-------------------------Monitor------------------------ The Newsletter for PC-Based Data Acquisition and Control Issue 133 www.windmill.co.uk August 2009 --------------------ISSN 1472-0221---------------------- Welcome to Monitor, the data acquisition newsletter. I hope you find it useful, but should you wish to remove yourself from our mailing list please go to https://www.windmill.co.uk/newsletter.html CONTENTS ======== * Excel Corner: Reducing Errors in Worksheet References * Instrumentation Exhibitions * DAQ News Roundup ________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________ Excel Corner: Reducing Errors in Worksheet References ________________________________________________________ Imagine you use Windmill Logger to save each day's data in a new file. You want to perform the same operations on each file's data: calculating averages and maximum and minimum values for example. You also want to do the same for the week's data. This is not difficult to do, but using indirect references makes it quicker to set up and reduces errors. First copy each day's logged data to a new sheet in a workbook, and name them Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc. 1. Insert a new sheet which will be the report sheet 2. Label the columns B1 to H1 with Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc. 3. Type the labels for the calculations in column A: Average, Maximum, Minimum. 4. In the Average row of Column B type =AVERAGE(INDIRECT(B1&"!b7:b67")), where b7:b67 is the range of data from which you want to calculate the average. 5. Copy across the row until the end. 6. Do similarly for the maximum and minimum rows. 7. For the week's calculations label the last column "Week" and enter a formula using the previous 7 cells. For more tips on using Excel see https://www.windmill.co.uk/excel/ https://www.windmill.co.uk/excel/excel-charting.html ________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________ Data Acquisition Exhibitions and Conferences ________________________________________________________ NEPCON South China 26-28 August Shenzhen China Exhibition for the electronics manufacturing industry. http://www.nepconchina.com/index_en.html Automotive Electronics South China 2009 31 August - 02 September Shenzhen China Includes automotive electronics components, test and measurement equipment, electronics materials, software and electronic design. http://www.ae-china.com/ae2007/eng/index.htm IDAACS' 2009 21-23 September Rende Italy Intelligent data acquisition and advanced computing systems: technology and applications. http://www.umcs.maine.edu/ Sensors & Measurement Exhibition 29 September - 1 October Moscow Russia New developments for engineering, sensors and measuring. http://www.biztradeshows.com/trade-events/ Smart Automation Austria 7-9 October Linz Austria Trade fair for industrial automation. http://www.smart-automation.at/en/index.html Miconex 2009 20-23 October Shanghai China International conference and fair for measurement, instrumentation and automation. http://www.miconex.com.cn/en/web/index.aspx ________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________ DAQ News Roundup ________________________________________________________ Welcome to our roundup of the data acquisition and control news. If you would like to receive more timely DAQ news updates then grab our RSS newsfeed at https://www.windmillsoft.com/monitor.xml. Read https://www.windmill.co.uk/newsfeed.php for notes on how to display the live news on your own web site. RFID tags get an intelligence upgrade Today's RFID tags can only broadcast fixed data back to a reader device. Researchers are now working to add brains to the tags in the form of microcomputers, opening the way for much smarter applications. They are testing, for example, embedding the computational RFIDs into concrete to report moisture content, which could give engineers early warning of structural faults. Source: New Scientist http://www.newscientist.com/article/ Music is the engine of new lab-on-a-chip Music, rather than electromechanical valves, can drive experimental samples through a lab-on-a-chip in a new system developed at the University of Michigan. Source: University of Michigan http://www.ns.umich.edu/htdocs/releases/story.php?id=7247 Low Cost Handheld Sensor A low-cost sensor developed by a Cambridge University spin-out could lead to inexpensive handheld gas monitors. The devices could be used to detect toxic and combustible gases in automotive, environmental and other applications. The sensor is based on a tungsten micro-hotplate with integrated electronics. Source: The Engineer http://secure.theengineer.co.uk/ Eyes in the soil will help food security A new tool will allow farmers to see under the soil to check how efficiently crop roots are using water and nutrients. "Climate change means that the ability to rapidly identify new plant varieties tolerant to drought and other stresses is going to be critical to breeding the food crops of tomorrow.” said Dr Bruce Grieve. "These subsoil sensor systems are novel but founded upon established low-cost body scanner technologies, which exploit the bending of electrical fields within the subject." Source: The University of Manchester http://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/display/ Industrial Controls Weakened Further Shipments of industrial control equipment contracted yet again during the second quarter of 2009, as NEMA's Primary Industrial Controls Index fell 6.5 percent against the first three months of this year. Although this represents a much slower rate of decline than the first quarter's 23 percent drop, shipments have declined nearly 40 percent from their cyclical peak and are at their lowest level in 18 years. Source: NEMA http://www.nema.org/media/pr/20090805a.cfm ________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________ * Copyright Windmill Software Ltd * Reprinting permitted with this notice included * For more articles see https://www.windmill.co.uk We are happy for you to copy and distribute this newsletter, and use extracts from it on your own web site or publication, providing the above notice is included and a link back to our website is in place. An archive of previous issues is at https://www.windmill.co.uk/newsletter.html and an index of articles at https://www.windmill.co.uk/newsletter.html Windmill Software Ltd, PO Box 58, North District Office, Manchester, M8 8QR, UK Telephone: +44 (0)161 834 6688 Facsimile: +44 (0)161 833 2190 E-mail: monitor@windmillsoft.com https://www.windmill.co.uk/ https://www.windmillsoft.com/
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