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The classification of mountains in

eighteenth century Italy and the


lithostratigraphic theory of Giovanni
Arduino (17141795)
1. Ezio Vaccari*1
+ Author Affiliations
1.

Dipartimento di Informatica e Comunicazione, Universit dell'Insubria, Via Mazzini 5,


I-21100 Varese, Italy

Abstract
During the eighteenth century, scientific literature devoted to the earth sciences documented a
significant increase in the study of the composition and formation of mountains and above all
their stratigraphical sequence. The diverse and widely ranging philosophical theories of the late
seventeenth century on the origin of Earth were gradually replaced by new concepts based on
field research on both a local and regional scale. This new approach analyzed the lithology and
the fossil content of the rocks, the geomorphology of the area, and in some cases helped to
determine the chronological sequence of mountain formation. Nicolaus Steno's idea of
superimposition of strata (16671669) was followed by most of the late eighteenth-century
scholars in earth sciences, who developed subdivisions of mountains from the point of view of
their formation and also included a classification of the rocks. These subdivisions supported the
idea of relative chronology of the formation sequence of the studied strata: the most recent or the
most ancient formation could be deduced from its position in the sequence as well as from its
external lithological features. In this context, the role of scientific terminology, which was
gradually established in eighteenth-century geological science, became very important: the terms
primary (or primitive), secondary, and tertiary were used for indicating the categories of
mountains as well as for stratigraphic units. In the second half of the eighteenth century, the work
of Giovanni Arduino contributed decisively to the development of basic lithostratigraphic
classification of rocks and mountain building. His lithological studies, a result of twenty years
of fieldwork in the mountains and hills of the Venetian and Tuscan regions, were also supported
by a specialized knowledge of mining. The new classification into four basic units called
ordini (1760) was based only on lithology (without using paleontological indicators) and
included different rock types, which formed three kinds of mountains and one kind of plain, in a
regular chronological order: primary (underlain by primeval schist considered by Arduino to
be the oldest rock type), secondary, and tertiary; the fourth and younger chronolithological
unit included only alluvial deposits. Arduino's system is still regarded by the geological world as
being one of the starting points for modern stratigraphy.

Our society is increasingly reliant on embedded systems for many critical day-today activities. Nowadays, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) are widely used almost
everywhere, including both residential areas, and undeveloped areas near the river.
Therefore, embedded systems can reduce risks due to an increase of climate
change in Rwanda with potentially devastating impacts of floods on local
communities and their properties. Advances in embedded system, particularly in
WSN, offer us critical opportunities to develop complex real-time early warning and
monitoring systems. The WSN technology has been applied in monitoring natural
disasters for the last couple of decades. This paper further proposes an innovative
and inexpensive framework designed to provide early warning for natural disaster
via a siren. It works by continuously recording and transmitting sensor data to the
main server. The server processes the data and then provides the warning, so that
vulnerable residents can be notified before the floods come around their houses,
especially in high risk zones. The major components of our framework include
Arduino, solar panel, flood detector (sensor) with other wireless sensor components,
a chargeable battery, Xbee and access point.
What is a PIR sensor?'''
PIR sensors allow you to sense motion, almost always used to detect whether a
human has moved in or out of the sensors range. They are small, inexpensive, lowpower, easy to use and don't wear out. For that reason they are commonly found in
appliances and gadgets used in homes or businesses. They are often referred to as
PIR, "Passive Infrared", "Pyroelectric", or "IR motion" sensors.
PIRs are basically made of a pyroelectric sensor (which you can see above as the
round metal can with a rectangular crystal in the center), which can detect levels of
infrared radiation. Everything emits some low level radiation, and the hotter
something is, the more radiation is emitted. The sensor in a motion detector is
actually split in two halves. The reason for that is that we are looking to detect
motion (change) not average IR levels. The two halves are wired up so that they
cancel each other out. If one half sees more or less IR radiation than the other, the
output will swing high or low.
Along with the pyroelectic sensor is a bunch of supporting circuitry, resistors and
capacitors. It seems that most small hobbyist sensors use the BISS0001 ("Micro
Power PIR Motion Detector IC"), undoubtedly a very inexpensive chip. This chip
takes the output of the sensor and does some minor processing on it to emit a
digital output pulse from the analog sensor.
For many basic projects or products that need to detect when a person has left or
entered the area, or has approached, PIR sensors are great. They are low power and
low cost, pretty rugged, have a wide lens range, and are easy to interface with.
Note that PIRs won't tell you how many people are around or how close they are to

the sensor, the lens is often fixed to a certain sweep and distance (although it can
be hacked somewhere) and they are also sometimes set off by house pets.
Experimentation is key!

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