doc_id int32 18 2.25M | text stringlengths 245 2.96k | source stringlengths 38 44 | __index_level_0__ int64 18 2.25M |
|---|---|---|---|
1,910,998 | These precursory readings of the physical environment represent an evolved set of information processing skills that the human mind has developed over millennia through direct lived experience. This physiological engagement with the world operates in a more immediate sense than the summary events of applied meaning or intellectual speculation. It is through this direct neurological engagement that humans connect more fully with the world. Many of mankind's early religious associations with physical structures were informed by an intuitive understanding that structure and materials speak to our deeper self, i.e. the human spirit, the soul. Intelligence Based Theory reveals this effectual dimension of the built-environment and its relationship to human cognitive development, mental acuity, perceptual awareness, spirituality, and sense of well-being. It is within this realm that the mind's eye connects, or fails to connect, with the world outside. The degree of neuro-connectivity which occurs at these intervals serves to render the built-environment either intelligible or un-intelligible. The study and theory of this occurrence is known as "Intelligence-Based Design." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23080305 | 1,909,899 |
1,695,380 | Until late March, due to the restrictive Robert Koch Institute (RKI) testing criteria, Germans without specific symptoms could not be tested. On 25 March 2020, the RKI announced that people no longer needed to come from risk areas to be tested. In the revised criteria, acute respiratory symptoms were generally maintained, with one additional criterion of the following having to be fulfilled: contact to a confirmed positive case in the last 14 days; work in health care; membership in a risk group; and in case of serious illness, no differential diagnosis. RKI president Wieler said that tests should be conducted in a "targeted and strategically sensible" manner, in order to avoid overstraining testing capacities. Mildly ill patients would not always be able to get tested, in which case they would be asked to remain at home and minimise contact with others. Wieler announced that the taking of representative samples in order to assess the number of infected more reliably would commence soon. Calls for conducting such studies were raised concurrently. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=63948123 | 1,694,428 |
1,215,457 | The industrial faculties had the task of preparing artists of a new type, artists capable of working not only in the traditional pictorial and plastic arts but also capable of creating all objects in the human environment such as the articles of daily life, the implements of labor, etc. The industrial department at Vkhutemas endeavored to create products of viability in the economy and functionality found in society. Class-based political requirements steered artists toward crafts, and the designing of household or industrial goods. There was significant pressure in this respect by the Central Committee of the Communist Party, that in 1926, 1927, and 1928, required a student body composition "of worker and peasant origins", and several demands for "working class" elements. This push for design economy resulted in a tendency towards working, functional designs with minimised luxuries. Tables designed by Rodchenko were equipped with mechanical moving parts, and were standardised and multi-functional. The products designed at Vkhutemas never bridged the gap between workshops and factory production, although they cultivated a factory aesthetic—Popova, Stepanova, and Tatlin even designed worker's industrial apparel. Furniture pieces constructed at Vkhutemas explored the possibilities of new industrial materials such as plywood and tubular steel. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3014315 | 1,214,805 |
1,443,274 | The history of the institute dates back to the pre-independence era of India. The Bhore Committee report formed by the Ministry of Health pointed out the need of trained personnel and an institution in the field of chest diseases country. Officials, then decided to establish such an institution in the country which would train people in this field. The Directorate of Ministry of Health, Government of India, lodged an application to Sir Maurice Gwyer, the then Vice-Chancellor of University of Delhi, to start a course in chest diseases at the earliest. In 1946, Sir Maurice Gwyer constituted a committee for this purpose. On the recommendation of committee a proposal was submitted to the Government by the Vice-Chancellor for the establishment of a new institute. In the beginning, the teaching and training facilities of the Lady Hardinge Medical College, Irwin and Silver Jubilee Hospitals in Delhi, were used by the institute. A diploma course in chest diseases was started in 1947 and Dr. R. Viswanathan, the then Deputy Director General, Health Services, Government of India, was appointed as the Honorary Director of the course. Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, the then Deputy Prime Minister of India, laid the foundation stone of the institute on 6 April 1949. The institute is also named after him. Rajkumari Amrit Kaur opened the institute on 12 January 1953 and R. Viswanathan served as the first Director of the Institute. The hospital wing of the institute, named after Dr. R. Viswanathan, is called Viswanathan Chest Hospital [formerly known as Clinical Research Centre]. The hospital started working in 1956 but it was inaugurated on 25 October 1957 by the then President of India, Dr. Rajendra Prasad. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=47986289 | 1,442,461 |
1,257,070 | Although Rokitansky defended the "materialistic method" in scientific research, he rejected materialism as a philosophical world view. In his commemorative speech on the occasion of the opening of the Institute of Pathological Anatomy at the General Hospital of Vienna, he warned against the abuse of "natural science liberties". Scientists should first regard humans as "conscious and free-willing subjects" and only then follow their urge toward knowledge. The feeling of humanity would be lost if physicians regarded human beings purely as research objects. Thus Rokitansky brought up for the first time the question of ethics in medicine. In another speech about the "solidarity of all animal life", delivered at the Imperial Academy of Sciences, Rokitansky showed his proximity to Arthur Schopenhauer's writings on compassion: "if we [... ] preserve and practice compassion", he explained "we are able to alleviate part of the load of suffering" of patients. Human generosity will be shown by our capability to accept the greatest sufferings by voluntarily renouncing aggression. Those who succeed in this should be our greatest ethical role models." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1920065 | 1,256,384 |
886,454 | Water pollution due to animal waste is a common problem in both developed and developing nations. The USA, Canada, India, Greece, Switzerland and several other countries are experiencing major environmental degradation due to water pollution via animal waste. Concerns about such problems are particularly acute in the case of CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations). In the US, a permit for a CAFO requires the implementation of a plan for the management of manure nutrients, contaminants, wastewater, etc., as applicable, to meet requirements under the Clean Water Act. There were about 19,000 CAFOs in the US as of 2008. In fiscal 2014, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) concluded 26 enforcement actions for various violations by CAFOs. Environmental performance of the US livestock industry can be compared with several other industries. The EPA has published 5-year and 1-year data for 32 industries on their ratios of enforcement orders to inspections, a measure of non-compliance with environmental regulations: principally, those under the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act. For the livestock industry, inspections focused primarily on CAFOs. Of the 32 other industries, (including crop production) had a better 5-year environmental record than the livestock industry, 2 had a similar record, and 25 had a worse record in this respect. For the most recent year of the five-year compilation, livestock production and dry cleaning had the best environmental records of the 32 industries, each with an enforcement order/inspection ratio of 0.01. For crop production, the ratio was 0.02. Of the 32 industries, oil and gas extraction and the livestock industry had the lowest percentages of facilities with violations. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=15588468 | 885,990 |
949,309 | The simulation aspect of the game received mixed reviews. Loveridge held a positive opinion regarding dinosaur management, as each species has their own needs and niches that players must fulfill. She felt the park management aspect, including the construction of facilities and utilities, was "minimal". Tamburro compared the simulation to "RollerCoaster Tycoon" and "Zoo Tycoon". He enjoyed the chaos created when dinosaurs break out, but he was disappointed that dinosaurs did not attack the park's staff carrying out maintenance inside the enclosures. Philippa Warr of "PC Gamer" praised the dinosaurs but criticized the lack of attention to missions and individual guests' views and happiness ratings on the park. She also noted the simulation lacked depth, as buildings looked largely the same and the environment soon became stale. Swinbanks felt dealing with natural disasters and dinosaur breakout was exciting initially, but soon became repetitive. He also lamented the lack of new challenges presented in the later stage of the game. Tack criticized the tiresome aspect of simulation and the constant need to wait for objectives to be completed, comparing them to a mobile game. Describing the simulation as "shallow", Roemer criticized the lack of time constraints, cleanliness ratings, and a full day-night cycle. He was also disappointed by the small size of each island, which made park building "unfulfilling". Stapleton agreed, saying that the small islands limited players' creativity. He noted that players cannot speed up time in the game, a signature feature in many other simulators and builders, and criticized its exclusion as it forced players to wait aimlessly to get enough cash to perform an action. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=54971409 | 948,805 |
1,362,559 | By introducing more energy thresholds above the low-energy threshold, a PCD can be divided into several discrete energy bins. Each registered photon is thus assigned to a specific bin depending on its energy, such that each pixel measures a histogram of the incident X-ray spectrum. This spectral information provides several advantages over the integrated deposited energy of an EID. First, it makes it possible to quantitatively determine the material composition of each pixel in the reconstructed CT image, as opposed to the estimated average linear attenuation coefficient obtained in a conventional CT scan. It turns out such a material base decomposition, using at least two energy bins, can adequately account for all elements found in the body and increases the contrast between tissue types. Further, the spectral information can be used to remove beam hardening artefacts. These arise because of the higher linear attenuation of most materials at lower energy which shifts the mean energy of the X-ray spectrum towards higher energies as the beam passes through the object. By comparing the ratios of counts in different energy bins with those of the attenuated beam, the amount of beam hardening can be accounted for (either explicitly or implicitly in the reconstruction) using a PCD. Finally, using more than two energy bins allows to discriminate between on the one hand dense bone and calcifications and on the other hand heavier elements (commonly iodine or gadolinium) used as contrast agents. This has the potential reduce the amount of X-ray dose from a contrast scan by removing the need for a reference scan before contrast injection. Although spectral CT is already clinically available in the form of dual-energy scanners, photon-counting CT offers a number of advantages. A PCD can implement more than two energy thresholds with a higher degree of separation than what is possible to achieve in dual-energy CT. This improvement in energy resolution translates to higher contrast-to-noise ratio in the image, in particular in contrast-enhanced and material-selective images. Also, it can be shown that at least three energies are necessary to simultaneously decompose both tissue and contrast medium. More energy bins also allow for simultaneously differentiating between different contrast agents. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=55862624 | 1,361,806 |
1,828,396 | The Bureau's environmental research group conducts a wide range of basic and applied research in groundwater resources, vadose zone hydrology, coastal studies, near-surface geophysics, and geologic mapping. The group also has programs that relate energy and the environment, including a major initiative in geological sequestration of greenhouse gases. A variety of approaches are used to investigate characteristics and processes of shallow Earth systems and impacts of human activities on those systems. Remote sensing, including satellite (GRACE and MODIS) and airborne geophysics are used to quantify regional scale evapotranspiration, groundwater storage, and saline plume characterization. Subsurface geologic and hydrogeologic characterization provides critical information on sustainability of water resources and potential for carbon sequestration and desalination. Although many of the studies are focused in Texas, insights and process understanding are applied to other regions globally (such as China, India, Africa, and South America). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=6873192 | 1,827,357 |
950,701 | It is neither difficult to imagine atomic motions due to kinetic temperature, nor distinguish between such motions and those due to zero-point energy. Consider the following hypothetical thought experiment, as illustrated in "Fig. 2.5" at left, with an atom that is exceedingly close to absolute zero. Imagine peering through a common optical microscope set to 400 power, which is about the maximum practical magnification for optical microscopes. Such microscopes generally provide fields of view a bit over 0.4 mm in diameter. At the center of the field of view is a single levitated argon atom (argon comprises about 0.93% of air) that is illuminated and glowing against a dark backdrop. If this argon atom was at a beyond-record-setting "one-trillionth" of a kelvin above absolute zero, and was moving perpendicular to the field of view towards the right, it would require 13.9 seconds to move from the center of the image to the 200-micron tick mark; this travel distance is about the same as the width of the period at the end of this sentence on modern computer monitors. As the argon atom slowly moved, the positional jitter due to zero-point energy would be much less than the 200-nanometer (0.0002 mm) resolution of an optical microscope. Importantly, the atom's translational velocity of 14.43 microns per second constitutes all its retained kinetic energy due to not being precisely at absolute zero. Were the atom "precisely" at absolute zero, imperceptible jostling due to zero-point energy would cause it to very slightly wander, but the atom would perpetually be located, on average, at the same spot within the field of view. This is analogous to a boat that has had its motor turned off and is now bobbing slightly in relatively calm and windless ocean waters; even though the boat randomly drifts to and fro, it stays in the same spot in the long term and makes no headway through the water. Accordingly, an atom that was precisely at absolute zero would not be "motionless", and yet, a statistically significant collection of such atoms would have zero net kinetic energy available to transfer to any other collection of atoms. This is because regardless of the kinetic temperature of the second collection of atoms, they too experience the effects of zero-point energy. Such are the consequences of statistical mechanics and the nature of thermodynamics. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=41789 | 950,197 |
1,157,802 | In July 2012, the Windows 8 team posted the following on the blog of Steven Sinofsky: "To improve geometry rendering performance in Windows 8, we focused on reducing the CPU cost associated with tessellation in two ways. First, we optimized our implementation of tessellation when rendering simple geometries like rectangles, lines, rounded rectangles, and ellipses." These common-case optimizations claimed to improve performance in the range of 184% to 438%, depending on the primitive. The post continued: "Second, to improve performance when rendering irregular geometry (e.g. geographical borders on a map), we use a new graphics hardware feature called "Target Independent Rasterization", or TIR. TIR enables Direct2D to spend fewer CPU cycles on tessellation, so it can give drawing instructions to the GPU more quickly and efficiently, without sacrificing visual quality. TIR is available in new GPU hardware designed for Windows 8 that supports DirectX 11.1." This was followed by a benchmark using some 15 SVGs, claiming performance improvements in the range of 151% to 523%. The section concluded: "We worked closely with our graphics hardware partners to design TIR. Dramatic improvements were made possible because of that partnership. DirectX 11.1 hardware is already on the market today and we’re working with our partners to make sure more TIR-capable products will be broadly available." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20869703 | 1,157,189 |
646,577 | Numeracy has a huge impact on employment. In a work environment, numeracy can be a controlling factor affecting career achievements and failures. Many professions require individuals to have well-developed numerical skills: for example, mathematician, physicist, accountant, actuary, Risk Analyst, financial analyst, engineer, and architect. This is why a major target of the Sustainable Development Goal 4 is to substantially increase the number of youths who have relevant skills for decent work and employment because, even outside these specialized areas, the lack of numeracy skills can reduce employment opportunities and promotions, resulting in unskilled manual careers, low-paying jobs, and even unemployment. For example, carpenters and interior designers need to be able to measure, use fractions, and handle budgets. Another example of numeracy influencing employment was demonstrated at the Poynter Institute. The Poynter Institute has recently included numeracy as one of the skills required by competent journalists. Max Frankel, former executive editor of "The New York Times", argues that "deploying numbers skillfully is as important to communication as deploying verbs". Unfortunately, it is evident that journalists often show poor numeracy skills. In a study by the Society of Professional Journalists, 58% of job applicants interviewed by broadcast news directors lacked an adequate understanding of statistical materials. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=397245 | 646,237 |
2,057,303 | Carbon monoxide line intensities are calibrated using the room-temperature chopper wheel method and the two-layer atmosphere model of Kutner (1978). At the carbon monoxide signal frequency the atmospheric opacity is appreciable, mostly due to molecular oxygen and water vapor, and corrections to the observed line intensities for signal attenuation must be applied. Kutner's two-layer model of the atmosphere parameterizes the elevation dependence of the correction factor in terms of only 3 parameters, each of which has a physical interpretation. Because oxygen has a much greater scale height than water vapor, the model assumes they can be considered separate layers, oxygen above water, with different characteristic temperatures and opacities. The temperature and opacity of oxygen in the upper atmosphere do not vary much seasonally and are assumed to be constant at 255 K and 0.378, respectively, at the signal frequency. The remaining parameters in the model, the temperature and opacity of water and the fraction of the received power from the sky, are determined through antenna tippings (measurements of the intensity of the sky signal as a function of elevation) at least once per six-hour observing shift, and more frequently if the weather is changing. Typical zenith water opacities ranged from 0.10 to 0.15, with values as low as about 0.05 in the coldest, driest weather. A 1-second calibration is performed at the start of each scan to correct for short term variations of the receiver gain and atmospheric opacity. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1528987 | 2,056,119 |
1,403,699 | A general election in November 1900 led to a change of First Lord of the Admiralty from George Goschen to the Earl of Selborne. The new Parliamentary Secretary to the board was Hugh Oakley Arnold-Forster, who as a backbench Member of Parliament had criticised Goschen for failing to adopt submarines. Now he discovered that the Admiralty had been doing so in secret. Selborne became concerned that even so the Admiralty was lagging some way behind the French in development, and the first boat, whose contract was finally signed December 1900, would not be delivered until October 1901. Arnold-Forster proposed involving other companies in constructing submarines, but this was opposed by the Second Sea Lord, Vice Admiral Archibald Douglass, as well as by Wilson, on the grounds that it remained unwise to encourage the general development of the submarine, which might be of more benefit to smaller navies rather than the RN. Wilson considered that the limited range of existing submarines meant they would only be able to operate in French waters, whereas if further developed could become a weapon to threaten British home ports. He recognised the potential of the submarine to prevent maritime trade, which was essential to the survival of an island nation like Britain. Any steps possible to slow down submarine development should be taken while the navy worked on means of defence against the submarine. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4108784 | 1,402,909 |
716,612 | The outflow clepsydra was a timekeeping device used in China as long ago as the Shang Dynasty (c. 1600–c. 1050 BC), and certainly by the Zhou Dynasty (1122–256 BC). The inflow clepsydra with an indicator rod on a float had been known in China since the beginning of the Han Dynasty in 202 BC and had replaced the outflow type. The Han Chinese noted the problem with the falling pressure head in the reservoir, which slowed the timekeeping of the device as the inflow vessel was filled. Zhang Heng was the first to address this problem, indicated in his writings from 117, by adding an extra compensating tank between the reservoir and the inflow vessel. Zhang also mounted two statuettes of a Chinese immortal and a heavenly guard on the top of the inflow clepsydra, the two of which would guide the indicator rod with their left hand and point out the graduations with their right. Joseph Needham states that this was perhaps the ancestor of all clock jacks that would later sound the hours found in mechanical clocks by the 8th century, but he notes that these figures did not actually move like clock jack figurines or sound the hours. Many additional compensation tanks were added to later clepsydras in the tradition of Zhang Heng. In 610 the Sui Dynasty (581–618) engineers Geng Xun and Yuwen Kai crafted an unequal-armed steelyard balance able to make seasonal adjustments in the pressure head of the compensating tank, so that it could control the rate of water flow for different lengths of day and night during the year. Zhang mentioned a "jade dragon's neck", which in later times meant a siphon. He wrote of the floats and indicator-rods of the inflow clepsydra as follows: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=34542 | 716,235 |
1,319,855 | One method of increasing the mechanical properties of polymers used for anion exchange membranes (AEM) is substituting conventional ternary amine and anion exchange groups with grafted quaternary groups. These ionomers results in large storage and Young's moduli, a high tensile strength, and high ductility. Exchanging the counterion from hydroxide to hydrogen carbonate, carbonate, and chloride ions further enhances the strength and elastic modulus of the membranes. Narducci and colleagues concluded that the water uptake, related to the type of anion, plays a very important role for the mechanical properties. Zhang and colleagues prepared a series of robust and crosslinked poly(2,6-dimethyl-1,4-phenylene oxide)s (PPO) AEMs with chemically stable imidazolium cations through quaternization of C1, C3, C4-substituted imidazole and crosslinking them via "thiol-ene" chemistry. These crosslinked AEMs showed excellent film forming properties and exhibited a higher tensile strength owing to the increased entanglement interactions in the polymer chains which in turn increased the water up take. This strong relation between water uptake and mechanical properties mirrors the findings of Narducci and colleagues. The findings of Zhang et al. suggest that the crosslinking of anion conductive materials with stable sterically-protected organic cations is an effective strategy to produce robust AEMs for use in alkaline fuel cells. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=34019297 | 1,319,129 |
729,341 | By 1950, their research into the rubber binder had led to much larger engines and then to the development of the Aerobee sounding rocket. Aerobee was the first US-designed rocket to reach space (albeit not orbit) and completed over 1,000 flights before it was retired in 1985. Aerojet designed and built a total of 1,182 engines for all four incarnations of the Titan rockets, which were used for civilian projects ranging from Gemini's manned flights to solar system explorations including Viking, Voyager, and Cassini. The newly formed US Air Force used Aerojet as the primary supplier on a number of their ICBM projects, including the Titan and Minuteman missiles. They also delivered propulsion systems for the US Navy's submarine-launched Polaris missile. A new plant was set up in Rancho Cordova that took over most rocket construction, while the original Azusa offices returned primarily to research. One of Azusa's major projects was the development of the infra-red detectors for the Defense Support Program satellites, used to detect ICBM launches from space. The new research arm was formed as Aerojet Electro-Systems Corp., and after purchasing a number of ordnance companies, Aerojet Ordnance was created as well. A new umbrella organization oversaw the three major divisions, Aerojet General. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1398923 | 728,957 |
691,380 | Behe received $20,000 for testifying as an expert witness on behalf of the plaintiffs in "Association of Christian Schools International v. Roman Stearns." The case was filed by Association of Christian Schools International, which argued that the University of California was being discriminatory by not recognizing science classes that use creationist books. The 2005 filing claimed that University of California's rejection of several of their courses was illegal "viewpoint discrimination and content regulation prohibited by the Free Speech Clause." In 2007, Behe's expert witness report claimed that the Christian textbooks, including William S. Pinkston, Jr.'s "Biology for Christian Schools" (1980; 2nd ed. 1994), are excellent works for high school students. He defended that view in a deposition. In August 2008, Judge S. James Otero rejected Behe's claims, saying that Behe "submitted a declaration concluding that the BJU [Bob Jones University Press] text mentions standard scientific content. ... However, Professor Behe 'did not consider how much detail or depth' the texts gave to this standard content." Otero ruled in favor of the University of California's decision to reject courses using these books. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=186205 | 691,017 |
41,388 | Fellowship of the Society, the oldest known scientific academy in continuous existence, is a significant honour. It has been awarded to many eminent scientists throughout history, including Isaac Newton (1672), Michael Faraday (1824), Charles Darwin (1839), Ernest Rutherford (1903), Srinivasa Ramanujan (1918), Albert Einstein (1921), Paul Dirac (1930), Winston Churchill (1941), Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1944), Dorothy Hodgkin (1947), Alan Turing (1951), Lise Meitner (1955) and Francis Crick (1959). More recently, fellowship has been awarded to Stephen Hawking (1974), David Attenborough (1983), Tim Hunt (1991), Elizabeth Blackburn (1992), Tim Berners-Lee (2001), Venki Ramakrishnan (2003), Atta-ur-Rahman (2006), Andre Geim (2007), James Dyson (2015), Ajay Kumar Sood (2015), Subhash Khot (2017) and in total, including over 280 Nobel Laureates since 1900. , there are approximately 1,689 living Fellows, Foreign and Honorary Members, of which over 60 are Nobel Laureates. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=510795 | 41,373 |
1,910,965 | Fundamentally, all electrical measurements of bilayers involve the placement of an electrode on either side of the membrane. By applying a bias across these electrodes and measuring the resulting current, it is possible to determine the resistance of the bilayer. This resistance is typically quite high for intact bilayers, often exceeding 100 GΩ since the hydrophobic core is impermeable to charged hydrated species. Because this resistance is so large, the presence of even a few nanometer-scale holes results in a dramatic increase in current and can be easily determined. The sensitivity of this system is such that even the activity of single ion channels can be resolved. In such DC measurements, it is necessary to use electrochemically active electrodes to provide the necessary positive charges on one side and negative charges on the other. The most common system is the silver/silver chloride electrode since this reaction is stable, reversible, involves a single electron transfer and can produce large currents. In addition to simple DC current measurements it is also possible to perform AC electrical characterization to extract information about the capacitance and complex impedance of a bilayer. Because capacitance is inversely proportional to thickness and bilayers are very thin they typically have a very large capacitance, on the order of 2µF/cm. Capacitance measurements are particularly useful when dealing with black lipid membranes, as they can be used to determine when the solvent/lipid plug thins down to a single bilayer. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21453848 | 1,909,866 |
997,990 | While en route to the west coast, "Pennsylvania" left "Tennessee" and "Maryland" to head to Mare Island for repairs, while the other two vessels continued on to Puget Sound. They reached the naval yard of 29 December, where permanent repairs and a modernization began. The portions of "Tennessee"s hull plating and electrical wiring that had been damaged by the fire were replaced, and her aft lattice mast was replaced with a small tower. In place of her .50-caliber machine guns, she received a battery of sixteen guns in quadruple mounts and fourteen Oerlikon autocannon. New Mark 11 versions of her 14-inch guns replaced the old Mark 4 barrels. The work was completed by late February 1942, and "Tennessee" got underway on 25 February with "Maryland" and the battleship . The three battleships steamed to San Francisco, where they joined Task Force 1, commanded by Rear Admiral William S. Pye. The ships then began a series of training maneuvers that lasted for several months to prepare for the coming campaigns in the central Pacific. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=196975 | 997,472 |
1,567,560 | In the first half-reaction, two identical molecules of farnesyl pyrophosphate (FPP) are bound to squalene synthase (SQS) in a sequential manner. The FPP molecules bind to distinct regions of the enzyme, and with different binding affinities. Starting at the top of the catalytic cycle below, the reaction begins with the ionization of FPP to generate an allylic carbocation. A tyrosine residue (Tyr-171) plays a critical role in this step by serving as a proton donor to facilitate abstraction of pyrophosphate. Moreover, the resulting phenolate anion can stabilize the resulting carbocation through cation-π interactions, which would be particularly strong due to the highly electron-rich nature of the phenolate anion. The allylic cation generated is then attacked by the olefin of a second molecule of FPP, affording a tertiary carbocation. The phenolate anion generated previously then serves as a base to abstract a proton from this adduct to form a cyclopropane product, presqualene pyrophosphate (PSPP). The PSPP created remains associated with SQS for the second reaction. The importance of a tyrosine residue in this process was demonstrated by mutagenesis studies with rat SQS (rSQS), and by the fact that Tyr-171 is conserved in all known SQSs (and PHSs). In rSQS, Tyr-171 was converted to aromatic residues Phe and Trp, as well as hydroxyl-containing residue Ser. None of these mutants were able to convert FPP to PSPP or squalene, demonstrating that aromatic rings or alcohols alone are insufficient for converting FPP to PSPP. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=10905770 | 1,566,673 |
536,272 | After the turn of the 20th century, Josiah Willard Gibbs would in physical chemistry introduce middle dot for dot product and the multiplication sign for cross products. He would also supply notation for the scalar and vector products, which was introduced in "Vector Analysis". In 1904, Ernst Zermelo promotes axiom of choice and his proof of the well-ordering theorem. Bertrand Russell would shortly afterward introduce logical disjunction (OR) in 1906. Also in 1906, Poincaré would publish "On the Dynamics of the Electron" and Maurice Fréchet introduced metric space. Later, Gerhard Kowalewski and Cuthbert Edmund Cullis would successively introduce matrices notation, parenthetical matrix and box matrix notation respectively. After 1907, mathematicians studied knots from the point of view of the knot group and invariants from homology theory. In 1908, Joseph Wedderburn's structure theorems were formulated for finite-dimensional algebras over a field. Also in 1908, Ernst Zermelo proposed "definite" property and the first axiomatic set theory, Zermelo set theory. In 1910 Ernst Steinitz published the influential paper "Algebraic Theory of Fields". In 1911, Steinmetz would publish "Theory and Calculation of Transient Electric Phenomena and Oscillations". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=6134187 | 535,993 |
1,675,850 | Where megathrust earthquakes (M>8) have been repeatedly observed in the shallow sections (<25 km depth) of the Cascadia subduction zone, low frequency earthquakes have recently been discovered to occur at greater depths, down-dip of the seismogenic zone. The first indicator of low frequency earthquakes in Cascadia was discovered in 1999 when an aseismic event took place at the subduction interface wherein the overriding North American Plate slipped 2 centimeters south-west over a several-week period as recorded by Global Positioning System (GPS) sites in British Columbia. This apparent slow slip event occurred over a 50-by-300-kilometer area and took approximately 35 days. Researchers estimated that the energy released in such an event would be equivalent to a magnitude 6–7 earthquake, yet no significant seismic signal was detected. The aseismic character of the event led observers to conclude that the slip was mediated by ductile deformation at depth. After further analysis of the GPS record, these reverse slip events were found to repeat at 13- to 16-month intervals, and last 2 to 4 weeks at any one GPS station. Soon after, geophysicists were able to extract the seismic signatures from these slow slip events and found that they were akin to tremor and classified the phenomenon as episodic tremor and slip (ETS). Upon the advent of improved processing techniques, and the discovery that LFEs form part of tremor, low frequency earthquakes were widely considered a commonplace occurrence at the plate interface down-dip of the seismogenic zone in Cascadia. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=7674011 | 1,674,908 |
9,779 | During the late 1990s, Boeing considered replacement aircraft programs due to slowing sales of the 767 and 747-400. Two new aircraft were proposed. The 747X would have lengthened the 747-400 and improved efficiency, and the Sonic Cruiser would have achieved 15% higher speeds (approximately Mach 0.98) while burning fuel at the same rate as the 767. Market interest for the 747X was tepid; however, several major American airlines, including Continental Airlines, showed initial enthusiasm for the Sonic Cruiser, although concerns about the operating cost were also expressed. The global airline market was disrupted by the 9/11 attacks and increased petroleum prices, making airlines more interested in efficiency than speed. The worst-affected airlines, those in the United States, had been considered the most likely customers of the Sonic Cruiser; thus the Sonic Cruiser was officially canceled on December 20, 2002. On January 29, 2003, Boeing announced an alternative product, the 7E7, using Sonic Cruiser technology in a more conventional configuration. The emphasis on a smaller midsize twinjet rather than a large 747-size aircraft represented a shift from the hub-and-spoke theory toward the point-to-point theory, in response to analysis of focus groups. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=307133 | 9,775 |
19,871 | Evidence for positive treatment outcomes can also be quantified using neuroimaging tools. The use of fMRI and an automatic classifier can help predict language recovery outcomes in stroke patients with 86% accuracy when coupled with age and language test scores. The stimuli tested were sentences both correct and incorrect and the subject had to press a button whenever the sentence was incorrect. The fMRI data collected focused on responses in regions of interest identified by healthy subjects. Recovery from aphasia can also be quantified using diffusion tensor imaging. The accurate fasciculus (AF) connects the right and left superior temporal lobe, premotor regions/posterior inferior frontal gyrus. and the primary motor cortex. In a study which enrolled patients in a speech therapy program, an increase in AF fibers and volume was found in patients after 6-weeks in the program which correlated with long-term improvement in those patients. The results of the experiment are pictured in Figure 2. This implies that DTI can be used to quantify the improvement in patients after speech and language treatment programs are applied. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2088 | 19,863 |
1,857,917 | "Eopteranodon" is based on the type specimen or holotype BPV-078, an incomplete skeleton and skull. Its skull, including a large crest, was toothless and similar to that of "Pteranodon". The skull lacks the point of the snout but it was in life less than 200 millimeters long (7.9 inches), and the animal had a wingspan of about 1.1 meters (3.6 feet). A second specimen, D2526, described in 2006, had a larger wingspan. Despite its similarities to "Pteranodon", "Eopteranodon" was not placed into a family by its describers, who put it into the clade Pteranodontia as "incertae sedis" (uncertain position). Shortly thereafter, a phylogenetic study of all known Yixian pterosaurs by the same scientists found it to be close to the azhdarchoids, noted for the crested genera "Tapejara" and "Tupuxuara", and the giant, long-necked "Quetzalcoatlus". A further analysis of other recently discovered forms, in 2006 still considered basal to (having split off earlier than) azhdarchoids, helped the original authors, along with David Unwin, to place these species together with "Eopteranodon" in a new clade Chaoyangopteridae, the possible sister group of the Azhdarchidae. However, in 2014, in an analysis by Brian Andres and colleagues, "Eopteranodon" was recovered as a basal member of the clade Tapejaromorpha, closely related to the species ""Sinopterus"" "gui" and "Nemicolopterus crypticus". Their cladogram is shown on the left. Later, in 2017, in another phylogenetic analysis, "Eopteranodon" was considered a member of the family Tapejaridae based on proportions of the crest on the lower jaw and the limbs. This concept has been followed by several studies in 2019, including the one by Borja Holgado and colleagues, and the one by Alexander Kellner and colleagues. The cladogram on the right is based on the topology made by Kellner and colleagues. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8553292 | 1,856,849 |
1,914,754 | Environmental contamination is an important route of infection for "B. avium". "B. avium" can survive in the environment less than 2 days at higher temperatures (40 °C), up to a month with low temperature (10 °C) and humidity (32-58%), and up to 6 months in feed, water and damp litter. Good bio-security protocols, thorough cleaning, and excellent husbandry practices are the best methods for controlling outbreaks. Optimal temperature, humidity, and control of ammonia and dust are critical to reduce "B.avium" growth in the environment and reduce irritants to the tracheal epithelium. Most common disinfectants used do kill "B. avium," and thorough cleaning includes removal of litter and other fomites between flocks, disinfection of the barn and flushing of water lines with disinfectants, and fumigation with methyl-bromide or formaldehyde. Foot baths, using on farm-clothing, controlling traffic between barns, preventing contact with wild birds, and showers between sites also reduces transmission between farms. For infected flocks, increasing ventilation and reaching optimal temperature are key. It has been reported that niacin or 0.016% oxy-halogen added to water lines given early in life reduces the severity of bordetellosis. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=40064924 | 1,913,655 |
129,991 | In September 2008, several companies, including Nestlé, were implicated in a scandal involving milk and infant formula which had been adulterated with melamine, leading to kidney stones and other kidney failure, especially among young children. By December 2008, nearly 300,000 people had become ill, with more than 50,000 infant hospitalizations and six infant deaths. In a study published in the "New England Journal of Medicine", it was reported that melamine exposure increased the incidence of urinary tract stones by seven times in children. Melamine may have been added to fool government protein content tests after water was added to fraudulently dilute the milk. Because of melamine's high nitrogen content (66% by mass versus approximately 10–12% for typical protein), it can cause the protein content of food to appear higher than the true value. Officials estimate that about 20% of the dairy companies tested in China sell products tainted with melamine. On January 22, 2009, three of those involved in the scandal (including one conditional sentence) were sentenced to death in a Chinese court. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=553468 | 129,939 |
1,472,827 | Shocked at the sudden loss of their companion, Mawson and Mertz now had to consider their own prospects. Ninnis's sledge had been carrying most of their provisions and equipment, and all of the dog food, leaving them with about 11 or 12 days' rations. To reach base, they would have to augment these meagre supplies by shooting and eating the surviving dogs. They travelled steadily over the next days, despite Mawson suffering from snow-blindness; by 25 December, they calculated that they were from Cape Denison. On 29 December, they killed the last of the dogs. Both men had been feeling unwell, but from New Year's Day 1913 there was a sudden and rapid deterioration in Mertz's health; he had frostbite and became delirious and agitated. After a weather delay, they resumed their journey on the evening of 3 January, but they did not get far before the weather and Mertz's frostbite forced them to stop. They laid up until 3 January when Mertz agreed to push on, but his condition continued to worsen, and though Mawson managed to drag him on the sledge they could not cover much ground. Mertz died early on 8 January. Mawson was around from the base, which was, he observed, a relatively short distance for a healthy man, but a long way for one weak and famished. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3433767 | 1,471,998 |
1,830,611 | Native Americans have been familiar with fossils for thousands of years. They both told myths about them and applied them to practical purposes. The idea of powerful natural forces contending for balance is a common motif in fossil-influenced Native American folklore. Practical applications for fossils in Native American cultures include ingestion as medicine and use in food preparation. African slaves also contributed their knowledge to the early study of paleontology in the United States. The first reasonably accurate recorded identification of vertebrate fossils in the new world was made by slaves on a South Carolina plantation who recognized the elephant affinities of mammoth molars uncovered there in 1725. However, the first major fossil discovery to attract the attention of formally trained scientists were the Ice Age fossils of Kentucky's Big Bone Lick. These fossils were studied by eminent intellectuals like France's George Cuvier and local statesmen and frontiersman like Daniel Boone, Benjamin Franklin, William Henry Harrison, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington. They triggered controversy regarding the idea that entire species of animals could become extinct. By the end of the 18th century possible dinosaur fossils might already have been found in New Jersey. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=37799182 | 1,829,565 |
738,580 | Current systems only detect an arriving object when several factors are just right, mainly the direction of approach relative to the Sun, the weather, and phase of the Moon. The result is a low overall rate of success (around 1%) which is worse the smaller the objects are. A few near misses by medium-size asteroids have been predicted years in advance, with a tiny chance of actually striking Earth, and a handful of small actual impactors have successfully been detected hours in advance. All of the latter struck wilderness or ocean, and hurt no one. The majority of impacts are by small, undiscovered objects. They rarely hit a populated area, but can cause widespread damage when they do. Performance is improving in detecting smaller objects as existing systems are upgraded, and new ones come on line, but the blind spot issue which all current systems face around the Sun can only be overcome by a dedicated space based system or by discovering objects on a previous approach to Earth many years before a potential impact. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=58017976 | 738,189 |
1,467,408 | TrkB and its ligand BDNF have been associated to both normal brain function and in the pathology and progression of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and other neurodegenerative disorders. First of all, BDNF/TrkB signalling has been implicated in long-term memory formation, the regulation of long-term potentiation, as well as hippocampal synaptic plasticity. In particular, neuronal activity has been shown to lead to an increase in TrkB mRNA transcription, as well as changes in TrkB protein trafficking, including receptor endocytosis or translocation. Both TrkB and BDNF are downregulated in the brain of early AD patients with mild cognitive impairments, while work in mice has shown that reducing TrkB levels in the brain of AD mouse models leads to a significant increase in memory deficits. In addition, combining the induction of adult hippocampal neurogenesis and increasing BDNF levels lead to an improved cognition, mimicking exercise benefits in AD mouse models. The effect of TrkB/BDNF signalling on AD pathology has been shown to be in part mediated by an increase in δ-secretase levels, via an upregulation of the JAK2/STAT3 pathway and C/EBPβ downstream of TrkB. Additionally, TrkB has been shown to reduce amyloid-β production by APP binding and phosphorylation, while TrkB cleavage by δ-secretase blocks normal TrkB activity. Dysregulation of the TrkB/BDNF pathway has been implicated in other neurological and neurodegenerative conditions, including stroke, Huntington’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, Amyotrophic lateral schlerosis and stress-related disorders.(Notaras and van den Buuse, 2020; Pradhan et al., 2019; Tejeda and Díaz-Guerra, 2017). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=5330660 | 1,466,585 |
2,049,854 | Wood established his own group at ICRF and over the next decade, performed a series of biochemistry experiments to understand each step in the repair process by adding individual, purified proteins. Repair (particularly of UV-induced pyrimidine dimers) includes recognition of the damaged site (probably by sensing an unpaired bubble at the mutation site), nicking the DNA at upstream and downstream sites, excising the damaged DNA, then filling in the single-stranded DNA gap using a polymerase, with the opposite strand serving as a template for the proper sequence for the repair patch. Since multiple proteins are involved in NER, different XP patients may have different gene mutations (called "complementation groups" based on which enzyme is defective in the NER pathway). Ultimately, his group showed that the entire NER pathway could be performed synthetically by reconstituting 30 different purified proteins, allowing him to define DNA repair at the molecular level. Since returning to the United States, his laboratory has focused on the role polymerases play in making ‘emergency’ translesion repairs that lead to additional mutational errors and contribute to cancers. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9032727 | 2,048,673 |
746,060 | Shaurya can reach a velocity of Mach 7.5 even at low altitudes. On 12 November 2008, the missile reached a velocity of Mach 5 as it crossed a distance of 300 km, with a surface temperature of 700° Celsius. The missile performed rolls to spread the heat uniformly on its surface. Flight time was between 500 seconds and 700 seconds. It has been described as a complex system with high-performance navigation and guidance systems, efficient propulsion systems, state-of-the-art control technologies and canisterised launch. It can be easily transported by road and launched by TEL. The missile, encased in a canister, is mounted on a single vehicle, which has only a driver's cabin, and the vehicle itself is the launch platform. This "single vehicle solution" reduces its signature – it cannot be easily detected by satellites – and makes its deployment easy. The gas generator, located at the bottom of the canister, fires for about a second and a half. It produces high pressure gas, which expands and ejects the missile from the tube. The missile has six motors; the first one is the motor in the gas generator. The centrepiece of a host of new technologies incorporated in Shaurya is its ring laser gyroscope and accelerometer. The ring laser gyroscope was tested and integrated by the Research Centre Imarat (RCI) based in Hyderabad. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20189215 | 745,665 |
1,859,884 | This three-year, collaborative project seeks to develop an openly accessible, graduate-level curricular framework, course modules, and experiential and enrichment components and exemplars necessary to prepare students to work in the 21st-century environment of trusted digital and data repositories. To accomplish these tasks, this project brings together key international figures in digital preservation from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Italy, and New Zealand, to serve on an Advisory Board. Repositories at UNC-CH will provide IMLS-funded Carolina Digital Curation Fellows hands-on application of the principles taught as they manage a wide range of digital objects, including public records, cultural heritage assets, teaching materials, and research data. These Fellowships will serve to integrate the curriculum and the experiential components, advertise the existence of the programs at SILS, and draw attention to the need for digital curation. Sustainability and updating of the educational products will be ensured through programmatic adoption at UNC-CH and widespread dissemination and use at other educational institutions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=31382598 | 1,858,816 |
1,890,517 | Nave co-authored a book with James Rusbridger, which was to have been published in 1988. However, the book was withdrawn after pressure from the D-Notice Committee. It was eventually published in 1991 as "Betrayal at Pearl Harbor", but received a highly critical reception from the intelligence establishment. The book apparently reflects Rusbridger's views rather than those of Nave, particularly the claim that Winston Churchill deliberately did not pass on warnings about the attack on Pearl Harbor, in order to get the United States involved the war. According to British historian Peter Elphick, in a 1991 interview on Japanese television, Nave "repudiated a large slice of what Rusbridger had written, calling it speculation". Dufty said that the Allies had "solved" the JN-25 code as they knew how it worked; with five numbers, an additive book and an indicator system. But they had not "broken" the code by having enough code words and indicators to read a message. American military historian Stephen E. Ambrose pointed out that the claim "makes no sense at all", since if Churchill "knew the attack was coming, he certainly would have wanted the United States Navy to meet and defeat it – after all, the United States would be fully into the war the moment the battle began." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=24946564 | 1,889,434 |
728,882 | The Burt-McCollum sleeve valve, having its name from the surnames of the two engineers that patented the same concept with weeks of difference, Peter Burt and James Harry Keighly McCollum, patent applications are of August 6 and June 22, 1909, respectively, both engineers hired by the Scottish car maker Argyll, consisted of a single sleeve, which was given a combination of up-and-down and partial rotary motion. It was developed in about 1909 and was first used in the 1911 Argyll car. The initial 1900 investment in Argyll was £15,000 and building the magnificent Scotland plant cost £500,000 in 1920. It is reported that litigation by the owners of the Knight patents cost Argyll £50,000, perhaps one of the reasons for the temporary shutdown of their plant. Another car maker that used the Argyll SSV patents, and others of their own (patent GB118407), was Piccard-Pictet (Pic-Pic); Louis Chevrolet and others founded Frontenac Motors in 1923 with the aim of producing an 8-L SSV engined luxury car, but this never reached production for reasons connected to the time limits to the Argyll patents in the USA. The greatest success for single sleeve valves (SSV) was in Bristol's large aircraft engines, it was also used in the Napier Sabre and Rolls-Royce Eagle engines. The SSV system also reduced the high oil consumption associated with the Knight double sleeve valve. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=147563 | 728,498 |
1,371,075 | In one case, a cerebral organoid grown from a patient with microcephaly demonstrated related symptoms and revealed that apparently, the cause is overly rapid development, followed by slower brain growth. Microencephaly is a developmental condition in which the brain remains undersized, producing an undersized head and debilitation. Microcephaly is not suitable for mouse models, which do not replicate the condition. The primary form of the disease is thought to be caused by a homozygous mutation in the microcephalin gene. The disease is difficult to reproduce in mouse models because mice lack the developmental stages for an enlarged cerebral cortex that humans have. Naturally, a disease which affects this development would be impossible to show in a model which does not have it to begin with. To use cerebral organoids to model a human's microcephaly, one group of researchers has taken patient skin fibroblasts and reprogrammed them using four well known reprogramming factors. These include OCT4, SOX2, MYC and KLF4. The reprogrammed sample was able to be cloned into induced pluripotent stem cells. The cells were cultured into a cerebral organoid following a process described in the cerebral organoid creation section below. The organoid that resulted had decreased numbers of neural progenitor cells and smaller tissues. Additionally, the patient-derived tissues displayed fewer and less frequent neuroepithelial tissues made of progenitors, decreased radial glial stem cells, and increased neurons. These results suggest that the underlying mechanism of microcephaly is caused by cells prematurely differentiating into neurons leaving a deficit of radial glial cells. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=40466325 | 1,370,318 |
983,759 | The surface was initially reported to be a clay-like "material which might have a thin crust followed by a region of relative uniform consistency." One ESA scientist compared the texture and colour of Titan's surface to a crème brûlée (that is, a hard surface covering a sticky mud like subsurface). Subsequent analysis of the data suggests that surface consistency readings were likely caused by "Huygens" pushing a large pebble into the ground as it landed, and that the surface is better described as a "sand" made of ice grains or snow that has been frozen on top. The images taken after the probe's landing show a flat plain covered in pebbles. The pebbles, which may be made of hydrocarbon-coated water ice, are somewhat rounded, which may indicate the action of fluids on them. The rocks appear to be rounded, size-selected and size-layered as though located in the bed of a stream within a dark lakebed, which consists of finer-grained material. No pebbles larger than across were spotted, while rocks smaller than are rare on the "Huygens" landing site. This implies large pebbles cannot be transported to the lakebed, while small rocks are quickly removed from the surface. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=185083 | 983,245 |
1,683,101 | In September 1947, Springfield College hired him as a biology professor. Dr. Amos was the college’s first African American faculty member. Amos was awarded a M.A. in 1947 and a Ph.D. in 1952 from Harvard Medical School. He was a graduate student with Howard J. Mueller. Harold thesis was on the infectivity of Herpes virus. After graduating, he was awarded a Fulbright scholarship that took him to the Pasteur Institute for two years. Amos joined the Harvard Medical School faculty in 1954, working as a teacher. He was the chairman of the bacteriology department from 1968 to 1971 and again from 1975 to 1978. In 1975, he was named the Maude and Lillian Presley professor of microbiology and molecular genetics. He was a presidential advisor to Richard Nixon, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1974), the Institute of Medicine and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1988 Amos received professor emeritus status. Amos was awarded the National Academy of Sciences' Public Welfare Medal in 1995 and the Harvard Centennial Medal in 2000. He directed the Minority Medical Faculty Development Program (MMFDP) of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation after his retirement from Harvard. A diversity award at Harvard Medical School is named after Amos. He inspired hundreds of minorities to become medical doctors. He was well known as an inviting and welcoming mentor to both students and junior faculty members. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30797508 | 1,682,158 |
1,772,768 | "The Science of Life: a summary of contemporary knowledge about life and its possibilities" was first issued in 31 fortnightly parts published by Amalgamated Press in 1929–30, bound up in three volumes as publication proceeded. A mail-order version of the book was also published, though this was dropped after the stock market crash. It was first issued in one volume by Cassell in 1931, and reprinted in 1934 and 1937; a popular edition, fully revised, with a new preface by H. G. Wells, appeared in 1938. It was again published as separate volumes by Cassell in 1934–1937: I "The living body". II "Patterns of life" (1934). III "Evolution—fact and theory". IV "Reproduction, heredity and the development of sex". V "The history and adventure of life". VI "The drama of life". VII "How animals behave" (1937). VIII "Man's mind and behaviour". IX "Biology and the human race". In New York, it was published by Doubleday, Doran & Co. in 1931, 1934 and 1939; and by The Literary Guild in 1934. Doubleday also issued a four-volume limited edition of the work in 1931, limited to 750 sets, with the first volume autographed on the limitation page by the three authors. Three of the Cassell spin-off books were also published by Doubleday in 1932: "Evolution, fact and theory"; "The human mind and the behaviour of Man"; "Reproduction, genetics and the development of sex". "The Science of Life" was translated into French. During World War II a one-volume edition designed for use in military classes was issued. As late as 1960 the work was still being used in college classes in the US | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1941290 | 1,771,771 |
192,685 | Even with these convenient 21st-century technological tools, modern practical navigators usually use celestial navigation using electric-powered time sources in combination with satellite navigation. Small handheld computers, laptops, navigational calculators and even scientific calculators enable modern navigators to "reduce" sextant sights in minutes, by automating all the calculation and/or data lookup steps. Using multiple independent position fix methods without solely relying on subject-to-failure electronic systems helps the navigator detect errors. Professional mariners are still required to be proficient in traditional piloting and celestial navigation, which requires the use of a precisely adjusted and rated autonomous or periodically external time-signal corrected chronometer. These abilities are still a requirement for certain international mariner certifications such as Officer in Charge of Navigational Watch, and Master and Chief Mate deck officers, and supplements offshore yachtmasters on long-distance private cruising yachts. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=10553773 | 192,585 |
519,398 | In practice, nearly all software and electronic devices that generate frequency spectra utilize a discrete Fourier transform (DFT), which operates on samples of the signal, and which provides a mathematical approximation to the full integral solution. The DFT is almost invariably implemented by an efficient algorithm called "fast Fourier transform" (FFT). The array of squared-magnitude components of a DFT is a type of power spectrum called periodogram, which is widely used for examining the frequency characteristics of noise-free functions such as filter impulse responses and window functions. But the periodogram does not provide processing-gain when applied to noiselike signals or even sinusoids at low signal-to-noise ratios. In other words, the variance of its spectral estimate at a given frequency does not decrease as the number of samples used in the computation increases. This can be mitigated by averaging over time (Welch's method) or over frequency (smoothing). Welch's method is widely used for spectral density estimation (SDE). However, periodogram-based techniques introduce small biases that are unacceptable in some applications. So other alternatives are presented in the next section. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=13070117 | 519,129 |
943,088 | After medical school, Heimlich served with the U.S. Navy in China during World War II. In January 1945, as a member of the US Navy Reserve, Lieutenant (junior grade) Heimlich was assigned to Camp Four of the Sino-American Special Technical Cooperative Organization (SACO) located at Xamba, Suiyuan Province in northern China, on the southern edge of the Gobi Desert. Officially he was the chief medical officer responsible for the well-being of American and Chinese military personnel at this camp, but in actuality he also took care of a wide array of medical issues for civilians in the small town. Camp Four received news of the war's end in late August 1945. During this time, Heimlich claimed he developed an innovative treatment for victims of trachoma, a previously incurable bacterial infection of the eyelids that was causing blindness throughout Asia and the Middle East. According to Heimlich, his approach – a mixture of an antibiotic ground into a base of shaving cream – proved effective, and it was used successfully on patients. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=13973283 | 942,586 |
1,925,930 | LF-FSP, as invented at the University of Michigan, uses metalloorganic precursors such as metal carboxylates or alkoxides, not metal chlorides. Briefly, alcohol (typically ethanol) solutions containing 1–10 wt % loading of the target ceramic components as precursors are aerosolized with O into a quartz chamber and ignited with methane pilot torches. Initial combustion temperatures run 1500–2000 °C, depending on the processing conditions, generating nanopowder "soot". Temperatures drop to 300–500 °C over 1.5 m, equivalent to a 1000 °C quench in 100 ms leading to kinetic products and nanopowders that are unaggregated. Production rates can be 200 g/h when using wire-in-tube electrostatic precipitators operating at 10 kV. Typical powders have 15–100 nm average particle sizes (APS) with specific surface areas of 30–100 m/g. LF-FSP technology can be used to produce mixed and single metal oxides easily from low-cost starting materials in a single step without forming harmful byproducts like HCl, which forms when metal chlorides are used as precursors. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38220209 | 1,924,826 |
301,001 | Nero ruled from 54 to 68. During his rule, Nero focused much of his attention on diplomacy, trade, and increasing the cultural capital of the empire. He ordered the building of theatres and promoted athletic games. His reign included the Roman–Parthian War (a successful war and negotiated peace with the Parthian Empire (58–63)), the suppression of a revolt led by Boudica in Britannia (60–61) and the improvement of cultural ties with Greece. However, he was egotistical and had severe troubles with his mother, who he felt was controlling and over-bearing. After several attempts to kill her, he finally had her stabbed to death. He believed himself a god and decided to build an opulent palace for himself. The so-called Domus Aurea, meaning golden house in Latin, was constructed atop the burnt remains of Rome after the Great Fire of Rome (64). Because of the convenience of this many believe that Nero was ultimately responsible for the fire, spawning the legend of him fiddling while Rome burned which is almost certainly untrue. The Domus Aurea was a colossal feat of construction that covered a huge space and demanded new methods of construction in order to hold up the golden, jewel-encrusted ceilings. By this time Nero was hugely unpopular despite his attempts to blame the Christians for most of his regime's problems. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17958273 | 300,840 |
609,280 | By the mid-1970s, scientists and clinicians alike began using thallium-201 as the radioisotope of choice for human studies. Individuals could be placed on a treadmill and be "stressed" by the "Bruce protocol" and when near peak performance, could be injected with thallium-201. The isotope required exercise for an additional minute to enhance circulation of the isotope. Using nuclear cameras of the day and given the limitations of Tl-201, the first "stress" image could not be taken until 1 hour after "stress". In keeping with the concept of comparison images, the second "stress" image was taken 4 hours after "stress" and compared with the first. The movement of Tl-201 reflected differences in tissue delivery (blood flow) and function (mitochondrial activity). The relatively long half-life of Tl-201 (73 hours) forced doctors to use relatively small () doses of Tl-201, albeit with relatively large dose exposure and tissue effects (20 mSv). The poor quality images resulted in the search for isotopes which would produce better results. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=10177511 | 608,969 |
1,471,999 | These changes are described as amoeboid-mesenchymal and mesenchymal-amoeboid transitions. Tumor cells using the mesenchymal type of migration can be changed in a certain way and shift to the amoeboid type of movement under conditions of a weakened signal and mechanical pathways that are directly involved in the stabilization of the interactions between extracellular matrix structures and malignant cells. However, the available data were obtained primarily by means of experiments. The following mechanisms leading to the transition of cells from the mesenchymal to the amoeboid type of invasive growth (mesenchymal-amoeboid transition) have been described: 1) reduction in or complete abolition of pericellular proteolysis due to application of protease inhibitors; 2) reduction in the activity of integrin receptors and their interactions with surrounding stromal elements by their antagonists; 3) increase in and stabilization of the activity of small GTPase RhoA and its ROCK effector. A study by S. Berton’s group provided an interesting fact indicating that the p27 protein, despite a great variety of functions, plays an important role in the control of cell motility. In particular, a lack of this protein under in vitro conditions induces the mesenchymal-amoeboid transition in cells in a 3D matrix. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=58886026 | 1,471,170 |
831,128 | New medicines are now on the market that contain antibodies against either CGRP itself, or its receptor. They are called monoclonal antibodies (MABs) and are large molecules that do not cross the blood-brain-barrier. They typically are not metabolized by the liver and have little direct impact on the metabolism of more conventional small-molecule drugs. They also tend to have relatively long half-lives in the body, but must be given parenterally (preferably by injection) due to very poor absorption from the digestive tract. They have been proved to be effective in people who experience migraine headaches, both with and without aura, and both episodic and chronic. These are the first class of preventive medications originally designed and approved for people with migraine. Monoclonal means all the antibodies are made from the same genetic material, although different MABs may derive from different sources, e.g. from hamster ovarian cells, from yeast cells or from humanized cell cultures. The antibodies are also made repeatedly to make them all identical, which results in difficult and relatively expensive production lines. Antibodies are proteins that counter or interfere with very specific parts of another protein or the site where a protein is supposed to bind to the receptor. Most commonly thought of in being used to prevent or fight off infections. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=5692662 | 830,679 |
1,874,618 | Q-system appeared to be working successfully in a variety of organisms. It has been used to drive expression of luciferase, as a proof of principle, in cultured mammalian cells. In zebrafish the Q-system has been successfully used with several tissue-specific promoters, and was shown to work independently of the GAL4/UAS system when expressed in the same cell. In C. elegans the Q-system has been shown to work in muscles and in neuronal tissue. In 2016, the Q-system was used to target, for the first time, the olfactory neurons of malaria mosquitoes "Anopheles gambiae." In 2019, the Q-system in "Anopheles" mosquitoes was used to examine the functional responses of olfactory neurons to odors. In 2019, the Q-system was introduced into the "Aedes aegypti" mosquito to capture tissue specific expression patterns. These successes make the Q-system the system of choice when developing genetic tools for other organisms. Currently the main shortcoming of the Q-system is the low number of available transgenic lines, but it will be overcome as the scientific community creates and shares these resources, such as by the use of the GAL4>QF2 HACK system to convert existing GAL4 transgenic insertions to QF2. DNA binding domain of QF2 fused with VP16 transcriptional activator domain was successfully applied in "Penicillium" to gain control over the penicillin producing secondary metabolite gene cluster in a scalable manner. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=51758505 | 1,873,541 |
1,031,710 | Following the completion of the "Duquesne" design, France learned that the Italian incorporated 70mm belt and 50mm deck armour. The 1924 Naval General Staff requirements for the next French treaty cruiser demanded greater protection while closely matching other characteristics of the "Duquesne". This was impossible within the 10,000 long ton limit. Instead, the added protection was paid for by removing machinery and reducing speed by 2 knots. A second catapult was added, and the light anti-aircraft armament changed from 40 mm to 37 mm guns, after January 1925. One ship, "Suffren", was ordered as part of the 1925 building programme and laid down in 1926. The "Suffren" design was further modified to improve aircraft and boat handling. The single centerline crane between the funnels was replaced by cranes to either side of the aft funnel. The ship's silhouette was further changed by rearranging the catapults, boats, and torpedo tubes. Finally, the 76mm guns were replaced by 90mm guns. The remaining ships were built to the modified design. The first ship, "Colbert", was ordered as part of the 1926 programme and laid down in 1927. The "Suffren"s joined the Mediterranean Fleet at Toulon in 1931-1932. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4389274 | 1,031,174 |
1,194,493 | The molecular mechanism by which protons are converted into hydrogen molecules within hydrogenases is still under extensive study. One popular approach employs mutagenesis to elucidate roles of amino acids and/or ligands in different steps of catalysis such as intramolecular transport of substrates. For instance, Cornish et al. conducted mutagenesis studies and found out that four amino acids located along the putative channel connecting the active site and protein surface are critical to enzymatic function of [FeFe] hydrogenase from "Clostridium pasteurianum" (CpI). On the other hand, one can also rely on computational analysis and simulations. Nilsson Lill and Siegbahn have recently taken this approach in investigating the mechanism by which [NiFe] hydrogenases catalyze H cleavage. The two approaches are complementary and can benefit one another. In fact, Cao and Hall combined both approaches in developing the model that describes how hydrogen molecules are oxidized or produced within the active site of [FeFe] hydrogenases. While more research and experimental data are required to complete our understanding of the mechanism, these findings have allowed scientists to apply the knowledge in, e.g., building artificial catalysts mimicking active sites of hydrogenases. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1961054 | 1,193,853 |
1,599,721 | Kinesin-5, like all motor proteins, breaks down ATP into ADP and inorganic phosphate, using a water molecule, and converts the chemical energy to force and motion along microtubules. Kinetic experiments reveal rates of how fast intermediate steps in catalysis occur and the most extensive set of studies on Kinesin-5 kinetics has been on the human protein. X-ray crystallography, cryo-electron microscopy, and real-time infrared spectroscopy have been used to measure the structure of Kinesin-5 in the different catalytic intermediate states. Changes in the secondary structure, or conformational switching, is required to convert and amplify biochemical changes in the catalytic active site into larger movements necessary for cellular motion. For example, the first step of ATP hydrolysis, which is the attack of the terminal phosphate of ATP by a water molecule, had not been observed by x-ray crystallography in any kinesin protein, until recently in Kinesin-5. This crystal structure showed that there was not one, but rather two, water molecules and they are in close association with each other. A two-water catalytic model was proposed and confirmed by an alternate method to track Kinesin-5 catalysis in real-time and in a kinesin protein in a different subfamily. Two-water catalytic models also are proposed in a divergent motor protein, myosin, and observed experimentally in one of its crystal structures. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=34520132 | 1,598,821 |
895,259 | Metal Gear REX has near-impenetrable compound armor, a pair of 30 mm gatling guns, anti-tank missiles, and a free-electron laser, to protect itself from conventional forces. Its primary weapon, however, is a magnetic railgun capable of delivering an untraceable nuclear warhead anywhere in the world, without the propellant trail or launch flare that gives away the launch position of a traditional ballistic missile. It also possessed a radome, a satellite antenna-shaped object on REX's left side that provides information about the environment outside of the cockpit while keeping the pilot safe from harm, and increasing the accuracy of all weapons as well. Destroying the radome is crucial to rendering the virtual reality interface useless and forcing the pilot to manually control REX. The pilot is also forced to expose himself to enemy fire, by opening the cockpit in order to see outside (a weakness deliberately built into REX as a "character flaw"). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3175926 | 894,789 |
191,973 | In 2014 philosopher Nick Bostrom stated that a "severe race dynamic" (extreme competition) between different teams may create conditions whereby the creation of an AGI results in shortcuts to safety and potentially violent conflict. To address this risk, citing previous scientific collaboration (CERN, the Human Genome Project, and the International Space Station), Bostrom recommended collaboration and the altruistic global adoption of a common good principle: "Superintelligence should be developed only for the benefit of all of humanity and in the service of widely shared ethical ideals". Bostrom theorized that collaboration on creating an artificial general intelligence would offer multiple benefits, including reducing haste, thereby increasing investment in safety; avoiding violent conflicts (wars), facilitating sharing solutions to the control problem, and more equitably distributing the benefits. The United States' Brain Initiative was launched in 2014, as was the European Union's Human Brain Project; China's Brain Project was launched in 2016. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=46583121 | 191,874 |
559,138 | When he graduated from Dartmouth, Just faced the same problems all black college graduates of his time did: no matter how brilliant they were or how high their grades were, it was almost impossible for black people to become faculty members at white colleges or universities. Just took what seemed to be the best choice available to him and accepted a teaching position at historically black Howard University in Washington, D.C. In 1907, Just first began teaching rhetoric and English, fields somewhat removed from his specialty. By 1909, however, he was teaching not only English but also Biology. In 1910, he was put in charge of a newly formed biology department by Howard's president, Wilbur P. Thirkield and, in 1912, he became head of the new Department of Zoology, a position he held until his death in 1941. Not long after beginning his appointment at Howard, Just was introduced to Frank R. Lillie, the head of the Department of Zoology at the University of Chicago. Lillie, who was also director of the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, invited Just to spend the summer of 1909 as his research assistant at the MBL. During this time and later, Just's experiments focused mainly on the eggs of marine invertebrates. He investigated the fertilization reaction and the breeding habits of species such as "Platynereis megalops", "Nereis limbata", and "Arbacia punctulata". For the next 20 or so years, Just spent every summer but one at the MBL. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=7575460 | 558,849 |
1,375,950 | The process of laying these terracotta pipes was also unique: generally installed in a gutter dug on the side of the mountain - this is the case of the pipes on one side of the Siq - its slope was calculated to allow maximum flow, with an optimized filling of the piping, leaving an air space in its upper part with a minimum loss by friction. This is an empirical application of the current principle of CFD Computational fluid dynamics, a branch of fluid mechanics that uses numerical analysis and data structures to analyze and solve problems that involve fluid flows, with the conservation laws (conservation of mass, momentum and energy) governing the motion of fluids. John Peter Oleson, classical archaeologist and historian of ancient technology, speaks of a 60 m stretch of pressure piping – probably ceramic hight-fired clay pipes, installed at the end of the "Ain Braq" aqueduct. The particularity of this section lies in the creation of an "inverted siphon", a technique widely used by the Romans, both in Gaul (siphons of Gier) and in other parts of the Roman Empire (Pergamon, Almuñecar, Gades (Cadiz), etc.). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=42585943 | 1,375,189 |
1,937,487 | When autism was identified as a distinct biological disorder in the 1980s, researchers found that autistic individuals showed a brain growth abnormality in the cerebellum in their early developmental years. Subsequent research has indicated that 90% of autistic children have a larger brain volume than their peers by 2 to 4 years of age, and show an expansion in the white and gray matter content in the cerebrum. The white and gray matter in the cerebrum is associated with learning and cognition respectively, and the formation of amyloid plaques in the white matter has been associated with Alzheimer's disease. These findings highlighted the influence of structural variance in the brain on psychiatric disorders, and have motivated the use of imaging technologies to map regions of divergence between healthy and diseased brains. Furthermore, while it may not always be possible to retrieve biological specimens from different areas live human brains, neuroimaging techniques offer a noninvasive means to understanding the biological basis of neurological disorders. It is hoped that an understanding of localization patterns of different psychiatric diseases could in turn inform network analysis studies in neurogenomics. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=24219329 | 1,936,379 |
649,806 | UMB's Health Sciences & Human Services Library (HS/HSL) was founded in 1813 from the collection of Doctor John Crawford, a former British naval surgeon. Dr. Crawford's initial donation of books remains within the library's Historical Collections department as the Crawford Collection (comprising some 569 items). The first location of the library was the Provost's Office within the original medical school building, now known as Davidge Hall. Under the leadership of its first official library, Dr. Eugene F. Cordell (who served as library director from 1903 to 1913), the library grew rapidly, incorporating book collections from the schools of pharmacy and dentistry, and moving into its own building, a former church on the southeast corner of Lombard and Green Streets. The church was later razed in 1957 to make way for a new library that began construction in 1958 and opened in 1960. The library has since moved, in 1998, into a large modern building. The HS/HSL offers 45 group study rooms, 3 computer classrooms, several conference rooms with the web conferencing capability, and the Presentation Practice Studio, in addition to many study carrels and a number of public computers in a five-story building. In March, 2015, it opened the new Innovation Space designed for innovative and collaborative hands-on learning experience with 3D printers and 3D scanners. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=502887 | 649,465 |
208,446 | Three years later, Carney, now a lieutenant colonel, was again picked for a high-risk, clandestine, special operation mission two days in advance of the US-led invasion of Grenada. Carey was the ranking officer of a team of Air Force Combat Controllers and Navy SEALs tasked with conducting a reconnaissance of a new airport under construction at Point Salines on the southwestern tip of the Eastern Caribbean island. Their shared mission was to determine how the facility was defended and whether the unfinished runway would support the weight of America military transport planes. They would also set up navigation beacons to guide the transports to the target. On 23 Oct. 1983, a nighttime parachute rendezvous of the SEALs with the four controllers waiting aboard the USS Clifton Sprague off the Grenada coast went awry in bad weather. The weather as well as faulty planning, inadequate equipment and training, and bad luck contributed to the drowning deaths of four of the arriving SEALs. The surviving 20-member joint team made two attempts to reach the island by small boat from the Navy frigate over successive nights, but both attempts were thwarted by more bad weather, bad luck, and equipment problems. The pre-invasion reconnaissance was eventually conducted by an Air Force AC-130 from the air instead. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17549821 | 208,339 |
748,794 | With an ACO algorithm, the shortest path in a graph, between two points A and B, is built from a combination of several paths. It is not easy to give a precise definition of what algorithm is or is not an ant colony, because the definition may vary according to the authors and uses. Broadly speaking, ant colony algorithms are regarded as populated metaheuristics with each solution represented by an ant moving in the search space. Ants mark the best solutions and take account of previous markings to optimize their search. They can be seen as probabilistic multi-agent algorithms using a probability distribution to make the transition between each iteration. In their versions for combinatorial problems, they use an iterative construction of solutions. According to some authors, the thing which distinguishes ACO algorithms from other relatives (such as algorithms to estimate the distribution or particle swarm optimization) is precisely their constructive aspect. In combinatorial problems, it is possible that the best solution eventually be found, even though no ant would prove effective. Thus, in the example of the Travelling salesman problem, it is not necessary that an ant actually travels the shortest route: the shortest route can be built from the strongest segments of the best solutions. However, this definition can be problematic in the case of problems in real variables, where no structure of 'neighbours' exists. The collective behaviour of social insects remains a source of inspiration for researchers. The wide variety of algorithms (for optimization or not) seeking self-organization in biological systems has led to the concept of "swarm intelligence", which is a very general framework in which ant colony algorithms fit. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=588615 | 748,396 |
266,358 | He wrote on the medicine of Galen, referring to the translations of Avicenna. He believed that the medicine of Galen belonged to an ancient tradition passed through Caldeans, Greeks and Arabs. Although he provided a negative image of Hermes Trismegistus, his work was influenced by the Renaissance Hermetic thought. Bacon's endorsement of Hermetic philosophy is evident, as his citations of the alchemical literature known as the Secretum Secretorum made several appearances in the Opus Majus. The Secretum Secretorum contains knowledge about the Hermetic Emerald Tablet, which was an integral component of alchemy, thus proving that Bacon's version of alchemy was much less secular, and much more spiritual than once interpreted. The importance of Hermetic philosophy in Bacon's work is also evident through his citations of classic Hermetic literature such as the Corpus Hermeticum. Bacon's citation of the Corpus Hermeticum, which consists of a dialogue between Hermes and the pagan deity Asclepius, proves that Bacon's ideas were much more in line with the spiritual aspects of alchemy rather than the scientific aspects. However, this is somewhat paradoxical as what Bacon was specifically trying to prove in the Opus Majus and subsequent works, was that spirituality and science were the same entity. Bacon believed that by using science, certain aspects of spirituality such as the attainment of "Sapientia" or "Divine Wisdom" could be logically explained using tangible evidence. Bacon's Opus Majus was first and foremost, a compendium of sciences which he believed would facilitate the first step towards "Sapientia". Bacon placed considerable emphasis on alchemy and even went so far as to state that alchemy was the most important science. The reason why Bacon kept the topic of alchemy vague for the most part, is due to the need for secrecy about esoteric topics in England at the time as well as his dedication to remaining in line with the alchemical tradition of speaking in symbols and metaphors. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25879 | 266,214 |
20,731 | The AEA's work progressed to heavier-than-air machines, applying their knowledge of kites to gliders. Moving to Hammondsport, the group then designed and built the "Red Wing", framed in bamboo and covered in red silk and powered by a small air-cooled engine. On March 12, 1908, over Keuka Lake, the biplane lifted off on the first public flight in North America. The innovations that were incorporated into this design included a cockpit enclosure and tail rudder (later variations on the original design would add ailerons as a means of control). One of the AEA's inventions, a practical wingtip form of the aileron, was to become a standard component on all aircraft. The "White Wing" and "June Bug" were to follow and by the end of 1908, over 150 flights without mishap had been accomplished. However, the AEA had depleted its initial reserves and only a $15,000 grant from Mrs. Bell allowed it to continue with experiments. Lt. Selfridge had also become the first person killed in a powered heavier-than-air flight in a crash of the Wright Flyer at Fort Myer, Virginia, on September 17, 1908. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=852 | 20,722 |
354,380 | The Montreal Protocol, signed in 1987, set strict regulations on chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and bromofluorocarbons due to their ozone damaging potential (ODP). The high stability which suited them to their original applications also meant that they were not decomposing until they reached higher altitudes, where liberated chlorine and bromine atoms attacked ozone molecules. Even with the ban, and early indications of its efficacy, predictions warned that several generations would pass before full recovery. With one-tenth the ODP of CFCs, hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) are the current replacements, and are themselves scheduled for substitution by 2030–2040 by hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) with no chlorine and zero ODP. In 2007 this date was brought forward to 2020 for developed countries; the Environmental Protection Agency had already prohibited one HCFC's production and capped those of two others in 2003. Fluorocarbon gases are generally greenhouse gases with global-warming potentials (GWPs) of about 100 to 10,000; sulfur hexafluoride has a value of around 20,000. An outlier is HFO-1234yf which is a new type of refrigerant called a Hydrofluoroolefin (HFO) and has attracted global demand due to its GWP of less than 1 compared to 1,430 for the current refrigerant standard HFC-134a. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17481271 | 354,197 |
757,763 | From the 1940s onward, improvements in technology allowed the US and the rest of Europe to adopt systems using progressively higher line-scan frequencies and more radio signal bandwidth to produce higher line counts at the same frame rate, thus achieving better picture quality. However the fundamentals of interlaced scanning were at the heart of all of these systems. The US adopted the 525 line system, later incorporating the composite color standard known as NTSC, Europe adopted the 625 line system, and the UK switched from its idiosyncratic 405 line system to (the much more US-like) 625 to avoid having to develop a (wholly) unique method of color TV. France switched from its similarly unique 819 line monochrome system to the more European standard of 625. Europe in general, including the UK, then adopted the PAL color encoding standard, which was essentially based on NTSC, but inverted the color carrier phase with each line (and frame) in order to cancel out the hue-distorting phase shifts that dogged NTSC broadcasts. France instead adopted its own unique, twin-FM-carrier based SECAM system, which offered improved quality at the cost of greater electronic complexity, and was also used by some other countries, notably Russia and its satellite states. Though the color standards are often used as synonyms for the underlying video standard - NTSC for 525i/60, PAL/SECAM for 625i/50 - there are several cases of inversions or other modifications; e.g. PAL color is used on otherwise "NTSC" (that is, 525i/60) broadcasts in Brazil, as well as vice versa elsewhere, along with cases of PAL bandwidth being squeezed to 3.58 MHz to fit in the broadcast waveband allocation of NTSC, or NTSC being expanded to take up PAL's 4.43 MHz. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=56189 | 757,359 |
521,802 | Di Grassi attempted to pass Félix da Costa on lap 16. He moved in front, as both cars made contact, causing them to spear into the wall. The stewards investigated the collision and took no action against di Grassi. The incident prompted the activation of the full course yellow procedure. Most drivers, including Buemi, clambered into their second cars. Conway led for three laps before making his own stop. Vergne drew closer to Buemi on lap 34. He suspected a defective mechanical arm loosening his steering. He ran wide leaving turn 13, damaging his vehicle's front-right corner in a collision with a barrier, ending his race. Vergne's stricken car necessitated the safety car's deployment, and racing resumed four laps later with Buemi closely followed by López and Heidfeld. With two laps remaining, di Grassi locked his tyres and crashed into the wall, prompting the race to end behind the safety car for the second consecutive year. This enabled Buemi to take his fifth victory of the season and the 11th of his career. The result gave Buemi a season-high Drivers' Championship lead of 43 points. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=45532368 | 521,530 |
1,164,287 | The WUI was the fastest-growing land use type in the United States between 1990 and 2010. Factors include geographic population shifts, expansion of cities and suburbs into wildlands, and vegetative growth into formerly unvegetated land. The primary cause has been migration. Of new WUI areas, 97% were the result of new housing. In the United States there are population shifts towards the WUIs in the West and South; increasing nationally by 18 percent per decade, covering 6 million additional homes between 1990 and 2000 which in 2013 was 32 percent of habitable structures. Globally, WUI growth includes regions such as Argentina, France, South Africa, Australia, and regions around the Mediterranean sea. Going forward it is expected the WUI will continue to expand; an anticipated amenity-seeking migration of retiring baby-boomers to smaller communities with lower costs of living close to scenic and recreational natural resources will contribute to WUI growth. Climate change is also driving population shifts into the WUI as well as changes in wildlife composition. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23607308 | 1,163,670 |
1,805,665 | Considerable information has accumulated covering a large number of spaceflight and HS experiments that span a time frame of ~4 to 22 days for spaceflight and from 1 to 56 days for HS. These experiments have primarily focused on extensor muscles used extensively for postural support and locomotor activity. The review by Roy, Baldwin, and Edgerton provides one of the most comprehensive reviews on rodents in the space environment. Additional reviews on this topic have been published. The collective observations clearly show that these types of muscle undergo significant reductions in muscle mass (muscle weight) along with a concomitant loss in total protein and myofibrillar (the fraction that is composed of the contractile machinery of structural proteins) protein content of the targeted muscles. In some experiments, it has been reported that the myofibrillar fraction can be degraded to a greater extent than other muscle fractions. The general pattern demonstrates that a rapid loss in muscle weight and net total and myofibrillar protein content (concentration (mg/g X muscle weight) occurs during the first 7–10 days of unloading and this is followed by a more gradual loss in these constituents. The net result is that between 25 and 46% of the muscle mass can be lost in antigravity muscles of the lower extremity such as the soleus (Sol; a calf muscle) and vastus intermedius (VI; a deep layered quadriceps muscle), which are composed mostly of the slow Type I myofibers containing the slow myosin heavy chain (MHC) protein. MHC is the most abundant protein expressed in striated muscle; and this structural / regulatory protein serves as the motor protein that regulates, in synergy with its companion protein actin, the contraction process that derives the force, work, and power generation that is necessary for the muscle groups to bring about both movement and stabilizing types of activity (posture). It is also important to point out that fast-twitch synergistic muscles (expressing fast isoforms of MHC) are also targeted, but these muscles and their fibers are apparently not as sensitive to the unloading stimulus as the slower types of muscle are. Compared to both the slow and fast types of muscle, atrophy of the corresponding joint flexors, for example the tibialis anterior and extensor digitorum longus muscles in the leg, is markedly less. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=39377992 | 1,804,649 |
968,756 | In Sweden there is a growing interest in open publication and the sharing of educational resources but the pace of development is still slow. There are many questions to be dealt with in this area; for universities, academic management and teaching staff. Teachers in all educational sectors require support and guidance to be able to use OER pedagogically and with quality in focus. To realize the full potential of OER for students' learning it is not enough to make patchwork use of OER resources have to be put into context. Valuable teacher time should be used for contextual work and not simply for the creation of content. The aim of the project OER for learning OERSweden is to stimulate an open discussion about collaboration in infrastructural questions regarding open online knowledge sharing. A network of ten universities led by Karlstad University will arrange a series of open webinars during the project period focusing on the use and production of open educational resources. A virtual platform for Swedish OER initiatives and resources will also be developed. The project intends to focus in particular on how OER affects teacher trainers and decision makers. The objectives of the project are: To increase the level of national collaboration between universities and educational organisations in the use and production of OER, To find effective online methods to support teachers and students, in terms of quality, technology and retrievability of OER, To raise awareness for the potential of webinars as a tool for open online learning, To increase the level of collaboration between universities' support functions and foster national resource sharing, with a base in modern library and educational technology units, and To contribute to the creation of a national university structure for tagging, distribution and storage of OER. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1584544 | 968,246 |
743,592 | Besides cost, SBSP also introduces several technological hurdles, including the problem of transmitting energy from orbit. Since wires extending from Earth's surface to an orbiting satellite are not feasible with current technology, SBSP designs generally include the wireless power transmission with its concomitant conversion inefficiencies, as well as land use concerns for antenna stations to receive the energy at Earth's surface. The collecting satellite would convert solar energy into electrical energy, powering a microwave transmitter or laser emitter, and transmit this energy to a collector (or microwave rectenna) on Earth's surface. Contrary to appearances in fiction, most designs propose beam energy densities that are not harmful if human beings were to be inadvertently exposed, such as if a transmitting satellite's beam were to wander off-course. But the necessarily vast size of the receiving antennas would still require large blocks of land near the end users. The service life of space-based collectors in the face of long-term exposure to the space environment, including degradation from radiation and micrometeoroid damage, could also become a concern for SBSP. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=6757017 | 743,198 |
83,765 | Nothing is known about Hypatia's mother, who is never mentioned in any of the extant sources. Theon dedicates his commentary on Book IV of Ptolemy's "Almagest" to an individual named Epiphanius, addressing him as "my dear son", indicating that he may have been Hypatia's brother, but the Greek word Theon uses ("teknon") does not always mean "son" in the biological sense and was often used merely to signal strong feelings of paternal connection. Hypatia's exact year of birth is still under debate, with suggested dates ranging from 350 to 370 AD. Many scholars have followed Richard Hoche in inferring that Hypatia was born around 370. According to a description of Hypatia from the lost work "Life of Isidore" by the Neoplatonist historian Damascius (c. 458 – c. 538), preserved in the entry for her in the "Suda", a tenth-century Byzantine encyclopedia, Hypatia flourished during the reign of Arcadius. Hoche reasoned that Damascius's description of her physical beauty would imply that she was at most 30 at that time, and the year 370 was 30 years prior to the midpoint of Arcadius's reign. In contrast, theories that she was born as early as 350 are based on the wording of the chronicler John Malalas (c. 491 – 578), who calls her old at the time of her death in 415. Robert Penella argues that both theories are weakly based, and that her birth date should be left unspecified. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38375 | 83,731 |
1,592,410 | As in the rest of South America, a combination of external and internal tectonic, volcanic, and glacial forces over the eons formed Colombia's present-day geology. Island-like outcrops of metamorphic rocks in the eastern Llanos are visible remnants of Precambrian times. During the 289-million-year-long Paleozoic Era, which began 539 million years ago, the ocean invaded the area which is exposed in Colombia's Andean zone, as subterranean volcanic eruptions in the western part of the country spouted lava. In the Triassic Period of the 186-million-year-long Mesozoic Era, which began 252 million years ago, the sea that occupied the Andean zone separated into two parts after the Cordillera Central rose. Large layers of sedimentary rock were deposited during the Jurassic Period, which ended with great igneous activity. During the Cretaceous Period, the sea to the east of the Cordillera Central extended to Putumayo region in the south, while subterranean volcanic activity continued to the west of the Cordillera Central. During the Cenozoic Era, which began about 66 million years ago, the seas withdrew from most of Colombia's territory, and enormous granite masses formed along the Cordillera Occidental. The three cordilleras began to take shape 12 million years ago. The Cordillera Occidental and the Cordillera Central form the western and eastern sides of a massive crystalline arch, which extends from the Caribbean lowlands to the southern border of Ecuador. The Cordillera Oriental, however, is composed of folded stratified rocks overlying a crystalline core. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14046076 | 1,591,513 |
898,120 | The GA16DE is a engine produced from November 1990 through 1999. All GA16DEs have sixteen valves and a DOHC head. There are three versions: the North-American first-generation (1991–94) NVCS (VTC), which produces at 6000 rpm and at 4000 rpm, the North-American second-generation (1995-1999) NVCS (VTC), which produces at 6000 rpm and at 4000 rpm, and a non-NVCS version (European-spec) which makes . The two variants of the North American NVCS engine are distinguished as such: in addition to differences in the intake manifolds and (resultantly) the heads, earlier motors used pistons with two compression rings and a single oil ring and put out five less horsepower, while later GA16DEs have a single compression ring and a single oil ring. The GA16DE shares its block and crankshaft with its predecessor, the GA16i; however, their timing chain covers, connecting rods and pistons are altogether different. It is possible to interchange connecting-rod/piston assemblies between the GA16i and GA16DE with no danger to the valve train. Some engines have siamesed exhaust manifolds, while others keep the exhausts separated until the catalytic converter. Earlier ECUs contained the fuel & ignition maps on a discrete ROM IC, making retuning relatively easy, later ECUs buried the maps on a larger more integrated microcontroller's firmware, making retuning require the use of a daughterboard. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1030928 | 897,646 |
1,588,705 | Stephanids are noted for their ocellar corona, a semicircular to circular set of projections around the middle ocellus, forming a "crown" on the head. Only stephanids and the similarly old Hymenoptera family Orussidae have ocellar coronae, and it is uncertain if they developed the structure separately or if a common ancestor of both developed it and it was then lost in all but the two families. Weakly developed grooves starting at the base of the antennae and extending past the eyes to the back of the head capsule are present. This feature is seen more developed in hymenopteran families in which the adults emerge from pupal chambers in wood. All genera of Stephanidae have a pronotum that is modified to some extent. They bear highly modified hind legs, with a swollen hind femur that has large teeth on the underside, and the tibiae have a tip end that widens distinctly. The largest species, reaching up to in length, are found in the genus "Megischus". Stephanids are noted as parasitoids of xylophagous beetle larvae, with a majority of the stephanids hosts coming from the families Cerambycidae and Buprestidae, though some Curculionidae and occasional hymenopteran hosts are taken. One species, "Schlettererius cinctipes", is a known parasitoid of horntail wasps and has been introduced to Tasmania as a biological pest control agent. Members of the genus "Foenatopus" are parasitoids of "Agrilus sexsignatus", wood-boring beetle larvae found infesting eucalyptus in the Philippines. The rate of parasitism for an "A. sexsignatus" population was recorded to vary from only 2% up to 50% of the population. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=5675249 | 1,587,811 |
2,108,003 | He visited the Harvard College Observatory in 1929, and accepted a professorship there. However, rector Sem Sæland of the University of Oslo saw this as a great loss, as Rosseland already had become an internationally renowned scientist at the time. Sæland coordinated a political effort in which Rosseland was offered to manage an astronomical fund provided by the state, prospects of new university facilities, and was promised a general renovation of the observatory. Rosseland accepted, and returned to Oslo in 1930. He then contacted Niels Bohr in Copenhagen who recently had founded the Institute of Theoretical Physics for inspiration and his level plans. Rosseland concluded that the director should reside at the institute. In his opinion, work did not comply with working hours, and the director should always be available. An architectural competition was announced, and the winning design was sent to the Rockefeller Foundation. His proposal of an institute of theoretical astrophysics did not exist elsewhere in the world at the time. The foundation replied 15 April 1931, granting him 105,000 dollars to erect the institute and 15,000 dollars to obtain scientific equipment. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=59676605 | 2,106,789 |
816,101 | Wilkins gave specific calculations for the expected reflectivity of an aircraft. The received signal would be only 10 times as strong as the transmitted one, but such sensitivity was considered to be within the state of the art. To reach this goal, a further improvement in receiver sensitivity of two times was assumed. Their ionospheric systems broadcast only about 1 kW, but commercial shortwave systems were available with 15 amp transmitters (about 10 kW) that they calculated would produce a signal detectable at about . They went on to suggest that the output power could be increased as much as ten times if the system operated in pulses instead of continuously, and that such a system would have the advantage of allowing range to the targets to be determined by measuring the time delay between transmission and reception on an oscilloscope. The rest of the required performance would be made up by increasing the gain of the antennas by making them very tall, focusing the signal vertically. The memo concluded with an outline for a complete station using these techniques. The design was almost identical to the CH stations that went into service. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=382754 | 815,665 |
1,204,820 | CSA has three pillars: increasing agricultural productivity and incomes; adapting and building resilience to climate change; and reducing or removing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. CSA lists different actions to counter the future challenges for crops and plants. With respect to rising temperatures and heat stress, e.g. CSA recommends the production of heat tolerant crop varieties, mulching, water management, shade house, boundary trees and appropriate housing and spacing for cattle. There are attempts to mainstream CSA into core government policies, expenditures and planning frameworks. In order for CSA policies to be effective, they must be able to contribute to broader economic growth, the sustainable development goals and poverty reduction. They must also be integrated with disaster risk management strategies, actions, and social safety net programmes. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=61366668 | 1,204,175 |
1,648,880 | From outer space, ultra-high-energy cosmic rays reach Earth. These consist of single sub-atomic particles (protons or atomic nuclei), each with energy levels beyond 10 eV. When such a single particle reaches Earth atmosphere, it has its energy dissipated by creating billions of other particles: electrons, photons and muons, all near the speed of light. These particles spread longitudinally (perpendicular to the single particle incoming route), creating a forward moving plane of particles, with higher intensities near the axis. Such an incident is called an "air shower". Passing through the atmosphere, this plane of particles creates UV light, invisible to the human eye, called the fluorescing effect, more or less in the pattern of straight lightning traces. These traces can be photographed at high speed by specialised telescopes, called Fluorescence Detectors, overlooking an area at a slight elevation. Then, when the particles reach the Earth's surface, they can be detected when they arrive in a water tank, where they cause visible blue light due to the Cherenkov effect. A sensitive photoelectric tube can catch these impacts. Such a station is called a water-Cherenkov Detector or 'tank'. The Auger Observatory has both types of detectors covering the same area, which allows for very precise measurements. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1950415 | 1,647,948 |
232,968 | Russia had occupied the Chinese region of [[Manchuria]] in the aftermath of the 1900 [[Boxer Rebellion]], and the United States, Japan, and Britain all sought the end of its military presence in the region. Russia agreed to withdraw its forces in 1902, but it reneged on this promise and sought to expand its influence in Manchuria to the detriment of the other powers. Roosevelt was unwilling to consider using the military to intervene in the far-flung region, but Japan prepared for war against Russia in order to remove it from Manchuria. When the [[Russo-Japanese War]] broke out in February 1904, Roosevelt sympathized with the Japanese but sought to act as a mediator in the conflict. He hoped to uphold the Open Door policy in China and prevent either country from emerging as the dominant power in East Asia. Throughout 1904, both Japan and Russia expected to win the war, but the Japanese gained a decisive advantage after [[Siege of Port Arthur|capturing]] the Russian naval base at [[Lüshunkou District|Port Arthur]] in January 1905. In mid-1905, Roosevelt persuaded the parties to meet in a peace conference in [[Portsmouth, New Hampshire]], starting on August 5. His persistent and effective mediation led to the signing of the [[Treaty of Portsmouth]] on September 5, ending the war. For his efforts, Roosevelt was awarded the 1906 [[Nobel Peace Prize]]. The Treaty of Portsmouth resulted in the removal of Russian troops from Manchuria, and it gave Japan control of [[Korea]] and the southern half of [[Sakhalin Island]]. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3520221 | 232,849 |
10,039 | Patterson approved the acquisition of the site on 25 November 1942, authorizing $440,000 for the purchase of the site of , all but of which were already owned by the Federal Government. Secretary of Agriculture Claude R. Wickard granted use of some of United States Forest Service land to the War Department "for so long as the military necessity continues". The need for land, for a new road, and later for a right of way for a power line, eventually brought wartime land purchases to , but only $414,971 was spent. Construction was contracted to the M. M. Sundt Company of Tucson, Arizona, with Willard C. Kruger and Associates of Santa Fe, New Mexico, as architect and engineer. Work commenced in December 1942. Groves initially allocated $300,000 for construction, three times Oppenheimer's estimate, with a planned completion date of 15 March 1943. It soon became clear that the scope of Project Y was greater than expected, and by the time Sundt finished on 30 November 1943, over $7 million had been spent. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19603 | 10,035 |
516,371 | In the late 1970s, Levitin consulted for M&K Sound as an expert listener assisting in the design of the first commercial satellite and subwoofer loudspeaker systems, an early version of which was used by Steely Dan for mixing their album "Pretzel Logic" (1974). Following that, he worked at A Broun Sound in San Rafael, California, reconing speakers for The Grateful Dead, for whom he later worked as a consulting record producer. Levitin was one of the golden ears used in the first Dolby AC audio compression tests, a precursor to MP3 audio compression. From 1984 to 1988, he worked as Director and then Vice President of A&R for 415 Records in San Francisco, becoming President of the label in 1989 before the label was sold to Sony Music. Notable achievements during that time included producing the punk classic "Here Come the Cops" by The Afflicted (named among the Top 10 records of 1985 by "GQ" magazine); engineering records by Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers, Santana, and the Grateful Dead; and producing tracks for Blue Öyster Cult, the soundtrack to "Repo Man" (1984), and others. Two highlights of his tenure in A&R were discovering the band The Big Race (which later became the well-known soundtrack band Pray for Rain), and having the chance to, but "not" signing M.C. Hammer. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2749117 | 516,102 |
1,557,679 | The retention of functional lower tusks is, however, not seen in juveniles of otherwise single paired tuskers, so cannot be considered a paedomorphic feature proper. It is simply a retention of a primitive character, as seen in the African elephantid genera "Primelephas" and "Stegotetrabelodon", and possibly the earliest forms of "Elephas planifrons". Between the late 1980s and early 1990s, an Indonesian-Dutch team excavated more material, including a fairly complete but rather distorted skull. All material, new as well as old, is described and revised in Van den Bergh’s thesis of 1999 on the Indonesian elephantoids, with a discussion on taxonomy. He puts question marks, “"Elephas"”, to indicate the uncertain taxonomical position, following Paul Sondaar’s approach of 1984. Van den Bergh accepts a possible relation with “"Elephas"” "indonesicus" from Ci Pangglosoran near Bumiayu on Java, dated to the same geological period. Also this specimen was originally assigned to "Elephas" (= "Mammuthus") "planifrons", but was later renamed "Stegoloxodon indonesicus" by Kretzoi in 1950. Recently, Georgi Markov and Haruo Saegusa made a further step and synonymized “"Elephas"” with "Stegoloxodon" in 2008. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21177187 | 1,556,794 |
1,528,170 | The rationality behind Bush's decision to start a war on terrorism comes in four parts. First it was implemented as a preventive war, and as an excuse to act pre-emptively. Second, it was based on unilateralism, although where necessary, Bush attempted to enlist support from the international community. Third, there was an element of idealism that believed that war would help to spread democracy, human rights and liberties. And lastly, Bush endeavoured to maintain American hegemony by reaffirming the vital role of American military strength. It is argued that the negative effects of this war will be felt for generations, due to the culture of division, stereotyping and hate between the Middle East and the West. The formation of a new "suspect community" in the Middle East has undermined human rights and civil liberties, and impaired the functionality of the international system. Just war theory stands as the main justification for the war on terror. This means that new technologies and methods in war are legalized. The 2003 invasion of Iraq is viewed by many CTS scholars as an act of terror. Terror on terror makes no sense, and did not produce positive results. The attack on Iraq was illogical considering America's past partnership with Iraq, the whereabouts of Al-Qaeda's base and Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, and also the men who attacked the twin towers were from Saudi Arabia. American power internationally meant that they authorized the attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan, and also drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. While Bush legitimises the enemy by asserting that terrorists want to 'kill all Americans', there is no discernable difference between this falsified aim and the goal of American Military intervention in the Middle East. Barack Obama has continued the Bush-instigated War on Terror by plainly stating that the biggest threat to America is still terrorism. So, despite the reduction of military occupation in the Middle East, the trace of War on Terror still remains. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19455353 | 1,527,306 |
957,531 | In mid-1946, the Council of Ministers ordered the development of a MiG-9 with afterburning versions of the RD-20, based on the BMW 003S engine. These engines had a maximum power of and were intended to increase the aircraft's speed to at sea level and at . The OKB was directed to build two prototypes, with a gun replacing the N-37, that would begin flight tests in April 1947. The OKB added armor plates fore and aft to protect the pilot and he was provided with a bulletproof windscreen, but no other changes were made to the aircraft. The I-307 ("izdeliye" FF) was ready for flight testing a month late and had to use German engines because the Soviet-built versions had not yet been tested. Manufacturer's flight tests were completed on 21 June and the fighter began its state acceptance trials on 2 August, after its engines were replaced, but crashed on 19 August. The second prototype was converted from the fifth aircraft of the parade batch and retained the butterfly used during its earlier gun trials. It was given the same cockpit armor and windscreen as the first prototype, but it used Soviet-built RD-20F (later RD-21) engines. It began its flight trials in December and it demonstrated a top speed of at an altitude of and at , but no further development work was done. Some late-production aircraft received this engine. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=304224 | 957,025 |
999,314 | The chemical equation consists of reactants and products that may react in either direction. More reactants added to a system yield more product production (the chemical reaction shifts to the right) and if more product is added, additional reactants will form, shifting the chemical reaction to the left. Therefore, in this model, a high concentration of the beginning reactant, carbon dioxide, produces an increased amount of end-product (H and CO), thus lowering pH and creating a more acidic solution. The natural buffering system of the ocean resist the change in pH by producing more bicarbonate ions generated by free acid protons reacting with carbonate ions to form an alkaline character. However, increasing atmospheric CO concentrations may exceed the buffering capacity threshold, consequently resulting in higher rates of ocean acidification. Shifts in the ocean's carbonate chemistry has the potential to manipulate ocean biogeochemical cycles for many elements and compounds causing profound impacts on marine ecosystems. Furthermore, the solubility of CO is temperature dependent; elevated surface water temperatures reduce CO solubility. A continual rise in atmospheric partial pressure of CO could potentially convert the ocean from acting as sink (the vertical transport of carbon to the depths of the ocean) to becoming a source (CO degassing from the ocean), further increasing global temperatures. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=529019 | 998,796 |
472,212 | The technical sophistication required to make modern video games and the high expectations of players (at least, in terms of the number and quality of voice-overs and increasing graphical fidelity) make it difficult for independent developers to impress audiences to the same degree that large game makers with extensive budgets and development teams are able to. But innovation and quality need not necessarily be stymied. Like the movie industry, the "indie" (short for "independent") video game scene plays a crucial role in formulating new ideas and concepts that mainstream publishers and marketing departments, stuck in their rigid antiquated ways, might deem too unworkable or radical, but later adopt. There are many examples of movies that never gained approval within a corporate framework that ended up being financially successful and/or iconic among filmgoers. Likewise, "indie" video game developers are able to be successful by putting development time and effort into aspects of a game larger corporate enterprises might ignore. Lastly, independent developers can be successful by focusing on smaller niche markets. European countries, and Germany in particular, remain more receptive to PC-exclusives and, to older, more "hardcore" design decisions, in general. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=32408640 | 471,976 |
1,966,012 | Ceanothus cordulatus is a species of shrub in the family Rhamnaceae known by the common names mountain whitethorn and whitethorn ceanothus. It is native to California and adjacent sections of Oregon, Nevada, and Baja California, where it grows on mountain ridges and other forested areas. This is a spreading shrub growing usually wider than tall and up to about 1.5 meters. The stems are gray, with the twigs yellow-green in color and fuzzy in texture when new. The evergreen leaves are alternately arranged and up to 3 centimeters long. Each is oval in shape with three ribs and generally not toothed. The leaves may be hairy or not. The inflorescence is panicle-shaped, up to about 4 centimeters long. The flowers are white to off-white with five sepals and five petals. The fruit is a rough, ridged capsule up to half a centimeter long. It has three valves inside, each containing a seed. It is a nitrogen-fixing plant, that is uniquely abundant in old-growth forest conditions when compared to similar types of nitrogen-fixing plants. In addition, Ceanothus cordulatus is known to be an important source of nitrogen patches for significantly longer times than other similar post-disturbance successional shrubs, following disturbance events such as forest fires. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21523925 | 1,964,883 |
688,594 | He worked on the Milam Residence, which was designed and constructed between 1959 and 1961. It still stands today on Florida's eastern coast, outside Jacksonville. Here, the only dimensional control was the size of standard concrete blocks that were used (8 x 8 x 16 in), fair-faced, for structural and partition walls alike. The large blocks provide shade for the windows, allowing the Florida home to be easily cooled. This house's seaside facade of stacked rectangles exemplifies the sculptural nature of Rudolph's work during this period. From inside the structure, Rudolf wanted the inhabitants to locate themselves according to mood, so the large two-story window in the living room contrasts other areas of the home which feel more cave-like and secluded. Rudolph's fascination with European Modernism and the neo-Classical theory made this a difficult building to construct. Rudolph had to show concern for multiple influences as well as his own style. At the time, Rudolph was working independently and would later become an icon in European Modernism. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1706986 | 688,236 |
1,815,745 | During the COVID-19 pandemic Cherry looked to identify novel therapeutic strategies, making use of her extensive small molecule library to identify chemical compounds that are active against SARS-CoV-2. She has investigated remdesivir, an antiviral that was developed for the Ebola virus disease, and chloroquine, an antimalarial medication. She used the high-throughput screening facility at the biosafety level-3 laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania to screen thousands of drugs at a time. Remdesivir is a nucleoside analogue that tries to stop the spread of the virus by forcing it to make mistakes when replicating its RNA, causing the strands themselves to break. She has also considered therapies that prevent the virus from ever entering cells, either through the modification of the virus or the host itself. The treatment may also come in the form of an interferon. To determine which treatments will be most appropriate, Cherry looks to identify which proteins SARS-CoV-2 makes use of for infection. As the availability of N95 masks decreased, Cherry purchased several powered air-purifying respirators (PAPRs) battery-driven hoods that circulate filtered air for members of her research team. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=63549495 | 1,814,711 |
395,934 | At peak production, Colt's manufacturing capacity was approximately 333,000 units per year. The M16 continues to benefit from every advance in the CNC field, which allows more and more small manufacturers to mass-produce M16s and semi-automatic AR-15 type rifles. The M16's aluminum lower receivers may be forged or cast. Their receivers may also be made from titanium and a variety of other metallic alloys, composites or polymers. If necessary, the M16 can be machined from a billet of steel and fitted with wooden furniture. The M16's internal components such as the bolt carrier group and charging handle may also be made of titanium. The M16's aluminum receiver and other parts may even be 3D printed, allowing "people with no gunsmith training to assemble a working assault rifle at home". This makes the M16 ideal for market economy production, spread among many small manufacturers around the country, using a variety of materials and manufacturing methods; this ensures it would be nearly impossible to disrupt U.S. M16 rifle production in the case of a major conflict. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2471637 | 395,739 |
734,847 | "The President of the United States of America, authorized by Act of Congress, July 9, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross to Major (Air Service) Carl Andrew Spatz (ASN: 0–3706), United States Army Air Service, for extraordinary heroism in action while serving with 13th Aero Squadron, U.S. Army Air Service, A.E.F., during the St. Mihiel offensive, 26 September 1918. Although he had received orders to go to the United States, Major Spatz begged for and received permission to serve with a pursuit squadron at the front. Subordinating himself to men of lower rank, he was attached to a squadron as a pilot and saw continuous and arduous service through the offensive. As a result of his efficient work he was promoted to the position of night commander. Knowing that another attack was to take place in the vicinity of Verdun, he remained on duty in order to take part. On the day of the attack west of the Meuse, while with his patrol over enemy lines, a number of enemy aircraft were encountered. In the combat that followed he succeeded in bringing down three enemy planes. In his ardor and enthusiasm he became separated from his patrol while following another enemy far beyond the lines. His gasoline giving out, he was forced to land and managed to land within friendly territory. Through these acts he became an inspiration and example to all men with whom he was associated." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=344642 | 734,460 |
760,430 | Animal sourced materials include both animal manures and residues from the slaughter of animals. Manures are derived from milk-producing dairy animals, egg-producing poultry, and animals raised for meat and hide production, or sport and recreation. Manure is an abundant resource with estimations for cattle manure in the US alone reaching two billion tons annually, and one hen has the potential to produce a cubic foot of manure every six months. By adding manure to crops it adds nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, sulfur, magnesium and calcium. While also increasing soil stability by increasing organic material, increasing water infiltration, it can add bacteria diversity and over time reduce the impacts of soil erosion. However, there is organic manure and non-organic manure. In order for manure to be considered organic it must come from organic livestock or certified organic growers. If organic manure is not available, they are permitted to use non-organic manure as long as the animals have room to roam, are not kept in the dark, and growers abstain from using genetically modified feeds. Fresh manure, right from the stall, can cause issues because it can be too high in ammonia, or contain bacteria from the animal’s gut. This can have an adverse effect on plants as the ammonia can burn the roots and microbes from the animal’s gut can harm the microorganisms in the soil, killing them, or contaminate produce, such as E. coli and salmonella. There is also a risk of introducing weeds, as seeds can pass through the gut of an animal relatively unharmed, or there can be seeds in the bedding of the livestock, which is often mixed in with the manure. Therefore, manure is required to be composted which will ideally kill any seeds or pathogens and reduce the ammonia content. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2413296 | 760,024 |
1,513,499 | The Clinical Care Classification System was developed from a research study conducted by Dr. Virginia K. Saba and a research team through a contract with the Health Care Financing Agency (HCFA), currently known as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The objective was to develop a computerized method for assessing and classifying patients for the prediction of nursing resources needs and for evaluating the outcomes of care. "To accomplish this goal, data on actual resource use, that could objectively be measured, was collected and used to predict resource requirements" (Saba, 1995). The CCC System was developed from retrospective research data from 8,967 patient records from a sample of 800 organizations randomly stratified by staff size, type of ownership, and geographic location. The methodology was applied to a national sample of home health agencies that provided all services and products (Spradley & Dorsey, 1985). Dr. Saba and the research team analyzed and coded the research from 10,000 patient records from which the team obtained more than 70,000 statements focusing on nursing interventions and actions provided to patients. Also used were 40,000 diagnostic conditions and problems describing patient care needs. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=31874573 | 1,512,648 |
2,120,743 | An internal glucose sensor, measuring at 38 mm across and 16 mm thick. The implant consists of an integrated glucose sensor with signal conditioning circuits, a wireless communications circuit, and a 1-year lifetime battery, all housed in a hermetically sealed (airtight) titanium housing. The sensor is surgically implanted under the skin, at the waist or upper arm, and continuously monitors the glucose levels in the subcutaneous (under the skin) tissue. Data is then relayed to the receiver via wireless telemetry, the automatic measurement and transmission of data by wire, radio, or other means from remote sources. The ICGM system claims to be as accurate as any other CGM device, however unlike similar products, the GlySens ICGM sensor works by detecting oxygen, allowing the system to be more stable in the interstitial fluid environment, the fluid surrounding tissue cells, than traditional CGMs. It has an outer membrane with electrochemical detectors primed with enzymes to interact with the oxygen. The extent of the enzyme reaction and the concentration of glucose can be calculated by measuring the amount of remaining oxygen from the enzyme reaction. It is ensured the sensors are working properly through multiple built-in checks. The sensor may also have applications for glucose monitoring in type 2 diabetes including caloric and activity management, and prevention of type 2 diabetes in susceptible individuals. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=48223858 | 2,119,524 |
1,636,077 | muscle receptor organ (TCMRO) of a crab. They function in a modulatory role by helping to establish posture and directional behavior. This was intensely modeled in the crustacean and in insects showing how appendages are oriented via these nonspiking neural pathways. Amacrine cells are another major type of non-spiking neuron and their lifetime involves the conversion to a non-spiking neuron from a spiking neuron once the retina obtains maturity. They are one of the first cells to differentiate during prenatal development. Upon the opening of the eyes, these cells begin to shed their sodium ion channels and become non-spiking neurons. It was hypothesized that the reason for its establishment as a spiking neuron was to help with the maturation of the retina by the usage of action potentials themselves, and not necessarily the information the action potential carried. This was supported with the occurrence of synchronous firing by the starburst amacrine cells during the initial stages of development. This study used a rabbit model. However, spiking wide field amacrine cells have been identified in the adult rabbit retina. These cells extend processes spanning >1mm across the retina and actively propagate dendritic spikes to and from the soma Additionally, a spiking GABAergic nitric oxide producing amacrine cell type (nNOS-1 AC) has been identified in mice and is thought to play a role in precise feature extraction from light through a range of noisy background luminance. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=33244792 | 1,635,152 |
1,708,399 | In 1906, Lee de Forest invented the triode electronic valve. In 1915 he invented the first vacuum tube instrument, the audio piano. Until the invention of the transistor, the vacuum tube was an essential component in electric instruments. In 1935, the Hammond organ was introduced, exploiting previous limited production efforts like the Robb Wave Organ from 1923. It was capable of producing polyphonic sounds by virtue of a spinning shaft with many magnetic 'lobes' which would cycle past an electromagnetic pickup at a rate that would produce each desired tone. The Hammond organ was connected to a power amplifier and a speaker cabinet. In 1929, the electric piano was invented. In 1939, Hammond introduced the Novachord which used about 170 vacuum tubes, coils, capacitors and resistors largely to create an upper octave of notes and then divide them in half using 'flip flop' circuits to create successively lower octaves from each note. The instrument also has many features like envelopes for filter and amplifiers so that sounds can be contoured at the user's discretion, making it the first production analog synthesizer. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=56945879 | 1,707,441 |
171,197 | Prognosis depends on the condition itself. Some conditions such as MS depend on the subtype of the disease and various attributes of the patient such as age, sex, initial symptoms, and the degree of disability the patient experiences. Life expectancy in MS patients is 5 to 10 years lower than unaffected people. MS is an inflammatory demyelinating disease of the central nervous system (CNS) that develops in genetically susceptible individuals after exposure to unknown environmental trigger(s). The bases for MS are unknown but are strongly suspected to involve immune reactions against autoantigens, particularly myelin proteins. The most accepted hypothesis is that dialogue between T-cell receptors and myelin antigens leads to an immune attack on the myelin-oligodendrocyte complex. These interactions between active T cells and myelin antigens provoke a massive destructive inflammatory response and promote continuing proliferation of T and B cells and macrophage activation, which sustains secretion of inflammatory mediators. Other conditions such as central pontine myelinolysis have about a third of patients recover and the other two-thirds experience varying degrees of disability. In some cases, such as transverse myelitis, the patient can begin recovery as early as 2 to 12 weeks after the onset of the condition. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=768133 | 171,107 |
329,240 | On December 4, 1970, the twisted nematic field effect (TN) in liquid crystals was filed for patent by Hoffmann-LaRoche in Switzerland, (Swiss patent No. 532 261) with Wolfgang Helfrich and Martin Schadt (then working for the Central Research Laboratories) listed as inventors. Hoffmann-La Roche licensed the invention to Swiss manufacturer Brown, Boveri & Cie, its joint venture partner at that time, which produced TN displays for wristwatches and other applications during the 1970s for the international markets including the Japanese electronics industry, which soon produced the first digital quartz wristwatches with TN-LCDs and numerous other products. James Fergason, while working with Sardari Arora and Alfred Saupe at Kent State University Liquid Crystal Institute, filed an identical patent in the United States on April 22, 1971. In 1971, the company of Fergason, ILIXCO (now LXD Incorporated), produced LCDs based on the TN-effect, which soon superseded the poor-quality DSM types due to improvements of lower operating voltages and lower power consumption. Tetsuro Hama and Izuhiko Nishimura of Seiko received a US patent dated February 1971, for an electronic wristwatch incorporating a TN-LCD. In 1972, the first wristwatch with TN-LCD was launched on the market: The Gruen Teletime which was a four digit display watch. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17932 | 329,065 |
19,456 | For Descartes, ethics was a science, the highest and most perfect of them. Like the rest of the sciences, ethics had its roots in metaphysics. In this way, he argues for the existence of God, investigates the place of man in nature, formulates the theory of mind–body dualism, and defends free will. However, as he was a convinced rationalist, Descartes clearly states that reason is sufficient in the search for the goods that we should seek, and virtue consists in the correct reasoning that should guide our actions. Nevertheless, the quality of this reasoning depends on knowledge, because a well-informed mind will be more capable of making good choices, and it also depends on mental condition. For this reason, he said that a complete moral philosophy should include the study of the body. He discussed this subject in the correspondence with Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia, and as a result wrote his work "The Passions of the Soul", that contains a study of the psychosomatic processes and reactions in man, with an emphasis on emotions or passions. His works about human passion and emotion would be the basis for the philosophy of his followers (see Cartesianism), and would have a lasting impact on ideas concerning what literature and art should be, specifically how it should invoke emotion. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25525 | 19,448 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.