doc_id int32 18 2.25M | text stringlengths 245 2.96k | source stringlengths 38 44 | __index_level_0__ int64 18 2.25M |
|---|---|---|---|
698,703 | Analyses of ancient DNA preserved in various archives have transformed understanding of the evolution of species and ecosystems. Whilst earlier studies have concentrated on DNA extracted from taxonomically constrained samples (such as bones or frozen tissue), advances in high-throughput sequencing and bioinformatics now allow the analysis of ancient DNA extracted from sedimentary archives, so called sedaDNA. The accumulation and preservation of sedaDNA buried in land and lake sediments have been subject to active research and interpretation. However, studying the deposition of DNA on the ocean floor and its preservation in marine sediments is more complex because the DNA has to travel through a water column for several kilometers. Unlike in the terrestrial environment, with pervasive transport of subfossil biomass from land, the largest portion of the marine sedaDNA is derived from planktonic community, which is dominated by marine microbes and marine protists. After the death of the surface plankton, its DNA is subject to a transport through the water column, during which much of the associated organic matter is known to be consumed and respired. This transport could take between 3 to 12 days depending on the size and morphology of test. However, it remains unclear how exactly the planktonic eDNA, defined as the total DNA present in the environment after, survives this transport, whether the degradation or transport are associated with sorting or lateral advection, and finally, whether the eDNA arriving at the seafloor is preserved in marine sediments without further distortion of its composition. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=46925036 | 698,339 |
1,869,800 | The “kelp highway” hypothesis is a corollary to the coastal migration theory developed by Erlandson and his colleagues to help explain the peopling of the Americas and the presence of pre-Clovis sites such as Monte Verde and Oregon's Paisley Caves that date to ~14,000 years ago, before the ice-free corridor appears to have opened. In a collaboration between archaeologists and marine ecologists, Erlandson explores the idea of a coastal route into the Americas along the Pacific Coast. This migration route followed a ‘kelp highway’—a line of productive kelp forests that range from northeast Asia to Baja California. Kelp forests support a wide variety of resources that could have supported the earliest inhabitants of North and South America, including the kelp itself, sea mammals, fish and shellfish. This marine highway would have also protected people travelling from the harsher wave conditions of the open sea. Although difficult to evaluate with archaeological evidence due to the rising sea levels after the last Glacial Maximum, Erlandson has summarized extensive evidence for early maritime activity along the Pacific Coast of the Americas, including California’s Channel Islands. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=37784948 | 1,868,723 |
921,379 | Despite the conflicting information about the psychometric characteristics of the TAT, proponents have argued that the TAT should not be judged using traditional standards of reliability and validity. According to Holt, “the TAT is a complex method of assessing people, which does not lend itself to the standard rules of thumb about test standards [. . .]” (p. 101). For example, it has been argued that the purpose of the TAT is to reveal a wide range of personality characteristics and complex, nuanced patterns, as opposed to traditional psychological tests that are designed to measure unitary and narrow constructs. Hibbard and colleagues examined several considerations about traditional views of reliability and validity as they apply to the TAT. First, they noted that traditional views of reliability may limit the validity of a measure (such as occurs with multi-faceted concepts in which characteristics are not necessarily related to each other, but are meaningful in combination). Further, Cronbach's alpha, a commonly used measure of internal consistency, is dependent on the number of items in scale. For the TAT, most scales use only a small number of cards (with each card treated like an item) so alphas would not be expected to be very high. Many clinicians also discount the importance of psychometrics, believing that generalizability of the findings to a given client's situation is more important than generalizing findings to the population. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=546431 | 920,893 |
1,723,476 | The idea of a set of world reference levels was considered in May 2012, during the Third International Congress on TVET, held in Shanghai, China. The research included in this report was initiated by UNESCO based on the recommendation from the Congress to the UNESCO Director-General to undertake this work. The UNESCO TVET Section, in cooperation with the European Commission's Directorate General for Education and Culture and the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP), subsequently invited key organizations in Brussels to deliberate on the Shanghai Consensus Recommendation in September 2013. The deliberations included regional developments in Europe, notably the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) and in Asia, notably a common standard for competences developed by the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), as well as the move towards regional qualifications frameworks (RQFs) in Central America and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). At the national level, the development of national qualifications frameworks (NQFs) was considered across and beyond these regions, including Mercosur (Mercado Común del Sur, the Common Market of the South) in South America and the development of a transnational qualifications framework (TQF) by twenty-nine small states of the Commonwealth. The additional dimension of learning metrics as used in longitudinal studies, international competence assessments and diagnostics reviews was also considered. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=53715889 | 1,722,506 |
316,148 | Nixie tubes were superseded in the 1970s by light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and vacuum fluorescent displays (VFDs), often in the form of seven-segment displays. The VFD uses a hot filament to emit electrons, a control grid and phosphor-coated anodes (similar to a cathode ray tube) shaped to represent segments of a digit, pixels of a graphical display, or complete letters, symbols, or words. Whereas Nixies typically require 180 volts to illuminate, VFDs only require relatively low voltages to operate, making them easier and cheaper to use. VFDs have a simple internal structure, resulting in a bright, sharp, and unobstructed image. Unlike Nixies, the glass envelope of a VFD is evacuated rather than being filled with a specific mixture of gases at low pressure. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=66904 | 315,979 |
910,497 | The use of mathematics in the service of social and economic analysis dates back to the 17th century. Then, mainly in German universities, a style of instruction emerged which dealt specifically with detailed presentation of data as it related to public administration. Gottfried Achenwall lectured in this fashion, coining the term statistics. At the same time, a small group of professors in England established a method of "reasoning by figures upon things relating to government" and referred to this practice as "Political Arithmetick". Sir William Petty wrote at length on issues that would later concern economists, such as taxation, Velocity of money and national income, but while his analysis was numerical, he rejected abstract mathematical methodology. Petty's use of detailed numerical data (along with John Graunt) would influence statisticians and economists for some time, even though Petty's works were largely ignored by English scholars. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=18967255 | 910,018 |
403,373 | It is unsurprising, then, that MacArthur excluded USAF aircraft from the airspace over the Inchon Landing in September 1950, instead relying on Marine Aircraft Group 33 for CAS. In December 1951, Lt. Gen. James Van Fleet, commander of the Eighth U.S. Army, formally requested the United Nations Commander, Gen. Mark Clark, to permanently attach an attack squadron to each of the four army corps in Korea. Though the request was denied, Clark allocated many more Navy and Air Force aircraft to CAS. Despite the rocky start, the USAF would also work to improve its coordination efforts. It eventually required pilots to serve 80 days as forward air controllers (FACs), which gave them an understanding of the difficulties from the ground perspective and helped cooperation when they returned to the cockpit. The USAF also provided airborne FACs in critical locations. The Army also learned to assist, by suppressing anti-aircraft fire prior to air strikes. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=600792 | 403,173 |
367,232 | The magnetic structure of α-hematite was the subject of considerable discussion and debate during the 1950s, as it appeared to be ferromagnetic with a Curie temperature of approximately , but with an extremely small magnetic moment (0.002 Bohr magnetons). Adding to the surprise was a transition with a decrease in temperature at around to a phase with no net magnetic moment. It was shown that the system is essentially antiferromagnetic, but that the low symmetry of the cation sites allows spin–orbit coupling to cause canting of the moments when they are in the plane perpendicular to the "c" axis. The disappearance of the moment with a decrease in temperature at is caused by a change in the anisotropy which causes the moments to align along the "c" axis. In this configuration, spin canting does not reduce the energy. The magnetic properties of bulk hematite differ from their nanoscale counterparts. For example, the Morin transition temperature of hematite decreases with a decrease in the particle size. The suppression of this transition has been observed in hematite nanoparticles and is attributed to the presence of impurities, water molecules and defects in the crystals lattice. Hematite is part of a complex solid solution oxyhydroxide system having various contents of water, hydroxyl groups and vacancy substitutions that affect the mineral's magnetic and crystal chemical properties. Two other end-members are referred to as protohematite and hydrohematite. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14207 | 367,040 |
1,719,906 | He and his collaborators made many wide-ranging contributions to semiconductor devices, pioneering the design technique known as band-structure engineering. He applied it to novel low noise quantum well avalanche photodiodes, heterojunction transistors, memory devices and lasers. He and his collaborators invented and demonstrated the quantum cascade laser (QCL) (Faist, J; Capasso, F; Sivco, DL; Sirtori, C. ; Hutchinson, Al; Cho, AY "Quantum Cascade Laser" Science 264, 553-556 (1994)) . Unlike conventional semiconductor lasers, known as diode lasers, which rely on the band gap of the semiconductor to emit light, the wavelength of QCLs is determined by the energy separation between conduction band quantized states in quantum wells. In 1971 researchers postulated that such an emission process could be used for laser amplification in a superlattice (Kazarinov, RF; Suris, RA (April 1971). "Possibility of amplification of electromagnetic waves in a semiconductor with a superlattice". Fizika i Tekhnika Poluprovodnikov 5 (4): 797–800). The QCL wavelength can be tailored across a wide range from the mid-infrared to the far infrared by changing the quantum well thickness. The mature technology of the QCL is now finding commercial applications. QCLs have become the most widely used sources of mid-infrared radiation for chemical sensing and spectroscopy and are commercially available. They operate at temperatures in excess of 100 C and emit up to several Watts of power in continuous wave. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4167561 | 1,718,936 |
1,964,155 | Numerous functions for the organelles have been hypothesized, including that the organelles may be largely vestigial. Although lost in numerous taxa, the predominant retention and diversity of the organelles suggests an adaptive role, and their importance is quite evident. Theory over the years has implicated complex oil bodies with virtually all evident stressors, such as herbivore and pathogen damage, thermal stress, excessive light/UV irradiation, and desiccation. Empirical evidence is often lacking, however many of these theories have been supported in one way or another. Worth noting is that the modern adaptive function of complex oil bodies may be diverse across the phylum and inconsistent between species. For example, it was found that oil bodies in "Southbya nigrella" likely served a role is desiccation-tolerance, however xeric "Riccia" species and highly exposed "Anthelia" have no oil bodies at all. In "Southbya nigrella", the mechanism was attributed to carbohydrates and other molecules whose osmoticum resists water loss, inferred to be contained in the oil bodies and noted due to the oil body collapse upon rehydration. A hypothesized ancestral function has been that of UV tolerance. It has been noted that liverworts produce a high amount of constitutive and inducible UV-absorbing compounds, much greater than mosses, however the localization of these compounds to complex oil bodies has not been confirmed. As liverworts are often considered the closest extant relative of one of the earliest groups of land plants, they would likely have been required to be adapted to the harsh conditions of a thinner ozone layer, thus the development of these UV-shielding compounds may reflect a key development in the evolution of land plants. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=70561866 | 1,963,027 |
402,532 | In 1979, space elevators were introduced to a broader audience with the simultaneous publication of Arthur C. Clarke's novel, "The Fountains of Paradise", in which engineers construct a space elevator on top of a mountain peak in the fictional island country of "Taprobane" (loosely based on Sri Lanka, albeit moved south to the Equator), and Charles Sheffield's first novel, "The Web Between the Worlds", also featuring the building of a space elevator. Three years later, in Robert A. Heinlein's 1982 novel "Friday", the principal character mentions a disaster at the “Quito Sky Hook” and makes use of the "Nairobi Beanstalk" in the course of her travels. In Kim Stanley Robinson's 1993 novel "Red Mars", colonists build a space elevator on Mars that allows both for more colonists to arrive and also for natural resources mined there to be able to leave for Earth. In Larry Niven's book "Rainbow Mars", Niven describes a space elevator built on Mars. In David Gerrold's 2000 novel, "Jumping Off The Planet", a family excursion up the Ecuador "beanstalk" is actually a child-custody kidnapping. Gerrold's book also examines some of the industrial applications of a mature elevator technology. The concept of a space elevator, called the Beanstalk, is also depicted in John Scalzi's 2005 novel, "Old Man's War." In a biological version, Joan Slonczewski's 2011 novel "The Highest Frontier" depicts a college student ascending a space elevator constructed of self-healing cables of anthrax bacilli. The engineered bacteria can regrow the cables when severed by space debris. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29192 | 402,333 |
641,620 | While SERS can be performed in colloidal solutions, today the most common method for performing SERS measurements is by depositing a liquid sample onto a silicon or glass surface with a nanostructured noble metal surface. While the first experiments were performed on electrochemically roughened silver, now surfaces are often prepared using a distribution of metal nanoparticles on the surface as well as using lithography or porous silicon as a support. Two dimensional silicon nanopillars decorated with silver have also been used to create SERS active substrates. The most common metals used for plasmonic surfaces in visible light SERS are silver and gold; however, aluminium has recently been explored as an alternative plasmonic material, because its plasmon band is in the UV region, contrary to silver and gold. Hence, there is great interest in using aluminium for UV SERS. It has, however, surprisingly also been shown to have a large enhancement in the infrared, which is not fully understood. In the current decade, it has been recognized that the cost of SERS substrates must be reduced in order to become a commonly used analytical chemistry measurement technique. To meet this need, plasmonic paper has experienced widespread attention in the field, with highly sensitive SERS substrates being formed through approaches such as soaking, in-situ synthesis, screen printing and inkjet printing. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3434894 | 641,281 |
1,807,192 | The blood–brain barrier (BBB) is composed of a system of capillaries that has an especially dense lining of endothelial cells which protects the central nervous system (CNS) against the diffusion of foreign substances into the cerebrospinal fluid. These harmful objects include microscopic bacteria, large hydrophobic molecules, certain hormones and neurotransmitters, and low-lipid-soluble molecules. The BBB prevents these harmful particles from entering the brain via tight junctions between endothelial cells and metabolic barriers. The thoroughness with which the BBB does its job makes it difficult to treat diseases of the brain such as cancer, Alzheimer's, and autism, because it is very difficult to transport drugs across the BBB. Currently, in order to deliver therapeutic molecules into the brain, doctors must use highly invasive techniques such as drilling directly into the brain, or sabotaging the integrity of the BBB through biochemical means. Due to their small size and large surface area, nanoparticles offer a promising solution for neurotherapeutics. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=31726766 | 1,806,173 |
1,971,642 | "Capitella teleta" embryos and early larval stages develop in a brood tube that surrounds the mother. The embryos are approximately 200 µm in diameter. Over the course of approximately a week, the embryos develop into non-feeding larvae which form musculature, a centralized nervous system, two circular ciliary bands, two eye spots, segments, and setae. The larvae are non-feeding and the digestive system develops at a later stage than other organs. Pre-metamorphosis larvae can be categorized into nine stages, with each stage lasting approximately one day. Upon further body elongation and gut maturation, the larvae emerge from the brood tube, and swim forward with a rotational turn via the beating of cilia organized within two circular bands, the prototroch and telotroch. Larvae exhibit positive phototactic behavior in which they swim towards light, potentially an adaptation to aid in larval dispersal "C. teleta" is an indirect developer and undergoes metamorphosis from a swimming larva into a burrowing juvenile. Metamorphosis is characterized by cilia loss, body elongation, and crawling behavior. Marine sediment functions as a cue to initiate metamorphosis into juvenile worms that thereafter grow into mature adults. Competent larvae can be induced to metamorphose into juveniles when exposed to the B vitamins Nicotinamide (B3) and Riboflavin (B2), suggesting that these chemical compounds may be responsible for the inductive role of the marine sediment in larval metamorphosis. The number of offspring in each brood tube can vary between 50 - 400 individuals, and is influenced by food quality. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30545094 | 1,970,508 |
727,807 | The portal of entry is the gastrointestinal tract. The organism is acquired usually by insufficiently cooked pork or contaminated water, meat, or milk. In recent years "Y. enterocolitica" has increasingly been causing smaller outbreaks via Ready-To-Eat (RTE) vegetables. Acute "Y. enterocolitica" infections usually lead to mild self-limiting enterocolitis or terminal ileitis and adenitis in humans. Symptoms may include watery or bloody diarrhea and fever, resembling appendicitis or salmonellosis or shigellosis. After oral uptake, "Yersinia" species replicate in the terminal ileum and invade Peyer's patches. From here they can disseminate further to mesenteric lymph nodes causing lymphadenopathy. This condition can be confused with appendicitis, so is called pseudoappendicitis. In immunosuppressed individuals, they can disseminate from the gut to the liver and spleen and form abscesses. Because "Yersinia" species are siderophilic (iron-loving) bacteria, people with hereditary hemochromatosis (a disease resulting in high body iron levels) are more susceptible to infection with "Yersinia" (and other siderophilic bacteria). In fact, the most common contaminant of stored blood is "Y. enterocolitica". See yersiniosis for further details. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1539783 | 727,424 |
2,025,506 | Practical operation of SEU models encountered some of these challenges. For instance, in 2016, after an investigation into one of the Delaware SEU projects, the Delaware State Auditor issued a report indicating several problems with the Delaware SEU 2011 bond program. A former Delaware State Senator published an opinion piece on Delaware Online in support of the State Auditor report. A presiding Senator, a member of the Delaware SEU's oversight board, disagreed with the findings of the Auditor, calling them "mystifying". Delaware SEU Executive Director defended the program by arguing that the State Auditor did not counsel with experts in the field of energy engineering and, as such, misrepresented the actual workings of the program. The Delaware Office of Management and Budget similarly questioned the validity of the Auditor's report. In 2018, the Delaware SEU was named Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 2018 Energy STAR Partner of the Year and received the EPA Energy STAR Excellence Award. The Delaware SEU has "Standards for Excellence" accreditation by the Standards for Excellence Institute for its ethics, accountability, and transparency. Early evaluation of the 2011 bond program shows first-year savings exceeded the 25% savings guarantee by 3%. The Delaware SEU is registered as a non-profit, tax-exempt 501 (c)(3) entity. The Delaware SEU is operating and planning new rounds of the bond program. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=42798343 | 2,024,340 |
552,962 | As the heads of the expedition, Georgian archaeologists and anthropologist Abesalom Vekua and David Lordkipanidze (then in Tbilisi) were summoned to the site and on the next morning, the mandible was freed from the rock around it, a complicated process that took nearly an entire day. Once freed, the mandible was unmistakably the jaw of a primate and importantly, it preserved a complete row of teeth with little sign of wear. The lack of wear suggested that the primate would have been young, about 20–24 years old, though its classification was as of yet unknown. After they returned to Tbilisi, the mandible was studied in detail by Vekua, Lordkipanidze and archaeologist Leo Gabunia. It was quickly determined to represent a hominid, though its precise position within the family was unclear. Although a number of primitive features were observed, it was clear that the fossil (now given the designation D211) was the most similar to fossils of "Homo", not earlier australopithecines. After prolonged discussion, Vekua and Gabunia came to the conclusion that the Dmanisi hominin was probably an early "Homo erectus", and that it represented the earliest "Homo" outside Africa. This was confirmed once the basalts lying directly below the Pleistocene sediments were determined to be about 1.8 million years old. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=60072585 | 552,673 |
210,369 | Another huge advantage of the liquid core is its ability to release xenon gas, which normally acts as a neutron absorber ( is the strongest known neutron poison and is produced both directly and as a decay product of as a fission product) and causes structural occlusions in solid fuel elements (leading to the early replacement of solid fuel rods with over 98% of the nuclear fuel unburned, including many long-lived actinides). In contrast, Molten Salt Reactors (MSR) are capable of retaining the fuel mixture for significantly extended periods, which not only increases fuel efficiency dramatically but also incinerates the vast majority of its own waste as part of the normal operational characteristics. A downside to letting the escape instead of allowing it to capture neutrons converting it to the basically stable and chemically inert , is that it will quickly decay to the highly chemically reactive long lived radioactive , which behaves similar to other alkali metals and can be taken up by organisms in their metabolism. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2046416 | 210,262 |
1,746,654 | Another circadian behavior in "Drosophila" is courtship between the male and female during mating. Courtship involves a song accompanied by a ritual locomotory dance in males. The main flight activity generally takes place in the morning and another peak occurs before sunset. Courtship song is produced by the male's wing vibration and consists of pulses of tone produced at intervals of approximately 34 msec in "D. melanogaster" (48 msec in "D. simulans"). In 1980, Jeffrey C. Hall and his student Charalambos P. Kyriacou, at Brandeis University in Waltham, discovered that courtship activity is also controlled by "per" gene. In 1984, Konopka, Hall, Michael Roshbash and their team reported in two papers that "per" locus is the centre of the circadian rhythm, and that loss of "per" stops circadian activity. At the same time, Michael W. Young's team at the Rockefeller University reported similar effects of "per", and that the gene covers 7.1-kilobase (kb) interval on the X chromosome and encodes a 4.5-kb poly(A)+ RNA. In 1986, they sequenced the entire DNA fragment and found the gene encodes the 4.5-kb RNA, which produces a protein, a proteoglycan, composed of 1,127 amino acids. At the same time Roshbash's team showed that PER protein is absent in mutant "per". In 1994, Young and his team discovered the gene "timeless" ("tim") that influences the activity of "per". In 1998, they discovered "doubletime" ("dbt"), which regulate the amount of PER protein. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=56144090 | 1,745,668 |
650,731 | Abadie "et al." 2012 simulated both the development of waves using dispersive models that include non-linear effects, and the behaviour of the landslide generating them through slope stability and material strength models. They considered both volumes of , obtained from research on the stability of the flank of Cumbre Vieja, as well as volumes of as hypothesized by the original Ward and Day 2001 study. The slide has a complex acceleration behaviour and most of the waves are formed during a short period early in the slide where the Froude number briefly exceeds 1; the initial wave can reach a height of – and eventually wave trains are formed, which are diffracted around the southern tip of La Palma and go on to hit the other Canary Islands. With increasing volume of the slides, the wavelength becomes shorter and the amplitude higher, yielding steeper waves. Abadie "et al." 2012 estimated a fast decay of the waves with distance but cautioned that since their model was not appropriate to use for simulating far-field wave propagation the decay may be exaggerated. In the Canary Islands, inundation would reach a height of on La Palma; even for a slide would reach heights of in the city of Santa Cruz de La Palma (population 18,000) while the largest city of La Palma (Los Llanos de Aridane, population 20,000) may be spared. The waves would take approximately one hour to propagate through the archipelago, and important cities in the entire Canary Islands would be hit by substantial tsunamis irrespective of the landslide size. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=65263449 | 650,390 |
1,568,943 | Recent studies provide evidence of the pathogenesis of HZE nuclei in the CNS. The authors of one of these studies were the first to suggest neurodegeneration with HZE nuclei, as shown in figure 6-1(a). These studies demonstrate that HZE radiation led to the progressive loss of neuronal progenitor cells in the SGZ at doses of 1 to 3 Gy in a dosedependent manner. NCRP Report No. 153 notes that “Mice were irradiated with 1 to 3 Gy of 12C or 56Fe-ions and 9 months later proliferating cells and immature neurons in the dentate SGZ were quantified. The results showed that reductions in these cells were dependent on the dose and LET. Loss of precursor cells was also associated with altered neurogenesis and a robust inflammatory response, as shown in figures 6-1(a) and 6-1(b). These results indicate that high-LET radiation has a significant and long-lasting effect on the neurogenic population in the hippocampus that involves cell loss and changes in the microenvironment. The work has been confirmed by other studies. These investigators noted that these changes are consistent with those found in aged subjects, indicating that heavy-particle irradiation is a possible model for the study of aging.” | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=39761773 | 1,568,056 |
138,221 | Glushko couldn't obtain the required thrust from the R-3 engines, so the project was canceled in 1952; and Korolev joined the Soviet Communist Party that year to request money from the government for future projects including the R-5, with a more modest range. It completed a first successful flight by 1953. The world's first true intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) was the R-7 Semyorka. This was a two-stage rocket with a maximum payload of 5.4 tons, sufficient to carry the Soviets' bulky nuclear bomb an impressive distance of . After several test failures, the R-7 successfully launched on 21 August 1957, sending a dummy payload to the Kamchatka Peninsula. Because of Korolev's success with the R-7 and because the Soviet Union had successfully created the ICBM before the United States of America, he was nationally recognized by the Soviet Union, although his name was kept secret. However, despite the Soviet R-7 initial success, it experienced later failures as it was not intended to be a practical weapon. On 19 April 1957 Korolev was declared fully "rehabilitated", as the government acknowledged that his sentence was unjust. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=86655 | 138,165 |
1,646,081 | The "American Machinist" reported in 1922 that The Churchill Machine Tool Co was "now almost the only specialist in precision grinding machines in Great Britain" and that the uses of the process in the railway industry for the production of axle journals were by that time accepted as best practice and that the usage of it for piston rods and cylinders was being established. A summary-box to the article says that: The Carborundum Company and Pratt & Whitney companies are referred to in the article, perhaps demonstrating that Churchill could not operate in isolation despite the "only specialist" status accorded to them early in the article. Supplying grinding machinery to railways, for use in new production and refurbishment of worn mechanisms, became an important new area of operations: post-war government sales of used machinery had flooded the domestic market for machine tools, but exports, initially to Indian railways and then elsewhere, went some way towards softening the blow, and the Churchill companies, whilst scarred, were able to ride out the worst of the post-war recession. Among the more unusual supplies made was a universal grinding machine used to grind the valves of trumpets for the Salvation Army. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30046818 | 1,645,152 |
1,882,036 | In their 2002 study, William Cooper Jr. and Laurie Vitt investigated the dietary patterns of over a hundred lizards and found that many groups have representatives that consume plant material. Omnivory has evolved independently several times within lepidosaurs, whereas the evolution of obligate herbivory has proved to be more rare. For example, in the Iguania clade, omnivory and herbivory have independently evolved at least nine times. When other lepidosaur clades are included, Cooper and Vitt (2002) demonstrate that omnivory evolved at least 32 separate times. Obligate herbivory, on the other hand, has only evolved 10 times in living, non-liolaemid lizards (nearly 7,700 species). Though, one clade seems to be an exception to this pattern of infrequently developed herbivory. A 2004 study investigated a unique group of South American lizards called the Liolaemidae. The authors of this study found that this clade evolved herbivory approximately 65 times faster than other squamates. Specifically, herbivory has evolved 18 times in liolaemids (approximately 170 species). It has been clearly demonstrated that these herbivorous animals have evolved from omnivorous ancestors and not directly from carnivores. Unfortunately, many biological studies have not investigated the possible timing that key herbivorous characteristics evolved; leaving the amount of time these organisms have possessed these traits unknown. The distinctions in dietary ecology that are observed today are likely a result of early ecological differences between clades. The separation of the Iguania and Scleroglossa (a group including geckos, snakes, skinks, and varanids) clades in the late Triassic best demonstrates this. It is hypothesized that the early Scleroglossa possessed traits that were better suited for hunting, such as the ability to distinguish prey by means of chemical processes, whereas the Iguania did not possess these traits. Therefore, the current dietary diversity within the Iguania (including a large number of herbivores) is due to certain traits held by early representatives of this clade. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=42517908 | 1,880,955 |
510,726 | Due to the employee's alleged rough handling of the device, which Mann claimed was soundly attached to his head, the temporary storage buffer in the computer system could no longer be overwritten by new images, the damage to the system thus causing photos of these persons to remain stored in the glass memory. These were published, with faces concealed, on Mann's weblog. He also claims that his iPhone and the control board for the EyeTap were damaged after he was thrown out and his bladder released involuntarily, soaking the contents of his pockets. McDonald's has stated that their investigation of this issue has concluded, according to their response to Mann, and McDonald's Head of Customer Service has failed to respond to an open letter from Mann, dated 2012 August 17. McDonald's defense has been limited only to witness statements from their employees, and they have refused to answer a request to examine their surveillance videos. The shorter letter in French, also remains unanswered. Their official statement remains somewhat out-of-date as per these more recent open letter correspondences. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=88785 | 510,461 |
458,065 | To address this limitation, Optelecom, Inc. and General Instruments Corp. developed components to increase fiber bandwidth with far more channels. Optelecom and its head of Light Optics, engineer David Huber and Kevin Kimberlin co-founded Ciena Corp in 1992 to design and commercialize optical telecommunications systems, the objective being an expansion in the capacity of cable systems to 50,000 channels. Ciena developed the dual-stage optical amplifier capable of transmitting data at uniform gain on multiple wavelengths, and with that, in June 1996, introduced the first commercial dense WDM system. That 16-channel system, with a total capacity of 40 Gbit/s, was deployed on the Sprint network, the world's largest carrier of internet traffic at the time. This first application of all-optical amplification in public networks was seen by analysts as a harbinger of a permanent change in network design for which Sprint and Ciena would receive much of the credit. Advanced optical communication experts cite the introduction of WDM as the real start of optical networking. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3843580 | 457,842 |
35,799 | The new data that had been collected on the ocean basins also showed particular characteristics regarding the bathymetry. One of the major outcomes of these datasets was that all along the globe, a system of mid-oceanic ridges was detected. An important conclusion was that along this system, new ocean floor was being created, which led to the concept of the "Great Global Rift". This was described in the crucial paper of Bruce Heezen (1960) based on his work with Marie Tharp, which would trigger a real revolution in thinking. A profound consequence of seafloor spreading is that new crust was, and still is, being continually created along the oceanic ridges. Therefore, Heezen advocated the so-called "expanding Earth" hypothesis of S. Warren Carey (see above). Therefore, the question remained as to how new crust was continuously added along the oceanic ridges without increasing the size of Earth. In reality, this question had been solved already by numerous scientists during the 1940s and the 1950s, like Arthur Holmes, Vening-Meinesz, Coates and many others: The crust in excess disappeared along what were called the oceanic trenches, where so-called "subduction" occurred. Therefore, when various scientists during the early 1960s started to reason on the data at their disposal regarding the ocean floor, the pieces of the theory quickly fell into place. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=24944 | 35,787 |
725,692 | A well known example of selection occurring in human populations is lactose tolerance. Lactose intolerance is the inability to metabolize lactose, because of a lack of the required enzyme lactase in the digestive system. The normal mammalian condition is for the young of a species to experience reduced lactase production at the end of the weaning period (a species-specific length of time). In humans, in non-dairy consuming societies, lactase production usually drops about 90% during the first four years of life, although the exact drop over time varies widely. Lactase activity persistence in adults is associated with two polymorphisms: C/T 13910 and G/A 22018 located in the "MCM6" gene. This gene difference eliminates the shutdown in lactase production, making it possible for members of these populations to continue consumption of raw milk and other fresh and fermented dairy products throughout their lives without difficulty. This appears to be an evolutionarily recent (around 10,000 years ago [and 7,500 years ago in Europe]) adaptation to dairy consumption, and has occurred independently in both northern Europe and east Africa in populations with a historically pastoral lifestyle. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2339577 | 725,311 |
722,367 | Other surface features may include disturbed ground, pressure ridges, faults, water movement (including changes to the water table level), rockfalls, and ground slump. Most of the gas in the cavity is composed of steam; its volume decreases dramatically as the temperature falls and the steam condenses. There are however other gases, mostly carbon dioxide and hydrogen, which do not condense and remain gaseous. The carbon dioxide is produced by thermal decomposition of carbonates, hydrogen is created by reaction of iron and other metals from the nuclear device and surrounding equipment. The amount of carbonates and water in the soil and the available iron have to be considered in evaluating the test site containment; water-saturated clay soils may cause structural collapse and venting. Hard basement rock may reflect shock waves of the explosion, also possibly causing structural weakening and venting. The noncondensible gases may stay absorbed in the pores in the soil. Large amount of such gases can however maintain enough pressure to drive the fission products to the ground. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=7459891 | 721,987 |
1,345,405 | Given the complexity of the medical problems facing people with ideomotor apraxia, as they are usually experiencing a multitude of other problems, it is difficult to ascertain the impact that it has on their ability to function independently. Deficits due to Parkinson's or Alzheimer's disease could very well be sufficient to mask or make irrelevant difficulties arising from the apraxia. Some studies have shown ideomotor apraxia to independently diminish the patient's ability to function on their own. The general consensus seems to be that ideomotor apraxia does have a negative impact on independence in that it can reduce an individual's ability to manipulate objects, as well as diminishing the capacity for mechanical problem solving, owing to the inability to access information about how familiar parts of the unfamiliar system function. A small subset of patients has been known to spontaneously recover from apraxia; this is rare, however. One possible hope is the phenomenon of hemispheric shift, where functions normally performed by one hemisphere can shift to the other in the event that the first is damaged. This seems to necessitate, however, that some portion of the function is associated with the other hemisphere to begin with. There is dispute over whether the right hemisphere of the cortex is involved at all in the praxis system, as some evidence from patients with severed corpus callosums indicates it may not be. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14368827 | 1,344,665 |
205,199 | In 1974, Rawitsch was hired by the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC), a state-funded organization that developed educational software for the classroom, as an entry-level liaison for local community colleges. The MECC had a similar system to the Minneapolis school district's setup in 1971, with a CDC Cyber 70/73-26 mainframe computer which schools across the state could connect to via terminals. The system contained several educational programs, and Rawitsch's boss let him know that it was open to submissions. Rawitsch, with permission from Heinemann and Dillenberger, spent the 1974 Thanksgiving weekend copying and adjusting the printed BASIC source code into the system. Rather than submit the recreated copy, he instead enhanced the game with research on the events of the Oregon Trail that he had not had time for with the original version, and changed the frequency and types of random events, such as bad weather or wagons breaking down, to be based on the actual historical probabilities for what happened to travelers on the trail at each location in the game. Rawitsch calculated the probabilities himself, basing them on historical diaries and narratives of people on the trail that he read. He also added in more positive depictions of Native Americans, as his research indicated that many settlers received assistance from them along the trail. He placed "The Oregon Trail" into the organization's time-sharing network in 1975, where it could be accessed by schools across Minnesota. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=354015 | 205,093 |
916,570 | Unlike eutheriodonts, but like some ectothermic creatures today, all gorgonopsians possessed a pineal eye on the top of the head, which is used to detect daylight (and thus, the optimal temperature to be active). It is possible that other theriodonts lost this due to the evolution of either endothermy, intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells in the eyes—in tandem with the loss of colour vision and a shift to nocturnal life–or both. Nocturnal behaviour has long been assumed to have originated in mammals (nocturnal bottleneck), but the large orbit size and presence of sclerotic rings in many early synapsids, stretching as far back as the Carboniferous, would suggest that the ability to venture out in low-light conditions evolved much earlier. Based on these aspects, "Sauroctonus parringtoni" may have had mesopic vision, and "Cyonosaurus" scotopic or photopic vision. The diameters of the sclerotic rings for the small "Viatkogorgon" are proportionally large, with an inner diameter of and outer diameter of , compared to a diameter of for the orbit itself, which suggests it made predominantly nocturnal excursions. Among gorgonopsians, the rubidgeine "Clelandina" has unusually small sclerotic rings, indicating it had photopic vision and was strictly diurnal; Kammerer suggested that niche partitioning among rubidgeines (as there have been as many as seven different taxa coexisting in an area), in part, took the form of different species being active at different times of the day, but the sclerotic rings of only "Clelandina" among this subfamily have been identified, making this hypothesis highly speculative. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3705573 | 916,087 |
747,423 | In July 2020, the UK's National Cyber Security Centre, the Canadian Communications Security Establishment, and the U.S.'s Homeland Security Department Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, and the National Security Agency (NSA) issued a joint statement saying that Russian state-backed hackers, specifically Cozy Bear (APT29) were attempting to steal COVID‑19 treatment and vaccine research from academic and pharmaceutical institutions in other countries. Russia denied the claim, but has a history of cyber-espionage and cyberattacks on foreign targets. In November 2020, Microsoft reported that the Russian state-sponsored hacking group Fancy Bear (APT28) and North Korean state-sponsored hacking groups nicknamed "Zinc" and "Cerium" had been implicated in recent cyberattacks against researchers developing a COVID-19 vaccine (including in Canada, France, India, South Korea, and the U.S.) as well as against the World Health Organization, and that the cyberattackers had used both brute force and phishing techniques to compromise computer systems. Microsoft reported that at least nine healthcare institutions were targeted, and that some attempts were successful. In February 2021, South Korean's National Intelligence Service gave a closed-door briefing to members of the South Korean parliament about North Korean efforts to steal COVID-19 vaccine technology from Pfizer. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=66426813 | 747,027 |
863,143 | On 3 May 2010, Northrop Grumman announced plans to fly a Bell 407 helicopter modified with autonomous controls from the MQ-8B. Named Fire-X, it was to demonstrate an unmanned cargo resupply capability to the US Navy. The unmanned Fire-X completed its first flight at Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona on 20 December 2010. On 23 April 2012, Northrop Grumman received a $262.3 million contract from the Navy to build the newly designated MQ-8C Fire Scout; the work included two developmental aircraft and six low-rate production aircraft initially. The Navy wants 28 MQ-8Cs for naval special operations forces. In March 2013, the Navy incorporated the Rolls-Royce 250-C47E engine into the MQ-8C for a 5 percent increase in hot and high power, 2 percent reduced fuel consumption, 8 percent increase in rated takeoff power, and better reliability. The Bell 407-based MQ-8C has an endurance of 12 hours, a range of , and a payload capacity of about ; it has twice the endurance and three times the payload as the MQ-8B. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=43435530 | 862,683 |
75,675 | For example, the Hoagland and Arnon study did not adequately appreciate that hydroponics has other key benefits compared to soil culture including the fact that the roots of the plant have constant access to oxygen and that the plants have access to as much or as little water and nutrients as they need. This is important as one of the most common errors when cultivating plants is over- and underwatering; and hydroponics prevents this from occurring as large amounts of water, which may drown root systems in soil, can be made available to the plant in hydroponics, and any water not used, drained away, recirculated, or actively aerated, eliminating anoxic conditions in the root area. In soil, a grower needs to be very experienced to know exactly with how much water to feed the plant. Too much and the plant will be unable to access oxygen because air in the soil pores is displaced, which can lead to root rot; too little and the plant will undergo water stress or lose the ability to absorb nutrients, which are typically moved into the roots while dissolved, leading to nutrient deficiency symptoms such as chlorosis. Eventually, Gericke's advanced ideas led to the implementation of hydroponics into commercial agriculture while Hoagland's views and helpful support by the University prompted Hoagland and his associates to develop several new formulas for mineral nutrient solutions, universally known as Hoagland solution. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14133 | 75,647 |
713,662 | Biomedical research generates one major source of unstructured data as researchers often publish their findings in scholarly journals. Though the language in these documents is challenging to derive structural elements from (e.g., due to the complicated technical vocabulary contained within and the domain knowledge required to fully contextualize observations), the results of these activities may yield links between technical and medical studies and clues regarding new disease therapies. Recent efforts to enforce structure upon biomedical documents include self-organizing map approaches for identifying topics among documents, general-purpose unsupervised algorithms, and an application of the CaseOLAP workflow to determine associations between protein names and cardiovascular disease topics in the literature. CaseOLAP defines phrase-category relationships in an accurate (identifies relationships), consistent (highly reproducible), and efficient manner. This platform offers enhanced accessibility and empowers the biomedical community with phrase-mining tools for widespread biomedical research applications. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2751096 | 713,290 |
1,894,672 | In 1877 Beard registered at Owens College in Manchester. Owens, at the time a newer institution, was known for an emphasis on subjects such as evolutionary biology. Beard pursued and excelled in this field, studying under the tutelage of Arthur Milnes Marshall. Although he eventually received both a (BSc) and an honorary doctorate from Owens, Beard first obtained his (BSc) from Royal College of Science, London in 1878. The next few years would be tumultuous for Beard. His mother passed away, he enrolled and later dropped out of medical school in 1880, and ultimately was mentored by famed professor Thomas Henry Huxley (Charles Darwin's student) from 1880 to 1881 at the Royal School of Mines (RSM), South Kensington, London. After a year studying chemistry back at Owen's College, Beard went to Germany and received his doctorate from the Ludwigs University of Freiberg in 1884, specializing in zoology. His thesis was titled "On the Life-History and Development of the Genus Myzostoma". This stop involved visiting studies at institutions in Germany and Italy; Beard also married Henriette Marie Sester during his time in Germany. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=43789744 | 1,893,588 |
630,391 | As the cost per genetic test decreases, the development of personalized drug therapies will increase. Technology now allows for genetic analysis of hundreds of target genes involved in medication metabolism and response in less than 24 hours for under $1,000. This a huge step towards bringing pharmacogenetic technology into everyday medical decisions. Likewise, companies like deCODE genetics, MD Labs Pharmacogenetics, Navigenics and 23andMe offer genome scans. The companies use the same genotyping chips that are used in GWAS studies and provide customers with a write-up of individual risk for various traits and diseases and testing for 500,000 known SNPs. Costs range from $995 to $2500 and include updates with new data from studies as they become available. The more expensive packages even included a telephone session with a genetics counselor to discuss the results. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1004486 | 630,053 |
552,218 | Several methods have been tested for their effectiveness at improving thorough intensive-care unit environmental hygiene. A study conducted in 2010 across 3532 high risk environmental surfaces in 260 intensive care unit rooms in 27 acute-care hospitals (ICUs) assessed the consistency at which these surfaces met base line cleaning standards. Only 49.5% of the high-risk object surfaces were found to meet this baseline criterion. The least-cleaned objects were bathroom light switches, room door knobs, and bed pan cleaners. Significant improvements in ICU room cleaning was achieved through a structured approach that incorporated a simple, highly objective surface targeting method and repeated performance feedback to environmental surface personnel. Specific methods included implementing an objective evaluation process, environmental surfaces staff education, programmatic feedback, and continuous training to minimize the spread of hospital-associated infections. The authors noted an improvement in the thoroughness of cleaning at 71% from baseline for the entire group of hospitals involved. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=37791213 | 551,929 |
1,418,420 | Initially thirteen chapters were planned, but only the first four (making a total of approximately 1500 pages) were published. Much of the material which would have been found in the following chapters can be found, in a less polished form, in the "Séminaire de géométrie algébrique" (known as "SGA"). Indeed, as explained by Grothendieck in the preface of the published version of "SGA", by 1970 it had become clear that incorporating all of the planned material in "EGA" would require significant changes in the earlier chapters already published, and that therefore the prospects of completing "EGA" in the near term were limited. An obvious example is provided by derived categories, which became an indispensable tool in the later "SGA" volumes, but was not yet used in "EGA III" as the theory was not yet developed at the time. Considerable effort was therefore spent to bring the published "SGA" volumes to a high degree of completeness and rigour. Before work on the treatise was abandoned, there were plans in 1966–67 to expand the group of authors to include Grothendieck's students Pierre Deligne and Michel Raynaud, as evidenced by published correspondence between Grothendieck and David Mumford. Grothendieck's letter of 4 November 1966 to Mumford also indicates that the second-edition revised structure was in place by that time, with Chapter VIII already intended to cover the Picard scheme. In that letter he estimated that at the pace of writing up to that point, the following four chapters (V to VIII) would have taken eight years to complete, indicating an intended length comparable to the first four chapters, which had been in preparation for about eight years at the time. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=471387 | 1,417,621 |
1,069,360 | On May 6, 2016, Falcon 9 flight 24 delivered the JCSAT-14 satellite on a geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) while the first stage conducted a re-entry burn under ballistic conditions without prior boostback. Following the controlled descent through the atmosphere, the booster executed a short landing burn as it approached the drone ship "Of Course I Still Love You", and succeeded in landing vertically. This second landing at sea was more difficult than the previous one because the booster at separation was traveling about compared to on the CRS-8 launch to low Earth orbit. Pursuing their experiments to test the limits of the flight envelope, SpaceX opted for a shorter landing burn with three engines instead of the single-engine burns seen in earlier attempts; this approach consumes less fuel by leaving the stage in free fall as long as possible and decelerating more sharply, thereby minimizing the amount of energy expended to counter gravity. Elon Musk indicated this first stage may not be flown again and will instead be used as a life leader for ground tests to confirm future first stage rockets are good. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=43091601 | 1,068,806 |
698,691 | Terrestrial arthropods are experiencing massive decline in Europe as well as globally, although only a fraction of the species have been assessed and the majority of insects are still undescribed to science. As one example, grassland ecosystems are home to diverse taxonomic and functional groups of terrestrial arthropods, such as pollinators, phytophagous insects, and predators, that use nectar and pollen for food sources, and stem and leaf tissue for food and development. These communities harbor endangered species, since many habitats have disappeared or are under significant threat. Therefore, extensive efforts are being conducted in order to restore European grassland ecosystems and conserve biodiversity. For instance, pollinators like bees and butterflies represent an important ecological group that has undergone severe decline in Europe, indicating a dramatic loss of grassland biodiversity. The vast majority of flowering plants are pollinated by insects and other animals both in temperate regions and the tropics. The majority of insect species are herbivores feeding on different parts of plants, and most of these are specialists, relying on one or a few plant species as their main food resource. However, given the gap in knowledge on existing insect species, and the fact that most species are still undescribed, it is clear that for the majority of plant species in the world, there is limited knowledge about the arthropod communities they harbor and interact with. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=46925036 | 698,327 |
498,427 | In December 2015, Happer was targeted in a sting operation by the environmental activist group Greenpeace. Posing as consultants for a Middle Eastern oil and gas company, they asked Happer to write a report touting the benefits of rising carbon emissions. Happer declined a fee for his work, calling it a "labor of love", but said that they could donate to the "objective evidence" climate-change organization CO Coalition, which suggested that he contact the Donors Trust to keep the source of the funds secret as requested by the Greenpeace sting operation. Hiding the sources of funding in this way is lawful under U.S. law. Happer further acknowledged that his report would probably not pass peer-review with a scientific journal. In an interview, Happer responded to the sting operation: "I was only interested in helping the 'client' to publicize my long-held views, not to peddle whatever message the 'client' had in mind ... I have never taken a dime for any of my activities to educate the public that more CO will benefit the world." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23405347 | 498,170 |
252,780 | During early July 1944, German test pilot Heini Dittmar reached , an unofficial flight airspeed record that remained unmatched by turbojet-powered aircraft up until 1953. That same year, the Me 163 begun flying operational missions, being typically used to defend against incoming enemy bombing raids. As part of their alliance with Imperial Japan, Germany provided design schematics and a single Me 163 to the country; this lead to the development of the Mitsubishi J8M. By the end of the conflict, roughly 370 Komets had been completed, most of which being used operationally. However, some of its shortcomings were never addressed and the type was not as effective in combat as had been hoped. Being only capable of a maximum of seven and a half minutes of powered flight, its range fell short of projection and greatly limited its potential. Efforts to improve the aircraft were made, most notably the Messerschmitt Me 263, but many would not see actual combat due to the sustained advancement of the Allied powers into Germany in 1945. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20486 | 252,647 |
1,332,589 | With an established mechanism for approximating non-symbolic number in both humans and primates, a necessary further investigation is needed to determine if this mechanism is innate and present in children, which would suggest an inborn ability to process numerical stimuli much like humans are born ready to process language. set out to investigate this in 4 year old healthy, normally developing children in parallel with adults. A similar task to Piazza's was used in this experiment, without the judgment tasks. Dot arrays of varying size and number were used, with 16 and 32 as the base numerosities. in each block, 232 stimuli were presented with 20 deviant numerosities of a 2.0 ratio both larger and smaller. For example, out of the 232 trials, 16 dots were presented in varying size and distance but 10 of those trials had 8 dots, and 10 of those trials had 32 dots, making up the 20 deviant stimuli. The same applied to the blocks with 32 as the base numerosity. To ensure the adults and children were attending to the stimuli, they put 3 fixation points throughout the trial where the participant had to move a joystick to move forward. Their findings indicated that the adults in the experiment had significant activation of the IPS when viewing the deviant number stimuli, aligning with what was previously found in the aforementioned paragraph. In the 4 year olds, they found significant activation of the IPS to the deviant number stimuli, resembling the activation found in adults. There were some differences in the activations, with adults displaying more robust bilateral activation, where the 4 year olds primarily showed activation in their right IPS and activated 112 less voxels than the adults. This suggests that at age 4, children have an established mechanism of neurons in the IPS tuned for processing non-symbolic numerosities. Other studies have gone deeper into this mechanism in children and discovered that children do also represent approximate numbers on a logarithmic scale, aligning with the claims made by Piazza in adults. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=6258906 | 1,331,860 |
56,644 | A number of events, most notably in aquatics, beach volleyball and track and field, were scheduled with sessions and matches occurring as late as 10:00 p.m. to midnight BRT. These scheduling practices were influenced primarily by United States broadcast rightsholder NBC, whose substantial rights fees are one of the major sources of revenue for the IOC, who therefore allowed NBC to have influence on event scheduling to maximize U.S. television ratings when possible (on 7 May 2014, NBC agreed to a US$7.75 billion contract extension to air the Olympics through 2032, including US$1.23 billion for Rio 2016), as well as the main Brazilian rightsholder Rede Globo. As Brasília time is only one hour ahead of the U.S. Eastern Time Zone, certain marquee events were scheduled to occur during U.S. primetime hours (traditionally 8:00 to 11:00 p.m. ET, 9:00 p.m. to midnight BRT), allowing them to be broadcast live on the east coast as opposed to being delayed. This practice was also beneficial to Globo; a Brazilian critic noted that the network very rarely preempts its primetime telenovelas, as they are among the highest-rated programs in the country. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=961522 | 56,620 |
870,480 | Ultimately, the stated lack of a suitable C++ compiler and accompanying class libraries for the platform led prominent development houses to focus on products for other platforms and to abandon plans to release new software for RISC OS. In 1994, Mark Colton of Colton Software criticised Acorn for not complementing its C compiler with "C toolbox" libraries to assist with application development, and regarded Acorn as being "at a standstill" relative to broader development tool trends such as the introduction of Visual Basic and the increasing adoption of C++ together with class libraries for application development. Charles Moir of Computer Concepts justified the development of Xara Studio, a graphics application described as effectively "ArtWorks for the PC", indicating that only the larger market for Windows software could make the necessary investment in such a sophisticated application worthwhile. Since Windows development could leverage C++ and platform-specific class libraries, Computer Concepts had expected Acorn to deliver comparable tools and resources to make the development of such software possible on the Acorn platform "to no avail". Ben Finn of Sibelius Software indicated that Sibelius 7 had been a "completely new piece of software" written in C++, in contrast to earlier versions written in assembly language, primarily due to the difficulties of implementing requested features in such a low-level language. The portability of C++ software also permitted Sibelius to be made available for the PC and Mac platforms. However, with Acorn unable to provide a suitably updated C++ development suite, the company was unable to deliver its new product on RISC OS. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=63145 | 870,020 |
778,948 | In an effort to prevent poisoning, often a bittering agent called denatonium benzoate, known by the trade name Bitrex, is added to ethylene glycol preparations as an adversant to prevent accidental or intentional ingestion. The bittering agent is thought to stop ingestion as part of the human defense against ingestion of harmful substances is rejection of bitter tasting substances. In the United States, eight states (Oregon, California, New Mexico, Virginia, Arizona, Maine, Tennessee, Washington) have made the addition of bittering agents to antifreeze compulsory. Three follow up studies targeting limited populations or suicidal persons to assess the efficacy of bittering agents in preventing toxicity or death have, however, shown limited benefit of bittering ethylene glycol preparations in these two populations. Specifically, Mullins finds that bittering of antifreeze does not reduce reported cases of poisoning of preschoolers in the US state of Oregon. Similarly, White found that adding bittering agents did not decrease the frequency or severity of antifreeze poisonings in children under the age of 5. Additionally, another study by White found that suicidal persons are not deterred by the bittered taste of antifreeze in their attempts to kill themselves. These studies did not focus on poisoning of domestic pets or livestock, for example, or inadvertent exposure to bittered antifreeze among a large population (of non-preschool age children). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=18936112 | 778,531 |
1,217,925 | Conventional FTCD has limitations for the study of cerebral lateralization. For example, it may not differentiate the lateralising effects due to stimulus characteristics from those due to light responsiveness, and does not distinguish between flow signals emanating from cortical and subcortical branches of the cerebral arteries of the circle of Willis. Each basal cerebral artery of the circle of Willis gives origin to two different systems of secondary vessels. The shorter of these two is called the ganglionic system, and the vessels belonging to it supply the thalami and corpora striata; the longer is the cortical system, and its vessels ramify in the pia mater and supply the cortex and subjacent brain substance. Furthermore, the cortical branches are divisible into two classes: long and short. The long or medullary arteries pass through the grey substance and penetrate the subjacent white substance to the depth of 3–4 cm. The short vessels are confined to the cortex. Both cortical and ganglionic systems do not communicate at any point in their peripheral distribution, but are entirely independent of each other, having between the parts supplied by the two systems, a borderline of diminished nutritive activity. While, the vessels of the ganglionic system are terminal vessels, the vessels of the cortical arterial system are not so strictly "terminal". Blood flow in these two systems in the middle cerebral artery (MCA) territory supplies 80% of both hemispheres, including most neural substrates implicated in facial processing, language processing and intelligence processing at cortical and subcortical structures. The measurements of mean blood flow velocity (MFV) in the MCA main stem could potentially provide information about downstream changes at cortical and subcortical sites within the MCA territory. Each distal arm of the MCA vascular system could be separated into "near" and "far" distal reflection sites for the cortical and ganglionic (subcortical) systems, respectively. To accomplish this objective, one method is to apply Fourier analysis to the periodic time series of MFV acquired during cognitive stimulations. Fourier analysis would yield peaks | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3147406 | 1,217,272 |
60,850 | The opponents and supporters of chloroform were mainly at odds with the question of whether the complications were solely due to respiratory disturbance or whether chloroform had a specific effect on the heart. Between 1864 and 1910, numerous commissions in Britain studied chloroform but failed to come to any clear conclusions. It was only in 1911 that Levy proved in experiments with animals that chloroform can cause cardiac fibrillation. The reservations about chloroform could not halt its soaring popularity. Between 1865 and 1920, chloroform was used in 80 to 95% of all narcoses performed in the UK and German-speaking countries. In the United States, however, there was less enthusiasm for chloroform narcosis. In Germany, the first comprehensive surveys of the fatality rate during anaesthesia were made by Gurlt between 1890 and 1897. In 1934, Killian gathered all the statistics compiled until then and found that the chances of suffering fatal complications under ether were between 1:14,000 and 1:28,000, whereas under chloroform the chances were between 1:3,000 and 1:6,000. The rise of gas anaesthesia using nitrous oxide, improved equipment for administering anaesthetics and the discovery of hexobarbital in 1932 led to the gradual decline of chloroform narcosis. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=82933 | 60,825 |
792,852 | The first practical mechanical steam engine was introduced by Thomas Newcomen in 1712. Newcomen apparently conceived his machine independently of Savery, but as the latter had taken out a wide-ranging patent, Newcomen and his associates were obliged to come to an arrangement with him, marketing the engine until 1733 under a joint patent. Newcomen's engine appears to have been based on Papin's experiments carried out 30 years earlier, and employed a piston and cylinder, one end of which was open to the atmosphere above the piston. Steam just above atmospheric pressure (all that the boiler could stand) was introduced into the lower half of the cylinder beneath the piston during the gravity-induced upstroke; the steam was then condensed by a jet of cold water injected into the steam space to produce a partial vacuum; the pressure differential between the atmosphere and the vacuum on either side of the piston displaced it downwards into the cylinder, raising the opposite end of a rocking beam to which was attached a gang of gravity-actuated reciprocating force pumps housed in the mineshaft. The engine's downward power stroke raised the pump, priming it and preparing the pumping stroke. At first the phases were controlled by hand, but within ten years an escapement mechanism had been devised worked by of a vertical "plug tree" suspended from the rocking beam which rendered the engine self-acting. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1424698 | 792,427 |
1,375,375 | Aphids, small insects that can be found feeding on the sap of plants, exhibit many strategies in terms of chemical defense. Aphids have structures called cornicles along the posterior side of their abdomen which are used to deliver secretions containing both volatile and nonvolatile compounds. Volatile compounds serve primarily as alarm pheromones. Pheromones are chemicals released from one individual that elicit a response from another. Nonvolatile compounds, such as wax, are used as noxious adhesives that the aphid will smear on their enemies. These smears are used to fatally bind predators' mouthparts, antennas, legs, etc., meaning these compounds are typically used more for physical defense rather than chemical. Pea aphids ("Acyrthosiphon pisum") produce a warning chemical called (E)-β-farnesene which is excreted as a volatile compound in the presence of predators or perceived threats. In many cases, the aphid will respond by leaving the feeding site in search of an area without alarm pheromones. Additionally, pea aphids are highly attune to which predators are in their area as they can chemically identify what is posing as a threat and adjust their response accordingly. For example, pea aphids can identify "Adalia bipunctata", the ladybird beetle, by their chemical predator cues. After sensing this predator, pea aphids are known to produce more offspring with wings. The winged offspring are able to better avoid predation; however, winged individuals are less fertile. This trade-off between wings and fertility shows the success of this particular defensive strategy. In “relaxed” conditions, or conditions in which predator cues are absent, more wing-less offspring are produced. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30856926 | 1,374,615 |
1,471,705 | The reformed academic culture of the Soviet Union, after the death of Stalin and reforms of the Khrushchev era, allowed cybernetics to tear down its previous ideological criticisms and redeem itself in the public view. To Soviet scientists, cybernetics emerged as possible vector of escape from the ideological traps of Stalinism, replacing it with the computational objectivity of cybernetics. Military computer scientist Anatoly Kitov recalled stumbling onto "Cybernetics" in the secret library of the Special Construction Bureau and realising instantly, cybernetics was "not a bourgeois pseudo-science, as official publications considered it at the time, but the opposite – a serious, important science". He joined with the dissident mathematician Alexey Lyapunov, and, in 1952, presented a pro-cybernetic paper to "Voprosy Filosofii", which the journal tacitly endorsed, though the Communist Party required that Lyapunov and Kitov present public lectures on cybernetics before its publication, with 121 seminars produced in total from 1954–55. A very different academic, the Soviet philosopher and former ideological watchdog Ernst Kolman, also joined this rehabilitation. In November 1954, Kolman presented a lecture at the Academy of Social Sciences, condemning this stifling of cybernetics to a shocked audience, who had expected a lecture rehearsing previous Stalinist criticisms, and marched down to the office of "Voprosy Filosofii" to have his lecture published. The beginning of a Soviet cybernetic movement was therefore first signaled by two articles, published together in the July–August 1955 volume of "Voprosy Filosofii": "The Main Features of Cybernetics" by Sergei Sobolev, Alexey Lyapunov, and Anatoly Kitov, and "What is Cybernetics" by Ernst Kolman. According to Benjamin Peters, these "two Soviet articles set the stage for the revolution of cybernetics in the Soviet Union". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=54974049 | 1,470,876 |
1,011,380 | "Cryptococcus neoformans" typically grows as a yeast (unicellular) and replicates by budding. It makes hyphae during mating, and eventually creates basidiospores at the end of the hyphae before producing spores. Under host-relevant conditions, including low glucose, serum, 5% carbon dioxide, and low iron, among others, the cells produce a characteristic polysaccharide capsule. The recognition of "C. neoformans" in Gram-stained smears of purulent exudates may be hampered by the presence of the large gelatinous capsule which apparently prevents definitive staining of the yeast-like cells. In such stained preparations, it may appear either as round cells with Gram-positive granular inclusions impressed upon a pale lavender cytoplasmic background or as Gram-negative lipoid bodies. When grown as a yeast, "C. neoformans" has a prominent capsule composed mostly of polysaccharides. Under the microscope, the India ink stain is used for easy visualization of the capsule in cerebral spinal fluid. The particles of ink pigment do not enter the capsule that surrounds the spherical yeast cell, resulting in a zone of clearance or "halo" around the cells. This allows for quick and easy identification of "C. neoformans". Unusual morphological forms are rarely seen. For identification in tissue, mucicarmine stain provides specific staining of polysaccharide cell wall in "C. neoformans". Cryptococcal antigen from cerebrospinal fluid is thought to be the best test for diagnosis of cryptococcal meningitis in terms of sensitivity, though it might be unreliable in HIV-positive patients. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=562589 | 1,010,859 |
402,520 | In 1975, an American scientist, Jerome Pearson, reinvented the concept, publishing his analysis in the journal "Acta Astronautica". He designed a cross-section-area altitude profile that tapered and would be better suited to building the elevator. The completed cable would be thickest at the geostationary orbit, where the tension was greatest, and would be narrowest at the tips to reduce the amount of weight per unit area of cross section that any point on the cable would have to bear. He suggested using a counterweight that would be slowly extended out to (almost half the distance to the Moon) as the lower sections of the elevator were built. Without a large counterweight, the upper portion of the cable would have to be longer than the lower due to the way gravitational and centrifugal forces change with distance from Earth. His analysis included disturbances such as the gravitation of the Moon, wind and moving payloads up and down the cable. The weight of the material needed to build the elevator would have required thousands of Space Shuttle trips, although part of the material could be transported up the elevator when a minimum strength strand reached the ground or be manufactured in space from asteroidal or lunar ore. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29192 | 402,321 |
359,546 | Purkinje cells are among the most distinctive neurons in the brain, and one of the earliest types to be recognized—they were first described by the Czech anatomist Jan Evangelista Purkyně in 1837. They are distinguished by the shape of their dendritic tree: The dendrites branch very profusely, but are severely flattened in a plane perpendicular to the cerebellar folds. Thus, the dendrites of a Purkinje cell form a dense planar net, through which parallel fibers pass at right angles. The dendrites are covered with dendritic spines, each of which receives synaptic input from a parallel fiber. Purkinje cells receive more synaptic inputs than any other type of cell in the brain—estimates of the number of spines on a single human Purkinje cell run as high as 200,000. The large, spherical cell bodies of Purkinje cells are packed into a narrow layer (one cell thick) of the cerebellar cortex, called the "Purkinje layer". After emitting collaterals that affect nearby parts of the cortex, their axons travel into the deep cerebellar nuclei, where they make on the order of 1,000 contacts each with several types of nuclear cells, all within a small domain. Purkinje cells use GABA as their neurotransmitter, and therefore exert inhibitory effects on their targets. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=50397 | 359,359 |
2,025,939 | Proposed efforts to change the viewpoints of medical students have received academic study. For example, an analysis explored in a Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM) conference held in 2010 inside Jacksonville, Florida received wider distribution afterwards, with Dr. Julie Phillips of the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine (MSUCHM) and other scholars detailing what a 2006 to 2008 survey of approximately a thousand students at three allopathic U.S. medical schools found. The experts observed broadly that "contemporary physicians struggle to meet the high expectations set by patients and their profession with limited time and resources." Specifically, results indicated that only 145 survey respondents (14.8%) leaned towards having a career in primary care. Furthermore, 11.2% of first-year students expressed interest in that medical focus in contrast to how 10.8% of second-year students showed interest. In addition, third-year and fourth-year students expressed more interest in having a career in primary care, at 18.3% and 21.0%, respectively. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=71941912 | 2,024,773 |
2,179,659 | Their first strategy was created in 2013 to determine the concerns and actions required to develop an innovation that can advance stem cell research and clinics. The Canadian Stem Cell Foundation's goals are to invest a strategy for new treatments, sustainable healthcare, therapies and beneficial products. Their goals are beyond their capacity, such as "using cells to treat respiratory heart diseases, restore lost vision, create a source of insulin-producing cells to treat diabetes, repair damaged spinal cords, reverse the effect of MS, Crohn's disease and other autoimmune disorders, reduce the ravages of Parkinson's disease and reverse tumour formation in the brain, breast and other solid tissues." Their other goals are to bring together scientists, institutions, health charities, industry partners, regulators, funders and philanthropists in a universal vision in the developments of stem cell science research and have public and private sectors support in the funding for stem cell research in the long-term. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23615662 | 2,178,414 |
1,925,292 | In the 21st century, significant gains in understanding the brain through the cognitive sciences opened up new areas of collaboration between archaeology and neuroscience. This has enabled archaeologists to base hypotheses about the biological and neural substrates of human cognitive abilities on archaeological data, especially change in material forms like stone tools across time. Neuroscientific insights can also be applied in critically reviewing and challenging theories and assumptions about the inception of modern human cognition and behavior, including whether there even are such things. Both neuroscience and neuroarchaeology seek to understand the human mind. However, the theories and methods of the two disciplines differ significantly. Neuroscience collects data on brain form and function in extant populations, while neuroarchaeolgy uses archaeological and neuroscientific data to examine change in brain form and function in extinct populations. To reconcile these theoretical and methodological differences, neuroarchaeology "aims at constructing an analytical bridge between brain and culture by putting material culture, embodiment, time and long term change at center stage in the study of mind." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=60879856 | 1,924,188 |
1,787,751 | This caused another rapid expansion, particularly in Germany. Between 1877 and 1887, 130 German patents for azo dyes were filed and 105 new dyes made it to market. It also lead to a difference in how chemical companies interacted with consumers. German dye firms developed in-house marketing and distribution capabilities coordinated directly with their research and development departments. Paul Schützenberger, in response to what he had seen at the 1878 Universal Exposition commented, "The abundance, the variety of combinations is such that we do not know whether to be more amazed by their multiplicity or by the imagination required to name them. Indeed, it is by the thousands that dyers create, every season, new colors for their sample cards." Professional societies based on the synthetic dye industries began to form. By the First World War, the largest number of dyes sold in the market fell into the class of azo dyes. 1885, an azo-naphthol, Para-red, became the first water-insoluble organic pigment not containing acidic or basic groups. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=62919428 | 1,786,746 |
275,899 | Aerodynamic enrichment processes include the Becker jet nozzle techniques developed by E. W. Becker and associates using the LIGA process and the vortex tube separation process. These aerodynamic separation processes depend upon diffusion driven by pressure gradients, as does the gas centrifuge. They in general have the disadvantage of requiring complex systems of cascading of individual separating elements to minimize energy consumption. In effect, aerodynamic processes can be considered as non-rotating centrifuges. Enhancement of the centrifugal forces is achieved by dilution of UF with hydrogen or helium as a carrier gas achieving a much higher flow velocity for the gas than could be obtained using pure uranium hexafluoride. The Uranium Enrichment Corporation of South Africa (UCOR) developed and deployed the continuous Helikon vortex separation cascade for high production rate low-enrichment and the substantially different semi-batch Pelsakon low production rate high enrichment cascade both using a particular vortex tube separator design, and both embodied in industrial plant. A demonstration plant was built in Brazil by NUCLEI, a consortium led by Industrias Nucleares do Brasil that used the separation nozzle process. However all methods have high energy consumption and substantial requirements for removal of waste heat; none is currently still in use. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=37555 | 275,749 |
1,395,401 | The National General/Admiral Staff Officer Course (NGASOC) is considered to be the most challenging and hardest course. The two-year course is attended usually by 100 national and international participants from Army, Air Force, Navy, Central Medical Service, Armed Forces Logistic Services and Cyber-Information Services. It educates, teaches and qualifies future general/admiral staff military officers. A particular characteristic of the course is that it specifically focuses on the strategic and tactical aspects of war and educationally prepares officers for assignments as military leaders. It provides an excellent comprehensive, multifaceted focus at the theater-strategic level across the military spectrum of Joint and land force operations during peace, crisis, and war. The program includes classroom studies of strategy, regional studies, joint operations, strategic leadership, and modern conflict. It intends to lecture officers in military arts and science and focuses on operational art and covers a variety of subjects, including military problem solving; military theory and history, military doctrine, operational planning; battle dynamics, operational theory and practice, contemporary military operations, and the application of national elements of power. As a result, high-level military officers including the German Ministry of Defence refer to the course as being a think tank. Complementary to the core modules of the course a master can be achieved (Master in Military Leadership and International Security/ Militärische Führung und Internationale Sicherheit). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23002711 | 1,394,630 |
324,541 | What toxicity is shown appears to be at very high levels of exposure through ingestion of contaminated food and water, through inhalation of dust/smoke particles either as an occupational hazard or due to proximity to contaminated sites such as mines and cities. Therefore, the main issues that these residents would face is bioaccumulation of REEs and the impact on their respiratory system but overall, there can be other possible short term and long-term health effects. It was found that people living near mines in China had many times the levels of REEs in their blood, urine, bone and hair compared to controls far from mining sites. This higher level was related to the high levels of REEs present in the vegetables they cultivated, the soil, and the water from the wells, indicating that the high levels were caused by the nearby mine. While REE levels varied between men and women, the group most at risk were children because REEs can impact the neurological development of children, affecting their IQ and potentially causing memory loss. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=145440 | 324,368 |
1,532,411 | Early theorists like Saussure (1857–1913) proposed the theory that when the addresser wishes to transmit a message to an addressee, the intended meaning must be converted into content so that it can be delivered. Roman Jakobson (1896–1982) offered a structuralist theory that the transmission and response would not sustain an efficient discourse unless the parties used the same codes in the appropriate social contexts. But, Barthes shifted the emphasis from the "semiotics of language" to the exploration of "semiotics as language". Now, as Daniel Chandler states, there is no such thing as an uncoded message: all experience is coded. So when the addresser is planning the particular message, both denotative and connotative meanings will already be attached to the range of signifiers relevant to the message. Within the broad framework of syntactic and semantic codes, the addresser will select signifiers that, in the particular context, will best represent his or her values and purposes. But the medium of communication is not necessarily neutral and the ability of the addressee to accurately decode the message may be affected by a number of factors. So the addresser must attempt to compensate for the known problems when constructing the final version of the message and hope that the preferred meanings will be identified when the message is received. One of the techniques is to structure the message so that certain aspects are given salience (sometimes called "foregrounding") and predispose the audience to interpret the whole in the light of the particular. This relates to Gestalt psychology, Max Wertheimer (1880–1943) examined the factors that determine grouping in cognitive processes: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2108591 | 1,531,543 |
1,718,031 | During the 1980s, the unit grew from a company size to a battalion, taking on a range of new assignments at several points in time. Throughout much of the decade, the 203rd played a key role in educating candidate Foreign Service Officers as a component of the State Department's training and indoctrination course. The battalion taught differences in equipment, weapons and doctrine between NATO and Warsaw Pact governments. As time went on the unit established a consistent presence in alliance maintenance operations, with heavy involvement in training and integration of foreign partner forces. In October 1995, components of the 513th Military Intelligence Brigade, including much of the 203rd as well as the 372nd MI Company deployed to the Republic of Korea to participate in exercise Foal Eagle 95, on a large scale simulated combined TECHINT mission with counterparts from the ROK Armed Forces. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=67447284 | 1,717,061 |
34,304 | In chemistry, predicting gas solubility is essential to manufacturing polymers, but models using particle swarm optimization (PSO) tend to converge to the wrong points. An improved version of PSO has been created by introducing chaos, which keeps the simulations from getting stuck. In celestial mechanics, especially when observing asteroids, applying chaos theory leads to better predictions about when these objects will approach Earth and other planets. Four of the five moons of Pluto rotate chaotically. In quantum physics and electrical engineering, the study of large arrays of Josephson junctions benefitted greatly from chaos theory. Closer to home, coal mines have always been dangerous places where frequent natural gas leaks cause many deaths. Until recently, there was no reliable way to predict when they would occur. But these gas leaks have chaotic tendencies that, when properly modeled, can be predicted fairly accurately. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=6295 | 34,292 |
1,459,388 | Arseneault in 1989 inherited a Grinnell program that had not had a winning season in 25 years. After a couple years of trying out traditional eight-player rotations, he felt Grinnell needed to change its basketball philosophy to rejuvenate the team and have more fun. Grinnell was a Division III school that did not offer athletic scholarships, and players that did not receive playing time were quitting. Arseneault developed the Grinnell System, which incorporated a dozen or more players in a game. According to his son, David Jr., who also played and later coached under his father at Grinnell, Arseneault did not believe the system would be a competitive strategy, but thought the increased scoring would develop a more positive environment, even if the team lost. Through 2012, Grinnell won five conference championships, advanced to the postseason 11 times, and led the nation in scoring at all levels of college basketball in 17 of the past 19 seasons. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=37719635 | 1,458,567 |
1,727,474 | Excavations on the Western Front often occur for humanitarian reasons, namely the recovery and identification of human remains and the disposal of unexploded ordnance. The unique conditions of Western Front excavations often pose a threat for archaeological excavations. For example, during the first five hours of the Kaiserschlacht ('German spring offensive'), over one million shells were fired by the Germans into the Allies' lines across the entire 150-mile front. The million shells fired during the beginning of the Spring Offensive are only a small sample of the total used during the war. Most of the shell casings were dumped on the battlefields and a considerable number of shells did not detonate upon impact. Archaeologists conducting excavations at World War I sites are often at risk not just from the unexploded ordnance but from the environmental pollution caused by the deterioration of ordnance, shell and bullet casings, and various other forms of battlefield debris. A study conducted at the Ypres battlefield in 2008 concluded that the highest level of copper contamination of the soil was over 200mg/kg, which was higher than the background threshold of 17mg/kg. The large area in France, where the levels of heavy metals from battlefield debris can negatively impact the health of flora and fauna is labeled by the French government as "Zone Rouge" (Red Zone). The French Government created "Département du Déminage " for the purpose of collecting and detonating unexploded ordnance in the Red Zone. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=6156184 | 1,726,500 |
1,393,373 | Since the work of August Weismann on germ-plasm theory in biology and of Julian Huxley on the nature of the individual in evolutionary theory, the various species of green algae belonging to the family Volvocaceae have been recognized as important ones in the study of evolutionary transitions from uni- to multicellular life. In a modern biological view, this significance arises from a number of specific features of these algae, including the fact that they are an extant family (obviating the need to study microfossils), are readily obtainable in nature, have been studied from a variety of perspectives (biochemical, developmental, genetic), and have had significant ecological studies. From a fluid dynamical perspective, their relatively large size and easy culturing conditions allow for precise studies of their motility, the flows they create with their flagella, and interactions between organisms, while their high degree of symmetry simplifies theoretical descriptions of those same phenomena. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=67845153 | 1,392,602 |
1,562,222 | Blanford was born in London to William Blanford and Elizabeth Simpson. His father owned a factory next to their house on Bouverie street, Whitefriars. He was educated in private schools in Brighton (until 1846) and Paris (1848). He joined his family business in carving and gilding and studied at the School of Design in Somerset House. Suffering from ill health, he spent two years in a business house at Civitavecchia owned by a friend of his father. His initial aim was to enter a mercantile career. On returning to England in 1851 he was induced to enter the newly established Royal School of Mines (now part of Imperial College London), which his younger brother Henry F. Blanford (1834–1893), afterwards head of the Indian Meteorological Department, had already joined. He studied under Henry De la Beche, Lyon Playfair, Edward Forbes, Ramsay, and Warington Smyth. He then spent a year in the mining school (Bergakademie) at Freiberg, Saxony, and towards the close of 1854 both he and his brother obtained posts on the Geological Survey of India. In that service he remained for twenty-seven years, retiring in 1882. After his retirement he took up editorship of "The Fauna of British India, Including Ceylon and Burma" series. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=879241 | 1,561,335 |
783,762 | Lashley (1951) proposed that behavioral sequences are typically controlled with central plans, and the structure of the plans is hierarchical. Some evidences also support this hypothesis. Same behaviors can have different functional interpretations depending on the context in which they occur. The same sound pattern can be interpreted differently depending on where it occurs in a sentence, for example, “there” and “their”. Such contextual dependence is only possible with functionally overarching states of the sort implied by hierarchical plans. The initiation time of a movement sequence and the inter-response times of the sequence elements can increase with its length. Further, inter-response times can depend on the size of the phrase that is about to be generated. The larger the phrase, the longer the inter-response time. Such data have been interpreted in terms of ‘decoding’ or ‘unpacking’ hierarchical plans into their constituents. Moreover, learning difficulties changes with the easiness of behavioral sequences. Finally, long-term learning of skills is naturally characterized by the process of forming ever larger hierarchical units or ‘chunks'. People learn control structures for successively larger units of behavior, with newly learned routines calling up or relying on more elementary routines, like learning to play simple notes before being able to play piano concerto. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=334507 | 783,343 |
1,233,303 | Despite its early successes quantum field theory was plagued by several serious theoretical difficulties. Basic physical quantities, such as the self-energy of the electron, the energy shift of electron states due to the presence of the electromagnetic field, gave infinite, divergent contributions—a nonsensical result—when computed using the perturbative techniques available in the 1930s and most of the 1940s. The electron self-energy problem was already a serious issue in the classical electromagnetic field theory, where the attempt to attribute to the electron a finite size or extent (the classical electron-radius) led immediately to the question of what non-electromagnetic stresses would need to be invoked, which would presumably hold the electron together against the Coulomb repulsion of its finite-sized "parts". The situation was dire, and had certain features that reminded many of the "Rayleigh–Jeans catastrophe". What made the situation in the 1940s so desperate and gloomy, however, was the fact that the correct ingredients (the second-quantized Maxwell–Dirac field equations) for the theoretical description of interacting photons and electrons were well in place, and no major conceptual change was needed analogous to that which was necessitated by a finite and physically sensible account of the radiative behavior of hot objects, as provided by the Planck radiation law. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2078963 | 1,232,640 |
1,826,799 | On the other hand, specialised eukaryotic cells, such as red blood cells (RBCs), are one of the nature's most efficient passive carriers with high payload efficiency, deformability, degradability, and biocompatibility, and have also been used in various medical applications. RBCs and RBC-derived , such as nanoerythrosomes, have been successfully adopted as passive cargo carriers to enhance the circulation time of the applied substances in the body, and to deliver different bioactive substances for the treatment of various diseases observed in the liver, spleen and lymph nodes, and also cancer via administrating through intravenous, intraperitoneal, subcutaneous, and inhalational routes. For instance, decreased recognition of drug-loaded particles by immune cells was shown when attached to membranes of the RBCs prior to intravenous injection into mice. Additionally, the altered bioaccumulation profile of nanocarriers was shown when conjugated onto the RBCs, boosting the delivery of nanocarriers to the target organs. It was also reported that the half-life of Fasudil, a drug for pulmonary arterial hypertension, inside the body increased approximately sixfold to eightfold when it was loaded into nanoerythrosomes. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=68657567 | 1,825,760 |
51,636 | BAE Systems has been investigated by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) for the use of corruption to help sell arms to Chile, Czech Republic, Romania, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Tanzania and Qatar. In response, BAE Systems' 2006 Corporate Responsibility Report states "We continue to reject these allegations... We take our obligations under the law extremely seriously and will continue to comply with all legal requirements around the world. In June 2007 Lord Woolf was selected to lead what the BBC described as an "independent review... [an] ethics committee to look into how the defence giant conducts its arms deals". The report, "Ethical business conduct in BAE Systems plc – the way forward", made 23 recommendations, measures which the company committed to implement. The finding stated that "in the past BAE did not pay sufficient attention to ethical standards in the way it conducted business", and was described by the BBC as "an embarrassing admission". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=200128 | 51,616 |
348,068 | In 2012 the USDA updated their plant hardiness map based on 1976–2005 weather data, using a longer period of data to smooth out year-to-year weather fluctuations. Two new zones (12 and 13) were added to better define and improve information sharing on tropical and semitropical plants, they also appear on the maps of Hawaii and Puerto Rico. There is a very small spot east of San Juan, Puerto Rico that includes the airport in coastal Carolina, where the mean minimum is 67 degrees F (19 C), which is classified as hardiness Zone 13b, the highest category, with temperatures rarely below . The map has a higher resolution than previous ones, and is able to show local variations due to things such as elevation or large bodies of water. Many zone boundaries were changed as a result of the more recent data, as well as new mapping methods and additional information gathered. Many areas were a half zone warmer than the previous 1990 map. The 2012 map was created digitally for the internet, and includes a ZIP Code zone finder and an interactive map. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1720511 | 347,886 |
1,805,252 | After some debate, the spot chosen for the site was a city works yard near to the Health Sciences Centre (a major teaching hospital) and the University of Manitoba's medical school. The City of Winnipeg transferred the title for $1. Construction of the facility that came to be named the Canadian Science Centre for Human and Animal Health (often referred to locally as "the Virology Lab") began with an official groundbreaking in December 1992. The design team, headed by the Winnipeg-based Smith Carter Architects and Engineers Inc., visited laboratories around the world to seek best practices in containment and design. Construction finished toward the end of 1997, with the first programs beginning in the spring of 1998 following an extensive commissioning process. The rest of the laboratories then became operational one by one. The official opening took place in 1999. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19298710 | 1,804,237 |
681,771 | Since about 1990, FDTD techniques have emerged as primary means to computationally model many scientific and engineering problems dealing with electromagnetic wave interactions with material structures. Current FDTD modeling applications range from near-DC (ultralow-frequency geophysics involving the entire Earth-ionosphere waveguide) through microwaves (radar signature technology, antennas, wireless communications devices, digital interconnects, biomedical imaging/treatment) to visible light (photonic crystals, nanoplasmonics, solitons, and biophotonics). In 2006, an estimated 2,000 FDTD-related publications appeared in the science and engineering literature (see Popularity). As of 2013, there are at least 25 commercial/proprietary FDTD software vendors; 13 free-software/open-source-software FDTD projects; and 2 freeware/closed-source FDTD projects, some not for commercial use (see External links). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1908142 | 681,415 |
379,095 | Siphonophores use a method of locomotion similar to jet propulsion. A siphonophore is a complex aggregate colony made up of many nectophores, which are clonal individuals that form by budding and are genetically identical. Depending on where each individual nectophore is positioned within the siphonophore, their function differs. Colonial movement is determined by individual nectophores of all developmental stages. The smaller individuals are concentrated towards the top of the siphonophore, and their function is turning and adjusting the orientation of the colony. Individuals will get larger the older they are. The larger individuals are located at the base of the colony, and their main function is thrust propulsion. These larger individuals are important in attaining the maximum speed of the colony. Every individual is key to the movement of the aggregate colony, and understanding their organization may allow us to make advances in our own multi-jet propulsion vehicles. The colonial organization of siphonophores, particularly in "Nanomia bijuga" confers evolutionary advantages. A large number of concentrated individuals allows for redundancy. This means that even if some individual nectophores become functionally compromised, their role is bypassed so the colony as a whole is not negatively affected. The velum, a thin band of tissue surrounding the opening of the jet, also plays a role in swimming patterns, shown specifically through research done on the previous mentioned species "N. bijuga." The velum becomes smaller and more circular during times of forward propulsion compared to a large velum that is seen during refill periods. Additionally, the position of the velum changes with swimming behaviors; the velum is curved downward in times of jetting, but during refill, the velum is moved back into the nectophore. The siphonophore "Namonia bijuga" also practices diel vertical migration, as it remains in the deep-sea during the day but rises during the night. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=631508 | 378,900 |
1,062,055 | A protein microarray (or protein chip) is a high-throughput method used to track the interactions and activities of proteins, and to determine their function, and determining function on a large scale. Its main advantage lies in the fact that large numbers of proteins can be tracked in parallel. The chip consists of a support surface such as a glass slide, nitrocellulose membrane, bead, or microtitre plate, to which an array of capture proteins is bound. Probe molecules, typically labeled with a fluorescent dye, are added to the array. Any reaction between the probe and the immobilised protein emits a fluorescent signal that is read by a laser scanner. Protein microarrays are rapid, automated, economical, and highly sensitive, consuming small quantities of samples and reagents. The concept and methodology of protein microarrays was first introduced and illustrated in antibody microarrays (also referred to as antibody matrix) in 1983 in a scientific publication and a series of patents. The high-throughput technology behind the protein microarray was relatively easy to develop since it is based on the technology developed for DNA microarrays, which have become the most widely used microarrays. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1659679 | 1,061,501 |
1,846,375 | While eco-evolutionary dynamics have been successfully documented using models and laboratory studies, It has been difficult to research eco-evolutionary dynamics in natural systems. It is especially more challenging to study evolutionary and ecological dynamics in an ecosystem because of the large number of species and complex interactions that comprise an ecosystem. The realization that rapid evolution can alter ecological processes has led researchers to take an eco-evolutionary approach while observing the consequences of rapid evolutionary change in ecosystems in contemporary time. The idea of evolution being studied on entire ecosystems dates back to the 1920s. It was hypothesized that evolution through natural selection would operate to achieve maximum energy flux through an ecosystem. Since then, progression toward merging ecosystem ecology and evolution continued, and studies have revealed the impact evolution has on ecosystem ecology and vice versa. In an ecosystem, the interactions between individuals and their environment can drive changes in evolution. Due to the complexity of ecosystems, organisms experience multiple interactions in their environment, and these interactions can indirectly change the selective pressures placed on them. The selective pressures lead to genetic and phenotypic variation, which influence ecosystem variables such as decomposition, nutrient cycling, and primary productivity. An example of ecosystem variables being influenced by evolution is a mesocosm experiment using Trinidadian guppies. Predation pressure in an environment caused evolutionary changes in the life-history traits of the guppies, which affected ecosystem processes. Guppies' living in an environment with high predation lead to the fish giving birth more frequently and to smaller offspring. These offspring also matured at an earlier age and at a smaller size than guppies living in a low predation environment. Populations with more and smaller guppies increased the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus in the nutrient pool of an ecosystem, which increased algal biomass. The increase in algal biomass feedback to influence the evolution of other guppy traits. So evolutionary changes in the life-history traits of Trinidadian guppies caused by predation resulted in ecological effects at the community and ecosystem level, which feedback to influence the evolution of other traits in the guppies. Another hypothesis of eco-evolutionary dynamics in ecosystems involves the evolution of food webs. Scientists began to study the evolution of food webs in ecosystems through the use of evolutionary simulation models to get an understanding of the structure and function of current ecosystems. The results of their models lead to the generation of food webs that are similar to our existing food webs. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=67014213 | 1,845,320 |
810,820 | Rabi's Molecular Beam Laboratory began to attract others, including Sidney Millman, a graduate student who studied lithium for his doctorate. Another was Jerrold Zacharias who, believing that the sodium nucleus would be too difficult to understand, proposed studying the simplest of the elements, hydrogen. Its deuterium isotope had only recently been discovered at Columbia in 1931 by Urey, who received the 1934 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for this work. Urey was able to supply them with both heavy water and gaseous deuterium for their experiments. Despite its simplicity, Stern's group in Hamburg had observed that hydrogen did not behave as predicted. Urey also helped in another way; he gave Rabi half his prize money to fund the Molecular Beam Laboratory. Other scientists whose careers began at the Molecular Beam Laboratory included Norman Ramsey, Julian Schwinger, Jerome Kellogg and Polykarp Kusch. All were men; Rabi did not believe that women could be physicists. He never had a woman as a doctoral or postdoctoral student, and generally opposed women as candidates for faculty positions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=196999 | 810,388 |
1,814,404 | In the 1990s Gordon Pask pointed out von Foerster's H and Hmax were not independent and interacted via countably infinite recursive concurrent spin processes (he favoured the Bohm interpretation) which he called concepts (liberally defined in "any" medium, "productive and, incidentally reproductive"). His strict definition of concept "a procedure to bring about a relation" permitted his theorem "Like concepts repel, unlike concepts attract" to state a general spin based "principle of self-organization". His edict, an exclusion principle, "There are No Doppelgangers" means no two concepts can be the same (all interactions occur with different perspectives making time incommensurable for actors). This means, after sufficient duration as differences assert, all concepts will attract and coalesce as pink noise and entropy increases (and see Big Crunch, self-organized criticality). The theory is applicable to all organizationally closed or homeostatic processes that produce enduring and coherent products (where spins have a fixed average phase relationship and also in the sense of Nicholas Rescher's coherence theory of truth with the proviso that the sets and their members exert repulsive forces at their boundaries) through interactions: evolving, learning and adapting. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=52563216 | 1,813,370 |
1,168,145 | "Diphasiastrum digitatum" is a perennial vascular plant that does not contain a significant amount of wood tissue above or at the ground. They are low-growing, usually measuring less than 30 cm tall. Leaves are evergreen, which appear opposite, and are arranged spirally with four evenly spaced leaves; when viewed from the side it appears as four columns. The branch leaves are green and shiny, the base extends down to the stem (decurrent) and the free portion at the tip is pointed and scale-like. Branches are shaped rectangular in cross-section, flattened on the underside with the associated leaf much smaller than the rest. The largest leaves are lateral, the free portion appressed to spreading, and the leaves on the upper surface are appressed and are more narrow. The stems spread horizontally above ground or just below the surface of the duff layer. The erect shoots each contain two or more branches near the base. Branches are more likely ascending to spreading, forked and tree-like, and mostly are arranged on the same plane, fan-like. Erect shoots can measure from 3 to 20 inches tall, although, vegetative shoots are typically less than 8 inches. Spores develop in cone-like structures referred to as strobili. About 2 to 4 strobili (rarely more) are usually clustered at the tip of a long stalk which is referred to as the peduncle. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25309899 | 1,167,527 |
2,061,122 | In songbirds, "egr1" is a transcription factor encoding gene that is active in the auditory forebrain when hearing a song from another songbird. The strength of the expression of "egr1" has much variability, dependent on the nature of the song. Songs previously unheard result in strong responses whereas familiar songs result in little or no response. Pure tones or white noise do not evoke any response. It is thought that the purpose of this genetic response to social stimuli is to update the brain's catalog of the changing natural environment. For example, it would be advantageous for a songbird to express more "egr1" in a situation where there is a new song heard (a potential intruder) compared to the familiar song of a known individual. In contrast, for the species of highly social cichlid fish "A. burtoni", the "egr1" gene plays an indirect role in reproduction. In this species, there is an established social dominance hierarchy and an individual's position determines their access to resources for reproduction. If the alpha male is removed from the group, a previous subordinate starts exhibiting dominant behavior and "egr1" is expressed in hypothalamus neurons that are responsible for producing a neuropeptide linked to sexual reproduction. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20617241 | 2,059,935 |
326,416 | Climate change has the potential to greatly alter the distribution of Earth's biomes. Meaning, biomes around the world could change so much that they would be at risk of becoming new biomes entirely. General frequency models have been a staple in finding out the impact climate change could have on biomes. More specifically, 54% and 22% of global land area will experience climates that correspond to other biomes. 3.6% of land area will experience climates that are completely new or unusual. Average temperatures have risen more than twice the usual amount in both arctic and mountainous biomes. Which leads to the conclusion that arctic and mountainous biomes are currently the most vulnerable to climate change. The current reasoning surrounding as to why this is the case are based around the fact that colder environments tend to reflect more sunlight, as a result of the snow and ice covering the ground. Since the annual average temperatures are rising, ice and snow is melting. As a result, albedo is lowered. Keeping a keen eye on terrestrial biomes is important, as they play a crucial role in climate regulation. South American terrestrial biomes have been predicted to go through the same temperature trends as arctic and mountainous biomes. With its annual average temperature continuing to increase, the moisture currently located in forest biomes will dry up. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4802 | 326,242 |
1,595,341 | The larger aim of student-directed teaching is to revolutionize education. Nascent in the progressive philosophy is a feeling that education has remained unchanged for far too long: since its inception, in fact, a century and a half ago. The global climate today differs vastly from that of 1850. Arguably, the most important change in the last century has been the acceleration of the proliferation of information. The twentieth century has seen several important advances in technology, including the invention of the transistor, the radio, the television, and finally, the Internet. Each of these inventions, evolutions, in turn, has accelerated the commonly understood notion of culture. And with each progressive acceleration, the strain on individuals, not just students, to make sense of the world increases. Although it affects everyone, it is most noticeable in children: ultimately, the institution of mass schooling has been unable to keep up with the changes dictated by the intense proliferation of knowledge. Students, thus is the claim of Student-Directed Teaching, are failed by the system, leaving them bored, apathetic and mundane. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=22632519 | 1,594,443 |
67,349 | The air crib is an easily cleaned, temperature- and humidity-controlled box-bed intended to replace the standard infant crib. After raising one baby, Skinner felt that he could simplify the process for parents and improve the experience for children. He primarily thought of the idea to help his wife cope with the day-to-day tasks of child rearing. Skinner had some specific concerns about raising a baby in the rough environment where he lived in Minnesota. Keeping the child warm was a central priority (Faye, 2010). Though this was the main goal It also was designed to reduce laundry, diaper rash, cradle cap, while still allowing the baby to be more mobile and comfortable, and less prone to cry. Reportedly it had some success in these goals and was used with an estimate of 300 children who were raised in the air crib. The notorious crib was advertised commercially, Psychology Today tracked down 50 children and ran a short piece on the effects of the air crib. The reports came back positive and that these children and parents enjoyed using the crib (Epstein, 2005). One of these air cribs resides in the gallery at the Center for the History of Psychology in Akron, Ohio (Faye, 2010). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4868 | 67,323 |
194,032 | The first university in Aberdeen, King's College, formally The University and King's College of Aberdeen (Collegium Regium Aberdonense), was founded on 10 February 1494 by William Elphinstone, Bishop of Aberdeen, Chancellor of Scotland, and a graduate of the University of Glasgow drafting a request on behalf of King James IV to Pope Alexander VI resulting in a papal bull being issued. It seems that James was keen to ensure that Scotland had as many universities as England at the time, and it was to possess all the privileges enjoyed by those of Paris and Bologna, two of the most highly favoured in Europe. The university, modelled on that of the University of Paris and intended principally as a law school, soon became the most famous and popular of the Scots seats of learning, largely due to the prestige of Elphinstone and his friend, Hector Boece, the first principal appointed in 1500. Its aim was to train doctors, teachers and clergy who would serve the communities of northern Scotland, as well as lawyers and administrators for the Scottish Crown. It was a collegiate foundation with 36 full-time staff and students and walls protecting it from the outside world. In 1497 the college established the first chair of medicine in the English-speaking world. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=213135 | 193,932 |
159,208 | Amadeus is able to rapidly and without mechanical aid perform mental calculations of almost unimaginable complexity enabling him to, with minimal stimuli on his part, set multiple physical reactions into motion in his vicinity, forestalling technological and human activity with equal ease. This intelligence is portrayed in the comics as various numbers and other details labeled on everything he sees as relevant, shown from his point of view. He has shown himself capable of doing anything from redirecting a laser-guided missile with a wing mirror to tracking the Hulk based on his trajectory and jump height. However, performing mental calculations in rapid succession costs him immense amounts of energy, requiring him to consume large amounts of food thereafter. He previously rode a Vespa scooter and carried a phone/radio, Walkman, or other device altered to control nearby electrical signals. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9945333 | 159,123 |
1,777,928 | Schemas are used to interpret the functions involved when individuals would make sense of their surroundings. This cognition happens through an explicit process of recalling an item routinely or an implicit process that is outside conscious awareness control. A recent study suggests individuals who have experienced a difficult upbringing develop schemata of fear as well as anxiety and will react almost immediately when they feel threatened. People who are anxious predominantly focus on any peril-related stimuli since they are hyper-vigilant. For example, an anxious individual who is about to cross the street at the same time a car drives to a stop sign. The anxious person will automatically assume the driver will not stop. This is recognition of threat through a semantic process that instantaneously occurs. Ambiguous cues are viewed as a threat since there is no relevant knowledge to make sense of. People will have a difficult time understanding and will respond negatively. This kind of behavior can explain how implicit cognition may be an influence on pathological anxiety. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=10271359 | 1,776,926 |
1,734,224 | This species of saltbush is endemic to Australia and is native to Western Australia, South Australia, Queensland and New South Wales, but has become naturalised in the Australian Capital Territory, on Norfolk Island and possibly Tasmania. It has also been introduced to North and South America, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, the Middle East, Arabian Peninsula, Asia, and the Mediterranean region. A. "semibaccata" was introduced to different regions worldwide as a drought and salt tolerant fodder crop. Similarly, A. "semibaccata" was introduced in Tasmania for grazing purposes. Located in heavy soil that is slightly saline, in woodland that is close to salt lakes, and is usually an invader of disturbed areas. First reported distribution was in California in 1901 as a livestock forage in alkaline regions. Seeds were soon after distributed (1916) and by 1940, A. "semibaccata" inhabited southern coast regions and irregularly inland. Optimal conditions for habitat, include dry/subtropical climate and direct sunlight. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8118349 | 1,733,247 |
1,028,833 | Scintillation properties of organic-inorganic methylamonium (MA) lead halide perovskites under proton irradiation were first reported by Shibuya et al. in 2002 and the first γ-ray pulse height spectrum, although still with poor energy resolution, was reported on () by van Eijk et al. in 2008 . Birowosuto at al. studied the scintillation properties of 3-D and 2-D layered perovskites under X-ray excitation. MAPbBr () emits at 550 nm and MAPbI () at 750 nm which is attributed to exciton emission near the band gap of the compounds. In this first generation of Pb-halide perovskites the emission is strongly quenched at room temperature and less than 1000 ph/MeV survive. At 10 K however intense emission is observed and write about yields up to 200000 ph/MeV. The quenching is attributed to the small e-h binding energy in the exciton that decreases for Cl to Br to I . Interestingly one may replace the organic MA group with Cs+ to obtain full inorganic CsPbX halide perovskites. Depending on the Cl, Br, I content the triplet X-ray excited exciton emission can be tuned from 430 nm to 700 nm . One may also dilute Cs with Rb to obtain similar tuning. Above very recent developments demonstrate that the organic-inorganic and all inorganic Pb-halide perovskites have various interesting scintillation properties. However, the recent two-dimensional perovskite single crystals will be more favorable as they may have much larger Stokes shift up to 200 nm in comparison with CsPbBr quantum dot scintillators and this is essential to prevent self reabsorption for scintillators. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=454323 | 1,028,299 |
411,639 | Interrupted by the October Bolshevik uprising in 1917, Vygodskii never completed his formal studies at the Imperial Moscow University, and thus, he never obtained a degree. Following these events, he left Moscow and eventually returned to Gomel. There is virtually no information about his life when Gomel was under German occupation (administratively belonging to the Ukrainian State at the time) during World War I, until the Bolsheviks captured the city in 1919. After that, he was an active participant of major social transformation under the Bolshevik rule and a fairly prominent representative of the Bolshevik government in Gomel from 1919 to 1923. By the early 1920s, as reflected in his journalistic publications of the time, he informally changed his Jewish-sounding birth name, 'Lev Símkhovich Výgodskii' (), with the surname becoming "Vygótskii" and the patronymic 'Símkhovich' becoming the Slavic 'Semiónovich'. It was under this pen-name that the fame subsequently came to him. His daughters (subsequently born in 1925 and 1930) and other relatives, though, preserved their original family name 'Vygodskii'. The traditional English spelling of his last name nowadays is 'Vygotsky'. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=95176 | 411,437 |
462,578 | A unimodal approach dominated scientific literature until the beginning of this century. Although this enabled rapid progression of neural mapping, and an improved understanding of neural structures, the investigation of perception remained relatively stagnant, with a few exceptions. The recent revitalized enthusiasm into perceptual research is indicative of a substantial shift away from reductionism and toward gestalt methodologies. Gestalt theory, dominant in the late 19th and early 20th centuries espoused two general principles: the 'principle of totality' in which conscious experience must be considered globally, and the 'principle of psychophysical isomorphism' which states that perceptual phenomena are correlated with cerebral activity. Just these ideas were already applied by Justo Gonzalo in his work of brain dynamics, where a sensory-cerebral correspondence is considered in the formulation of the "development of the sensory field due to a psychophysical isomorphism" (pag. 23 of the English translation of ref.). Both ideas 'principle of totality' and 'psychophysical isomorphism' are particularly relevant in the current climate and have driven researchers to investigate the behavioural benefits of multisensory integration. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1619306 | 462,349 |
138,803 | Nitrogen dioxide (NO) gas is a rapid and effective sterilant for use against a wide range of microorganisms, including common bacteria, viruses, and spores. The unique physical properties of NO gas allow for sterilant dispersion in an enclosed environment at room temperature and atmospheric pressure. The mechanism for lethality is the degradation of DNA in the spore core through nitration of the phosphate backbone, which kills the exposed organism as it absorbs NO. This degradations occurs at even very low concentrations of the gas. NO has a boiling point of at sea level, which results in a relatively highly saturated vapour pressure at ambient temperature. Because of this, liquid NO may be used as a convenient source for the sterilant gas. Liquid NO is often referred to by the name of its dimer, dinitrogen tetroxide (NO). Additionally, the low levels of concentration required, coupled with the high vapour pressure, assures that no condensation occurs on the devices being sterilized. This means that no aeration of the devices is required immediately following the sterilization cycle. NO is also less corrosive than other sterilant gases, and is compatible with most medical materials and adhesives. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=414144 | 138,747 |
1,604,008 | In 2011, the University of Georgia acquired the former U.S. Navy Supply Corps School on the medical corridor of Prince Avenue near downtown Athens. The two primary occupants of the 56-acre Health Sciences Campus are the AU-UGA Medical Partnership and the UGA College of Public Health. The campus has an extensive landscaped green space, more than 400 trees and several historic buildings. The majority of classes for both medical and public health students are held in Russell Hall, not to be confused with the South campus undergraduate residence hall, which was built in 1974. The nearly 63,000 square-foot building includes rooms for small group and clinical skills teaching, a lab for gross anatomy, pathology and histology, a medical library, faculty offices, and classroom space. The AU-UGA Medical Partnership administrative offices are housed in Winnie Davis Hall, which was built in 1902. In 2013, it was announced that St. Mary's Hospital, Northeast Georgia Health System and Athens Regional Medical Center would be utilized as teaching hospitals and residency sites for the Medical Partnership students. The College of Public Health's administrative offices are housed in Rhodes Hall, which was built in 1906. Six of the College's seven units are now located on the Health Sciences Campus, including the Institute of Gerontology in Hudson Hall, the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics in B.S. Miller Hall, and Departments of Health Policy and Management and Health Promotion and Behavior in Wright Hall. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=59604425 | 1,603,107 |
1,781,308 | The last beds of the Cretaceous, which are also deposited directly over the Taylor formation and found east of Dallas are the Navarro beds. Navarro beds reflect anoxic waters at the time due to the shale present, and are a result of increased volcanic activity in the south-western part of the United States. During the end of deposition of the Taylor formation, the eustatic regression had brought sea-level down to the present day shoreline of the Gulf of Mexico. This worldwide regression marks the slowing of sea-floor spreading and bounds the Gulfian Series in a sequence boundary. In the western part of the country the Laramide Orogeny that was building the Rockies Mountains started to accommodate horizontal shortening by uplift versus the previous folding and thrusting accommodation. Also during this time around 66 mya a major extinction including dinosaurs took place, and is believed to have been caused by a meteorite hitting Mexico off the Yucatan Peninsula. All of these occurrences mark the end of an important time for Texas, especially the DFW Metroplex, and brought in a new Era and Period known respectively as the Cenozoic and Paleogene. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4384917 | 1,780,304 |
305,124 | After Saint-Simon's death in 1825 his followers, known as the Saint-Simonians, continued to spread and develop his teachings, initiating the widespread use of the terms "socialism", "socialize", "socialization", and "socializing the instruments of labor". His followers, led by Amand Bazard and Barthélemy Enfantin, began to trend more towards radicalism than Saint-Simon becoming increasingly critical of private property while demanding the emancipation of women. The Saint-Simonian book "Exposition de la doctrine de Saint-Simon", published in two volumes from 1828 to 1830 and featuring condensed speeches by Bazard and Enfantin, proved to be a landmark in socialist theory. The Saint-Simonians rejected communist style proposals for a system that would abolish private property and institute a 'community of goods' which they considered an act of, "reprehensible violence" which violated, "the first of all moral laws". However, according to their address to the French Chamber of Deputies in 1830, Bazard and Enfantin still maintained there should be collective ownership of all," instruments of labor, land, and capital" and that noble privileges and inheritance ought to be abolished so that all hierarchy and reward in society is based on an individual's merit, capacity, and effort alone. Bazard and Enfantin believed that history could be summed up as the historical changes in the forms of class exploitation and that private ownership of the means of production must be gradually abolished. Because of their emphasis on labor they summed up their socialist program with principle "To each according to his ability and to each ability according to its work." They also introduced the idea that class antagonism between the workers and owners came from the dispute over possession of the instruments of labor. From 1830 onward the Saint-Simonians began to refer to the opposition between the bourgeoise and the proletariat. Beginning in 1832 Bazard and Enfantin began to emphasize the term "socialism" as the word that best represented their system. According to John Stuart Mill writing in 1848 the Saint-Simonians had," sowed the seeds of all the socialist tendencies." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=47246185 | 304,962 |
707,510 | Three men from Lia (later designated as patients 1-DN, 2-MG, and 3-MB by the IAEA) had driven to a forest overlooking the Enguri Dam reservoir to gather firewood. They drove up a nearly impassable road in snowy winter weather, and discovered two canisters at around 6 pm. Around the canisters there was no snow for about a radius, and the ground was steaming. Patient 3-MB picked up one of the canisters and immediately dropped it, as it was very hot. Deciding that it was too late to drive back, and realizing the apparent utility of the devices as heat sources, the men decided to move the sources a short distance and make camp around them. Patient 3-MB used a stout wire to pick up one source and carried it to a rocky outcrop that would provide shelter. The other patients lit a fire, and then patients 3-MB and 2-MG worked together to move the other source under the outcrop. They ate dinner and had a small amount of vodka, while remaining close to the sources. Despite the small amount of vodka, they all vomited soon after consuming it, the first sign of acute radiation syndrome (ARS), about three hours after first exposure. Vomiting was severe and lasted through the night, leading to little sleep. The men used the sources to keep them warm through the night, positioning them against their backs, and as close as . The next day, the sources may have been hung from the backs of Patient 1-DN and 2-MG as they loaded wood onto their truck. They felt very exhausted in the morning and only loaded half the wood they intended. They returned home that evening. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=67844064 | 707,141 |
1,062,897 | The flight of Yuri Gagarin on April 12, 1961 was humanity's maiden spaceflight. While the mission was a necessary first step, Gagarin was more or less confined to a chair with a small view port from which to observe the cosmos – a far cry from the possibilities of life in space. Following space missions gradually improved living conditions and quality of life in low Earth orbit. Expanding room for movement, physical exercise regimens, sanitation facilities, improved food quality, and recreational activities all accompanied longer mission durations. Architectural involvement in space was realized in 1968 when a group of architects and industrial designers led by Raymond Loewy, over objections from engineers, prevailed in convincing NASA to include an observation window in the Skylab orbital laboratory. This milestone represents the introduction of the human psychological dimension to spacecraft design. Space architecture was born. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23516569 | 1,062,343 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.