text:
More New and Used
from Private Sellers
Note: Supplemental materials are not guaranteed with Rental or Used book purchases.
Practical Handbook of School Psychology Effective Practices for the 21st Century
ISBN13:by Gimpel Peacock, Gretchen; Ervin, Ruth A.; Daly , Edward J.; Merrell, Kenneth W.
The Guilford Press
Questions About This Book?
What version or edition is this?
This is the 1st edition with a publication date of 7/20/2012.
What is included with this book?
- The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any CDs, lab manuals, study guides, etc.
- The eBook copy of this book is not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically only the book itself is included.
Bringing together leading authorities, this concise, state-of-the-science Handbookdelves into all aspects of problem solving-based school psychology practice. Thirty-four focused chapters present data-based methods for assessment, analysis, intervention, and evaluation, with special attention given to working in a response-to-intervention framework. Tools and guidelines are provided for promoting success in key academic domains: reading, writing, and math. Social-emotional and behavioral skills are thoroughly addressed in chapters on self-management interventions, peer and family support, cognitive-behavioral interventions, medication use, and more. This accessible work is an invaluable reference for practitioners and an ideal resource for school psychology training programs.
Author Biography
Gretchen Gimpel Peacock, PhD, is Professor of Psychology at Utah State University, where she has coordinated the specialist-level program in school psychology and is on the program faculty of the Combined Psychology (School/Clinical/Counseling) PhD program. Dr. Gimpel Peacocks publications and professional presentations focus on child behavior problems and family issues as related to child behaviors, as well as professional issues in school psychology. Ruth A. Ervin, PhD, is Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia. Dr. Ervin's research addresses the research-to-practice needs of local school districts and promotes a preventative and problem-solving approach to addressing the academic and emotional-behavioral needs of children and adolescents. Edward J. Daly III, PhD, is Professor of Educational (School) Psychology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Dr. Dalys research and publications are in the areas of developing functional assessment methods for reading problems and the measurement and evaluation of academic and behavioral interventions. Kenneth W. Merrell, PhD, until his death in 2011, was Professor of School Psychology and Director of the Oregon Resiliency Project at the University of Oregon. For 25 years, Dr. Merrell's influential teaching and research focused on social-emotional assessment and intervention for at-risk children and adolescents and social-emotional learning in schools. He published over 90 peer-reviewed journal articles; several books and nationally normed assessment instruments; and the Strong Kids programs, a comprehensive social and emotional learning curriculum. Dr. Merrell was a Fellow of the Division of School Psychology (Division 16) and the Society for Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology (Division 53) of the American Psychological Association. He received the Senior Scientist Award from Division 16, the Division's highest honor for excellence in science.
Table of Contents
CONTENTS I. The School Psychologist as a Problem Solver: Establishing a Foundation and a Vision 1. The School Psychologist as a Problem Solver in the 21st Century: Rationale and Role Definition, Ruth A. Ervin, Gretchen Gimpel Peacock, and Kenneth W. Merrell 2. Choosing Targets for Assessment and Intervention: Improving Important Student Outcomes, Renee O. Hawkins, David W. Barnett, Julie Q. Morrison, and Shobana Musti-Rao II. Assessment and Analysis: Focus on Academic Outcomes 3. Analysis of Universal Academic Data to Plan, Implement, and Evaluate Schoolwide Improvement, Amanda M. VanDerHeyden 4. Assessment of Cognitive Abilities and Cognitive Processes: Issues, Applications, and Fit within a Problem-Solving Model: Focusing on Academic Achievement, Randy G. Floyd 5. Assessment of Academic Skills in Reading within a Problem-Solving Model, Amanda M. Marcotte and John M. Hintze 6. Assessment of Academic Skills in Math within a Problem-Solving Model, Matthew K. Burns and David A. Klingbeil 7. Assessment of Academic Skills in Written Expression within a Problem-Solving Model, Kristin A. Gansle and George H. Noell 8. Selecting Academic Interventions for Individual Students, Edward J. Daly III, Kristi L. Hofstadter, Rebecca S. Martinez, and Melissa Andersen III. Assessment and Analysis: Focus on Social Emotional and Behavioral Outcomes 9. Schoolwide Analysis of Data for Social Behavior Problems: Assessing Outcomes, Selecting Targets for Intervention, and Identifying Need for Support, Kent McIntosh, Wendy M. Reinke, and Keith C. Herman 10. Assessing Disruptive Behavior within a Problem-Solving Model, Brian K. Martens and Scott P. Ardoin 11. Assessing Internalizing Problems and Well-Being, David N. Miller 12. Using Functional Assessment to Select Behavioral Interventions, Kevin M. Jones and Katherine F. Wickstrom IV. Implementing Prevention and Intervention Strategies 13. Guidelines for Evidence-Based Practice in Selecting Interventions, Karen Callan Stoiber and Jennifer L. DeSmet 14. Proactive Strategies for Promoting Learning, Kenneth W. Howell and Joan Schumann 15. Proactive Strategies for Promoting Social Competence and Resilience, Kenneth W. Merrell, Verity H. Levitt, and Barbara A. Gueldner 16. Evidence-Based Reading Instruction: Developing and Implementing Reading Programs at the Core, Supplemental, and Intervention Levels, Sylvia Linan-Thompson and Sharon Vaughn 17. Evidence-Based Math Instruction: Developing and Implementing Math Intervention Programs at the Core, Supplemental, and Intervention Levels, David J. Chard, Leanne R. Ketterlin-Geller, Kathleen Jungjohann, and Scott K. Baker 18. Evidence-Based Written Language Instruction: Teaching Written Language Skills at the Core, Merilee McCurdy, Stephanie Schmitz, and Amanda Albertson 19. Peer-Mediated Intervention Strategies, Leslie MacKay, Theresa Andreou, and Ruth A. Ervin 20. Self-Management Interventions, Kathryn E. Hoff and Kristin D. Sawka-Miller 21. Interventions for Homework Problems, Donna Gilbertson and Rebecca Sonnek 22. Teaching Functional Life Skills to Children with Developmental Disabilities: Acquisition, Generalization, and Maintenance, Ronnie Detrich and Thomas S. Higbee 23. Parents and School Psychologists as Child Behavior Problem-Solving Partners: Helpful Concepts and Applications, Patrick C. Friman, Jennifer L. Volz, and Kimberly A. Haugen 24. Parent Training: Working with Families to Develop and Implement Interventions, Mark D. Shriver and Keith D. Allen 25. Problem-Solving Skills Training: Theory and Practice in the School Setting, Bryan Bushman and Gretchen Gimpel Peacock 26. Cognitive-Behavioral Interventions for Depression and Anxiety, Susan M. Swearer, Jami E. Givens, and Lynae J. Frerichs 27. Strategies for Working with Severe Challenging and Violent Behavior, Lee Kern, Jaime L. Benson, and Nathan H. Clemens 28. Psychopharmacological Interventions, George J. DuPaul, Lisa L. Weyandt, and Genery D. Booster V. Evaluating Interventions 29. Summarizing, Evaluating, and Drawing Inferences from Intervention Data, Edward J. Daly III, David W. Barnett, Sara Kupzyk, Kristi Hofstadter, and Elizabeth Barkley 30. Empirical and Pragmatic Issues in Assessing and Supporting Intervention Implementation in Schools, George H. Noell VI. Building Systems to Support the Problem-Solving Model 31. Collaboration across Systems to Support Children and Families, Susan M. Sheridan, Katie L. Magee, Carrie A. Blevins, and Michelle S. Swanger-Gagné 32. The School Psychologists Role in Assisting School Staff in Establishing Systems to Manage, Understand, and Use Data, Elizabeth Schaughency, Brent Alsop, and Anna Dawson 33. Implementing the Problem-Solving Model with Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students, Robert L. Rhodes 34. Making Problem-Solving School Psychology Work in Schools, W. David Tilly III, Bradley C. Niebling, and Alecia Rahn-Blakeslee


text:
This is from Feller's Introduction to Probability Theory and Its Applications. In the context of Bernoulli trials, we define:
$$b(k;n,p) = \binom{n}{k}p^kq^{n-k},$$ $$P\{S_n \ge r\} = \sum_{v=0}^{\infty}b(r+v;n,p).$$
The latter being the probability of having at least $r$ successes. Now, supposing $r \gt np$ and knowing that
$$\frac{b(k; n,p)}{b(k-1;n,p)}=\frac{(n-k+1)p}{kq}=1+\frac{(n+1)p-k}{kq},$$
show that
$$P\{S_n \ge r\} \le b(r;n,p)\frac{rq}{r-np}.$$
According to Feller, it follows from the obvious fact that the terms of the series decrease faster than the terms of a geometric series with ratio $1-\frac{r-np}{rq}$. However, it's not obvious for me and I don't see how the upper bound follows.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Whitechapel has unleashed their sixth full-length, 'Mark of the Blade', today worldwide via Metal Blade Records! In conjunction with Mark of the Blade's release, Whitechapel has launched a new video for the album track 'Elitist Ones'.Read More
On July 22nd, Revocation will release 'Great Is Our Sin.' Today, the band has unleashed a third blistering track from the album - check out the lyric video for 'Crumbling Imperium' now via Loudwire.comRead More
Hammers of Misfortune
On July 22nd, Hammers of Misfortune will release their sixth full-length, 'Dead Revolution.' In anticipation of this release, the band has now launched a new track, 'Sea of Heroes', today via Stereogum.comRead More
Denner / Shermann
Denner / Shermann has released a new video for the track 'Son of Satan', taken from their upcoming album, 'Masters of Evil', out June 24th. To watch 'Son of Satan', please visit metalblade.com/dennershermannRead More
Necromancing the Stone
If flaccid, identikit, breakdown-laden 'metal' is the disease, Necromancing the Stone is the cure. With their upcoming debut full-length, 'Jewel of the Vile', the group plans to vanquish 'Breakdownicus Gratuitous.'Read More
If These Trees Could Talk
If These Trees Could Talk has announced a USA headlining tour in support of their new album, 'The Bones of a Dying World'! Kicking off in August in NY, the trek also features Driftoff, Spotlights, and Alexander Turnquist as support.Read More
Jim Breuer
Following an appearance on Howard Stern yesterday (June 7th), Jim Breuer has launched a video for 'Old School', taken from Jim Breuer and the Loud and Rowdy's new album, 'Songs from the Garage.'Read More
New Releases
New Releases
Latest News
THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER announce "Fool 'Em All" DVD; new trailer streaming now!
- April 14th, 2014 – The Black Dahlia Murder are set to release their...Read More
WHITECHAPEL Premiere Lyric Video For Title Track "Our Endless War" on Artist Direct
- April 14th, 2014 – New Album Available April 29th on Metal Blade...Read More
Metal Blade Records announce the signing of WOVENWAR featuring members of As I Lay Dying and Oh, Sleeper.
- April 14th, 2014 – Recording complete and set for mastering in late...Read More
GWAR Releases Video Statement and Announces Creation of Dave Brockie Foundation
- April 10th, 2014 – GWAR and Slave Pit Inc. would like to thank the...Read More
Between the Buried and Me announce additional North American tour dates preceding tour with Meshuggah
- April 10th, 2014 – Between the Buried and Me (BTBAM) previously...Read More
Metal Blade Records to release Type O Negative and Karma to Burn vinyl for Record Store Day!
- April 10th, 2014 – In celebration of Record Store Day 2014 on April...Read More
Revocation signs with Metal Blade Records!
- April 9th, 2014 – Boston, Massachusetts-based technical metal act,...Read More
WHITECHAPEL Posts Second In-Studio Video Clip!
- April 9th, 2014 – New Album Our Endless War Available April 29th on...Read More


text:
More New and Used
from Private Sellers
Note: Supplemental materials are not guaranteed with Rental or Used book purchases.
Hearing the Movies Music and Sound in Film History
ISBN13:by Buhler, James; Neumeyer, David; Deemer, Rob
Oxford University Press
Questions About This Book?
What version or edition is this?
This is the edition with a publication date of 4/20/2009.
What is included with this book?
- The Used copy of this book is not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included.
Films achieve their effects with sound as well as images. An ideal text for introductory film music courses, Hearing the Movies: Music and Sound in Film History brings music into the context of sound, and sound into the context of the whole film. The text explores film sound in three parts. Through engaging, accessible sample analyses and exercises, Part I illustrates ways to analyze a soundtrack in relation to the image track. Part II focuses on the contributions of music to film form and style while offering a number of detailed analyses of different types of scenes; and Part III lays out a concise history of film music and sound, paying particular attention to the role of technological innovations in film production and exhibition. Features: * Detailed sample analyses with timings describe the function of sound and music in individual scenes * Extended exercises suggest tools for basic analysis of the soundtrack * Interludes at the ends of Parts I and II offer guidelines for writing about films in terms of their sound and music * Historical coverage extends from the silent film era to the advent of digital technology and beyond * Provides a broad range of examples from Hollywood, independent, and foreign films, as well as focused analysis * Features sidebar commentary from industry professionals and more than 300 illustrations, including screen stills, photos, tables, diagrams, and musical excerpts * Incorporates the broadest range of scholarship on film music currently available, spanning the disciplines of music and film/media studies * Includes glossary of terms for easy reference * Companion website at http://sites.google.com/site/hearingthemovies offers additional resources for instructors and students
Table of Contents
|Each Chapter opens with an Introduction.
|The Sound Track and Film Narrative: Basic Terms and Concepts
|The Sound Track and Narrative
|Basics: Image Track, Sound Track, Narrative
|Sound Track Components and Narrative
|Sound Effects
|Example for Sound Track Components and Narrative (1): Sleepless in Seattle, Second Botched Meeting
|Example for Sound Track Components and Narrative (2): Good Will Hunting, Boston Common Scene
|Exercise: Masking
|Exercise: Using an Analysis Checklist
|Terminology The Musicality Of The Sound Track: Concepts Music and Sound
|Rhythm and Meter
|Filters and ""Distortion""
|Timbre and Sound
|Density and Liveliness
|Melody and Accompaniment
|A-melodic (Accompaniment without melody)
|Texture and Foreground/Background Functions
|Example for Sound Track Analysis Using Musical Terms (1): Trzy Kolory: Bialy (Three Colors: White), The Shooting
|Example for Sound Track Analysis Using Musical Terms (2): Atonement, Main-Title Sequence and First Scene
|Analysis of Sound Track Elements (After Altman, Jones, and Tatroe)
|Using Graphic Displays for Sound (After Wierzbicki)
|Pts And Terminology, Sound, And The Space Of Narrative: Diegetic/Nondiegetic Music and Narrative
|Example for Diegetic and Nondiegetic Music: Glory, Boston Party scene
|Onscreen/Offscreen Sound and Music
|Offscreen Sound
|Onscreen/Offscreen Sound Interaction: Examples
|Ambiguity of Offscreen Sound: Underdetermination of Sound
|Point of View Sound
|Offscreen Sound and Music in Relation to the Diegesis
|Audio Dissolve
|Mickey-Mousing: Music as Effects ""Sweetener""
|The Acousmetre (Acoustical Being)
|Using an Events Table
|Using an (Updated) Analysis Checklist
|Transitions: The Sound Bridge and Hard Cuts
|Sound Advance
|Sound Lag
|Sound Link
|Sound Match
|Hard Cut
|Synchronization (""Playing with the Film"")
|Example for Synchronization: Casablanca, Rick and Ilsa Meet
|Counterpoint (""Playing against the Film"")
|Summary Example for Synchronization and Counterpoint: Casablanca, After-Hours Scene
|Exercise: The Commutation Test
|Ion Terlude: Writing About Film Sound: Analysis and Analysis Report: Catch Me If You Can
|Music Cues
|General Description of the Sound Track Elements and their Balance
|General Evaluation of the Sound Track
|Description of Music's Narrative Functions
|Response Paper that Describes Music's Narrative Functions
|Compare and Contrast Paper Focusing on Music
|Concluding Comments
|Music, Film Form, and Film Style
|Runtime Segmentation In Film Form
|Synch Points and Audiovisual Phrasing
|Examples for Music in Film Form
|Lady Windermere's Fan
|Mildred Pierce
|The Birdcage
|The Hours
|Establishing Sequence N Main-Title and End-Credit Sequences
|Meet Me in St. Louis, Titles and Opening Scene
|Rashomon, Prologue and Title Sequence
|The Sound of Music, Overture and Title Sequence
|Out of Africa, Music in the Main-Title Sequence
|To Kill a Mockingbird, Music in the Main-Title Sequence
|Additional Examples
|End-Credit Music
|Films from 1939, End Credits
|Out of Africa, Final Scene and End Credits
|Bridget Jones's Diary, End-Credits Sequence
|Additional Examples
|Performance Scene Ic In Performance and Montage Scenes
|To Have and Have Not, ""Am I Blue?""
|The Sound of Music, ""The Laendler"" (as Dance Scene)
|The Sound of Music and Grease, Two Larger Performance Numbers
|Additional Examples
|Montage or Fantasy Scene
|Gone with the Wind, Montage Sequence in the Prologue to Part 2
|Pride & Prejudice, Three Montage Sequences
|Bridget Jones's Diary, ""Out of Reach"" and ""I'm Every Woman""
|Additional Examples
|Style Topics and the Leitmotif He Sound Track
|Introduction: Theme, Motif, and Motive
|""Love"" Themes
|The Leitmotif
|Style Topics
|Musical Styles
|Location and Stereotype
|Style Topics in Rebecca
|A Note on Sound Topics
|Dialogue Scene Music In Character and Action Scenes
|Rebecca, Terrace Scene
|Additional Examples
|Action Scene
|Wo Hu Cang Long (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), ""Theft of the Sword""
|The Matrix, ""Trinity in a Jam""
|Additional Examples
|Love Scene
|Out of Africa, ""On Safari: The Second Dinner""
|The Sound of Music, ""The Laendler"" (as Love Scene)
|Shadowlands, Four Scenes
|Rlude: Writing About Film Music: Interpretation Developing a Reading (1): Finding a Thesis
|Thesis Options for Catch Me if You Can
|Examples from the Published Literature
|Developing a Reading (2): Reading against the Grain
|Example: Casablanca against the Grain
|The Sound Track: A Technological History
|The Early Years Music And Sound In The Silent Era (1895-1929)
|The Nickelodeon
|""Playing the Picture""
|Special Scores
|The Picture Palace
|Stratification of Exhibition
|The Show
|Music and Sound Production in the Picture Palace
|Fitting the Picture
|Special Scores in the 1920s
|Road Shows
|Music on the Set
|A Note on the Music for Silent Film Releases to VHS and DVD
|The Transition To Sound Film (1926-1932)
|Issues of Teschnology and Economics
|Sound Research in the 1920s
|Sound Film and the Standardization of Exhibition
|Sound and the Feature Film, 1927: The Jazz Singer
|The Transition from Silent to Sound Film
|Types of Early Sound Film
|Musicals in Early Sound Film
|Mastering the Sound Track and Elements of Style
|Production Phases
|Music Department
|Sound Department
|Music And The Sound Track In The Classical Studio Era
|Issues of Technology and Economics
|Improvements in Recording Technology
|Sound in the Theaters of the 1930s and 1940s
|The Great Depression and the Consolidation of Genres
|The Sound Track in the Studio Era and Elements of Style
|The Classical System
|Foreground and Background
|Background(ed) Music and the Sound Track
|Scoring Practices
|Production Phases
|Music Department
|Sound Department
|The Stereo Sound Track And The Post-Classical Era (1950-1975)
|Issues of High Fidelity and Stereo Sound
|Legal and Economic Challenges to the Industry
|Widescreen and Stereo Formats
|Magnetic Tape in Production and Postproduction
|Issues of Stereo
|Analysis: The Robe
|Stereo and Space
|Stereo Sound, Magnetic Tape, and Elements of Style
|Issues of Aesthetics
|Scoring Practices
|Main Theme from High Noon
|Popular Song and the Underscore
|Soundtrack Albums
|Importance of Recordings
|Relation to the Musical
|Scoring with Recordings
|Production Phases
|Music Department
|Sound Department
|Ence Of Sound Design (1975-2000), Dolby Stereo, And The Issues of Technology and Economics
|The New Hollywood and Saturation Booking
|Sound in the Multiplex
|Dolby Stereo in the Theaters
|Home Video and Limitations of Television
|Sound Design and Elements of Style
|Issues of Aesthetics: Sound Design
|Aesthetics and the Stereo Field
|Scoring Practices
|Aesthetic Issues of Cross-Marketing and Promotion
|Music Video Style
|Production Phases
|Music Department
|Sound Department
|Music And Film Sound Today
|Introduction: The Digital Era
|Issues of Technology and Economics
|Digital Sound
|Digital Sound Formats
|Video, DVD, and Television Technologies
|The Multiplex Palace
|Digital Sound and Elements of Style
|Issues of Aesthetics
|Scoring Practices
|The Rise of Rap
|Production Phases
|Music Department
|Music Production
|Music Postproduction
|Sound Department
|Production Sound
|Foley Effects
|Sound Effects
|Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.


text:
It was the perfect night. Everything was executed flawlessly and now you are exhausted. Ready to head back to the Hotel Crescent for your first night as husband and wife- too bad your limo didn't show up. It happens all the time. Why? It's so common, when overwhelmed with the enormous costs associated with a wedding to cut corners somewhere.
The price of transportation varies quite a bit from company to company- so it's tempting to let price dictate your choice. As with all aspects of your event, you will get what you pay for, and in the case of transportation you might not get what you paid for. So, when shopping for transportation, Terry Reddy, of Reddy Transportation suggests you- inquire about licensing, bonding and insurance- get references and call them. Where they timely, professional and safe? Keeping in mind- they are carrying precious cargo!
A quality transportation service can really help to take the burden off of you during the wedding week. Hire someone to fetch your guests from the airport and deliver them to their hotel instead of making repeated trips in frustrating Dallas traffic. Secure a bus to transfer guests from the hotels to the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner and then back to the hotel. Likewise for the day of the wedding. Imagine what you could do with all the time you save?
Reddy Transportation offers luxury transport such as the Bentley Arnage, limousine buses which feature plasma screens, sedans and white or black limousines. If you are getting married on a Saturday, I recommend you do not wait until the month before your wedding to secure transportation. Expect a limousine company to charge a minimum number of hours for service and some do not offer transfer service (one venue to the other without paying a minimum).
One hint- big companies come with big overhead and are less likely to be able to negotiate. As with most vendors in the wedding industry- Saturday evenings are premium nights- so you can expect to pay more on that night than any other.
For more information please contact Terry Reddy at 972-333-1365 or on the web at www.reddylimo.com
For additional articles on wedding and events planning- please visit www.soveryclever.com.


text:
Tove was cleaning out some random stuff, and came upon this Japanese model that I had bought years ago and never built up. So she told me to build it (with the perhaps implied threat that if I didn't, she'd throw it out).
This may be a shock to everybody, but I have to admit that I'm not generally a huge fan of most Microsoft software ("No, really, Linus? Tell us more!").
But I may have to admit that I was wrong.
No, I'm not talking about Windows 7. I'm talking about Songsmith, which is clearly a true work of genius. Yes, yes, the commercials are painfully cheesy, but when used right the end result is undeniably art.
Ok, so that's a plush Linux Tasmanian devil.
It's sitting in a bathtub, because my innate instinct for great photography (Ansel Adams has got nothing on me) made me think that "Hey, I'm in a hotel room in Hobart - and it's exactly like I was in a fancy photography studio if I just put the dang thing into the bath tub".
I'm totally not very sentimental about technology - the good old days really weren't very good at all, and I'm solidly in the "good riddance" camp when it comes to old computers and peripherals. I'll take the newest/smallest/fastest thing over those clunky machines of yesteryear.
It's that magical time of year when I actually play video games. I have one rule for christmas (and bday, for that matter) gifts for Tove: she should buy me toys. No practical gifts, no soft packages with sweaters or socks. I didn't enjoy them when I was little, and I don't enjoy them now. I refuse to grow up.
It looks like we may well have a white Christmas in Portland this year. Schools were closed all week long, and while it's easy to laugh at that when you come from Finland ("if it's colder than -20°C, you don't have to go outside for recess, and can do PE inside"), it's rather understandable when most years you only get a day or two of snow.
Two books this week: "Survival of the Sickest" by Sharon Moalem, and "The Hero of Ages", the final part of Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy.
The first one is a fairly light read on disease and genetics, and was really quite enjoyable. It's the kind of book I tend to read when I decide I want to read something intelligent, and it's a lot more modern about genetics in that it discusses genes as being much more dynamic than you'd find in more traditional ("older") books on the subject.
Nobody will ever claim that I have any real taste in music. I mainly listen while driving, and mostly just to classic rock. Sue me.
But every once in a while I get that "stabby feeling", and yesterday I realized why. It's "Brandi (You're a fine girl)". It's one of those songs that make me change stations really quickly, even to the insipid nasty soft-rock channel that Tove listens to (which does only christmas songs this time of year - a nice improvement over their normal fare).
...because it looks like we figured out what the suspend/resume problem was. And as suspected, the actual resource code had nothing what-so-ever to do with it, and was apparently just a trigger for timing.
It's frustrating with bugs like that, but on the other hand it's then a big relief when it gets resolved, and in this case we also ended up going through a lot of code and I think we'll be much better off as a result. It's also a huge relief to find the actual root cause, rather than seeing things that can be used to paper over and hide the problem.
So I've spent much of the last couple of days remotely debugging this insane suspend failure (or to be exact, resume failure) that happens occasionally for a couple of people.


text:
Jun 27, 2012 8:06 AM
We spotted a top last week that had us drooling, but as with most street fashion stuff, tracking down where it had come from felt a bit like going on a dodo hunt. But we think we've found a match in this Too Close to Call Cutout Top ($27). We're in sublime love with the fence-post-style open back design. Now all we need are the four hours we spent scouring the web for it back.
If you've got a product or service that you'd like to promote on Outblush, click here to find out about our advertising opportunities.
Outblush is a blog for girls who love to shop. Our staff digs up the best clothes, home stuff, beauty items, and more. New items are posted every day — bookmark us and check out:


text:
Secretary of State John Kerry returned from his 10th trip to the Mideast since July 2013 when the White House began its latest search for peace. Hoping to get a blueprint of a final status agreement from Israel and Palestinians, Kerry found out the hard way how different Mideast peacemaking is today from the old days when former President Jimmy Carter coaxed his 1979 Camp David Accords, winning peace treaty with Egypt in return for the Sinai Peninsula. When former President Bill Clinton failed at last ditch peacemaking in Fall of 2000, no one could have imagined Sept. 11 and how it changed Mideast peacemaking under former President George W. Bush. Back in the day, the U.S. would deal with any unsavory character as long as it placated the right parties. Bush's Doctrine prevented the U.S. government from dealing with terrorists, no matter their political agenda.
When Carter negotiated the Camp David Accords in 1978, Palestinians routinely engaged in terrorism, calling it legitimate resistance. Despite murdering innocent civilians to pressure Israel into concessions, the late Palestine Liberation chief Yasser Arafat would routinely order terrorist attacks as a bargaining chip with Israel. All that stopped when Bush refused to deal with Arafat, knowing his track record of terrorist tactics, including suicide bombings. Watching Palestinians dancing in the streets after Sept. 11 stamped in the importance of Israel as a loyal ally in the war on terror. Against liberal objections, Bush backed Israel strongly in the war on terror, using Israel as its key ally and military base in prosecuting terrorism. Gone were the days when the U.S. would threaten Israel's foreign aid unless it acquiesced to U.S. demands to placate Palestinians, no matter how unrealistic.
Kerry's problem pulling off a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians is that the same old formula based on 1972 U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 no longer works. Since Sept. 11, the U.S. cannot accept—or pressure Israel into accepting—the old Saudi Arabia formula of Israel returning all lands seized in the 1967 Six-Day War. Since Clinton's peacemaking failed, Palestinians have waged two Intifadas or holy wars against Israel, sending waves of suicide bombers, snipers and rocket attacks. "There's a lot of work that needs to happen., a lot of tough decisions that need to be made," said an unnamed State Department officials up-in-the-air back to Washington. Kerry hasn't admitted that the old formula won't bring an independent Palestinian state. Palestine Authority's 78-year-old President Mahmoud Abbas insists Israel must leave the Jordan Valley, a strategic buffer zone between the West Bank and Jordan.
After the 1967 Six-Day-War in which Egypt lost the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip, Syria lost the Golan Heights and Jordan lost the West Bank, peace efforts started in 1970 but got nowhere until Carter hosted the 1978 Camp David Accords. When the late Yasser Arafat died Nov. 11, 2004, it was the 40-year-anniversary of the PLO, the organization he founded May 28, 1964. Arafat hoped—and prayed—a carefully planned 1967 War would return Palestinians back to their homeland. When the war failed, fought by Egypt, Jordan Syrian and Iraq, after only six days, Israeli had grabbed Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip, Syria's Golan Heights and Jordan's West Bank, all claimed today by Palestinians. Before the 1967 War, Palestinians had no sovereign claim to any land in Egypt, Syria or Jordan. Now split between the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinians are no longer one people.
U.S. officials continue to negotiate only with the Ramallah-based PLO. Seized in a violent coup by Hamas June 14, 2007, the Gaza Strip is no longer part of any Mideast peacemaking. There's a good chance that if Abbas bypasses Hamas and cuts a deal with Netanyahu for an independent Palestinian state it could trigger a full-out civil war between the two factions. Kerry found out the hard way over the weekend what happens when Israel's asked about Palestinians "right-of-return," a complete non-starter in any peace negotiation, Wheat makes U.S. peacemaking different this time around is that the Obama seeks consensus with U.S. conservatives. Conservatives, like Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), won't support any peace deal that compromises Israel's national security. Giving Palestinians East Jerusalem or the Jordan Valley won't get it done.
Kerry must wake up to post-Sept. 11 realities in the Middle East. Nothing can be done to compromise Israeli national security, even where it promises to complete a Mideast peace deal. "The past is becoming clearer, the puzzle is becoming more defined, and it is becoming much more apparent to everybody what the remaining tough decisions are and what the options are with respect to those choices," said Kerry, realizing that it's a whole new ballgame. Gone are the days when you can push Israeli around to make dangerous compromises. If Kerry were really being honest, he'd admit that the right-of-return, East Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley are no longer on the table. Now divided between Hamas' Gaza and Abbas' West Banak, Palestinians have only one viable option for an independent state: Accept the West Bank with Ramallah as its capital or go back to square one.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.


text:
Store Sample – Ivory- Size 6 (Bust: 34 Waist: 26 Hip:37) – Fair Condition – Needs a zipper pull on the inner zipper, stain on the train, and small tears on the front bottom of the dress. Please email with questions or for more pictures.
We accept all major credit cards, checks, and cash. Will ship anywhere in the US – signature required and fully insured.
Thank you!
- Alterations:
- Preservation Method:
- Terms of Sale: All Sales Final
- Original Owner: Yes
- Has Original Receipt:
- Location: Corona Del Mar, CA
- Will Ship to: Other
- Payment Methods Accepted: Other
Please read our BUYER'S GUIDE before purchasing a dress online.


text:
Shirer Family Genealogy Project
Person Page 28663
Main Page - Master Index - Surname Index - Master Place Index - Historical Sources - Photo Albums - Grave Restoration - Scheurer DNA Project - John Shirer of Somerset Co., PA
Previous Page - Next Page
|Thelma Arlene Allen1 b. 15 December 1913, d. 1986
|Joseph Ellyson Bradshaw1 b. 1 June 1909, d. 19 September 1970
|Pop-up Pedigree
|Richard L. "Dick" Brown b. May 1939
|Married Name
|Principal=Richard L. "Dick" Brown2
|15 February 1940
|IA, The SSDI gives the date as 14 Feb 1940.
Name: Donna Lea Bradshaw
Baptism/Christening Date:
Baptism/Christening Place:
Birth Date: 15 Feb 1940
Birthplace: Iowa, United States
Death Date:
Name Note:
Father's Name: Joseph Ellyson Bradshaw
Father's Birthplace:
Father's Age:
Mother's Name: Thelma A. Allen
Mother's Birthplace:
Mother's Age:
Indexing Project (Batch) Number: I09996-6
System Origin: Iowa-EASy
Source Film Number: 1065288
Reference Number: p 25
Collection: Iowa Births and Christenings, 1830-19501,3
|28 October 2009
|Saint Charles, Madison Co., IA3
|28 October 2009
First Name: Donna
Middle Name: L
Last Name: Brown
Name Suffix:
Birth Date: 14 February 1940
Social Security Number: 484-48-0309
Place of Issuance: Iowa
Last Residence: Saint Charles, Madison, Iowa
Zip Code of Last Residence: 50240
Death Date: 28 October 2009
Estimated Age at Death: 69
Collection: United States Social Security Death Index3
Previous Page - Next Page
Main Page - Master Index - Surname Index - Master Place Index - Historical Sources - Photo Albums - Grave Restoration - Scheurer DNA Project - John Shirer of Somerset Co., PA
Compiled by: Denny Shirer, Canton, Ohio
This page was created by John Cardinal's Second Site v1.8.7.
Site updated on 17 October 2014; 40,089 people
Census Records | Vital Records | Family Trees & Communities | Immigration Records | Military Records Directories & Member Lists | Family & Local Histories | Newspapers & Periodicals | Court, Land & Probate | Finding Aids


text:
Contact Us
Connect With Us
Career Opportunities
Listen Live
Recently Played
Request A Song
Contest Rules
Photo Albums
Pet Of The Week
Listener Club Contests
Update Account
Artist Details
Search for
Share This
barely command more than a footnote in most rock reference books. During the early '70s, however,
were one of the hottest folk-based rock bands in England, with chart placements on two of their albums that rivaled
Jethro Tull
, and had them proclaimed one of the most important groups of the decade. With a sound that mixed plaintive folk-like melodies, earthy but well-sung harmonies, and acoustic and electric textures, the group seemed poised for international success, when a series of unfortunate artistic decisions, followed by a split in their lineup, left them bereft of audience and success.
Alan Hull
(b. Feb. 20, 1945), guitarist
Simon Cowe
(b. Apr. 1, 1948), mandolin player
Ray Jackson
(b. Dec. 12, 1948), bassist/violinist
Rod Clements
(b. Nov. 17, 1947), and drummer
Ray Laidlaw
(b. May 28, 1948) all hailed from Newcastle-on-Tyne, England, and the surrounding area. At some point, they were known as
Downtown Faction
, but they took their familiar musical form under the name
. The band became a very popular act on the college circuit, playing what was known as "good-time" music, singalong numbers resembling (or directly derived from) pub songs in which audiences could luxuriate, usually with
's harmonica honking along.
Alan Hull
had a background in folk music that enabled him to freely incorporate that influence, and he was the major songwriter and singer in the band.
In 1968, they discovered that an American group was already using the name
, and the Newcastle group rechristened itself
, taken from the name of an island off the coast of Northumberland in Northern England -- the island Lindisfarne (also known as Holy Island) is most famous for its early medieval monastery and castle and the ancient "Lindisfarne Gospels" medieval manuscript. The new name fit the times and the group's sound, which was evolving in the direction of folk-style music. The group was signed to
Tony Stratton-Smith
's Charisma Records, England's premiere progressive rock label, in 1970.
They released their first (and best) album,
Nicely Out of Tune
, that same year. Their debut album captured the group's best attributes, a rollicking, upbeat, optimistic collection of hippie/folk music, somewhere midway between
Fairport Convention
and the early
Grateful Dead
, with a peculiarly urban, English working-class ambience. Their "Englishness," coupled with the occasionally uneven quality of their songwriting, may explain one major reason why
never achieved more than a tiny cult following in the United States.
Nicely Out of Tune
contained one wistfully romantic number, "Lady Eleanor," which became a favorite number in the band's concert repertoire, and seemed destined to find an audience. The album and the "Lady Eleanor" single failed to chart, but
's live shows only grew in popularity -- by the end of 1970, they were able to ask for £1500 a night from promoters, a far cry from the £300 they had been getting on the college circuit.
Their second album,
Fog on the Tyne
, released in 1971, marked their commercial breakthrough -- a collection of earthy, folk-type pub songs,
Fog on the Tyne
entered the British charts in October of that year and began a slow climb into the middle reaches. In February of 1972, however, the group's label belated issued a single from the album, "Meet Me on the Corner." That record was number five on the charts the following month, while
Fog on the Tyne
suddenly rose to the number one spot. Within a matter of weeks,
Nicely Out of Tune
entered the charts for the first time and eventually hit number eight; "Lady Eleanor," reissued in June of 1972, made it to number three.
That was when the media hype kicked in, raising expectations and aspirations for a group that, until four months earlier, had been a pleasant folk-rock outfit with a solid cult following.
Alan Hull
was referred to in the press as the most important new songwriter since
Bob Dylan
, and
were saddled with the designation as "the 1970s
." Up to this time, the group had played in England and Wales, but, apart from one show in Scotland and individual forays to Paris and Holland, its members hadn't even pondered the notion or implications of an international career. It all seemed too good to last, and it was.
Later in 1972, after a frantic period capitalizing on one massive success after another, the band released its third album,
Dingly Dell
. The album was troubled from the start. The record's producer was
Bob Johnston
, the American who had worked on
Bob Dylan
John Wesley Harding
, among many other records, and who had also produced
Fog on the Tyne
. The bandmembers had a falling out with
Dingly Dell
, and remixed the album themselves immediately prior to release. The resulting record had a very crisp sound, very up-front, and more of a mainstream hard rock sound than their previous two long-players. Unfortunately, this was not the move that the critics had wanted or expected of the band -- they wanted a richer, more progressive folk-type sound, in some ways closer to
Fairport Convention
, not the harder, more basic sound that they found here. Additionally, the songwriting didn't match the prior two albums, and nobody was drawing comparisons between
Alan Hull
over the songs on
Dingly Dell
Ironically, this album came out at just about the time
were in the process of gaining a small following in America, although they never really had much chance of succeeding. Their association with Charisma Records meant that they were afforded a listen by the American progressive rock audience, and to some limited extent their mixture of folk and rock was "progressive." In reality,
were closer in spirit and music to such hard-rocking bands as Brinsley Schwarz,
Bees Make Honey
, and
Eggs Over Easy
, utterly lacking the pretensions needed for a prog rock band.
Under other circumstances, the album would have been passed over by most critics as nothing more than a slightly disappointing lapse, but reviewers and journalists seemed bent on revenge for
's failure to rise to the praise and hype lavished on them over the previous year. The record and the group were universally savaged, although
Dingly Dell
still got to number five on the charts and yielded one modest hit, "All Fall Down." They toured America, but discovered that American listeners and critics found their sound too peculiarly English -- in the wrong ways -- to really accept
. The group was never remotely as popular as its Charisma labelmates
, who were eagerly snapped up by Atlantic Records once their Charisma contract was up.
, and
exited the band in early 1973 and formed a new group called
Jack the Lad
, which specialized in a harder, more basic pub rock sound, and went on to release three albums on Charisma. A live
album, featuring the original lineup and songs mostly from the first three albums, was issued by Charisma in 1973, but it was at best a holding action. Later that year,
Alan Hull
Ray Jackson
were back leading a new
lineup, featuring
Ken Craddock
on guitar, keyboards, and vocals;
Charlie Harcourt
on guitars;
Tommy Duffy
on bass and vocals; and
Paul Nichols
on drums. Their first album,
Roll on Ruby
, was a critical and commercial failure.
embarked on a solo recording career at around this same time, which seemed to draw away still more of the band's original audience. As the principal songwriter and voice of the group, and one of two original members, he held
's public better than the new
The band switched to Warner Bros. for its next album,
Happy Daze
, which fared no better. By 1977,
Jack the Lad
had called it quits and
, and
were back with
also recorded with
under the group name
on the Rocket label, releasing a single album, entitled
Isn't It Strange
switched labels again to Mercury and debuted with a double live album, Magic in the Air, with songs drawn from the group's first three albums. The band remained intact and on Mercury for two more long-players, released to little lasting commercial avail:
Back and Fourth
(1978), which yielded a pair of modest hits in
Alan Hull
's "Run for Home," a song that sounds more like
does, and "Warm Feeling"; and
The News
(1979). They remained a reasonably popular concert attraction -- especially in Newcastle and the surrounding area -- into the early '80s, and have continued to record and reunite for concerts periodically in the years since. During the early '80s, they organized Lindisfarne Musical Productions and began releasing their work on the LMP label, including a live album cut in 1983. Their live recordings, featuring new renditions of their classic early-'70s material, seem to draw the greatest enthusiasm.
also maintained a separate solo career until his 1995 passing. Fans of the group should definitely own his
Back to Basics
CD, featuring live acoustic versions of his best songs dating back to 1970.
Bruce Eder, Rovi
► View More
▲ View Less
More Lindisfarne
Access All Areas
The Charisma Years (1970-1973)
Lindisfarne at the BBC
Meet Me On the Corner: the Collection
Live: The Definitive Edition
Here Comes the Neighborhood/Untapped and Acoustic
The Very Best of Lindisfarne
The River Sessions
Back on the Tyne
Magic in the Air/Caught in the Act
Live at the Cambridge Folk Festival
View More
You may also like...
Jethro Tull
Barclay James Harvest
Máire Brennan
Moya Brennan
Sandy Denny
Listen Live
Contact Us
Advertise With Us
Contest Rules
Listener Club Login
Connect With Us


text:
Damian Furniss's poem celebrates Liverpool on the fiftieth anniversary of The Beatles' debut album, Please Please Me
Liverpool stares out New York
as if the Mersey doesn't end
where it tips into the Irish Sea
but deep veins the Atlantic shale
and throws up in Hudson Bay,
hung up on cotton and slaves
and vinyl the spin-offs of slaves
cut and canned, their grooves
a trade for a jump on the docks
in blue jeans that cry America!
John and Paul on the Cast Iron Shore
Manhattan sand beneath their feet
skimming stones at sheets of tin:
the walls of Jericho come tumbling down
in a din they call America!
America, where even busboys
own swimming pools, the cars
are big as buses, jelly babies
are flavoured a thousand shades,
and babies weaned on the blues.
America, the land Chuck sold to Elvis
and Elvis sold on to the Beatles
and the Beatles sold back to America
with a grin and a tapered-in suit
kicking from the heel of a Chelsea boot
and into America: the lion's mouth
of the Coliseum is ready to roar,
Idlewild has laid out the tongue
of its asphalt carpet, and teens
scent something to sink their teeth in.
America, where Klansmen burn effigies
of the men they're growing into,
where Jesus looks like the men
they'll become, when becoming
more like Jesus is the new religion.
If they have a dream, let's call it
America, where their stories end,
as the story of America has to end,
stalked by a disease there's no cure for,
within you or without you.
Extracted from Newspaper Taxis: Poetry After the Beatles, out now, published by Seren.


text:
Posts tagged X505Q870
Toshiba Qosmio X505-Q870 Notebook0
The Toshiba Qosmio X505-Q870 Notebook PC offers powerhouse performance and a brilliant High-Definition 18.4-inch widescreen Edge-to-Edge display with TruBrite Technology. This remarkable display allows you to take advantage of every inch of screen space when you enjoy movies, videos, and games in stunning HD clarity. The Toshiba Qosmio X505-Q870 Notebook PC features a 1.6GHz Intel Core i7 720QM Quad Core processor, 4GB of DDR3 memory, an NVIDIA GeForce GTS 360M graphics engine, a 500GB 7200RPM hard drive and Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. Armed with those extraordinary components, your new Toshiba Qosmio X505-Q870 Notebook PC will create a world filled with spectacular multimedia entertainment.
Video Rating: 4 / 5
UNBEATABLE 66% OFF DISCOUNT! Buy a Durable Laptop Battery on LaptopBatteryLife.com


text:
Authorities in Lake County arrested a Clearlake Oaks, Calif., man who allegedly beat his girlfriend's dog to death after the dog killed his pet bird, reported Monday's Lake County News.
According to the publication, on Friday, 52-year-old Dennis Michael Hector beat his girlfriend's dog to death with his fists because the dog had killed his parakeet.
On Jan. 24, deputies were dispatched to the Shoreview Drive residence after receiving a call about a woman screaming. According to Lt. Steve Brooks, the responding deputy heard the screaming when he arrived, but nobody answered the door when the deputy knocked.
Backup was called and two deputies then forced their way into the residence after the occupants refused to open the door.
Hector's girlfriend notified the deputies that her dog had been killed, and advised them that the dog's body could be found in a boat which was in the channel behind their home.
Hector allegedly admitted to warning his girlfriend that he would "take action against" her dog if the dog harmed his bird; he allegedly admitted that he believed that it was okay to kill the dog if the dog killed another pet.
Hector was arrested on multiple charges for the incident, including maliciously and intentionally torturing and or killing an animal, subjecting an animal to needless suffering or inflicting unnecessary cruelty, resisting arrest, possession of controlled substance paraphernalia, being under the influence of a controlled substance and destroying or concealing evidence; he is held on $100,000 bail.
Lake County Sheriff's Office arrest record here.
Continue reading: Florida city bans the sale of commercially bred pets
If you would like to continue receiving the latest animal related news, tips and advice, please click the "Subscribe" icon which is located near the top, left portion of this column. It is free and anonymous to sign up.
Follow the National Dog News Examiner on Facebook and Twitter!
I am human, if you see a typo, please let me know. Questions, comments or story ideas can be emailed to email@example.com. Please note - due to the heavy volume of emails received, I am unable to respond to each and every request, but they are all appreciated!


text:
The lengthy url
takes you to a website created by artist Kenneth Tin-Kin Hung. He refers to the site as "60x1.com."
he explains that the site is an artistic experiment in bad website design:
60X1.com is a website whose sole content consists of splash pages — the opening pages for most websites, usually containing a small amount of graphics. After clicking through all the splash pages the spectator will find there is actually no core content, opening the question of definition regarding content in web pages.
60X1.com is designed to be user-unfriendly, aiming to serve as a counter structure to the model of most successful websites — portal sites where all the links are contained in one interface in order to generate a maximum number of hits, instead 60X1 is designed to generate a minimum amount of hits with it's long domain name, one way navigation and it's big file sizes of images, existing as an experiment to test viewers' patience and expectation, as well as calling the internet into question as a forum for communication.
The challenge, as you click through the splash pages, is to find the word "enter" which is hidden somewhere on each page. Until you find that word, and click on it, you won't be able to get to the next page. I got about five pages in before I gave up. So I guess his experiment in bad site design worked! I've reproduced a few of the splash pages below.
Posted By: Alex -
Mon Jan 14, 2013
Strange Websites
I made it to the end!
Posted by Expat47 in Quincy, IL on 01/14/13 at 09:57 AM
Not good, tries to high-jack your browser and direct you to My Space.
Posted by Happy Jack in UK on 01/14/13 at 02:16 PM
Hell that was worth it. I never realized that the Girl Scouts sponsored that kind of stuff. Who knew?
Posted by Mr. Completely on 01/14/13 at 08:46 PM
No thanks, if I needed more frustration in my life I'd pick up shifts at work or hang out with my son.
Posted by Patty in Ohio, USA on 01/15/13 at 01:47 AM
Page 1 of 1 pages
Commenting is no longer available on this page.
Custom Search
Books Selected and endorsed for Pure Weirdness by Your WU Team
Get WU Posts by Email
Enter your email address:
Delivered by
WU on Twitter
RSS Feed


text: You will be head over heels for these saucy little numbers! They will perfectly compliment any outfit for any occasion! Make sure to add these to your collection, they definitely are a must have! The features for these heels include a canvas fabric upper with a camouflage print throughout, pump design, metallic spike carved platform and heel, round closed toe, scoop vamp, smooth lining, and cushioned footbed. Please note sizes run a half size smaller. Approximately 6 3/4 inch heels and 2 3/4 inch platforms. Style: shoes-heels-rk-jadagreen Brand: Red Kiss


text:
- About this Journal ·
- Abstracting and Indexing ·
- Aims and Scope ·
- Annual Issues ·
- Article Processing Charges ·
- Articles in Press ·
- Author Guidelines ·
- Bibliographic Information ·
- Citations to this Journal ·
- Contact Information ·
- Editorial Board ·
- Editorial Workflow ·
- Free eTOC Alerts ·
- Publication Ethics ·
- Reviewers Acknowledgment ·
- Submit a Manuscript ·
- Table of Contents
International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks
Volume 2012 (2012), Article ID 934240, 12 pages
Remaining Energy-Level-Based Transmission Power Control for Energy-Harvesting WSNs
Institute of Computer Application Technology, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou 310018, China
Received 24 November 2011; Accepted 18 March 2012
Academic Editor: Jiming Chen
Copyright © 2012 Guojun Dai et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
The purpose of this paper is to introduce a transmission power control scheme based on the remaining energy level and the energy-harvesting status of individual sensor nodes to extend the overall lifetime of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) and balance the energy usage. Ambient energy harvesting has been introduced as a promising technique to solve the energy constraint problem of WSNs. However, considering the tiny equipment and the inherent low and unbalanced harvesting capability due to environmental issues, there is still a long distance from perfectly solving the problem. In this paper, a wind and solar power joint-harvested WSN system has been demonstrated, which uses ultracapacitor as energy storage. By analyzing the power recharging, leakage, and energy consumption rate, a novel energy-level-based transmission power control scheme (EL-TPC) is produced. In EL-TPC scheme, the transmission power is classified into various levels according to the remaining energy level. By adapting the nodes' operation pattern, hierarchical network architecture can be formed, which prioritizes the use of high energy level, fast charging nodes to save the energy of uncharged nodes. The simulation and demonstration results show that EL-TPC scheme can significantly balance the energy consumption and extend the entire network lifetime.
1. Introduction
Energy constraint has been one of the most important design issues of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) since last decade. For lifetime maintaining, many mechanisms have been produced either to minimize the energy usage or to expand the energy storage. Generally, these schemes can be classified into two main categories: energy management and energy harvesting [1].
It has been extensively studied that most of the energy is consumed by the radio transceiver, which indicates that an effective way is to reduce the time period when the onboard radio is on and minimize the amount of packet delivery. Therefore, sleep-wakeup duty cycle is introduced to allow sensor nodes to sleep when there are no operation requirements. In order to reduce the entire traffic load and achieve long sleep duration, energy-efficient MAC protocols [2], routing protocols [3], data aggregation schemes [4], and transmission power control schemes have been proposed as well as some cross-layer design [5].
However, these protocols still face some primary problems, such as the trade-off between scheme complexity and node simplicity, the trade-off between idle listening, overhearing, and control packet overhead in MAC protocols, the trade-off between energy-efficient routes and long latency in routing protocols, and also the trade-off between average number of hops and transmission power level as well as energy consumption balance problem. It is unavoidable that the sensor nodes that closer to the sink node have heavier traffic load than those farther away due to more routing relay. The sensor nodes that take more local computation, such as schedule assignment and broadcast, data aggregation, will also consume more energy. After a certain period of system operation, these nodes in critical positions may lose effect and result in the entire network invalid.
On the other hand, energy harvesting has now been introduced as a promising solution of energy constraint which allows the batteries of sensor nodes to be recharged using ambient energy resources, such as solar power, wind power, or even vibration power. In these designs, ambient energy can be converted to electrical energy and used directly or stored in the means of energy storages, for example, batteries and ultracapacitor. However, using rechargeable sensor nodes also suffers from many problems, such as the technical challenges in tiny ambient energy collection device production and implementation. The extremely low recharging speed due to typical ultra-low-power ambient energy and the unbalanced recharging speed also generate problems. The lifetime of energy storage component is also a design challenge under the situation of frequently recharging and consuming.
The purpose of this paper is to solve the problem of the unbalanced energy consumption and harvesting speed in ambient powered WSNs, which applies a transmission power control scheme to enhance or reduce the communication distance of sensor nodes based on the energy level situation. By applying such a scheme, the sensor nodes with higher remaining energy resource or higher energy harvesting capability will take more responses to the network data packet delivery, while the other nodes will be in an idle state for longer time.
Our previous work has been presented in [6]; a building surface was mounted, wind power was collected, and wireless sensor network system has been demonstrated, which aims to monitors the usage pattern of air conditioners (ACs), the outdoor temperature. The idea of energy-level-based transmission power control scheme (EL-TPC) was firstly introduced in [6] as well. It achieves energy saving and balancing by modifying the transmission power level on different nodes according to the remaining energy level, power recharging, and leakage speed of the nodes. This paper is extended from [6]; more clear descriptions and more details of EL-TPC will be provided. Theoretical analyses are made, and the corresponding network simulations are also extended to highlight the outstanding performance of EL-TPC. Solar energy-harvesting sensor nodes are also introduced in the demonstration system.
The remaining of this paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, the related works of energy harvesting and the corresponding management schemes are introduced and compared. Our previous work of EL-TPC is also briefly introduced. The demonstration WSNs architecture and hardware component design are described in Section 3 with the measured experiment results of the device parameters. The transmission power control scheme EL-TPC is introduced in Section 4 in details. In the following Section 5, the network simulation and real BSMSN system demonstration are set up and carried out; the performances are evaluated. Finally, the conclusion is given in Section 6.
2. Related Works
Although the energy-harvesting WSNs are not mature in techniques, they indeed point out a sufficient way of the development of future WSNs. Some energy management schemes have also been proposed to schedule the energy usage pattern based on this background. Transmission power control has been carried out to coordinate MAC protocols previously. These methods as well as our original EL-TPC scheme are summarized as follows.
2.1. Existing Energy-Harvesting WSNs Systems
Many examples of energy-harvesting WSNs systems have been demonstrated since 2005, such as Trio [7], Fleck [8], Prometheus [9], AmbiMax [10], Everlast [11], and TwinStar [12]. In these systems, the resource of the ambient energy can either be solar power, wind power, or even mechanical vibration. Once the energy is collected by the sensor node, it will be stored either in NiMH batteries, Lithium batteries, ultracapacitors, or even directly supply the sensor nodes.
As a clean and safe ambient energy resource, solar power harvesting has been studied for a long time. However, as the power collecting board is relatively small which should fit the size of sensor nodes, the recharging rate of solar batteries is very slow. Another limitation of using solar power is that it cannot work during the night time or rainy days, which makes the network dependent on the weather. Wind power has also been well studied. Typically, it is not very stable when it is strongly constrained by the climate and the location of sensor nodes. Unless there is a constant wind resource, the performance is even worse than the solar power.
Compared with rechargeable batteries, the advantage of using ultracapacitor in WSNs is significant with the feature of fast recharging, unlimited recharging times, and invulnerable [12]. However, the leakage causes a big problem that the energy cannot be stored for long.
2.2. Energy Management Schemes in Energy-Harvesting WSNs
After designing and demonstrating a prototyping energy-harvesting WSN, how to use and store the harvested energy consists of more research topics. The efficiency of the management schemes significantly determines the performance of energy-harvesting WSNs. Recently, many energy management schemes have been introduced for better usage of harvested energy.
A solar energy-harvesting system has been introduced in [13] as well as a corresponding energy-neutral mode, which enables the nodes to use as much energy as it gains from the environment and results in the energy input and output balance in any individual node. In [14], a joint energy management and resource allocation scheme is proposed to schedule the energy usage by adapting the sampling rate, while in [15], the authors propose a novel cost metric for the randomized minimum path recovery time (R-MPRT) routing protocol which can achieve better performance than normal routing protocols considered in energy-harvesting WSNs.
These schemes can help to improve the usage efficiency of harvested energy in a certain level and particular WSNs. However, due to the deployment area and environmental situations, the energy-harvesting speed is unbalanced, which brings more challenges in management scheme design.
2.3. Transmission Power Control Protocols
Transmission power control (TPC) techniques have been proposed as a coordination of routing or MAC protocols, which enables nodes to have dynamic transmission range and thus results in multiple coverage areas [16, 17]. In [18], two TPC schemes are proposed to coordinate BMAC, which achieves up to 57% energy saving in their simulation. An experimental-based TPC research has been represented and evaluated in [19], which shows that the real performance of TPC schemes is not as well as simulated, but their dynamic TPC scheme can perform up to 37% energy saving in 10% duty cycle.
A traditional trade-off in TPC schemes is whether it is better to make larger transmission range which can reduce the number of hops in the routes or will it be more energy efficient to use smaller transmission power which reduces the energy consumption of each transmission and reception. Another problem of dynamic transmission power is that it is harmful to energy balance, which consumes the energy in the nodes with larger transmission power much faster than those using low power.
2.4. Previous Work of EL-TPC
As mentioned in previous subsections, both energy harvesting and energy consumption are unbalanced. Independently, they are both harmful in WSNs. But if they can be combined, the drawbacks can be converted to optimizing features. This also generates our original idea of EL-TPC [6]. By joint consideration of the remaining energy level, the energy-harvesting speed, sensor nodes are grouped, and different transmission power levels are assigned to each group. According to the given transmission power level, a specified radio connection topology is provided different from the location-based topology. The detailed description will be provided in the following sections.
3. System Architecture and Hardware Model
To verify all the proposed work, network simulation and real system implementation are both useful methods. In our earlier work, a project called Cyber IVY has been carried out which mainly supplies building surveillance functions. A building surface mounted sensor network (BSMSN) system has been implemented and published in [20]. However, at that stage, the energy resource of the sensor nodes was normal rechargeable batteries; simple broadcasting-based communication was applied without any channel and energy management. In the original work of EL-TPC [6], Cyber IVY has moved to a new stage by using wind powered sensor nodes, which is called building surface wind-power collected wireless sensor network (BSWPWSN) system. Recently, solar powered sensor nodes are also used as a sufficient support. The detailed design issues and system features are discussed as follows.
3.1. Application Study
The application potential of Cyber IVY is still being explored, which will shortly combine air pollution and noise monitoring in near future. The sensor boards with more functions are being developed. At the recent stage, the recent system aims to monitor the usage pattern of air conditioners (ACs), the outdoor temperature, and day light lamination information. The main purpose of doing these monitoring tasks is to provide some sensible information for environment protection and electrical energy saving. It is reported that the air conditioners consume huge amount of electrical energy during summer and winter time, especially in public buildings such as laboratory building in the universities or shopping malls. As in public buildings, privacy will not be a problem. By monitoring the AC usage pattern, it is easy to evaluate the total amount of energy cost. With the coordination of outdoor and indoor temperature information, unusual usage of AC will also be obtained and can help in further energy saving, which has been demonstrated and presented in [20].
In our plan, the demonstrated BSMSN is a prototype of a certain set of simple designed, multifunctional, self-powered, long lifetime WSNs. Scientific problems can be formed, and design challenges can be detected along with the progress. The possible solutions will also be proposed, developed, implemented, and evaluated.
3.2. Hardware Architecture and Network Topology
HDU mote (Figure 1) node is used in BSMSN with its Chipcon CC2420 transceiver component. A large choice of onboard sensors is also provided, such as CO2 density, temperature, humidity, and light lamination. CC2420 can work on 31 different power levels and 14 orthogonal radio channels. Depending on the communication requirements, the transmission range can be adjusted by changing the power level.
In BSMSN, sensor nodes are densely deployed on the surface of external unit of AC, which covers the outside of the fan. This results in an advantage that the fan of the AC external unit can provide relatively stable wind power output to provide energy supply to sensor nodes when they are working. Figure 2 represents an example case of typical building surface and our sensor network deployment.
The transmission power of CC2420 transceiver can be adjusted with 31 levels, from level 0 to level 30. In our measurement results, if a node is operated with full-power state, all the nodes within a 150-meter range will be its one hop neighbor if the nodes are deployed in a pain floor. As the distance between two AC external units is relatively short in terms of 5–10 meters, a large number of ACs will be covered by a certain one as shown in Figure 3(a). In a typical hop-based packet collision avoidance MAC scheme, to guarantee a certain transmission to be successful, all the nodes other than the transmitter and receiver within such a large range have to be silent. In this case, very few nodes can be scheduled to transmit simultaneously, which causes low-efficiency problem. In another case shown in Figure 3(c), the transmission range is reduced to an unacceptable level in which no data delivery can be successful. In common knowledge or experience, the case shown in Figure 3(b) is much more reasonable than the other. The rest of this section will determine how to find a proper transmission range in our specific scenario.
3.3. Energy-Harvesting Component Design
In BSMSN system, wind power is the source of energy harvesting. As shown in Figure 4, the harvesting component is composed of four small fans facing the same direction. When the air conditioner is switched on, these small fans will follow the rotation of the fun of external unit. As the wind speed and strength of different area of the fan are not fixed, by trying various distances between four small fans and measuring the rotation speed of them, an approximately fastest rotation speed has been achieved. The simple generator behind the small fans will convert the wind power to electrical power.
Due to the feature of fast recharging and being invulnerable, Maxwell PC10 ultracapacitor is chosen to be the only power storage and resource of our sensor nodes. The rated voltage of PC10 is 2.5 volt, and the capacitance is 10 F. It can be recharged when the fans are rotating and supply sufficient energy for the nodes to maintain sensing and communication functions at the main time.
In our later work carried out in summer, solar power is also collected for sensor node recharging and operation. As shown in Figure 5, solar panel is used for energy harvesting, while the other components are the same as that of wind powered nodes. The energy collected is also stored in ultracapacitors, and the harvesting speed will be shown in Figure 8.
In our demonstration, the solar-powered sensor nodes are deployed between buildings as communication relays as well as environmental information sensing. To enhance the capability of solar energy harvesting and provide sufficient amount of energy supply in heavy traffic load situation, reflecting mirror is used for extra sunlight collection, which is shown in Figure 6. By this approach, the energy-harvesting speed is increased by approximately 50% in the demonstration.
3.4. Energy Recharging and Consumption Status
To know the status of energy recharging and consumption and the unbalanced situation which directs the design of the proposed EL-TPC scheme is very important. A set of experiments and measurements on related components and parameters have been carried out under various conditions.
As a natural feature of ultra-capacitor, leakage not only reduces the speed of charging, but also restricts the maximum duration of energy storage. The electrical energy will be lost even when the connected devices are powered off. The leakage in terms of voltage along with time is shown in Figure 7, in which Maxwell PC10 ultra-capacitor is used. The ultra-capacitor is firstly fully charged to 2.6 V. After approximately 45 hours, the voltage drops to an invalid level when the sensor node can no longer sufficiently work.
From Figure 7(a), it can also obtain that the leakage problem is more serious when the remaining energy level is higher. In Figure 7(b), the voltage reduction against time between 2.5 V to 2.3 V is illustrated, which shows that the stored energy is lost very fast in such high-voltage situation.
The curve of ultra-capacitor recharging is presented in Figure 8 under wind and solar power under various setups. It shows that with voltage increasing, the recharging speed will be slightly reduced. This is because is proportional to according to equation . As the average recharging speed is a constant value, the increasing of voltage will be reduced when increases. In our special hardware devices and scenarios, as the measurement is carried out at noon in summer time, the solar power harvesting speed is faster than that of wind power, especially with direct sunlight combined with concave mirror reflection. However, solar power collection is not stable as the sunlight lamination varies significantly during the day. During the nights and rainy days, it will even lose effect. The wind power collection in our system is much more stable. When the mounted AC is powered on, the fan in the external unit will supply constant wind power to our prototyping sensor node.
The energy consumption status is shown in Figure 9. In these measurements, the sensor node keeps the transceiver on all the time and broadcasts a "hello" message every second. The power level of the sensor node is set to be levels 4, 10, and 30, which can provide a radio-effective coverage for approximately 12 meters, 30 meters, and 100 meters, respectively. After 10.5, 8, and 4 minutes, the power level will be too low for the nodes to work, which is around 1.5 volts. The reason for choosing these three levels in the experiment is particularly due to the real application scenario as shown in the latter section, which specifies the coverage distance of the nodes. In different deployment environment and scenario, this can be varied.
Above all, it can be obtained that the sensor nodes consume energy a bit faster than the recharging speed. However, by considering a reasonable duty cycle which enables the sensor node to switch the radio transceiver off most of the time, it can achieve a balanced state in theory. The leakage is ignorable in most cases. But if a node resumes high energy level, it is a good choice to keep high-duty cycle. Otherwise, the energy will be lost rapidly. The remaining of this paper will focus on how to use transmission power control to make a negotiation considering all the above issues.
4. EL-TPC Scheme Description
According to the energy-harvesting design of sensor nodes, it is believed that the sensor node will no longer permanently lose effect due to power used up. The power-up nodes will go to a "long sleep" state when only recharging takes place.
In this section, a transmission power control scheme called EL-TPC will be introduced in detail on the purpose of balancing energy consumption to reduce the probability of the existence of "long sleep" state. In other words, the scheme will focus on how to keep most of the nodes in an "on" state to provide sufficient continuous service of WSNs. As mentioned in Section 2, the idea of EL-TPC was originally raised according to the unbalance of both energy consumption and harvesting. The fundamental goal is to make the nodes with more remaining energy and better harvesting capability to take more responses. With the development of our work, the scheme has been modified and is now wider applicable than that presented in [6].
4.1. Assumptions and System Parameters
There are many specified features of BSMSN including the system design and network topology. A list of assumptions and system parameters is summarized as follows.
Relatively Uniform Deployment
In BSMSN, the sensor nodes are mounted to external unit of ACs or other positions which have certain distance between each other. An example network topology is shown in Figure 2 where sensor nodes form a natural grid topology with a fixed distance between two neighboring nodes.
Time Perfect Synchronized
As synchronization is out of the scope of our EL-TPC scheme, in our experiment and simulation, sensor nodes are deployed after it is initialized and synchronized with the sink node. During the demonstration period, perfect synchronization is kept.
Packet Congestion Ignorable
There are 14 orthogonal radio channels available in CC2420 transceiver, and the transmission duration is relatively short in typical low sampling rate. By using a random back-off before each transmission, it is unlikely to have two nodes transmitting simultaneously and using the same channel.
Direct Connection Feasibility
In the demonstration of BSMSN system, the maximum diameter of the coverage area is approximately 100 meters. Therefore, with power level 30, any two nodes can achieve direct connection.
Limited Energy Storage Capability
The leakage of the ultra-capacitor makes the stored energy unable to provide the sensor nodes long time operation. It is necessary to increase the consumption rate when there is much energy left.
4.2. Multiple Transmission Range Choice
As mentioned in Section 2, a traditional trade-off in transmission power control schemes is between the low energy consumption rate in large quantity nodes and high energy consumption rate in low amount of nodes. It also limits the potential of TPC scheme in energy constraint WSNs as it may suffer from obvious energy unbalance.
In EL-TPC, this situation can be sorted out according to unbalanced energy-harvesting capability. Higher power and larger coverage can be applied in the nodes with more remaining energy and better harvesting capability, while the nodes short in energy can reduce the power level for energy saving. For example, three transmission power levels are determined in BSMSN system according to the measurement results as follows.
High Level (HL)
Nodes use extremely high transmission power, (e.g., level 30 or a bit below in CC2420), which enables it to directly communicate with the sink node. In our demonstration and simulation, only the nodes with 2 volts or higher voltage and have sufficient power supply will work in this level.
Low Level (LL)
Nodes without energy recharging reduce the power to a relatively low level by which it can only communicate with no more than one neighboring node in any direction. These nodes take very few sensing tasks and no communication relay functions. In the demonstration, the power level used is level 4 in CC2420.
Middle Level (ML)
Nodes use medium power level, for example, level 10, which cover a hop distance approximately 20–30 meters and have two or three neighboring nodes on the main four directions (up, down, left, and right) within the transmission range. Any energy-harvesting node with a voltage lower than 2 volts will stay in this level.
In traditional TPC schemes, the main goal is to find out an optimal or near-optimal transmission power level which will be applied to all the sensor nodes. But in our EL-TPC, the nodes in the same network may use different power levels. Therefore, an interesting phenomenon occurs that the communication is not totally of dual direction. Node A may hear node B, while node B may not hear node A if the transmission power in node A is lower than in node B. To ensure that all the packets can be successfully forwarded to the sink node, handshake process is very important in scheme initialization and updating.
4.3. System Setup and Data Packet Delivery Strategies
Instead of routing and medium access control (MAC) protocols, a data packet delivery control mechanism has been proposed to coordinate the EL-TPC scheme. There are three packet delivery strategies described as follows, which inherently form the routes and schedule the channel access.
The first strategy is direct or semidirect connection with the sink node. Once a node fulfills the requirements of high level (HL), it will form a cluster by broadcasting an "invitation" packet to all the nodes in its coverage, which is the entire network. When ML and LL nodes receive this "invitation," they will return an acknowledgement addressed to this HL node after a random back-off. After receiving the ACK packet, the HL node will then reply with a "handshake" packet to the specific nodes to inform that they are cluster members.
However, as this ACK packet is transmitted in a lower power level, some of them may not be heard by the HL node. As shown in Figure 10, an HL node will form a cluster according to the connection status instead of geographic distances. During the data packet transmission, the sensed packet of the HL node will directly be received by the sink node and that from the cluster members will use the HL node as an intermediate, which forms semidirect connections to the sink node.
The second strategy is a multihop fashion. During the network initialization stage, if a node has not received any "handshake" packet, it will define itself as a noncluster member. Then, an "access request" packet will be sent to the nodes in its coverage by broadcasting. If there is any middle level (ML) neighbor who is a cluster member receives this packet, it will reply with an "access acceptance" packet. Then, a three-hop route is formed as shown in Figure 11, and this node will define itself as a cluster-access node.
If all the ML neighbors receive this "access request" are non-cluster members, there will be no "access acceptance" packet returned. After a timeout period, this node will broadcast a "routing request" packet. If there is any ML neighbor as a cluster-access node, a "routing acceptance" packet will be returned and a multihop route will be formed.
If there is no "routing acceptance" response returned after timeout, this node has to switch its radio transceiver off but keep ordinary sensing functions. When the voltage of its onboard ultra-capacitor is recharged to above 2 volts, it will become an HL node and forms its cluster. The stored history data will then be directly transmitted to the sink node. Otherwise, it will wait until the next updating starts.
According to the above procedure, a maximum length of 4-hop route can be formed. In our small scope demonstration network, this is enough as it is very unlikely to leave any ML node to "off" state. But with the expansion of the network size, this thing will be changed. By allowing all the ML nodes to take the routing request process, longer routes will be available.
The third strategy is periodically waking up and updating the schedule information if there are still remaining nodes left in a low level (LL) transmission power state. In these nodes, the energy-harvesting component is not working, which indicates that the fans of the AC external unit are not rotating. Therefore, there is no necessity of AC operation monitoring; only other environmental information such as outdoor temperature will be sensed. To save energy, the LL node turns off its radio transceiver most of the time. It will periodically wake up and broadcast a "hello" packet every 10 minutes, which tells the neighboring nodes that it has no valid connection to the sink node. If there are any neighbors that become a cluster head, a "cluster invitation" packet will be returned addressing to this LL node, and a handshake procedure starts.
Above all, there are three main functions corresponding to the three power levels. Direct connection with the sink and cluster head functions are assigned to HL nodes, while ML nodes can either be a cluster member or a routing rely node. The LL nodes have no routing functions; it can either be a cluster member or wait to be a cluster member. Figure 12 represents the status of the entire procedure.
5. Simulation Setup and Performance Evaluation
In order to evaluate EL-TPC scheme and examine the parameter choice, a network simulation is carried out. In our simulator, the procedure is executed strictly following the scheme description. Except the given assumptions and assigned parameters in Section 4, a list of parameter setups are shown as follows.
Uniform grid topology as shown in Figure 10 and pseudorandom topology are both used in our simulation. In grid topology, the distance between each sensor nodes is 8 meters. In the pseudorandom topology, 80 sensor nodes are randomly deployed in a 50 m × 80 m area with a minimum distance of 5 meters between each other, which fits the real building situation and avoids redundancy in node deployment.
Energy Level
Energy level choice is essentially important in EL-TPC. Level 30 and level 4 in CC2420 are used for HL and LL nodes, respectively. In ML nodes, level 7 is mainly examined, which enables the nodes to cover 2 neighbors along the four main directions in the grid topology. An expanded energy level of 10 is also tested in some scenarios.
Sampling Rate
In our proposed BSMSN, the sampling rate is determined by the real monitoring requirements. Periodic sensing is set in each node with 20 seconds per packet for HL and ML nodes, and 100 seconds per packet for LL nodes. The reason is that the LL nodes only sense the environmental data, but the ML and HL nodes also sense the AC working status. To examine the performance of EL-TPC, we also show the results with 1/4, 1/2, 2, and 4 times of the traffic load.
AC Working Status
The feature of the sensing object also affects the performance of the proposed scheme. The on/off state of AC is not only the monitored event but also determines whether the sensor node can get sufficient energy supply. In our survey results, 80% of air conditioners are in an "on" state during the day time, while 20% of which are in an "off" state.
The most important result is represented in Figures 13 and 14, which shows the situation of remaining energy level in the nodes against time. Figure 13 clarifies that the nodes achieve a dynamic balance in energy consumption and harvesting along with the time under the given conditions by showing four nodes with different starting energy level. After approximately 10–30-hour operation, the average remaining energy in all the sensor nodes becomes very similar, and all of them keep a dynamic balance. After that duration, most of the nodes are in ML state or become LL state during the night. There are always certain HL nodes which can form clusters and achieve direct or semi-direct connections to the sink node. In grid and pseudorandom topologies, the scheme works relatively well. Figure 13(c) shows that by varying the ML nodes' energy level which changes the coverage of ML nodes, the energy performance is still stable.
Figure 14 provides the change of the remaining energy level of a randomly picked node along with time under different traffic loads. It shows that the average remaining energy level changes according the traffic load due the different transceiver energy consumption rate. If the traffic load is light enough, such as 25% of normal load, the energy level will increase continuously. With the increasing traffic load, the variation of the remaining energy level also increases, which means the node changes transmission power level frequently. It will finally break the balance as the traffic load is unaffordable for the node.
A natural feature of our proposed EL-TPC scheme is that there always exists certain isolated node which can neither be a cluster member nor achieve multihop relay. However, a node will not keep isolated for too long as the status of itself and the neighbors may change, which has been shown in Figures 13 and 14. In Figure 15, it is shown that the network also keeps a dynamic balance as the entire number of isolated nodes will not be too large if the harvesting power resource keeps working. With the probability of "on" state of the AC increases, the amount of isolated node at any time decreases until zero. In our scenario, the system works stably if more than 50% of the air conditioners are switched on.
A demonstration of BSMSN system has also been built up and kept working for 3-day continuos monitoring. In this real implementation, uniform topology shown in Figure 2 is applied, and the nodes are synchronized before deployment. During the experiment, the system is shown to keep stable data packet output and displayed in the PC where the sink node is plugged on. The voltages of some sample nodes are real time monitored by adding the voltage information to the data packets.
Figure 16 represents the remaining energy level in terms of voltage against time for real implemented BSMSN system. By varying the traffic load and the average number of used air conditioner, the system works stably in which no nodes lose effect during the three days.
6. Conclusion
This paper has introduced a transmission power control scheme based on the remaining energy level and the energy-harvesting status of sensor nodes to maintain the lifetime of WSNs called EL-TPC. By achieving dynamic energy balance in sensor nodes and the entire WSNs, EL-TPC scheme has been proved to work excellently in energy-harvesting sensor networks, which keeps the WSNs robust and recoverable. The main contribution is that the unbalanced energy capability is used to solve the problem of unbalanced energy consumption. By applying EL-TPC scheme, the WSNs will no longer lose effect and keep high-efficiency operation. The simulation results compared the performance in different scenarios and showed the advantages and limitations of EL-TPC.
A demonstration of system call BSMSN has also been implemented, in which wind power is the only energy-harvesting resource, while energy is stored in and supplied by ultra-capacitors. It proves the idea of EL-TPC to be effective and sufficient during 3-day continuos working. This system can be used for air conditioner usage pattern surveillance and outdoor temperature monitoring at the recent stage, but it is scalable. More sensing functions can be extended to the system, and it will fit the requirement of more complex application environment deployment.
This work is supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province under Grant no.Z1080979, Zhejiang Provincial Key Innovation Team on Sensor Networks under Grant no. 2009R50046-9, no. 2009R50046-1, no. 2009R50046-8, and no. 2009R50046-5, the Preresearch Scheme of National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) under Grant no. 2010CB334707, the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant no. 60903167, and the Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province no. Y1110831.
- I. F. Akyildiz and M. C. Vuran, Wireless Sensor Networks, Wiley, Hoboken, NJ, USA, 2010.
- I. Demirkol, C. Ersoy, and F. Alagöz, "MAC protocols for wireless sensor networks: a survey," IEEE Communications Magazine, vol. 44, no. 4, pp. 115–121, 2006. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at Scopus
- J. N. Al-Karaki and A. E. Kamal, "Routing techniques in wireless sensor networks: a survey," IEEE Wireless Communications, vol. 11, no. 6, pp. 6–28, 2004. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at Scopus
- J. N. Al-Karaki, R. Ul-Mustafa, and A. E. Kamal, "Data aggregation and routing in wireless sensor networks: optimal and heuristic algorithms," Computer Networks, vol. 53, no. 7, pp. 945–960, 2009. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at Scopus
- M. L. Sichitiu, "Cross-layer scheduling for power efficiency in wireless sensor networks," in Proceedings of the IEEE 23rd Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies (INFOCOM '04), pp. 1740–1750, Hong Kong, China, March 2004. View at Scopus
- J. Qiu, B. Lin, P. Liu, S. Zhang, and G. Dai, "Energy level based transmission power control scheme for energy harvesting WSNs," in Proceedings of the IEEE Global Communications Conference, pp. 1–6, Houston, Tex, USA, December 2011.
- P. Dutta, J. Hui, J. Jeong et al., "Trio: enabling sustainable and scalable outdoor wireless sensor network deployments," in Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks (IPSN '06), pp. 407–415, Nashville, Tenn, USA, April 2006. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at Scopus
- P. Corke, P. Valencia, P. Sikka, T. Wark, and L. Overs, "Long-duration solar-powered wireless sensor networks," in Proceedings of the 4th Workshop on Embedded Networked Sensors (EmNets '07), pp. 33–37, Cork, Ireland, June 2007. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at Scopus
- X. Jiang, J. Polastre, and D. Culler, "Perpetual environmentally powered sensor networks," in Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium on Information Processing in Sensor Networks (IPSN '05), pp. 463–468, Los Angeles, Calif, USA, April 2005. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at Scopus
- C. Park and P. H. Chou, "AmbiMax: autonomous energy harvesting platform for multi-supply wireless sensor nodes," in Proceedings of the 3rd Annual IEEE Communications Society on Sensor and Ad hoc Communications and Networks (SECON '06), pp. 168–177, September 2006. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at Scopus
- F. Simjee and P. H. Chou, "Everlast: Long-life, supercapacitor-operated wireless sensor node," in Proceedings of the 11th ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Low Power Electronics and Design (ISLPED '06), pp. 197–202, Tegernsee Germany, October 2006. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at Scopus
- T. Zhu, Z. Zhong, Y. Gu, T. He, and Z. L. Zhang, "Leakage-aware energy synchronization for wireless sensor networks," in Proceedings of the 7th ACM International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications, and Services (MobiSys '09), pp. 319–332, Kraków, Poland, June 2009. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at Scopus
- A. Kansal, J. Hsu, S. Zahedi, and M. B. Srivastave, "Power management in energy harvesting sensor networks," ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems, vol. 6, no. 4, 2007. View at Google Scholar
- R. S. Liu, P. Sinha, and C. E. Koksal, "Joint energy management and resource allocation in rechargeable sensor networks," in Proceedings of the IEEE (INFOCOM '10), Columbus, Ohio, USA, March 2010. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at Scopus
- D. Hasenfratz, A. Meier, C. Moser, J. J. Chen, and L. Thiele, "Analysis, comparison, and optimization of routing protocols for energy harvesting wireless sensor networks," in Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Sensor Networks, Ubiquitous, and Trustworthy Computing (SUTC '10), IEEE International Workshop on Ubiquitous and Mobile Computing (UMC '10), pp. 19–26, June 2010. View at Scopus
- M. Cao, V. Raghunathan, S. Hanly, V. Sharma, and P. R. Kumar, "Power control and transmission scheduling for network utility maximization in wireless networks," in Proceedings of the 46th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC '07), pp. 5215–5221, December 2007. View at Scopus
- R. L. Cruz and A. V. Santhanam, "Optimal routing, link scheduling and power control in multi-hop wireless networks," in Proceedings of the 22nd Annual Joint Conference on the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies, vol. 1, pp. 702–711, April 2003. View at Scopus
- L. H. A. Correia, D. F. Macedo, A. L. dos Santos, A. A. F. Loureiro, and J. M. S. Nogueira, "Transmission power control techniques for wireless sensor networks," Computer Networks, vol. 51, no. 17, pp. 4765–4779, 2007. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at Scopus
- J. Jeong, D. Culler, and J. H. Oh, "Empirical analysis of transmission power control algorithms for wireless sensor networks," in Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Networked Sensing Systems (INSS '07), pp. 27–34, Braunschweig, Germany, June 2007. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at Scopus
- L. Peng, S. Zhang, J. Qiu, and G. Dai, "Building surface mounted wireless sensor network for air conditioner energy auditing," in Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Computer Communications Workshops (INFOCOM '11), pp. 738–743, Shanghai, China, April 2011. View at Publisher · View at Google Scholar · View at Scopus


text:
Welcome to the Recruitment pages of Greater Manchester Police
For information on the diverse range of career opportunities available within Greater Manchester Police, see below.
Police Staff
Greater Manchester Police offer a wide range of police staff roles across the force area. Please visit our Police Staff pages for more information. However, please note that presently, the number of vacancies open to external applicants is limited.
Police Officers
The Greater Manchester Police Authority has approved GMP's plans to recruit 150 student police officers over the next three years. Initially the recruitment focus will be on filling these roles from GMP's PCSO's, Special Constables and other Police Staff. The details of the recruitment plan will be published in mid to late March.
Police Community Support Officers
All PCSO meetings are fully booked.
Special Constabulary
The Special Constabulary consists of volunteer officers, who give up their time freely to assist with the policing of Greater Manchester. As a Special Constable, you will work alongside regular officers and PCSOs in the local Neighbourhood Policing Teams. To find out more, please visit our Special Constabulary pages.
Please note: In order to apply for the Special Constabulary, you must first attend an information evening. The purpose of the information evening is to provide you with full details of the recruitment process, initial training programme and role of a Special Constable. For details of upcoming information evenings please click the 'events' tab on the left side of the screen. If no events are listed, please regularly check our website as this will be updated once further information evenings are scheduled. Information evenings are usually held on a monthly basis.
Volunteers provide assistance and support to the Neighbourhood Policing Teams and help improve the quality of service we give to our communities. To find out more, please visit our Volunteer pages.
Greater Manchester Police are not currently accepting applications from officers wishing to transfer from other police forces. Prospective applicants seeking a transfer should continue to monitor this website for updated information.