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1,680,195 | According to Wurl "et al."m the SML can never be devoid of organics due to the abundance of surface-active substances (e.g., surfactants) in the upper ocean and the phenomenon of surface tension at air-liquid interfaces. The SML is analogous to the thermal boundary layer, and remote sensing of the sea surface temperature shows ubiquitous anomalies between the sea surface skin and bulk temperature. Even so the differences in both are driven by different processes. Enrichment, defined as concentration ratios of an analyte in the SML to the underlying bulk water, has been used for decades as evidence for the existence of the SML. Consequently, depletions of organics in the SML are debatable; however, the question of enrichment or depletion is likely to be a function of the thickness of the SML (which varies with sea state; including losses via sea spray, the concentrations of organics in the bulk water, and the limitations of sampling techniques to collect thin layers . Enrichment of surfactants, and changes in the sea surface temperature and salinity, serve as universal indicators for the presence of the SML. Organisms are perhaps less suitable as indicators of the SML because they can actively avoid the SML and/or the harsh conditions in the SML may reduce their populations. However, the thickness of the SML remains "operational" in field experiments because the thickness of the collected layer is governed by the sampling method. Advances in SML sampling technology are needed to improve our understanding of how the SML influences air-sea interactions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=69445009 | 1,679,252 |
1,417,497 | According to Wurl "et al.", the SML can never be devoid of organics due to the abundance of surface-active substances (e.g., surfactants) in the upper ocean and the phenomenon of surface tension at air-liquid interfaces. The SML is analogous to the thermal boundary layer, and remote sensing of the sea surface temperature shows ubiquitous anomalies between the sea surface skin and bulk temperature. Even so, the differences in both are driven by different processes. Enrichment, defined as concentration ratios of an analyte in the SML to the underlying bulk water, has been used for decades as evidence for the existence of the SML. Consequently, depletions of organics in the SML are debatable; however, the question of enrichment or depletion is likely to be a function of the thickness of the SML (which varies with sea state; including losses via sea spray, the concentrations of organics in the bulk water, and the limitations of sampling techniques to collect thin layers . Enrichment of surfactants, and changes in the sea surface temperature and salinity, serve as universal indicators for the presence of the SML. Organisms are perhaps less suitable as indicators of the SML because they can actively avoid the SML and/or the harsh conditions in the SML may reduce their populations. However, the thickness of the SML remains "operational" in field experiments because the thickness of the collected layer is governed by the sampling method. Advances in SML sampling technology are needed to improve our understanding of how the SML influences air-sea interactions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12264442 | 1,416,698 |
1,571,745 | Both hairy and smooth pads in arthropods act to maximize the amount of contact with a surface. The foot pads of flies are densely covered with flexible hair-like structures called setae, and some lizards and spiders use similar hairy pads to create adhesive effects. This indicates a favourable design for hairy pad adhesion. Hairy pads can be classified as pulvillus, fossula spongiosa, and tenent hairs. Hairy attachment pads employed few other features, such as flaw tolerance, lower sensitivity to contamination and roughness. Hairy attachment systems are typical for evolutionary younger and successful insect groups, such as Coleoptera and Diptera. The density of hairs increases with increasing body weight. An increase of the attachment strength in hairy systems is realized by increasing the number of single contact points. Protuberances on the hairy pads of Coleoptera, Dermaptera and Diptera belong to different types. Representatives of the first two lineages have socketed setae on their pads. Setae can range in length from a few micrometers to several millimeters. Dipteran outgrowths are acanthae which are single sclerotized protuberances originating from a single cell. The acanthae are hollow inside and some have pores under the terminal plate, which presumably deliver an adhesive secretion directly to the contact area. Hairy attachment pads of reduviid bugs, flies and beetles secrete fluid into the contact area. The secretion contains non-volatile, lipid-like substances, but in some species it is two-phasic emulsion presumably containing water-soluble and lipid-soluble fractions. Adhesion strongly decreases as the volume of the secretion decreases, which indicates that a layer of pad secretion that covers the terminal plates is crucial for generating a strong attractive force. Data suggests that besides van der Waals and Coulomb forces flies rely on attractive capillary forces mediated by the pad secretion. At low humidity, adhesion strongly depends on the amount of liquid deposited on the surface, and therefore contact duration. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=46344435 | 1,570,857 |
1,963,892 | To enforce no-slip boundary conditions on immersed surfaces, first, the surface is represented implicitly by a smooth “level set” function, “f”, defined at each grid point. This is the (signed) distance from each grid point to the nearest point on the surface of an object – positive outside, negative inside. Then, at each time step during the solution, velocities in the interior are set to zero. In a computation using VC, this results in a thin vortical region along the surface, which is smooth in the tangential direction, with no “staircase” effects. The important point is that no special logic is required in the “cut” cells, unlike many conventional schemes: only the same VC equations are applied, as in the rest of the grid, but with a different form for F. Also, unlike many conventional immersed surface schemes, which are inviscid because of cell size constraints, there is effectively a no-slip boundary condition, which results in a boundary layer with well-defined total vorticity and which, because of VC, remains thin, even after separation. The method is especially effective for complex configurations with separation from sharp corners. Also, even with constant coefficients, it can approximately treat separation from smooth surfaces. General blunt bodies, which typically shed turbulent vorticity that induces a velocity around an upstream body. It is inconsistent to use body fitted grids as the vorticity convects through a non fitted grid. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=24546104 | 1,962,764 |
238,143 | The country's wide geographic variations cause localised differences in sunshine, rainfall and temperature. Average annual coastal temperatures reach and in low lying inland areas, lower. It becomes cooler at higher altitudes; annual temperatures decrease on average approximately each of altitude. Consequently, the higher parts of Snowdonia experience average annual temperatures of . Temperatures in Wales remain higher than would otherwise be expected at its latitude because of the North Atlantic Drift, a branch of the Gulf Stream. The ocean current, bringing warmer water to northerly latitudes, has a similar effect on most of north-west Europe. As well as its influence on Wales' coastal areas, air warmed by the Gulf Stream blows further inland with the prevailing winds. At low elevations, summers tend to be warm and sunny. Average maximum temperatures range between . Winters tend to be fairly wet, but rainfall is rarely excessive and the temperature usually stays above freezing. Spring and autumn feel quite similar and the temperatures tend to stay above – also the average annual daytime temperature. Rainfall patterns show significant variation. The further west, the higher the expected rainfall; up to 40 per cent more. At low elevations, rain is unpredictable at any time of year, although the showers tend to be shorter in summer. The uplands of Wales have most rain, normally more than 50 days of rain during the winter months (December to February), falling to around 35 rainy days during the summer months (June to August). Annual rainfall in Snowdonia averages between (Blaenau Ffestiniog) and (Snowdon's summit). The likelihood is that it will fall as sleet or snow when the temperature falls below and snow tends to be lying on the ground there for an average of 30 days a year. Snow falls several times each winter in inland areas but is relatively uncommon around the coast. Average annual rainfall in those areas can be less than . | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=84358 | 238,024 |
1,387,822 | It is especially likely to leach from plastics when they are cleaned with harsh detergents or when they contain acidic or high-temperature liquids. BPA is used to form epoxy resin coating of water pipes; in older buildings, such resin coatings are used to avoid replacement of deteriorating pipes. In the workplace, while handling and manufacturing products which contain BPA, inhalation and dermal exposures are the most probable routes. There are many uses of BPA for which related potential exposures have not been fully assessed including digital media, electrical and electronic equipment, automobiles, sports safety equipment, electrical laminates for printed circuit boards, composites, paints, and adhesives. In addition to being present in many products that people use on a daily basis, BPA has the ability to bioaccumulate, especially in water bodies. In one review, it was seen that although BPA is biodegradable, it is still detected after wastewater treatment in many waterways at concentrations of approximately 1 ug/L. This study also looked at other pathways where BPA could potentially bioaccumulate and found "low-moderate potential...in microorganisms, algae, invertebrates, and fish in the environment" suggesting that some environmental exposures are less likely. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=57552333 | 1,387,055 |
1,564,304 | In England in 1980 lawyer Larry Gostin called for psychosurgery to be subject to "the strictest legal and ethical scrutiny". He identified a number of problems with the newer forms of psychosurgery: the lack of any reliable theoretical position relating to psychosurgery, with different forms of surgery used in similar cases, and similar surgery used for a wide range of psychiatric conditions; the absence of controlled trials; the difficulty in assessing changes in character caused by the surgery; and the irreversible nature of surgery on brain tissue that appeared to be structurally normal. In spite of these ethical concerns, he noted, there had never been in the UK any "guidelines, controls, regulations or monitoring arrangements relating to its use". Gostin argued that psychosurgery should only be given with the consent of the patient and approval of an independent body comprising a multi-disciplinary legal and lay element. His proposals were largely incorporated into the Mental Health Act 1983, and led to a significant fall in the use of psychosurgery in England and Wales. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38574601 | 1,563,417 |
1,439,483 | Activity-based protein profiling (ABPP, also activity-based proteomics) is a technique that was developed to monitor the availability of enzymatic active sites to their endogenous ligands. ABPP uses specially designed probes that enter and form a covalent bond with an enzyme's active site, which confirms that the enzyme is an active state. The probe is typically an analog of the drug whose mechanism is being studied, so covalent labeling of an enzyme is indicative of drug binding. ABPP probes are designed with three key functional units: (1) a site-directed covalent warhead (reactive group); (2) a reporter tag, such as biotin or rhodamine; and (3) a linker group. The site-directed covalent warhead, also called a covalent modifier, is an electrophile that covalently modifies a serine, cysteine, or lysine residue in the enzyme's active site and prevents future interactions with other ligands. ABPP probes are generally designed against enzymatic classes, and thus can provide systems-level information about the impact of cell state on enzymatic networks. The reporter tag is used to confirm labeling of the enzyme with the reactive group and can vary depending on the downstream readout. The most widely used reporters are fluorescent moieties that enable imaging and affinity tags, such as biotin, that allow for pull-down of labeled enzymes and analysis via mass spectrometry. There are drawbacks to each strategy, namely that fluorescent reporters do not allow for enrichment for proteomic analysis, while biotin-based affinity tags co-purify with endogenously biotinylated proteins. A linker group is used to connect the reactive group to the reporter, ideally in a manner that does not alter the activity of probe. The most common linker groups are long alkyl chains, derivatized PEGs, and modified polypeptides. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=48999251 | 1,438,673 |
1,663,450 | Criticism of the fetal origins hypothesis can be aimed at the limitations of the research. Confounds abound due to the intertwined nature of environment before and after birth, as well as the correlational factors associated with poverty outcomes. Additionally, the use of historical and longitudinal data raises the question of reliability. Also, some critics maintain that despite the compelling relationship documented between low birth weight and later disease, it is too soon to begin to mandate interventions aimed at increasing birth weight. Such interventions could instead have increased negative effects, until the specific mechanisms and processes are more deeply understood by which birth and early childhood weight determine development. As stated in "Killing Me Softly: The Fetal Origins Hypothesis", "Such pre-emptive targeting would constitute a radical departure from current policies that steer nearly all healthcare resources to the sick, i.e. the “pound of cure” approach. That said, the existing evidence is not sufficient to allow us to rank the cost-effectiveness of interventions targeted at women against more traditional interventions targeted at children, adolescents, or adults. For example, broadening the target population to women who might get pregnant would reduce the set of policies which are cost effective." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=47957160 | 1,662,513 |
1,177,973 | The issue of restoration is critical today since mangrove forests are being lost very quickly – at an even faster rate than tropical rainforests inland. A recent estimate puts the total mangrove area worldwide in 2005 at 152,000 km – down from 188,000 km in 1980. In other words, some 36,000 km, or nearly 20% of the world's mangroves, were lost over a period of twenty-five years. Other estimates of loss may differ due to having been drawn from a smaller pool of data. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment estimates the total loss worldwide at 35% between 1980 and 2000, but this result was drawn from data on only slightly more than half of the total mangrove area. Much of this lost mangrove area was destroyed to make room for industry, housing and tourism development; for aquaculture, primarily shrimp farms; and for agriculture, such as rice paddies, livestock pasture and salt production. Other drivers of mangrove forest destruction include activities that divert their sources of freshwater, such as groundwater withdrawals, the building of dams, and the building of roads and drainage canals across tidal flats. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=36309813 | 1,177,350 |
1,472,260 | After the takeover by the Nazis and the elimination of the parliamentary opposition, the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service on 7 April 1933, prescribed the release of all distinguished public servants that held unpopular political opinions or who were "Jewish" in origin; a subsequent regulation extended this to professors and therefore also to Schur. Schur was suspended and excluded from the university system. His colleague Erhard Schmidt fought for his reinstatement, and since Schur had been a Prussian official before the First World War, he was allowed to participate in certain special lectures on teaching in the winter semester of 1933/1934 again. Schur withdrew his application for leave from the Science Minister and passed up the offer of a visiting professorship at the University of Wisconsin–Madison for the academic year 1933–34. One element that likely played a role in the rejection of the offer was that Schur no longer felt he could cope with the requirements that would have come with a new beginning in an English-speaking environment. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=617522 | 1,471,431 |
1,226,200 | For this reason, since more than 20 years many research efforts have been dedicated to on-chip embedded tiny reference field effect transistors (REFET). Their functioning principle, or operating mode, can vary, depending on the electrode producers and are often proprietary and protected by patents. Semi-conductor modified surfaces required for REFET are also not always in thermodynamical equilibrium with the test solution and can be sensitive to aggressive or interfering dissolved species or not well characterized aging phenomena. This is not a real problem if the electrode can be frequently re-calibrated at regular time interval and is easily maintained during its service life. However, this may be an issue if the electrode has to remain immersed on-line for prolonged period of time, or is inaccessible for particular constrains related to the nature of the measurements itself (geochemical measurements under elevated water pressure in harsh environments or under anoxic or reducing conditions easily disturbed by atmospheric oxygen ingress or pressure changes). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2036897 | 1,225,540 |
2,160,188 | Influenced by Joseph Plunkett and Tom Kettle, Dillon became involved in labour and republican politics. During the 1913 Lockout, he was the honorary secretary of the Industrial Peace Committee, and was the chemical adviser to the Irish Volunteers in their manufacture of bombs and hand grenades. His future wife, Geraldine Plunkett was one of his students in UCD, and sister of Joseph Plunkett. A fellow republican, they married in Rathmines on 23 April 1916, Easter Sunday in a ceremony which was also supposed to see Joseph marry Grace Gifford. The couple spent Easter Monday in the wedding suite of the Imperial Hotel, O'Connell Street watching the events of the Easter Rising unfold at the GPO. Dillon was awaiting orders to aid in the commandeering of chemical supplies for the manufacture of more explosives, but when this didn't happen he was ordered to return home to await further orders. As Dillon was not directly involved in the uprising, he was not arrested in the aftermath. He helped his father-in-law, George Noble Plunkett, convene a meeting of nationalist delegates from across Ireland in Dublin. At the Sinn Féin convention in October 1917 he refused the position of secretary, and instead agreed to sit on the executive council. Because of this, he was arrested in May 1918, and interned for almost a year in England in Gloucester prison. While there, he learnt Irish. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=65801067 | 2,158,956 |
982,800 | The Griffon IIB which powered the Mk IV was a single-stage supercharged engine of 1,735 hp (1,293 kW). Stronger main longerons were needed to cope with the weight of the Griffon and it required a bigger radiator and oil cooler, although it kept the asymmetric under-wing radiator layout of the single stage Merlin marks. The new engine had a lower thrust-line than the Merlin and was set with 2 degrees of downthrust. The lower thrust line and larger capacity of the new engine meant that the contours of the engine cowling were completely changed, with more prominent blisters over the cylinder heads, plus a third tear-drop shaped blister on the upper forward cowling to clear the magneto, and a deeper curve down to the spinner, which was much longer than previous types. The lower cowling lost its "pigeon-chested" appearance, with a shallower curve up to the spinner. A four blade Rotol propeller of 10 ft 5 in (3.1 m) was used. Apart from these differences the Mk IV airframe was closely related to that of the Merlin-powered Mk III. One feature of the Griffon engine which was to catch a lot of pilots out was that the propeller rotated in the opposite direction to that of the Merlin; i.e.,: to the left, from the pilot's perspective, rather than to the right. This meant that the powerful slipstream swung the Spitfire to the right on the ground, requiring the rudder to be deflected to the left during takeoff. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=22829566 | 982,287 |
1,229,049 | Lumber, sizes 1x, 2x, 4x, to include plywood, became in critical supply during the summer and also remained chronically short through the end of 1969. to ensure that lumber was used only for the most pressing requirements throughout Vietnam USARV established a monthly allocation where in-country supplies were issued to major subordinate commands on a percentage basis, determined according to the number of critically urgent, engineer-approved construction projects in each command. This was a departure from previous procedures in that lumber was formerly allocated to construction activities only. Under the new system, each major subordinate command had to submit a monthly forecast of urgent projects along with a detailed justification for the lumber required in support of them. Lumber allocations to the brigade during the period July through December were approximately one-fourth of that which the headquarters had requested, and the majority of all received lumber went to the 32d Medical Depot to satisfy packing and crating material requirements. The lumber shortage delayed the start and completion of several brigade construction projects. It also prevented subordinate units of the brigade from doing any appreciable amount or self-help work to improve or renovate facilities. However, according to the Assistant Chief of Staff, G-4, USARV, the lumber position was expected to satisfy normal construction requirements by February 1970. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8709111 | 1,228,387 |
367,096 | In February 2012, millionaire Sidney Kimmel, convinced that cold fusion was worth investing in by a 19 April 2009 interview with physicist Robert Duncan on the US news show "60 Minutes", made a grant of $5.5 million to the University of Missouri to establish the Sidney Kimmel Institute for Nuclear Renaissance (SKINR). The grant was intended to support research into the interactions of hydrogen with palladium, nickel or platinum under extreme conditions. In March 2013 Graham K. Hubler, a nuclear physicist who worked for the Naval Research Laboratory for 40 years, was named director. One of the SKINR projects is to replicate a 1991 experiment in which a professor associated with the project, Mark Prelas, says bursts of millions of neutrons a second were recorded, which was stopped because "his research account had been frozen". He claims that the new experiment has already seen "neutron emissions at similar levels to the 1991 observation". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=7463 | 366,904 |
812,447 | Binding of MgATP is one of the central events to occur in the mechanism employed by nitrogenase. Hydrolysis of the terminal phosphate group of MgATP provides the energy needed to transfer electrons from the Fe protein to the MoFe protein. The binding interactions between the MgATP phosphate groups and the amino acid residues of the Fe protein are well understood by comparing to similar enzymes, while the interactions with the rest of the molecule are more elusive due to the lack of a Fe protein crystal structure with MgATP bound (as of 1996). Three protein residues have been shown to have significant interactions with the phosphates, shown in Figure 6. In the absence of MgATP, a salt bridge exists between residue 15, lysine, and residue 125, aspartic acid. Upon binding, this salt bridge is interrupted. Site-specific mutagenesis has demonstrated that when the lysine is substituted for a glutamine, the protein's affinity for MgATP is greatly reduced and when the lysine is substituted for an arginine, MgATP cannot bind due to the salt bridge being too strong. The necessity of specifically aspartic acid at site 125 has been shown through noting altered reactivity upon mutation of this residue to glutamic acid. The third residue that has been shown to be key for MgATP binding is residue 16, serine. Site-specific mutagenesis was used to demonstrate this fact. This has led to a model in which the serine remains coordinated to the Mg ion after phosphate hydrolysis in order to facilitate its association with a different phosphate of the now ADP molecule. MgATP binding also induces significant conformational changes within the Fe protein. Site-directed mutagenesis was employed to create mutants in which MgATP binds but does not induce a conformational change. Comparing X-ray scattering data in the mutants versus in the wild-type protein led to the conclusion that the entire protein contracts upon MgATP binding, with a decrease in radius of approximately 2.0 Å. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1080226 | 812,014 |
710,243 | China was a world leader in science and technology until the early years of the Ming dynasty. Chinese discoveries and Chinese innovations such as papermaking, printing, the compass, and gunpowder (the Four Great Inventions) contributed to the economic development in East Asia, the Middle East and Europe. Chinese scientific activity started to decline in the fourteenth century. Unlike in Europe, scientists did not attempt to reduce observations of nature to mathematical laws and they did not form a scholarly community with criticisms and progressive research. There was an increasing concentration on literature, arts, and public administration while science and technology were seen as trivial or restricted to limited practical applications. The causes of this Great Divergence continue to be debated. One factor is argued to be the imperial examination system which removed the incentives for Chinese intellectuals to learn mathematics or to conduct experimentation. By the 17th century, Europe and the Western world surpassed China in scientific and technological advancement. The causes of this early modern Great Divergence continue to be debated by scholars to this day. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=277914 | 709,872 |
46,339 | A widely used rule of thumb, the "one in ten rule", states that logistic regression models give stable values for the explanatory variables if based on a minimum of about 10 events per explanatory variable (EPV); where "event" denotes the cases belonging to the less frequent category in the dependent variable. Thus a study designed to use formula_212 explanatory variables for an event (e.g. myocardial infarction) expected to occur in a proportion formula_213 of participants in the study will require a total of formula_214 participants. However, there is considerable debate about the reliability of this rule, which is based on simulation studies and lacks a secure theoretical underpinning. According to some authors the rule is overly conservative in some circumstances, with the authors stating, "If we (somewhat subjectively) regard confidence interval coverage less than 93 percent, type I error greater than 7 percent, or relative bias greater than 15 percent as problematic, our results indicate that problems are fairly frequent with 2–4 EPV, uncommon with 5–9 EPV, and still observed with 10–16 EPV. The worst instances of each problem were not severe with 5–9 EPV and usually comparable to those with 10–16 EPV". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=226631 | 46,321 |
532,272 | The breeding period varies. In species or populations living in highly seasonal regions it is generally relatively short, typically during the wet season. It is prolonged, often even year-round, in species or populations living in regions with less distinct seasons. In some species where it is year-round the egg production is however higher during the rainy season than the dry season, and in many where it is prolonged but not year-round, it begins in the spring and ends in the fall. Males attract and court females by performing a range of behaviors, often mirroring those used to scare away competitors, including extending their dewlap and bobbing their heads. During mating the male inserts one of his hemipenes into the female's cloaca, fertilizing the egg inside the oviduct. The female may mate with multiple males, but is also able to store sperm inside her body for fertilization of eggs several months after mating. A female anole produces an egg in each ovary, meaning that when one is maturing in one of her follicles the yolk of another is forming in the other. The white shell only forms when the egg has been fertilized and females will sometimes lay infertile, unshelled yellowish eggs known as "slugs". The female lays one (occasionally two) eggs per time, which typically is placed casually on the ground among leaf-litter, under debris, logs or rocks, or in a small hole. In some species it is placed at higher levels in a bromeliad, tree hole or rock crevice. A small number of species lay their eggs together, forming a communal nest. Among these is the unusual Cuban cave anole where as many as 25 eggs may be glued together in a small cavity on the side of a cave wall. A nest that contained eggs from the bay anole and the geckos "Sphaerodactylus armasi" and "Tarentola crombiei" represents the only known multi-species communal nest for an anole and the only known communal nest involving more than one family of lizard. Although typically only laying a single egg per time (clutch), females of many anole species can lay an egg every five days to four weeks. Some only have a single clutch per year, while other species may have as many as 20 on average. Depending on species, anole eggs hatch after about 30–70 days. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=322654 | 531,998 |
37,914 | In late 2005, the program entered the detailed design and integration phase, for which Raytheon was the Mission Systems Integrator. Both Northrop Grumman Ship Systems and General Dynamics Bath Iron Works shared dual-lead for the hull, mechanical, and electrical detailed design. BAE Systems Inc. had the advanced gun system and the MK57 Vertical Launching System (VLS). Almost every major defense contractor (including Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman Sperry Marine, and L-3 Communications) and subcontractors from nearly every state in the U.S. were involved to some extent in this project, which was the largest single line item in the Navy's budget. During the previous contract, the development and testing of 11 Engineering Development Models (EDMs) took place: Advanced Gun System, Autonomic Fire Suppression System, Dual Band Radar [X-band and L-band], Infrared, Integrated Deckhouse & Apertures, Integrated Power System, Integrated Undersea Warfare, Peripheral Vertical Launch System, Total Ship Computing Environment Infrastructure (TSCEI), Tumblehome Hull Form. The decision in September 2006 to fund two ships meant that one could be built by the Bath Iron Works in Maine and one by Northrop Grumman's Ingalls Shipbuilding in Mississippi. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=864558 | 37,901 |
463,556 | Titanite, which is named for its titanium content, occurs as translucent to transparent, reddish brown, gray, yellow, green, or red monoclinic crystals. These crystals are typically sphenoid in habit and are often twinned. Possessing a subadamantine tending to slightly resinous luster, titanite has a hardness of 5.5 and a weak cleavage. Its specific gravity varies between 3.52 and 3.54. Titanite's refractive index is 1.885–1.990 to 1.915–2.050 with a strong birefringence of 0.105 to 0.135 (biaxial positive); under the microscope this leads to a distinctive high relief which combined with the common yellow-brown colour and lozenge-shape cross-section makes the mineral easy to identify. Transparent specimens are noted for their strong trichroism, the three colours presented being dependent on body colour. Owing to the quenching effect of iron, sphene exhibits no fluorescence under ultraviolet light. Some titanite has been found to be metamict, in consequence of structural damage due to radioactive decomposition of the often significant thorium content. When viewed in thin section with a petrographic microscope, pleochroic halos can be observed in minerals surrounding a titanite crystal. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=31091 | 463,327 |
1,578,826 | Like all other genetic concepts, the discovery of uniparental inheritance stems from the days of an Augustinian priest known as Gregor Johann Mendel. The soon-to-be "father of modern genetics" spent his days conducting hybridization experiments on pea plants("Pisum sativum") in his monastery's garden. During a period of seven years (1856 to 1863), Mendel cultivated and tested some 29,000 pea plants which led to him deducing the two famous generalizations known as Mendel's Laws of Heredity. The first, the law of segregation, states that "when any individual produces gametes, the copies of a gene separate, so that each gamete receives only one copy". The second, the law of independent assortment, states that "alleles of different genes assort independently of one another during gamete formation". Although his work was published, it lay dormant until it was rediscovered in 1900 by Hugo de Vries and Carl Correns but it was not until 1909 that non-mendelian inheritance was even suggested. Carl Erich Correns and Erwin Baur, in separately conducted researches on "Pelargonium" and "Mirabilis" plants, observed a green-white variation (later found as the result of mutations in the chloroplast genome) that did not follow the Mendelian laws of inheritance. Nearly twenty years later, non-mendelian inheritance of a mitochondrial mutation was also observed and, in the sixties, it was proven that chloroplasts and mitochondria have their own DNA and that they are capable translation, transcription, and replication independent of the nucleus. Soon after, the discoveries of uniparental and doubly uniparental inheritance came. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23303326 | 1,577,936 |
1,239,544 | Carbon fibre is actually a carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer, and is a strong, light-weight material used in a number of applications, including sporting goods like baseball bats, car parts, helmets, sailboats, bicycles and other equipment where rigidity and high strength-to-weight ratio is important. The polymer used for this equipment is normally epoxy, but other polymers are also used, depending on the application, and other reinforcing fibres may also be included. In the blade manufacturing process, sheets of impregnated material are cut into square sheets and pressed onto a form to produce the final shape. From 30 to 90 sheets may be layered, depending on the expected weight of the athlete, and the mold is then autoclaved to fuse the sheets into a solid plate. This method reduces air bubbles that can cause breaks. Once the result is cooled, it is cut into the shape of the blades. The finished blade is bolted to a carbon fibre socket that is an intimate fit to each of Pistorius' legs. These are custom made and make up the bulk of the total cost, along with the assessment and setting up of the finished prostheses. Each limb costs between $15–18,000 USD. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=37074140 | 1,238,877 |
1,468,376 | "Star Trek" went to series on the basis of the second pilot, but still fearing backlash against Spock's ears, and issues with selling the show to stations in the Bible Belt, NBC airbrushed out the pointed tips in an advertising brochure about the series. Spock's role was used as audition material for new cast members. Nichelle Nichols was intrigued by the role when she read his lines, and asked why the character could not be female. The producers response was that Nimoy would not like it. It was during the filming of the first non-pilot episode to be shot, "The Corbomite Maneuver", that under the direction of Joseph Sargent, Nimoy was directed to remain aloof during a tense moment and said the catchphrase "fascinating" for the first time. This moment was subsequently given by the writing staff as an example of how the character should act. Nimoy liked Spock's newly logical nature, observing that the character is "struggling to maintain a Vulcan attitude, a Vulcan philosophical posture and a Vulcan logic, opposing what was fighting him internally, which was human emotion". Nimoy stated that after "The Naked Time", in which a disease causes Spock to cry, "I knew that we were not playing a man with no emotions, but a man who had great pride, who had learned to control his emotions and who would deny that he knew what emotions were. In a way, he was more human than anyone else on the ship." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=51264925 | 1,467,552 |
283,527 | A frequent critique of the discipline is that the hypotheses of evolutionary psychology are frequently arbitrary and difficult or impossible to adequately test, thus questioning its status as an actual scientific discipline, for example because many current traits probably evolved to serve different functions than they do now. Thus because there are a potentially infinite number of alternative explanations for why a trait evolved, critics contend that it is impossible to determine the exact explanation. While evolutionary psychology hypotheses are difficult to test, evolutionary psychologists assert that it is not impossible. Part of the critique of the scientific base of evolutionary psychology includes a critique of the concept of the Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation (EEA). Some critics have argued that researchers know so little about the environment in which "Homo sapiens" evolved that explaining specific traits as an adaption to that environment becomes highly speculative. Evolutionary psychologists respond that they do know many things about this environment, including the facts that present day humans' ancestors were hunter-gatherers, that they generally lived in small tribes, etc. Edward Hagen argues that the human past environments were not radically different in the same sense as the Carboniferous or Jurassic periods and that the animal and plant taxa of the era were similar to those of the modern world, as was the geology and ecology. Hagen argues that few would deny that other organs evolved in the EEA (for example, lungs evolving in an oxygen rich atmosphere) yet critics question whether or not the brain's EEA is truly knowable, which he argues constitutes selective scepticism. Hagen also argues that most evolutionary psychology research is based on the fact that females can get pregnant and males cannot, which Hagen observes was also true in the EEA. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9703 | 283,374 |
1,636,416 | During his graduate studies at Columbia, Kantrowitz started working as a physicist in 1936 for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), work he would continue for ten years. While obtaining his Ph.D., Kantrowitz was supervised by Edward Teller. He went on to teach at Cornell University for the next ten years and later founded the Avco-Everett Research Lab (AERL) in Everett, Massachusetts, in 1955. He developed shock tubes, which were able to produce the extremely hot gases needed to simulate atmospheric re-entry from orbital speeds, thereby solving the critical nose cone re-entry heating problem and accelerating the development of recoverable spacecraft. He was AERL's director, chief executive officer, and chairman until 1978 when he took on a professorship at Dartmouth College. From 1956 to 1978 he also served as a vice president and director of Avco Corporation. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=412961 | 1,635,491 |
1,202,475 | Artificial introduction of long dsRNAs or siRNAs has been adopted as a tool to inactivate gene expression, both in cultured cells and in living organisms. Structural and functional resolution of small RNAs as the effectors of RNA silencing has had a direct impact on experimental biology. For example, dsRNA may be synthesized to have a specific sequence complementary to a gene of interest. Once introduced into a cell or biological system, it is recognized as exogenous genetic material and activates the corresponding RNA silencing pathway. This mechanism can be used to effect decreases in gene expression with respect to the target, useful for investigating loss of function for genes relative to a phenotype. That is, studying the phenotypic and/or physiologic effects of expression decreases can reveal the role of a gene product. The observable effects can be nuanced, such that some methods can distinguish between “knockdown” (decrease expression) and “knockout” (eliminate expression) of a gene. RNA interference technologies have been noted recently as one of the most widely utilized techniques in functional genomics. Screens developed using small RNAs have been used to identify genes involved in fundamental processes such as cell division, apoptosis and fat regulation. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9458068 | 1,201,832 |
10,753 | Companies in the information technology field are often discussed as a group as the "tech sector" or the "tech industry." These titles can be misleading at times and should not be mistaken for “tech companies;" which are generally large scale, for-profit corporations that sell consumer technology and software. It is also worth noting that from a business perspective, Information Technology departments are a “cost center” the majority of the time. A cost center is a department or staff which incurs expenses, or “costs," within a company rather than generating profits or revenue streams. Modern businesses rely heavily on technology for their day-to-day operations, so the expenses delegated to cover technology that facilitates business in a more efficient manner are usually seen as “just the cost of doing business." IT departments are allocated funds by senior leadership and must attempt to achieve the desired deliverables while staying within that budget. Government and the private sector might have different funding mechanisms, but the principles are more-or-less the same. This is an often overlooked reason for the rapid interest in automation and Artificial Intelligence, but the constant pressure to do more with less is opening the door for automation to take control of at least some minor operations in large companies. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=36674345 | 10,748 |
1,572,299 | The NS1 protein of the highly pathogenic avian H5N1 viruses circulating in poultry and waterfowl in Southeast Asia is currently believed to be responsible for the enhanced virulence of the strain. H5N1 NS1 is characterized by a single amino acid change at position 92. By changing the amino acid from glutamic acid to aspartic acid, researchers were able to annul the effect of the H5N1 NS1. This single amino acid change in the NS1 gene greatly increased the pathogenicity of the H5N1 influenza virus. However, the effect of residue 92 on the function of H5N1 NS1 appears to be questionable as noted by Nature Medicine editors: The above paper originally reported that H5N1 viruses are resistant to interferon in the SJPL cell line. The editors wish to alert our readers about three facts that may affect this conclusion. First, Ngunjiri "et al." have recently found that aliquots of the SJPL cell line obtained from the American Type Culture Collection were heavily contaminated with mycoplasma. Although the mycoplasma status of the cells used in the original paper is unknown, it is not possible to rule out that they were contaminated. Second, SJPL cells were originally reported to be of porcine origin, but a recent analysis has indicated that they are of simian origin. Third, Ngunjiri "et al." have found H5N1 viruses to be sensitive to interferons in all cell lines tested from multiple species. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=5324329 | 1,571,411 |
552,104 | In 2012, some four thousand former NFL players "joined civil lawsuits against the League, seeking damages over the League's failure to protect players from concussions, according to Judy Battista of the [New York] "Times"". In 2013 the NFL settled with a class action lawsuit. The NFL supposedly hid the long term effects of concussions. The NFL didn't admit hiding anything, but they gave money to retired NFL football players that suffered from brain related injuries from football. On August 30, 2013, the NFL reached a $765 million settlement with the former NFL players over the head injuries. The settlement created a $675 million compensation fund from which former NFL players can collect depending on the extent of their conditions. Severe conditions such as Lou Gehrig's disease and postmortem diagnosed chronic traumatic encephalopathy may be entitled to payouts as high as $5 million. From the remainder of the settlement, $75 million will be used for medical exams, and $10 million will be used for research and education. However, in January, 2014, U.S. District Judge Anita B. Brody refused to accept the agreed settlement because "the money wouldn't adequately compensate the nearly 20,000 men not named in the suit". In the settlement Brody did accept, she argued that people "cannot be compensated for C.T.E. in life because no diagnostic or clinical profile of C.T.E. exists, and the symptoms of the disease, if any, are unknown". On April 22, 2015, a final settlement was reached between players and the NFL in the case adjudicated by Judge Brody. Terms include payments to be made by the NFL for $75 million for "baseline medical exams" for retired players, $10 million for research and education, as well an uncapped amount for retirees "who can demonstrate that they suffer from one of several brain conditions covered by the agreement", with total payments expected to exceed $1 billion over 65 years. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=60104866 | 551,815 |
2,057,465 | Elliott was born in Cardiff, Wales and attended Llanishen High school before being accepted to study Pharmacology at Chelsea College, University of London (1979-1981). During this period he also spent a year gaining research experience at The Medical Clinic, Tubingen, Germany, working with Professor Peter A. Berg on the autoimmune disease, Primary Biliary Cirrhosis (1978-1980). After graduating, Elliott embarked upon a Ph.D., under the supervision of Dr's Leslie and Susan Iversen at Cambridge University, where he was a member of Trinity College (1981-1984). He was the first person to undertake a joint Ph.D, with them and the last before they joined Merck, Sharp & Dohme. His research focused on the behavioural effects of neurokinins on catecholamine systems and was carried out at the Department of Psychology, Cambridge University, and the Medical Research Council's (MRC) Neurochemical Pharmacology Unit (NCPU), at Addenbrookes Hospital. During his Ph.D., Elliott published seven research papers, including the top two scientific journals, Nature and Science. The Nature paper was one of the first publications to utilize monoclonal antibodies as pharmaceutical tools. The monoclonal antibody to Substance P, used in the paper, was generated from an adjacent laboratory of Dr. Cesar Milstein. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=66911197 | 2,056,281 |
953,891 | In the late 19th century the co-presidents of the Leicester Literary and Philosophical Society, the Revered James Went, headmaster of the Wyggeston Boys' School, and J. D. Paul, regularly called for the establishment of a university college However, no private donations were forthcoming, and the Corporation of Leicester was busy funding the School of Art and the Technical School. The matter was brought up again by Dr Astley V. Clarke (1870–1945) in 1912. Born in Leicester in 1870, he had been educated at Wyggeston Grammar School and the University of Cambridge before receiving medical training at Guy's Hospital. He was the new president of the Literary and Philosophy society. Reaction was mixed, with some saying that Leicester's relatively small population would mean a lack of demand. With the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, talk of a university college subsided. In 1917 the "Leicester Daily Post" urged in an editorial that something of more practical utility than memorials ought to be created to commemorate the war dead. With the ending of the war both the "Post" and its rival the "Leicester Mail" encouraged donations to form the university college. Some suggested that Leicester should join forces with Nottingham, Sutton Bonington and Loughborough to create a federal university college of the East Midlands, but nothing came of this proposal. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=354047 | 953,386 |
88,542 | In 1984, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) commissioned Golitsyn and N. A. Phillips to review the state of the science. They found that studies generally assumed a scenario where half of the world's nuclear weapons would be used, ~5000 Mt, destroying approximately 1,000 cities, and creating large quantities of carbonaceous smoke – 1– being most likely, with a range of 0.2– (NAS; TTAPS assumed ). The smoke resulting would be largely opaque to solar radiation but transparent to infrared, thus cooling the Earth by blocking sunlight, but not creating warming by enhancing the greenhouse effect. The optical depth of the smoke can be much greater than unity. Forest fires resulting from non-urban targets could increase aerosol production further. Dust from near-surface explosions against hardened targets also contributes; each megaton-equivalent explosion could release up to five million tons of dust, but most would quickly fall out; high altitude dust is estimated at 0.1–1 million tons per megaton-equivalent of explosion. Burning of crude oil could also contribute substantially. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=22171 | 88,507 |
996,095 | Ballistic prediction computer programs intended for (extreme) long ranges can be evaluated by conducting field tests at the supersonic to subsonic transition range (the last 10 to 20% of the supersonic range of the rifle/cartridge/bullet combination). For a typical .338 Lapua Magnum rifle for example, shooting standard 16.2 gram (250 gr) Lapua Scenar GB488 bullets at 905 m/s (2969 ft/s) muzzle velocity, field testing of the software should be done at ≈ 1200–1300 meters (1312 - 1422 yd) under International Standard Atmosphere sea level conditions (air density ρ = 1.225 kg/m³). To check how well the software predicts the trajectory at shorter to medium range, field tests at 20, 40 and 60% of the supersonic range have to be conducted. At those shorter to medium ranges, transonic problems and hence unbehaved bullet flight should not occur, and the BC is less likely to be transient. Testing the predictive qualities of software at (extreme) long ranges is expensive because it consumes ammunition; the actual muzzle velocity of all shots fired must be measured to be able to make statistically dependable statements. Sample groups of less than 24 shots may not obtain the desired statistically significant confidence interval. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=584911 | 995,577 |
246,113 | There are limits to electrophoretic techniques. Since passing a current through a gel causes heating, gels may melt during electrophoresis. Electrophoresis is performed in buffer solutions to reduce pH changes due to the electric field, which is important because the charge of DNA and RNA depends on pH, but running for too long can exhaust the buffering capacity of the solution. There are also limitations in determining the molecular weight by SDS-PAGE, especially when trying to find the MW of an unknown protein. Certain biological variables are difficult or impossible to minimize and can affect electrophoretic migration. Such factors include protein structure, post-translational modifications, and amino acid composition. For example, tropomyosin is an acidic protein that migrates abnormally on SDS-PAGE gels. This is because the acidic residues are repelled by the negatively charged SDS, leading to an inaccurate mass-to-charge ratio and migration. Further, different preparations of genetic material may not migrate consistently with each other, for morphological or other reasons. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12582 | 245,986 |
725,065 | MC1R has a slightly different function in cold-blooded animals such as fish, amphibians, and reptiles. Here, α-MSH activation of MC1R results in the dispersion of eumelanin-filled melanosomes throughout the interior of pigment cells (called melanophores). This gives the skin of the animal a darker hue and often occurs in response to changes in mood or environment. Such a physiological color change implicates MC1R as a key mediator of adaptive cryptic coloration. The role of ASIP's binding to MC1R in regulating this adaptation is unclear; however, in teleost fish at least, functional antagonism is provided by melanin-concentrating hormone. This signals through its receptor to aggregate the melanosomes toward a small area in the centre of the melanophore, resulting in the animal's having a lighter overall appearance. Cephalopods generate a similar, albeit more dramatic, pigmentary effect using muscles to rapidly stretch and relax their pigmented chromatophores. MC1R does not appear to play a role in the rapid and spectacular colour changes observed in these invertebrates. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30870796 | 724,684 |
658,509 | The Katana provides excellent external visibility to its pilots via the use of a one-piece bubble canopy, which is hinged at the rear, enabling easy entry using the built-in steps. The cockpit features a comprehensive six-unit instrumentation panel on the left-hand side, the majority of avionics-related controls and displays in the center of the console, and engine-specific elements are allocated to the right-hand panel. The Katana makes use of individual stick-type flight control, as opposed to yokes, along with key engine controls on a centrally-positioned pedestal. There has been positive reports on the aircraft's comfort, the crew accommodated on fixed-position reclined seats with a small personal stowage area located directly behind; the noise levels are so low that headsets are typically unnecessary for voice communication, although an intercom system is integrated for this purpose. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2707055 | 658,164 |
69,962 | Initially, rifles used by the Royal Marines, British Army infantry soldiers (and other soldiers with a dismounted close combat role) and the RAF Regiment are equipped with a SUSAT (Sight Unit Small Arms, Trilux) optical sight, with a fixed 4× magnification and an illuminated aiming pointer powered by a variable tritium light source (as of 2006 almost all British Army personnel deployed on operations have been issued SUSATs); this is also the standard sighting arrangement for the LSW variant. Mounted on the SUSAT's one-piece, pressure die-cast aluminium body are a set of back-up iron sights that consist of a front blade and small rear aperture. Rifles used with other branches of the armed forces when not on operations are configured with fixed iron sights, consisting of a flip rear aperture housed inside the carrying handle and a forward post vertical blade foresight, installed on a bracket above the gas block. The rear sight can be adjusted for windage, and the foresight—elevation. In place of the SUSAT, a passive night vision CWS scope can be used. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=84350 | 69,935 |
65,828 | The synaptic network that finally emerges is only partly determined by genes, though. In many parts of the brain, axons initially "overgrow", and then are "pruned" by mechanisms that depend on neural activity. In the projection from the eye to the midbrain, for example, the structure in the adult contains a very precise mapping, connecting each point on the surface of the retina to a corresponding point in a midbrain layer. In the first stages of development, each axon from the retina is guided to the right general vicinity in the midbrain by chemical cues, but then branches very profusely and makes initial contact with a wide swath of midbrain neurons. The retina, before birth, contains special mechanisms that cause it to generate waves of activity that originate spontaneously at a random point and then propagate slowly across the retinal layer. These waves are useful because they cause neighboring neurons to be active at the same time; that is, they produce a neural activity pattern that contains information about the spatial arrangement of the neurons. This information is exploited in the midbrain by a mechanism that causes synapses to weaken, and eventually vanish, if activity in an axon is not followed by activity of the target cell. The result of this sophisticated process is a gradual tuning and tightening of the map, leaving it finally in its precise adult form. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3717 | 65,803 |
176,023 | Oldsmobile and Pontiac each used an all-aluminum 215 on its senior compact cars, the Oldsmobile F-85, Cutlass, and Jetfire, and Pontiac Tempest and LeMans. Pontiac used the Buick version of the 215. At that time the engine was closely associated with the Buick brand, and Pontiac sold few cars with it, using it only in 1961 and 1962. The Oldsmobile version of this engine, although sharing the same basic architecture, had cylinder heads and angled valve covers designed by Oldsmobile engineers to look like a traditional Olds V8 and was produced on a separate assembly line. Among the differences between the Oldsmobile and Buick versions was weight, being somewhat heavier, at . The major design differences were in the cylinder heads. Buick used a five-bolt pattern around each cylinder, while Oldsmobile used a six-bolt pattern and a wedge combustion chamber, which allowed larger valves. The sixth bolt was added to the intake manifold side of the head, one extra bolt for each cylinder, intended to alleviate a head-warping problem on high-compression versions. This meant that Buick heads would fit on Oldsmobile blocks, but not vice versa. Changing the compression ratio on an Oldsmobile 215 required changing the heads, but on a Buick 215, only the pistons were changed, which was less expensive and simpler. For that reason, the more common Buick version (which looks like a traditional Nailhead V8) has emerged as more desirable to some. The Oldsmobile wedge-shaped/quench combustion chambers/pistons are more compatible with modern low-octane/low-lead motor fuels than the Buick 'hemispherical'-shaped combustion chambers and domed pistons. The previous statement is incorrect, the 215 Buick only used "dished head" pistons even in the highest compression models, all Buick 215's have a 37-cc wedge combustion chamber. Later Rover versions of the aluminum block and subsequent Buick iron small-block 300s with aluminum, then iron heads, 34 (0 and 350 with iron heads) went to a four-bolt-per-cylinder pattern. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1084072 | 175,931 |
165,484 | On July 15, 2016 Dr. Richard C. Benson was appointed the fifth president of the University of Texas at Dallas. Previously he was Dean of the College of Engineering at Virginia Tech, which saw record growth from 2005 to 2016 after the number of engineering applicants nearly doubled during his tenure. He has continued the expansion of the UTD campus with the addition of The Bioengineering and Sciences Building, The Engineering & Computer Science West Building, a new Science Building, The Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center, and Northside Phase 1 & 2 (the first on-campus apartments with first floor retail space). Since 2016, UT Dallas' national US News ranking has jumped up from 140 to 129, tying it with University of Missouri, University of Kansas, University of Alabama, University of Nebraska – Lincoln, and Catholic University of America (most of which are current or former members of the Association of American Universities). Undergraduate applications have increased by 5%, undergraduate enrollment has increased by 16%, 6-year graduation rates increased by 4.5%, freshman retention rates have improved from 84% to 87%, and UTD was ranked #1 among universities under 50 years old. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=537010 | 165,399 |
1,139,204 | "S. canis" is considered to be an important part of the healthy microbiota of cats and dogs, promoting skin and mucosal health. However, despite these benefits under certain circumstances, strains of this bacterium have been reported to cause diseases in a variety of mammals. When opportunistic infection does occur, treatment with antibiotics is very successful at clearing the disease and preventing mortality due to the low levels of resistance in this species. During infection, the bacteria have been known to cause neonatal sepsis, abortion, and cellulitis in dogs. In addition, "S. canis" is also responsible for streptococcal toxic shock syndrome (STSS) and necrotizing fasciitis (NF). However, it has been contested if STSS and NF are caused solely by "S. canis" infection or if it is induced from the treatment of dogs with fluoroquinolone during the infection. In other mammals, the pathogen can cause lymphadenitis, arthritis, fever, mastitis, wound infections, and other conditions that vary depending on the host species. The possibility of an outbreak increases for animals that are very young, very old, confined to a densely populated area, or remain confined for long periods of time. Multiple fatal outbreaks have been reported among shelter cats due to the susceptibility of many of the cats and the close proximity of individuals within a shelter. The development of disease can occur rapidly, and symptoms in cats include skin ulceration, chronic respiratory infection, and necrotizing sinusitis. The persistence and spread of these bacteria in a confined area can lead to both sepsis and death, quickly resulting in extremely high levels of mortality among susceptible cats. Similar instances have been reported for dogs; however, the levels of mortality were considerably lower. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21984880 | 1,138,611 |
1,027,607 | "Daspletosaurus" lived in a vast floodplain along the western shore of the interior seaway. Large rivers watered the land, occasionally flooding and blanketing the region with new sediment. When water was plentiful, the region could support a great deal of plant and animal life, but periodic droughts also struck the region, resulting in mass mortality as preserved in the many bonebed deposits found in Two Medicine and Judith River sediments, including the "Daspletosaurus" bonebed. Similar conditions exist today in East Africa. Volcanic eruptions from the west periodically blanketed the region with ash, also resulting in large-scale mortality, while simultaneously enriching the soil for future plant growth. It is these ash beds that allow precise radiometric dating as well. Fluctuating sea levels also resulted in a variety of other environments at different times and places within the Judith River Group, including offshore and nearshore marine habitats, coastal wetlands, deltas, and lagoons, in addition to the inland floodplains. The Two Medicine Formation was deposited at higher elevations farther inland than the other two formations. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=195485 | 1,027,073 |
1,911,085 | Previously, many species of "Cochliobolus" were placed in "Ophiobolus". Drechsler found that graminicolous forms of "Helminthosporium" produced teleomorphs with characteristic features of greater ascus and ascospore width as well as helicoiod ascospores with bipolar germination, which deviates from previously described characters of "Ophiobolus". To accommodate these species, he introduced the new genus "Cochliobolus" transferred several species to "Cochliobolus". Another genus "Pseudocochliobolus" was separated from "Cochliobolus" based on the presence of stromatic tissue below the ascomata and the degree of ascospore coiling. The sexual states of "Cochliobolus" are only found associated with "Bipolaris" and "Curvularia". "Bipolaris" and "Curvularia" share some morphological similarities and cannot be easily distinguished by any distinct taxonomic criteria. Although few morphological differences were reported, conidia of "Bipolaris" are distoseptate while the conidia of "Curvularia" are bigger and euseptate. Some scientists believe that "Bipolaris" and "Curvularia" are synonymous, however there is an existing debate regarding this issue. The different species of fungi belonging to "Cochliobolus" with asexual states in "Bipolaris" and "Curvularia" have undergone frequent name changes as a result of refinement to the taxonomy that has resulted in some confusion. The perfect stage of this fungus was first named as "C. carbonum" by R. R. Nelson in 1959. The imperfect stage was named as "Bipolaris" "zeicola" in 1959. The commonly used synonyms of "Cochliobolus carbonum" were "Helminthosporium zeicola" (1930), "Helminthosporium carbornum" (1944), "Drechslera zeiocola" (1966) and "Drechslera carbonum" (1984). Several phylogenetic studies of "Bipolaris" and "Curvularia" showed that "Bipolaris" is not monophyletic and some "Bipolaris" species are nested within "Curvularia". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11460093 | 1,909,986 |
593,042 | The Transition Radiation Tracker (TRT), the outermost component of the inner detector, is a combination of a straw tracker and a transition radiation detector. The detecting elements are drift tubes (straws), each four millimetres in diameter and up to 144 centimetres long. The uncertainty of track position measurements (position resolution) is about 200 micrometres. This is not as precise as those for the other two detectors, but it was necessary to reduce the cost of covering a larger volume and to have transition radiation detection capability. Each straw is filled with gas that becomes ionized when a charged particle passes through. The straws are held at about −1,500 V, driving the negative ions to a fine wire down the centre of each straw, producing a current pulse (signal) in the wire. The wires with signals create a pattern of 'hit' straws that allow the path of the particle to be determined. Between the straws, materials with widely varying indices of refraction cause ultra-relativistic charged particles to produce transition radiation and leave much stronger signals in some straws. Xenon and argon gas is used to increase the number of straws with strong signals. Since the amount of transition radiation is greatest for highly relativistic particles (those with a speed very near the speed of light), and because particles of a particular energy have a higher speed the lighter they are, particle paths with many very strong signals can be identified as belonging to the lightest charged particles: electrons and their antiparticles, positrons. The TRT has about 298,000 straws in total. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=512256 | 592,738 |
275,388 | Once the bulk of U.S. civilians had been evacuated out of South Korea by ship, the priority of FEAF changed to a military nature. The 339th F(AW)S received orders from Fifth Air Force to move all available aircraft, along with crews and equipment, to Itazuke Air Base to assist the 68th in providing air cover for the evacuation of Seoul. However, the 339th's complement of aircraft were scattered over several bases at the time. Seven F-82s at Yokota AB were flyable and two were in the hangar undergoing maintenance for major repairs. Four other F-82s were at Misawa AB on TDY. The three at Yokota were dispatched immediately to Itazuke, as well as the four at Misawa, making a total of seven combat ready F-82Gs present for duty on 27 June. The 68th F(AW)S had a total of twelve operational F-82Gs. This, combined with what the 339th could contribute, was insufficient to meet the combat needs thrust upon FEAF. The F-80 Shooting Star was available, but its thirsty jet engine meant it could only remain over the airfield for a few minutes before having to return to base and it could not reach the forward combat area from Japan. No USAF P-51 Mustangs were available. FEAF ordered Twentieth Air Force to send eight F-82s from its 4th F(AW)S from Okinawa to Itazuke, making a total of 27 F-82s available for combat duty. This was commendable, considering that on 31 May 1950 a total of 32 F-82s existed within FEAF. With these combined squadrons, the 347th Provisional Fighter Group (AW) was formed. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=671473 | 275,240 |
1,619,129 | In 1971, DASA ceased to exist and AFRRI passed to its successor, the Defense Nuclear Agency (later DTRA). To address growing DOD concerns about the correlation between radiation presence and cancer in service members, AFRRI helped establish the Nuclear Test Personnel Review (NTPR) program in January 1978. NTPR-which still operates today-estimated the absorbed radiation dose of veterans who participated in U.S. atmospheric nuclear tests or the postwar occupations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki immediately after the atomic bombings and determined monetary compensation for long-term radiation-related illnesses accordingly. AFFRI's experience and expertise in nuclear accidents, hazardous materials, and radiological cleanup issues was later leveraged during AFRRI's joining of the International Chernobyl Site Restoration Assistance Team, which responded to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. AFFRI later assisted environmental cleanup efforts Semipatatinck Soviet nuclear test site in modern Kazakhstan. The late-70s saw AFRRI greatly increase its biomedical staff to address military radiation injury concerns. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=6277981 | 1,618,214 |
405,849 | The judge, John Grady, ruled in early 1977 that Baer's patent for the Odyssey constituted "the pioneering patent of the video game art", held the defendants' games as infringing, and set a precedent that any video game where a machine-controlled visual element hit and bounced off a player-controlled element violated Rusch's patent. At the time of judgement, only Seeburg Corporation and Chicago Dynamic Industries—though bankrupt—remained out of the defendants of the initial three lawsuits, with all other companies having settled out of court. Atari's settlement, made in June 1976, granted it a license in exchange for US$1.5 million and access granted to Magnavox to all technology produced by Atari from June 1976 to June 1977; other defendants paid higher penalties. Over the next twenty years, Sanders and Magnavox sued several other companies over the issue, focusing on "paddle-and-ball" type games like "Pong" and "Table Tennis" that more clearly violated the patent; the final lawsuits ended in the mid-1990s. Defendants included Coleco, Mattel, Seeburg, and Activision; Sanders and Magnavox won or settled every lawsuit. Many of the defendants unsuccessfully attempted to claim that the patents only applied to the specific hardware implementations that Baer had used, or that they were invalidated by prior computer or electronic games. In 1985, Nintendo sued and tried to invalidate the patents, claiming as prior art the 1958 "Tennis for Two" game built by William Higinbotham. The court, however, ruled that the oscilloscope-based game did not use video signals and therefore did not qualify as a video game, and ruled again in favor of Magnavox and Sanders. Magnavox won more than US$100 million in the various lawsuits and settlements involving the Odyssey related patents before they expired in the early 1990s. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=77262 | 405,649 |
101,099 | The studio used their vision of "Dark Sector" to try to secure a publisher, but this only led to more offers for work-for-hire. The company remained quiet on "Dark Sector" for about four years, re-announcing in early 2004 a revised "Dark Sector", now to be a stylish, science-fiction single player experience with stealth elements inspired by the "Metal Gear Solid" series, and a story they considered a mix of "Metal Gear Solid" and "The Dark Crystal" set in space, within a larger setting like that of Frank Herbert's "Dune" universe. Much of the game's art style was informed by the French artist Jean Giraud, aka Moebius. The player-character, belonging to a race called the Tenno, and enemies would wear high-tech suits that would give them unique abilities. This re-announcement included a scripted demo to show their vision of the game's gameplay and graphics. The game was announced just as both the first consoles of the seventh generation, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, had been teased, and Digital Extremes started to look for a publisher to release the games on these platforms. The game received a good deal of attention from its video, including coverage by CNN on the upcoming console generation. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38333096 | 101,054 |
346,915 | In July 2014, the Australian National Audit Office released a report on the MRH90, citing a series of procurement errors and development deficiencies delaying final operational capability (FOC), originally planned for that month, until April 2019, nearly five years later than planned. Some nine years after the initial contract was signed, the models first delivered in 2007 had not validated any of the 11 set operational capability milestones, and forced redesigns including bolstered cabin floors and windscreens, rappelling hooks, and door gunner positions; obtaining spare parts and sustaining the helicopters has also been more costly. The Australian Army will be forced to operate its aging S-70A Black Hawk beyond their planned retirement date. Due to the delays, Australia will receive an additional helicopter, for a total of 47. By September 2015, most of the MRH90's flaws had reportedly been addressed. In June 2017, the Australian Navy successfully completed trials aboard , marking a major milestone in the helicopter programme. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=513911 | 346,734 |
1,195,001 | Researchers have called for a greater critical examination of the economic aspects of Biobanks, particularly those facilitated by the state. National biobanks are often funded by public/private partnerships, with finance provided by any combination of national research councils, medical charities, pharmaceutical company investment, and biotech venture capital. In this way, national biobanks enable an economic relationship mediated between states, national populations, and commercial entities. It has been illustrated that there is a strong commercial incentive underlying the systematic collection of tissue material. This can be seen particularly in the field of genomic research where population sized study lends itself more easily toward diagnostic technologies rather than basic etiological studies. Considering the potential for substantial profit, researchers Mitchell and Waldby argue that because biobanks enroll large numbers of the national population as productive participants, who allow their bodies and prospective medical histories to create a resource with commercial potential, their contribution should be seen as a form of “clinical labor” and therefore participants should also benefit economically. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=13512486 | 1,194,361 |
14,888 | At the 2019 quadrennial World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC), atmospheric scientists advocated for a strong buffer of −55 dBW, European regulators agreed on a recommendation of −42 dBW, and US regulators (the FCC) recommended a restriction of −20 dBW, which would permit signals 150 times stronger than the European proposal. The ITU decided on an intermediate −33 dBW until September 1, 2027, and after that a standard of −39 dBW. This is closer to the European recommendation but even the delayed higher standard is much weaker than that requested by atmospheric scientists, triggering warnings from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) that the ITU standard, at 10 times less stringent than its recommendation, brings the "potential to significantly degrade the accuracy of data collected". A representative of the American Meteorological Society (AMS) also warned of interference, and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), sternly warned, saying that society risks "history repeat[ing] itself" by ignoring atmospheric scientists' warnings (referencing global warming, monitoring of which could be imperiled). In December 2019, a bipartisan request was sent from the US House Science Committee to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to investigate why there is such a discrepancy between recommendations of US civilian and military science agencies and the regulator, the FCC. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23475353 | 14,883 |
1,329,638 | Researchers used rats in order to investigate the effects of novel tactile objects on the long-term evolution of the major rodent forebrain loops essential in species-specific behaviours, including such structures as the hippocampus, putamen, neocortex and the thalamus. The rats were monitored but not bothered for 48–96 hours, allowing normal wake-sleep cycles to occur. At some point four novel tactile objects were placed in the four corners of the rat's cage. They were all very different from one another and they were there for a total of one hour. The brain activity during this hour was used as a baseline or template to compare. Data analysis implied that the neural assemblies during SWS correlated significantly more with templates than during waking hours or REM sleep. As well, these post-learning, post-SWS reverberations lasted 48 hours, much longer than the duration of novel object learning (one hour), indicating long term potentiation. Further analysis on a neuron to neuron base showed no subset of neurons (brain structure) to be responsible for the reverberations or anti-reverberations (patterns of activity significantly more dissimilar than novel stimulation templates). Another difference noticed was the highest correlation peaks in SWS corresponded with the lowest rate of neuron firing in the forebrain, opposite that of REM sleep and waking where rate of firing is the highest. It is hypothesized that this is due to interference from other incoming stimuli during waking periods. In SWS there is no incoming stimuli, so the novel experience can be replayed, without interruption. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26685741 | 1,328,910 |
86,774 | Arizona State University has produced over 400,000 alumni worldwide. The university has produced many notable figures over its 125-year history, including influential U.S. senator Carl Hayden, and Silver Star recipient Pat Tillman, who left his National Football League career to enlist in the United States Army in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Barbara Barrett, who served as U.S. Ambassador to Finland under President George W. Bush and served under President Donald J. Trump as the Secretary of the U.S. Air Force, attained her bachelor's, master's, and law degrees from ASU. Conservative author, commentator, and popular historian Larry Schweikart, known nationally for writing the New York Times bestseller "A Patriot's History of the United States", attended ASU for his bachelor's and master's degrees. Other notable alumni include nine current or former U.S. Representatives, including Barry Goldwater Jr., Ed Pastor, and Matt Salmon. The economy minister of the United Arab Emirates, Sultan bin Saeed Al Mansoori, earned a bachelor's degree in engineering at ASU. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1859 | 86,739 |
598,089 | A wide variety of companies manufacture ketone screening strips. A strip consists of a thin piece of plastic film slightly larger than a matchstick, with a reagent pad on one end that is either dipped into a urine sample or passed through the stream while the user is voiding. The pad is allowed to react for an exact, specified amount of time (it is recommended to use a stopwatch to time this exactly and disregard any resultant colour change after the specified time); its resulting colour is then compared to a graded shade chart indicating a detection range from negative presence of ketones up to a significant quantity. In severe diabetic ketoacidosis, the dipstix reaction based on sodium nitroprusside may underestimate the level of ketone bodies in the blood. It is sensitive to acetoacetate only, and the ratio of beta-hydroxybutyric to acetoacetate is shifted from a normal value of around 1:1 up to around 10:1 under severely ketoacetotic conditions, due to a changing redox milieu in the liver. Measuring acetoacetate alone will thus underestimate the accompanying beta-hydroxybutyrate if the standard conversion factor is applied. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3325416 | 597,784 |
240,159 | Noether remained a leading member of the Göttingen mathematics department until 1933; her students were sometimes called the "Noether boys". In 1924, Dutch mathematician B. L. van der Waerden joined her circle and soon became the leading expositor of Noether's ideas; her work was the foundation for the second volume of his influential 1931 textbook, "Moderne Algebra". By the time of her plenary address at the 1932 International Congress of Mathematicians in Zürich, her algebraic acumen was recognized around the world. The following year, Germany's Nazi government dismissed Jews from university positions, and Noether moved to the United States to take up a position at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania where she taught, among others, doctoral and post-graduate women including Marie Johanna Weiss, Ruth Stauffer, Grace Shover Quinn and Olga Taussky-Todd. At the same time, she lectured and performed research at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=149896 | 240,039 |
911,854 | Pain at the front or inner side of the knee is common in adults of all ages especially when engaging in soccer, gymnastics, cycling, rowing, tennis, ballet, basketball, horseback riding, volleyball, running, combat sports, figure skating, snowboarding, skateboarding and even swimming. The pain is typically felt after prolonged sitting. Skateboarders most commonly experience this injury in their non-dominant foot due to the constant kicking and twisting required of it. Swimmers acquire it doing the breaststroke, which demands an unusual motion of the knee. People who are involved in an active lifestyle with high impact on the knees are at greatest risk. Proper management of physical activity may help prevent worsening of the condition. Athletes are advised to talk to a physician for further medical diagnosis, as symptoms may be similar to more serious problems within the knee. Tests are not necessarily needed for diagnosis, but in some situations they may confirm diagnosis or rule out other causes for pain. Commonly used tests are blood tests, MRI scans, and arthroscopy. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1944613 | 911,375 |
14,397 | Those who score high in neuroticism are emotionally reactive and vulnerable to stress. They are more likely to interpret ordinary situations as threatening. They can perceive minor frustrations as hopelessly difficult. They also tend to be flippant in the way they express emotions. Their negative emotional reactions tend to persist for unusually long periods of time, which means they are often in a bad mood. For instance, neuroticism is connected to a pessimistic approach toward work, to certainty that work impedes personal relationships, and to higher levels of anxiety from the pressures at work. Furthermore, those who score high on neuroticism may display more skin-conductance reactivity than those who score low on neuroticism. These problems in emotional regulation can diminish the ability of a person scoring high on neuroticism to think clearly, make decisions, and cope effectively with stress. Lacking contentment in one's life achievements can correlate with high neuroticism scores and increase one's likelihood of falling into clinical depression. Moreover, individuals high in neuroticism tend to experience more negative life events, but neuroticism also changes in response to positive and negative life experiences. Also, individuals with higher levels of neuroticism tend to have worse psychological well-being. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1284664 | 14,392 |
1,834,291 | Once transcription and/or translation has completed in the droplets, emulsion will be broken by successive steps of removing mineral oil and surfactants to allow for subsequent selection. At this stage, it is crucial to have a method to ‘track’ each gene products to the encoding gene as they become free floating in a heterogeneous population of molecules. There are three major approaches to track down each phenotype to its genotype. The first method is to attach each DNA molecule with a biotin group and an additional coding sequence for streptavidin (STABLE display). All the newly formed proteins/peptides will be in fusion with streptavidin molecules and bind to their biotinylated coding sequence. An improved version attached two biotin molecules to the ends of a DNA molecule to increase the avidity between DNA molecule and streptavidin-fused peptides, and used a low GC content synthetic streptavidin gene to increase efficiency and specificity during PCR amplification. The second method is to covalently link DNA and protein. Two strategies have been demonstrated. The first is to form M.HaeIII fusion proteins. Each expressed protein/polypeptide will be in fusion with Hae III DNA methyltransferase domain, which is able to bind covalently to DNA fragments containing the sequence 5′-GGC*-3′, where C* is 5-fluoro-2 deoxycytidine. The second strategy is to use monomeric mutant of VirD2 enzyme. When a protein/peptide is expressed in fusion with Agrobacterium protein VirD2, it will bind to its DNA coding sequence that has a single-stranded overhang comprising VirD2 T-border recognition sequences. The third method is to link phenotype and genotype via beads. The beads used will be coated with streptavidin to allow for the binding of biotinylated DNA, in addition, the beads will also display cognate binding partner to the affinity tag that will be expressed in fusion with the protein/peptide. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=15991162 | 1,833,242 |
836,391 | Nanoelectronics for biology and medicine. Lieber demonstrated the first direct electrical detection of proteins, selective electrical sensing of individual viruses and multiplexed detection of cancer marker proteins and tumor enzyme activity. More recently, Lieber demonstrated a general approach to overcome the Debye screening that makes these measurements challenging in physiological conditions, overcoming the limitations of sensing with silicon nanowire field-effect devices and opening the way to their use in diagnostic healthcare applications. Lieber has also developed nanoelectronic devices for cell/tissue electrophysiology, showing that electrical activity and action potential propagation can be recorded from cultured cardiac cells with high resolution. Most recently, Lieber realized 3D nanoscale transistors in which the active transistor is separated from the connections to the outside world. His nanotechnology-enabled 3D cellular probes have shown point-like resolution in detection of single-molecules, intracellular function and even photons. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=5890897 | 835,942 |
1,880,873 | Since 2010 OSHA has been working for rule making requiring national Accredited Crane Operator Certification. A November 9, 2017 deadline was extended for a year over concerns of “certifying by capacity” and if certification would be equivalent to qualification. Certifying by capacity has been an area of concern since 2013. On November 10, 2018, the final rule will take effect without the capacity requirement. OSHA has determined that industry concerns that capacity is not included in crane training, the rated operating capacity (ROC) is not a determining factor of a crane operator’s skill and experience, and the cost affecting approximately 117,130 crane operators would be $1.6 million annually. OSHA estimates a one-time industry savings of $25.5 million. The employer requirement to determine competency, that was taken out in 2014, is reversed and made permanent, requiring every new hire to be evaluated on site as well as having their accredited certification. This is seen as a draw-back to mobile crane operator "portable” certification" since anytime an operator changes jobs he or she will be treated as a new-hire trainee because an employer will have to assess different skills than the existing certification tests including: Inspecting the equipment, assessing unstable loads, hoisting loads of irregular size, operation from a barge, personnel hoisting, rigging the load, leveling the crane, hoisting in tight spaces, making judgments about wind speed and other environmental factors, performing multiple crane lifts, traveling with or without a load, operating near power lines, hoisting light loads, and hoisting blind picks where the operator cannot see the load. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=58962088 | 1,879,792 |
636,222 | Here "N" is the number of "x" atoms per volume, λ the electron escape depth, θ the analyzer angle, "T" the transmission of the analyzer, "I(t)" the electron excitation flux at depth "t", dΩ the solid angle, and δt is the thickness of the layer being probed. Encompassed in these terms, especially the Auger yield, which is related to the transition probability, is the quantum mechanical overlap of the initial and final state wave functions. Precise expressions for the transition probability, based on first-order perturbation Hamiltonians, can be found in Thompson and Baker. Often, all of these terms are not known, so most analyses compare measured yields with external standards of known composition. Ratios of the acquired data to standards can eliminate common terms, especially experimental setup characteristics and material parameters, and can be used to determine element composition. Comparison techniques work best for samples of homogeneous binary materials or uniform surface layers, while elemental identification is best obtained from comparison of pure samples. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=36835 | 635,883 |
1,412,952 | In 1995, Wilson published his landmark paper, "Classifier fitness based on accuracy" in which he introduced the classifier system XCS. XCS took the simplified architecture of ZCS and added an accuracy-based fitness, a niche GA (acting in the action set [A]), an explicit generalization mechanism called "subsumption", and an adaptation of the Q-Learning credit assignment. XCS was popularized by its ability to reach optimal performance while evolving accurate and maximally general classifiers as well as its impressive problem flexibility (able to perform both reinforcement learning and supervised learning). XCS later became the best known and most studied LCS algorithm and defined a new family of "accuracy-based LCS". ZCS alternatively became synonymous with "strength-based LCS". XCS is also important, because it successfully bridged the gap between LCS and the field of reinforcement learning. Following the success of XCS, LCS were later described as reinforcement learning systems endowed with a generalization capability. Reinforcement learning typically seeks to learn a value function that maps out a complete representation of the state/action space. Similarly, the design of XCS drives it to form an all-inclusive and accurate representation of the problem space (i.e. a "complete map") rather than focusing on high payoff niches in the environment (as was the case with strength-based LCS). Conceptually, complete maps don't only capture what you should do, or what is correct, but also what you shouldn't do, or what's incorrect. Differently, most strength-based LCSs, or exclusively supervised learning LCSs seek a rule set of efficient generalizations in the form of a "best action map" (or a "partial map"). Comparisons between strength vs. accuracy-based fitness and complete vs. best action maps have since been examined in greater detail. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=854461 | 1,412,157 |
567,348 | A new generation of acoustic levitators employing a large number of small individual piezoelectric-transducers have recently become more common. The first of these levitators was a single-axis standing wave levitator called the TinyLev. The key differences from the Langevin Horn were the use of sources from both top and bottom (rather than a source and a reflector) and the use of a large number of small transducers with parallel excitation, rather than a single piezoelectric element. The use of two opposing travelling waves, as opposed to a single source and a reflector, meant that levitation was still possible even when the distance between the top and bottom was not a precise multiple of the wavelength. This led to a more robust system which does not require any tuning before operation. The use of multiple small sources was initially designed as a cost saving measure, but also opened the door for phased array levitation, discussed below. The use of 3D printed components for the frame which positions and focuses the transducers and Arduinos as signal generators also significantly reduced the cost whilst increasing the accessibility, The reduction in cost was particularly important as a principal aim of this device was the democratisation of the technology. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=6101054 | 567,058 |
357,545 | The gradual development of the Hindu–Arabic numeral system independently devised the place-value concept and positional notation, which combined the simpler methods for computations with a decimal base, and the use of a digit representing 0. This allowed the system to consistently represent both large and small integers—an approach which eventually replaced all other systems. In the early the Indian mathematician Aryabhata incorporated an existing version of this system in his work, and experimented with different notations. In the 7th century, Brahmagupta established the use of 0 as a separate number, and determined the results for multiplication, division, addition and subtraction of zero and all other numbers—except for the result of division by zero. His contemporary, the Syriac bishop Severus Sebokht (650 AD) said, "Indians possess a method of calculation that no word can praise enough. Their rational system of mathematics, or of their method of calculation. I mean the system using nine symbols." The Arabs also learned this new method and called it "hesab". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3118 | 357,359 |
1,964,677 | Bersuker's contributions to the JTE and PJTE theory with applications to physical and chemical phenomena are reflected in his several monographs (some of them written and published with the assistance and involvement of other authors) and major reviews on this subject (see the latest in). First published in 1961-1962, his contributions to the theory of the JTE predicted the tunneling splitting of the vibronic energy levels of the systems with the JTE, later confirmed experimentally. The splitting is due to the tunneling transitions between the equivalent wells on the multiminimum adiabatic potential energy surface produced by this effect. In 1976, "The phenomenon of tunneling splitting of energy levels of polyatomic systems in the state of electronic degeneracy" was qualified as a scientific discovery and registered in the State Register of the USSR (Diploma No. 202). In addition, Bersuker is known for revealing the significance of the PJTE and showing that it may take place at any energy gaps between entangled electronic states. Most important, he proved that "the JTE and PJTE are the only sources of structural instability and spontaneous symmetry breaking" (SSB) in polyatomic systems. Thus, according to Bersuker, if a polyatomic system has broken symmetry properties, undoubtedly, they are of JTE or PJTE origin. This conclusion elevates the two effects from their assumed earlier rare particular features to general tools for exploring molecular and solid-state properties. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=68664805 | 1,963,548 |
2,053,527 | Barrett’s career in research has focused primarily on neglected tropical diseases, particularly the trypanosomiases and leishmaniases. From Cambridge, he spent several years in Bordeaux on a Royal Society fellowship before returning to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. In 1996 he moved to Glasgow to set up his own laboratory. He has been involved in numerous projects seeking new drugs to treat these diseases and was director of new drug discovery at the Consortium of Parasitic Drug Development, a consortium centred at the University of North Carolina and funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation between 2003-2012. The group took pafuramidine, a new orally available drug for human African trypanosomiasis, through phase III clinical trials, although unanticipated toxicity issues halted development. He established the Scottish Metabolomics facility at the University of Glasgow that evolved into Glasgow Polyomics and his own research makes extensive use of genomics and metabolomics to identify drug modes of action and the mechanisms by which pathogens become resistant to drugs. To date, his group has identified new modes of action and resistance mechanisms to more than ten novel compounds that kill protozoa. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=68470490 | 2,052,345 |
109,052 | EPA's report included the analysis of 12 all-electric passengers cars and 10 plug-in hybrids available in the market as model year 2014. For purposes of an accurate estimation of emissions, the analysis took into consideration the differences in operation between those PHEVs like the Chevrolet Volt that can operate in all-electric mode without using gasoline, and those that operate in a blended mode like the Toyota Prius PHV, which uses both energy stored in the battery and energy from the gasoline tank to propel the vehicle, but that can deliver substantial all-electric driving in blended mode. In addition, since the all-electric range of plug-in hybrids depends on the size of the battery pack, the analysis introduced a utility factor as a projection, on average, of the percentage of miles that will be driven using electricity (in electric only and blended modes) by an average driver. The following table shows the overall EV/hybrid fuel economy expressed in terms of miles per gallon gasoline equivalent (mpg-e) and the utility factor for the ten MY2014 plug-in hybrids available in the U.S. market. The study used the utility factor (since in pure EV mode there are no tailpipe emissions) and the EPA best estimate of the tailpipe emissions produced by these vehicles in real world city and highway operation based on the EPA 5-cycle label methodology, using a weighted 55% city/45% highway driving. The results are shown in the following table. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1611987 | 109,007 |
1,407,703 | The model is based on the assumption that phase separation during decompression is random, yet highly probable, in body tissue, and that a bubble will continue to grow by acquiring gas from adjacent saturated tissue, at a rate depending on the local free/dissolved concentration gradient. Gas exchange mechanisms are fairly well understood in comparison with nucleation and stabilization mechanisms, which are computationally uncertainly defined. Nevertheless there is an opinion among some decompression researchers that the existing practices and studies on bubbles and nuclei provide useful information on bubble growth and elimination processes and the time scales involved. Wienke considers that the consistency between these practices and the underlying physical principles suggest directions for decompression modelling for algorithms beyond parameter fitting and extrapolation. He considers that the RGBM implements the theoretical model in these aspects and also supports the efficacy of recently developed safe diving practice due to its dual phase mechanics. These include: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3510328 | 1,406,913 |
728,205 | The works of Balint, Jaques,) and Bion are turning points in the formative years of psychosociology. Commonly cited authors in France include Amado, Barus-Michel, Dubost, Enriquez, Lévy, Gaujelac, and Giust-Desprairies. Different schools of thought and practice include Mendel's action research framed in a 'sociopsychoanalytic' perspective and Dejours's psychodynamics of work, with its emphasis on work-induced suffering and defence mechanisms. Lapassade and Lourau's 'socianalytic' interventions focus rather on institutions viewed as systems that dismantle and recompose norms and rules of social interaction over time, a perspective that builds on the principles of institutional analysis and psychotherapy. and Martin's work on group psychoanalysis and theory of the collective 'skin-ego' is generally considered as the most faithful to the Freudian tradition. Key differences between these schools and the methods they use stem from the weight they assign to the analyst's expertise in making sense of group behaviour and views and also the social aspects of group behaviour and affect. Another issue is the extent to which the intervention is critical of broader institutional and social systems. The use of psychoanalytic concepts and the relative weight of effort dedicated to research, training and action also vary. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2819542 | 727,821 |
1,808,371 | The thallus is the vegetative body of a lichen that contains the lichen mycobiont (fungus) and the photobiont (algae and/or cyanobacteria). In "P. acicularis", the primary thallus ("thallus horizontalis") is spread out like a granular crust on the surface of its substrate. It is light green when young, but becomes gray in age or when dry. The pseudopodetia (upright stalk-like extensions of the thallus made of vegetative tissue) range from high, and are about 1 mm thick; they grow in dense clusters. Most pseudopodetia are either unbranched or forked into two branches, with the stalks curved so as to appear as if combed; less frequently, they are erect like pins, and up to tall. Some specimens are highly branched in the upper part of the pseudopodetia, causing them to bear some resemblance to "P. robustus", although this morphology is uncommon. Internally, the pseudopodetia are solid when young, becoming hollow with age, and are composed of long, thin, highly gelatinized hyphae with narrow cavities about 0.5 μm wide. The lower part of older pseudopodetia becomes blackened internally. The algal layer is not continuous—contrasting with lichen species that have thalli that stratify into discrete tissue types, including a photobiont layer—and occurs with the mycobiont in the form of granules. These granules may be absent from some parts of the thallus surface. Pycnidia (flask-like structures, resembling perithecia, in which conidia are produced) occur in the tips of small sterile pseudopodetia or in the tips of small lateral branches of older pseudopodetia. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30271971 | 1,807,350 |
172,859 | The first Apple II computers went on sale on June 10, 1977 with a MOS Technology 6502 (later Synertek) microprocessor running at 1.023 MHz, 4 KB of RAM, an audio cassette interface for loading programs and storing data, and the Integer BASIC programming language built into the ROMs. The video controller displayed 40 columns by 24 lines of monochrome, upper-case-only (the original character set matches ASCII characters 0x20 to 0x5F) text on the screen, with NTSC composite video output suitable for display on a TV monitor, or on a regular TV set by way of a separate RF modulator. The original retail price of the computer was US$1298(with 4 KB of RAM) and US$2638 (with the maximum 48 KB of RAM). To reflect the computer's color graphics capability, the Apple logo on the casing was represented using rainbow stripes, which remained a part of Apple's corporate logo until early 1998. The earliest Apple IIs were assembled in Silicon Valley, and later in Texas; printed circuit boards were manufactured in Ireland and Singapore. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2116 | 172,768 |
941,950 | Florida Institute of Technology was founded in 1958 as Brevard Engineering College to support NASA by Dr. Jerome P. Keuper, who became the first president. The first concept for the school was developed under the name Brevard Engineering Institute. Classes were originally held at the Melbourne Municipal Airport in buildings formerly used by the Naval Air Station Melbourne. In 1961, the university moved to its current location in Melbourne, Florida. During the 1960s additional classroom and laboratory buildings, a library (formally dedicated on 23 January 1965), the Denius Student Center, Hedgecock Gymnasium, Gleason Auditorium and several dormitories were constructed. In 1961, the first graduate received an associate degree. The university was accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools in 1964 and officially changed its name to Florida Institute of Technology in 1966. Also in 1966, Dr. Jack Morelock founded the Department of Oceanography. In 1967, the School of Aeronautics was created. Defense scientists and NASA would meet with students recruiting for the space program. In 1969, the Panther Battalion Army ROTC program was formed. In 1970, the college merged with Aerospace Technical Institute to form the School of Aeronautics. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=760169 | 941,448 |
1,990,015 | Methylcellulose (MC) is a material with well-defined sol-gel transitions in the optimal range of temperatures. MC gelation occurs because of an increase in intra- and inter-molecular hydrophobic interactions as the temperature increases. The sol-gel transition is governed by the lower critical solution temperature (LCST), which is the temperature at which the elastic modulus equals the viscous modulus. The LCST must not exceed physiological temperature (37 °C) if the scaffold is to gel upon implantation, creating a minimally invasive delivery. Following implantation into a TBI lesion cavity or peripheral nerve guidance conduit, MC elicits a minimal inflammatory response. It is also very important for minimally invasive delivery that the MC solution has a viscosity at temperatures below its LCST, which allows it to be injected through a small gauge needle for implantation in "in vivo" applications. MC has been successfully used as a delivery agent for intra-optical and oral pharmaceutical therapies. Some disadvantages of MC include its limited propensity for protein adsorption and neuronal cellular adhesion making it a non-bioactive hydrogel. Due to these disadvantages, use of MC in neural tissue regeneration requires attaching a biologically active group onto the polymer backbone in order to enhance cell adhesion. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11088829 | 1,988,873 |
1,202,778 | The study of "Symbiodinium" biology is driven largely by a desire to understand global coral reef decline. A chief mechanism for widespread reef degradation has been stress-induced coral bleaching caused by unusually high seawater temperature. Bleaching is the disassociation of the coral and the symbiont and/or loss of chlorophyll within the alga, resulting in a precipitous loss in the animal's pigmentation. Many "Symbiodinium"-cnidarian associations are affected by sustained elevation of sea surface temperatures, but may also result from exposure to high irradiance levels (including UVR), extreme low temperatures, low salinity and other factors. The bleached state is associated with decreased host calcification, increased disease susceptibility and, if prolonged, partial or total mortality. The magnitude of mortality from a single bleaching event can be global in scale as it was in 2015. These episodes are predicted to become more common and severe as temperatures worldwide continue to rise. The physiology of a resident "Symbiodinium" species often regulates the bleaching susceptibility of a coral. Therefore, a significant amount of research has focused on characterizing the physiological basis of thermal tolerance and in identifying the ecology and distribution of thermally tolerant symbiont species. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11375187 | 1,202,135 |
30,561 | Plans called for Hubble to be serviced in February 2005, but the "Columbia" disaster in 2003, in which the orbiter disintegrated on re-entry into the atmosphere, had wide-ranging effects to the Hubble program and other NASA missions. NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe decided all future shuttle missions had to be able to reach the safe haven of the International Space Station should in-flight problems develop. As no shuttles were capable of reaching both HST and the space station during the same mission, future crewed service missions were canceled. This decision was criticised by numerous astronomers who felt Hubble was valuable enough to merit the human risk. HST's planned successor, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), by 2004 was not expected to launch until at least 2011. JWST was eventually launched in December 2021. A gap in space-observing capabilities between a decommissioning of Hubble and the commissioning of a successor was of major concern to many astronomers, given the significant scientific impact of HST. The consideration that JWST will not be located in low Earth orbit, and therefore cannot be easily upgraded or repaired in the event of an early failure, only made concerns more acute. On the other hand, NASA officials were concerned that continuing to service Hubble would consume funds from other programs and delay the JWST. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=40203 | 30,551 |
525,428 | Peebles was born on April 25, 1935 in St. Vital in present-day Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, the son of Ada Marion (Green), a homemaker, and Andrew Charles Peebles, who worked for the Winnipeg Grain Exchange. He completed his bachelor of science at the University of Manitoba. He then went on to pursue graduate studies at Princeton University, where he received his PhD in physics in 1962, completing a doctoral dissertation titled "Observational Tests and Theoretical Problems Relating to the durateston Conjecture That the Strength of the Electromagnetic Interaction May Be Variable" under the supervision of Robert Dicke. He remained at Princeton for his whole career. Peebles was a Member in the School of Natural Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study during the academic year 1977–78; he made subsequent visits during 1990–91 and 1998–99. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=864778 | 525,155 |
1,055,313 | Case 8. This case illustrates that children with Panayiotopoulos syndrome may be misdiagnosed and treated for encephalitis. This boy had a first seizure at age 4 years and 2 months. Whilst sleeping in his mother's lap, he suddenly vomited. Then his eyes stared into the space upwards, his head deviated to the right, his face turned green and he became incontinent of urine and faeces. The seizure lasted for 15 min and there were no convulsions. Abdominal ultrasound performed because of the vomiting was normal. A second seizure occurred 16 months later at age 5 years and 6 months. At around 10 in the morning he walked into lounge looking pale and irritable. He fell to the floor and developed writhing movements, shaking arms and legs, hypersalivation and incontinence of urine. Convulsions stopped 15 min later with rectal diazepam. He recovered but remained very sleepy. He was febrile ~38.5 °C. He was treated in a major teaching hospital with triple therapy for suspected encephalitis but in the third day after admission this was stopped and he was discharged home. Brain CT scan, EEG and CSF were normal. Subsequent EEGs showed infrequent occipital and frontal spikes. At follow-up aged 7, he was normal and had experienced no further seizures. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19032885 | 1,054,765 |
1,405,848 | Occludin is an enzyme () that oxidizes NADH. It was first identified in epithelial cells as a 65 kDa integral plasma-membrane protein localized at the tight junctions. Together with Claudins, and zonula occludens-1 (ZO-1), occludin has been considered a staple of tight junctions, and although it was shown to regulate the formation, maintenance, and function of tight junctions, its precise mechanism of action remained elusive and most of its actions were initially attributed to conformational changes following selective phosphorylation, and its redox-sensitive dimerization. However, mounting evidence demonstrated that occludin is not only present in epithelial/endothelial cells, but is also expressed in large quantities in cells that do not have tight junctions but have very active metabolism: pericytes, neurons and astrocytes, oligodendrocytes, dendritic cells, monocytes/macrophages lymphocytes, and myocardium. Recent work, using molecular modeling, supported by biochemical and live-cell experiments in human cells demonstrated that occludin is a NADH oxidase that influences critical aspects of cell metabolism like glucose uptake, ATP production and gene expression. Furthermore, manipulation of occludin content in human cells is capable of influencing the expression of glucose transporters, and the activation of transcription factors like NFkB, and histone deacetylases like sirtuins, which proved capable of diminishing HIV replication rates in infected human macrophages under laboratory conditions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=7027124 | 1,405,058 |
275,555 | From 1967 to 1993, almost all paclitaxel produced was derived from bark of the Pacific yew, "Taxus brevifolia", the harvesting of which kills the tree in the process. The processes used were descendants of the original isolation method of Monroe Wall and Mansukh Wani; by 1987, the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) had contracted Hauser Chemical Research of Boulder, Colorado, to handle bark on the scale needed for phase II and III trials. While both the size of the wild population of the Pacific yew and the magnitude of the eventual demand for paclitaxel were uncertain, it was clear that an alternative, sustainable source of the natural product would be needed. Initial attempts to broaden its sourcing used needles from the tree, or material from other related "Taxus" species, including cultivated ones, but these attempts were challenged by the relatively low and often highly variable yields obtained. Early in the 1990s, coincident with increased sensitivity to the ecology of the forests of the Pacific Northwest, paclitaxel was successfully extracted on a clinically useful scale from these sources. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=36796 | 275,406 |
1,982,899 | The Alarmist (2021) is Lowe's memoir that was originally to be called "Atmosphere" until he accepted the advice of his publishers to change it to "Alarmist" because he realised that was what he had become -"an alarmist in the sense of sounding the alarm about a very real threat to the Earth's biosphere, to the Earth's atmosphere." The book received many favourable reviews that backgrounded Lowe's life and struggles and eventual triumphs. Joel MacManus explored his difficult upbringing, the "brutally demanding work" under Charles Keeling, the breakdown in his marriage and the ongoing conflicts with climate change deniers, quoting Lowe as saying his story is one of "elation and despair", but that he is "optimistic because of his work as a mentor for youth-change climate action groups such as Fridays for Future". Jim Eagles said the book gives examples of Lowe's ingenuity as a scientist, "using what we like to think of as typical Kiwi ingenuity to conduct innovative experiments on the cheap: something well-illustrated by the cover photo of a young Lowe standing on the exposed edge of Wellington's Baring Head in the teeth of a howling gale to collect samples of air fresh from the Southern Ocean..."[with]"... a fascinating cast of characters, too: a few narrow-minded administrators and colleagues with their own agendas who considered climate research unimportant and a lot of dedicated scientists around the world seeking to find out what is happening to Earth’s climate." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=65653530 | 1,981,760 |
1,741,601 | There are two types of approach to study the alteration of D/H ratios of kerogen during catagenesis: 1)laboratory incubation of organic matter that enables mechanistic study with controlled experiments. 2)natural sample measurement that provides information of combined effects over geological timescales. The complex composition and chemistry of kerogen complicates the results. Nevertheless, most research on hydrogen isotopes of kerogen show D enrichment with increasing maturity. Type II kerogen(marine derived) from New Albany Shale is reported to have δD rise from −120‰ to −70‰ as vitrinite reflectance increase from 0.3% to 1.5%. Two main mechanisms have been proposed for enrichment. One of them is kinetic fractionation during hydrocarbon generation while the other is isotopic exchange with surrounding water. Anhydrous incubation experiments have shown that the products are generally more depleted in D than their precursors, causing enrichment in residual kerogen. Schimmelmann et al. studied the relationship between terrestrially-derived oil and their source rock kerogens from four Australian Basins. They found that on average the oil is depleted to corresponding kerogen by 23‰. Hydrous incubation experiments suggest that 36–79% of bulk organic hydrogen may come from water at moderate maturity. While still under debate, it appears likely that incorporation of water hydrogen isotopes is the more dominant process for kerogen D- enrichment during catagenesis. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=50525886 | 1,740,617 |
317,465 | Invasive infection by "L. monocytogenes" causes the disease listeriosis. When the infection is not invasive, any illness as a consequence of infection is termed febrile gastroenteritis. The manifestations of listeriosis include sepsis, meningitis (or meningoencephalitis), encephalitis, corneal ulcer, pneumonia, myocarditis, and intrauterine or cervical infections in pregnant women, which may result in spontaneous abortion (second to third trimester) or stillbirth. Surviving neonates of fetomaternal listeriosis may suffer granulomatosis infantiseptica — pyogenic granulomas distributed over the whole body — and may suffer from physical retardation. Influenza-like symptoms, including persistent fever, usually precede the onset of the aforementioned disorders. Gastrointestinal symptoms, such as nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, may precede more serious forms of listeriosis or may be the only symptoms expressed. Gastrointestinal symptoms were epidemiologically associated with use of antacids or cimetidine. The onset time to serious forms of listeriosis is unknown, but may range from a few days to 3 weeks. The onset time to gastrointestinal symptoms is unknown, but probably exceeds 12 hours. An early study suggested that "L. monocytogenes" is unique among Gram-positive bacteria in that it might possess lipopolysaccharide, which serves as an endotoxin. Later, it was found to not be a true endotoxin. "Listeria" cell walls consistently contain lipoteichoic acids, in which a glycolipid moiety, such as a galactosyl-glucosyl-diglyceride, is covalently linked to the terminal phosphomonoester of the teichoic acid. This lipid region anchors the polymer chain to the cytoplasmic membrane. These lipoteichoic acids resemble the lipopolysaccharides of Gram-negative bacteria in both structure and function, being the only amphipathic polymers at the cell surface. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=465920 | 317,295 |
866,419 | Although, the use of oil as a binding agent can be traced to the 12th century, innovations in its handling and manipulation define the era. Egg tempera was the dominant medium until the 1430s, and while it produces both bright and light colours, it dries quickly and is a difficult medium in which to achieve naturalistic textures or deep shadows. Oil allows smooth, translucent surfaces and can be applied in a range of thicknesses, from fine lines to thick broad strokes. It dries slowly and is easily manipulated while still wet. These characteristics allowed more time to add subtle detail and enable wet-on-wet techniques. Smooth transitions of colour are possible because portions of the intermediary layers of paint can be wiped or removed as the paint dries. Oil enables differentiation among degrees of reflective light, from shadow to bright beams, and minute depictions of light effects through the use of transparent glazes. This new freedom in controlling light effects gave rise to more precise and realistic depictions of surface textures; van Eyck and van der Weyden typically show light falling on surfaces such as jewellery, wooden floors, textiles and household objects. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=799881 | 865,959 |
118,578 | In 1913 Niels Bohr had proposed what is now called the Bohr model of the atom, but despite this it remained a mystery as to why electrons do not fall into their nuclei. According to classical ideas, the fact that an accelerating charge loses energy by radiating implied that an electron should spiral into the nucleus and that atoms should not be stable. This problem of classical mechanics was nicely summarized by James Hopwood Jeans in 1915: "There would be a very real difficulty in supposing that the (force) law held down to the zero values of . For the forces between two charges at zero distance would be infinite; we should have charges of opposite sign continually rushing together and, when once together, no force would tend to shrink into nothing or to diminish indefinitely in size." The resolution to this puzzle came in 1926 with Schrödinger's famous equation. This equation explained the new, non-classical fact that an electron confined to be close to a nucleus would necessarily have a large kinetic energy so that the minimum total energy (kinetic plus potential) actually occurs at some positive separation rather than at zero separation; in other words, zero-point energy is essential for atomic stability. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=84400 | 118,532 |
308,767 | A limit case has been reached in Bolivia, with anaerobic digestion in temperature working conditions of less than 10 °C. The anaerobic process is very slow, taking more than three times the normal mesophilic time process. In experimental work at University of Alaska Fairbanks, a 1,000-litre digester using psychrophiles harvested from "mud from a frozen lake in Alaska" has produced 200–300 litres of methane per day, about 20 to 30% of the output from digesters in warmer climates. Mesophilic species outnumber thermophiles, and they are also more tolerant to changes in environmental conditions than thermophiles. Mesophilic systems are, therefore, considered to be more stable than thermophilic digestion systems. In contrast, while thermophilic digestion systems are considered less stable, their energy input is higher, with more biogas being removed from the organic matter in an equal amount of time. The increased temperatures facilitate faster reaction rates, and thus faster gas yields. Operation at higher temperatures facilitates greater pathogen reduction of the digestate. In countries where legislation, such as the Animal By-Products Regulations in the European Union, requires digestate to meet certain levels of pathogen reduction there may be a benefit to using thermophilic temperatures instead of mesophilic. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1545608 | 308,602 |
1,947,204 | On the 2012-2016 Olympic cycle, Hernandez had great performances. In 2014 along with his teammate Tamara Vega they won the 2nd World Cup Mixed Relays event in front of Ireland and Hungary. Later that year, Hernandez had his revenge at the Central American and Caribbean Championships where he won 2 gold medals. Hernández qualified for the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro by participating in the 2015 Toronto Pan American Games, where he won a silver medal. He trained in two different locations, Europe and the United States of America. During this training process, he suffered an injury, which threatened with his participation in the summer event. Before the Olympics began, Ismael Hernández was ranked in the 16th position in the world. By the end of the Olympic Games, Ismael Hernández earned the fifth medal for the Mexican Olympic Team in Rio 2016 and the first medal for Mexico in the modern pentathlon. The first event was not the best one for Hernández after finishing in 19th place. But after the swimming event was finished, Ismael climbed to 11th place. Thanks to the show jumping event he moved to 6th place. In the final event, which consisted on a three kilometer run and several shooting stations, Hernández obtained 626 points. After the five events finished, Hernández had 1468 points, just 4 points behind the Ukrainian Pavlo Tymoshchenko. This earned him the bronze medal. He was the only Mexican to win medals in the three main events that are part of the Olympic Cycle. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=51377077 | 1,946,091 |
515,293 | KR seems to have many different roles, some of which can be viewed as temporary or transient (i.e. performance effects). Three of these roles include: 1) motivation, 2) associative function, and 3) guidance. The motivational influence can increase the effort and interest of the performer in the task as well as maintain this interest once KR is removed. Though important to create interest in the task for performance and learning purposes, however the extent to which it affects learning is unknown. The associative function of KR is likely to be involved in the formation of associations between stimulus and response (i.e., Law of Effect). However, this additional effect is not able to account for findings in transfer tasks manipulating the relative frequency of KR; specifically, decreasing relative frequency results in enhanced learning. For an alternate discussion on how KR may calibrate the motor system to the outside world (see schema theory in motor program). The guidance role of KR is likely the most influential to learning as both internal and external sources of feedback play a guiding role in performance of a motor task. As the performer is informed of errors in task performance, the discrepancy can be used to continually improve performance in following trials. However, the "guidance hypothesis" postulates that provision of too much external, augmented feedback (e.g., KR) during practice may cause the learner to develop a harmful dependency on this source of feedback. This may lead to superior performance during practice but poor performance at transfer – an indication of poor motor learning. Additionally, it implies that, as the performer improves, the conditions of KR must be adapted according to the performer’s skill and difficulty of the task in order to maximize learning (see challenge point framework). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=487908 | 515,027 |
1,903,396 | P22phox is a transmembrane protein that contains 195 amino acids and that has a molecular mass of 22.0 kDa. It associates with NOX2 and with NOX1, NOX3 and NOX4 in a 1:1 complex and has a ubiquitous expression. The main physiological role of p22phox is to contribute to the maturation and the stabilization of the heterodimer that it forms with NOX enzymes (NOX1–4) in order to produce reactive oxygen species (ROS). Association of NOXs with p22phox in the late endoplasmic reticulum seems to be a prerequisite for the localization of the heterodimer to specific membrane compartments such as perinuclear vesicles for NOX4 and plasma membranes in the case of NOX1, 2 and 3. The importance of some sequences of p22phox for its interaction with NOXs has been highlighted. The hydropathic profile of p22phox deduced from the gene sequence is compatible with at least two (possibly three or four) transmembrane passages. However, the most probable are the two or four transmembrane-spanning models because they are compatible with a cytosolic location of both the N- and the C-terminal tail of p22phox. A polyproline-rich region (PRR) (K149 to E162 sequence) in the C-terminus of p22phox contains a consensus motif PxxP that interacts with the SH3 (SRC homology 3) domains of p47phox during NADPH oxidase assembly in phagocytes. This PRR-rich sequence also interacts with the cytosolic organizer NOXO1 homologs to p47phox expressed in nonphagocytic cells, during the activation of NADPH oxidases (NOX1, NOX2 and NOX3), except for NOX4, which is constitutively expressed. Phosphorylation of Thr147 close to the PRR region of p22phox enhances NADPH oxidase activity by promoting p47phox binding in phagocytes. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14416416 | 1,902,303 |
1,469,936 | The stems and leaves are covered with silvery brown or golden hairs which are either peltate or scaly. "Shepherdia" and "Hippophae" are unisexual, the female and male borne on different plants (dioecious). There are no petals, the perianth comprising a single whorl of two to eight fused sepals. In the male flower the receptacle is often flat, while in the bisexual and female flowers it is tubular, there are four to eight stamens with free filaments and bilocular anthers. The ovary is superior with one carpel containing a single erect anatropous ovule. The style is long and bears a single stigma. The fruit is an achene or a drupe like structure enclosed by the thickened lower part of the persistent calyx. It contains a single seed with little or no endosperm and a straight embryo with thick fleshy cotyledons. A number of species are grown as ornamental shrubs, notably "Elaeagnus angustifolia" (oleaster), "Elaeagnus pungens", "Elaeagnus umbellata" and "Elaeagnus macrophylla", which are mainly grown as deciduous or evergreen shrubs for their attractive foliage and "Hippophae rhamnoides" (sea buckthorn) for its bright orange berries in autumn and winter. The fruits of a number of species are edible, for example those of "Shepherdia argentea" (silver buffalo berry). Its fruits are used as jelly and are also eaten dried with sugar in various parts of the United States of America and Canada. The berries of "Shepherdia canadensis" (russet buffalo berry) when dried or smoked are used as food by Eskimos. The berries of "Hippophae rhamnoides" are made into a sauce in France and into jelly elsewhere. The wood of this species is fine-grained and is used for turnery. The fruit of the Japanese shrub "Elaeagnus multiflora" (cherry elaeagnus) are used as preserves and are used in alcoholic beverage. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=194288 | 1,469,111 |
366,381 | To replace the increasingly obsolete de Havilland Mosquito as a night fighter, the Meteor was adapted to serve in the role as an interim aircraft. Gloster had initially proposed a night fighter design to meet the Air Ministry specification for the Mosquito replacement, based on the two seater trainer variant of the Meteor, with the pilot in the front seat and the navigator in the rear. Once accepted however, work on the project was swiftly transferred to Armstrong Whitworth to perform both the detailed design process and production of the type; the first prototype flew on 31 May 1950. Although based on the T.7 twin seater, it used the fuselage and tail of the F.8, and the longer wings of the F.3. An extended nose contained the AI Mk 10 (the 1940s Westinghouse SCR-720) Air Intercept radar. As a consequence the 20 mm cannons were moved into the wings, outboard of the engines. A ventral fuel tank and wing mounted drop tanks completed the Armstrong Whitworth Meteor NF.11. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=42702 | 366,189 |
409,858 | Work of the American Operation Alsos teams, in November 1944, uncovered leads which took them to a company in Paris that handled rare earths and had been taken over by the "Auergesellschaft". This, combined with information gathered in the same month through an Alsos team in Strasbourg, confirmed that the Oranienburg plant was involved in the production of uranium and thorium metals. Since the plant was to be in the future Soviet zone of occupation and the Red Army's troops would get there before the Western Allies, General Leslie Groves, commander of the Manhattan Project, recommended to General George Marshall that the plant be destroyed by aerial bombardment, in order to deny its uranium production equipment to the Soviets. On 15 March 1945, 612 B-17 Flying Fortress bombers of the Eighth Air Force dropped 1,506 tons of high-explosive and 178 tons of incendiary bombs on the plant. Riehl visited the site with the Soviets and said that the facility was mostly destroyed. Riehl also recalled long after the war that the Soviets knew precisely why the Americans had bombed the facility—the attack had been directed at them rather than the Germans. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1397318 | 409,656 |
1,378,922 | In the majority of lunar eclipses with which we are now familiar the moon does not seem completely to disappear – merely changing colour and assuming a tawny or coppery shade – yet in the descriptions of Aglaonice's eclipses there is no reference to any failures in which the moon was 'partially consumed' – rather the moon was 'completely devoured'. As Bicknell points out, had Aglaonice made her extravagant claim on occasions when the moon still remained partly visible, she would have excited in her (admittedly credulous) audience nothing but ridicule. Bicknell is extremely cautious in offering what is nonetheless a plausible explanation. He notes that, while an increase in particulate matter in the atmosphere as a result of major volcanic eruptions can result in short-term anomalous darkening of lunar eclipses, the dominant factor in regular, cyclical darkening is a combination of the influence of the 11-year solar cycle discovered by Danjon and expressed in the Danjon scale and 'long-term excursions (cycles) of solar activity' measurable over millennia. Study of the second (greater) cycle undertaken by J. A. Eddy reveals a 'Roman maximum', contributing to unusually dark lunar eclipses (Danjon number: 0) in the last two centuries before the Christian era – encompassing both the temporal 'window' during which Aglaonice could have been active and the time at which Plutarch wrote his accounts of her seeming sorcery. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=5342846 | 1,378,160 |
1,140,063 | Mass spectrometry imaging (MSI) is a technique used in mass spectrometry to visualize the spatial distribution of molecules, as biomarkers, metabolites, peptides or proteins by their molecular masses. After collecting a mass spectrum at one spot, the sample is moved to reach another region, and so on, until the entire sample is scanned. By choosing a peak in the resulting spectra that corresponds to the compound of interest, the MS data is used to map its distribution across the sample. This results in pictures of the spatially resolved distribution of a compound pixel by pixel. Each data set contains a veritable gallery of pictures because any peak in each spectrum can be spatially mapped. Despite the fact that MSI has been generally considered a qualitative method, the signal generated by this technique is proportional to the relative abundance of the analyte. Therefore, quantification is possible, when its challenges are overcome. Although widely used traditional methodologies like radiochemistry and immunohistochemistry achieve the same goal as MSI, they are limited in their abilities to analyze multiple samples at once, and can prove to be lacking if researchers do not have prior knowledge of the samples being studied. Most common ionization technologies in the field of MSI are DESI imaging, MALDI imaging and secondary ion mass spectrometry imaging (SIMS imaging). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=13535375 | 1,139,469 |
650,446 | Along the same lines, a 2021 study found intriguing results in an attempt to discern the mechanisms behind the established gender disparity. The researchers hypothesized that task characteristics, not only anatomical or social differences, could explain men’s advantage in mental rotation. In particular, the objects to be rotated were changed from the typical geometric or spherical shapes to male or female stereotyped objects, such as a tractor and a stroller, respectively. The results revealed significant gender differences only when male-stereotyped objects were used as rotational material. When female-stereotyped rotational material was used, men and women performed equally. This finding may explain underlying causes behind the usual disparate outcomes, in that the male ability to do somewhat better on MRT tests probably stems from the evolutionary applicability of spatial reasoning. Objects that aren't relevant to historical male gender roles, and are consequently generally unfamiliar to men, are much more difficult for men to conceptualize spatially than more familiar shapes. Likewise, other recent studies suggest that difference between Mental rotation cognition task are a consequence of procedure and artificiality of the stimuli. A 2017 study leveraged photographs and three-dimensional models, evaluating multiple approaches and stimuli. Results show that changing the stimuli can eliminate any male advantages found from the Vandenberg and Kuse test (1978). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4155247 | 650,105 |
1,715,473 | More recently, a "Gray Queen Hypothesis" has been posited which seeks to explain the same phenomena in a related way, but through the lenses of constructive neutral evolution. Constructive neutral evolution seeks to explain how complex systems can emerge through neutral transitions. This might involve the chance emergence of not-yet-necessary interactions (e.g. one protein gaining the capacity to bind to another it was previously unable to bind to) that enables an otherwise deleterious mutation to arise in the population but without a negative effect on the organism. But now, the organism is dependent on that interaction that emerged by chance. A new interaction has emerged in the system, and individuals who lose that interaction will be eliminated through purifying selection. The system overall has complexified, although the outcome is the same. The rise of interdependent microbial communities has been posited to be explainable through this mechanism. Initially, the loss of a gene dedicated to producing an important resource for the cell would be deleterious. However, a community of microbes might have an excess of that resource. For this reason, the presence of these interspecies microbial interactions enables an otherwise deleterious mutation (loss of a gene needed for generating an important resource) to be acquired but without a deleterious effect on the individual. Genetic drift then results in this trait (or the loss thereof) to spread into the population, and the population of the species in the community is now dependent on its community for survival. While the individual species has simplified, the complexity of the microbial community overall has risen due to the requirement for additional and symbiotic interactions to propagate the community as a whole. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=60576343 | 1,714,506 |
1,451,845 | In their widely-read 2010 publication, "Beyond the Indian Act: Restoring Aboriginal Property Rights", co-authors Thomas Flanagan, Christopher Alcantara and André Le Dressay, introduced the First Nations Property Ownership Initiative (FNPOI). The book, with a foreword by C.T. (Manny) Jules, was a finalist for the Donner Prize. According to an 28 August 2016 article by Sasha Boutilier in "Policy Options", they misrepresented the FNPOI in Canada, which Boutilier described as a "proposed piece of opt-in legislation that would have allowed First Nations to grant fee-simple interests to First Nations members". Boutilier said that their criticisms of the First Nations Land Management Act (FNLMA) which he calls a "quiet success", are "quite simply inaccurate", and that the authors, while acknowledging the FNLMA’s "effectiveness in reducing transaction costs", would leave "each First Nation on its own to develop its own system of property rights and failed "to provide technical assistance in the form of model land codes and zoning regulations." Boutlier says that these "criticisms ignore the First Nations Lands Advisory Board, in existence prior to 1996, and the First Nations Land Management Resource Centre, operating since 1999 and incorporated in 2004, which provide exactly the support Flanagan and his co-authors say is lacking. Indeed, the 1996 Framework Agreement specifically states that the role of the Lands Advisory Board and the Resource Centre is “developing model land codes, laws and land management systems” as well as “assisting First Nation[s] in developing and implementing” such laws and systems." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1725890 | 1,451,028 |
18,009 | The effects of psychostimulants include increases in heart rate, body temperature, and sweating; improvements in alertness, attention, and endurance; increases in pleasure produced by rewarding events; but at higher doses agitation, anxiety, or even loss of contact with reality. Drugs in this group can have a high addiction potential, due to their activating effects on the dopamine-mediated reward system in the brain. However some can also be useful, at lower doses, for treating attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and narcolepsy. An important differentiating factor is the onset and duration of action. Cocaine can take effect in seconds if it is injected or inhaled in free base form; the effects last from 5 to 90 minutes. This rapid and brief action makes its effects easily perceived and consequently gives it high addiction potential. Methylphenidate taken in pill form, in contrast, can take two hours to reach peak levels in the bloodstream, and depending on formulation the effects can last for up to 12 hours. These longer acting formulations have the benefit of reducing the potential for abuse, and improving adherence for treatment by using more convenient dosage regimens. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=48548 | 18,003 |
834,167 | The primary thermometer used throughout the "Challenger" expedition was the Miller–Casella thermometer, which contained two markers within a curved mercury tube to record the maximum and minimum temperature through which the instrument traveled. Several of these thermometers would be lowered at various depths for recording. However, this design assumed that the water closer to the surface of the ocean was always warmer than that below. During the voyage, "Challenger"s crew tested the reversing thermometer, which could measure temperature at specified depths. Afterwards, this type of thermometer was used extensively until the second half of the 20th century. After the return of the Challenger, C.W. Thomson asked Peter Tait (physicist) to solve a thorny and important question: to evaluate the error in the measurement of the temperature of deep waters caused by the high pressures to which the thermometers were subjected. Tait solved this question and continued his work with a more fundamental study on the compressibility of liquids leading to his famous Tait equation. William Dittmar of Glasgow University established the composition of seawater. Murray and Alphonse François Renard mapped oceanic sediments. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=88284 | 833,718 |
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