Research Cell

Computer and Internet Usage Affect Our Memory

admin — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 17:00:48 +0000

Computer and internet have made our lives much easier but at the same time they also alters our natural routine behavior. Nowadays, it became a common habit to search internet for every piece of information we need. An information for which our brain had to search into its depth memory is readily available at a single click, resultantly we use our brains less than we used to in past.
An average computer user is forced to increasing his computer memory each year to overcome his needs. Do you know that the first commercial hard disk made by IBM in 1956 could store only 5 million characters, in other words, it was only 5mb in size. The commercial hard disk capacity stayed below 100MB until IBM introduced its first 100 MB hard disk. First Gigabyte hard disk was introduced in 1980, it was priced at $40,000 and it weighted around 250kg with size of almost a refrigerator. Disk capacity kept increasing and in 2007, first Terabyte hard disk was introduced by Hitachi. In 2011, at the time I am writing this piece of information, a common PC user can buy (1.5 Terabyte) hard disk in around $50 and it weights around 700gms. One can easily hold it in his hand and this little box like device can store 1649267441664 characters into its memory.
We are continuously increasing of computer memory but at the same time we are continuously decreasing our need to memorize information. If an average computer user can store 1649267441664 characters of information in his pc, why would he bother to memorize anything? Do you know that spell checker applications like MS Word have eased us so much that we don’t memorize spellings of many lengthy and difficult English words? That’s because we know that we can easily correct our spell mistakes by using spell checkers.
Spending 24 hours in front of computer screen can give us a lot of information but our mind won’t be able to store all that information and to retrieve it at the desired time. A couple of decades back, most of us were not very familiar with computers and we had to memorize all required information in our brain but now we are dependent on computers. Research shows that continuous use of computer and internet is adversely affecting our memory. That’s because our memory work is being shared by computers. Our dependency on computers made us idle and we don’t want to do any work that involves brain. We are becoming a victim of short term and sometimes even major memory loss.
A recent research shows that children and young students no longer feel comfortable while memorizing difficult questions rather they prefer to search on internet and find their answers. They only want to memorize easy to remember questions. This is an alarming situation, if this trend continues then one day, every one will be fully dependent on computer and computer will decide what to do. Computer will become ultimate source of our information and our brain performance will degrade by time due to lack or usage as all the decisions of our brain are done in the light of its stored memory. A lack of stored memory will result in poor decisions and poor outcomes.
There is a difference between being informed and being experienced. Computer and internet make us informed but not experienced. It’s like if you have never driven a car before, no matter how much research you do on car driving on internet, it will just make your task easier but you cannot actually learn to drive a car unless you do so a plenty of times in actual. Experience cannot be translated into words or documents; it is a state of our brain in which it adopts a work over time. It involved several factors that we cannot document or narrate. So we need to make sure that computer is not taking us away from the experience part as information alone is not enough.

7805 Pin Configuration and Voltage Regulator Circuit

admin — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 12:47:42 +0000

7805 is an easy to use voltage regulator IC which output 5 volts and 1A max. It takes an unregulated voltage input which can be fluctuating within its input limits and converts this fluctuating voltage input into a perfectly regulated 5 volts power output. For example, a 12 volt lead acid battery when fully charged gives out approximately 12.70 volts and when fully discharged, it gives out 10.50 volts. This difference can be even more under load or under charging state. If we use this battery as an input source for our 7805, output voltage will remain 5 regardless of that voltage difference of battery during charging and discharging phases.

7805 Pins Diagram

7805 Voltage Regulator Circuit

I have attached an image of 7805 IC to describe its pin configuration setting. In addition to that I have also attached a small fully working voltage regulator circuit diagram with this tutorial. The two capacitors used in the voltage regulator circuit are not mandatory but they are good to maximize voltage regulation. The capacitor values I have used in this circuit are not written on stone, you can change them slightly.
7805 IC has a thermal shutdown feature to protect the IC in case of overheating so it should be safe to use 7805 without a heatsink plate for less than 200mA load. However should your load cross 200mA, you should consider using a heatsink plate. Heatsink plate should be large enough to bring 7805 heat to such a level that you can comfortably touch it.
7805 is a linear voltage regulator, so it is not very efficient and it has drop out voltage problem. It wastes a lot of energy in the form of heat. You can calculate the wasted energy with following formula. This formula will also help you to estimate the size of heatsink plate you will require to disperse amount of heat generated by 7805.
(Input Voltage – 5) x Output Current
Suppose the input 15 volt and output current you require is .5 Amp by using above formula
(15 – 5) x 0.5
=10×0.5
=5W
5W energy is being wasted as heat and you will need a decent sized heatsink plate to disperse this heat to ease your 7805. On the other hand the energy you are actually using is only (5 x 0.5Amp) =2.5W. So you are going to waste twice energy then you are actually utilizing. On the other hand, if give your 7805 9V as input at the same amount of load, only 2W { (9-5) x 0.5 } energy will be wasted as heat.
So the conclusion is, the higher the input voltage get, the less efficient your 7805 will be. You should try to stay slightly over 7.5V. However don’t get bellow 7.5V as your 7805 won’t give a regulated output if the input voltage get bellow 7.5V. If your input voltage are less than 7.5 like 6V then you should consider using a low dropout voltage regulator such as LM2940. Pin connections of LM2940 are also same like 7805.
You don’t need extra components to create a 5 volt regulated power supply with 7805. However it is a good idea to use one capacitor on input and one on output pins to make output voltage smooth but then again, they are not necessary to be used.
As per specs, 7805 input voltage should range between 7.5V to 35V but personally I haven’t tried more than 15V yet. Maximum output current of 7805 is 1A with a good sized heatsink plate. If you are planning to use more than one 7805 in parallel to get more current (above 1A), you better try to put .5Ohm (10W) resistor on the output pin of each transistor to cover the slight voltage difference as technically no two 7805 can provide exactly same output voltage.

7812 Pin and Circuit Diagram

admin — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 22:33:09 +0000

7812 is a famous IC which is being widely used in 12V voltage regulator circuits. Truly speaking it is a complete standalone voltage regulator. We only need to use two capacitors, one on the input and second one on the output of 7812 in order to achieve clean voltage output and even these capacitors are optional to use. To achieve 12V 1A current, 7812 should be mounted on a good heatsink plate. Thanks to the transistor like shape of 7812 which makes it easy to mount on a heatsink plate. 7812 has built in over heat and short circuit protection which makes it a good choice for making power supplies.

7812 circuit diagram

In electronics markets, 7812 is sold under various names such as 7812a, 7812act, 7812t and lm7812. All of them are almost identical with a little to no differences at all. 7812 input voltage range is 14V to 35V. Exceeding the voltage range may damage the IC. Given bellow is 7812 pin diagram to make the pinout connections clear in case you want to do some experiments.

7812 pin diagram

If you hold upside down (pins up) and the IC number is facing you then the left pin will be the voltage regulator output, the center pin will be ground and the right pin will be the voltage input pin. Under my experience, the maximum safe current you can get from one 7812 IC is 1A. If you need more power then there are a few ways to do so.
More than one 7812 can be used in parallel in order to achieve more than 1A current but output voltage of each 7812 can slightly vary resulting in unbalanced load on all of them. This can result in load balancing issues and can damage the IC carrying most current. However there is a way to overcome this problem. I have given bellow a schematic diagram in which two 7812 ICs are attached together and both of them are carrying almost equal load. At least the current difference is not too much to damage any IC.

7812 in parallel circuit diagram

Please note that in this circuit diagram, I have used resistors for load balancing purpose so the output of this voltage regulator circuit may slightly inaccurate. Both resistors should be minimum 15 Watt or above. If you don’t find such resistors in your area then you can make them using 32 gauge or thinner copper wire. This parallel 7812 circuit will provide 12V and approximately 2A current. You can increase number of 7812 but each additional 7812 will require a resistor on its output.
Following is the link to a simple but complete power supply circuit diagram developed using 7812.

Voltage Regulator Circuit

Appetite Suppressants Foods

admin — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 15:33:57 +0000

There are many appetite suppressants out there in the market today but despite the variety, its best to avoid them unless you are advised by a good doctor. Usually the ingredients in these appetite suppressants are not medically tested and approved by the food and drug administration; No one is keeping a close eye on their effectiveness and safety.
Fortunately there are things you can do to control your appetite naturally. Eat balanced and regular meals and try not to skip meals. Skipping meals is probably the biggest reason due to which people overeat. Providing your body with the consistent form of food throughout the day helps in preventing blood sugar and over eating habits. Try yourself to distinguish between the true hunger and appetite. A true hunger is a physiologic craving for food in which your body demands food. On the other hand, appetite is just a desire to eat. You may not that you often eat due to habit rather than hunger. You should drink minimum eight glasses of water a day which your body needs and exercise regularly. Have a healthy diet when you are truly hungry rather than due to habit. It is better than appetite suppression as it is better not to take risks with your health and body.
Eat fruits and vegetables, they are a great way to control your appetite, giving you a little bit of sugar, maintaining your energy, they offer vitamins, minerals, anti oxidants and nobody in the history of the world ever got fat from eating too many fruits and vegetables.
Here is the simple sentence which can help you reduce your weight and appetite, Eat the foods you like, but just eat less of them. The “less of them” part of this sentence is the key factor which will control your weight and appetite. You will be surprised to know that water can also act as an appetite suppressant. Eat a lot of water when you feel a desire of food and it will sure help a lot. Foods like Apples, Pine nuts, flaxseeds, oatmeals and salad can help you control your appetite as well.
I didn’t write this article to criticize appetite suppressant companies; I just want to let every body know the truth. I am not saying that all the appetite suppressants are bad for your health, some of them may be good but I haven’t seen a single appetite suppressant approved by food and drug administration to this date.

Acura TSX Tech V6

admin — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 21:31:32 +0000

New Acura TSX will give you performance, safety, reliability, resale and technology at a good price. TSX tech v6 has a standard 18 inch wheel with Michelin tires which gives it a very smart design. The new generation Acura TSX is much spacious than the previous generation Acura TSX and it is very comparable to the previous generation Acura TL. It got a very spacious trunk space using which it is very easy to load and unload cargo.
Acura is the very first manufacturer to have a five star crash test rating on every single model we have including the Acura TSX that has five start crash test rating on every single test. To achieve the five start crash test rating, Acura TSX has to offer the new technology called the ace body structure. TSX comes with a Bluetooth hands free system compatible with most modern cell phones. We can dial number using our voice and the front display also gives indicator about cell phone battery life and signal strength.
Another great feature that Acura TSX has to offer is the multi information display. It is like having your own computer at your finger tips. You can see your instant miles per gallon, your average miles per gallon, how long till you run out of gas and how long car is in running for. You can also see your average speed. Another great feature is the tire pressure indicator. It actually tells you your tire pressure in PSI in each single tire so you know if you need to deflate or inflate the tires.
Acura TSX has one of the best navigation systems in the market. With voice recognition, it makes it very easy to use. With the use of a single button, you have full control over the navigation, the radio and the climate control with your voice.
When you get the technology model, it also comes standard with the backup camera. You just need to hit reverse and the backup camera turns on. It also makes it easier to park the car too. When you hit reverse, not only backup camera turns on but it tilts back mirrors too.
Another great feature is it has a USB interface hookup. You can hook up most mp3 players and iPods and charge them during driving.
Acura TSX has a 3.5 Litter, 280 horsepower v6 engine which makes it a pleasure to drive. New generation TSX has an internal suspension system which gives you smoother ride. It also has a new electronic steering which basically makes it easier to maneuver on parking lodges and has a much better turning radius than previous generation Acura TSX.

Effects of Nightwork on Human Body

admin — Fri, 07 May 2010 09:36:51 +0000

Days and nights are there due to some reason. Days are to work and nights are to rest. It is a history of human being that whenever we deviate from natural path, we have to face the consequences. Nightwork is getting common these days. In order to maintain higher status, we sacrifice our comfort. To get more dollars, we sacrifice our sleep and get engaged in a night shift work. Some people think that light night shift jobs are not bad for their health which is a misconception. It is not the nightwork which is bad for us, actually it is the lack of sleep and rest in the proper timeframe. Night is made for rest, a 5 hours sleep and rest in the night cannot be compensated with a whole day sleep.
A friend of mine was engaged in a nightwork for almost a decade and I used to tell me to follow the nature and to stay with the day work but he didn’t noticed what I said. Later he developed a strange fatigue which was without a medical reason. All his tests were good then finally he tried to sleep at night for a few weeks and his fatigue went away within first month.
Similarly, I myself have to work during night some times and when I do so, my whole week is destroyed. I think I cannot compensate my one night sleep with the whole weeks sleep afterwards. If you are also engaged in nightwork and feel some strange fatigue or strange change in your body which you cannot name then maybe you shout try to quit nightshift work for a few days and see what happens.
Remember, Nature has made things suitable for us; it is us, who make them unsuitable for us by mismanaging them. In the night, weather is cool and environment is free of noise and light. We can enjoy a deep sleep during night which cannot be compensated with a disturbed sleep of day due to many noises, environmental heat, light etc. If some how you cannot avoid night work, you should still try to sleep from 1am to 4am which is very critical for your health. An experiment is worth a thousand words, so try it and you will know what I say. Please also mention your experience with the night work in the comments area bellow.

How to Increase Laptop Battery Time

admin — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 22:17:14 +0000

Laptop computers are becoming necessity for those people who remain on travel. Secondly, there are some countries where power outages or load shedding is common and therefore people use laptops more often to avoid data loses and to keep working during power outages or load shedding. In either case, it is very important to increase laptop battery life especially when you don’t have access to power for long intervals and you cannot charge your laptop.
I have an IBM laptop which had a battery backup time of 2 hours and 10 minutes. This battery backup time was very short for me therefore I have done some experiments to increase this battery time and surprisingly my battery time went to almost double. Now I can work on my laptop for more than 4 hours with same battery. You can increase your laptop battery time too by using the tips written under.
1. First and most important tip is to decrease your laptop screen brightness. This is usually done by combination of Fn key with some other keys. You can find it in your laptop manual. Believe me this tip alone can increase your laptop battery backup time by more than 50%. I have done so and now even when I have connected my power socket I still lower the brightness as high brightness do nothing more than hurting your eyes.
2. Turn of Wi-Fi when you are not using it. Wi-Fi keeps searching for new networks and tries to send and receive a wireless signal which drains your battery a lot. Doing so will also increase your battery backup time significantly.
3. Don’t place any DVD/CD in your laptop drive when you are not using it. Your operating system often tries to cache/pre-fetch files on a drive and doing so on a DVD/CD drive will drain your battery which you defiantly don’t want. Try to avoid using DVD/CD while you are on battery, this will also increase your laptop battery time.
4. Remember to eject any USB device you have attached and you are not using. This affects your laptop battery time a lot.
5. Stay in a cool environment while you are on battery backup, that’s because the fans in your laptop start when they find it hot and switch off automatically when its cool. Staying in a cool place will result in less heat and the laptop fans will more likely to stay off which will increase your laptop battery time.
6. When you are on battery backup, put your laptop on Mute. This will disable any sound output and therefore will increase your laptop battery timing.
7. Try not to use multiple applications at the same time, close all those applications which you don’t use. Disable energy savers and use simple wallpapers to avoid graphics intensive processing by your graphics cards and microprocessor. This will significantly improve battery backup time of your laptop.
8. Most modern laptops come with power management feature which slows processor speeds automatically when possible. This also improves the battery timing of your laptop.
9. Lastly, setup hibernation feature of your laptop to 5 minutes or whatever time suitable for you so that it automatically hibernates after that time if not used.

Infrared IR Illuminator DIY

admin — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 10:45:27 +0000

Infrared or IR Illuminators are widely used to improve capturing quality of security cameras fitted in dark areas. Just like human eye, cameras are also not capable of recording movements in dark places but unlike our eyes, most modern cameras can capture infrared or IR light. For example, if you have a camera in your cell phone and a TV or any other device’s remote control then you can do a quick experiment.

Remote controls also throw infrared IR light which you cannot see but your cell phone camera will capture it. Just press any button of your remote control and see the that portion of your remote control where a small LED bulb is present, normally it is front side of your remote control. Now if you see it through the camera’s LCD display you will see that the IR LED bulb in front of your remote control lights up if you press any button of you remote control. Imagine if you have a lot of such bulbs grouped together and you light them up then your camera will be able to see clearly even without the visible light. Human eyes cannot see infrared IR light therefore infrared light doesn’t disturb sleeping persons as well.

In simple words, many infrared IR LEDs grouped together to throw good amount of IR light are called Infrared/IR Illuminator. You can easily build an infrared illuminator yourself at home with a little effort. You should have basic electronics knowledge on order to attempt this simple IR illuminator project.

Here is the infrared IR circuit diagram.

Infrared IR Circuit Diagram

There is nothing difficult in this circuit. I have used 68Ohm and 1 Watt resistors in this circuit diagram. The Infrared LEDs are easily available from every electronics store. Some users have reported that they have successfully used 5 LEDs in per series which made the LEDs a little brighter however it is up to you, you can do some experiments by changing number of LEDs.

For fitting purposes, I used general wiring board available in the market and fit the Infrared IR LEDs in such a way that they make two circles. A large circuit and a small circle inside the large circuit. This gave the Infrared light a torch like effect by concentrating IR Infrared Beam in a small area. After the fitting, I cut the outside of the wiring board in a round shape and fit it inside an old Torch’s body. Now I use it as an infrared Headlight in my backyard along with my security camera.

List of PZEV Cars

genius — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 21:01:22 +0000

First of all, let me explain what PZEV cars mean. PZEV is a technical term which is abbreviation of Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle. Any car which has 15 years of life warranty with 10,000 Kilometers drive each year, or in other words 150,000 miles warranty and zero evaporative emissions from its fuel handling system can be called a PZEV provided that it meets SULEV tailpipe emission fixed standards.

Furthermore some cars also have a status of AT-PZEV which means Advanced Technology Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle. AT-PZEV cars are much more fuel efficient than PZEV cars due to their hybrid technology. Although these cars are expensive but are fuel economical and environment friendly so in the end, we are in profit. PZEV and AT-PZEV cars are also known as green vehicles. That is probably due to the green house friendliness of these cars.

Here is the list of some famous PZEV/Green Cars/Vehicles:

Honda Civic GX – Car has Automatic Transmission and 1.8L engine. The car has CNG tank so it can be driven both on natural ga and Petrol. Honda Civic GX has 24 Miles per gallon fuel average in city areas and 36 miles per gallon fuel average on highways. Honda Civic GX green score is 57. It is categorized as a PZEV car.
Toyota Prius has Automatic transmission with 1.5L engine. Toyota Prius has a fuel average of 48 miles per gallon in city areas and 45 miles per gallon fuel average on highways. Surprisingly the vehicle averages more in city areas than the highways. Toyota Prius is PZEV with a green score of 53.
Honda Civic Hybrid is my favorite car. It has a 1.3L engine and enjoys automatic transmission. Car averages 40 miles per gallon in city areas and 45 miles per gallon on highways. Honda civic hybrid is PZEV with a 51 green score. I wonder why it is not declared as AT-PZEV since it has hybrid mentioned with its name.
Smart Fortwo Convertible is a manual transmission vehicle with a 1.0L engine. Fuel average is 33 miles per gallon in city areas and 41 miles per gallon on highways. Smart Fortwo Green rating is 49 and it is rated as ULEV II.
Toyota Yaris has a manual transmission system with a 1.5L engine. Toyota Yaris has 29 miles per gallon fuel average in city areas and 36 miles per gallon fuel average on high ways. Toyota Yaris has a green rating of 46 and is classified as ULEV II.
Nissan Altima Hybrid is a powerful car with a 2.5L engine. I really like this car due to the engine power. Car is fully automatic and rated as PZEV with a green rating of 46. Car has a fuel average of 35 miles per gallon in city areas and 33 miles per gallon on highways.
Mini Cooper/Clubman is a manual transmission vehicle with a 1.6L engine. Mino Cooper is ULEV II with a green rating of 45. It averages 28 miles per gallon in city areas and 37 miles per gallon on highways.
Chevrolet Cobalt XFE/Pontiac G5 XFE is 2.2L with manual transmission. Fuel average is 25 miles per gallon in city areas and 37 miles per gallon on highways. It is a PZEV vehicle with 45 green rating.
Honda FIT has a 1.5L engine with automatic transmission. Car has a fuel average of 28 miles per gallon in city areas and 35 miles per gallon on highways with a green rating of 45. Car is rated as ULEV II.
Chevrolet AVEO/AVEO5 is 1.6L with manual transmission. Fuel average is 27 miles per gallon in city areas and 34 miles per gallon on highways. Green rating is 44.
Toyota Camry Hybrid is one of my favorite cars. It is a complexion of power and beauty. Toyota Camry Hybrid is fully automatic transmission with a powerful 2.4L engine. With so much power, it can average 33 miles per gallon in city areas and 34 miles per gallon on highways. The car has a green rating of 44 and is rated as PZEV.
Kia Rio is a 1.6L manual transmission car rated as ULEV II. Kia Rio has a fuel average of 27 miles per gallon in city areas and 33 miles per gallon on highways. The car has a green rating of 44.

Voltage Regulator Circuit

genius — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 17:15:26 +0000

Voltage regulation means to prevent the voltage from dropping down or rising above a specific value. A 12 volt regulator circuit will provide exactly 12V under load as well as without load. On the other hand, an un-regulated 12V power supply output voltage with drop under while the load will increase and will rise when not under load. For example, an un-regulated 12V power supply can output 14V when not under load and can drop the voltage to 11V when under 1A load and 10V when under 2A load. This rise and drop of voltage in un-regulated power supplies can sometimes burn sensitive electronics equipments.
I, once, went to market to buy a voltage regulated supply but was amazed to see the cost. I decided to build my own power supply and researched a bit on the internet. My required load was 12V and 1A so I ended up designing the following voltage regulator circuit which is very low cost but at the same time it is efficient.

Voltage Regulator Circuit Diagram

Here goes the parts list.
1. 240V to 15V 1.2A Transformer
2. 4 pieces of IN4001 (You can use a bridge rectifier as well)
3. 220uF 25V Capacitor
4. .1uF 25V Capacitor
5. 7812 IC (Integrated Circuit)
6. A heat sink plate for 7812 IC
7812 is a very good voltage regulator integrated circuit (IC). It is cheap but efficient, that is why I selected it for this regulator circuit. 7812 Pin2 connections are also explained in my regulator circuit diagram. You can see that Pin 1 is input, Pin 2 is Ground (which is often –V) and Pin 3 is output. It is very simple to understand 7812. The 220uF 25V capacitor is used as a buffer to cover frequency gap. The second capacitor is used as an extra filter. IN4001 rectifiers are used to convert AC current into DC current. Transformer is used to convert 240V AC into 15V AC. If you have 110V mains then you can use a 110V AC to 15 AC transformer.
I have successfully used this voltage regulator circuit to power up my ADSL modem. In fact, the ADSL modem was restarted every one hour or so with its original power supply but after I replaced it with this voltage regulator circuit, the modem is never restarted by itself. Any electronic device which requires 12V 1A power can be powered by this circuit so feel free to use it. You can post your questions and comments in the comments section bellow.