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1,855,035 | Library II, a four-story addition, opened in 1990, adding 88,000 assignable square-feet and included the installation of a large compact storage unit in the Library I lower level for enhanced collection space. In 1997, Patricia Larsen was appointed Dean and Director. During her tenure, three reference desks were consolidated into a single general area. Around this time a trend was for academic libraries to pursue increased access to remote collections in addition to continuing to build their locally held collections, leading to a dramatic increase in full-text journals and other collections via the acquisition of a variety of electronic resources. By the late 90s, the library soon subscribed to several hundred databases. In 1997, its first hands-on teaching lab with 15 computers was added. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38202712 | 1,853,969 |
680,528 | Ethnic manipulation manifested itself beyond the personal and internal spheres. Scott Straus from the University of Wisconsin describes the ethnic identities that partially contributed to the Rwandan genocide. In April 1994, following the assassination of Rwanda's President Juvénal Habyarimana, Hutus of Rwanda turned on their Tutsi neighbors and slaughtered between 500,000 and 800,000 people in just 100 days. While politically this situation was incredibly complex, the influence ethnicity had on the violence cannot be ignored. Before the German colonization of Rwanda, the identities of Hutu and Tutsi were not fixed. Germany ruled Rwanda through the Tutsi dominated monarchy and the Belgians continued this following their takeover. Belgian rule reinforced the difference between Tutsi and Hutu. Tutsis were deemed superior and were propped up as a ruling minority supported by the Belgians, while the Hutu were systematically repressed. The country's power later dramatically shifted following the so-called Hutu Revolution, during which Rwanda gained independence from their colonizers and formed a new Hutu-dominated government. Deep-seated ethnic tensions did not leave with the Belgians. Instead, the new government reinforced the cleavage. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=5090455 | 680,173 |
1,491,907 | The "physical domain" concerns methods that are based on (linearised) mass, damping and stiffness matrices, typically obtained from numerical FEM modelling. Popular solutions to solve the associated system of second order differential equations are the time integration schemes of Newmark and the Hilbert-Hughes-Taylor scheme. The "modal domain" concerns component mode synthesis (CMS) techniques such as the Craig-Bampton, Rubin and McNeal method. These methods provide efficient modal reduction bases and assembly techniques for numerical models in the physical domain. The "frequency domain" is more popularly known as Frequency Based Substructuring (FBS). Based on the classic formulation of Jetmundsen et al. and the reformulation of De Klerk et al., it has become the most commonly used domain for substructuring, because of the ease of expressing the differential equations of a dynamical system (by means of Frequency Response Functions, FRFs) and the convenience of implementing experimentally obtained models. The "time domain" refers to the recently proposed concept of Impulse Based Substructuring (IBS), which expresses the behaviour of a dynamic system using a set of Impulse Response Functions (IRFs). The state-space domain, finally, refers to methods proposed by Sjövall et al. that employ system identification techniques common to control theory. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=50040777 | 1,491,068 |
1,154,139 | Heilmann considered "Podokesaurus" very similar to the early bird "Archaeopteryx" in 1913, and wondered why Talbot had not made any comparisons to it. He particularly found the legs and the pelvis, when the pubis was interpreted as pointing backwards (as in birds), similar to what it might look like in a bird ancestor, while considering Lull's reconstruction of a forward-directed pubis unlikely. He also found parts of the shoulder blade, forelimbs, and even tail bones similar to those of birds. He furthermore pointed to the presence of abdominal ribs and that the bones were hollow, and concluded that nothing precluded "Podokesaurus" from being a very primitive proto-bird, with not yet fused middle-foot bones. The only feature he found inconsistent with this interpretation was the short finger with a claw, if it was not instead part of a toe. He suggested that the issue could be determined if the skull, sternum, and were found in the rock, bones that would be important clues for classification. Heilmann wished for a clearer explanation of the placement of the middle-foot bones in relation to each other, and found it surprising that Lull's reconstruction of "Podokesaurus" showed an even more appressed middle-foot than was present in the later supposed descendant "Ornithomimus", which he thought would have developed a completely bird-like middle-foot by that time. Heilmann found "Podokesaurus" very unusual for a dinosaur from the Triassic, and thought it was one of the earliest bipedal vertebrates. He suggested that since it was so different from "Thecodontosaurus" and "Plateosaurus", those may not have been dinosaurs, or "Podokesaurus" could instead have been related to "Saltopus" or parasuchians, but found its fossils too insufficient to say anything definite about the issue. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3610052 | 1,153,529 |
10,017 | There were still many unknown factors. The properties of pure uranium-235 were relatively unknown, as were those of plutonium, an element that had only been discovered in February 1941 by Glenn Seaborg and his team. The scientists at the (July 1942) Berkeley conference envisioned creating plutonium in nuclear reactors where uranium-238 atoms absorbed neutrons that had been emitted from fissioning uranium-235 atoms. At this point no reactor had been built, and only tiny quantities of plutonium were available from cyclotrons at institutions such as Washington University in St. Louis. Even by December 1943, only two milligrams had been produced. There were many ways of arranging the fissile material into a critical mass. The simplest was shooting a "cylindrical plug" into a sphere of "active material" with a "tamper"—dense material that would focus neutrons inward and keep the reacting mass together to increase its efficiency. They also explored designs involving spheroids, a primitive form of "implosion" suggested by Richard C. Tolman, and the possibility of autocatalytic methods, which would increase the efficiency of the bomb as it exploded. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19603 | 10,013 |
407,626 | "Optical systems" utilize data captured from image sensors to triangulate the 3D position of a subject between two or more cameras calibrated to provide overlapping projections. Data acquisition is traditionally implemented using special markers attached to an actor; however, more recent systems are able to generate accurate data by tracking surface features identified dynamically for each particular subject. Tracking a large number of performers or expanding the capture area is accomplished by the addition of more cameras. These systems produce data with three degrees of freedom for each marker, and rotational information must be inferred from the relative orientation of three or more markers; for instance shoulder, elbow and wrist markers providing the angle of the elbow. Newer hybrid systems are combining inertial sensors with optical sensors to reduce occlusion, increase the number of users and improve the ability to track without having to manually clean up data. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=396968 | 407,425 |
1,713,467 | The organization operates throughout the academic year with fundraising efforts centered around an interdisciplinary head-shaving and hair donation event held each April or May on the ECU Health Sciences Campus. Originally comprising solely medical students, the group's leadership and participants now spans numerous departments and disciplines including students, faculty, and staff from medical, dental, nursing, PA, PT, and various other graduate and undergraduate degree programs. As of the third annual fundraiser on April 5, 2019 the organization has raised a total of $86,050 in gross donations for children's cancer-related needs, with $7,639, $25,008, and $53,403 raised in 2017, 2018, and 2019, respectively. In 2019, over 92% of gross funds raised were allocated directly to meeting local needs at Maynard Children's Hospital. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4641828 | 1,712,501 |
381,651 | With the determination of the first structure of the complex between a G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR) and a G-protein trimer (Gαβγ) in 2011 a new chapter of GPCR research was opened for structural investigations of global switches with more than one protein being investigated. The previous breakthroughs involved determination of the crystal structure of the first GPCR, rhodopsin, in 2000 and the crystal structure of the first GPCR with a diffusible ligand (βAR) in 2007. How the seven transmembrane helices of a GPCR are arranged into a bundle was suspected based on the low-resolution model of frog rhodopsin from cryo-electron microscopy studies of the two-dimensional crystals. The crystal structure of rhodopsin, that came up three years later, was not a surprise apart from the presence of an additional cytoplasmic helix H8 and a precise location of a loop covering retinal binding site. However, it provided a scaffold which was hoped to be a universal template for homology modeling and drug design for other GPCRs – a notion that proved to be too optimistic. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12832 | 381,456 |
1,824,521 | Even in the absence of numerical difficulties, the general lack of knowledge available to practitioners creates uncertainty. Field sites are typically heterogeneous, both physically and chemically, and sampling is often sparse. The prevailing assumption of Fickian dispersion is often inadequate. Equilibrium constants and kinetic rate laws for relevant reactions are often poorly known. The complexity of many processes requires expertise in one or more of the aforementioned fields. Many processes, such as long-term nuclear waste storage, cannot be experimentally verified; reactive transport problems can only attempt to predict such long-term behavior. The current descriptions of multi-phase flow and mechanical deformation processes are still being developed. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=36307450 | 1,823,483 |
1,503,950 | The PC-5000 was largely IBM PC-compatible, with the same 4.77-MHz Intel 8088 processor as the IBM PC, and ran MS-DOS 2.0 (in ROM). It had 128 kilobytes of internal memory (it was one of the few computers to use bubble memory), which could be expanded by the use of plug-in cartridges. The cartridge slots also accepted ROM cartridges containing software, such as the Extended BASIC programming language and the EasyPac software suite, which contained the EasyWrite II word processor, EasyReport reports program, and EasyComm terminal software for use with the internal modem. It featured a 640×80-pixel (80-character by 8-line) LCD display, a full-travel keyboard, and an external dual 5.25-inch floppy disk drive. A notable feature of the computer was its built-in thermal printer, which could also be purchased separately and attached to the machine. It is perhaps due to this attachment that the case design of the PC-5000 owes much to that of electronic typewriters of its time. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=5044491 | 1,503,104 |
1,657,638 | Dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) is an off-lattice mesoscopic simulation technique which involves a set of particles moving in continuous space and discrete time. Particles represent whole molecules or fluid regions, rather than single atoms, and atomistic details are not considered relevant to the processes addressed. The particles' internal degrees of freedom are integrated out and replaced by simplified pairwise dissipative and random forces, so as to conserve momentum locally and ensure correct hydrodynamic behaviour. The main advantage of this method is that it gives access to longer time and length scales than are possible using conventional MD simulations. Simulations of polymeric fluids in volumes up to 100 nm in linear dimension for tens of microseconds are now common. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12578506 | 1,656,705 |
428,487 | The reason why Indigenous people were discouraged to participate in the Genographic Project is offered by the claims of the founder of IPCB Debra Harry. According to Harry, a Northern Paiute Native American and Associate Professor in Indigenous Studies at Nevada University, The Genographic project resulted in a human genetic testing practice that appeared to mask an ulterior motive rather than mere scientific research. Particularly, the great concern about the possible political interest behind the Genographic Project, motivated the IPCB to preemptively alert the global indigenous community on the “not so altruistic motivations” of the project. Additionally, IPCB argues that the Genographic project not only provides no direct benefit to Indigenous peoples but instead raises considerable risks. Such risks, raised by Harry in an interview released in December 2005, were used to advocate against the indigenous participation in the project. Another comment made by IPCB founder Debra Harry was that the Genographic Project served as a method to discredit kin relations through the possibility that ancestral identities may be invalidated and to deny Indigenous peoples’ access and authority over the resource-rich territories that they had for long inhabited. The IPCB also identified another attempt at Biocolonialism in the Genographic Project. The latter involved the high probability of genetic testing results producing errors such as false negatives and positives that lead to the misidentification of Native people as non-Native and vice versa. Another negative consequence expressed by TallBear is the risk that an individual's cultural identity can be conclusively established through biocolonialist projects such as the Genographic Project. Ultimately, TallBear's argument is in close agreement with Harry's concerns regarding the Genographic Project and serves as a significant force motivating IPCB to advocate against Biocolonialism. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1733468 | 428,277 |
1,674,312 | Schizotheriines are one of the two subfamilies of the extinct family Chalicotheriidae, a group of herbivorous odd-toed ungulate (perissodactyl) mammals that lived from the Eocene to the Pleistoscene. The other clade is the Chalicotheriinae. Both clades had claws rather than hooves on their front feet, an adaptation understood as related to feeding. Schizotheriines also had claws on their hind feet. The fossils of both groups are found in environments that had trees and shrubs. While chalicotheriines developed very derived body forms, schizotheriines remained basically similar in shape to other perissodactyls such as horses and tapirs. Like most forest-dwelling ungulates, they had long necks and forelimbs longer than their hindlimbs. Schizotheriines had longer, higher-crowned cheek teeth than chalicotheriines, which indicates they typically fed on tougher vegetation. The sediments where their fossils are found show they also lived in a wider range of environments, from moist forests to drier woodland or savannah-like environments with trees. Perhaps for this reason, they became more widely distributed than chalicotheriines. Though chalicotheres likely evolved in Asia, schizotheriine fossils are also found in Africa and North America, which they reached by the Bering land bridge. The best-known schizotheriine genus is "Moropus". The last survivor of the group was traditionally thought to be "Nestoritherium", but it was found to actually be a member of Chalicotheriinae. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25604463 | 1,673,370 |
1,139,956 | In July 2009, Benjamin Moody, a United-TI forum user, published the factors of a 512-bit RSA key used to sign the TI-83+ series graphing calculator. The discovery of the private key would allow end users to flash their own operating systems onto the device without having to use any special software. Moody used two free implementations of the general number field sieve, msieve and ggnfs; the computation took 73 days on a 1.9 GHz dual-core processor. This demonstrates the progress of hardware development: the factorization of the similar 512-bit RSA-155 in 1999 using the same algorithm required a large dedicated research group, 8000 MIPS-years of computing time, and a Cray C916 supercomputer. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=24426094 | 1,139,362 |
549,909 | One of the problems for studying viral origins and evolution is the high rate of viral mutation, particularly the case in RNA retroviruses like HIV/AIDS. A recent study based on comparisons of viral protein folding structures, however, is offering some new evidence. Fold Super Families (FSFs) are proteins that show similar folding structures independent of the actual sequence of amino acids, and have been found to show evidence of viral phylogeny. The proteome of a virus, the viral proteome, still contains traces of ancient evolutionary history that can be studied today. The study of protein FSFs suggests the existence of ancient cellular lineages common to both cells and viruses before the appearance of the 'last universal cellular ancestor' that gave rise to modern cells. Evolutionary pressure to reduce genome and particle size may have eventually reduced viro-cells into modern viruses, whereas other coexisting cellular lineages eventually evolved into modern cells. Furthermore, the long genetic distance between RNA and DNA FSFs suggests that the RNA world hypothesis may have new experimental evidence, with a long intermediary period in the evolution of cellular life. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=416954 | 549,621 |
431,416 | Asimov's depiction of Multivac has been seen as the defining conceptualization of the genre of computers for the period, just as his development of robots defined a subsequent generation of thinking machines, and Multivac has been described as the direct ancestor of HAL 9000. Though the technology initially depended on bulky vacuum tubes, the concept – that all information could be contained on computer(s) and accessed from a domestic terminal – constitutes an early reference to the possibility of the Internet (as in "Anniversary"). Multivac has been considered within the context of public access information systems and used in teaching computer science, as well as with regard to the nature of an electoral democracy, as its influence over global democracy and the directed economy increased ("Franchise"). Asimov stories featuring Multivac have also been taught in literature classes. In AI control terms, Multivac has been described as both an 'oracle' and a 'nanny'. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1132125 | 431,204 |
2,010,336 | Ritankar Das is an American scientist, author, poet and Social Entrepreneur from California. He is the founder and CEO of See Your Future, an education NGO reaching 75 million people worldwide. At 18, he was the youngest University Medalist (top graduating senior) in at least a century among over 6000 graduates from UC Berkeley. He has been featured in the San Francisco Chronicle, ABC News, Times of India and over 100 other media outlets around the globe. Das has written a book of poetry, "Silent Moon" and has been inducted into the YEGS Hall of Fame alongside Martin Luther King Junior, Sergey Brin and Condoleezza Rice. He serves as youth chair of the advisory board of the USA Science and Engineering Festival. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=42067225 | 2,009,184 |
1,216,397 | Stimulated Raman spectroscopy, also referred to as stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) is a form of spectroscopy employed in physics, chemistry, biology, and other fields. The basic mechanism resembles that of spontaneous Raman spectroscopy: a pump photon, of the angular frequency formula_1, which is scattered by a molecule has some small probability of inducing some vibrational (or rotational) transition, as opposed to inducing a simple Rayleigh transition. This makes the molecule emit a photon at a shifted frequency. However, SRS, as opposed to spontaneous Raman spectroscopy, is a third-order non-linear phenomenon involving a second photon—the Stokes photon of angular frequency formula_2—which stimulates a specific transition. When the difference in frequency between both photons (formula_3) resembles that of a specific vibrational (or rotational) transition (formula_4) the occurrence of this transition is resonantly enhanced. In SRS, the signal is equivalent to changes in the intensity of the pump and Stokes beams. The signals are typically rather low, of the order of a part in 10^5, thus calling for modulation-transfer techniques: one beam is modulated in amplitude and the signal is detected on the other beam via a lock-in amplifier. Employing a pump laser beam of a constant frequency and a Stokes laser beam of a scanned frequency (or vice versa) allows for the unraveling of the spectral fingerprint of the molecule. This spectral fingerprint differs from those obtained by other spectroscopy methods such as Rayleigh scattering as the Raman transitions confer to different exclusion rules than those that apply for Rayleigh transitions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=55146253 | 1,215,745 |
1,935,961 | The entire village of Kastri was transferred to the location where now lies the village of Delphi. The technical teams provided the site with a mini-railway with wagonets, in order to remove the debris, and started demolishing the old houses. After all the preparatory work, the actual excavation started in mid-October 1892, quite late in autumn, and therefore it did not last for long. The next season, however, started in April 1893, revealing large part of the Athenian Treasury as well as the Sibyl rock and the Altar of the Chians. Within the next years came to light most of the buildings along the Sacred Way as well as unique sculptures. One of the most exciting moments was the discovery of the Charioteer, part of the monumental bronze sculpture dedicated by the tyrant of Gela, Polyzalos, in order to commemorate his victory at the Pythian Games. Other highlights of the excavations were the discovery of the Dancers of Delphi as well as of the Roman statue of Antinous and of the pair of archaic kouroi (Dioskouroi or Kleobis and Biton). After revealing the monuments within the sanctuary of Apollo the archaeologists started excavating the stadium and the gymnasium and then moved on to the so-called "Marmaria", i.e. the sanctuary of Athena Pronaia, from where the locals used to pick building material for centuries. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=49373062 | 1,934,853 |
896,304 | Military dominance was of extreme importance to the Spartans of Ancient Greece. In response, the Spartans structured their educational system as an extreme form of military boot camp, which they referred to as "agoge". The pursuit of intellectual knowledge was seen as trivial, and thus academic learning, such as reading and writing, was kept to a minimum. A Spartan boy's life was devoted almost entirely to his school, and that school had but one purpose: to produce an almost indestructible Spartan "phalanx". Formal education for a Spartan male began at about the age of seven when the state removed the boy from the custody of his parents and sent him to live in a barracks with many other boys his age. For all intents and purposes, the barracks was his new home, and the other males living in the barracks his family. For the next five years, until about the age of twelve, the boys would eat, sleep and train within their barracks unit and receive instruction from an adult male citizen who had completed all of his military training and experienced battle. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=16886145 | 895,833 |
998,410 | The first announcement of the discovery of element 102 was announced by physicists at the Nobel Institute in Sweden in 1957. The team reported that they had bombarded a curium target with carbon-13 ions for twenty-five hours in half-hour intervals. Between bombardments, ion-exchange chemistry was performed on the target. Twelve out of the fifty bombardments contained samples emitting (8.5 ± 0.1) MeV alpha particles, which were in drops which eluted earlier than fermium (atomic number "Z" = 100) and californium ("Z" = 98). The half-life reported was 10 minutes and was assigned to either 102 or 102, although the possibility that the alpha particles observed were from a presumably short-lived mendelevium ("Z" = 101) isotope created from the electron capture of element 102 was not excluded. The team proposed the name "nobelium" (No) for the new element, which was immediately approved by IUPAC, a decision which the Dubna group characterized in 1968 as being hasty. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21278 | 997,892 |
917,618 | Longrich and colleagues in 2010 also rejected a durophagous (animals that practise shell-crushing) hypothesis, given that such animals typically develop teeth with broad crushing surfaces. The pointed shape of the dentary bones in the lower jaws suggests that oviraptorids had a sharp-edged rhamphotheca used for shearing food instead. The symphyseal (bone union) region at the front of the dentary may have given some ability for crushing, but as this was a relatively small area, it was probably not the main function of the jaws. Another argument against them having been eaters of mollusks is the fact that most oviraptorids have been found in sediments that are interpreted to represent mostly arid or semi-arid environments, such as "Oviraptor" in the Djadokhta Formation. The team also found that oviraptorids and dicynodonts share cranial features such as short, deep, and toothless mandibles; elongated dentary symphyses; elongated mandibular openings; and a pointed palate. Modern animals with jaws that resemble those of oviraptorids include parrots and tortoises; the latter group also has tooth-like projections on the palatal region. Longrich and colleagues concluded that due to the similarities between oviraptorids and herbivorous animals, the bulk of their diet would most likely have been formed by plant material. The jaws of oviraptorids may have been specialised for processing food, such as xerophytic vegetation−a vegetation that is adapted for environments with little water—that would have grown in their arid environments, but this is not possible to demonstrate, as little is known about the paleoflora of the Gobi Desert. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=581471 | 917,135 |
1,774,119 | This led to long periods of evolution in near complete isolation. The isolation of the island was not absolute, given the rise and fall of sea level caused by the ebb and flow of ice ages. Land bridges or islands formed between Tasmania and its neighbour, mainland Australia. Thus new species came to Tasmania while Gondwanan species were able to penetrate the Pacific Islands region. Plants have limited seed dispersal mobility away from the parent plant and consequently rely upon a variety of dispersal vectors to transport their propagules, including both abiotic and biotic vectors. Seeds can be dispersed away from the parent plant individually or collectively, as well as dispersed in both space and time. Birds and bats swallow seeds, then regurgitate them or pass them in their faeces. Such seed dispersal has been a major mechanism of seed dispersal across ocean barriers. Other seeds may stick to the feet or feathers of birds, particularly migratory or aquatic birds, and in this way may travel long distances. Seeds of grasses, spores of algae, and the eggs of molluscs and other invertebrates commonly establish in remote areas after long journeys of such types. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=31546066 | 1,773,122 |
1,608,191 | The exact mechanisms and histogenesis of lung cancers are topics of intense interest and research. It is currently thought that most cases of lung cancer probably occur after damage to genomic DNA causes malignant transformation of a single multipotent cell. This newly formed entity, sometimes referred to as a cancer stem cell, then begins to divide uncontrollably, giving rise to new daughter cancer cells in an exponential (or near exponential) fashion. Unless this runaway cell division process is checked, a clinically apparent tumor will eventually form as the mass reaches sufficient size to be detected clinically, or begins to cause signs or symptoms. Approximately 98% of lung cancers are eventually diagnosed as a histological variant of carcinoma, a term that signifies that the tumor derives from transformed epithelial cells, or cells that have acquired epithelial characteristics as a result of cell differentiation. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26372272 | 1,607,286 |
230,873 | Founded in 1921 by Vera Schmidt (who had also been one of Freud's students), the "Detski Dom" was intended to teach children based on Freud's theories. The school was only an orphanage in name: along with Schmidt's own son, the school had children from prominent Bolsheviks (including Joseph Stalin, whose son Vasily Stalin was enrolled as well). Use of discipline was avoided and children were allowed maximum freedom of movement. Sexual exploration and curiosity was also permitted. Spielrein's involvement included supervision of the teachers, and she may have supported them in a protest about their poor conditions of work, which led to their dismissal. The school had to close in 1924, in the wake of accusations of experiments to stimulate the children's sexuality prematurely. The accusations were possibly made in response to attempts by Leon Trotsky to proletarianize the school's intake During Spielrein's time in Moscow, both Alexander Luria and Lev Vygotsky came to work at the Psychoanalytic Institute and "Dyetski Dom" and studied with her. Spielrein's characteristic way of combining subjective psychological ideas from psychoanalysis with objective observational research of children is likely to have been an important influence in their early formation as researchers, leading them to become the foremost Russian psychologists of their time. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2425513 | 230,755 |
2,072,176 | Born in 1895, Hanson joined the New Zealand Expeditionary Force during the First World War and served on the Western Front. By the end of the war he had reached the rank of sergeant and been awarded the Military Medal. During the interwar period, he was employed by the Public Works Department on hydroelectric projects and public roading. He later worked for the Main Highways Board. During the Second World War, he served with the 2nd New Zealand Division as a commander of an engineering field company. He later became the overall commander of the New Zealand Engineers of the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force and served in Greece, Crete, North Africa and Italy. He received official recognition for his efforts in the war, receiving the Distinguished Service Order and bar and was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. Ending the war with the rank of brigadier, he returned to civilian life as the chief engineer of the Main Highways Board. He was later appointed the Commissioner of Works, the senior position at the Ministry of Works and responsible for 4,500 employees. Retiring from public service in 1961, he died in 1979 at the age of 84. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=34606026 | 2,070,985 |
2,065,113 | Hershey's offensive problems continued in a 3–1 loss against the Portland Pirates on November 11, in which they struggled to get the puck out of their zone and through the neutral zone. Holtby, who made 31 saves, said afterward, "We just seemed to look dead the last couple games." Kalinski suffered a hand injury and would not return until December 27. The Bears fell to Syracuse again on November 16. The 6–1 game, the most lopsided defeat of the season, was their third consecutive loss and third straight home game with only one goal. Hershey broke a three-game losing streak on November 17 with a 4–1 against the Penguins, where Garrett Mitchell scored two goals, including Hershey's first successful penalty shot since February 27, 2010. The team had surrendered two goals or fewer in eight of their past 14 games. But Hershey lost their next two games, including a 4–0 shutout loss to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton on November 21. The Binghamton-based Internet radio Power Play Post Show reported from an anonymous source that Penguins head coach John Hynes put a $200 bounty on Bears defenseman Oleksy for that game, a claim Hynes strongly denied. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38828912 | 2,063,922 |
1,759,442 | Demirköz is from Istanbul. She attended Robert College for her high school studies. She wanted to take part in research during her undergraduate degree, so moved to Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She won Joel Matthew Orloff Award in 2001. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Physics and Music from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2001. She started working on the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer. She was offered PhD positions in California Institute of Technology, MIT, Stanford University and Harvard University. Despite originally starting her PhD at MIT, the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster resulted in her moving to the University of Oxford. She was a Science and Technology Facilities Council Dorothy Hodgkin Scholar under the supervision of Antony Weidberg. She completed her postgraduate studies at the University of Oxford in 2007, and was a member of Balliol College. Her thesis was titled "Construction and Performance of the ATLAS SCT Barrels and Cosmic Tests". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=58764375 | 1,758,449 |
1,073,383 | VM's role changed within IBM when hardware evolution led to significant changes in processor architecture. Backward compatibility remained a cornerstone of the IBM mainframe family, which still uses the basic instruction set introduced with the original System/360; but the need for efficient use of the 64-bit zSeries made the VM approach much more attractive. VM was also utilized in data centers converting from DOS/VSE to MVS and is useful when running mainframe AIX and Linux, platforms that were to become increasingly important. The current z/VM platform has finally achieved the recognition within IBM that VM users long felt it deserved. Some z/VM sites run thousands of simultaneous virtual machine users on a single system. z/VM was first released in October 2000 and remains in active use and development. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=315018 | 1,072,829 |
135,350 | Empirical research that attempts to answer these questions may follow a number of patterns. Initially, observational research in naturalistic conditions may be needed to develop a narrative describing and defining an aspect of developmental change, such as changes in reflex reactions in the first year. This type of work may be followed by correlational studies, collecting information about chronological age and some type of development such as vocabulary growth; correlational statistics can be used to state change. Such studies examine the characteristics of children at different ages. These methods may involve longitudinal studies, in which a group of children is re-examined on a number of occasions as they get older, or cross-sectional studies, in which groups of children of different ages are tested once and compared with each other, or there may be a combination of these approaches. Some child development studies examine the effects of experience or heredity by comparing characteristics of different groups of children in a necessarily non-randomized design. Other studies can use randomized designs to compare outcomes for groups of children who receive different interventions or educational treatments. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9627698 | 135,295 |
781,120 | An enzyme is a substance that acts as a catalyst in living organisms which helps to speed up chemical reactions. Carbonic anhydrase is one important enzyme that is found in red blood cells, gastric mucosa, pancreatic cells, and even renal tubules. It was discovered in the year 1932 and it has been categorized into three general classes. Class one being alpha carbonic anhydrase which is found in mammals, class two being beta carbonic anhydrase which is found in bacteria and plants and lastly, class three which is gamma carbonic anhydrase which is found in methanogen bacteria in hot springs. The three classes of carbonic anhydrase all have the same active site with a Zn metal centre; however, they are not structurally similar to each other. The main role of carbonic anhydrase in humans is to catalyze the conversion of carbon dioxide to carbonic acid and back again. However, it can also help with CO transport in the blood which in turn helps respiration. It can even function in the formation of hydrochloric acid by the stomach.[Citation needed] Therefore, the role of carbonic anhydrase depends on where it is found in the body. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=45079602 | 780,702 |
1,278,094 | In its early stages, the larva can be found in the faeces of its host, and is around 5mm in length, presenting a boring tooth and a bundle of sensory nerves at the front tip of its body. Once it develops into a third stage larva, it grows to a length of 20 to 30 mm, and is found in the body cavity of the host, either freely floating or enclosed in a protective sac attached to the main organs. At this stage, the larva appears to be cylindrical with narrowed ends, and are visibly pink and white in colour, with a small white mark in the frontal region. Its outer surface is textured with irregular indents and striations. There are three protruding segments around the mouth that form the lips, one that is dorsal and two that are ventrolateral, each with lobules on them. The two ventrolateral segments encase the triangular boring tooth and an excretory opening in front of it. The mouth then connects to the tubular esophagus that is visible from the frontal region and leads to the wideset ventriculus. A defining characteristic of this species is that the ventriculus is diagonally adjoined to the center of the intestine. At its rear end, the species has an anal opening, as well as spine-like structure known as the mucron. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=46679709 | 1,277,401 |
81,498 | Type I infection: This is the most common type of infection, and accounts for 70 to 80% of cases. It is caused by a mixture of bacterial types, usually in abdominal or groin areas. This type of infection is usually caused by various species of Gram-positive cocci, ("Staphylococcus aureus", "Streptococcus pyogenes", and enterococci), Gram-negative rods, ("Escherichia coli", "Pseudomonas aeruginosa"), and anaerobes, ("Bacteroides" and "Clostridium" species). Populations of those affected are typically older with medical comorbidities such as diabetes mellitus, obesity, and immunodeficiency. Usually, trauma is not the cause of such infections. Previous history of abscess infection or gut perforation with bacterial translocation may be elicited. Clostridial infection accounts for 10% of type I infection. "Clostridium" species involved are "Clostridium perfringens", "Clostridium septicum", and "Clostridium sordellii", which typically cause gas gangrene (also known as myonecrosis). "Clostridium perfringens" produces two deadly toxins: alpha-toxin and theta-toxin. Alpha-toxin causes excessive platelet aggregation which blocks blood vessels and deprives the vital organs of oxygen supply. This creates an acidic, oxygen-deficient environment for the proliferation of bacteria. When alpha-toxin is absorbed by soft tissues, it can inhibit the migration of white blood cells from blood vessels into the soft tissue, thus impairing phagocyte function. The two toxins together can cause destruction of red blood cells in blood vessels, damage to the integrity of the blood vessels, and suppression of heart function. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=287543 | 81,465 |
925,760 | Direct3D comes with D3DX, a library of tools designed to perform common mathematical calculations on vectors, matrices and colors, calculating look-at and projection matrices, spline interpolations, and several more complicated tasks, such as compiling or assembling shaders used for 3D graphic programming, compressed skeletal animation storage and matrix stacks. There are several functions that provide complex operations over 3D meshes like tangent-space computation, mesh simplification, precomputed radiance transfer, optimizing for vertex cache friendliness and stripification, and generators for 3D text meshes. 2D features include classes for drawing screen-space lines, text and sprite based particle systems. Spatial functions include various intersection routines, conversion from/to barycentric coordinates and bounding box/sphere generators. D3DX is provided as a dynamic link library (DLL). D3DX is deprecated from Windows 8 onward and can't be used in Windows Store apps. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=97025 | 925,274 |
79,491 | The larva of the vedalia ladybird "Rodolia cardinalis" is a specialist predator on a few species of Monophlebidae, in particular the cottony cushion scale "Icerya purchasi". It was introduced to California in 1887 from Australia, to protect citrus trees from cottony cushion scale. The project was markedly successful, making it "a textbook example of the great potential of classical biological control as a tactic for suppressing invasive pests." The vedalia beetle was then used in 29 countries, again with success. This led to many further attempts to use ladybird species against pests. Around 179 ladybird species were deliberately introduced to North America in the 20th century, of which only 18 became established. Further, establishment does not guarantee effective biological control of the target species. Thus, the vedalia beetle's success looks exceptional compared to the Coccinellidae as a whole; reasons for this include its high prey specificity, short generation time, efficient discovery of host patches, and larval development completed on a single host insect. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=18973752 | 79,458 |
909,667 | According to Lars Petterson, the number of students grew slowly, 1900–1947, then shot up rapidly in the 1950s, and declined after 1962. The pattern of birth rates was a major factor. In addition Petterson points to the opening up of the gymnasium from a limited upper social base to the general population based on talent. In addition he points to the role of central economic planning, the widespread emphasis on education as a producer of economic growth and the expansion of white collar jobs. During the nineteenth century, as demand for education increased, more women entered the teaching force in many Western countries, including Sweden. By 1900, 66 percent of Sweden's teachers were women, many of whom worked in isolated rural areas. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=343939 | 909,188 |
1,987,361 | The optomotor response is frequently used as a behavioral assay. In zebrafish, the optomotor response is frequently used as a metric of visual performance as it can be reliably evoked from 7 days post fertilization throughout adulthood. The contrast and wavelength (color) of the stripes can be manipulated to assess the specific properties of their visual system, such as testing the contribution of color to motion detection. In flies, the optomotor response is used to understand the functional properties of neural circuits in the context of a specific behavior and examine the sensorimotor transformations underlying that behavior. To describe the physiological or behavioral properties of the optomotor response, researchers typically vary the spatial period of projected visual patterns and their velocity. The stimulus regime is often composed of periods of open-loop large-field rotation or expansion stimuli alternating with periods of closed-loop stripe fixation in which the animal has control of the position of a single vertical bar. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21007006 | 1,986,219 |
1,101,532 | Apart from a horn on the snout, centrosaurines also had horns above the eye sockets, supraorbital horncores. These cores were formed by a fusion of the postorbital bone with the much smaller palpebral bone in front of it. Nine subadult or adult "brow horns" were found. They all shared the same build in being low, long and rounded. This differs from the usual pointed horns with an oval base seen in typical centrosaurines. It is also unlike the supraorbital bosses seen in "Achelousaurus" and "Pachyrhinosaurus". Nevertheless, some "Einiosaurus" horns seemed to approach bosses. Three older individuals featured a total of five instances in which the horn as such was replaced by a low rounded mass, sometimes with a large pit in the usual location of the horn point. The large holotype has a rounded mass above the left eye socket but a pit, eighty-five millimetres long and sixty-four millimetres wide, on the right side. According to Sampson, this reflects a general trend with centrosaurines to re-absorb the brow horns in later life. All known specimens of "Styracosaurus" e.g. have a pitted region instead of true horns. The "Einiosaurus" holotype additionally has a rough bone mass at the rear postorbital region on the left side. In all centrosaurines, the frontal bones re folded in such a way that a "double" roof is formed with a "supracranial cavity" in between. A fontanelle pierces the upper layer. In "Einiosaurus", this cavity runs sideways, continuing to below into the brow horn. With "Centrosaurus" and "Styracosaurus" these passages are more narrow and do not reach the horns but "Pachyrhinosaurus" shows a comparable extension. Sampson in 1995 also expounded his general views on such skull roofs, which are not easy to interpret due to fusion. According to him, the frontal bones always extended to the parietals, so that the paired postorbitals never contacted. The parietal bone made only a small contribution to the fontanelle. The floor of the cavity is, at the frontal-parietal suture, pierced by a large foramen into the braincase, the function of this "pineal opening" being unknown. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1792393 | 1,100,971 |
431,185 | The spine-brush complex occupies the same site as the first dorsal fin on other ratfish and contains a basal plate extending inside a usually posterior-pointing dorsal spine composed of trabecular dentine. The spines resemble those of modern sharks and rays but curiously lack any enamel-like surface tissue. The trabecular dentine contains patches of fibers suggesting attachments to the epaxial musculature. The way these muscles would have been positioned implies that the spine could have been moved in anterio-posterior direction. The so-called "brush" is not fibrous as was originally believed, but consists of a number of parallel, membranous tubules made of globular calcified cartilage. The brush base and basal plate are covered in a thin, acellular bone layer. Zangerl asserts that these tubules are similar to erectile tissues in humans, and thus the complex may have been inflatable. The complex itself is covered in up to nine rows of large denticles pointing anteriorly. The dorsal side of the head has its own collection of denticles which point posteriorly. The presence of these large denticles has led to theories that the spine-brush complex in combination with the denticles on the head was used to scare away predators by simulating the mouth of a larger fish. The complex has been affirmed only in males, and only in those males that have reached sexual maturity. Whether the complex was present in females of the species is still unknown. Another theory for the spine-brush complex is that it was involved either in attracting a mate or in the mating process itself. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3628996 | 430,973 |
1,031,786 | Capturing, storing, integrating, and displaying the diverse data generated is challenging. The ENCODE Data Coordination Center (DCC) organizes and displays the data generated by the labs in the consortium, and ensures that the data meets specific quality standards when it is released to the public. Before a lab submits any data, the DCC and the lab draft a data agreement that defines the experimental parameters and associated metadata. The DCC validates incoming data to ensure consistency with the agreement. It also ensures that all data is annotated using appropriate Ontologies. It then loads the data onto a test server for preliminary inspection, and coordinates with the labs to organize the data into a consistent set of tracks. When the tracks are ready, the DCC Quality Assurance team performs a series of integrity checks, verifies that the data is presented in a manner consistent with other browser data, and perhaps most importantly, verifies that the metadata and accompanying descriptive text are presented in a way that is useful to our users. The data is released on the public UCSC Genome Browser website only after all of these checks have been satisfied. In parallel, data is analyzed by the ENCODE Data Analysis Center, a consortium of analysis teams from the various production labs plus other researchers. These teams develop standardized protocols to analyze data from novel assays, determine best practices, and produce a consistent set of analytic methods such as standardized peak callers and signal generation from alignment pile-ups. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2140955 | 1,031,250 |
167,658 | Behind the title races, however, there were signs of trouble brewing in Formula One. The long-established, highly-respected Lotus name vanished from the starting grids, following Brabham's demise in mid-1992. French manufacturer Ligier found themselves in desperate straits, and were sold to Alain Prost. Ken Tyrrell's team floundered on, despite dismal results, until 1998, when BAR bought the team. And the colourful era of the small, private teams finally came to an end. Names like Larrousse, Dallara, Simtek, Pacific, MasterCard Lola, Life Racing Engines, March Engineering, Onyx Grand Prix, Coloni, Andrea Moda, Fondmetal, Osella, Footwork, AGS, Lambo, Leyton House Racing, EuroBrun and Forti would no longer be seen on the starting grids, with only Jordan, Sauber, Arrows and Minardi managing to survive somehow. The flourishing of Jordan in 1998 and 1999, under the leadership of Damon Hill, Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Ralf Schumacher (Michael's younger brother) proved to be a last hurrah of the privateer, not a sign of health in the sport. Even once-mighty Benetton champions only a few years before were barely surviving. Jackie Stewart fronted his own team from 1997 to 1999 with backing from Ford but even then sold out as the team transformed into Jaguar. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=640098 | 167,571 |
2,005,709 | SPRi biochip was used for immobilization of HP of different concentrations. An array of HP active sites was produced on the chip. The attachment of HP was done through its amino groups to N-hydroxy succinimide functionalities on the gold surface. First SPRi system was filled running buffer solution followed by placing of SPRi –biochip into the analysis chamber. Two solutions of different concentrations of GP was 1g/L and 0.1 g/L were injected in the flow cell. The association and the dissociation of both polymers can be monitored in real-time on the basis of change in reflectivity and images from SPRM can be differentiated on the basis of white spots (association phase) and black spots (dissociation phase). PEG without adamantyl groups didn’t show adsorption on β-cyclodextrin cavities. On the other hand, there wasn’t any adsorption of GP without HP on the chip. Change in SPRi response on the reaction sites is provided by the capturing of kinetic curves and real time images from the CCD camera. Local changes in light reflectivity are directly related to quantity of target molecules on each point. Variation at the surface of the chip provide comprehensive knowledge on molecular binding and kinetic processes. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=47482842 | 2,004,560 |
1,793,295 | Feminist arguments on the topic largely oppose viewing disability selective abortions as a moral failure, but rather as a means for livelihood. Many argue that the motivation to terminate a pregnancy stems not from a lack of perspective on what the quality of life for someone with a disability can be, but rather from the additional time, stress, and money necessary to raise a child with a disability, or for reasons entirely unrelated to disability. In a feminist scholarly article Claire McKinney quotes a 1999 study, finding that 76% of surveyed mothers who did not have a child with Down syndrome were employed, compared to 56% of those who did. A separate 2008 study found that families living below the poverty line with children who have disabilities are "more likely to experience material deprivation, such as food insecurity, housing instability, lack of health care access, and telephone disconnection" than are families living below the poverty line without children with disabilities. The prevalent feminist argument is that reproductive rights and right to unhindered abortion are essential in disability-selective abortions for the same reasons that they are essential in any abortion: no woman should be forced into a situation that may have severe financial, mental, or professional impact on her. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=10044714 | 1,792,286 |
1,810,983 | Over the last two decades HSP90 has emerged as an intriguing target in the war on cancer. HSP90 interacts and supports numerous proteins that promote oncogenesis, thus distinguishing Hsp90 as a cancer enabler as it is regarded as essential for malignant transformation and progression. Moreover, through their extensive interactomes, both paralogs are associated with each hallmark of cancer. The HSP90AA1 gene however is not altered in a majority of tumors according to The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). Currently bladder cancer is found to have the largest number of alterations followed by pancreatic cancer. This may not come as a surprise since overall Hsp90 expression levels are held at such a high level compared to most all other proteins within the cell., therefore further increasing Hsp90 levels may not provide any benefit to cancer growth. Additionally, whole genome sequencing across all tumor types and cancer cell lines reveals that there are presently 115 different mutations within the HSP90AA1 open reading frame. The effects of these mutations on HSP90A function, however, remain unknown. Remarkably, in a number of tumors the HSP90AA1 gene is homozygously deleted, suggesting that these tumors may have a reduced level of malignancy. This is supported by a comparative genome-wide analysis of 206 gastric cancer patients that reported loss of HSP90AA1 is indeed associated with favorable outcomes after surgery alone. This supports the possibility that the absence of Hsp90A in tumor biopsies may serve as a biomarker for positive clinical outcomes. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14087410 | 1,809,950 |
611,792 | "Endeavour" lifted off from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39 at 08:56 EDT on 16 May 2011. The launch of "Endeavour" came after an on-time tanking process which filled the shuttle's external tank with more than of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen; the tanking started at 23:36 EDT on 15 May 2011. Once the shuttle and crew were on-orbit, they set about preparing the shuttle for the mission ahead. The first tasks they completed were opening the payload bay doors, activating the K-band antenna, and activating the Shuttle Remote Manipulator System (SRMS), also known as the Canadarm. Prior to this, commander Mark Kelly and pilot Greg Johnson completed an engine firing, known as the OMS-2 burn, to circularize the orbit of the shuttle. They also completed another engine firing, the NC-1 burn, to help the shuttle catch up to the International Space Station (ISS). After completing these initial tasks, the crew activated the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, allowing it to be monitored by teams on the ground. Later in the crew's work day, they downlinked video recordings that had been shot of the external tank by mission specialist Mike Fincke. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=18089765 | 611,481 |
1,771,890 | Using this method has contributed to the discovery of the drug Sorafenib (Nexavar). Sorafenib is used as medication to treat multiple types of cancers, including renal cell carcinoma (RCC, cancer in the kidneys), hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer), and thyroid cancer. It helps stop cancer cells from reproducing by blocking the abnormal proteins present. In 1994, high throughput screening for this particular drug was completed. It was initially discovered by Bayer Pharmaceuticals in 2001. By using a RAF kinase biochemical assay, 200,000 compounds were screened from medicinal chemistry directed synthesis or combinatorial libraries to identify active molecules against activeRAF kinase. Following three trials of testing, it was found to have anti-angiogenic effects on the cancers, which stops the process of creating new blood vessels in the body. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=18101603 | 1,770,893 |
1,491,566 | Inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy (IETS) is an experimental tool for studying the vibrations of molecular adsorbates on metal oxides. It yields vibrational spectra of the adsorbates with high resolution (< 0.5 meV) and high sensitivity (< 10 molecules are required to provide a spectrum). An additional advantage is the fact that optically forbidden transitions may be observed as well. Within IETS, an oxide layer with molecules adsorbed on it is put between two metal plates. A bias voltage is applied between the two contacts. An energy diagram of the metal-oxide-metal device under bias is shown in the top figure. The metal contacts are characterized by a constant density of states, filled up to the Fermi energy. The metals are assumed to be equal. The adsorbates are situated on the oxide material. They are represented by a single bridge electronic level, which is the upper dashed line. If the insulator is thin enough, there is a finite probability that the incident electron tunnels through the barrier. Since the energy of the electron is not changed by this process, it is an elastic process. This is shown in the left figure. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=16761292 | 1,490,727 |
1,927,236 | The Haemophilus influenza genome was one of the first organism genomes sequenced in 1995 by J. Craig Venter and Hamilton Smith using whole genome shotgun sequencing. Since then, newer and more efficient high-throughput sequencing, such as Next Generation Genomic Sequencing (NGS) and Single-Cell Genomic Sequencing, have been developed. While the Sanger method is able to sequence one DNA fragment at a time, NGS technology can sequence thousands of sequences at a time. With the ability to rapidly sequence DNA, new insights developed, such as the discovery that since prokaryotic genomes are more diverse than originally thought, it is necessary to sequence multiple strains in a species rather than only a few. "E.coli" was an example of why this is important, with genes encoding virulence factors in two strains of the species differing by at least thirty percent. Such knowledge, along with more thorough study of genome gain, loss, and change, is giving researchers valuable insight into how pathogens interact in host environments and how they are able to infect hosts and cause disease. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21787394 | 1,926,132 |
566,684 | The other commodities that were traded, in Constantinople and elsewhere, were numerous: oil, wine, salt, fish, meat, vegetables, other alimentary products, timber and wax. Ceramics, linen, and woven cloth were also items of trade. Luxury items, such as silks, perfumes and spices were also important. Trade in slaves is attested, both on behalf of the state, and, possibly, by private individuals. International trade was practiced not only in Constantinople, which was until the late 12th century an important center of the eastern luxury trade, but also in other cities that functioned as centers of inter-regional and international trade, such as Thessaloniki and Trebizond. Textiles must have been by far the most important item of export; silks were certainly imported into Egypt, and they also appear in Bulgaria and the West. The empire had also trading activity through Venice (as long as the latter was part of the empire): salt, wood, iron, and slaves, as well luxury products from the East, were the products exchanged. In 992, Basil II concluded a treaty with Pietro Orseolo II by the terms that Venice's custom duties in Constantinople would be reduced from 30 "nomismata" to 17 "nomismata" in return for the Venetians agreeing to transport Byzantine troops to Southern Italy in times of war. During the 11th and 12th centuries Italian trade in the empire took place under privileged conditions, incorporated in treaties and privileges that were granted to Amalfi, Venice, Genoa, and Pisa. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11418423 | 566,394 |
262,995 | Although partly shadowed by other design choices in this particular chip, the multiplexed address and data buses limit performance slightly; transfers of 16-bit or 8-bit quantities are done in a four-clock memory access cycle, which is faster on 16-bit, although slower on 8-bit quantities, compared to many contemporary 8-bit based CPUs. As instructions vary from one to six bytes, fetch and execution are made concurrent and decoupled into separate units (as it remains in today's x86 processors): The "bus interface unit" feeds the instruction stream to the "execution unit" through a 6-byte prefetch queue (a form of loosely coupled pipelining), speeding up operations on registers and immediates, while memory operations became slower (four years later, this performance problem was fixed with the 80186 and 80286). However, the full (instead of partial) 16-bit architecture with a full width ALU meant that 16-bit arithmetic instructions could now be performed with a single ALU cycle (instead of two, via internal carry, as in the 8080 and 8085), speeding up such instructions considerably. Combined with orthogonalizations of operations versus operand types and addressing modes, as well as other enhancements, this made the performance gain over the 8080 or 8085 fairly significant, despite cases where the older chips may be faster (see below). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=15063 | 262,856 |
11,959 | A problem specific to IoT systems is that buggy apps, unforeseen bad app interactions, or device/communication failures, can cause unsafe and dangerous physical states, e.g., "unlock the entrance door when no one is at home" or "turn off the heater when the temperature is below 0 degrees Celsius and people are sleeping at night". Detecting flaws that lead to such states, requires a holistic view of installed apps, component devices, their configurations, and more importantly, how they interact. Recently, researchers from the University of California Riverside have proposed IotSan, a novel practical system that uses model checking as a building block to reveal "interaction-level" flaws by identifying events that can lead the system to unsafe states. They have evaluated IotSan on the Samsung SmartThings platform. From 76 manually configured systems, IotSan detects 147 vulnerabilities (i.e., violations of safe physical states/properties). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12057519 | 11,954 |
2,091,074 | The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) is the key university of science and technology in Norway. The Department of Petroleum Engineering and Applied Geophysics (IPT) was established in 1973, shortly after the start of production (Ekofisk field) from the Norwegian continental shelf. The department came to include Petroleum Engineering as well as Geophysics, which is seen as a major strength of the petroleum education at NTNU. The department has elected chairman and vice chairman, and 4 informal groups of professors; geophysics, drilling, production and reservoir engineering. The stated primary purpose of maintaining the informal groups is to take care of the teaching in their respective disciplines. Each group is responsible for offering a sufficient number of courses, semester projects and thesis projects at M.Sc. and Ph.D. levels in their discipline, and to make annual revisions of these in accordance with the needs of society and industry. The total number of professors, associate professors, assistant professors and adjunct professors is 32. The administrative staff is led by a department administrator, and consists of a total of 6 secretaries. The technical support staff reports to the department head, and consists of 8 engineers and technicians. Until 2000, the department was part of the Applied Earth Sciences faculty, together with the Geology-department. After that, the department is part of the Faculty of Engineering Science and Technology (one of a total of 10 departments). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11848344 | 2,089,871 |
830,110 | In any semiconductor, the band gap means that only photons with that amount of energy, or more, will contribute to producing a current. In the case of silicon, the majority of visible light from red to violet has sufficient energy to make this happen. Unfortunately higher energy photons, those at the blue and violet end of the spectrum, have more than enough energy to cross the band gap; although some of this extra energy is transferred into the electrons, the majority of it is wasted as heat. Another issue is that in order to have a reasonable chance of capturing a photon, the n-type layer has to be fairly thick. This also increases the chance that a freshly ejected electron will meet up with a previously created hole in the material before reaching the p–n junction. These effects produce an upper limit on the efficiency of silicon solar cells, currently around 12 to 15% for common modules and up to 25% for the best laboratory cells (33.16% is the theoretical maximum efficiency for single band gap solar cells, see Shockley–Queisser limit.). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1932063 | 829,663 |
828,387 | Although the first microsatellite was characterised in 1984 at the University of Leicester by Weller, Jeffreys and colleagues as a polymorphic GGAT repeat in the human myoglobin gene, the term "microsatellite" was introduced later, in 1989, by Litt and Luty. The name "satellite" DNA refers to the early observation that centrifugation of genomic DNA in a test tube separates a prominent layer of bulk DNA from accompanying "satellite" layers of repetitive DNA. The increasing availability of DNA amplification by PCR at the beginning of the 1990s triggered a large number of studies using the amplification of microsatellites as genetic markers for forensic medicine, for paternity testing, and for positional cloning to find the gene underlying a trait or disease. Prominent early applications include the identifications by microsatellite genotyping of the eight-year-old skeletal remains of a British murder victim (Hagelberg et al. 1991), and of the Auschwitz concentration camp doctor Josef Mengele who escaped to South America following World War II (Jeffreys et al. 1992). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=44259 | 827,941 |
90,295 | In 1891, Louis Gathmann suggested shooting liquid carbon dioxide into rain clouds to cause them to rain. During the 1930s, the Bergeron–Findeisen process theorized that supercooled water droplets present, while ice crystals are released into rain clouds, would cause rain. While researching aircraft icing, General Electric (GE)'s Vincent Schaefer and Irving Langmuir confirmed the theory. Schaefer discovered the principle of cloud seeding in July 1946 through a series of serendipitous events. Following ideas generated between him and Nobel laureate Langmuir while climbing Mt Washington in New Hampshire, Schaefer, Langmuir's research associate, created a way of experimenting with supercooled clouds using a deep freeze unit of potential agents to stimulate ice crystal growth, i.e., table salt, talcum powder, soils, dust, and various chemical agents with minor effect. Then one hot and humid July 14, 1946, he wanted to try a few experiments at GE's Schenectady Research Lab | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=449660 | 90,255 |
1,419,734 | Construction was delayed by several years and its budget doubled during that time; originally planned to start operations in 1959 or early 1960, Fermi 1 achieved criticality on 23 August 1963. While slowly increasing its power rating over the next two years, on 5 October 1966 it suffered a partial meltdown when the flow of sodium was disrupted by blockage of the inlet holes at the bottom of the reactor. The problem was seen early enough to safely scram the reactor and there was no radioactive release outside the containment building. The site was shut down for repairs and restarted in July 1970. It ran for only a short period before closing again on 27 November 1972, and was officially decommissioned on 31 December 1975. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3891794 | 1,418,935 |
1,875,765 | In 2017, the Tigers won the SEC's Western Division with a record of 52–20–0, 21–9–0 in conference play. They qualified for the 2017 Southeastern Conference baseball tournament and defeated Arkansas in the final, 4–2. They qualified for the 2017 NCAA Division I baseball tournament as the SEC champion, and were selected as the No. 4 overall national seed. The Tigers were selected as hosts of the Baton Rouge regional, which included Rice, Southeastern Louisiana, and Texas Southern. The Tigers swept through the Regional, defeating Texas Southern, 15–7, Southeastern 11–6, and Rice 5–0 advancing to the Super Regional where they hosted conference rival Mississippi State. After a 4–3 comeback victory in which they trailed 3–0 in the bottom of the eighth inning, LSU beat the Bulldogs 14–4 the following night to advance to their 18th World Series. The Tigers defeated Florida State in their opening game 5–4, but then fell to overall number one seed Oregon State 13–1 placing them on the brink of elimination. The Tigers once again beat Florida State 7–4 to earn the right to face Oregon State once again, needing to win twice. LSU advanced to the finals winning 3–1 then 6–1 eliminating the Beavers. In the championship, LSU faced conference rival Florida. The Tigers lost a close Game 1 4–3 then were defeated 6–1 the following night to finish national runners-up, while the Gators earned their first national championship. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=56640588 | 1,874,688 |
1,739,340 | The hypercycle concept has been continuously studied since its origin. Shortly after Eigen and Schuster published their main work regarding hypercycles, John Maynard Smith raised an objection that the catalytic support for the replication given to other molecules is altruistic. Therefore, it cannot be selected and maintained in a system. He also underlined hypercycle vulnerability to parasites, as they are favoured by selection. Later on, Josef Hofbauer and Karl Sigmund indicated that in reality, a hypercycle can maintain only fewer than five members. In agreement with Eigen and Schuster's principal analysis, they argued that systems with five or more species exhibit limited and unstable cyclic behaviour, because some species can die out due to stochastic events and break the positive feedback loop that sustains the hypercycle. The extinction of the hypercycle then follows. It was also emphasized that a hypercycle size of up to four is too small to maintain the amount of information sufficient to cross the information threshold. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29491519 | 1,738,361 |
625,144 | With the rise of the environmentalist movement has also come an increased appreciation for social justice, and mining has showed similar trends lately. Societies located near potential mining sites are at increased risk to be subjected to injustices as their environment is affected by the changes made to mined lands—either public or private—that could eventually lead to problems in social structure, identity, and physical health (Franks 2009). Many have argued that by cycling mine power through local citizens, this disagreement can be alleviated, since both interest groups would have shared and equal voice and understanding in future goals. However, it is often difficult to match corporate mining interests with local social interests, and money is often a deciding factor in the successes of any disagreements. If communities are able to feel like they have a valid understanding and power in issues concerning their local environment and society, they are more likely to tolerate and encourage the positive benefits that come with mining, as well as more effectively promote alternative methods to heap leach mining using their intimate knowledge of the local geography (Franks 2009). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2861533 | 624,811 |
28,047 | Painting, sculpture, pottery, and other forms of decoration shared their designs with Sasanian textile art. Silks, embroideries, brocades, damasks, tapestries, chair covers, canopies, tents and rugs were woven with patience and masterly skill, and were dyed in warm tints of yellow, blue and green. Every Persian but the peasant and the priest aspired to dress above his class; presents often took the form of sumptuous garments; and great colorful carpets had been an appendage of wealth in the East since Assyrian days. The two dozen Sasanian textiles that have survived are among the most highly valued fabrics in existence. Even in their own day, Sasanian textiles were admired and imitated from Egypt to the Far East; and during the Middle Ages, they were favored for clothing the relics of Christian saints. When Heraclius captured the palace of Khosrau II Parvez at Dastagerd, delicate embroideries and an immense rug were among his most precious spoils. Famous was the "Winter Carpet", also known as "Khosrau's Spring" (Spring Season Carpet قالى بهارستان) of Khosrau Anushirvan, designed to make him forget winter in its spring and summer scenes: flowers and fruits made of inwoven rubies and diamonds grew, in this carpet, beside walks of silver and brooks of pearls traced on a ground of gold. Harun al-Rashid prided himself on a spacious Sasanian rug thickly studded with jewelry. Persians wrote love poems about their rugs. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=5876413 | 28,037 |
10,163 | These activities affected MIT profoundly. A 1949 report noted the lack of "any great slackening in the pace of life at the Institute" to match the return to peacetime, remembering the "academic tranquility of the prewar years", though acknowledging the significant contributions of military research to the increased emphasis on graduate education and rapid growth of personnel and facilities. The faculty doubled and the graduate student body quintupled during the terms of Karl Taylor Compton, president of MIT between 1930 and 1948; James Rhyne Killian, president from 1948 to 1957; and Julius Adams Stratton, chancellor from 1952 to 1957, whose institution-building strategies shaped the expanding university. By the 1950s, MIT no longer simply benefited the industries with which it had worked for three decades, and it had developed closer working relationships with new patrons, philanthropic foundations and the federal government. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=18879 | 10,159 |
1,314,954 | In the 1990s, he was a fellow at St Edmund's College, Cambridge. In 1999, he became Professor of Mammalian Genetics and Director of the School of Biosciences at Cardiff University, where he worked until he retired at the end of 2007. He became a Knight Bachelor in the 2004 New Year Honours in recognition of his work in stem cell research. He received the accolade from Prince Charles at Buckingham Palace on 25 June 2004. In 2007, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine along with Mario Capecchi and Oliver Smithies for their work in discovering a method for introducing homologous recombination in mice employing embryonic stem cells. Evans was appointed president of Cardiff University and was inaugurated into that position on 23 November 2009. Subsequently, Evans became Chancellor of Cardiff University in 2012. He is an Honorary Fellow of St Edmund's College, Cambridge. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1721040 | 1,314,233 |
1,780,391 | During his doctoral research, in the lab of Joseph Hirschberg, Daniel Chamovitz cloned several genes involved in the biosynthesis of beta-carotene. As a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Xing-Wang Deng at Yale University, he discovered the COP9 Signalosome (CSN) complex. At Tel Aviv University he continued to work on this protein complex to understand its role in regulating plant responses to the environment with both Arabidopsis and Drosophila as model systems. Using genetic, biochemical, molecular and computational approaches, he has shown that CSN is essential for development in both plants and animals and is likely also involved in a number of human diseases, including cancer. His lab has also elucidated the role of the phytochemical indole-3-carbinol in plant development. Chamovitz has published over 70 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals with over 6,000 citations listed in Google Scholar. He was also member of the Faculty of 1000, Biology. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=43244529 | 1,779,387 |
1,678,887 | Delbrück scattering is the coherent elastic scattering of photons in the Coulomb field of heavy nuclei. It is one of the two nonlinear effects of quantum electrodynamics (QED) in the Coulomb field investigated experimentally. The other is the splitting of a photon into two photons. Delbrück scattering was introduced by Max Delbrück in order to explain discrepancies between experimental and predicted data in a Compton scattering experiment on heavy atoms carried out by Meitner and Kösters. Delbrück's arguments were based on the relativistic quantum mechanics of Dirac according to which the QED vacuum is filled with electrons of negative energy or - in modern terms – with electron-positron pairs. These electrons of negative energy should be capable of producing coherent-elastic photon scattering because the recoil momentum during absorption and emission of the photon is transferred to the total atom while the electrons remain in their state of negative energy. This process is the analog of atomic Rayleigh scattering with the only difference that in the latter case the electrons are bound in the electron cloud of the atom. The experiment of Meitner and Kösters was the first in a series of experiments where the discrepancy between experimental and predicted differential cross sections for elastic scattering by heavy atoms were interpreted in terms of Delbrück scattering. From the present point of view these early results are not trustworthy. Reliable investigations were possible only after modern QED techniques based on Feynman diagrams were available for quantitative predictions, and on the experimental side photon detectors with high energy resolution and high detection efficiency had been developed. This was the case at the beginning of the 1970s when also computers with high computing capacity were in operation which delivered numerical results for Delbrück scattering amplitudes with sufficient precision. A first observation of Delbrück scattering was achieved in a high-energy, small-angle photon scattering experiment carried out at DESY (Germany) in 1973, where only the imaginary part of the scattering amplitude is of importance. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9463516 | 1,677,944 |
1,558,989 | Before the CITES conference at which a vote would be taken on the proposal, support for the proposed change in status appeared to be limited because of the small amount of reported legal trade. In April 2007, the non-profit conservation group ProFauna Indonesia attracted news coverage with a demonstration held in Malang, Java. The demonstration—an appeal for increased protection for slow lorises—involved organization members suspending themselves from bridges while holding banners that read ""Stop jual kukang"" ("Stop the slow loris trade") and ""Jangan beli kukang"" ("Don't buy slow lorises"). From early to mid-June, the 14th CITES Conference of the Parties (CITES COP-14) was held in The Hague, Netherlands. On 8 June, Cambodia presented the proposal along with their rationale. Indonesia followed by announcing their support, along with Japan, India, Laos, Thailand, the United States, the European Union, Qatar, and many non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Although the proposal was adopted by consensus, some conservation groups objected on the grounds that rational analysis was being usurped by sentiment. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30980405 | 1,558,104 |
2,215,850 | The team sagged at the end of the regular season, finishing 6th in the conference, and entered the WCHA Tournament with little hope of advancing. NMU gave #13 Bowling Green a surprise in the first game, winning 4–3, but when the Falcons roared back for a 5–0 victory in game two the series looked ready to be over. DiMatteo was shelled in the third game, facing a total of 40 shots in regulation, but he only allowed one by him while the Wildcat offense pumped 5 goals into the net and the team earned a surprising trip to the semifinals. The Wildcats were set against #3 Minnesota State and again pulled off a miraculous upset. The Wildcats fired 4 goals past the top goaltender in the nation and scored 5 in all before the Mavericks could even respond. The next day NMU was looking for the first championship in 29 years and only had Lake Superior State standing in their way. In the first ever postseason meeting between the two upper peninsula teams, Northern Michigan's magic ran out and they surrendered two goals in each period, losing the title game 3–6. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=67174226 | 2,214,590 |
1,731,405 | Similarly, there is no benefit in imaging a truly homogeneous sample, as a single point spectrometer will generate the same spectral information. Of course the definition of homogeneity is dependent on the spatial resolution of the imaging system employed. For MIR imaging, where wavelengths span from 3-10 micrometres, objects on the order of 5 micrometres may theoretically be resolved. The sampled areas are limited by current experimental implementations because illumination is provided by the interferometer. Raman imaging may be able to resolve particles less than 1 micrometre in size, but the sample area that can be illuminated is severely limited. With Raman imaging, it is considered impractical to image large areas and, consequently, large samples. FT-NIR chemical/hyperspectral imaging usually resolves only larger objects (>10 micrometres), and is better suited for large samples because illumination sources are readily available. However, FT-NIR microspectroscopy was recently reported to be capable of about 1.2 micron (micrometer) resolution in biological samples Furthermore, two-photon excitation FCS experiments were reported to have attained 15 nanometer resolution on biomembrane thin films with a special coincidence photon-counting setup. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8288266 | 1,730,429 |
144,390 | Onchocerciasis (river blindness) is the world's second leading cause of infectious blindness. It is caused by the nematode "Onchocerca volvulus", which is transmitted to people via the bite of a black fly. The current WHO goal is to increase the number of countries free of transmission from 4 (in 2020) to 12 in 2030. Elimination of this disease is under way in the region of the Americas, where this disease was endemic to Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico and Venezuela. The principal tool being used is mass ivermectin treatment. If successful, the only remaining endemic locations would be in Africa and Yemen. In Africa, it is estimated that greater than 102 million people in 19 countries are at high risk of onchocerciasis infection, and in 2008, 56.7 million people in 15 of these countries received community-directed treatment with ivermectin. Since adopting such treatment measures in 1997, the African Programme for Onchocerciasis Control reports a reduction in the prevalence of onchocerciasis in the countries under its mandate from a pre-intervention level of 46.5% in 1995 to 28.5% in 2008. Some African countries, such as Uganda, are also attempting elimination and successful elimination was reported in 2009 from two endemic foci in Mali and Senegal. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14499186 | 144,332 |
811,760 | While Shoemaker was attending Caltech, his roommate was Richard Spellman, a young man from Chico, California. Although Shoemaker had already enrolled in a doctoral program at Princeton University, he returned to California to serve as best man at Richard's wedding in 1950. He met Richard's sister, Carolyn, for the first time on that occasion. Carolyn was born in Gallup, New Mexico, in 1929, but the Spellman family moved to Chico soon afterward. Carolyn earned degrees from Chico State College in history and political science. She never exhibited an interest in scientific subjects while growing up, and took one geology course in college, which she found boring. Nevertheless, the couple kept in touch while Shoemaker spent the next year in Princeton, followed by a two-week vacation touring the Colorado Plateau. She reportedly told others that listening to Shoemaker explain geology turned a boring subject into an exciting and interesting pursuit of knowledge. The couple married on August 17, 1951. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=247727 | 811,328 |
1,480,508 | An initial order of 35 EP-1 locomotives were supplied from 1905 to 1907. The design was similar to No. 9 above, with two two-axle trucks and a Westinghouse gearless quill drive, which supported the motor on the truck frame and reduced the unsprung weight. The locomotives weighed 102 tons and were 37 ft 6½in long. They had to operate over the 12 miles of New York Central track electrified at 660 V DC third rail from Grand Central to Woodlawn, so had AC/DC series commutator motors; the four Westinghouse 130 motors had a total hourly rating of . The locomotive could change from AC to DC without stopping; power pickup was by eight third-rail shoes which could be lowered, plus two large AC pantographs and a small pantograph for DC where short sections through switches were too complicated for third-rail supply. A second order of six supplied in 1908 had design changes, including guide wheels at each end to obviate "nose" or oscillation at high speed. The highly successful class operated to 1947, although some were retired from 1936. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38418526 | 1,479,674 |
507,722 | A reflection on Sherrington's philosophical thought. Sherrington had long studied the 16th century French physician Jean Fernel, and grew so familiar with him that he considered him a friend. During the academic year 1937-38, Sherrington delivered the Gifford lectures at the University of Edinburgh. They focused on Fernel and his times, and formed the basis of "Man on His Nature." The book was published in 1940, with a revised edition in 1951. It explores philosophical thoughts about the mind, human existence, and God, in accordance with natural theology. Chapters of the book align with the twelve zodiac signs. In his ideas on mind and cognition, Sherrington introduced the idea that neurons work as groups in a "million-fold democracy" to produce outcomes rather than with central control. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=772653 | 507,458 |
2,168,515 | Rice was born on June 6, 1934 in Tulsa, Oklahoma and grew up in small towns in Oklahoma. As a teenager, his father was assigned to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where he lived for three years. He earned bachelor's and master's degrees in mathematics from Oklahoma State University in 1954 and 1956; while studying there, he spent his summers in southern California, working in the aerospace industry. He then moved to the California Institute of Technology, where he earned a Ph.D. in 1959 under the supervision of Arthur Erdélyi; his dissertation concerned approximation theory. After taking a one-year postdoctoral position at the National Bureau of Standards, he became a researcher for General Motors. In 1964 he left GM and joined the recently founded computer science department at Purdue, which he later headed from 1983 to 1996 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30688295 | 2,167,278 |
1,665,089 | During the Second Boer War one gun was brought ashore from HMS "Terrible" in Natal in February 1900 at the request of General Buller, presumably in response to the failure at Colenso. It was mounted on an improvised field carriage by Captain Percy Scott and transported by rail to Chieveley, just south of Colenso. There it was manned by Royal Navy gunners to provide useful fire support for the British Army during the relief of Ladysmith. It is reported on 17 February to have fired from "Gun Hill" (a small kopje two miles (3 km) north of Chieveley) and knocked out a Boer gun at , followed by a Boer searchlight, as Buller approached Ladysmith from the South East and pushed the Boers back towards the Tugela river. On 26 February Lieutenant Burne reports firing from the same position on a Boer gun at at 28° elevation and falling short. The 7-ton weight (compared to the 2½ tons of the Boer 155 mm "Long Tom") meant that it was effectively immobile on the battlefield and could not be moved forward to shorten the range. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=15364107 | 1,664,152 |
1,003,796 | are manipulated on a substrate using electrowetting. Following the analogy of digital microelectronics, this approach is referred to as digital microfluidics. Le Pesant et al. pioneered the use of electrocapillary forces to move droplets on a digital track. The "fluid transistor" pioneered by Cytonix also played a role. The technology was subsequently commercialised by Duke University. By using discrete unit-volume droplets, a microfluidic function can be reduced to a set of repeated basic operations, i.e., moving one unit of fluid over one unit of distance. This "digitisation" method facilitates the use of a hierarchical and cell-based approach for microfluidic biochip design. Therefore, digital microfluidics offers a flexible and scalable system architecture as well as high fault-tolerance capability. Moreover, because each droplet can be controlled independently, these systems also have dynamic reconfigurability, whereby groups of unit cells in a microfluidic array can be reconfigured to change their functionality during the concurrent execution of a set of bioassays. Although droplets are manipulated in confined microfluidic channels, since the control on droplets is not independent, it should not be confused as "digital microfluidics". One common actuation method for digital microfluidics is electrowetting-on-dielectric (EWOD). Many lab-on-a-chip applications have been demonstrated within the digital microfluidics paradigm using electrowetting. However, recently other techniques for droplet manipulation have also been demonstrated using magnetic force, surface acoustic waves, optoelectrowetting, mechanical actuation, etc. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=18906 | 1,003,278 |
1,707,307 | Similarly, FGF is being inserted into fibrin sealants to enhance the long term repair and sealing of tissue. FGF-1 has been experimentally shown to encourage the body’s own adhesive tissue to develop and effectively seal the wound (thereby stymieing infection and mitigating scar formation). Using FGF stimulate fibroblast activity is a more effective means of sealing tissue than current tissue sealants due to the robust nature of collagen which makes up connective tissue. A study conducted by researchers at the University of Alabama examined the adhesive properties of fibrin tissue adhesives. The tests found that fibrin adhesives even at its intended medical concentration (29 mg/mL at the wound site) had shear strength of only 17.6 kiloPascals. Furthermore, another study performed at the University of California determined that the modulus (the stress/strain) of fibrin adhesives was on average 53.56 kPA. To seal together tissues the human body uses collagen and elastin to obtain superior shear strength. Type I collagen which includes collagen strands bundled into strong fibrils has a unique tri-helical structure which increases the proteins structural integrity. In fact, a study performed by the Department of Medicine in University College London experimentally determined that pure type I collagen has a modulus of 5 GPa to 11.5 GPa. Therefore, pure type I collagen has nearly one million times greater structural integrity than fibrin. Collagen is therefore much harder to deform than fibrin, and collagen fibers create much stronger bonds between tissues than strands of fibrin polymer. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=33038371 | 1,706,349 |
1,667,469 | The first record of a named cultigen occurs in "De Agri Cultura". written about 160 BCE by Roman statesman Cato the Elder (234–149 BCE) in a list that includes 120 kinds (cultivars) of figs, grapes, apples and olives. The names are presented in a way that implies that they would have been familiar to fellow Romans. The "cultivar" names were mostly of one word and denoted the provenance of the cultivar (the geographical origin of the place where the plant selections were made). Writers up to the 15th century added little to this early work. In the Middle Ages the book of hours, early herbals, illuminated manuscripts and economic records indicate that plants grown by the Romans found their way into monastery gardens. For example, in 827 CE the following herbs were mentioned in the poem "Hortulus" by Walafrid Strabo as growing in the monastery garden of St Gallen in Switzerland: sage, rue, southernwood, wormwood, horehound, fennel, German iris, lovage, chervil, Madonna lily, opium poppy, clary, mint, betony, agrimony, catmint, radish, gallica rose, bottle gourd and melon. It seems likely that aromatic and culinary herbs were quite widespread and similar lists of plants occur in records of plants grown in Villa gardens at the time of Charlemagne (742–814 CE). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17883200 | 1,666,530 |
585,746 | In 1986, Gary P. Brinson, L. Randolph Hood, and SEI's Gilbert L. Beebower (BHB) published a study about asset allocation of 91 large pension funds measured from 1974 to 1983. They replaced the pension funds' stock, bond, and cash selections with corresponding market indexes. The indexed quarterly return was found to be higher than the pension plan's actual quarterly return. The two quarterly return series' linear correlation was measured at 96.7%, with shared variance of 93.6%. A 1991 follow-up study by Brinson, Singer, and Beebower measured variance of 91.5%. The conclusion of the study was that replacing active choices with simple asset classes worked just as well as, if not even better than, professional pension managers. Also, a small number of asset classes was sufficient for financial planning. Financial advisors often pointed to this study to support the idea that asset allocation is more important than all other concerns, which the BHB study is incorrectly thought to have lumped together as "market timing" but was actually policy selection. One problem with the Brinson study was that the cost factor in the two return series was not clearly discussed. However, in response to a letter to the editor, Hood noted that the returns series were gross of management fees. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2168889 | 585,446 |
40,425 | Earlier still, a 200-million year period of intermittent, widespread glaciation extending close to the equator (Snowball Earth) appears to have been ended suddenly, about 550 Ma, by a colossal volcanic outgassing that raised the concentration of the atmosphere abruptly to 12%, about 350 times modern levels, causing extreme greenhouse conditions and carbonate deposition as limestone at the rate of about 1 mm per day. This episode marked the close of the Precambrian Eon, and was succeeded by the generally warmer conditions of the Phanerozoic, during which multicellular animal and plant life evolved. No volcanic carbon dioxide emission of comparable scale has occurred since. In the modern era, emissions to the atmosphere from volcanoes are approximately 0.645 billion tons of per year, whereas humans contribute 29 billion tons of each year. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21350772 | 40,410 |
1,944,113 | The first operation to occur during desorption atmospheric pressure photoionization is desorption. Desorption of the sample is initiated by a hot jet of solvent vapor that is targeted onto the sample by a nebulizer microchip. The nebulizer microchip is a glass device bonded together by pyrex wafers with flow channels embedded from a nozzle at the edge of the chip. The microchip is heated to 250-350formula_1C in order to vaporize the entering solvent and create dopant molecules. Dopant molecules are added to help facilitate the ionization of the sample. Some of the common solvents include: nitrogen, toluene, acetone, and anisole. The desorption process can occur by two mechanisms: thermal desorption or momentum transfer/liquid spray. Thermal desorption uses heat to volatilize the sample and increase the surface temperature of the substrate. As the substrate's surface temperature is increased, the higher the sensitivity of the instrument. While studying the substrate temperature, it was seen that the solvent did not have a noticeable effect on the final temperature or heat rate of the substrate. Momentum transfer or liquid spray desoprtion is based on the solvent interaction with the sample, causing the release of specific ions. The momentum transfer is propagated by the collision of the solvent with the sample along with the transfer of ions with the sample. The transfer of positive ions, such as protons and charge transfers, are seen with the solvents: toluene and anisole. Toluene goes through a charge exchange mechanism with the sample, while acetone promotes a proton transfer mechanism with the sample. A beam of 10 eV photons that are given off by a UV lamp is directed at the newly desorbed molecules, as well as the dopant molecules. Photoionization then occurs, which knocks out the molecule's electron and produces an ion. This technique alone is not highly efficient for different varieties of molecules, particularly those that are not easily protonated or deprotonated. In order to completely ionize samples, dopant molecules must help. The gaseous solvent can also undergo photoionization and act as an intermediate for ionization of the sample molecules. Once dopant ions are formed, proton transfer can occur with the sample, creating more sample ions. The ions are then sent to the mass analyzer for analysis. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19344297 | 1,943,001 |
1,388,437 | In 2015, a supramolecular nanodevice was proposed for bioorthogonal regulation of a transitional metal nanozyme, based on encapsulating the nanozyme in a monolayer of hydrophilic gold nanoparticles, alternately isolating it from the cytoplasm or allowing access according to a gatekeeping receptor molecule controlled by competing guest species; the device, aimed at imaging and therapeutic applications, is of biomimetic size and was successful within the living cell, controlling pro-fluorophore and prodrug activation. An easy means of producing supercages was reported, along with a demonstration of their intrinsic peroxidase mimicry. A scaffolded "INAzyme" ("integrated nanozyme") arrangement was described, locating hemin (a peroxidase mimic) with glucose oxidase (GOx) in sub-micron proximity, providing a fast and efficient enzyme cascade reported as monitoring cerebral brain-cell glucose dynamically "in vivo". A method of ionising hydrophobe-stabilised colloid nanoparticles was described, with confirmation of their enzyme mimicry in aqueous dispersion. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11448262 | 1,387,669 |
1,768,458 | A study of 182 male veterans from the Phase 3 Vietnam Head Injury Study registry causally identifies several areas implicated in the P-FIT theory. Barbey, Colom, Solomon, Krueger, and Forbes (2012) use voxel-based lesion symptom mapping to identify regions that interfere with performance on the WAIS and the Delis-Kaplan executive function system. The authors only include the five measures from the Delis-Kaplan system that are known to be especially sensitive to frontal lobe damage. The findings indicate that "g", calculated from the WAIS test battery, shared neural substrates with several WAIS subtests, such as Verbal Comprehension, Working Memory, Perceptual Organization, and Processing Speed. The areas implicated are known to be involved in language processing, working memory, spatial processing, and motor processing, as well as major white matter tracts, including the arcuate fasciculus which connects temporal, parietal, and inferior frontal regions. The frontal and parietal lobes were found to be critical for executive control processes, which was demonstrated by significantly worse performance on specific executive functioning subtests in participants with damage to frontal and parietal regions, as well as the white matter tracts connecting these regions, such as the superior fronto-occipital fasciculus. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=46424669 | 1,767,464 |
245,701 | Some geologists were pleased enough with the close approach to Cone crater to send a case of scotch to the astronauts while they were in post-mission quarantine, though their enthusiasm was tempered by the fact that Shepard and Mitchell had documented few of the samples they brought back, making it hard and sometimes impossible to discern where they came from. Others were less happy; Don Wilhelms wrote in his book on the geological aspects of Apollo, "the golf game did not set well with most geologists in light of the results at Cone crater. The total haul from the rim-flank of Cone ... was 16 Hasselblad photographs (out of a mission total of 417), six rock-size samples heavier than 50 g, and a grand total of 10 kg of samples, 9 kg of which are in one rock (sample 14321 [i.e., Big Bertha]). That is to say, apart from 14321 we have less than 1 kg of rock—962 g to be exact—from what in my opinion is the most important single point reached by astronauts on the Moon." Geologist Lee Silver stated, "The Apollo 14 crews did not have the right attitude, did not learn enough about their mission, had the burden of not having the best possible preflight photography, and they weren't ready." In their sourcebook on Apollo, Richard W. Orloff and David M. Harland doubted that if Apollo 13 had reached the Moon, Lovell, and Haise, given a more distant landing point, could have got as close to Cone crater as Shepard and Mitchell did. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1968 | 245,574 |
616,484 | In the mid-70s the Coast Guard adopted the blue uniforms seen today, replacing Navy-style uniforms worn prior to the Vietnam War. Known jocularly as "Bender's Blues," they were implemented as part of the postwar transition to an all-volunteer force. It is noteworthy that the enlisted's and officer's uniforms differed "only" in rank insignia and cap devices, reflecting the value the service placed on its enlisted members (although it caused saluting confusion among members of other services). The stylish new women's uniform was created by Hollywood costume designer Edith Head, upon the request of Capt. Eleanor L'Ecuyer. Enlisted uniform buttons were gold while officer's buttons were silver. This was the opposite of most military services. In 1973 women were integrated into the active-duty Coast Guard and the Coast Guard Reserve. The SPARS ended and those in it were sent to the Coast Guard Reserve. The modification of 378's for mixed-gender crews began in 1977, and the opening of all ratings to women occurred in 1978. These stages of integration preceded the DOD military by roughly a year or so, as separate legislation restricted their deployment of women. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=6204230 | 616,170 |
1,521,337 | The final was tactical, like the previous several Olympics with most athletes running faster to qualify than they ran in the final. Yuriy Borzakovskiy and Mouhssin Chehibi lagged significantly off the pace. World champion Djabir Saïd-Guerni and 2004 world leader Wilfred Bungei battled for the lead, chased closely by Bungei's second cousin, world record holder Wilson Kipketer, Borzakovskiy and Chehibi joined the back of the pack. It seemed like Borzakovskiy was reluctant to catch the leaders, then realized the pace was not too fast, with 50 metres before the end of the first lap, he noticeably accelerated from dead last to join the fight. Mbulaeni Mulaudzi, who had lucked into the slowest qualifying time in the semi final round, ran comfortably in a box inside of Kipketer through 500 meters. A lead group broke away on the backstretch. Guerni fell back as the cousins battled for the lead through the final turn, with Mulaudzi a step back and Borzakovskiy the final athlete in the breakaway. Coming off the turn, Kipketer pounced and took off for the finish in lane two. But the always fast closing Borzakovskiy came along the outside from 5 meters back to catch Kipketer 30 meters out. Not giving up the fight, Mulaudzi pulled even with Kipketer. Borzakovskiy held his hands up with a meter victory, while Mulaudzi out leaned Kipketer for silver. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=913282 | 1,520,476 |
1,487,012 | The genetic structure, dynamics, and evolution of populations and species are also important from an ecological point of view when considering the probability of colonization and extinction. One of the key processes influencing these dynamics is dispersal. When localized, populations that are geographically closer are expected to exchange more migrants and should tend to share neutral genetic markers. One such study investigated the direct and indirect measures of dispersal in "Branchipodopsis wolfi" (fairy shrimp), located in spatially fragmented, ephemeral rock pools located in southeastern Botswana. Dispersal trends and rates were compared by using both spatial genetic structure and direct measures of dispersal. A total of 29 populations from three spatially different rock pools were subjected to allozyme analysis for four loci to access genetic variation and estimates of gene flow between populations were generated using population genetic software. Direct measures of dispersal were determined by quantifying the number of viable floating dormant eggs and larvae that circulated intro overflow traps during flooding events. Genetic differentiation among sites was highly significant (with neighboring sites being more similar). FST ratios for all populations increased with geographical distance in all three rock pool sites, indicating a small-scale isolation-by-distance pattern. Research shows that a distance of 50 meters is an important constraint on the effective dispersal and gene flow for fairy shrimp. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=24629030 | 1,486,174 |
761,388 | During the Cold War, between 1946 and 1991, the US, UK, and NATO allies faced the Soviet Union, the Warsaw Pact, and its allies. Both sides engaged in an arms race of improving radar and fighter intercept capability versus the threat of intercontinental strategic bombers carrying nuclear weapons. Initially, high altitude, later combined with high supersonic speeds, was hoped to keep nuclear bombers out of range of fighters and later surface to air missiles, both of which were sometimes equipped with nuclear warheads. In the 1960 U-2 incident an American very high altitude spy plane was shot down over the USSR with a S-75 Dvina(SA-2) long range high altitude surface to air missile largely refuting the concept of high altitude as a refuge for high-performance bomber aircraft. US training changed to low altitude flight of bombers and unpiloted cruise missiles in the hopes of avoiding ground-based air defense radar networks by hiding in with ground clutter and terrain, thwarting attempts at air supremacy over the enemy landmass. Ballistic missiles were also introduced and were very difficult and expensive to intercept even with nuclear-armed defensive missiles. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=537478 | 760,981 |
570,052 | In mathematics Nikolai Lobachevsky, a "Copernicus of geometry", founded the non-Euclidean geometry playing an important role in modern physics. In the 19th century international recognition was also gained by such mathematicians as Mikhail Ostrogradsky and Sofia Kovalevskaya, the first major Russian female mathematician, responsible for important original contributions to analysis, differential equations and mechanics, and the first woman appointed to a full professorship in Northern Europe. Yevgraf Fyodorov was a founder of the modern structural crystallography (Fedorov group). After such prominent scientists as Chebyshev the Russian mathematical school became one of the most influential in the world and was represented by numerous figures greatly contributing to different fields of mathematics, physics and computing sciences. Chebyshev's students included Aleksandr Lyapunov who founded the modern stability theory (lately developed by such scientists as Aleksandr Andronov and Vladimir Arnold), and Andrey Markov who developed the theory of Markov chains, playing a central role in information sciences and modern applied mathematics. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21886445 | 569,762 |
346,560 | Safe anesthesia care depends greatly on well-functioning teams of highly trained healthcare workers. The medical specialty centred around anesthesia is called anesthesiology, and doctors specialised in the field are termed anesthesiologists. Additional healthcare professionals involved in anesthesia provision have varying titles and roles depending on the jurisdiction, and include anesthetic nurses, nurse anesthetists, anesthesiologist assistants, anaesthetic technicians, anaesthesia associates, operating department practitioners and anesthesia technologists. International standards for the safe practice of anesthesia, jointly endorsed by the World Health Organization and the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists, highly recommend that anesthesia should be provided, overseen or led by anesthesiologists, with the exception of minimal sedation or superficial procedures performed under local anesthesia. A trained, vigilant anesthesia provider should continually care for the animal; where the provider is not an anesthesiologist, they should be locally directed and supervised by an anesthesiologist, and in countries or settings where this is not feasible, care should be led by the most qualified local individual within a regional or national anesthesiologist-led framework. The same minimum standards for patient safety apply regardless of the provider, including continuous clinical and biometric monitoring of tissue oxygenation, perfusion and blood pressure; confirmation of correct placement of airway management devices by auscultation and carbon dioxide detection; use of the WHO Surgical Safety Checklist; and safe onward transfer of the patient's care following the procedure. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=56561 | 346,379 |
48,617 | The first documented cases in humans was in 1970, in six unvaccinated children during the smallpox eradication efforts; the first being a 9-month old boy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire). The others, including three who were playmates, were in Liberia and Sierra Leone. It was noted to be less easily transmissible than smallpox. From 1981 to 1986, over 300 cases of human monkeypox were reported in the DRC, the majority being due to contact with animals. In 1996, the disease reemerged in the DRC with 88% of cases resulting from human-to-human transmission. Small viral outbreaks with a death rate in the range of 10% and a secondary human-to-human infection rate of about the same amount occur routinely in equatorial Central and West Africa. In humans, the disease remained confined to the rain forests of Western and Central Africa until 2003, when an outbreak of monkeypox occurred in the US. All cases were traced to sick rodents imported from Ghana. Local prairie dogs caught the infection and passed it onto their owners. The disease was found to be mild and there were no deaths. Between 1970 and 2019 the disease was reported in 10 African countries; mostly in Central and West Africa. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=242702 | 48,597 |
680,504 | After establishing dominance in the Congo Basin, Leopold extracted large quantities of ivory, rubber, and other natural resources. It has been estimated that Leopold made 1.1 billion in 2005 dollars by employing a variety of exploitative tactics. Soldiers demanded unrealistic quantities of rubber be collected by African villagers, and when these goals were not met, the soldiers held women hostage, beat or killed the men, and burned crops. These and other forced labor practices caused the birth rate to decline as famine and disease spread. All of this was done at very little monetary cost to Belgium. M. Crawford Young observed, "[the Belgian companies] brought little capital – a mere 8000 pounds ... [to the Congo basin] – and instituted a reign of terror sufficient to provoke an embarrassing public-protest campaign in Britain and the United States at a time when the threshold of toleration for colonial brutality was high." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=5090455 | 680,149 |
1,840,309 | The character of optical projections within passage tombs is determined by a number of interconnected factors. Lighting inside the monument needs to be low but total darkness is not always required, depending on the relative brightness outside. Observations at the Grey Cairns of Camster by Aaron Watson and Ronnie Scott showed that it was possible to cast projections in fog, rain and under heavy cloud, but that such conditions significantly impaired their clarity. The size and brightness of projections can be adjusted both by modifying the size of the aperture and moving the aperture plane itself in relation to the focal plane, which is frequently the wall of the chamber aligned with the passageway. Increasing the focal distance by moving the aperture along the passage increases the size of the projection but also reduces its brightness. Reducing the aperture diameter results in a more focused, but increasingly dark, image. A further contributing factor is the texture of the surface upon which the image is projected. For example, observations by Aaron Watson have revealed that the slab that constitutes the back wall of the chamber at Bryn Celli Ddu is smooth enough to carry a detailed image. In contrast, projections inside Cuween Hill fall upon rough stone walling, requiring the distance between the aperture and focal plane to be increased, thereby enlarging the image in order to render it visible. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=49823773 | 1,839,257 |
583,990 | There are some issues with this approach which make them vulnerable to damage or loss on a project and these all must be risk assessed and mitigated. Since nodes connected together on a rope sit on the sea floor unattended: they can be moved due to strong currents, the ropes can snag on seabed obstructions, they can be dragged by third party vessel anchors and caught by trawling fishing vessels. The threat of these types of potential hazards to this equipment should normally be identified and assessed during the project planning phase, especially in oilfield locations where well heads, pipelines and other subsea structures exist and where any contact with these must be avoided, normally achieved by adopting exclusion zones. Since it is possible for node lines to be moved after deployment, the issue of node position on recovery is critical and therefore positioning during both deployment and recovery is a standard navigation quality control check. In some case, node lines may need to be recovered and re-laid if the nodes have moved outside of the contract specifications. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=676418 | 583,691 |
2,241,162 | Work on a successor for the venerable G3 rifle had been ongoing in Germany since the second half of the 1970s. These efforts resulted in the innovative 4.73mm G11 assault rifle (developed jointly by a group of companies led by H&K), that used caseless ammunition (designed by the Dynamit Nobel company). It had been predicted that this weapon would eventually replace the G3, therefore further development of H&K's series of firearms chambered for the 5.56×45mm NATO cartridge had been halted. Heckler & Koch, having no incentive to pursue a new 5.56 mm weapon system, was content with the export-oriented HK33 and G41 rifles. However, the G11 program came to an abrupt end when the "Bundeswehr" cancelled its procurement due to defence budget cuts after the unification of East and West Germany and H&K was acquired in 1991 by British Aerospace's Royal Ordnance division (known today as BAE Systems). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=698999 | 2,239,891 |
2,013,093 | The Portal to the Universe (PTTU) was a worldwide astronomy event that ran 2–5 April 2009, to provide a global, one-stop portal for online astronomy contents, serving as an index, aggregator and a social-networking site for astronomy content providers, laypeople, press, educators, decision-makers and scientists. PTTU was to feature news, image, event and video aggregation; a comprehensive directory of observatories, facilities, astronomical societies, amateur astronomy societies, space artists, science communication universities; and Web 2.0 collaborative tools, such as the ranking of different services according to popularity, to promote interaction within the astronomy multimedia community. In addition, a range of "widgets" (small applications) were to be developed to tap into existing "live data". Modern technology and the standardisation of metadata made it possible to tie all the suppliers of such information together with a single, semi-automatically updating portal. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4143738 | 2,011,936 |
370,033 | In the years before the First World War, Holst composed in a variety of genres. Matthews considers the evocation of a North African town in the "Beni Mora" suite of 1908 the composer's most individual work to that date; the third movement gives a preview of minimalism in its constant repetition of a four-bar theme. Holst wrote two suites for military band, in E flat (1909) and F major (1911) respectively, the first of which became and remains a brass-band staple. This piece, a highly original and substantial musical work, was a signal departure from what Short describes as "the usual transcriptions and operatic selections which pervaded the band repertoire". Also in 1911 he wrote "Hecuba's Lament", a setting of Gilbert Murray's translation from Euripides built on a seven-beat refrain designed, says Dickinson, to represent Hecuba's defiance of divine wrath. In 1912 Holst composed two psalm settings, in which he experimented with plainsong; the same year saw the enduringly popular "St Paul's Suite" (a "gay but retrogressive" piece according to Dickinson), and the failure of his large scale orchestral work "Phantastes". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=49241 | 369,839 |
1,105,493 | Atmospheric physics potentially affect all air travelers regardless of the aircraft. As humans ascend through the first 9100–12,300 m (30,000–40,000 ft), temperature decreases linearly at an average rate of 2 °C (3.6 °F) per 305 m (1000 ft). If sea-level temperature is 16 °C (60 °F), the outside air temperature is approximately −57 °C (−70 °F) at 10,700 m (35,000 ft). Pressure and humidity also decline, and aircrew are exposed to radiation, vibration and acceleration forces (the latter are also known as "g" forces). Aircraft life support systems such as oxygen, heat and pressurization are the first line of defense against most of the hostile aerospace environment. Higher performance aircraft provide more sophisticated life support equipment, such as "G-suits" to help the body resist the adverse effects of acceleration, along with pressure breathing apparatus, or ejection seats or other escape equipment. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=991893 | 1,104,930 |
265,653 | Although the surface of Mars was periodically wet and could have been hospitable to microbial life billions of years ago, the current environment at the surface is dry and subfreezing, probably presenting an insurmountable obstacle for living organisms. In addition, Mars lacks a thick atmosphere, ozone layer, and magnetic field, allowing solar and cosmic radiation to strike the surface unimpeded. The damaging effects of ionizing radiation on cellular structure is another one of the prime limiting factors on the survival of life on the surface. Therefore, the best potential locations for discovering life on Mars may be in subsurface environments. Large amounts of underground ice have been found on Mars; the volume of water detected is equivalent to the volume of water in Lake Superior. In 2018, scientists reported the discovery of a subglacial lake on Mars, below the southern polar ice cap, with a horizontal extent of about , the first known stable body of liquid water on the planet, but subsequent work has questioned this detection. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21857752 | 265,509 |
1,014,021 | Neuroplasticity is the process by which neurons adapt to a disturbance over time, and most often occurs in response to repeated exposure to stimuli. Aerobic exercise increases the production of neurotrophic factors (e.g., BDNF, IGF-1, VEGF) which mediate improvements in cognitive functions and various forms of memory by promoting blood vessel formation in the brain, adult neurogenesis, and other forms of neuroplasticity. Consistent aerobic exercise over a period of several months induces clinically significant improvements in executive functions and increased gray matter volume in nearly all regions of the brain, with the most marked increases occurring in brain regions that give rise to executive functions. The brain structures that show the greatest improvements in gray matter volume in response to aerobic exercise are the prefrontal cortex, caudate nucleus, and hippocampus; less significant increases in gray matter volume occur in the anterior cingulate cortex, parietal cortex, cerebellum, and nucleus accumbens. The prefrontal cortex, caudate nucleus, and anterior cingulate cortex are among the most significant brain structures in the dopamine and norepinephrine systems that give rise to cognitive control. Exercise-induced neurogenesis (i.e., the increases in gray matter volume) in the hippocampus is associated with measurable improvements in spatial memory. Higher physical fitness scores, as measured by VO max, are associated with better executive function, faster information processing speed, and greater gray matter volume of the hippocampus, caudate nucleus, and nucleus accumbens. Long-term aerobic exercise is also associated with persistent beneficial epigenetic changes that result in improved stress coping, improved cognitive function, and increased neuronal activity ( and BDNF signaling). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=34760961 | 1,013,500 |
199,708 | The British Aircraft Corporation TSR-2 is a cancelled Cold War strike and reconnaissance aircraft developed by the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC), for the Royal Air Force (RAF) in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The TSR-2 was designed around both conventional and nuclear weapons delivery: it was to penetrate well-defended frontline areas at low altitudes and very high speeds, and then attack high-value targets in rear areas. Another intended combat role was to provide high-altitude, high-speed stand-off, side-looking radar and photographic imagery and signals intelligence, aerial reconnaissance. Only one airframe flew and test flights and weight-rise during design indicated that the aircraft would be unable to meet its original stringent design specifications. The design specifications were reduced as the result of flight testing. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=225702 | 199,605 |
1,049,044 | During the Warring States period (403–221 BC), the development of private commerce, new trade routes, handicraft industries, and a money economy led to the growth of new urban centers. These centers were markedly different from the older cities, which had merely served as power bases for the nobility. The use of a standardized, nationwide currency during the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC) facilitated long-distance trade between cities. Many Han cities grew large: the Western Han capital, Chang'an, had approximately 250,000 inhabitants, while the Eastern Han capital, Luoyang, had approximately 500,000 inhabitants. The population of the Han Empire, recorded in the tax census of 2 AD, was 57.6 million people in 12,366,470 households. The majority of commoners who populated the cities lived in extended urban and suburban areas outside the city walls and gatehouses. The total urban area of Western-Han Chang'an—including the extensions outside the walls—was . The total urban area of Eastern-Han Luoyang—including the extensions outside the walls—was . Both Chang'an and Luoyang had two prominent marketplaces; each market had a two-story government office demarcated by a flag and drum at the top. Market officials were charged with maintaining order, collecting commercial taxes, setting standard commodity prices on a monthly basis, and authorizing contracts between merchants and customers. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21423531 | 1,048,499 |
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