system, than raising the operating temperature of the electronic circuitry within your electronic system. If you were to speak with an Electronics Device Reliability expert, he/she would tell you that for every 10 degrees (Celsius) that you raise the operating temperature of an electrical device; you reduce the operating lifetime of that device by 50%. The impact of heat (in shortening the operating life) of your electronics is "huge".
3.0 WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT HEAT?
As I mentioned earlier, all electronics generates heat. There is no way to prevent electronics from generating the very thing that can destroy it. However, there are a couple of things that you can do to prevent this heat from doing so much damage.
1. You can work to remove this heat from the electronics (as quickly as it generates it), or
2. You can do things to try to help the electronics to not generate so much heat in the first place.
I will address each of these approaches below.
3.1. REMOVING HEAT FROM THE ELECTRONICS
Many consumer electronic systems were designed with "Heat Removal" in mind. Some of these electronic systems (like desktop computers) contain "internal fans". These fans were designed into these systems so that they could blow air through the area in which the system electronics resides. The intent behind having these fans to is blow the heat away from these electronics and to help keep them cool.
Other electronic systems contain "vents" (in their outer case) to provide an "escape path" for heat. Many of these vents are located at the top or in the "back-end" of the electrical system. On this basis, I have the following recommendations to permit the removal of heat from your electronics.
Make sure and keep papers, books, dust and other items from "blocking" the vents of these systems.
Leaving these items on top of your (DVD Player for example) will block the vents, and will not allow for heat to escape from your DVD Player. This will cause the temperature (surrounding the electronics) within your DVD player to rise; which will (in-turn) reduce the operating lifetime of your DVD player.
Make sure that the "back-end" of the electronic system is not "butt-up" against the wall or an entertainment cabinet.
It is important to make sure that there is sufficient air/ventilation space between the vents (in the back end) and the wall/cabinet to allow for Heat Removal.
Make sure and have your appliances (like your Central Air Conditioning system or Heat Pump) serviced.
Whenever these appliances are serviced, the service professional will do various things (like clean out dust and debris from ventilation path), therefore maintaining an unobstructed path for heat to escape from these systems.
Make sure that the fan (inside some of your systems) is working.
If this fan stops working, then you need to get it repaired quickly. Failure to do this will result in your electronic system having an early meeting with the "grim reaper" or an electronic waste disposal site.
3.2 REDUCE THE AMOUNT OF HEAT THAT THE ELECTRONICS GENERATE IN THE FIRST PLACE
Another approach to protecting your electronics from heat is to take steps to try to prevent your electronics from generating excessive heat in the first place. The amount of heat that is generated within an electronic system is often referred to as being related to the following expression for resistive loss: I^2XR, where:
- I represents the amount of current flowing through an electronic system and
- R represents the load impedance (or resistance) within this electronic system; and
- I^2 denotes " I being raised to the 2nd Power, or "I-squared"
From this mathematical expression, you can see that if we were able to reduce the amount of current flowing through an electrical system, this would certainly help to reduce the amount of heat generated within this electrical system.
QUESTION: How can you reduce the current that an electrical system uses? Doesn't it require a certain amount of current to do its job? The answer to this question is "Yes", an electrical system does require a certain amount of current and voltage (electrical power) to do its job. However, it doesn't need to use anymore current than that. Hence, we recommend that you use TVSS (Transient Voltage Surge Suppressors) components in order to reduce the current level (flowing into your electrical system).
Now, I know that some of you may be "scratching your heads" and wondering, "How in the world will this reduce the amount of current flowing into my electronic system" and (in turn reduce the amount of heat that it generates)? The answer is this: Anytime there is a large amount of electrical noise or spikes, or other forms of distortion in the electrical voltage and current in the power line, this also results in the flow of additional current into your electrical system. By using the TVSS components, you are eliminating this excessive current (due to noise, glitches, etc.) from the "power line" current, flowing into your electronic system.
In this case, you have now accomplished the following:
1. You have decreased the amount of current flowing into your electronic system, (which is the "I" in the expression "I^2 X R") - which helps a lot to reduce the amount of heat that the system generates.
2. By reducing the heat that the electrical system generates, you are now lowering the ambient (or surrounding) temperature in which your electronics operates.
3. Lowering the ambient temperature will often times also reduce the load impedance/resistance in your electronic system (e.g., the "R" in this expression) as well.
QUESTION: How can you reduce the load impedance/resistance in an electronic system? Isn't that a design feature of the electronic system? The answer to this question is "Yes it is". You cannot change the load impedance/resistance by very much. But, the reason why lowering the ambient temperature will also reduce the load impedance/resistance is that many resistors have (what is called) a positive temperature coefficient. This means that as the ambient temperature goes up, does the resistor value of this particular resistor.
However, the converse is also true. If you were to lower the ambient (or surrounding) temperature, then you would also lower the resistor value as well.
SO LET'S RECAP THE BENEFITS OF USING TVSS COMPONENTS:
- Using TVSS components lower the amount of current flowing through your electronic system.
- Lowering this current reduces the amount of heat that the electronic system generates.
- This lowers the ambient temperature for the system electronics.
- Lowering the ambient temperature also lowers the load impedance/resistance (R) within the electronic system.
Both the reduction of current (and the resulting reduction of the load impedance) would serve to significantly reduce the amount of heat that the electronics system will generates.
4.0 OTHER ARTICLES IN THIS SERIES
Other articles in this series are listed below.
- How to Protect Your Electronics from Electrical Surge/Spike Events
- How to Protect Your Electronics from Electrical Noise
5.0 CONCLUSIONS
In this article, we spoke about "heat" and how effective it is in reducing the operating life-time of your electronics. Heat is one of the three (3) destructive mechanisms that will either destroy or shorten the operational life-time of your electronics. The remaining two mechanisms are
- Electrical Surge/Spike Events, and
- Electrical Noise
We have also described some guidelines on how to protect your electronics from heat, and to extend the operating life-time of your electronics. In particular, we mentioned the following approaches:
1. Use (and do not thwart) the "Heat Removal" features of your electronic systems
- Make sure that Internal Fans are working and
- Make sure that vents are not blocks and that there is plenty of air space around the Electronic system to allow for the escape of heat.
2. Use TVSS (Transient Voltage Surge Suppressor) components to regulate the amount of voltage (and in turn) current that is flowing into your electronic systems: Minimizes heat generation due to resistive loss.
Do you wish to learn more about approaches to protect your electronics from the affects of heat, electrical surge events and electrical noise?
Click here to learn more about an approach to protect your electronics from all three of these destructive mechanisms and extend the operating life of your electronics.
Darrell E. Smith has more than 25 years of experience as an Electrical Engineer. He is also an experienced Article Marketer and a Distributor for a Company that Manufacturer's "Healthy Living/Green Technology Products".
Chemical Reactions And Energy, Electron Pairs, Covalent Bonds, Acids, Bases, Salts
Modern chemistry attempts to produce new materials which through their various characteristics and properties can be better used for all types of purposes. One prerequisite of choosing the necessary chemical reactions necessary to synthesise some new product is a detailed knowledge of the structure of the reactants and their characteristic properties, including some knowledge of the course of the chemical reactions and the mechanisms which make them go and influence them.
A chemical reaction is a change in molecules and elements which results in new molecules with new properties being formed. The course of a reaction is described by a chemical equation. The materials which react together are called reactants; the materials which are formed in a reaction are called products. A reaction equation, or a chemical equation, is used to abbreviate and symbolise a chemical reaction. The reactants, the materials which begin a chemical reaction, are written on the left side of a chemical equation, in front of an arrow, and the products are written on the right side of this arrow:
Fe(s) + S(s) ® FeS(s)
Iron (in the carbon group) and sulphur (same group) react to produce iron sulphide.
In many reactions, the state of matter of the materials changes. For this reason, whether the material, either reactant or product, is in the solid (s), liquid (l), or gaseous (g) state is indicated with the corresponding lower case letter, in parentheses as above. If a reaction results in the amount of products being less than reactants, we call this a combination, or synthesis reaction. If there are more products than reactants, this is a dissociation, or breakdown reaction.
Energy and Chemical Reactions
Elements try to attain a state which is the most natural or most energetically advantageous for them, that is, one where the outermost electron shells are filled. For this reason, electrons are very often transferred between atoms, either donated or accepted. Some elements donate their electrons more easily, while some elements accept electrons more readily. In extreme cases, the electrons of one atom are completely transferred to an atom of another or the same element. But most of the time, electrons are not completely transferred, but rather shared between two atoms, though those electrons may be attracted to one of the atoms more strongly than the other. This is a chemical bond.
The most ideal state for atoms and molecules is always that state with the lowest energy. In most chemical reactions, then, the energy that was included in higher-energy bonds is released to the surroundings. But in order for such an energy-releasing reaction to occur, the reactants must be infused with enough energy to break the original bonds and allow the formation of new ones. Most of the time, a certain amount of energy has to be added to the system (usually in the form of heat), to start the reaction, or to make it go. This energy is called the activation energy of a reaction.
In order for new compounds to be formed, the bonds of the reactants must first be broken. An activation energy must be introduced into the system. This helps in the formation of new bonds which are more energetically favourable for the atoms and molecules involved in the reaction. If a reaction evolves more energy than was necessary to begin it (activation energy), this reaction proceeds on its own, resulting in the release of some energy to the surroundings.
This is an exothermic reaction. If, however, the energy released in forming new compounds is less than its activation energy, energy must be constantly added as the reaction proceeds. This type of reaction does not proceed on its own. It is an endothermic reaction.
The energy released can be in the form of heat, but it can be light or electricity, too. The variety of energetic phenomena released by chemical reactions is called heat of reaction.
Every chemical reaction goes at its own pace (reaction rate). Influencing this rate is very important in chemistry. The concentration of individual reactants and products can be determined, as can changes in heat and temperature. In gaseous state of matter reactions, reaction rate can be influenced by pressure, with higher pressures resulting in more rapid reactions. Reaction rate increases as the concentration of reactants increases, too. Greater temperature also causes reaction rate to rise. A rise of 10 Kelvin (= 10° C) causes reaction rate to double.
Reaction rate is also markedly influenced by the size of the surface on which reactants are allowed to react. In other words, if reactants are divided into smaller particles, a reaction proceeds more quickly than if reactants are left in bulk. Formation of Ions
In many compounds, atoms form what is called an ionic bond. In this type of bonding, electrons in one atom's outer shell are transferred from that atom to another, which accepts them. This is a complete transfer. The atom which accepts the electron or electrons completely fills its outer shell, thus attaining a noble gas electron configuration. The donor atom, the one which gives up its electrons, also attains a noble gas electron configuration (at a lower energy level) by emptying its most outer shell.
The transfer of negatively charged electrons leads to an excess of positively charged protons in the donor atom, thus forming an ion which is overall charged positively (cation). The second atom, the one which accepts the electron or electrons, becomes a negatively charged ion (anion). An ionic bond is based on the electrostatic attraction of two ions of opposite charges.
Salts make up a great percentage of the compounds which form ionic bonds. They are composed of atoms or molecules with a positive charge (cations) and the second half of an acid, which is a negatively charged anion. The reaction mechanism begins when an atom (or atoms) of hydrogen escape the acid, forming a positive ion. This positively charged hydrogen atom is replaced with another cation (or cations).
For example: HCl (hydrochloric acid) + NaOH (sodium hydroxide) = NaCl (table salt)+ H2O (water)
The valence of a salt is given by the number of hydrogen ions which are able to be transferred in a given reaction.
In the above reaction, just one hydrogen ion is replaced by one sodium ion, forming sodium chloride (table salt, NaCl). For this reason, table salt has one valence. Salts are soluble (able to dissolve) in water, and they have high melting and boiling points. Salts, when they are found in the solid state of matter, are crystalline in form.
Ionic compounds are usually spatially repeating molecules. In other words, they form crystals. Crystals can grow out of, or crystallise from, a saturated solution (from a solution which has exceeded its maximum solubility, where there is more salt than can be dissolved). Or, crystals can be grown from the transformation of an amorphic material (from a material without a regular crystalline structure).
What is the difference between a crystal and an amorphous material? Amorphous materials are not repeating, fixed, regular structures. On the other hand, crystalline structures have completely determined inner arrangements - their crystal lattice.
Every crystal has specific angles which together form the sides of that crystal. These repeat in a formation, with proportions which are highly specific.
Other types of bonds can be integrated into a crystal lattice, as its constituent parts. Crystals can be of various shapes and sizes. These varying crystalline structures, with their different forms and sizes, are what differentiates atoms, molecules and ions. It all depends on the exact geometric arrangement of a crystal, with its defined borders and in some cases sharp angles. The ideal crystal lattice is a thing of beauty, in which all of the points of the lattice are perfectly arranged in their natural places. In reality, however, such perfect crystals are quite rare. Most of the time, crystals which occur in nature are imperfect. Some points on the crystal lattice contain components which do not belong. Sometimes, the lattice is quite flawed.
The growth of a crystal or crystals is dependent on external factors, such as temperature, the natural speed of crystal growth, solution concentration, the amount of crystallising material and the presence, if any, of foreign material in the solution.
Crystals can be described with the help of two terms:
Proportion of Crystal and Type of Crystal
Agglomerates which appear from various materials can combine to form a complex, varied, imperfect crystalline structure.
Crystals can also be differentiated according to their crystal lattice. According to this criterion, there are simple crystals, in which individual points of the crystal lattice are occupied by parts of the same kind. The growth of a crystal can be imagined as a kind of regular swelling, on all sides, at its walls and edges. Besides those, there are complex crystals which are composed of multiple simple crystals.
Crystals can be investigated by structural analysis procedures. There are 7 basic types of crystal lattices and 7 other derivatives of these. All together, around 1000 crystalline structures are presently known.
Polymorphic crystals can appear in various forms. Materials which are formed from crystals can actually change their crystal lattice depending on temperature. Graphite (a component of pencil leads) and diamond are both modifications of the crystalline structure of the carbon atom ( C ). The differing characteristics come from differing attractions and forces between the various atoms.
An allotrope (allos from the Greek - different, trope - change) is a compound which is able to take on various forms.
Monotropes are those crystals that can be arranged in various ways, but only one of these is stable. The other forms, when they are present, tend to transform into this most stable form. Since temperature differences are not relevant to this situation, these transformations may not be considered as temperature based. While allotropic materials can be found in a variety of forms, monotropes, on the other hand, will sooner or later transform to one, most stable form.
Enantiotropes are those crystals which have the ability to change their crystal lattices as a function of temperature. As temperature rises or falls, these crystals change their crystalline arrangements. One lattice exists above a certain temperature, with another in place below that critical temperature. Most of the time, these critical temperatures are very high. Of interest are a number of forms of iron which are assumed during production.
Isomorphs are those substances which share the same crystalline structure, although they are completely different compounds.
One of the simplest crystalline structures is the one which characterises table salt (NaCl). Its structure is that of a cube which has at its corners ions of chlorine. Sodium ions are at the centres of the sides and in the centre of the cube.
Electron Pairs, Covalent Bonds
Bonds between atoms or in some cases molecules can be different. Paired, covalent bonds are found in non-metallic molecules. The atoms in the molecules of basic gases such as oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen are all joined together with covalent bonds. These types of bonds have atoms connected with the help of the electrons in the outermost shell. The result is the union of two electrons to form an electron pair. Negatively charged, bonded electrons are attracted to the positively charged nuclei of both atoms. Because both of the nuclei must now share the electrons, they stick together, joined by the union of their electrons, an electron pair.
Each of the two atoms, then, seemingly has one or more electron extra. The bond between the atoms is based on the attraction of the two nuclei of the atoms to the shared electron pair. The shared electrons belong to both atoms at the same time. All atoms, in whatever state they are found, have the tendency to want to fill their outer electron shells. In the hydrogen molecule (H2), each hydrogen atom has two electrons associated with it, in its one and only outermost shell. (An isolated hydrogen atom has only one electron.) When, however, two hydrogens are bonded together, they achieve the electron configuration of the second element, helium (He).
Covalent bonds are very stable, because the atoms involved in a covalently bonded compound fill their outermost shells completely, bringing the atoms to their most energetically desirable state. This type of electron arrangement is equivalent to that of a noble gas, because all of the noble gases have a stable electron configuration (filled outermost electron shell). Also, molecules of chlorine, oxygen and nitrogen can reach the stable electron configuration in their outermost shell - by bonding with another atom of their own kind. That is, two chlorines bonded together, two oxygens, two nitrogens.
In order to reach the noble gas electron configuration, it is often necessary to fill various spaces in the outermost electron shell. In this case, multiple electron pairs are needed to fill these "holes". In the oxygen molecule, two electron pairs are needed, with the nitrogen molecule three. This is necessary because all atoms taking part in these types of bonding reactions need either 2 electrons in their outermost shell (elements in the first energy level, or period, of the periodic table: H and He) or 8 (other groups of the periodic table which are at the right end). These atoms which have incomplete outermost electron shells must attract other electrons, from other atoms, to fill their shells completely. An atom like oxygen can join with two atoms, forming an electron pair with each of them, or it may join with one other atom to form two electron pairs with the one atom, called a double bond. There are also triple bonds. Carbon (C) is capable of forming single, double and triple bonds.
In a covalent bond, a shared electron pair in a molecule is attracted to both nuclei on both sides equally strongly, but only if the two atoms sharing that pair are the same. Attractive force depends on the charge of the atomic nucleus and on the amount of electrons in the atom's electron cloud. The ability to attract electrons by an element was called electronegativity (EN) by L. Pauling (American chemist).
The quantity electronegativity is defined as the comparative ability of an atom to be attracted to an individual atomic nucleus. In other words, the flourine atom attracts bonded electrons most strongly of all atoms. It was therefore assigned the highest electronegativity of all elements - 4.0. Electronegativity values of all the elements can be found in the periodic table. In every period, every horizontal row of the periodic table, electronegativity rises from left to right across the period, with rising number of protons, or atomic number. On the other hand, in the main groups, as we move down the periodic table from top to bottom, or vertically, electronegativity decreases. So, the element with the largest value of electronegativity must logically be found in the top right of the period table. Besides the noble gases, which have their outermost electron shells filled, and do not need electrons, the element which attracts electrons most readily is flourine (F), with a value of 4.0. At the other end of the periodic table, bottom left, are elements with the lowest electronegativity (Fr 0.7).
In compounds composed of two different atoms, an electron pair is not shared equally among the two. Instead, it is attracted to the two sides with different attractive force, based on the atoms' differing electronegativities. In the molecule hydrogen chloride (HCl), the hydrogen atom and the chlorine atom share one electron pair. But because of the greater size of the chlorine nucleus, this electron pair is more strongly attracted by the chlorine nucleus than by the hydrogen nucleus. In addition, the chlorine atom has another 6 electrons in its outermost shell. These are arranged into three electron pairs - all unbonded. For this reason, the chlorine atom has an overall negative charge to it, if only a partially negative charge. The hydrogen atom, on the other side, has the same value of partial positive charge. The molecule HCl, or hydrogen chloride, with its partial positive side (hydrogen) and its partial negative side (chlorine) is said to have a dipole, or dipole moment. This means that the one pair of shared electrons is not shared equally. In this case, the pair is closer to the chlorine atom. It is partially negatively charged because it now has more electrons than it has protons in its nucleus. Hydrogen, on the other side, has less electrons than it has protons, and is therefore positive. Bonded electrons are written as a dash, a short line between two element symbols, or between molecular chemical formulas. This type of designation is called a valence formula.
The electronegativity of an element is determined by the amount of protons it has in its nucleus, as well as the number of electrons it contains in its outermost shell. Thanks to the partial transfer of a bonded electron pair to the more electronegative atom in a molecule, that molecule can have a positive and negative side. These sides are called poles, and if they differ in a significant way, the molecule is said to have a dipole. The result is a molecule with one side positive, one side negative. This can, of course, affect neighbouring molecules, attracting or repelling them if they are partially charged. The water molecule has a partial negative charge, found on the oxygen atom. The two hydrogen atoms have a partial positive charge.
Both free electron pairs in the oxygen atom attract the centre of a partially positively charged neighbouring molecule with their electromagnetic attractive force. This type of bonding is called hydrogen bonding. Each molecule of water hydrogen bonds with other water molecules, aligning so as to produce a positive, negative repeating pattern. The positive side is hydrogen, the negative oxygen. This phenomenon, hydrogen bonding in water, explains water's high surface tension. This means that the molecules on the surface are weakly bonded to the rest of the liquid, by these hydrogen bonds. For that reason, water, even at relatively high temperatures, is still a liquid, whereas other similar molecules have already changed to the gaseous state.
Bonds between atoms can be depicted in various ways:
H : H formula with points, or dots, indicating electrons
H - H or with hydrogen chloride H Cl valence formula
H2 HCl chemical formula of the molecule
Acids, Bases, Salts
Intermolecular Forces
Most inorganic compounds are categorised as either acids, bases or salts. S. Arrhenius (Swedish physical chemist) came up with one of the most often used definitions for an acid.
According to that definition, acids are materials which when dissolved in water release hydrogen cations (atoms of hydrogen with a positive charge). Bases, on the other hand, are materials which release hydroxide anions (negatively charged compounds of one atom oxygen, one atom hydrogen) into solution when dissolved.
Salts are made of atoms or molecules, with one side positively charged, the other negatively charged.
They are formed from an acid when that acid gives up its hydrogen atoms with their positive charges, only to replace the hydrogen with the ion from a metal.
A number of acids and bases were known long before their chemical makeups and reaction mechanisms were known. As pure substances they are not distinguishable from each other. So, acids have to be dissolved in water in order for chemists to determine their characteristic properties. Acids begin to react when placed in water. In an aqueous solution the ions of an acid separate from each other, into a hydrogen cation and the corresponding anion. Both of these ions, free in the water, interact with it. In essence, water molecules surround the ions, creating what is called hydrated ions. So, a hydrogen ion does not remain isolated, but undergoes a hydration reaction to produce a positively charged "water" molecule, in the reaction H2 O + H+ = H3O+. These ions cause a solution to be acidic in character, and cause the colour of an indicator to change, indicating an excess of H3O+
ions in solution. (An indicator is a substance which can differentiate whether an acid or base is present in a solution.) In addition, ions in solution cause a solution to conduct electricity, or be conductive.
When a base is dissolved in water, positive ions are released into solution, and so are negatively charged hydroxide ions. A solution which contains hydroxide ions is a basic solution, or an alkaline solution. Just like with acids, the ions released into solution are hydrated, or surrounded by water. These solutions also conduct an electric current. Basic solutions also affect the colour of an indicator, and can produce basic salts when reacted with acids. Bases are basically lattices of ions. Their solids can also conduct an electric current.
According to the Brönsted-Lowry theory of acids and bases, any compound which releases a proton, or a hydrogen atom, into solution is an acid. Any compound which accepts a proton is considered a base. Solutions which contain dissolved bases and acids, because they release protons or hydroxide ions, conduct electricity.
The chemical process in which an electrical current runs through a solution is called an electrolysis. Bonds are broken in the process due to the electrolysis, with new substances being formed on the ends of the conductors, or electrodes.
Electrolysis reactions require the kinds of solutions which contain dissociated ions, allowing the solution to carry an electrical current.
During the electrolysis of an ionic solution, negatively charged ions (anions) migrate to the positively charged electrode (anode), while positively charged cations migrate to the negatively charged electrode, the cathode. In the case of an acidic or basic solution, positive ions migrate to the cathode (the end of the electrode with a negative pole), whereas the negative hydroxide ions swim to the anode (electrode with a positive pole). In these types of solutions (called electrolytic), there is no movement of electrons as in a crystal lattice, but rather movement of free swimming ions to the corresponding electrode. The number of ions is the determining factor as to whether, and how well, a solution conducts electricity.
The volume of hydrogen ions in a solution is measured as the value of the pH of a solution. The value of pH is the negative base ten logarithm giving the concentration of protons (hydrogen (H), measured from 0 to 14. A pH of O means that the concentration of hydrogen = 1, while a value of 14 means a concentration of 0.00000000000001. Solutions with a pH from 0-7 are acidic.
The acidic character of a solution decreases with rising pH. At a pH of 7, a solution is neutral. As pH rises from 7, so does the alkalinity of a solution. At a pH of 7, there are the same amount of hydrogen ions as hydroxide ions.
Indicators are used in order to determine the acidic or basic character of a reaction. These substances have to have the property of changing their colour in the presence of an acidic or basic solution. For example, litmus paper changes its colour to blue in a basic solution. In a neutral solution, it is pink. In a basic solution, it is red. Colour changes differ from one indicator to another, but are characteristic for one specific indicator. With the right choice of an indicator, pH can be fairly accurately determined.
The degree with which an acid releases hydrogen ions into solution depends on the concentration of an acid. The stronger an acid, the more protons it releases into solution, and the more negative ions as well. Two well-known strong acids are sulfuric acid and hydrochloric acid (HCl). Weak acids, on the other hand, do not release as many ions into solution. In other words, they do not dissociate as completely. Examples of weak acids include citric acid and acetic acid.
If we mix an acidic solution with an equally strong basic solution in the same proportions, the resulting solution will be neutral. This is called a neutralisation reaction. In a neutralisation reaction, hydrogen ions are neutralised by hydroxide ions - forming water - and a salt. Heat is also released during neutralisation reactions.
Many chemical reactions that seem not to be working or go at an extremely slow pace can be accelerated by addition of a small amount of some material. The material, called a catalyst, is added to the reactants. A reaction which requires a catalyst is said to be catalysed.
Catalysts take part in a reaction, but they are not used up by the reaction and are unchanged by the reaction. In the type of reaction which requires a catalyst, the reactants would react either too slowly or not at all. In other words, a catalyst gives the system a boost, an increase in activisation energy. The presence of a catalyst in a chemical reaction makes the reaction easier, or in some cases, possible at all: A catalyst takes part in a reaction by reacting with one of the original reactants to form a an intermediate product, which goes on to produce the required end product. One possibility is that one of the reactants, with the help of interaction with a catalyst, acquires new spatial dimensions or other characteristics which make it more reactive with another of the reactants. We differentiate between homogeneous catalysts, which are the same state of matter as the other reactants, and heterogeneous catalysts, where the catalyst is in a different state of matter.
This text was drawn from the Chemical Reactions and Energy, Electron Pairs, Covalent Bonds, Acids, Bases, Salts page, where you will find explanatory outlinks.
Translation Resources
Translated by KENAX Translation Service.
Publishing And Digital And Electronic Rights
The following publishing industry article addresses some of the legal issues arising for publishing lawyers, entertainment attorneys, authors, and others as a result of the prevalence of e-mail, the Internet, and so-called "digital" and "electronic publishing". As usual, publishing law generally and the law of the digital right and electronic right specifically, governing these commercial activities, has been slow to catch up to the activity itself. Yet most of the publishing industry "gray areas" can be resolved by imposing old common-sense interpretations upon new publishing lawyer and entertainment lawyer industry constructs, including the digital right and electronic right, and others. And if after reviewing this article you believe you have a non-jargonized handle on the distinction between "digital right" and "electronic right" in the publishing context, then I look forward to hearing from you and reading your article, too.
1. "Electronic Right[s]" And "Digital Right[s]" Are Not Self-Defining.
All publishing lawyers, entertainment attorneys, authors, and others must be very careful about the use of jargon - publishing industry jargon, or otherwise. Electronic and digital publishing is a recent phenomenon. Although as a publishing lawyer and entertainment attorney and unlike some others, I tend to use the phrase "electronic right" or even "digital right" in the singular number, there probably tends to be no single consensus as to what constitutes and collectively comprises the singular "electronic right" or "digital right". There has not been sufficient time for the publishing, media, or entertainment industries to fully crystallize accurate and complete definitions of phrases like "electronic publishing", "web publishing", "electronic right[s]", "e-rights", "digital rights", or "first electronic rights".
These phrases are therefore usually just assumed or, worse yet, just plain fudged. Anyone who suggests that these phrases alone are already self-defining, would be wrong.
Accordingly, anyone, including a publishing lawyer or paralegal representing a book publisher or entertainment lawyer representing a studio or producer, who says that an author should do - or not do - something in the realm of the "electronic right" or "digital right" because it is "industry-standard", should automatically be treated with suspicion and skepticism.
The fact of the matter is, this is a great era for authors as well as author-side publishing lawyers and entertainment attorneys, and they should seize the moment. The fact that "industry-standard" definitions of the electronic right and digital right have yet to fully crystallize, (if indeed they ever do), means that authors and author-side publishing lawyers and entertainment attorneys can take advantage of this moment in history.
Of course, authors can also be taken advantage of, too - particularly those not represented by a publishing lawyer or entertainment attorney. There is a long and unfortunate history of that happening, well prior to the advent of the electronic right and digital right. It has probably happened since the days of the Gutenberg Press.
Every author should be represented by a publishing lawyer, entertainment attorney, or other counsel before signing any publishing or other agreement, provided that their own economic resources will allow it. (But I am admittedly biased in that regard). Part of the publishing lawyer and entertainment attorney's function in representing the author, is to tease apart the different strands that collectively comprise the electronic right or digital right. This must be done with updated reference to current technology. If your advisor on this point is instead a family member with a Smith-Corona cartridge typewriter or a Commodore PET, rather than an entertainment attorney or publishing lawyer, then it may be time to seek a new advisor.
Even authors who cannot afford publishing lawyer or entertainment attorney counsel, however, should avoid agreeing in writing to give broad contractual grants to publishers of "electronic publishing" - or the "electronic right", or "electronic rights" or "digital rights", or the "digital right". Rather, in the words of "Tears For Fears", the author and author counsel had "better break it down again". Before agreeing to grant anyone the author's "digital right: or "electronic right", or any elements thereof, the author and his or her publishing lawyer and entertainment attorney need to make a list of all the possible and manifold electronic ways that the written work could be disseminated, exploited, or digitally or electronically otherwise used. Notice that the author's list will likely vary, month to month, given the fast pace of technological advancements. For example, these kinds of questions can be considered by the author and publishing lawyer and entertainment attorney alike:
Electronic Digital Right Question #1, Asked By The Publishing Lawyer/Entertainment Attorney To The Author: Can the work be published in whole or in part on the Internet? In the context of an "e-zine"? Otherwise? If so, how? For what purpose? Free to the reader? For a charge to the reader?
Electronic Digital Right Question #2, Asked By The Publishing Lawyer/Entertainment Attorney To The Author: Can the work be disseminated through private e-mail lists or "listservs"? Free to the reader? For a charge to the reader?
Electronic Digital Right Question #3, Asked By The Publishing Lawyer/Entertainment Attorney To The Author: Can the work be distributed on CD-Rom? By whom? In what manner and context?
Electronic Digital Right Question #4, Asked By The Publishing Lawyer/Entertainment Attorney To The Author: To what extent does the author, himself or herself, wish to self-publish this work, either before or after granting any electronic right or any individual "electronic publishing" rights therein to someone else? Will such self-publication occur on or through the author's website? Otherwise?
Electronic Digital Right Question #5, Asked By The Publishing Lawyer/Entertainment Attorney To The Author: Even if the author does not self-publish, to what extent does the author wish to be able to use and disseminate this writing for his or her own portfolio, publicity, or self-marketing purposes, and perhaps disseminate that same writing (or excerpts thereof) electronically? Should that be deemed invasive of, or competitive with, the electronic right as otherwise contractually and collectively constituted?
The above list is illustrative but not exhaustive. Any author and any publishing lawyer and entertainment attorney will likely think of other elements of the electronic and digital right and other uses as well. The number of possible uses and complexities of the electronic right[s] and digital right[s] definitions will increase as technology advances. In addition, different authors will have different responses to the publishing lawyer and entertainment attorney, to each of the carefully-itemized questions. Moreover, the same author may be concerned with the electronic right in the context of one of his/her works, but may not care so much in the context of a second and different work not as susceptible to digital right exploitation. Therefore, the author must self-examine on these types of electronic and digital right questions before responding to the author's publishing lawyer or entertainment attorney and then entering into each individual deal. Only by doing so can the author avoid the pitfalls and perils of relying upon lingo, and relying upon someone else to dictate to them what is the electronic right or digital right "industry standard". As the publishing lawyer and entertainment attorney should opine, "There is no such thing as 'industry standard' in the context of a bilaterally-negotiated contract. The only standard that you the author should be worried about is the motivational 'standard' known as: 'if you don't ask, you don't get'".
Finally, the author should be aware that while the electronic right, digital right, and components thereof can be expressly granted, they can also be expressly reserved to the author, by a mere stroke of the pen or keystroke made by the publishing lawyer or entertainment attorney. For example, if an author wants to expressly reserve the "portfolio uses" mentioned in Electronic Digital Right Question #5 above, then the author should ask his or her publishing lawyer or entertainment attorney to clearly recite this reservation of the author portfolio electronic/digital right in the contract, and leave nothing to chance. In addition, if the author has some negotiating leverage, the author, through the publishing lawyer or entertainment attorney, may be able to negotiate the "safety net" of a "savings clause" which provides words to the effect that: "all rights not expressly granted to publisher, be it an electronic right or digital right or otherwise, are specifically reserved to author for his/her sole use and benefit". That way, the "default provision" of the contract may automatically capture un-granted rights including any electronic or digital right for the author's later use. This publishing lawyer and entertainment attorney drafting technique has likely saved empires in the past.
2. Publishers and Entertainment Companies Are Revising Their Boilerplate Agreements, As We Speak, In An Effort To Secure The Electronic Right[s].
It is well-known and should come as no surprise that right now, as we speak, publishers and their in-house and outside counsel publishing lawyers and entertainment attorneys are furiously re-drafting their boilerplate contracts to more thoroughly capture the digital and electronic right - that is, all of an author's digital and electronic rights. The typical publishing agreement drafted by a company-side publishing lawyer or entertainment attorney will recite a broad grant of rights, then followed by a whole laundry-list of "including but not limited to" examples. If the author receives such an onerous-looking rights passage from a publisher or the publisher's publishing lawyer or entertainment attorney, the author should not be intimidated. Rather, the author should look at it as an opportunity to make some money and have some fun. The author can first compare the list suggested in Electronic Digital Right Questions #1 through #5 above, to the publisher's own laundry-list and the author's own imagination. Then, the author can decide which if any of the separate digital or electronic rights the author wants to fight to keep for himself or herself.
If the publisher tells the author to blindly subscribe to their entire digital or electronic right[s] clause (or clauses), then the author still has the ultimate leverage, which is to walk away from the proposed deal prior to signature. Of course, this strategic approach wouldn't be advisable in most cases - unless perhaps if the author has other written offers from other publishers already on the table. However, an author shouldn't be forced by any publisher or any company-side publishing lawyer or entertainment attorney to sign away the electronic right, digital right, or any other rights that the author would rather keep - particularly rights which the author never specifically intended to shop to the publisher in the first instance.
The author should keep in mind the psychology and motivations of the publishers and their publishing lawyer and entertainment attorney counsel when doing all of this. A Vice-President (or above) at the publishing company probably woke up one recent morning, and realized that his/her company lost a great deal of money on a particular project by not taking a prospective license or assignment of an electronic right or digital right from another author. The VP probably then blamed the company's in-house legal department publishing lawyers or entertainment attorneys, who in turn started frantically re-drafting the company boilerplate to assuage the angry publishing executive and thereby keep their jobs. When in-house publishing lawyers, entertainment attorneys, or others engage in this type of practice (some may call it "drafting from fear"), they tend to go overboard.
Accordingly, what you will probably see is a proverbial "kitchen sink" electronic right clause which has been newly-drafted and perhaps even insufficiently reviewed by the company-side publishing lawyers and entertainment attorneys, internally and themselves - wherein the publisher will ask the author for every possible electronic and digital right and every other thing, including (without limitation) the kitchen sink. The only response to such a broad-band electronic right or digital right clause is a careful, deliberate, and methodical reply.
Using the approach outlined in Section #1 above, the author and the author's publishing lawyer or entertainment attorney counsel must separately tease apart each use and component of the electronic right and digital right that the publisher's broad-band clause might otherwise capture, and then opine to the publisher a "yes" or a "no" on each line-item. In other words, the author, through his or her publishing lawyer or entertainment attorney, should exercise his or her line-item veto. It's the author's writing that we are talking about, after all. The author should be the one to convert the singular "electronic right" or "digital right" into the laundry-list of electronic rights. That's why I use the singular number when referring to "electronic right" or "digital right" - I like to let the technologically-advanced author have all the fun making the list. That way, too, the author can tell me what he or she thinks the phrases actually mean, and what the difference between the two meanings really is, if anything.
Next, a few words in defense of the publishers and the publishing lawyers that work for them!
Up to now, this article discussed how phrases like the "digital right" or "electronic right" should not be assumed to be self-defining, even by and between publishing lawyers and entertainment attorneys, and how it is incumbent upon authors to reserve needed rights like the digital right or the electronic right to themselves in the context of a publishing deal. Next up, let's examine concepts such as the digital right or electronic right from the perspective of the publishing lawyer and entertainment attorney, and the standpoint of fairness - who between author and publisher should in fact hold on to the digital right and electronic right, once and assuming that they are first properly defined?
3. Yes, Digital Right And Electronic Right Uses Do Compete With Traditional Book Publishing Uses.
A publishing lawyer or entertainment attorney may be called upon to handle an author-side deal. A publishing lawyer or entertainment attorney may also be called upon to handle, under different factual circumstances, a publisher-side deal. So, now, a few words in defense of publishers, I suppose.
There is a perception in the author and Internet communities that publishers should not be taking broad grants of the digital right or electronic right from authors, since "digital rights and electronic rights do not compete or interfere with traditional book publishing and other media rights".
Not true. Not anymore. For proof of that fact, ask a few veteran news desk editors whether or not they followed, or were otherwise concerned about, what appeared on the Drudge Report during the Clinton administration. Ask the CFO's or in-house publishing lawyers of a few traditional encyclopedia companies how they feel about Wikipedia.
Incidentally, although as a publishing lawyer and entertainment attorney and unlike some others, I tend to use the phrase "electronic right" or even "digital right" in the singular number, there probably tends to be no single consensus as to what constitutes and collectively comprises the singular "electronic right" or "digital right". There has not been sufficient time for the publishing, media, or entertainment industries to fully crystallize accurate and complete definitions of phrases like "electronic publishing", "web publishing", "electronic right[s]", "e-rights", "digital right[s]", or "first electronic rights".
Nevertheless, electronic media and specifically the digital right and electronic right, have already changed our history. You can be sure that they will have some effect, at a minimum, on most author's individual publishing deals henceforth, and will be the fodder of publishing lawyer and entertainment attorney discussion for years to come. The fact is, electronic uses inherent in the digital right and the electronic right already do compete with older, more traditional uses - particularly because digital and electronic uses are cheaper and faster to deploy, and can potentially reach millions of users in less than, as Jackson Browne might say, the blink of an eye.
Commerce is increasingly relying upon the Internet and other electronic phenomena, and the linchpin of this reliance is the digital right and electronic right. After all, you are reading this article, and ostensibly gleaning some information or material from it. The Web, for example, has already put a sizable dent in dictionary and encyclopedia sales, and anyone who tells you otherwise is probably an employee in a dictionary or encyclopedia publishing company or publishing lawyer in-houser in denial of the digital and electronic right, trying to protect his/her stock options. As the recent and well-known Stephen King pilot program will attest, fiction is the next subject matter area to be affected. Many of us book lovers including publishing lawyers and entertainment attorneys don't like to think about it, but bound hard-copy books may soon become the sole province of book collectors and publishing lawyer vanity bookcases alone. The vast majority of book readers, however, may so wholly embrace the digital right and electronic right that they soon even lose the patience to wait for their "amazon.com" mailed shipment.
Very few people who work in the publishing, media, and entertainment industries, including as amongst fair-minded publishing lawyers and entertainment attorneys, should dispute that electronic uses inherent in the digital right and electronic right can easily cannibalize the older and more traditional forms and formats. This cannibalization will only increase, not decrease, as time goes on. Again, the author should put himself/herself in the mind-set of the publisher or its in-house publishing lawyer, when having this digital right/electronic right argument with the publisher or publishing lawyer. The publisher otherwise may want to invest marketing and personnel support in the author's work, and perhaps even pay the author an advance for the writing. In their view, though, the publisher's publishing lawyer or entertainment attorney argues, why should they do so, and not also capture the author's digital right or electronic right?
The last thing that the publisher or its publishing lawyer or entertainment attorney wants to do is to pay the author - and then discover that the author has "scooped" the publication with the author-reserved digital right or electronic right, stolen the publisher's proverbial fire, and undermined the publisher's investment in the author and the writing. The concern of the publisher and the book company's in-house publishing lawyer or outside entertainment attorney is rational and valid. If the publisher allows the author to potentially undercut the book by exploiting author's reserved digital right or electronic right, then the publisher is threatening the publisher's own investment in the author and in the written work. (And on some subliminal level at least, the company's in-house publishing lawyer also knows that this could come out of his or her future comp).
Compromises are available. One traditional compromise effected between publishing lawyers or entertainment attorneys is a so-called "hold-back" on the digital right or electronic right, whereby the author promises not to use or license-out any author-reserved digital right or electronic right for a certain period of time following publication. The author will need some leverage to get a publisher to agree to such a compromise, though. And a publishing lawyer or entertainment attorney should draft the clause - the author's publishing lawyer or entertainment attorney, not the publisher's counsel!
An author may think that small "portfolio" uses (e.g., tucked inside greeting cards, on an author's personal web site, etc.) are so minor, that they will never compete with publishing rights granted for the same work, and may tell the publisher or the company's publishing lawyer or entertainment attorney as much. The greeting card example does seem innocuous enough, but the publisher and its entertainment or publishing lawyer will likely not agree with the author regarding the author's personal web site. It is the electronic right or the digital right that really scares publishers and their publishing lawyers and entertainment attorneys, and is perceived as threatening to their long-term investment in the author and his or her work.
The distinction to be made here is between hard-copy portfolio uses, and digital right or electronic right "portfolio uses". The fact is that computer-uploaded text is so easy and quick to transmit, receive, and read. The posted content's popularity could also spread like digital wildfire, so quickly - for example, if a company hyper-links to the author's site, or if "Yahoo" bumps the author's site up in their search-engine pecking-order. Many successes have already been made by virtue of digital right and electronic right self-publishing, and more will follow. Traditional (book) publishers and their publishing lawyers and entertainment attorneys already realize this fact. Accordingly, traditional book publishers and their counsel also realize that once they acknowledge an author's reservation of a "self-promotion" digital right or electronic right, they risk losing control of a potential wildfire dissemination method. Again, this would put the publisher's investment at risk - but smart business people and companies and the publishing lawyers and entertainment attorneys that represent them, don't put their own investments at risk.
4. The Party To The Contract That Has The Better And More Immediate Means and Resources To Exploit The Electronic Rights, Should Be The One Who Takes The Electronic Rights.
Here is the final point. If a contracting party has no means and resources to exploit a digital right or electronic right or a given bundle of them, then that same party has no business taking (or reserving to themselves) those same digital or electronic rights by contract or even negotiating such a position by and between publishing lawyers or entertainment attorneys. To analogize, if I am a screenwriter who options or sells my script to the Acme Production Company, LLC, through an entertainment lawyer, how should I react if Acme asks me to specifically and contractually grant them "theme park rights" in my literary property in the negotiation between the entertainment attorneys? (Don't laugh - this practice is now very prevalent in film and entertainment deals).
Well, if Acme doesn't have its own theme park, I (or my entertainment attorney) now have a powerful argument for reserving the theme park rights to myself instead. "Hey, Acme", I (or my entertainment attorney) say, "... how do you have the unmitigated gall to ask me for my theme park rights, when you don't even have the ability to exploit or use them yourself? You don't even have a theme park!" I (or my entertainment attorney) then make it clear to Acme that I don't intend to be giving them any trophies that they can put on a shelf to collect proverbial dust.
The same argument can work in the publishing context, particularly as argued between publishing lawyers and entertainment attorneys, regarding the digital right or the electronic right. The author can proverbially cross-examine the publisher (or try to cross-examine the company's publishing lawyer or entertainment attorney) as to what successful past uses they have made of other author's digital rights or electronic rights across multiple books. The company President may fudge the answer, but the publishing lawyer or entertainment attorney representing the publisher must answer truthfully. (One good reason to negotiate through counsel).
If the true answer to the question is "none", then the author can use the "trophy" argument stated above. If the true answer is, alternatively, "some", then the author has a negotiating opportunity to compel the publisher and its publishing lawyer and entertainment attorney to contractually commit to digitally and electronically publish the author's work, too. The author can argue: "I won't grant you the digital right or electronic right unless you, publisher, contractually commit in advance as to how specifically you will exploit them, and how much money you will spend in their development and marketing". The author or the author's publishing lawyer or entertainment attorney can then carve those electronic right and digital right commitments right directly into the contract, if the author has the leverage to do so. Again, one should not try this at home - but instead use a publishing lawyer or entertainment attorney.
Needless to say, once the author makes the publisher commit, presumably through publishing lawyer or entertainment attorney counsel, to a development budget or other marketing or "release" commitment for the digital right or the electronic right, then both the author and the publisher might thereby also have some basis for numerical valuation of the rights themselves. And, it is an entirely reasonable argument for an author or author's publishing lawyer or entertainment attorney to say to a publisher that: "I will license/sell you the following listed digital right[s] or electronic right[s] if you pay me the following additional amounts for them:_____________________. And in the blank space, the rights can be listed like menu options as they have been broken out in Item #1 above, each to which separate dollar values - that is, price-tags - are now assigned.
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Publishing And Digital And Electronic Rights
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My law practice as a publishing lawyer and entertainment attorney includes the drafting, editing, negotiation, and closure of agreements including digital and electronic rights matters as they may arise therein, as well as in the fields of music, film, television, Internet, and other media and art forms. If you have questions about legal issues which affect your career, and require representation, please contact me:
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