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1,166,607 | Instruments to detect this radiation commonly measure the Cherenkov radiation produced by secondary particles generated from an energetic photon entering the Earth's atmosphere. This method is called imaging atmospheric Cherenkov technique or IACT. A high-energy photon produces a cone of light confined to 1° of the original photon direction. About 10,000 m of the earth's surface is lit by each cone of light. A flux of 10 photons per square meter per second can be detected with current technology, provided the energy is above 0.1 TeV. Instruments include the planned Cherenkov Telescope Array, GT-48 in Crimea, MAGIC on La Palma, High Energy Stereoscopic System (HESS) in Namibia VERITAS and Chicago Air Shower Array which closed in 2001. Cosmic rays also produce similar flashes of light, but can be distinguished based on the shape of the light flash. Also having more than one telescope simultaneously observing the same spot can help exclude cosmic rays. Extensive air showers of particles can be detected for gamma rays above 100 TeV. Water scintillation detectors or dense arrays of particle detectors can be used to detect these particle showers. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=33870807 | 1,165,989 |
1,978,467 | Working closely with Doug Lauffenburger and funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the National Institutes of Health's National Centers for Systems Biology program, Sorger's work in the 1990s increasingly focused on oncogenesis itself and on mammalian signal transduction. Sorger and Lauffenburger's approach combined molecular genetics, live-cell microscopy and mechanistic computational modeling. Their focus on biochemistry REF was unusual in an era dominated by genomics and ultimately led Sorger to co-found the software company Glencoe Software and the biotech company Merrimack Pharmaceuticals. Subsequent work by Sorger' group led to a new understanding of stochastic fluctuation in cellular responses to natural ligands and drugs and to the development of a range of innovative computational methods, including the biochemistry-specific Python PySB and the natural language processing and knowledge assembly system INDRA. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=69534725 | 1,977,329 |
2,148,947 | During the late 1990s, Linda Roth (Clark) offered courses in physical geography and biogeography a few years before her untimely death. The faculty for years, including in five-year plans, agreed that it was important to develop on such concentrations, following university commitment in 1989, not only to provide balanced course instruction for the undergraduate students, but also to appeal to existing and potential graduate students interested in human/environmental interfaces. The department's standing as a state-recognized Research Challenge Trust Fund department in the 1990s, one of only ten such programs on campus, enabled the department to hire a full professor to develop the physical geography program. Jonathan Phillips moved to the department in 2000 from Texas A&M. He was given a broad set of responsibilities that included oversight in hiring new physical geography faculty, building a physical geography component to the graduate program, offering additional physical geography classes, setting up a physical geography lab, and working with other university faculty in the earth sciences and environmental studies. The department hired Alice Turkington (Queens-Belfast) in 2001 and Sean Campbell (Arkansas) in 2002 to strengthen the physical cluster (Campbell left in 2006). Rosemary Sherriff (Colorado) joined faculty in 2008 to offer courses in landscape ecology (she left the department in 2010). Daehyun Kim (Texas A&M) was appointed in 2009 to extend offerings in biogeography and spatial analysis. In 2011, the physical geography faculty expanded with the hiring of Tony Stallins (Georgia) from Florida State and Liang Liang (UW-Milwaukee), with interests in human-organism geographies and phenology, respectively. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=47120039 | 2,147,716 |
980,806 | The first devices to capture radar images were developed during the same period. The number of scanned angles was increased to get a three-dimensional view of the precipitation, so that horizontal cross-sections (CAPPI) and vertical ones could be performed. Studies of the organization of thunderstorms were then possible for the Alberta Hail Project in Canada and National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) in the US in particular. The NSSL, created in 1964, began experimentation on dual polarization signals and on Doppler effect uses. In May 1973, a tornado devastated Union City, Oklahoma, just west of Oklahoma City. For the first time, a Dopplerized 10-cm wavelength radar from NSSL documented the entire life cycle of the tornado. The researchers discovered a mesoscale rotation in the cloud aloft before the tornado touched the ground : the tornadic vortex signature. NSSL's research helped convince the National Weather Service that Doppler radar was a crucial forecasting tool. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1280053 | 980,294 |
191,162 | Streptomycin was first isolated on October 19, 1943, by Albert Schatz, a PhD student in the laboratory of Selman Abraham Waksman at Rutgers University in a research project funded by Merck and Co. Waksman and his laboratory staff discovered several antibiotics, including actinomycin, clavacin, streptothricin, streptomycin, grisein, neomycin, fradicin, candicidin, and candidin. Of these, streptomycin and neomycin found extensive application in the treatment of numerous infectious diseases. Streptomycin was the first antibiotic cure for tuberculosis (TB). In 1952 Waksman was the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in recognition "for his discovery of streptomycin, the first antibiotic active against tuberculosis". Waksman was later accused of playing down the role of Schatz who did the work under his supervision, claiming that Elizabeth Bugie had a more important role in its development. Schatz sued both Dr. Waksman and the Rutgers Research and Endowment Foundation, wanting to be given credited as co-discover and receive the royalties for the streptomycin. By the end of the settlement, Waksman would receive a 10% royalty, while Schatz got 3% and compensation for his missed royalties. The rest of the lab shared the remaining 7% of the royalties, in which Bugie received 0.2%. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=209023 | 191,063 |
1,784,008 | PHASA-35 was originally designed and developed by engineers who had previously worked on the Zephyr HAPS drone for Qinetiq. When Qinetiq sold Zephyr to Airbus Defence and Space in 2013, these engineers left and formed their own company, named Prismatic, to develop a rival aircraft. Development of PHASA-35 consequently began in 2018, in collaboration with BAE Systems, and a first flight was scheduled for 2019. Prior to this, a quarter-scale model, named the PHASE-8, completed a successful first flight in 2017. In September 2019, BAE Systems acquired Prismatic as a subsidiary. After less than two years in development, the PHASA-35 made its maiden flight on 17 February 2020 at the Woomera Test Range in Australia with support from the UK's Defence Science and Technology Laboratory and Australian Defence Science and Technology Group. Further trials commenced and, in October 2020, the aircraft carried out an endurance trial whilst carrying a sensor payload. The trials saw the aircraft operating 72 hours whilst in a simulated environment of harsh stratospheric conditions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=65996746 | 1,783,004 |
960,941 | The exact molecular details of the catalytic mechanism are still not fully understood. Although there is much debate on this issue, it seems certain that a "closed" conformation is required for the hydrolysis of ATP, and it is thought that the residues that are involved in the process move to the appropriate distance. The glutamic acid Glu137 is one of the key residues, which is located in subdomain 1. Its function is to bind the water molecule that produces a nucleophilic attack on the ATP's γ-phosphate bond, while the nucleotide is strongly bound to subdomains 3 and 4. The slowness of the catalytic process is due to the large distance and skewed position of the water molecule in relation to the reactant. It is highly likely that the conformational change produced by the rotation of the domains between actin's G and F forms moves the Glu137 closer allowing its hydrolysis. This model suggests that the polymerization and ATPase's function would be decoupled straight away. The "open" to "closed" transformation between G and F forms and its implications on the relative motion of several key residues and the formation of water wires have been characterized in molecular dynamics and QM/MM simulations. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=438944 | 960,432 |
820,523 | High-strength low-alloy steel (HSLA) is a type of alloy steel that provides better mechanical properties or greater resistance to corrosion than carbon steel. HSLA steels vary from other steels in that they are not made to meet a specific chemical composition but rather specific mechanical properties. They have a carbon content between 0.05 and 0.25% to retain formability and weldability. Other alloying elements include up to 2.0% manganese and small quantities of copper, nickel, niobium, nitrogen, vanadium, chromium, molybdenum, titanium, calcium, rare-earth elements, or zirconium. Copper, titanium, vanadium, and niobium are added for strengthening purposes. These elements are intended to alter the microstructure of carbon steels, which is usually a ferrite-pearlite aggregate, to produce a very fine dispersion of alloy carbides in an almost pure ferrite matrix. This eliminates the toughness-reducing effect of a pearlitic volume fraction yet maintains and increases the material's strength by refining the grain size, which in the case of ferrite increases yield strength by 50% for every halving of the mean grain diameter. Precipitation strengthening plays a minor role, too. Their yield strengths can be anywhere between . Because of their higher strength and toughness HSLA steels usually require 25 to 30% more power to form, as compared to carbon steels. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=339129 | 820,082 |
555,308 | The charioteer would have had to use great skill to ensure that the radius of each turn of the chariot was correct to make one of the wheels exactly stop rotating. Unless he did this correctly, the pointing doll would not have kept aiming to the south. He would have been able to adjust the direction in which it aimed by making turns that were more or less sharp. This would sometimes have given him opportunities to use the chariot dishonestly. If it was being demonstrated to spectators, for example, and was being driven around in front of them, making many turns, the charioteer, who would have known which way was south, would have been able to make the chariot "appear to" work extremely accurately as a compass for long periods. The spectators could have been shown the machinery, and would have seen that the charioteer could not manipulate the doll. They would presumably have been impressed by the apparent accuracy of the mechanism. It is possible that this type of chariot was sometimes constructed with the prime purpose of fraudulently impressing spectators. Possibly, people who built these chariots deceived their own employers with them, which could have gained them fame and fortune provided nobody tried using the chariots for real navigation. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1437746 | 555,019 |
1,028,516 | At the end of Jon Bentley's book "Writing Efficient Programs", the author warns that making code more efficient generally also makes it harder to understand and maintain, and so one does not rush in and tweak code unless one has first determined that there is a performance problem, and measures such as code profiling have pinpointed the exact location of the bottleneck. Once you have done so, you modify only the specific code that needs to run faster. Similar considerations apply to EAV modeling: you apply it only to the sub-system where traditional relational modeling is known "a priori" to be unwieldy (as in the clinical data domain), or is discovered, during system evolution, to pose significant maintenance challenges. Database Guru (and currently a vice-president of Core Technologies at Oracle Corporation) Tom Kyte, for example, correctly points out drawbacks of employing EAV in traditional business scenarios, and makes the point that mere "flexibility" is not a sufficient criterion for employing EAV. (However, he makes the sweeping claim that EAV should be avoided in "all" circumstances, even though Oracle's Health Sciences division itself employs EAV to model clinical-data attributes in its commercial systems ClinTrial and Oracle Clinical.) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=5921339 | 1,027,982 |
552,029 | Though the fluid system is perhaps described most intuitively, the high precision of electrical measurements makes experimental realisations of Onsager's reciprocity easier in systems involving electrical phenomena. In fact, Onsager's 1931 paper refers to thermoelectricity and transport phenomena in electrolytes as well known from the 19th century, including "quasi-thermodynamic" theories by Thomson and Helmholtz respectively. Onsager's reciprocity in the thermoelectric effect manifests itself in the equality of the Peltier (heat flow caused by a voltage difference) and Seebeck (electric current caused by a temperature difference) coefficients of a thermoelectric material. Similarly, the so-called "direct piezoelectric" (electric current produced by mechanical stress) and "reverse piezoelectric" (deformation produced by a voltage difference) coefficients are equal. For many kinetic systems, like the Boltzmann equation or chemical kinetics, the Onsager relations are closely connected to the principle of detailed balance and follow from them in the linear approximation near equilibrium. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=466164 | 551,740 |
1,644,354 | Evidence for a "virus first" hypothesis, which may support theories of the RNA world, was suggested in 2015. One of the difficulties for the study of the origins of viruses is their high rate of mutation; this is particularly the case in RNA retroviruses like HIV. A 2015 study compared protein fold structures across different branches of the tree of life, where researchers can reconstruct the evolutionary histories of the folds and of the organisms whose genomes code for those folds. They argue that protein folds are better markers of ancient events as their three-dimensional structures can be maintained even as the sequences that code for those begin to change. Thus, the viral protein repertoire retain traces of ancient evolutionary history that can be recovered using advanced bioinformatics approaches. Those researchers think that "the prolonged pressure of genome and particle size reduction eventually reduced virocells into modern viruses (identified by the complete loss of cellular makeup), meanwhile other coexisting cellular lineages diversified into modern cells." The data suggest that viruses originated from ancient cells that co-existed with the ancestors of modern cells. These ancient cells likely contained segmented RNA genomes. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=70660540 | 1,643,427 |
1,760,384 | The main types of automation are classified by the type of solid-phase substrates, the methods for adding and removing reagents, and design of reaction chambers. Polymer resins may be used as a substrate for solid-phase. It is not a true combinatorial method in the sense that ""split-mix"" where a peptide compound is split into different groups and reacted with different compounds. This is then mixed back together split into more groups and each groups is reacted with a different compound. Instead the "parallel-synthesis" method does not mix, but reacts different groups of the same peptide with different compounds and allows for the identification of the individual compound on each solid support. A popular method implemented is the reaction block system due to its relative low cost and higher output of new compounds compared to other "parallel-synthesis" methods. Parallel-Synthesis was developed by "Mario Geysen" and his colleagues and is not a true type of combinatorial synthesis, but can be incorporated into a combinatorial synthesis. This group synthesized 96 peptides on plastic pins coated with a solid support for the solid phase peptide synthesis. This method uses a rectangular block moved by a robot so that reagents can be pipetted by a robotic pipetting system. This block is separated into wells which the individual reactions take place. These compounds are later cleaved from the solid-phase of the well for further analysis. Another method is the closed reactor system which uses a completely closed off reaction vessel with a series of fixed connections to dispense. Though the produce fewer number of compounds than other methods, its main advantage is the control over the reagents and reaction conditions. Early closed reaction systems were developed for peptide synthesis which required variations in temperature and a diverse range of reagents. Some closed reactor system robots have a temperature range of 200°C and over 150 reagents. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=871903 | 1,759,391 |
1,173,654 | Hard-rock mining has taken place in the province for over 130 years (as of 2012). The mining industry in Ontario produces more than 30 different metal and non-metal mineral products, and is responsible for a major percentage of Canada's nickel, gold, copper and platinum-group metals production. The extraction of metallic minerals is concentrated in Northern Ontario, while the southern portion of the province produces salt, gypsum, lime, nepheline syenite and structural materials (sand, gravel, stone), along with some petroleum. As of 2014, the mining industry produced about $11 billion worth of minerals. Derisory fees are charged by the government for prospecting licences ($25.50) and exploration permits (nil), in keeping with the duty of economic development of the province. The exploration permit process is meant as a means to notify interested parties, such as surface landowners, of the activities of miners. The development of a mine proceeds through "advanced exploration" to "production" status, the legislation for which is detailed in the Mining Act of Ontario; this covers hard-rock, aggregate, diamond and petroleum mines. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=57470308 | 1,173,034 |
1,654,905 | If Steinitz had a period of popularity, then it was short-lived. For pretty soon there was a growing number of chess players turning against him, either because of his strategic method of play, or because of his personality. The public had previously championed Zukertort and before him, Morphy; two men with an abundance of charisma and fiery chessboard skills to match. In comparison, the new champion's endorsement of a passive, positional style was, for many, unpalatable. Steinitz had developed a wonderful understanding of 'attack and defence' and was able to sit back and invite his opponents to attack him. All too often they were tempted into unjustified onslaughts, which he would parry with remarkable ease, ultimately repelling the invading forces with defensive play of great dexterity. When he had the initiative, he would inflict imperceptible weaknesses on his opponents' structure, stifling their middlegame and endgame survival prospects. His methods, though successful, were unfortunately not spectacular enough to win public support and many of his critics refused to believe that swashbuckling, 'blood and guts' chess could be so readily dismissed. On occasion, Steinitz took his strategy too far, by adopting absurdly passive formations that over-stretched his defensive capabilities, or that left him with insufficient opportunity for counterplay. When he lost in this manner, it renewed the faith of those who craved a return to attacking chess. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14609003 | 1,653,973 |
1,059,633 | The fusiform face area is located within the inferior temporal cortex in the fusiform gyrus. Similar to the PPA, the FFA exhibits higher neural activation when visually processing faces more so than places or buildings (Kanwisher et al., 1997). However, the fusiform area also shows activation for other stimuli and can be trained to specialize in the visual processing of objects of expertise. Past studies have investigated the activation of the FFA in people with specialized visual training, like bird watchers or car experts who have adapted a visual skill in identifying traits of birds and cars respectively. It has been shown that these experts have developed FFA activation for their specific visual expertise. Other experiments have studied the ability to develop expertise in the FFA using 'greebles', a visual stimulus generated to have a few components that can be combined to make a series of different configurations, much like how a variety of slightly different facial features can be used to construct a unique face. Participants were trained on their ability to distinguish greebles by differing features and had activation in the FFA measured periodically through their learning – the results after training demonstrated that greeble activation in the FFA increased over time whereas FFA responses to faces actually decreased with increased greeble training. These results suggested three major findings in regards to FFA in visual processing: firstly, the FFA does not exclusively process faces; secondly, the FFA demonstrates activation for 'expert' visual tasks and can be trained over time to adapt to new visual stimuli; lastly, the FFA does not maintain constant levels of activation for all stimuli and instead seems to 'share' activation in such a way that the most frequently viewed stimuli receives the greatest activation in the FFA as seen in the greebles study (Gauthier et al., 2000). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1170978 | 1,059,082 |
1,161,199 | Numerous proposals have been brought forward with respect to the lake-lander concept. One of the most detailed plans so far is the so-called Titan Mare Explorer (TiME), which had originally been proposed as a separate scout mission, but might eventually be postponed and included in the TSSM. If approved, TiME would be released by the orbiter on its second Titan flyby. Due to Titan's haze layer and its distance to the Sun, the lander cannot be powered by solar panels and it would rely on the new Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator (ASRG), which is a prototype meant to provide availability of long-lived power supplies for landed networks and other planetary missions. The lander will target Ligeia Mare, a northern polar sea of liquid hydrocarbons at about 79°N. The probe will descend by parachute, like the Huygens probe of 2005. During the 6 hours of descent it will analyze the atmosphere and then splashdown on the liquid surface. The plutonium-powered craft's principal function is to sample and analyze organics on the surface for a period of about 3 to 6 months; this would be the first floating exploration of an extraterrestrial sea. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20713632 | 1,160,583 |
1,001,917 | Comparing the two models reveals a notable similarity between their respective results while also highlighting a remarkable discrepancy, whereby – in the standard version of the SAIM – the model's focus is mainly upon the excitatory connections, whereas in the PE-SAIM, the inhibitory connections are leveraged to make an inference. The model has also proved to be fit to predict the EEG and fMRI data drawn from human experiments with high precision. In the same vein, Yahya et al. also applied the free energy principle to propose a computational model for template matching in covert selective visual attention that mostly relies on SAIM. According to this study, the total free energy of the whole state-space is reached by inserting top-down signals in the original neural networks, whereby we derive a dynamical system comprising both feed-forward and backward prediction error. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=39403556 | 1,001,399 |
1,778,353 | Monongahela tribe roots are in farm fields and hamlets with no palisading walls, on the major broad river valleys following the late Watson people. The Worley village Complex (46Mg23), Monongalia County, West Virginia, dates to about CE 900. To quote the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Lab, "Monongahela ceramics are a complex series that begin with an early grit or limestone tempered group and end with a very anomalous collection of types found in southwestern Pennsylvania during the post-Contact period." Their canal coal "pendants" are found from the Great Kanawha through to just the southwest corner of Pennsylvania protohistoric Monongahelan. After 1300 CE, there is evidence of inter-village warfare as the climate cools. Now being pushed, their circular villages become palisaded and move near ridge gaps. These villages were smaller and the artifacts are of a less variety than at Fort Ancient. Houses were generally circular in shape often with nook or storage appendage. Late Monongahela (1580–1635 CE) develops a charnel house of a shaman burial at a few villages, according to the Monongahela Chapter of the West Virginia Archaeological Society. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17254851 | 1,777,351 |
1,587,956 | Rosen served in the US Navy as a radio communication and radar technician during World War II. He graduated from Tulane University in 1947 with a Bachelor of Engineering degree in electrical engineering. He received his M.S. (1948) and Ph.D. (1951) in electrical engineering from the California Institute of Technology. While still in graduate school, he began working for Raytheon, where he helped develop early anti-aircraft guided missiles, making many innovations in the fields of radar and missile guidance and control. After joining the Hughes Aircraft Company in 1956, and while he was working on the development of airborne radars, the world was catapulted into the space age by the 1957 launch of Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite. At the same time, his department's most important program was cancelled. His boss, Frank Carver, challenged him to find a worthwhile new project that could keep the skilled staff gainfully employed. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=10150062 | 1,587,062 |
890,556 | A Cochrane review on sugammadex concluded that "sugammadex was shown to be more effective than placebo (no medication) or neostigmine in reversing muscle relaxation caused by neuromuscular blockade during surgery and is relatively safe. Serious complications occurred in less than 1% of the patients who received sugammadex. The results of this review article (especially the safety results) need to be confirmed by future trials on larger patient populations". The 2017 Cochrane review concluded that sugammadex has a better safety profile than neostigmine with 40% fewer adverse events. Specifically the risks of postoperative residual paralysis, bradycardia, nausea and vomiting are reduced if sugammadex is used as a reversal agent. The "British Journal of Anaesthesia" published an article in 2015 in which the incidence of residual neuromuscular blockade could be reduced to zero if sugammadex is used as the reversal agent and the correct dosage is selected with the use of neuromuscular monitoring. Also when the reversal times of each agent were compared "Data indicate that sugammadex was 10.22 minutes (6.6 times) faster than neostigmine (1.96 vs 12.87 minutes) in reversing moderate induced paralysis. Sugammadex was 45.78 minutes (16.8 times) faster than neostigmine (2.9 vs 48.8 minutes) in reversing deep induced paralysis." The time saved by rapid reversal and the reduction of postoperative residual paralysis may reduce the overall hospital costs and provide significant improvements in patient safety. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=6139193 | 890,087 |
2,156,318 | The NSF ERC program was designed to create institutional centers that would be self-sufficient within ten years. The Center for Biofilm Engineering at Montana State University started planning for self-sufficiency in 1998 through the establishment of a Self-sufficiency Task Force at the university. The center achieved self-sufficiency in 2001 and continues to be funded in part through federal and private grants with continued emphasis on providing value to the Industrial Associates, and support from Montana State University and the State of Montana. In 2005 Philip S. Stewart, a professor of chemical and biological engineering, was selected to be the third CBE Director. Stewart, who had participated as a CBE faculty member since 1991, was a leading expert on antimicrobials and biofilm control. Under Stewart's tenure, CBE grew in affiliated faculty numbers, industrial membership, the number of testing and industry-sponsored projects, and the participation of undergraduate and graduate students. Matthew Fields became the fourth director of the CBE in 2015. In FY2021, new research grants awarded totaled $4.3 million. The center is one of 24 self-sustaining Engineering Research Centers in the National Science Foundation program. The CBE was prominently featured in the book "Agents of Change: NSF’s Engineering Research Centers," published in 2020 by the NSF and the American Society for Engineering Education. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=45523355 | 2,155,087 |
431,642 | The development of the University of Bremen can be divided up into steps of 10 to 12 years – first foundation, then restructuring, consolidation and profile building. At the beginning of the 1970s, the University was set up as a "science complex" in a city oriented towards trade and seafaring that had no experience with academia, particularly not with leftist professors. University, business and the public in the region did not move closer together until the 1980s, through the foundation of the natural science and engineering departments, co-operation with the newly founded Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven (1980), as well as the development of the co-located technology park (from 1988). Other important factors were the initial success in setting up collaborative research centres and in the acquisition of considerable of external funds. The mathematics professor Jürgen Timm, elected university rector in 1982, was largely responsible for this turnaround. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1184716 | 431,430 |
1,090,191 | Dr. Allan Schore, of the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, has explored related ideas beginning with his book "Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self" published in 1994. Dr. Shore looks at the contribution of the limbic system to the preservation of the species, its role in forming social bonds with other members of the species and intimate relations leading to reproduction. "It is said that natural selection favors characteristics that maximize an individual's contribution of the gene pool of succeeding generations. In humans this may entail not so much competitive and aggressive traits as an ability to enter into a positive affective relationship with a member of the opposite sex." In his subsequent book "Affect regulation & the repair of the self", Schor correlates the "interactive transfer of affect" between mother and infant, on the one hand, and in a therapeutic context on the other, and describes it as "intersubjectivity". He then goes on to explore what developmental neuropsychology can reveal about both types of interrelatedness. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23301912 | 1,089,631 |
1,052,778 | In 2006, Marcos Pontes returned to Brazil after the Missão Centenário, deciding to enter the Aeronautics reserve. In this sense, the repercussion around the situation became very wide, due to the indignation that was demonstrated by the National Congress. At first, the Palácio do Planalto, AEB (Brazilian Space Agency) and Aeronautics expected that Pontes could offer a stimulus factor to the space program and to new adhesions to the Armed Forces, as well as mentoring and training to new astronauts, justifying an investment of 10 million dollars from the Federal Government, strongly defended by the Lula Government, who even talked to the astronaut in videoconference on the International Space Station: "In few moments in the history of Brazil, we were proud of a Brazilian like we are of you. You, when you departed, reminded me of Ayrton Senna with the national flag," Lula said. After the decision for the inactivity of Marcos Pontes' functions, President Lula did not comment on the choice, which had several frustration pronouncements from other congressmen, such as Walter Pinheiro (PT), at the time member of the House Science and Technology Commission; Alberto Goldman (PSDB), congressman for São Paulo in 2006; Orlando Fantazzini (PSOL) and Sérgio Gaudenzi. In the view of politicians, who expected the return of astronaut learning to the Brazilian Space Program, the entity should create protection mechanisms for possible future investments in other astronauts, taking into account that the services funded by the government are not lost in the private sphere. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1187714 | 1,052,232 |
479,004 | Radar picket ships first came into being in the US Navy during World War II to aid in the Allied advance to Japan. The number of radar pickets was increased significantly after the first major employment of kamikaze aircraft by the Japanese in the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944. "Fletcher-class", "Sumner"-class destroyers with SGA and SC radars were pressed into picket service with few modifications at first – the "Sumners" were the first destroyers to be designed with a combat information center (CIC), which made them ideal for this use. Later, additional radars and fighter direction equipment were fitted, along with more light anti-aircraft (AA) guns for self-defense, usually sacrificing torpedo tubes to make room for the new equipment, particularly the large SP height-finding radars of the era. Deploying some distance from the force to be protected along likely directions of attack, radar pickets were the nearest ships to the Japanese airfields. Thus, they were usually the first vessels seen by incoming waves of kamikazes, and were often heavily attacked. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2895198 | 478,764 |
383,335 | Cinema fires caused by the ignition of nitrocellulose film stock commonly occurred as well. In Ireland in 1926, it was blamed for the Dromcolliher cinema tragedy in County Limerick in which 48 people died. Then in 1929 at the Glen Cinema in Paisley, Scotland, a film-related fire killed 69 children. Today, nitrate film projection is rare and normally highly regulated and requires extensive precautions, including extra health-and-safety training for projectionists. A special projector certified to run nitrate films has many modifications, among them the chambering of the feed and takeup reels in thick metal covers with small slits to allow the film to run through them. The projector is additionally modified to accommodate several fire extinguishers with nozzles aimed at the film gate. The extinguishers automatically trigger if a piece of film near the gate starts to burn. While this triggering would likely damage or destroy a significant portion of the projector's components, it would contain a fire and prevent far greater damage. Projection rooms may also be required to have automatic metal covers for the projection windows, preventing the spread of fire to the auditorium. Today, the Dryden Theatre at the George Eastman Museum is one of a few theaters in the world that is capable of safely projecting nitrate films and regularly screens them to the public. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=58246 | 383,140 |
959,565 | In 1921 Franklin D. Roosevelt became totally and permanently paralyzed from the waist down. Although the paralysis (whether from poliomyelitis, as diagnosed at the time, or from Guillain–Barré syndrome) had no cure at the time, Roosevelt, who had planned a life in politics, refused to accept the limitations of his disease. He tried a wide range of therapies, including hydrotherapy in Warm Springs, Georgia (see below). In 1938 Roosevelt helped to found the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (now known as the March of Dimes), that raised money for the rehabilitation of people with paralytic polio, and was instrumental in funding the development of polio vaccines. The March of Dimes changed the way it approached fund-raising. Rather than soliciting large contributions from a few wealthy individuals, the March of Dimes sought small donations from millions of individuals. Its hugely successful fund-raising campaigns collected hundreds of millions of dollars—more than all of the U.S. charities at the time combined (with the exception of the Red Cross). By 1955 the March of Dimes had invested $25.5 million in research; funding both Jonas Salk's and Albert Sabin's vaccine development; the 1954–55 field trial of vaccine, and supplies of free vaccine for thousands of children. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11110672 | 959,057 |
1,516,793 | Humberto Fernández-Morán (Maracaibo, February 18, 1924 – Stockholm, March 17, 1999) was a Venezuelan research scientist, renowned for inventing the diamond knife or scalpel, significantly advancing the development of electromagnetic lenses for electron microscopy based on superconducting technology, and many other scientific contributions. Dr. Fernández-Morán founded the Venezuelan Institute for Neurological and Brain Studies, the predecessor of the current Venezuelan Institute of Scientific Research (IVIC). In 1958 he was appointed Minister of Education during the last year of the regime of Marcos Pérez Jiménez and was forced to leave Venezuela when the dictatorship was overthrown. He worked with NASA for the Apollo Project and taught in many universities, such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Chicago and the University of Stockholm. In the United States he was proposed to be nominated for the Nobel Prize. He rejected the nomination because he would have had to embrace American citizenship, which he refused, wanting to maintain his Venezuelan nationality. Among honors and awards includes the John Scott Medal, | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29302481 | 1,515,941 |
894,307 | Quantum neural networks take advantage of the hierarchical structures, and for each subsequent layer, the number of qubits from the preceding layer is decreased by a factor of two. For n input qubits, these structure have O(log(n)) layers, allowing for shallow circuit depth. Additionally, they are able to avoid "barren plateau," one of the most significant issues with PQC-based algorithms, ensuring trainability. Despite the fact that the QCNN model does not include the corresponding quantum operation, the fundamental idea of the pooling layer is also offered to assure validity. In QCNN architecture, the pooling layer is typically placed between succeeding convolutional layers. Its function is to shrink the representation's spatial size while preserving crucial features, which allows it to reduce the number of parameters, streamline network computing, and manage over-fitting. Such process can be accomplished applying full Tomography on the state to reduce it all the way down to one qubit and then processed it in subway. The most frequently used unit type in the pooling layer is max pooling, although there are other types as well. Similar to conventional feed-forward neural networks, the last module is a fully connected layer with full connections to all activations in the preceding layer. Translational invariance, which requires identical blocks of parameterized quantum gates within a layer, is a distinctive feature of the QCNN architecture. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=44108758 | 893,837 |
160,264 | The difference between the multinomial logit model and numerous other methods, models, algorithms, etc. with the same basic setup (the perceptron algorithm, support vector machines, linear discriminant analysis, etc.) is the procedure for determining (training) the optimal weights/coefficients and the way that the score is interpreted. In particular, in the multinomial logit model, the score can directly be converted to a probability value, indicating the probability of observation "i" choosing outcome "k" given the measured characteristics of the observation. This provides a principled way of incorporating the prediction of a particular multinomial logit model into a larger procedure that may involve multiple such predictions, each with a possibility of error. Without such means of combining predictions, errors tend to multiply. For example, imagine a large predictive model that is broken down into a series of submodels where the prediction of a given submodel is used as the input of another submodel, and that prediction is in turn used as the input into a third submodel, etc. If each submodel has 90% accuracy in its predictions, and there are five submodels in series, then the overall model has only 0.9 = 59% accuracy. If each submodel has 80% accuracy, then overall accuracy drops to 0.8 = 33% accuracy. This issue is known as error propagation and is a serious problem in real-world predictive models, which are usually composed of numerous parts. Predicting probabilities of each possible outcome, rather than simply making a single optimal prediction, is one means of alleviating this issue. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4433814 | 160,179 |
42,721 | The light curves for type Ia are mostly very uniform, with a consistent maximum absolute magnitude and a relatively steep decline in luminosity. Their optical energy output is driven by radioactive decay of ejected nickel-56 (half-life 6 days), which then decays to radioactive cobalt-56 (half-life 77 days). These radioisotopes excite the surrounding material to incandescence. Studies of cosmology today rely on Ni radioactivity providing the energy for the optical brightness of supernovae of type Ia, which are the "standard candles" of cosmology but whose diagnostic and gamma rays were first detected only in 2014. The initial phases of the light curve decline steeply as the effective size of the photosphere decreases and trapped electromagnetic radiation is depleted. The light curve continues to decline in the B band while it may show a small shoulder in the visual at about 40 days, but this is only a hint of a secondary maximum that occurs in the infra-red as certain ionised heavy elements recombine to produce infra-red radiation and the ejecta become transparent to it. The visual light curve continues to decline at a rate slightly greater than the decay rate of the radioactive cobalt (which has the longer half-life and controls the later curve), because the ejected material becomes more diffuse and less able to convert the high energy radiation into visual radiation. After several months, the light curve changes its decline rate again as positron emission becomes dominant from the remaining cobalt-56, although this portion of the light curve has been little-studied. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27680 | 42,706 |
693,183 | In August 2000 Pigliucci started a monthly internet column called Rationally Speaking. In August 2005, the column became a blog, where he wrote posts until March 2014. Starting in February 2010, he co-hosted the bi-weekly "Rationally Speaking" podcast with Julia Galef, whom he first met at the Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism, held in September 2009. The podcast is produced by the New York City Skeptics. The show has had many guests—scientists, philosophers—discussing matters of reason, skepticism and rationality. In 2010, Neil DeGrasse Tyson explained on the show his justification for spending large amounts of government money on space programs. He eventually printed the transcript of his performance as a guest on the show in his book "Space Chronicles" as a full chapter covering eight pages. Another episode in which Tyson explained his position on the label "atheism" received attention on NPR. Pigliucci left the podcast in 2015 to pursue his other interests. Galef continued to host the podcast solo. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1838677 | 692,820 |
7,517 | The Federation of American Scientists claims the MiG-29 is equal to, or better than the F-15C in short aerial engagements because of the Helmet Mounted Weapons Sight (HMS) and better maneuverability at slow speeds. This was demonstrated when MiG-29s of the German Air Force participated in joint DACT exercises with US fighters. The HMS was a great help, allowing the Germans to achieve a lock on any target the pilot could see within the missile field of view, including those almost 45 degrees off boresight. However, the German pilots who flew the MiG-29 admitted that while the Fulcrum was more maneuverable at slow speeds than the F-15 Eagle, F-16 Fighting Falcon, F-14 Tomcat, and F/A-18 Hornet and its Vympel R-73 dogfight missile system was superior to the AIM-9 Sidewinder of the time, in engagements that went into the beyond visual range arena, the German pilots found it difficult to multi-task locking and firing the MiG-29's Vympel R-27 missile (German MiG-29s did not have access to the more advanced Vympel R-77 that equips more advanced MiG-29 versions) while trying to avoid the longer range and advanced search and track capabilities of the American fighters' radars and AIM-120 AMRAAM. The Germans also stated that the American fighters had the advantage in both night and bad weather combat conditions. The Luftwaffe's assessment of the MiG-29 was that the Fulcrum was best used as a point defense interceptor over cities and military installations, not for fighter sweeps over hostile airspace. This assessment ultimately led Germany to not deploy its MiG-29s in the Kosovo War during Operation Allied Force, though Luftwaffe pilots who flew the MiG-29 admitted that even if they were permitted to fly combat missions over the former Yugoslavia they would have been hampered by the lack of NATO-specific communication tools and identification friend or foe systems. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=185653 | 7,514 |
1,323,430 | Droplet-based microfluidics has become an important tool in chemical synthesis due to several attractive features. Microscale reactions allow for cost reduction through the usage of small reagent volumes, rapid reactions in the order of milliseconds, and efficient heat transfer that leads to environmental benefits when the amount of energy consumed per unit temperature rise can be extremely small. The degree of control over local conditions within the devices often makes it possible to select one product over another with high precision. With high product selectivity and small sizes of reagents and reaction environments come less stringent reaction clean-up and smaller footprint. Microdispersed droplets created by droplet-based chemistry are capable of acting as environments in which chemical reactions occur, as reagent carriers in the process of generating complex nanostructures. Droplets are also capable of being transformed into cell-like structures which can be used to mimic humans' biological components and processes. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=54022162 | 1,322,704 |
1,064,109 | A February 2011 article in the magazine "Science Illustrated" states, "In commercial agriculture, CEA can increase efficiency, reduce pests and diseases, and save resources. ... Replicating a conventional farm with computers and LED lights is expensive but proves cost-efficient in the long run by producing up to 20 times as much high-end, pesticide-free produce as a similar-size plot of soil. Fourteen thousand square feet of closely monitored plants produce 15 million seedlings annually at the solar-powered factory. Such factories will be necessary to meet urban China's rising demand for quality fruits and vegetables." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=7848908 | 1,063,555 |
559,717 | The first technical dictionary was drafted by John Harris and entitled "Lexicon Technicum: Or, An Universal English Dictionary of Arts and Sciences". Harris’ book avoided theological and biographical entries; instead it concentrated on science and technology. Published in 1704, the "Lexicon technicum" was the first book to be written in English that took a methodical approach to describing mathematics and commercial arithmetic along with the physical sciences and navigation. Other technical dictionaries followed Harris’ model, including Ephraim Chambers’ "Cyclopaedia" (1728), which included five editions, and was a substantially larger work than Harris’. The folio edition of the work even included foldout engravings. The "Cyclopaedia" emphasized Newtonian theories, Lockean philosophy, and contained thorough examinations of technologies, such as engraving, brewing, and dyeing. In Germany, practical reference works intended for the uneducated majority became popular in the 18th century. The "Marperger Curieuses Natur-, Kunst-, Berg-, Gewerkund Handlungs-Lexicon" (1712) explained terms that usefully described the trades and scientific and commercial education. "Jablonksi Allgemeines Lexicon" (1721) was better known than the "Handlungs-Lexicon", and underscored technical subjects rather than scientific theory. For example, over five columns of text were dedicated to wine, while geometry and logic were allocated only twenty-two and seventeen lines, respectively. The first edition of the "Encyclopædia Britannica" (1771) was modelled along the same lines as the German lexicons. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17912788 | 559,428 |
1,532,875 | Studies of this reaction in multiple ribozymes have served to establish that the reaction chemistry (catalytic mechanism) is an endogenous property of the RNA molecule itself and is not mediated by metal ions, as is true for some protein enzymes and some other ribozymes. Moreover, cleavage activity is still observed when Mg is replaced by [Co(NH)]. Co binds NH so tightly in solution that NH does not dissociate to any appreciable extent, and therefore does not become protonated. This suggests there is no metal-catalyzed proton transfer or direct coordination to the RNA, but instead metals are only required for folding. Furthermore, in crystal structures of a ribozyme-inhibitor complex and a transition state mimic, it was shown that the three-dimensional architecture splays apart A-1 and G+1, positioning the 2'-OH of A-1 for an in-line nucleophilic attack on the scissile phosphate linkage. Additionally, G8, A38, and A9 have been suggested to play roles in the catalysis by deprotonating the 2'-OH of A-1, stabilizing the developing negative charge of the pentacoordinate phosphate oxygens, and protonating the 5'-O leaving group of G+1. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11243863 | 1,532,007 |
292,153 | After soldering, the boards may be washed to remove flux residues and any stray solder balls that could short out closely spaced component leads. Rosin flux is removed with fluorocarbon solvents, high flash point hydrocarbon solvents, or low flash solvents e.g. limonene (derived from orange peels) which require extra rinsing or drying cycles. Water-soluble fluxes are removed with deionized water and detergent, followed by an air blast to quickly remove residual water. However, most electronic assemblies are made using a "No-Clean" process where the flux residues are designed to be left on the circuit board, since they are considered harmless. This saves the cost of cleaning, speeds up the manufacturing process, and reduces waste. However, it is generally suggested to wash the assembly, even when a "No-Clean" process is used, when the application uses very high frequency clock signals (in excess of 1 GHz). Another reason to remove no-clean residues is to improve adhesion of conformal coatings and underfill materials. Regardless of cleaning or not those PCBs, current industry trend suggests to carefully review a PCB assembly process where "No-Clean" is applied, since flux residues trapped under components and RF shields may affect surface insulation resistance (SIR), especially on high component density boards. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=232333 | 291,995 |
734,118 | Current applications of TS span the areas of resource planning, telecommunications, VLSI design, financial analysis, scheduling, space planning, energy distribution, molecular engineering, logistics, pattern classification, flexible manufacturing, waste management, mineral exploration, biomedical analysis, environmental conservation and scores of others. In recent years, journals in a wide variety of fields have published tutorial articles and computational studies documenting successes by tabu search in extending the frontier of problems that can be handled effectively — yielding solutions whose quality often significantly surpasses that obtained by methods previously applied. A comprehensive list of applications, including summary descriptions of gains achieved from practical implementations, can be found in | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=381937 | 733,731 |
1,135,440 | In the late 1960s, bipolar junction transistors were faster than (p-channel) MOS transistors then used and were more reliable, but they also consumed much more power, required more area, and demanded a more complicated manufacturing process. MOS ICs were considered interesting but inadequate for supplanting the fast bipolar circuits in anything but niche markets, such as low power applications. One of the reasons for the low speed was that MOS transistors had gates made of aluminum which led to considerable parasitic capacitances using the manufacturing processes of the time. The introduction of transistors with gates of polycrystalline silicon (that became the "de facto" standard from the mid-1970s to early 2000s) was an important first step in order to reduce this handicap. This new "self-aligned silicon-gate" transistor was introduced by Federico Faggin at Fairchild Semiconductor in early 1968; it was a refinement (and the first working implementation) of ideas and work by John C. Sarace, Tom Klein and Robert W. Bower (around 1966–67) for a transistor with lower parasitic capacitances that could be manufactured as part of an IC (and not only as a discrete component). This new type of pMOS transistor was 3–5 times as fast (per watt) as the aluminum-gate pMOS transistor, and it needed less area, had much lower leakage and higher reliability. The same year, Faggin also built the first IC using the new transistor type, the "Fairchild 3708" (8-bit analog multiplexer with decoder), which demonstrated a substantially improved performance over its metal-gate counterpart. In less than 10 years, the silicon gate MOS transistor replaced bipolar circuits as the main vehicle for complex digital ICs. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2855453 | 1,134,847 |
750,703 | Broom was one of the few scientists defending the close human affinities of "Australopithecus africanus". In 1936, he was informed by two of Dart's students, Trevor R. Jones and G. Schepers, that human-like remains had been discovered in the Sterkfontein Cave quarries. On 9 August 1936, he asked G.W. Barlow to provide him with any finds. On 17 August 1936 he received an adult skull including a natural endocast, specimen Sts 60. However, Broom classified it as a new species, ""A. transvaalensis"", and in 1938 moved it into a new genus as ""Plesianthropus transvaalensis"". He also discovered the robust australopithecine "Paranthropus robustus", showing evidence of a wide diversity of Early Pleistocene "man-apes". Before World War II, several more sites bore "A. africanus" fossils. A detailed monograph by Broom and palaeoanthropologist Gerrit Willem Hendrik Schepers in 1946 regarding these australopithecines from South Africa, as well as several papers by British palaeoanthropologist Sir Wilfrid Le Gros Clark, had turned around scientific opinion, garnering wide support for "A. africanus" classification as a human ancestor. In 1947, the most complete skull was discovered, STS 5 ("Mrs. Ples"). Wider acceptance of "A. africanus" prompted re-evaluation of Piltdown Man in 1953, revealing its falsehood. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1627000 | 750,305 |
888,032 | Following successful trials of the initial locomotives, a production run of 43 locomotives were ordered as part of the Bournemouth Electrification and built by English Electric at their Vulcan Foundry between 1965 and 1967. They were initially classified as Class JB and numbered E6007-E6049. They differed slightly from the six earlier machines, most notably having an increased tractive effort as well as a higher maximum speed (90 mph as opposed to 80). Following the introduction of TOPS, they became Class 73/1 and were renumbered 73101-73142. One locomotive, E6027, had already been withdrawn following accident damage and so was not renumbered. Further changes were the use of large round Oleo buffers with a pneumatic withdrawal mechanism rather than the traditional coach style (oval) saddle buffer which relied on a pin and spring mechanism. As the JA examples came in for overhaul over the years, the saddle buffers were also replaced making visual identification of the differing machines almost impossible from a distance. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=994664 | 887,564 |
1,997,807 | Milton S. J. Wright (19031972) was an African-American academic born in Georgia. He received his B.A. from Wilberforce University in 1926, his M.A. from Columbia University and his Ph.D. in Economics from Germany’s University of Heidelberg in 1932, with the dissertation "Die Wirtschafts Entwicklung und die Eingeborenenpolitik in den afrikanischen Schutzgebieten, 1884-1918" (Economic Development and Indigenous policy in the African Protectorates, 1884–1918). He was granted an audience by Adolf Hitler in Heidelberg in 1932. Hitler pointed out that American blacks have no voting rights, and criticized them for being docile about their oppression, saying "Negroes must be definitely third-class people to allow white[s] to lynch them, beat them, segregate them, without rising up against them!" The "Pittsburgh Courier" ran a front page article on the conversation shortly after the U.S. entered the Second World War. Wright noted that throughout the conversation, Hitler, though calm, asked questions and immediately gave his own answers. For example, he asked "Don't you think your people are destined perpetually to be slaves of one kind or another?" and replied "Yes! Your people are a hopeless lot. I don't hate them... I pity the poor devils." The conversation was dramatically reenacted in 1944 on the anti-racist radio show "New World A-Coming." Wright became a professor and head of the department of Economics and Political Science at Wilberforce in 1933 and in 1959 he was Dean of the College. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=6219852 | 1,996,664 |
308,374 | Ultra-wideband gained widespread attention for its implementation in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) technology. Due to its high resolution capacities using lower frequencies, UWB SAR was heavily researched for its object-penetration ability. Starting in the early 1990s, the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) developed various stationary and mobile ground-, foliage-, and wall-penetrating radar platforms that served to detect and identify buried IEDs and hidden adversaries at a safe distance. Examples include the railSAR, the boomSAR, the SIRE radar, and the SAFIRE radar. ARL has also investigated the feasibility of whether UWB radar technology can incorporate Doppler processing to estimate the velocity of a moving target when the platform is stationary. While a 2013 report highlighted the issue with the use of UWB waveforms due to target range migration during the integration interval, more recent studies have suggested that UWB waveforms can demonstrate better performance compared to conventional Doppler processing as long as a correct matched filter is used. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=166428 | 308,209 |
275,556 | Concurrently, synthetic chemists in the U.S. and France had been interested in paclitaxel, beginning in the late 1970s. As noted, by 1992 extensive efforts were underway to accomplish the total synthesis of paclitaxel, efforts motivated by the desire to generate new chemical understanding rather than to achieve practical commercial production. In contrast, the French group of Pierre Potier at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) addressed the matter of overall process yield, showing that it was feasible to isolate relatively large quantities of the compound 10-deacetylbaccatin from the European yew, "Taxus baccata", which grew on the CNRS campus and whose needles were available in large quantity. By virtue of its structure, 10-deacetylbaccatin was seen as a viable starting material for a short semisynthesis to produce paclitaxel. By 1988, Poitier and collaborators had published a semisynthetic route from needles of the European yew to paclitaxel. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=36796 | 275,407 |
1,221,858 | ARPA-E's fourth round of funding was announced on April 20, 2011 and awarded projects in five technology areas: Plants Engineered To Replace Oil (PETRO), High Energy Advanced Thermal Storage (HEATS), Rare Earth Alternatives in Critical Technologies (REACT), Green Electricity Network Integration (GENI), and Solar Agile Delivery of Electrical Power Technology (Solar ADEPT). PETRO focused on projects that had systems to create biofuels from domestic sources such as tobacco and pine trees for half their current cost. REACT funded early-stage technology alternatives that reduced or eliminated the dependence on rare earth materials by developing substitutes in two key areas: electric vehicle motors and wind generators. HEATS funded projects that promoted advancement in thermal energy storage technology. GENI focused on funding software and hardware that could reliably control the grid network. Solar ADEPT accepted projects that integrated power electronics into solar panels and solar farms to extract and deliver energy more efficiently. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21687875 | 1,221,199 |
1,568,432 | The Planetarium features the 12.5m diameter Cosmic Skydome (hemispherical planetarium theatre) with a maximum concentric seating capacity of 130. Extensive space exploration and astronomy displays in the Planetarium's Foyer and Gallery include the 1969 Apollo 11 Moon landing with a replica of Neil Armstrong's space suit and a 1/48-scale Saturn V rocket, meteorites, and numerous models of spacecraft, rockets, and astronomical instruments. In 2018, a major permanent exhibit - Skylore: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Astronomy - was installed in the Gallery. The original Zeiss star projector was removed from the Cosmic Skydome during the upgrade in 2010 and was placed on display in the foyer in early 2012. A replacement optical star projector by Ohira Tech was installed in the Cosmic Skydome in early 2013. A mini-theatre usually features a regularly updated Space Telescope Science Institute web feed. An observatory contains a permanently mounted Zeiss 15 cm refractor and a Meade 25.4 cm "Go To" Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=5429999 | 1,567,545 |
962,343 | Enheduanna has received substantial attention in feminism. In a BBC Radio 4 interview, Assyriologist Eleanor Robson credits this to the feminist movement of the 1970s, when, two years after attending a lecture by Cyrus H. Gordon in 1976, American anthropologist Marta Weigle introduced Enheduanna to an audience of feminist scholars as "the first known author in world literature" with her introductory essay "Women as Verbal Artists: Reclaiming the Sisters of Enheduanna". Robson says that after this publication, the "feminist image of Enheduanna... as a wish fulfillment figure" really took off. Rather than as a "pioneer poetess" of feminism, Robson states that the picture of Enheduanna from the surviving works of the 18th century BCE is instead one of her as "her father's political and religious instrument". Robson also stresses that we have neither "access to what Enheduanna thought or did" or "evidence that (Enheduanna) was able to write", but that as the high priestess and daughter of Sargon of Akkad, Enheduanna was "probably the most privileged woman of her time" who likely could have had other people write poetry on her behalf. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=330959 | 961,834 |
394,861 | In 2016, Russian company NtechLab caused a privacy scandal in the international media when it launched the FindFace face recognition system with the promise that Russian users could take photos of strangers in the street and link them to a social media profile on the social media platform Vkontakte (VT). In December 2017, Facebook rolled out a new feature that notifies a user when someone uploads a photo that includes what Facebook thinks is their face, even if they are not tagged. Facebook has attempted to frame the new functionality in a positive light, amidst prior backlashes. Facebook's head of privacy, Rob Sherman, addressed this new feature as one that gives people more control over their photos online. "We've thought about this as a really empowering feature," he says. "There may be photos that exist that you don't know about." Facebook's DeepFace has become the subject of several class action lawsuits under the Biometric Information Privacy Act, with claims alleging that Facebook is collecting and storing face recognition data of its users without obtaining informed consent, in direct violation of the 2008 Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). The most recent case was dismissed in January 2016 because the court lacked jurisdiction. In the US, surveillance companies such as Clearview AI are relying on the First Amendment to the United States Constitution to data scrape user accounts on social media platforms for data that can be used in the development of facial recognition systems. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=602401 | 394,666 |
451,658 | In 2000, 454 Life Sciences was founded as a subsidiary of CuraGen; Rothberg was the CEO of CuraGen at the time. The idea for 454 Life Sciences came when Noah, his second child, was born in 1999, and had to be sent to the neonatal intensive care unit because of breathing troubles. Noah turned out to be fine, but Rothberg was frustrated that doctors did not have a rapid test to ensure his son did not have an inherited disease. Rothberg brought to market a machine for massively parallel DNA sequencing. 454 Life Sciences and the Baylor College of Medicine Genome Center were the first to complete and make public the sequence of an individual human genome (James D. Watson). Published in "Nature" magazine, that genome was made publicly on GenBank and browsable via the efforts of Lincoln Stein's group contributing to personal genomics. Rothberg lost control of 454 Life Sciences by 2007. The company was acquired by Roche Diagnostics in 2007 for $140 million then closed down by Roche in 2013 after other approaches to sequencing rendered the underlying technology noncompetitive. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11446118 | 451,439 |
1,050,754 | In general, the alimentary system of "Bothriolepis" –which includes the organs involved in ingestion, digestion, and removal of waste– can be described as simple and straight, unlike that of humans. It begins at the anterior end of the organism with a small mouth cavity located over the posterior area of the upper jaw plates. Posteriorly from the mouth, the alimentary system extends into a wider and dorso-ventrally flattened region called the pharynx, from which both the gills and lungs arise. The esophagus, which is also characterized as a dorso-ventrally flattened tube, extends from the mouth into the stomach and leads to a flattened ellipsoidal structure. This structure may be homologous to the anterior end of the intestine found in other fish. The flatness of these structures may have been exaggerated when the fossil specimens experienced tectonic deformation through geologic time. The intestine begins narrowly on the anterior end, expands transversely, and then again narrows posteriorly towards the cylindrical rectum, which terminates just within the posterior end of the trunk carapace. While the alimentary system is primitive in nature and lacks an expanded stomach region, it is specialized by an independently acquired complex spiral valve, comparable to that in elasmobranchs and many bony fish and similar to that found in some sharks. A single fold of tissue rolled upon its own axis forms this specialized spiral valve. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4467052 | 1,050,208 |
1,268,119 | On the voyage of the "Beagle" the young Charles Darwin took a break between graduating and starting his career as a clergyman to study the natural history of South America, an interest he had developed at the University of Edinburgh and the University of Cambridge. Influenced by Charles Lyell's "Principles of Geology", he became an able geologist as well as collecting plant and animal specimens, and fossils of gigantic extinct mammals. By the return journey, he was connecting patterns of geographical and historical distribution, and starting to doubt the stability of Species. In September 1838 he conceived his theory of natural selection as the cause of evolution, then as well as developing his career as a geologist and writer worked privately on finding evidence and answering possible objections. He wrote out his ideas in an 1842 "pencil sketch", then in an essay written in 1844. He discussed transmutation with his friend Joseph Dalton Hooker, who read the essay in 1847. After turning his attention to biology and completing eight years of work on barnacles, Darwin intensified work on his theory of species in 1854. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=856170 | 1,267,429 |
851,571 | In 1864 James Clerk Maxwell of Edinburgh announced his electromagnetic theory of light, which was perhaps the greatest single step in the world's knowledge of electricity. Maxwell had studied and commented on the field of electricity and magnetism as early as 1855/6 when "On Faraday's lines of force" was read to the Cambridge Philosophical Society. The paper presented a simplified model of Faraday's work, and how the two phenomena were related. He reduced all of the current knowledge into a linked set of differential equations with 20 equations in 20 variables. This work was later published as "On Physical Lines of Force" in March 1861. In order to determine the force which is acting on any part of the machine we must find its momentum, and then calculate the rate at which this momentum is being changed. This rate of change will give us the force. The method of calculation which it is necessary to employ was first given by Lagrange, and afterwards developed, with some modifications, by Hamilton's equations. It is usually referred to as Hamilton's principle; when the equations in the original form are used they are known as Lagrange's equations. Now Maxwell logically showed how these methods of calculation could be applied to the electro-magnetic field. The energy of a dynamical system is partly kinetic, partly potential. Maxwell supposes that the magnetic energy of the field is kinetic energy, the electric energy potential. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=5951576 | 851,118 |
1,513,987 | As research in the Arctic region of northern North America became more frequent, conflicts between researchers and the indigenous peoples started to occur. Recently, the indigenous communities of the North American Arctic have played a direct role in setting ethical standards for research in the region. Scientists have combined the use of laboratory research and field research in the Polar Regions to gain a more comprehensive understanding of its characteristics. Because of scientific research in the north, living in and traveling to the Arctic has become much safer. However, the indigenous peoples viewed the effects of the research and development in the area differently than the scientists did. Since the 1960s, indigenous peoples have been more politically active and began pursuing the recognition of their rights regarding land-claims and self-government institutions. Indigenous communities voiced their concern that this research could lead to undesirable changes to the region’s landscape and economy. Canadian officials responded to their concerns by addressing the responsibility of scientists to consult with indigenous communities before conducting research. In 1977, the Association of Canadian Universities for Northern Studies (ACUNS) was founded at Churchill, Manitoba to improve scientific activity in the region. ACUNS published a document aimed at promoting cooperation between the northern indigenous people and researchers called "Ethical Principles for the Conduct of Research in the North (1982)". The document was published in English, French, and Inuktitut so it could be clearly understood among different groups. Relationships between science and society in the Arctic continue to change and adapt based on the politics of the region. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11180149 | 1,513,136 |
840,865 | The behavioural approach, as developed in particular by Richard Cyert and James G. March of the Carnegie School places emphasis on explaining how decisions are taken within the firm, and goes well beyond neoclassical economics. Much of this depended on Herbert A. Simon’s work in the 1950s concerning behaviour in situations of uncertainty, which argued that “people possess limited cognitive ability and so can exercise only ‘bounded rationality’ when making decisions in complex, uncertain situations”. Thus individuals and groups tend to "satisfice"—that is, to attempt to attain realistic goals, rather than maximize a utility or profit function. Cyert and March argued that the firm cannot be regarded as a monolith, because different individuals and groups within it have their own aspirations and conflicting interests, and that firm behaviour is the weighted outcome of these conflicts. Organisational mechanisms (such as "satisficing" and sequential decision-taking) exist to maintain conflict at levels that are not unacceptably detrimental. Compared to ideal state of productive efficiency, there is organisational slack (Leibenstein's X-inefficiency). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1337683 | 840,415 |
252,688 | The use of bone building drugs, like bisphosphonates and anti-RANKL drugs require special consideration with implants, because they have been associated with a disorder called Medication-associated osteonecrosis of the jaw (MRONJ). The drugs change bone turnover, which is thought to put people at risk for death of bone when having minor oral surgery. At routine doses (for example, those used to treat routine osteoporosis) the effects of the drugs linger for months or years but the risk appears to be very low. Because of this duality, uncertainty exists in the dental community about how to best manage the risk of BRONJ when placing implants. A 2009 position paper by the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons, discussed that the risk of BRONJ from low dose oral therapy (or slow release injectable) as between 0.01 and 0.06 percent for any procedure done on the jaws (implant, extraction, etc.). The risk is higher with intravenous therapy, procedures on the lower jaw, people with other medical issues, those on steroids, those on more potent bisphosphonates and people who have taken the drug for more than three years. The position paper recommends against placing implants in people who are taking high dose or high frequency intravenous therapy for cancer care. Otherwise, implants can generally be placed and the use of bisphosphonates does not appear to affect implant survival. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1118041 | 252,555 |
1,977,901 | At low flight speeds the DASS engine relies solely on the on-board turbojet that runs on a conventional hydrocarbon fuel. The variable geometry intake (PCT patent pending) allows large gaps to form between the heat exchanger (which is not operating at this stage), minimizing intake pressure losses. During this mode, the bypass is closed and all air is processed through the turbojet core. The exhaust nozzle (PCT patent pending) contracts in the subsonic mode for optimal specific thrust. As the engine accelerates to supersonic velocities, the articulated portions of the intake direct flow into the heat exchanger (PCT patent pending). Liquid hydrogen fuel is passed through the heat exchanger, decreasing the temperature of the air prior to engine compression. Some of the air bypass the turbojet core, and is mixed with the hydrogen exiting the heat exchanger in the afterburner section. Note that the magnitude of heat transfer is coupled to the amount of hydrogen available for combustion in the afterburner. The combustion products are then expanded through a supersonic nozzle, variable geometry nozzle. The engine will be designed to completely consume the air to optimize for thrust. The level of bypass changes throughout the supersonic flight regime. The engine can operate at Mach 4 and provide thrust in excess of a conventional ramjet. At high Mach numbers (~4.88) air cannot be cooled below the turbojet limit (1200K). As a result, no combustion can occur in the core turbojet and the engine must transition into a pure ramjet mode. The variable inlet continues to articulate (PCT patent pending) to completely block air access to the turbojet, while optimizing intake to exit area ratios for ramjet combustion using hydrogen. The engine still realizes an efficiency boost from the cooling effects of the heat exchanger (albeit much less in this mode). The terminal flight speed is limited to that of a hydrogen fueled ramjet. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=43208165 | 1,976,763 |
649,917 | In 1960, the US Navy put into service its Transit satellite-based navigation system to aid in naval navigation. The US Navy in the mid-1960s conducted an experiment to track a submarine with missiles with six satellites and orbiting poles and was able to observe satellite changes. Between 1960 and 1982, as the benefits were shown, the US military consistently improved and refined its satellite navigation technology and satellite system. In 1973, the US military began to plan for a comprehensive worldwide navigational system which eventually became known as the GPS (Global Positioning System). In 1983, in the wake of the tragedy of the downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007, an aircraft which was shot down while in Soviet airspace due to a navigational error, President Ronald Reagan made the navigation capabilities of the existing military GPS system available for dual civilian use. However, civilian use was initially only a slightly degraded "Selective Availability" positioning signal. This new availability of the US military GPS system for civilian use required a certain technical collaboration with the private sector for some time, before it could become a commercial reality. In 1989, Magellan Navigation Inc. unveiled its Magellan NAV 1000, the world's first commercial handheld GPS receiver. These units initially sold for approximately US$2,900 each. In 2000, the Clinton administration removed the military use signal restrictions, thus providing full commercial access to the US Satnav satellite system. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17800413 | 649,576 |
2,041,182 | Printers are generally referred to as "Super-Wide format" when their print bed exceeds 2.2m in width. For many applications at this size resolution becomes secondary to print speed - which is why many machines over 3m wide are designed for speed over resolution. In the 1980s billboards were generally printed at resolutions as low as 80dpi (dots per inch). Resolutions today are much higher because of the improvements in technology but printing billboards, vehicle graphics, building wraps and the like do not require the ultra-high resolutions of 1440dpi and upwards often associated with standard wide format printers. It is normal for super-wide format digital printers to function at maximum resolutions of between 540dpi and around 1040dpi. However even these resolutions are rarely used in a production environment, billboards and building wraps for example are often done at between 200dpi and 350dpi and the result relies on the viewing distance for the impactful, colourful graphics the public sees on roadsides and buildings. The fact that they are capable of printing at these higher resolutions is still important though because it attests to the size of the ink droplet being laid down by the inkjet solvent and eco-solvent machines. These ink droplets are measured in pica-litres and a print done at 200dpi will look more defined if it is printed with smaller ink droplets when compared to a machine laying down bigger ink droplets. The primary print head technologies used in ultra-wide format digital outdoor printing comes down to a few print head manufacturers worldwide including (but not restricted to) Piezo, Seiko and Spectra as the primary competitors and their print heads are used in most machines from a variety of manufacturers. They have their pros and cons and Piezo appears to focus more on the higher resolution side of the industry whereas Seiko and Spectra-Polaris tend more towards the robust, high production capabilities required in a manufacturing environment. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=13189722 | 2,040,002 |
799,816 | The skull of "Plateosaurus" is small and narrow, rectangular in side view, and nearly three times as long as it is high. There is an almost rectangular lateral temporal foramen at the back. The large, round orbit (eye socket), the sub-triangular antorbital fenestra and the oval naris (nostril) are of almost equal size. The jaws carried many small, leaf-shaped, socketed teeth: 5 to 6 per premaxilla, 24 to 30 per maxilla, and 21 to 28 per dentary (lower jaw). The thick, leaf-shaped, bluntly serrated tooth crowns were suitable for crushing plant material. The low position of the jaw joint gave the chewing muscles great leverage, so that "Plateosaurus" could deliver a powerful bite. These features suggest that it fed primarily to exclusively on plants. Its eyes were directed to the sides, rather than the front, providing all-round vision to watch for predators. Some fossil skeletons have preserved sclerotic rings (rings of bone plates that protect the eye). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1565138 | 799,390 |
961,593 | Edward Lee Thorndike (August 31, 1874 – August 9, 1949) was an American psychologist who spent nearly his entire career at Teachers College, Columbia University. His work on comparative psychology and the learning process led to the theory of connectionism and helped lay the scientific foundation for educational psychology. He also worked on solving industrial problems, such as employee exams and testing. He was a member of the board of the Psychological Corporation and served as president of the American Psychological Association in 1912. A "Review of General Psychology" survey, published in 2002, ranked Thorndike as the ninth-most cited psychologist of the 20th century. Edward Thorndike had a powerful impact on reinforcement theory and behavior analysis, providing the basic framework for empirical laws in behavior psychology with his law of effect. Through his contributions to the behavioral psychology field came his major impacts on education, where the law of effect has great influence in the classroom. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=84864 | 961,084 |
371,301 | Author Bruce Haynes describes the role of the metronome in modern style in detail in his book "The end of early music", for metronomic practice is now common worldwide. He emphasizes that modern style is much more rhythmically rigid, in that tempo is steady and scores are read very literally, sometimes perceived as devoid of emotion in contrast to the rubato and bluster characteristic of Romantic music. Because of this, American musicologist and critic Richard Taruskin calls Modernism "refuge in order and precision, hostility to subjectivity, to the vagaries of personality," noting its order and precision. These qualities give rise to the term "metronomic", which critics use to describe more modern music with an unyielding tempo, mechanical rhythmic approach, and equal stress to all subintervals; American violinist Sol Babitz considered it "sewing machine" style with limited flexibility. American musician Robert Hill also commented on the predictably regular beat characteristic of Modernism; he describes a trade-off, in that "we compensate our lack of timing flexibility by a very highly developed sense of tone-color and dynamic which, however refined and polished it may be, tends to abstract and de-personalize the music-making, underscoring its absoluteness". He also notes this as having changed greatly from the "standard" classical repertoire of the 19th century. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=88771 | 371,107 |
9,801 | On April 23, 2010, the newest 787, ZA003, arrived at the McKinley Climatic Laboratory hangar at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, for extreme weather testing in temperatures ranging from , including takeoff preparations at both temperature extremes. ZA005, the fifth 787 and the first with GEnx engines, began ground engine tests in May 2010, and made its first flight on June 16, 2010. In June 2010, gaps were discovered in the horizontal stabilizers of test aircraft due to improperly installed shims; all aircraft were inspected and repaired. That same month, a 787 experienced its first in-flight lightning strike; inspections found no damage. As composites can have as little as 1/1,000th the electrical conductivity of aluminum, conductive material is added to alleviate potential risks and to meet FAA requirements. The FAA also planned requirement changes to help the 787 show compliance. In December 2019, it was reported that Boeing had removed the copper foil that formed part of the protection against lightning strikes to the wings of the aircraft; it then worked with the FAA to override concerns raised. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=307133 | 9,797 |
63,420 | The school's historic coat of arms is used on official documentation including degree certificates and transcripts and includes the motto – "rerum cognoscere causas", a line taken from Virgil's "Georgics" meaning "to know the causes of things", together with the school's mascot – a beaver. Both these symbols, adopted in February 1922, continue to be held in high regard to this day with the beaver chosen because of its representation as "a hard working and industrious yet sociable animal", attributes that the founders hoped LSE students to both possess and aspire to. The school's weekly newspaper is still entitled "The Beaver", Rosebery residence hall's bar is called the Tipsy Beaver and LSE sports teams are known as the Beavers. The institution has two sets of colours – brand and academic – red being the brand colour used on signage, publications and in buildings across campus and purple, black and gold for academic purposes including presentation ceremonies and graduation dress. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=67704 | 63,395 |
836,139 | Proponents of nuclear power argue that the problems of nuclear waste "do not come anywhere close" to approaching the problems of fossil fuel waste. A 2004 article from the BBC states: "The World Health Organization (WHO) says 3 million people are killed worldwide by outdoor air pollution annually from vehicles and industrial emissions, and 1.6 million indoors through using solid fuel." In the U.S. alone, fossil fuel waste kills 20,000 people each year. A coal power plant releases 100 times as much radiation as a nuclear power plant of the same wattage. It is estimated that during 1982, US coal burning released 155 times as much radioactivity into the atmosphere as the Three Mile Island accident. The World Nuclear Association provides a comparison of deaths due to accidents among different forms of energy production. In their life-cycle comparison, deaths per TW-yr of electricity produced from 1970 to 1992 are quoted as 885 for hydropower, 342 for coal, 85 for natural gas, and 8 for nuclear. The figures include uranium mining, which can be a hazardous industry, with many accidents and fatalities. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14163295 | 835,690 |
874,793 | Modern graphics processing units (GPUs) include an array of shader pipelines which may be driven by compute kernels, and can be considered vector processors (using a similar strategy for hiding memory latencies). As shown in Flynn's 1972 paper the key distinguishing factor of SIMT-based GPUs is that it has a single instruction decoder-broadcaster but that the cores receiving and executing that same instruction are otherwise reasonably normal: their own ALUs, their own register files, their own Load/Store units and their own independent L1 data caches. Thus although all cores simultaneously execute the exact same instruction in lock-step with each other they do so with completely different data from completely different memory locations. This is "significantly" more complex and involved than "Packed SIMD", which is strictly limited to execution of parallel pipelined arithmetic operations only. Although the exact internal details of today's commercial GPUs are proprietary secrets, the MIAOW team was able to piece together anecdotal information sufficient to implement a subset of the AMDGPU architecture. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=58205 | 874,331 |
233,603 | Explicit MPC (eMPC) allows fast evaluation of the control law for some systems, in stark contrast to the online MPC. Explicit MPC is based on the parametric programming technique, where the solution to the MPC control problem formulated as optimization problem is pre-computed offline. This offline solution, i.e., the control law, is often in the form of a piecewise affine function (PWA), hence the eMPC controller stores the coefficients of the PWA for each a subset (control region) of the state space, where the PWA is constant, as well as coefficients of some parametric representations of all the regions. Every region turns out to geometrically be a convex polytope for linear MPC, commonly parameterized by coefficients for its faces, requiring quantization accuracy analysis. Obtaining the optimal control action is then reduced to first determining the region containing the current state and second a mere evaluation of PWA using the PWA coefficients stored for all regions. If the total number of the regions is small, the implementation of the eMPC does not require significant computational resources (compared to the online MPC) and is uniquely suited to control systems with fast dynamics. A serious drawback of eMPC is exponential growth of the total number of the control regions with respect to some key parameters of the controlled system, e.g., the number of states, thus dramatically increasing controller memory requirements and making the first step of PWA evaluation, i.e. searching for the current control region, computationally expensive. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1100516 | 233,484 |
1,237,628 | In 1963, the Aerospace Corporation prompted the Space Systems Division to begin work on Project 621B (Satellite System for Precise Navigation), which was intended to provide accurate, all-weather positioning data anywhere on Earth. At the same time, the Navy began work on Timation as a follow-on to Transit. The first Timation satellites were launched by the Space and Missile Systems Organization in 1967 and 1969. The Army also developed SECOR satellite system. In 1968, the Defense Department organized the Navigation Satellite Executive Committee as a tri-service committee to coordinate the various programs. In 1972, Air Force Colonel Bradford W. Parkinson worked to combine SAMSO's Project 621B and the Navy's Timation program and on 17 April 1973, Deputy Secretary of Defense Bill Clements unified them under the SAMSO-led Defense Navigation Satellite Development Program. The program adopted the Air Force's signal structure and frequencies and the Navy's orbital deployment plan and usage of atomic clocks. On 2 May 1974, the program was renamed the Navstar Global Positioning System (GPS). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=66185637 | 1,236,963 |
266,193 | Other dinosaurs from the Wessex Formation of the Isle of Wight where "Baryonyx" may have occurred include the theropods "Riparovenator", "Ceratosuchops", "Neovenator", "Eotyrannus", "Aristosuchus", "Thecocoelurus", "Calamospondylus", and "Ornithodesmus"; the ornithopods "Iguanodon", "Hypsilophodon", and "Valdosaurus"; the sauropods "Ornithopsis", "Eucamerotus", and "Chondrosteosaurus"; and the ankylosaur "Polacanthus". Barker and colleagues stated in 2021 that the identification of the two additional spinosaurids from the Wealden Supergroup, "Riparovenator" and "Ceratosuchops", has implications for potential ecological separation within Spinosauridae if these and "Baryonyx" were contemporary and interacted. They cautioned that it is possible the Upper Weald Clay and Wessex Formations and the spinosaurids known from them were separated in time. It is generally thought that large predators occur with small taxonomic diversity in any area due to ecological demands, yet many Mesozoic assemblages include two or more sympatric theropods that were comparable in size and morphology, and this also appears to have been the case for spinosaurids. Barker and colleagues suggested that high diversity within Spinosauridae in a given area may have been the result of environmental circumstances benefiting their niche. While it has been generally assumed that only identifiable anatomical traits related to resource partitioning allowed for coexistence of large theropods, Barker and colleagues noted that this does not preclude that similar and closely related taxa could coexist and overlap in ecological requirements. Possible miche partitioning could be in time (seasonal or daily), in space (between habitats in the same ecosystems), or depending on conditions, and they could also have been separated by their choice of habitat within their regions (which may have ranged in climate). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1091918 | 266,049 |
2,108,586 | "B. ovatus" has been used in animal studies as a mode of microbial drug delivery due to its xylanase operon. Operons exist in bacteria to control gene expression and are composed of a DNA sequence containing an operator followed by the genes of interest. The operator in the xylanase operon prevents transcription of genes when bound to a repressor protein. The "B. ovatus" xylanase operon only functions in the presence of the starch, xylan, which removes the repressor and enables production of whichever proteins correlate with the genes located after the operator. For microbial drug delivery, the genes after the operator include those inserted as part of the genetic modification. Xylan is non-digestible to human gastric acid or digestive enzymes, so a predictable quantity of dietary xylan will reach the recombinant "B. ovatus" in the gut, hypothetically allowing for a precise quantity of drug to be produced by the recombinant "B. ovatus". In mice, recombinant "B. ovatus" strains containing genes for growth factors TGF-β and KGF-2 within the xylanase operon have successfully treated ulcerative colitis (UC). The secreted drugs from "B. ovatus" are applied topically to the epithelial lining, affecting local tissues rather than acting systemically. Systemic administration of these growth factors could otherwise cause tumors and increased vascularization of tissues. When administered microbially, TGF-β and KGF-2 facilitate tissue repair only in the colon where they are released. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=52337409 | 2,107,372 |
694,049 | Augustana's honors program, "Civitas", was launched in 2007 and is currently directed by Sociology professor Wiiliam J. Swart. The program is named Civitas, a Latin word meaning "citizenship," and is built upon the work of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran pastor and theologian who acted as a founding member of the Confessing Church and a participant in the German resistance movement against Nazism. Bonhoeffer's essay "The Structure of Responsible Life" serves as the central focus of the program. Emphasizing "Stellvertretung" (roughly translated as "vicarious representative action"), Bonhoeffer participated in the Abwehr plot to assassinate Hitler, and subsequently wrote the piece as a justification for his actions. Students examine his work in classes specifically designated for Civitas and in special honors sections of existing courses. 40 students are selected from each graduating class, of whom must maintain at minimum a 3.0 GPA, with entrance priority going to incoming students who possess an ACT score of at least 27 and a 3.5 cumulative high school GPA. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1105987 | 693,686 |
1,060,413 | Their recommendations were made to a NASA Advisory Council, but were ultimately unsuccessful in obtaining Congressional funding due to NASA, lacking a legislated mandate for planetary protection, not being permitted to request it. Feeling it would be imprudent to continue waiting for substantive government or United Nations action, B612 began a fundraising campaign in 2012 to cover the approximate US$450 million cost for the development, launch and operations of an asteroid-finding space telescope, to be called Sentinel, with a goal of raising $30 to $40 million per year. The space observatory's objective would be to accurately survey NEOs from an orbit similar to that Venus, creating a large dynamic catalog of such objects that would help identify dangerous Earth-impactors, deemed a necessary precursor to mounting any asteroid deflection mission. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=333633 | 1,059,862 |
1,786,616 | It is widely known that the state of our environment affects us in many ways. Minerals and rocks have an impact on human and animal populations because that is what the earth is composed of. Medical geology brings professionals from both the medicine field and the geology field to help us understand this relationship. There are two priorities that have been established within the medical geology field, "(1) the study of trace elements, especially their bioavailability and (2) a need to establish baseline, or background levels of contaminants/xenobiotics/potentially harmful but naturally occurring materials in water, soil, air, food, and animal tissue." The elements and minerals in the land affect people and animals immensely, especially when there is a close relationship between the two. Those who depend heavily on the land are faced with one of two problems. First, those who live in places such as Maputaland, South Africa are exposed to heavily impoverished soils which result in a number of diseases caused by mineral imbalances. Secondly, those in areas such as India and Bangladesh are often exposed to an excess of elements in the land, resulting in mineral toxicity. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2440784 | 1,785,611 |
862,733 | Another unique addition to "Phantasy Star" was the 3D dungeons. They became a central concept in the game's early planning stages, in part because the Famicom was incapable of handling them. The team drew inspiration from Western dungeon crawling RPGs like "Wizardry" and wanted to add animated navigation to help the player know their location and orientation more easily. Naka had experimented with creating dungeons inspired by these RPGs. Typically these scenes were rendered in small boxes, so Naka was motivated to engineer a full-screen dungeon that could be used for an action game or an RPG. Originally the artists were drawing full 2D backgrounds using a 3D perspective, but the number of frames necessary to achieve the animated effect used too much space on the cartridge. Naka solved this by programming true wireframe 3D dungeons. The artists then used a program by Naka to superimpose their art on top of the wireframes. They also saved three-quarters of the memory they would normally need by making each quadrant of the screen identical. The new dungeons scrolled faster than expected and needed to be slowed down. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=145427 | 862,273 |
1,552,636 | The study of MA structure and function is challenging, in particular because of their megadalton size, but also because of their complex compositions and varying dynamic natures. Most have had standard chemical and biochemical methods applied (methods of protein purification and centrifugation, chemical and electrochemical characterization, etc.). In addition, their methods of study include modern proteomic approaches, computational and atomic-resolution structural methods (e.g., X-ray crystallography), small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) and small-angle neutron scattering (SANS), force spectroscopy, and transmission electron microscopy and cryo-electron microscopy. Aaron Klug was recognized with the 1982 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on structural elucidation using electron microscopy, in particular for protein-nucleic acid MAs including the tobacco mosaic virus (a structure containing a 6400 base ssRNA molecule and >2000 coat protein molecules). The crystallization and structure solution for the ribosome, MW ~ 2.5 MDa, an example of part of the protein synthetic 'machinery' of living cells, was object of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded to Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas A. Steitz, and Ada E. Yonath. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=36128950 | 1,551,755 |
447,810 | John Searle argues that Dennett, who insists that discussing subjectivity is nonsense because it is unscientific and science presupposes objectivity, is making a category error. Searle argues that the goal of science is to establish and validate statements which are epistemically objective (i.e., whose truth can be discovered and evaluated by any interested party), but these statements can be about what is ontologically subjective. Searle states that the epistemic objectivity of the scientific method does not preclude the ontological subjectivity of the subject matter. Thus, back pain exists, they are subjective experiences whose existence is not in doubt in medicine. And neurology, as you can see in any neurology textbook, is concerned with understanding them in order to cure them. Searle calls any value judgment epistemically subjective. Thus, "McKinley is prettier than Everest" is epistemically subjective, whereas "McKinley is higher than Everest" is epistemically objective. In other words, the latter statement is evaluable (in fact, falsifiable) by an understood ("background") criterion for mountain height, like "the summit is so many meters above sea level". No such criteria exist for prettiness. Searle writes that, in Dennett's view, there is no consciousness in addition to the computational features, because that is all that consciousness amounts to for him: mere effects of a von Neumann(esque) virtual machine implemented in a parallel architecture and therefore implies that conscious states are illusory. In contrast, Searle asserts that, "where consciousness is concerned, the existence of the appearance is the reality." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=157212 | 447,593 |
2,170,246 | The idea for the Hands Free Hectare project was conceived in 2015 by two staff working in the Engineering Department at Harper Adams University, Kit Franklin and Jonathan Gill, who were frustrated by the pace and limited scope of academic developments in the area of field agricultural automation/robotics that they believed had become stagnant when compared to tech sectors such as UAVs. Jonathan was utilising open source technologies (OS Software & OS hardware) to build UAVs and the pair felt they could adapt these systems to work on agricultural vehicles. They also felt it was critical to showcase the machines operating in the field to change the perception of the agricultural industry and being the first to complete a full cropping cycle seemed like a compelling challenge. With publicity in mind, the project would need a memorable name. "Hands Free Hectare" came out of a short discussion between Kit and Jonathan. It was written down on a post-it note and stuck on the lab wall where is stayed for nearly a year prior to the project, as is described in episode 75 of the Rock and Roll Farming podcast. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=67180375 | 2,169,008 |
299,272 | The first series of 5 experiments began on August 30, 1961 with a sliding surface of the flat landslide inclined by 30°, consisting of a wooden plank covered with a sheet. The sliding mass was simulated with gravel, held in place by flexible metal nets, which were initially held in position by ropes that were then suddenly released. At the beginning of September, another 4 tests were carried out intended for orientation purposes. The first always with a 30° inclined plane, the following 3 with a 42° inclined plane. Having found it impossible to reproduce the natural geological phenomenon of the landslide in the model, the model was elaborated by modifying the movement surface of the landslide, which was replaced with a masonry one (the relative profiles were elaborated by Semenza, who also used the surveys that had already been carried out and that had provided sufficient elements of judgment in this sense), to make it possible to vary the speed of the landslide fall into the reservoir (made difficult by the new "back" shape of the movement surface). To simulate the compactness of the moving material (which in the model remained the gravel) rigid sectors were inserted which were towed by ropes pulled by a tractor. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=679597 | 299,111 |
1,788,614 | A standard approach to investigating neural synchrony, especially with data from naturalistic experimental designs, is inter-subject correlation (ISC). Often, ISC is the Pearson correlation, or robust regression, of spatio-temporal patterns of neural activity in multiple subjects. In ISC, an individual's brain responses are either correlated across the average of the other subjects in a leave-one-out analysis, or all pairs of subjects are correlated in a pairwise analysis. This method leverages time-locked stimuli in order to understand how brain activity across participants relates to different parts of the task. Rather than focusing on the strength of activation in brain areas, ISC explores the variability in neural activity across subjects, allowing researchers to probe the level of similarity or idiosyncrasy in people's brain responses. Shared variance in neural activity is assumed to be indicative of similar processing of identical stimuli or tasks. Similar to the general linear model, it is important to compare ISC values to a null, which can be derived from recordings of resting states or irrelevant stimuli. Because it depends on extended designs that allow for activity recording over time, ISC is especially conducive to social interaction studies, which makes it a powerful approach for exploring neural synchrony in social contexts. However, ISC depends on stimulus-driven responses, which poses difficulties for researchers interested in resting-state activity. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=69270951 | 1,787,608 |
1,992,864 | Seen as the simplest form of message production, the fundamental premise of Expressive Design Logic is that “Language is a medium for expressing thoughts and feelings.” This premise is the simplest of the three logics and explains that someone says what they feel. As long as this feeling is conveyed in the message, the message is deemed successful. O’Keefe gives two reasons why individuals who operate under this design logic are very literal when it comes to impression in message design and interpretation. “First, they fail to appreciate that in communication, the process of expression can be made to serve other goals, and second, they interpret messages as independent units rather than as threads in an interaction fabric.” Individuals that communicate expressively do not recognize the idea that messages might be designed to induce particular reactions by the receiver. They believe that messages are taken straightforwardly by a receiver who has thoughts, feelings, or reactions that are to be communicated back to the sender. Through this idea there are only two possible relationships that can be held between the speaker's intentions and messages; 1) To fully and honestly express the speaker's current mental state. 2) To convey a distorted version of the speaker's mental state though editing or lying. Due to the extreme straightforwardness of expressive messages they may contain multiple facets that can be viewed as negative when discussing communicative effectiveness, such as pointless content (excessive knowledge of what the speaker feels or wants), redundancies (due to a thought being recycled), noncontingent threats or insults (simple announcements of punishments), or inoffensive but inappropriate comments (complimentary personal remarks inappropriately delivered). Ultimately, individuals using Expressive Design Logic believe that the element that unites a speaker's messages is simply what is on the speaker's mind, whether they are items of information from one encounter or items from a complex chain of associations. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=35419501 | 1,991,721 |
116,675 | The complete blood count has specific applications in many medical specialties. It is often performed before a person undergoes surgery to detect anemia, ensure that platelet levels are sufficient, and screen for infection, as well as after surgery, so that blood loss can be monitored. In emergency medicine, the CBC is used to investigate numerous symptoms, such as fever, abdominal pain, and shortness of breath, and to assess bleeding and trauma. Blood counts are closely monitored in people undergoing chemotherapy or radiation therapy for cancer, because these treatments suppress the production of blood cells in the bone marrow and can produce severely low levels of white blood cells, platelets and hemoglobin. Regular CBCs are necessary for people taking some psychiatric drugs, such as clozapine and carbamazepine, which in rare cases can cause a life-threatening drop in the number of white blood cells (agranulocytosis). Because anemia during pregnancy can result in poorer outcomes for the mother and her baby, the complete blood count is a routine part of prenatal care; and in newborn babies, a CBC may be needed to investigate jaundice or to count the number of immature cells in the white blood cell differential, which can be an indicator of sepsis. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=241565 | 116,630 |
356,305 | Because short rotation energy crops only have managed to grow/accumulate carbon for a short amount of time before they are harvested, it is relatively easy to pay back the harvest-related carbon debt, provided that there is no additional large carbon debt from land use change to deal with (for instance created by clear-cutting a natural forest in order to use this land area for energy crops), and no better climate-related use for the areas in question. Schlamadinger & Marland write that "[...] short-rotation energy crops will provide much earlier and larger C [carbon] mitigation benefits if implemented on previously unforested land than if an initial forest is harvested to provide space for the plantation." EU's Joint Research Centre state: "In case that there is no raw material displacement from other sectors such as food, feed, fibers or changes in land carbon stocks due to direct or indirect land use change, the assumption of carbon neutrality can still be considered valid for annual crops, agriresidues, short-rotation coppices and energy grasses with short rotation cycles. This can also be valid for analysis with time horizons much longer than the feedstock growth cycles." Other researchers argue that the small carbon debts associated with energy crop harvests means short carbon payback and parity times, often less than a year. IRENA argues that short-rotation energy crops and agricultural residues are carbon neutral since they are harvested annually. IEA writes in its special report on how to reach net zero emissions in 2050 that the "[...] energy‐sector transformation in the NZE [Net Zero Emissions scenario) would reduce CO emissions from AFLOU [Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use] in 2050 by around 150 Mt CO given the switch away from conventional crops and the increase in short rotation advanced‐bioenergy crop production on marginal lands and pasture land." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=7906908 | 356,121 |
33,017 | The B-17 was noted for its ability to absorb battle damage, still reach its target and bring its crew home safely. Wally Hoffman, a B-17 pilot with the Eighth Air Force during World War II, said, "The plane can be cut and slashed almost to pieces by enemy fire and bring its crew home." Martin Caidin reported one instance in which a B-17 suffered a midair collision with a Focke-Wulf Fw 190, losing an engine and suffering serious damage to both the starboard horizontal stabilizer and the vertical stabilizer, and being knocked out of formation by the impact. The B-17 was reported as shot down by observers, but it survived and brought its crew home without injury. Its toughness was compensation for its shorter range and lighter bomb load compared to the B-24 and British Avro Lancaster heavy bombers. Stories circulated of B-17s returning to base with tails shredded, engines destroyed and large portions of their wings destroyed by flak. This durability, together with the large operational numbers in the Eighth Air Force and the fame achieved by the "Memphis Belle", made the B-17 a key bomber aircraft of the war. Other factors such as combat effectiveness and political issues also contributed to the B-17's success. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4997 | 33,005 |
826,376 | To prepare for an assay, the researcher fills each well of the plate with some biological entity that they wish to conduct the experiment upon, such as a protein, cells, or an animal embryo. After some incubation time has passed to allow the biological matter to absorb, bind to, or otherwise react (or fail to react) with the compounds in the wells, measurements are taken across all the plate's wells, either manually or by a machine. Manual measurements are often necessary when the researcher is using microscopy to (for example) seek changes or defects in embryonic development caused by the wells' compounds, looking for effects that a computer could not easily determine by itself. Otherwise, a specialized automated analysis machine can run a number of experiments on the wells (such as shining polarized light on them and measuring reflectivity, which can be an indication of protein binding). In this case, the machine outputs the result of each experiment as a grid of numeric values, with each number mapping to the value obtained from a single well. A high-capacity analysis machine can measure dozens of plates in the space of a few minutes like this, generating thousands of experimental datapoints very quickly. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=882729 | 825,932 |
1,790,751 | The ethynyl radical (systematically named λ-ethyne and hydridodicarbon("C"—"C")) is an organic compound with the chemical formula C≡CH (also written [CCH] or ). It is a simple molecule that does not occur naturally on Earth but is abundant in the interstellar medium. It was first observed by electron spin resonance isolated in a solid argon matrix at liquid helium temperatures in 1963 by Cochran and coworkers at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. It was first observed in the gas phase by Tucker and coworkers in November 1973 toward the Orion Nebula, using the NRAO 11-meter radio telescope. It has since been detected in a large variety of interstellar environments, including dense molecular clouds, bok globules, star forming regions, the shells around carbon-rich evolved stars, and even in other galaxies. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=6425704 | 1,789,745 |
2,007,669 | Williams was an Honors student majoring in English with a minor in Asian Studies at the University of Kansas and graduated with a B.A. in 1972. While a student at KU he competed in collegiate chess tournaments and is said to have had a rating of 1800. He was drawn to the University of Utah by a "Humanistic Computation" summer seminar held by Jef Raskin at KU. He joined the graduate Computer Science program at the University of Utah in 1973 and studied computer graphics and animation under Ivan Sutherland, David Evans, and Steven Coons . At this time in the early 1970s, the University of Utah was the hub for much of the pioneering work being done in computer graphics. Lance left Utah (having completed his PhD course work and exams except the writing of a thesis) in 1977 to join the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT). While at NYIT, Williams invented the mipmapping technique for texture filtering, which is ubiquitously used today by graphics hardware for PCs and video games, and wrote and directed the abandoned project "The Works" which would have been the first entirely 3D CGI film had it been finished in the early 1980s as intended. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1246240 | 2,006,518 |
1,860,834 | The curriculum at TSAS is challenging and differentiated. High school students are all part of one of four “houses” which are diverse, equally rigorous graduation plans based on student and family preference and future goals. In all houses, Advanced Placement classes, internships, community service, and concurrent enrollment are emphasized, and graduation requirements exceed the state's requirements. In addition to the core curriculum in houses, TSAS offers an extensive catalog of elective courses such as visual art, printmaking, gardening, modern band, rock band, women and gender studies, culinary arts, quiz bowl, yoga, cycling, musical theatre, speech, debate, drama, film studies, zine journalism, cross country, darkroom photography, and extensive social/emotional support as well as an emphasis on innovation and disruption of educational inequity. The school year is divided into trimesters, and students take only five 70-minute classes per session. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21218154 | 1,859,766 |
1,177,606 | Some 20 years after Emperor Wuzong's death, the Tang empire began its last phase of collapse. The source of the downfall can be traced to an event in 868 when a group of soldiers in Gui Prefecture (Guangxi) under Pang Xun rebelled after the government ordered them to extend their garrison duty for one extra year, even though they had already served six years on what was supposed to be a three-year assignment. The rebellion spread northwards to the Chang Jiang and Huai River before its suppression in 869 by Shatuo cavalry under the command of Li Guochang. While the Tang court was still smarting from the impact of the Pang Xun rebellion, in 874, a salt trader by the name of Wang Xianzhi stirred up another rebellion in Changyuan, Puzhou, Henan. In 875 Wang was joined by Huang Chao, who eventually took over leadership of the rebel army when Wang died in 878. The cataclysmic Huang Chao rebellion was one of such vast magnitude that it shook the very foundations of the Tang empire, destroying it both internally as well as cutting off any pre-existing foreign contacts it had with the outside world. At the rebellion's peak, Huang claimed to command an army of one million. It swept through much of the lower and middle Yangzi valleys, devastated the Central Plains, and went as far south as Guangzhou (879). After sacking the twin capitals Luoyang in 880 and Chang'an the following year, Huang Chao declared the founding of his Great Qí (大齊) dynasty. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=47026706 | 1,176,983 |
962,933 | Occupational therapy and physical therapy interventions are used in the rehabilitation of lacunar stroke. A physiotherapy program will improve joint range of motion of the paretic limb using passive range of motion exercises. When increases in activity are tolerated, and stability improvements are made, patients will progress from rolling to side-lying, to standing (with progressions to prone, quadruped, bridging, long-sitting and kneeling for example) and learn to transfer safely (from their bed to a chair or from a wheel chair to a car for example). Assistance and ambulation aids are used as required as the patient begins walking and lessened as function increases. Furthermore, splints and braces can be used to support limbs and joints to prevent or treat complications such as contractures and spasticity. The rehabilitation healthcare team should also educate the patient and their family on common stroke symptoms and how to manage an onset of stroke. Continuing follow-up with a physician is essential so that the physician may monitor medication dosage and risk factors. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8942747 | 962,424 |
776,771 | Computational linguistics is often grouped within the field of artificial intelligence but was present before the development of artificial intelligence. Computational linguistics originated with efforts in the United States in the 1950s to use computers to automatically translate texts from foreign languages, particularly Russian scientific journals, into English. Since computers can make arithmetic (systematic) calculations much faster and more accurately than humans, it was thought to be only a short matter of time before they could also begin to process language. Computational and quantitative methods are also used historically in the attempted reconstruction of earlier forms of modern languages and sub-grouping modern languages into language families. Earlier methods, such as lexicostatistics and glottochronology, have been proven to be premature and inaccurate. However, recent interdisciplinary studies that borrow concepts from biological studies, especially gene mapping, have proved to produce more sophisticated analytical tools and more reliable results. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=5561 | 776,355 |
827,202 | Some biologists have proposed the deliberate extinction of certain mosquito species. Biologist Olivia Judson has advocated "specicide" of thirty mosquito species by introducing a genetic element which can insert itself into another crucial gene, to create recessive "knockout genes". She says that the "Anopheles" mosquitoes (which spread malaria) and "Aedes" mosquitoes (which spread dengue fever, yellow fever, elephantiasis, zika, and other diseases) represent only 30 out of some 3,500 mosquito species; eradicating these would save at least one million human lives per year, at a cost of reducing the genetic diversity of the family Culicidae by 1%. She further argues that since species become extinct "all the time" the disappearance of a few more will not destroy the ecosystem: "We're not left with a wasteland every time a species vanishes. Removing one species sometimes causes shifts in the populations of other species — but different need not mean worse." In addition, anti-malarial and mosquito control programs offer little realistic hope to the 300 million people in developing nations who will be infected with acute illnesses each year. Although trials are ongoing, she writes that if they fail: "We should consider the ultimate swatting." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2887318 | 826,758 |
955,244 | The first courses at the Royal Engineers Establishment were done on an all ranks basis with the greatest regard to economy. To reduce staff the NCOs and officers were responsible for instructing and examining the soldiers. If the men could not read or write they were taught to do so, and those who could read and write were taught to draw and interpret simple plans. The Royal Engineers Establishment quickly became the centre of excellence for all fieldworks and bridging. Captain Charles Pasley, the director of the Establishment, was keen to confirm his teaching, and regular exercises were held as demonstrations or as experiments to improve the techniques and teaching of the Establishment. From 1833 bridging skills were demonstrated annually by the building of a pontoon bridge across the Medway which was tested by the infantry of the garrison and the cavalry from Maidstone. These demonstrations had become a popular spectacle for the local people by 1843, when 43,000 came to watch a field day laid on to test a method of assaulting earthworks for a report to the Inspector General of Fortifications. In 1869 the title of the Royal Engineers Establishment was changed to "The School of Military Engineering" (SME) as evidence of its status, not only as the font of engineer doctrine and training for the British Army, but also as the leading scientific military school in Europe. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=100034 | 954,739 |
1,485,714 | The White cell was first described in 1942 by John U. White in his paper "Long Optical Paths of Large Aperture", and was a significant improvement over previous long path spectroscopic measurement techniques. A White cell is constructed using three spherical, concave mirrors having the same radius of curvature. The mirrors are separated by a distance equal to their radii of curvature. The animation on the right shows a White Cell in which a beam makes eight reflective passes or traversals. The number of traversals can be changed quite easily by making slight rotational adjustments to either M2 or M3; however, the total number of traversals must always occur in multiples of four. The entering and exiting beams do not change position as traversals are added or removed, while the total number of traversals can be increased many times without changing the volume of the cell, and therefore the total optical path length can be made large compared to the volume of the sample under test. The spots from various passes can overlap on mirrors M2 and M3 but must be distinct on mirror M1. If the input beam is focused in the plane of M1, then each round trip will also be focused in this plane. The tighter the focus, the more nonoverlapping spots there can be on M1 and thus the higher the maximum pathlength. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=36229076 | 1,484,876 |
372,500 | The first recoilless gun to enter service in Germany was the 7.5 cm Leichtgeschütz 40 ("light gun" '40), a simple 75 mm smoothbore recoilless gun developed to give German airborne troops artillery and anti-tank support that could be parachuted into battle. The 7.5cm LG 40 was found to be so useful during the invasion of Crete that Krupp and Rheinmetall set to work creating more powerful versions, respectively the 10.5 cm Leichtgeschütz 40 and 10.5 cm Leichtgeschütz 42. These weapons were loosely copied by the US Army. The Luftwaffe also showed great interest in aircraft-mounted recoilless weapons to allow their planes to attack tanks, fortified structures and ships. These included the unusual Düsenkanone 88, an 88mm recoilless rifle fed by a 10-round rotary cylinder and with the exhaust vent angled upwards at 51 degrees to the barrel so it could pass through the host aircraft's fuselage rather than risking a rear-vented backblast damaging the tail, and the Sondergerät SG104 "Münchhausen", a gargantuan 14-inch (355.6mm) weapon designed to be mounted under the fuselage of a Dornier Do 217. None of these systems proceeded beyond the prototype stage. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=236060 | 372,305 |
2,047,900 | Whitehead was born in Sutton, Surrey in 1902 and educated at Sir Walter St. John's School. After winning a scholarship to Jesus College, Oxford, Whitehead obtained first-class degrees in mathematics and in physics before carrying out research with Lord Cherwell at the Clarendon Laboratory. He was appointed as a physicist at the Electrical Research Association, becoming Director in 1946 and holding this post until his death in 1956. His particular interest was dielectric research, and he had an international reputation in fields such as telephone and radio interference. During the Second World War, he was engaged in the ERA's work on bomb and mine locators. He played Rugby Fives in his youth, and later served as Secretary of the Rugby Fives Association. He was a member of the Institute of Electrical Engineers and a Fellow of the Institute of Physics. He was awarded a fellowship of Queen Mary College, London in recognition of his services to education. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20192709 | 2,046,719 |
2,061,526 | Late in 1730 he sailed westward again, this time to Jamaica. He went as an employee of the Hon. Colin Campbell, to carry out an experiment devised by George Graham and to supervise a cargo of astronomical instruments destined to establish an observatory there. The instruments were eventually bequeathed to Glasgow University by the later purchaser, Alexander Macfarlane, and returned to Scotland between 1757 and 1760, where they formed the basis of the university's Macfarlane Observatory. Colin Campbell wrote that Joseph Harris was taken ill in Jamaica and returned home early as a result; but although Joseph suffered an initial bout of what he (and later in another context Mungo Park) called 'sever seasoning' (perhaps malaria), and said was unavoidable for all newcomers, he afterwards wrote an extensive and interesting letter home describing the island and claiming full health; indeed he stayed until April 1732, longer than he had anticipated before he left London. On his way home during the summer of 1732 he made two observations which were subsequently published in the "Transactions" of the Royal Society, this time sponsored by George Graham: "An Account of Some Mathematical Observations Made in the Months of May, June and July 1732; as also the Description of a Water-Spout". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30866164 | 2,060,338 |
317,390 | The maintenance of the dikaryotic status in dikaryons in many Basidiomycota is facilitated by the formation of clamp connections that physically appear to help coordinate and re-establish pairs of compatible nuclei following synchronous mitotic nuclear divisions. Variations are frequent and multiple. In a typical Basidiomycota lifecycle the long lasting dikaryons periodically (seasonally or occasionally) produce basidia, the specialized usually club-shaped end cells, in which a pair of compatible nuclei fuse (karyogamy) to form a diploid cell. Meiosis follows shortly with the production of 4 haploid nuclei that migrate into 4 external, usually apical basidiospores. Variations occur, however. Typically the basidiospores are ballistic, hence they are sometimes also called ballistospores. In most species, the basidiospores disperse and each can start a new haploid mycelium, continuing the lifecycle. Basidia are microscopic but they are often produced on or in multicelled large fructifications called basidiocarps or basidiomes, or fruitbodies), variously called mushrooms, puffballs, etc. Ballistic basidiospores are formed on sterigmata which are tapered spine-like projections on basidia, and are typically curved, like the horns of a bull. In some Basidiomycota the spores are not ballistic, and the sterigmata may be straight, reduced to stubs, or absent. The basidiospores of these non-ballistosporic basidia may either bud off, or be released via dissolution or disintegration of the basidia. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=48980 | 317,221 |
112,395 | However, the opportunity cost of implementing policies to the sector has limited impact in the health sector. Patients with severe symptoms of COVID-19 require close monitoring in the ICU and in therapeutic ventilator support, which is key to treating the disease. In this case, scarce resources include bed days, ventilation time, and therapeutic equipment. Temporary excess demand for hospital beds from patients exceeds the number of bed days provided by the health system. The increased demand for days in bed is due to the fact that infected hospitalized patients stay in bed longer, shifting the demand curve to the right (see curve D2 in Graph1.11). The number of bed days provided by the health system may be temporarily reduced as there may be a shortage of beds due to the widespread spread of the virus. If this situation becomes unmanageable, supply decreases and the supply curve shifts to the left (curve S2 in Graph1.11). A perfect competition model can be used to express the concept of opportunity cost in the health sector. In perfect competition, market equilibrium is understood as the point where supply and demand are exactly the same (points P and Q in Graph1.11). The balance is Pareto optimal equals marginal opportunity cost. Medical allocation may result in some people being better off and others worse off. At this point, it is assumed that the market has produced the maximum outcome associated with the Pareto partial order. As a result, the opportunity cost increases when other patients cannot be admitted to the ICU due to a shortage of beds. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=45528 | 112,350 |
352,685 | For several months Verdi was preoccupied with family matters. These stemmed from the way in which the citizens of Busseto were treating Giuseppina Strepponi, with whom he was living openly in an unmarried relationship. She was shunned in the town and at church, and while Verdi appeared indifferent, she was certainly not. Furthermore, Verdi was concerned about the administration of his newly acquired property at Sant'Agata. A growing estrangement between Verdi and his parents was perhaps also attributable to Strepponi (the suggestion that this situation was sparked by the birth of a child to Verdi and Strepponi which was given away as a foundling lacks any firm evidence). In January 1851, Verdi broke off relations with his parents, and in April they were ordered to leave Sant'Agata; Verdi found new premises for them and helped them financially to settle into their new home. It may not be coincidental that all six Verdi operas written in the period 1849–53 ("La battaglia, Luisa Miller, Stiffelio, Rigoletto, Il trovatore" and "La traviata"), have, uniquely in his oeuvre, heroines who are, in the opera critic Joseph Kerman's words, "women who come to grief because of sexual transgression, actual or perceived". Kerman, like the psychologist Gerald Mendelssohn, sees this choice of subjects as being influenced by Verdi's uneasy passion for Strepponi. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12958 | 352,502 |
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