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1,353,132 | Other models of cheating include the European tree frog, "Hyla arborea". In many sexually reproducing species such as this, some males can access mates by exploiting resources of more competitive males. Many species have dynamic reproductive strategies that can change in response to changes in the environment. In these instances, several factors contribute to the decision to switch between mating strategies. For example, in the European tree frog, a sexually competitive (as in, perceived to be attractive by females) male tend to call to attract mates. This is often referred to as the "bourgeois" tactic. On the other hand, a smaller male that would likely fail to attract mates using the bourgeois tactic will tend to hide near attractive males and attempt to access females. In this instance, the males can gain access to females without having to defend territories or acquiring additional resources (which often serve as the basis for attractiveness). This is referred to as the "parasitic" tactic, where the smaller male effectively cheats its way to accessing females, by reaping the benefit of sexual reproduction without contributing resources that normally attract females. Models such as this provide valuable tools for research aimed at energetic constraints and environmental cues involved in cheating. Studies find that mating strategies are highly adaptable and depend on a variety of factors, such as competitiveness, energetic costs involved in defending territory or acquiring resources. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=5467149 | 1,352,385 |
277,486 | The term "curare" is ambiguous because it has been used to describe a number of poisons which at the time of naming were understood differently from present day understandings. In the past the characterization has meant poisons used by South American tribes on arrows or darts, though it has matured to specify a specific categorization of poisons which act on the neuromuscular junction to inhibit signaling and thus induce muscle relaxation. The neurotoxin category contains a number of distinct poisons, though all were originally purified from plants originating in South America. The effect with which injected curare poison is usually associated is muscle paralysis and resultant death. Curare notably functions to inhibit nicotinic acetylcholine receptors at the neuromuscular junction. Normally, these receptor channels allow sodium ions into muscle cells to initiate an action potential that leads to muscle contraction. By blocking the receptors, the neurotoxin is capable of significantly reducing neuromuscular junction signaling, an effect which has resulted in its use by anesthesiologists to produce muscular relaxation. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=326357 | 277,336 |
1,174,813 | Phosphate in man-made soils derives from people, their animals, rubbish and bones. 100 people excrete about 62 kg of phosphate annually, with about the same from their rubbish. Their animals excrete even more. A human body contains about 650 g of (500 g–80% in the skeleton), which results in elevated levels in burial sites. Most is quickly immobilised on the clay of the soil and 'fixed', where it can persist for thousands of years. For a 1 ha site this corresponds to about 150 kg ha-1yr-1 about 0.5% to 10% of that already present in most soils. Therefore, it doesn't take long for human occupation to make orders of magnitude differences to the phosphate concentration in soil. Phosphorus exist in different 'pools' in the soil 1) organic (available), 2) occluded (adsorbed), 3) bound (chemically bound). Each of these pools can be extracted using progressively more aggressive chemicals. Some workers (Eidt especially), think that the ratios between these pools can give information about past land use, and perhaps even dating. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1149904 | 1,174,191 |
816,185 | In many respects, CH was a crude system, both in theory and in comparison with other systems of the era. This is especially true when CH is compared with its German counterpart, the Freya. Freya operated on shorter wavelengths, in the 2.5 to 2.3 m (120 to 130 MHz) band, allowing it to be broadcast from a much smaller antenna. This meant that Freya did not have to use the two-part structure of CH with a floodlight transmission, and could instead send its signal in a more tightly focused beam like a searchlight. This greatly reduced the amount of energy needed to be broadcast, as a much smaller volume was being filled with the transmission. Direction finding was accomplished simply by turning the antenna, which was small enough to make this relatively easy to arrange. Additionally, the higher frequency of the signal allowed higher resolution, which aided operational effectiveness. However, Freya had a shorter maximum range of , and could not accurately determine altitude. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=382754 | 815,749 |
262,335 | The College of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering is home to departments and divisions of note. The Institute of Optics was founded in 1929 through a grant from Eastman Kodak and Bausch and Lomb as the first educational program in the US devoted exclusively to optics, awards approximately half of all optics degrees nationwide, and is widely regarded as the premier optics program in the nation, and among the best in the world. The Departments of Political Science and Economics have made a significant and consistent impact on positivist social science since the 1960s, and historically rank in the top 5 in their fields. The Department of Chemistry is noted for its contributions to synthetic organic chemistry, including the first lab-based synthesis of morphine. The Rossell Hope Robbins Library serves as the university's resource for Old and Middle English texts and expertise. The university is also home to Rochester's Laboratory for Laser Energetics, a national laboratory supported by the US Department of Energy. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=31918 | 262,196 |
335,977 | Olympus Mons is the result of many thousands of highly fluid, basaltic lava flows that poured from volcanic vents over a long period of time (the Hawaiian Islands exemplify similar shield volcanoes on a smaller scale – see Mauna Kea). Like the basalt volcanoes on Earth, Martian basaltic volcanoes are capable of erupting enormous quantities of ash. Due to the reduced gravity of Mars compared to Earth, there are lesser buoyant forces on the magma rising out of the crust. In addition, the magma chambers are thought to be much larger and deeper than the ones found on Earth. The flanks of Olympus Mons are made up of innumerable lava flows and channels. Many of the flows have levees along their margins (pictured). The cooler, outer margins of the flow solidify, leaving a central trough of molten, flowing lava. Partially collapsed lava tubes are visible as chains of pit craters, and broad lava fans formed by lava emerging from intact, subsurface tubes are also common. In places along the volcano's base, solidified lava flows can be seen spilling out into the surrounding plains, forming broad aprons, and burying the basal escarpment. Crater counts from high-resolution images taken by the Mars Express orbiter in 2004 indicate that lava flows on the northwestern flank of Olympus Mons range in age from 115 million years old (Mya) to only 2 Mya. These ages are very recent in geological terms, suggesting that the mountain may still be volcanically active, though in a very quiescent and episodic fashion. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=22818 | 335,799 |
1,362,787 | The oldest medical school in Asia, the Calcutta Medical College was set up in 1835. In 1857, the University of Calcutta was established as the first full-fledged multi-disciplinary university in south Asia. It was modelled on the lines of the University of London. Today it is amongst the largest multidisciplinary universities of India and offers some of the widest number of academic disciplines for study. In 1856 technical and engineering education came with the establishment of a civil engineering college / department. This setup went through various reorganisations to finally become the Bengal Engineering College in 1921. The Jesuit administered St Xavier's College was established in 1860. In 1906, the partition of Bengal led to widespread nationalistic and anti British feelings. This led to the setting up of the National Council of Education, Bengal. This later on became the Jadavpur University in 1955. The nation's first homeopathy college was established in the city in 1880. In 1883 Kadambini Ganguly and Chandramukhi Basu became the first women graduates from the University of Calcutta. In the process, they became the first female graduates of the British Empire. Kadambini went on to become the first female physician trained in the Western system of medicine in South Asia. The Science College was established in 1917. The first blind school came into being in 1925. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4308785 | 1,362,034 |
588,827 | In the aftermath of the Battle of Jutland and post–World War I era, designers began drawing up armor schemes that protected against ordnance dropped by aircraft or submarines. World War I ships fired at direct 90 degree trajectories. The introduction of high-angle battleship fire and plane bombings forced shipbuilders to consider adding significant armor to the top of battleships. The five ships of the American and es had considerably improved underwater hull protection over previous battleships, as the result of extensive experimentation and testing. The new class of Battleship was to include 40" of armored plating. The proposed G3 battlecruiser was planned to incorporate a thoroughly tested torpedo defense scheme, which was later used in the "Nelson" class. Not surprisingly, as many World War I battleships lacked such a protection system, they fared poorly against torpedoes, which in World War II were increasingly being delivered by submarines and aircraft. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17641150 | 588,525 |
218,812 | Total parenteral nutrition increases the risk of acute cholecystitis due to complete disuse of the gastrointestinal tract, which may result in bile stasis in the gallbladder. Other potential hepatobiliary dysfunctions include steatosis, steatohepatitis, cholestasis, and cholelithiasis. Six percent of patients on TPN longer than three weeks and 100% of patients on TPN longer than 13 weeks develop biliary sludge. The formation of sludge is the result of stasis due to lack of enteric stimulation and is not due to changes in bile composition. Gallbladder sludge disappears after four weeks of normal oral diet. Administration of exogenous cholecystokinin (CCK) or stimulation of endogenous CCK by periodic pulse of large amounts of amino acids has been shown to help prevent sludge formation. These therapies are not routinely recommended. Such complications are suggested to be the main reason for mortality in people requiring long-term total parenteral nutrition, such as in short bowel syndrome. In newborn infants with short bowel syndrome with less than 10% of expected intestinal length, thereby being dependent upon total parenteral nutrition, five-year survival is approximately 20%. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=261773 | 218,704 |
138,245 | The actual circumstances of Korolev's death remain somewhat uncertain. In December 1965, he was supposedly diagnosed with a bleeding polyp in his large intestine. He entered the hospital on 5 January 1966 for somewhat routine surgery, but died nine days later. It was stated by the government that he had what turned out to be a large, cancerous tumor in his abdomen, but Valentin Glushko later reported that he actually died due to a poorly performed operation for hemorrhoids. Another version states that the operation was going well and no one was predicting any complications. Suddenly, during the operation, Korolev started to bleed. Doctors tried to provide intubation to allow him to breathe freely, but his jaws, injured during his time in a Gulag, had not healed properly and impeded the installation of the breathing tube. Korolev died without regaining consciousness. According to Harford, Korolev's family confirmed the cancer story. His weak heart contributed to his death during surgery. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=86655 | 138,189 |
1,596,779 | Biohydrogen is being investigated as a clean and renewable energy source. Two main enzymes produce hydrogen in microbes, hydrogenase and nitrogenase; "Cyanothece" has both enzymes. The nitrogenase fixes nitrogen, releasing hydrogen as a byproduct. The two different hydrogenase enzymes are an uptake hydrogenase associated with the nitrogenase and a bidirectional hydrogenase. When cultures are entrained in light-dark cycles, the nitrogenase and uptake hydrogenase are both active during the "night", with many copies per cell. Western blots show only a few copies of the bidirectional hydrogenase occur at any time. About 300 μmol H/(mg Chl h) was produced by sp. ATCC 51142 from cultures that were grown in continuous light at 30 μmol photons/(ms), anaerobic conditions, 50 mM glycerol, and without any nitrate (so the nitrogenase was active). Glycerol in the growth medium reduces the need for carbon fixation, leaving more energy for nitrogen fixation and hydrogen production. It was shown by acetylene reduction that hydrogen generation and nitrogen fixation were directly proportional. A parallel study has demonstrated concomitant and uninterrupted production of both H and O in continuously illuminated photobioreactor cultures, upon nitrogen-deprivation of ammonium-limited chemostat growth. Further work on improving the supply of protons and electrons to nitrogenase, as well as protecting it from oxygen could stimulate even better rates. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=46182688 | 1,595,880 |
855,699 | Castle's work was among the first to attempt to unify the recently rediscovered laws of Mendelian inheritance with Darwin's theory of evolution. Still, it would be almost thirty years until the theoretical framework for evolution of complex traits would be widely formalized. In an early summary of the theory of evolution of continuous variation, Sewall Wright, a graduate student who trained under Castle, summarized contemporary thinking about the genetic basis of quantitative natural variation: "As genetic studies continued, ever smaller differences were found to mendelize, and any character, sufficiently investigated, turned out to be affected by many factors." Wright and others formalized population genetics theory that had been worked out over the preceding 30 years explaining how such traits can be inherited and create stably breeding populations with unique characteristics. Quantitative trait genetics today leverages Wright's observations about the statistical relationship between genotype and phenotype in families and populations to understand how certain genetic features can affect variation in natural and derived populations. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=623866 | 855,244 |
2,121,691 | In 1946-1947, while studying at Yale, he coauthored with Leon Greenberg a series of three papers on acetanilide, an analgesic that was still in use at the time, aiming to establish why it caused methemoglobinemia. Although more than half a century had passed since acetanilide was first used clinically, there was wide-ranging disagreement concerning its metabolism, and numerous theories had been postulated. The first of these three papers summarized these theories, and reexamined the proportion of various acetanilide metabolites in human urine. Finding that p-aminophenol conjugates were excreted, they refuted the earlier theories that the accumulation of this substance in the body was causing methemoglobinemia. Of far greater impact was the second paper in this series, showing that paracetamol was a metabolite of acetanilide in the blood. The third paper in the series reported that even large amounts of paracetamol (up to 4 grams per kg of body weight) did not produce methemoglobinemia in albino rats. This observation, together with later studies conducted by Bernard Brodie and Julius Axelrod led to the rediscovery of paracetamol as a drug. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21288848 | 2,120,472 |
785,815 | John Whitney, Sr (1917–1995) was an American animator, composer and inventor, widely considered to be one of the fathers of computer animation. In the 1940s and 1950s, he and his brother James created a series of experimental films made with a custom-built device based on old anti-aircraft analog computers (Kerrison Predictors) connected by servos to control the motion of lights and lit objects – the first example of motion control photography. One of Whitney's best known works from this early period was the animated title sequence from Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 film "Vertigo", which he collaborated on with graphic designer Saul Bass. In 1960, Whitney established his company Motion Graphics Inc, which largely focused on producing titles for film and television, while continuing further experimental works. In 1968, his pioneering motion control model photography was used on Stanley Kubrick's film "", and also for the slit-scan photography technique used in the film's "Star Gate" finale. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30797574 | 785,392 |
282,419 | While the R-4 was being used for rescues in Burma and China, it was also being used to ferry parts between floating Aviation Repair Units (part of Operation Ivory Soap) in the South Pacific. On 23 May 1944, six ships set sail with two R-4s on board each vessel. The ships had been configured as floating repair depots for damaged Army Air Forces aircraft in the South Pacific. When the helicopters were not being used to fly the parts from one location to another, they were enlisted for medical evacuation and other mercy missions. Helicopter pilot 2LT Louis Carle was assigned to the "Brigadier General Clinton W. Russell", the Fifth Aircraft Repair Unit. From June 15 to July 29, 1945, Carle and five other pilots evacuated 75 to 80 wounded soldiers, one or two at a time, from the highlands northeast of Manila. They were the second group of helicopter pilots after Lieutenant Carter Harman to evacuate wounded via helicopter during World War II. Unlike Harman, they were targeted by Japanese soldiers who tried to shoot them down with machine guns. Their six-week effort constitutes the largest combat helicopter operation before the Korean War. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2698246 | 282,266 |
2,070,981 | The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1582, did not begin to teach medical topics until the early 18th century, with the appointment of Robert Eliot as Professor of Anatomy. John Monro, an Edinburgh surgeon, who had obtained his medical degree at Leiden University in Holland, returned to Edinburgh with a view to setting up a medical school within the university and with an associated teaching hospital on the Leiden model. With the local support of Lord Provost George Drummond, and national support from the Earl of Ilay, Monro saw his ambition fulfilled starting with the appointment of his son, Alexander Monro "primus", as Professor of Anatomy in 1719. Monro at first taught extra-murally at Surgeons Hall moving his classes to the university in 1725. The appointment of Leiden medical graduates Drs John Innes, Andrew Plummer, John Rutherford and Andrew Sinclair as university professors in 1726 marked the foundation of the university medical school, which was soon teaching a broad medical curriculum and conferred medical degrees by examination. Until this time the only way to obtain a medical degree in the British Isles was from the Universities of Oxford or Cambridge. Under the terms of the Test Acts these were only open to communicant members of the Church of England. Courses could take up to 12 years and did not include hospital clinical teaching. The Edinburgh medical school was open to all faiths, lectures were in English and it was cheaper than European universities or Oxford or Cambridge. These combined to make Edinburgh popular for those seeking a medical degree, who came initially from within the British Isles but increasingly from the then British Empire. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=64564201 | 2,069,790 |
1,590,330 | They looked at sites in the vicinity of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, Hanford and Mansfield, Washington, the Deschutes and John Day River Valleys in Oregon and Pit River in California, and Blythe and Needles on the Colorado River in California. They wrote up their report on the plane back to Washington, DC. On 1 January 1943, Matthias called Groves from Portland, Oregon, and reported that the Hanford site was "far more favorable in virtually all respects than any other". The survey party noted an abundance of aggregate, which could be used to make concrete, and that the ground appeared firm enough to hold the weight of massive structures, an assessment that would be confirmed by Army and United States Geological Survey engineers. The survey party was particularly impressed by the presence of a high-voltage power line from Grand Coulee Dam to Bonneville Dam that ran through the site, with an electrical substation on its edge. Groves visited the site on 16 January 1943, and approved the selection. It was officially designated the Hanford Engineer Works, and the site codenamed "Site W". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=72002318 | 1,589,436 |
1,224,964 | Another study looked at content analysis of personal journals from ten ISS astronauts that were oriented around a number of issues that had behavioral implications. Findings included that 88% of the entries dealt with the following categories: Work, Outside Communications, Adjustment, Group Interaction, Recreation/Leisure, Equipment, Events, Organization/Management, Sleep, and Food. In general, the crew members reported that their life in space was not as difficult as they expected prior to launch, despite a 20% increase in interpersonal problems during the second half of the missions. It was recommended that future crew members be allowed to control their individual schedules as much as possible. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=40399131 | 1,224,304 |
1,075,153 | Since 1997, the excavators have located more than 5,500 human skeletal remains deposited during the Middle Pleistocene period, at least 350,000 years old, which represent 28 individuals of "Homo heidelbergensis" (also classified as early Neanderthals). Associated finds include "Ursus deningeri" fossils and a hand axe called "Excalibur". It has received a surprisingly high degree of attention, and a number of experts support the hypothesis that this particular Acheulean tool made of red quartzite seems to have served as a ritual offering, most likely for a funeral. The idea sparked a renewal of the disputed evolutionary progress and the stages of human cognitive, intellectual and conceptual development. Ninety percent of the known "Homo heidelbergensis" fossil record have been obtained at the site. The fossil bone pit includes: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=61316746 | 1,074,599 |
773,757 | This may seem surprising in the light of Botvinnik's results in the 1950s and early 1960s, when he failed to win a world championship match outright (as reigning champion) and his tournament results were patchy. But after the FIDE world championship cycle was established in 1948, reigning champions had to play the strongest contender every three years, and successful title defenses became less common than in the pre-World War II years, when the titleholder could select his challenger. Despite this, Botvinnik held the world title for a longer period than any of his successors except Garry Kasparov. Botvinnik also became world champion at the relatively late age of 37, because World War II brought international competition to a virtual halt for six years; and he was 52 years old when he finally lost his title (only Wilhelm Steinitz and Emanuel Lasker were older when they were defeated). Botvinnik's best years were from 1935 to 1946; during that period he dominated Soviet chess; and the USSR's 15½–4½ win in the 1945 radio match against the USA proved that the USSR's top players were considerably better than the USA's (who had dominated international team competitions in the 1930s). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=242416 | 773,341 |
936,387 | Buddhist texts promote the building of public works which benefit the community and stories of Buddhist Kings like Ashoka are used as an example of lay people who promoted the public welfare by building hospitals and parks for the people. The Buddha's chief lay disciple, the rich merchant Anathapindika (‘Feeder of the Poor’) is also another example of a virtuous layperson who donated much of his wealth for the benefit of others and was thus known as the "foremost disciple in generosity". Early Buddhist texts do not disparage merchants and trade, but instead promote enterprise as long as it is done ethically and leads to the well-being of the community. The gold standard for rulers in Buddhism is the ideal wheel turning king, the Chakravartin. A Chakravartin is said to rule justly, giving to the needy and combating poverty so as to prevent social unrest. A Chakravartin does not fight wars for gain but only in defense of the kingdom, he accepts immigrants and refugees, and builds hospitals, parks, hostels, wells, canals and rest houses for the people and animals. Mahayana Buddhism maintains that lay Bodhisattvas should engage in social welfare activities for the good and safety of others. In the lands of Southern Buddhism, Buddhist monasteries often became places were the poor, destitute, orphaned, elderly can take shelter. Monasteries often provided education and took care of the sick, and therefore are also centers of social welfare for the poor. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4746907 | 935,892 |
1,031,083 | There are considerable advantages to using this method over the basic clinometer and tape tangent method. Using this methodology, it no longer matters if the top of the tree is offset from the base of the tree, eliminating one major source of error present in the tangent method. A second benefit of the laser rangefinder technology is that the laser can be used to scan the upper portions of the tree to find which top is actually the true top of the tree. As a general rule, if there are several readings from different tops of the tree at or near the same inclination, the one that is the farthest in distance represents the tallest top of the group. This ability to scan for the highest point helps eliminate the second major source of error caused by misidentifying a forward leaning branch or the wrong top. Additionally, aside from gross errors resulting from misreading the instrument, the results will not overstate the height of the tree. The height can still be under-measured if the true top of the tree is not correctly identified. The sine top/sine bottom method allows the height of trees to be measured that are entirely above or below the eye level of the surveyor as well as on level ground. A tree can also be measured in segments where the top and bottom of the tree are not both visible from a single location. A single height measurement takes only a matter of a few minutes using separate laser rangefinder and clinometer or less when using instruments with a built in electronic clinometer. The measurements made using these techniques, through averaging multiple shots, are typically within a foot or less of climber deployed tape measurements. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=39003927 | 1,030,547 |
863,932 | A water management plan will also require a significant amount of sample data and analysis to determine proper drain segregation, application of online analytical measurement, diversions control, and final treatment technology. Collecting these samples and performing laboratory analysis can help characterize the various waste streams and determine the potential of their respective re-use. In the case of UPW process rinse water the lab analysis data can then be used to profile typical and non-typical levels of contamination which then can be used to design the rinse water treatment system. In general it is most cost effective to design the system to treat the typical level of contamination that may occur 80-90% of the time, then incorporate on-line sensors and controls to divert the rinse water to industrial waste or to non-critical use such as cooling towers when the contamination level exceeds the capability of the treatment system. By incorporating all these aspects of a water management plan in a semiconductor manufacturing site the level of water use can be reduced by as much as 90%. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=31050418 | 863,472 |
935,785 | This conclusion on human unity was supported by monogenism, including John Bachman's evidence that intercrossed human races were fully fertile. Proponents of polygenism opposed unity, but the gradual transition from one race to another confused them when they tried to decide how many human races should count as species: Louis Agassiz said eight, but Morton said twenty-two. Darwin commented that the "question whether mankind consists of one or several species has of late years been much agitated by anthropologists, who are divided into two schools of monogenists and polygenists." The latter had to "look at species either as separate creations or as in some manner distinct entities" but those accepting evolution "will feel no doubt that all the races of man are descended from a single primitive stock". Although races differed considerably, they also shared so many features "that it is extremely improbable that they should have been independently acquired by aboriginally distinct species or races." He drew on his memories of Jemmy Button and John Edmonstone to emphasise "the numerous points of mental similarity between the most distinct races of man. The American aborigines, Negroes and Europeans differ as much from each other in mind as any three races that can be named; yet I was incessantly struck, whilst living with the Fuegians on board the "Beagle," with the many little traits of character, shewing how similar their minds were to ours; and so it was with a full-blooded negro with whom I happened once to be intimate." Darwin concluded that "...when the principles of evolution are generally accepted, as they surely will be before long, the dispute between the monogenists and the polygenists will die a silent and unobserved death." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=521511 | 935,291 |
129,513 | The first genomic sequence for a representative of symbiotic fungi, the ectomycorrhizal basidiomycete "L. bicolor", was published in 2008. An expansion of several multigene families occurred in this fungus, suggesting that adaptation to symbiosis proceeded by gene duplication. Within lineage-specific genes those coding for symbiosis-regulated secreted proteins showed an up-regulated expression in ectomycorrhizal root tips suggesting a role in the partner communication. "L. bicolor" is lacking enzymes involved in the degradation of plant cell wall components (cellulose, hemicellulose, pectins and pectates), preventing the symbiont from degrading host cells during the root colonisation. By contrast, "L. bicolor" possesses expanded multigene families associated with hydrolysis of bacterial and microfauna polysaccharides and proteins. This genome analysis revealed the dual saprotrophic and biotrophic lifestyle of the mycorrhizal fungus that enables it to grow within both soil and living plant roots. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=59358 | 129,461 |
1,350,620 | Protein secondary structure prediction is a main focus of this subfield as tertiary and quartenary structures are determined based on the secondary structure. Solving the true structure of a protein is expensive and time-intensive, furthering the need for systems that can accurately predict the structure of a protein by analyzing the amino acid sequence directly. Prior to machine learning, researchers needed to conduct this prediction manually. This trend began in 1951 when Pauling and Corey released their work on predicting the hydrogen bond configurations of a protein from a polypeptide chain. Automatic feature learning reaches an accuracy of 82-84%. The current state-of-the-art in secondary structure prediction uses a system called DeepCNF (deep convolutional neural fields) which relies on the machine learning model of artificial neural networks to achieve an accuracy of approximately 84% when tasked to classify the amino acids of a protein sequence into one of three structural classes (helix, sheet, or coil). The theoretical limit for three-state protein secondary structure is 88–90%. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=53970843 | 1,349,874 |
1,861,007 | In the case of step-growth polymerisation of monomers carrying functional groups of the same type (so called formula_4 polymerisation) the degree distribution is given by: formula_5 where formula_6 is bond conversion, formula_7 is the average functionality, and formula_8 is the initial fractions of monomers of functionality formula_9. In the later expression unit reaction rate is assumed without loss of generality. According to the theory, the system is in the gel state when formula_10, where the gelation conversion is formula_11. Analytical expression for average molecular weight and molar mass distribution are known too. When more complex reaction kinetics are involved, for example chemical substitution, side reactions or degradation, one may still apply the theory by computing formula_12 using numerical integration. In which case, formula_13 signifies that the system is in the gel state at time t (or in the sol state when the inequality sign is flipped). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=66846197 | 1,859,938 |
1,859,777 | With the display unit mounted in a steel cabinet, the system used two sets of five photo-sensitive cells within the detection head to record the intense flash of light produced by the detonation of the weapon followed, within a second, by a second intense flash. This double flash is characteristic of a nuclear explosion and measurement of the short gap between the two flashes enabled the weapon's power to be estimated, and the bearing to be indicated. It had a range of 150 miles (240 km) in good visibility. From 1974 AWDREY units were used together with a device known as DIADEM (Direction Indicator of Atomic Detonation by Electronic Means) which measured the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) generated by an explosion. The instruments were in constant operation (state of readiness) between 1968 and 1992 and tested daily by full-time ROC officers. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=18891898 | 1,858,709 |
1,947,044 | For the first time since 1989 there was not a #1 or #2 seed team in the championship game. Butler is only the second #8 seed to make it the championship game when Villanova took down top seeded Georgetown 66-64. The 2011 National Championship game was between Butler, a mid-major university team that was a surprise finalist in the 2010 tournament, and The University of Connecticut, a basketball powerhouse which had previously won the tournament twice under coach Jim Calhoun but had an average regular season finishing 9th in the Big East Conference before winning The Big East Tournament with five wins in five consecutive days (never before accomplished in NCAA history). The championship game was won by Connecticut 53–41. It was a very defensive contest, with Butler having the fewest points in a championship game since 1949. Butler led at halftime 22–19, but suffered in the second half from poor shooting, making only 6 out of 37 shots in the second half. Butler's 18.8 percent shooting for the entire game was the lowest ever in the NCAA final. Connecticut contributed to Butler's poor shooting by blocking 10 shots, also a championship game record. Butler was led in scoring by junior guard Shelvin Mack with 13 points, while UConn freshman Jeremy Lamb scored 12 points in the 2nd half. The win by Connecticut completed a season-ending 11-game win streak that began with the Big East Tournament. The game was widely viewed as a poor quality final. In reference to the game's first half of play, CBS analyst Greg Anthony said, "This is the worst half of basketball I've ever seen in a national championship game.” | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=42429782 | 1,945,931 |
308,488 | The U.S. Navy counterforce sank all four Japanese carriers while losing one of its own, "Yorktown". The repulse of the Japanese invasion fleet at Midway, and critically the destruction of the "Kido Butai", allowed the U.S. to gain parity in the naval air war. In 1949, naval historian Samuel Eliot Morison noted that Spruance was subjected to criticism for not pursuing the retreating Japanese and allowing the surface fleet to escape. But in summing up Spruance's performance in the battle, Morison wrote: "Fletcher did well, but Spruance's performance was superb. Calm, collected, decisive, yet receptive to advice; keeping in his mind the picture of widely disparate forces, yet boldly seizing every opening. Raymond A. Spruance emerged from the battle one of the greatest admirals in American naval history". For his actions at the battle of Midway Rear Admiral Spruance was awarded the Navy Distinguished Service Medal and cited as follows: "For exceptionally meritorious service ... as Task Force Commander, United States Pacific Fleet. During the Midway engagement which resulted in the defeat of and heavy losses to the enemy fleet, his seamanship, endurance, and tenacity in handling his task force were of the highest quality." Both Fletcher and Nimitz recommended Spruance for the Distinguished Service Medal for his role in the battle. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=234106 | 308,323 |
626,463 | The crystallization vessels used are autoclaves. These are usually thick-walled steel cylinders with a hermetic seal which must withstand high temperatures and pressures for prolonged periods of time. Furthermore, the autoclave material must be inert with respect to the solvent. The closure is the most important element of the autoclave. Many designs have been developed for seals, the most famous being the Bridgman seal. In most cases, steel-corroding solutions are used in hydrothermal experiments. To prevent corrosion of the internal cavity of the autoclave, protective inserts are generally used. These may have the same shape as the autoclave and fit in the internal cavity (contact-type insert), or be "floating" type inserts which occupy only part of the autoclave interior. Inserts may be made of carbon-free iron, copper, silver, gold, platinum, titanium, glass (or quartz), or Teflon, depending on the temperature and solution used. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=7987481 | 626,130 |
515,781 | Procellariids begin to attend their nesting colony around one month prior to laying. Males will arrive first and attend the colony more frequently than females, partly in order to protect a site or burrow from potential competitors. Prior to laying there is a period known as the pre-laying exodus in which both the male and female are away from the colony, building up reserves in order to lay and undertake the first incubation stint respectively. This pre-laying exodus can vary in length from 9 days (as in the Cape petrel) to around 50 days in Atlantic petrels. All procellariids lay a single white egg per pair per breeding season, in common with the rest of the Procellariiformes. The egg is large compared to that of other birds, weighing 6–24% of the female's weight. Immediately after laying the female goes back to sea to feed while the male takes over incubation. Incubation duties are shared by both sexes in shifts that vary in length between species, individuals and the stage of incubation. The longest recorded shift was 29 days by a Murphy's petrel from Henderson Island; the typical length of a gadfly petrel stint is between 13 and 19 days. Fulmarine petrels, shearwaters and prions tend to have shorter stints, averaging between 3 and 13 days. Incubation takes a long time, from 40 days for the smaller species (such as prions) to around 55 days for the larger species. The incubation period is longer if eggs are abandoned temporarily; procellariid eggs are resistant to chilling and can still hatch after being left unattended for a few days. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=224443 | 515,512 |
1,434,417 | Later in 1982, the United States Department of Defense (DoD) used "proactive" as a contrary concept to "reactive" in assessing risk. In the framework of risk management "proactive" meant taking initiative by acting rather than reacting to threat events. Conversely "reactive" measures respond to a stimulus or past events rather than predicting the event. Military science considers defence as the science-art of thwarting an attack. Furthermore, doctrine poses that if a party attacks an enemy who is about to attack this could be called active-defence. Defence is also a euphemism for war but does not carry the negative connotation of an offensive war. Usage in this way has broadened the concept of proactive defence to include most military issues including offensive, which is implicitly referred to as active-defence. Politically, the concept of national self-defence to counter a war of aggression refers to a defensive war involving pre-emptive offensive strikes and is one possible criterion in the 'Just War Theory'. Proactive defence has moved beyond theory, and it has been put into practice in theatres of operation. In 1989 Stephen Covey's study transformed the meaning of proactive as "to act before a situation becomes a source of confrontation or crisis". Since then, "proactive" has been placed in opposition to the words "reactive" or "passive". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=18248534 | 1,433,613 |
251,841 | The .45 Professional was ruled out because, in an interview with industry press, the developer of said cartridge stated that steel proprietary to General Motors was used in the bolts and extractor to withstand the high operating pressures. The .50 AE and .499 LWR were ruled out because in 2000 only two bullets were offered in .501 diameter, both developed as pistol bullets for the .50 AE and not heavy enough for the subsonic suppressed role. Research had indicated that a short belted cartridge called the .458 × 1.5" Barnes had been adopted for use in suppressed bolt-action rifles for use in South East Asia during the Vietnam War. It was shown as effective in terms of ballistics, firing a 500-grain bullet subsonically, but not ideally suited for its role due to the size and weight of the platform. Combined with the wide selection of bullets available in .458 diameter, this cemented the choice of caliber. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11119859 | 251,708 |
768,567 | Also in 1972, a group of glacial-epoch experts at a conference agreed that "the natural end of our warm epoch is undoubtedly near"; but the volume of Quaternary Research reporting on the meeting said that "the basic conclusion to be drawn from the discussions in this section is that the knowledge necessary for understanding the mechanism of climate change is still lamentably inadequate". George Kukla and Robert Matthews, in a "Science" write-up of a conference, asked when and how the current interglacial would end; concluding that, unless there were impacts from future human activity, "Global cooling and related rapid changes of environment, substantially exceeding the fluctuations experienced by man in historical times, must be expected within the next few millennia or even centuries", but many other scientists doubted these conclusions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=295445 | 768,155 |
1,564,936 | The first twelve missiles were built at Redstone Arsenal. Assembly of the first Redstone began in the fall of 1952. Engineers needed a propulsion test stand to improve the missile, but they were not allowed to spend research and development funds on constructing facilities even for a cause vital to national security. Rather than wait for funding to go through the two-year Congressional appropriation process, then wait further for construction, Fritz A. Vandersee designed an interim test stand for $25,000, the maximum amount allowed. The large concrete foundation cost nearly all of the money. On this base, welders built a small stand with metal salvaged from around the arsenal. Three railroad tank cars that had been used to transport chemicals at the arsenal during the war were cleaned, modified, and buried away to serve as control and observation bunkers. To view the firings, the tanks also contain two periscopes believed to have been from two surplus Army tanks. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=13921852 | 1,564,049 |
391,018 | On August 5, Steveson competed at the first date of the men's freestyle 125 kg event, where he outscored his three high-level opponents with a combined perfect score of 23–0 to secure himself a medal and advance to the finals, demolishing '15 Asian Champion Aiaal Lazarev from Kyrgyzstan, defending Olympic champion and multiple-time World Champion Taha Akgül from Turkey and '19 U23 World medalist Mönkhtöriin Lkhagvagerel from Mongolia. After stunning the field on his way to the finale, he faced three-time and reigning World Champion Geno Petriashvili from Georgia. Onto the second period, Steveson was up 4–0 with two takedowns, though the Georgian scored two points of his own to Steveson's one to make it 5–2, before truly turning the tables and scoring a takedown and two gut-wrenches for six points (5–8) with a minute and a half left. With ten seconds left, Steveson scored a takedown to make it 7–8, and still trailing behind by a point, he rallied and got another takedown with half a second left to top the World Champion with a 9–8 score. After a failed challenge by Petriashvili's corner, Steveson earned the 2020 Summer Olympic Games gold medal with a hard-fought 10–8 score over the Georgian. With this new championship, Steveson became the first American super-heavyweight to win freestyle Olympic gold since Bruce Baumgartner in 1992. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=64533280 | 390,823 |
1,407,109 | But the main significance of these early publications was the focus on analytics and the suggestive power of the approach. Much of the field and public attention was focused on the race between the publicly funded Human Genome Project (HGP) and the private company Celera to generate the complete sequence of a single whole genome to use as a reference for future research. This was a technical challenge to generate and assemble raw data. By contrast, deCODE was advancing a strategy for analyzing variation in tens of thousands of genomes through genetics, leveraging the nature of the genome as a means of replicating and transmitting information. The power of the genetics was on full view by 2002, when deCODE published a genetic map of the genome consisting of 5000 microsatellite markers, which the genealogies made it possible to order correctly across all the chromosomes. The map was critical to correcting and completing the public reference genome sequence in 2003, improving the accuracy of the HGP assembly from 93% to 99%. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1494572 | 1,406,319 |
1,287,724 | Suppose we are concerned no longer with compact objects, but with objects which are spatially extended: lines on the plane or flats in 3-space. This leads to consideration of line processes, and of processes of flats or hyper-flats. There can no longer be a preferred spatial location for each object; however the theory may be mapped back into point process theory by representing each object by a point in a suitable representation space. For example, in the case of directed lines in the plane one may take the representation space to be a cylinder. A complication is that the Euclidean motion symmetries will then be expressed on the representation space in a somewhat unusual way. Moreover, calculations need to take account of interesting spatial biases (for example, line segments are less likely to be hit by random lines to which they are nearly parallel) and this provides an interesting and significant connection to the hugely significant area of stereology, which in some respects can be viewed as yet another theme of stochastic geometry. It is often the case that calculations are best carried out in terms of bundles of lines hitting various test-sets, rather than by working in representation space. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=22037813 | 1,287,023 |
1,133,164 | Whereas PCFGs have proved powerful tools for predicting RNA secondary structure, usage in the field of protein sequence analysis has been limited. Indeed, the size of the amino acid alphabet and the variety of interactions seen in proteins make grammar inference much more challenging. As a consequence, most applications of formal language theory to protein analysis have been mainly restricted to the production of grammars of lower expressive power to model simple functional patterns based on local interactions. Since protein structures commonly display higher-order dependencies including nested and crossing relationships, they clearly exceed the capabilities of any CFG. Still, development of PCFGs allows expressing some of those dependencies and providing the ability to model a wider range of protein patterns. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=299329 | 1,132,571 |
1,480,498 | A field study was conducted by Anderson et al. on June 18, 1987 using a canine diagnosed with granulocytic ehrlichiosis: an infection of the granulocytes by a member of the "Ehrlichia" sp. The blood from this canine was infused in another specimen to ensure the blood transmission of the intracellular parasite. This transmission was then completed using ticks of the species "Amblyomma americanum" by exposing them to infected dogs and then to susceptible ones. From blood samples, 16S rRNA genes were amplified using standard polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and the genes were analyzed using gel electrophoresis and a GAP (Genetic Analysis Program) system. This data was compared to all other "Ehrlichia" species, and Anderson et al. found that CGE is most closely related to "E. chaffeensis" and "E. canis." These three—"E. ewingii, E. chaffeensis," and "E. canis—"form a group in terms of relatedness within the genus "Ehrlichia". Despite being related, due to the level of divergence between CGE and the other species, it has been determined that CGE deserves to have species level recognition. The name was proposed to be "Ehrlichia ewingii", named after S.A. Ewing who initially identified the parasitic organism. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=18598955 | 1,479,664 |
1,466,759 | In October 2005, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued interim guidelines for patent examiners to determine if a given claimed invention meets the statutory requirements of being a useful process, manufacture, composition of matter or machine (). These guidelines assert that a process, including a process for doing business, must produce a concrete, useful and tangible result to be patentable. It does not matter whether the process is within the traditional technological arts or not. A price for a financial product, for example, is considered to be a concrete useful and tangible result (see "State Street Bank v. Signature Financial Group"). However, on August 24, 2009, the USPTO issued new interim guidelines so that examination would comport with the Federal Circuit opinion in In re Bilski, which held that the "useful, concrete, and tangible" test for patent-eligibility is incorrect and that "State Street Bank v. Signature Financial Group" is no longer valid legal authority on this point. Instead, the Federal Circuit and the new USPTO guidelines use a machine-or-transformation test to determine patentability for processes. The Supreme Court determined that the claims in the Bilski case covered non-statutory subject matter as it was too abstract and broad. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2304859 | 1,465,936 |
901,151 | The refrigerator was less efficient than existing appliances, although having no moving parts made it more reliable; the introduction of non-toxic Freon — later found to be responsible for serious depletion of the Earth's ozone layer — to replace toxic refrigerant gases made it even less attractive commercially. The Great Depression of 1929 dried up funding for development, and the widespread political violence in Nazi Germany, where the inventors lived, particularly towards Jews such as Einstein and Szilard, contributed to the device's lack of commercial success. (The inventors fled Germany in the early 1930s.) It was not immediately put into commercial production, although the most promising of the patents were quickly bought up by the Swedish company Electrolux. Einstein and Szilárd earned $750 (the equivalent of $10,000 in 2017). A few demonstration units were constructed from other patents. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=599941 | 900,675 |
2,178,373 | Critical embankment velocity is the velocity value of the upper moving vehicle that causes the severe vibration of the embankment and the nearby ground, which is also referred to as the critical speed shortly in the transportation engineering community. This concept and the prediction method was put forward by scholars in civil engineering communities before 1980 and stressed and exhaustively studied by Krylov in 1994 based on the Green function method and predicted more accurately using other methods in the following. When the vehicles such as high-speed trains or airplanes move approaching or beyond this critical velocity (firstly regarded as the Rayleigh wave speed and later obtained by sophisticated calculation or tests), the vibration magnitudes of vehicles and nearby ground increase rapidly and possibly lead to the damage to the passenagers and the neighboring residents. This relevant unexpected phenomenon is called the ground vibration boom from 1997 when it was observed in Sweden for the first time. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=71200412 | 2,177,128 |
1,037,848 | Large amounts of water ice are believed to be present in the Martian subsurface. The interaction of ice with molten rock can produce distinct landforms. On Earth, when hot volcanic material comes into contact with surface ice, large amounts of liquid water and mud may form that flow catastrophically down slope as massive debris flows (lahars). Some channels in Martian volcanic areas, such as Hrad Vallis near Elysium Mons, may have been similarly carved or modified by lahars. Lava flowing over water-saturated ground can cause the water to erupt violently in an explosion of steam (see phreatic eruption), producing small volcano-like landforms called pseudocraters, or rootless cones. Features that resemble terrestrial rootless cones occur in Elysium, Amazonis, and Isidis and Chryse Planitiae. Also, phreatomagmatism produce tuff rings or tuff cones on Earth and existence of similar landforms on Mars is expected too. Their existence was suggested from Nepenthes/Amenthes region. Finally, when a volcano erupts under an ice sheet, it can form a distinct, mesa-like landform called a tuya or table mountain. Some researchers cite geomorphic evidence that many of the layered interior deposits in Valles Marineris may be the Martian equivalent of tuyas. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20386565 | 1,037,307 |
49,455 | The relationship between sex differences in the brain and human behavior is a subject of controversy in psychology and society at large. Many females tend to have a higher ratio of gray matter in the left hemisphere of the brain in comparison to males. Males on average have larger brains than females; however, when adjusted for total brain volume the gray matter differences between sexes is almost nonexistent. Thus, the percentage of gray matter appears to be more related to brain size than it is to sex. Differences in brain physiology between sexes do not necessarily relate to differences in intellect. Haier "et al." found in a 2004 study that "men and women apparently achieve similar IQ results with different brain regions, suggesting that there is no singular underlying neuroanatomical structure to general intelligence and that different types of brain designs may manifest equivalent intellectual performance". (See the sex and intelligence article for more on this subject.) Strict graph-theoretical analysis of the human brain connections revealed that in numerous graph-theoretical parameters (e.g., minimum bipartition width, edge number, the expander graph property, minimum vertex cover), the structural connectome of women are significantly "better" connected than the connectome of men. It was shown that the graph-theoretical differences are due to the sex and not to the differences in the cerebral volume, by analyzing the data of 36 females and 36 males, where the brain volume of each man in the group was smaller than the brain volume of each woman in the group. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=197179 | 49,435 |
10,535 | It was originally developed during the 1980s as an enlarged derivative of the Antonov An-124 airlifter for the express purpose of transporting "Buran"-class orbiters. On 21 December 1988, the An-225 performed its maiden flight; only a single example was ever completed, although a second airframe with a slightly different configuration was partially built. After a brief period of use supporting the Soviet space program, the aircraft was mothballed during the early 1990s. Towards the turn of the century, it was decided to refurbish the An-225 and reintroduced it for commercial operations, carrying oversized payloads for the operator Antonov Airlines. Multiple announcements were made regarding the potential completion of the second airframe, however its construction has largely remained on hold due to a lack of funding. By 2009, it had reportedly been brought up to 60–70% completion. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=406245 | 10,530 |
492,581 | On the one hand, "causality" is a notion implying the most general idea of "actual scientific knowledge" which guides and stimulates each investigation. In this sense, Kepler already embarked in his MC on a causal investigation by asking for the cause of the number, the sizes and the "motions" (the speeds) of the heavenly spheres. On the other hand, "causality" implies in Kepler, according to the Aristotelian conception of physical science, the concrete "physical cause", the efficient cause which produces a motion or is responsible for keeping the body in motion. Original to Kepler, however, and typical of his approach is the resoluteness with which he was convinced that the problem of equipollence of the astronomical hypotheses can be resolved and the consequent introduction of the concept of causality into astronomy—traditionally a mathematical science. This approach is already present in his MC, where he, for instance, relates for the first time the distances of the planets to a power which emerges from the Sun and decreases in proportion to the distance of each planet, up to the sphere of the fixed stars. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3194945 | 492,326 |
1,430,487 | In 1990, 1994, and 1998, archaeologists investigated, using airborne remote sensing studies and limited excavation, a vintage hangar of the Huffman Prairie Flying Field Site at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. The investigations were “designed to provide information needed for site management by Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park of the National Park Service. The geophysical and remote sensing investigations revealed magnetic, electromagnetic, and ground penetrating radar anomalies and infrared thermal images associated with the hangar structure. The archaeological excavations located an in situ wood post, posthole features, and artifacts which represent archaeological remains of the actual hangar”. Huffman Prairie Flying Field is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2984169 | 1,429,683 |
654,222 | 1993 – Kozhikode, India – (November – December) – Top seed in the Boys / Open event, Matthew Sadler of England, led with the Czech Republic's Vlastimil Babula for much of the tournament. With both players facing top quality opposition each round, the pressure finally became too great and both failed at the final hurdle in their quest for the gold medal. Sadler also suffered from serious and frequent time trouble. This strong event contained many players who went on to become top-flight grandmasters; Alexander Onischuk, Christian Gabriel, Vladislav Tkachiev and Peter-Heine Nielsen were just four of the strong finishers not amongst the medals. Swede Jonas Barkhagen also played some enterprising chess, but was just unable to keep up with the leading group. In the Girls event, Armenian Elina Danielian, Krystina Dabrowska of Poland and Adrienn Csőke of Hungary were among those challenging for the medals. FIDE President Florencio Campomanes attended the closing ceremony and announced a new directive that assured future winners of the Boys / Open event an automatic Grandmaster title. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=294931 | 653,878 |
1,074,202 | Samples of water from the natural environment are routinely taken and analysed as part of a pre-determined monitoring programme by regulatory authorities to ensure that waters remain unpolluted, or if polluted, that the levels of pollution are not increasing or are falling in line with an agreed remediation plan. An example of such a scheme is the harmonised monitoring scheme operated on all the major river systems in the UK. The parameters analysed will be highly dependent on nature of the local environment and/or the polluting sources in the area. In many cases the parameters will reflect the national and local water quality standards determined by law or other regulations. Typical parameters for ensuring that unpolluted surface waters remain within acceptable chemical standards include pH, major cations and anions including ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, phosphate, conductivity, phenol, chemical oxygen demand (COD) and biochemical oxygen demand (BOD). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25213120 | 1,073,648 |
18,948 | Aluminium forms one stable oxide with the chemical formula AlO, commonly called alumina. It can be found in nature in the mineral corundum, α-alumina; there is also a γ-alumina phase. Its crystalline form, corundum, is very hard (Mohs hardness 9), has a high melting point of , has very low volatility, is chemically inert, and a good electrical insulator, it is often used in abrasives (such as toothpaste), as a refractory material, and in ceramics, as well as being the starting material for the electrolytic production of aluminium metal. Sapphire and ruby are impure corundum contaminated with trace amounts of other metals. The two main oxide-hydroxides, AlO(OH), are boehmite and diaspore. There are three main trihydroxides: bayerite, gibbsite, and nordstrandite, which differ in their crystalline structure (polymorphs). Many other intermediate and related structures are also known. Most are produced from ores by a variety of wet processes using acid and base. Heating the hydroxides leads to formation of corundum. These materials are of central importance to the production of aluminium and are themselves extremely useful. Some mixed oxide phases are also very useful, such as spinel (MgAlO), Na-β-alumina (NaAlO), and tricalcium aluminate (CaAlO, an important mineral phase in Portland cement). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=904 | 18,940 |
2,055,696 | A dedicated GIS team is responsible for "managing the overall spatial information needs" of the project, starting with the drawing of a common base map with which to support the city's infrastructure. Without a spatial plan of Masdar's operative mechanisms, the city will fail to deliver its grand ambition. In particular, GIS is being used to visualize, analyse and model "land-use" in the city. Masdar – unlike any other city – has to incorporate a wealth of energy-related facilities within its perimeter. As EJ activists are all too aware, the siting of such facilities can be a key area of conflict. Masdar's water treatment and sewage plants, material recycling centre, solar power plant, geothermal test site, solar panel test field and concrete batching plant all need to be situated inside the city's boundaries. As CH2M Hill's Site Control and GIS Manager for the Masdar project confirms; "never have so many environmental facilities come together in one place". GIS is the central tool with which to imagine – in a digital environment – different siting scenarios. In this case, GIS is seen to operate as a decision-making tool; informing the practitioners who work on the Masdar project. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=31783151 | 2,054,513 |
1,145,558 | The challenge with Kibble balances is not only in reducing their uncertainty, but also in making them truly "practical" realisations of the kilogram. Nearly every aspect of Kibble balances and their support equipment requires such extraordinarily precise and accurate, state-of-the-art technology that—unlike a device like an atomic clock—few countries would currently choose to fund their operation. For instance, the NIST's Kibble balance used four resistance standards in 2007, each of which was rotated through the Kibble balance every two to six weeks after being calibrated in a different part of NIST headquarters facility in Gaithersburg, Maryland. It was found that simply moving the resistance standards down the hall to the Kibble balance after calibration altered their values 10ppb (equivalent to 10μg) or more. Present-day technology is insufficient to permit stable operation of Kibble balances between even biannual calibrations. When the new definition takes effect, it is likely there will only be a few—at most—Kibble balances initially operating in the world. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=61149311 | 1,144,957 |
2,020,121 | Robert M. Seyfarth was born on February 16, 1948. He grew up in Chicago, but enjoyed fishing trips with his father to Canada and the Caribbean. During his senior year at Phillips Exeter Academy, he became interested in science after taking a course on Darwin. In 1970, he graduated from the honors program in Biological Anthropology at Harvard College. Fascinated by wild primates, Seyfarth then applied to work at Cambridge University with Robert Hinde, who had been the thesis advisor of Jane Goodall. Having been accepted by Hinde, Seyfarth then spent two years (1972–1974) in the field studying baboons in Mountain Zebra National Park in South Africa, together with Dorothy Cheney, whom he had recently married. In 1976, Seyfarth received a doctorate from Cambridge. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=59137368 | 2,018,958 |
276,259 | The early 20th century continued the advances of the Industrial Revolution. In The procedural loops required for mechanized textile knitting and weaving already used logic were encoded in punch-cards and tapes. Since the machines were already computers, the invention of small-scale electronics and microcontrollers did not immediately change the possible functions of these machines. In the 1960s, existing machines became outfitted with computerized numeric control (CNC) systems, enabling more accurate and efficient actuation. In 1983, Bonas Machine Company Ltd. presented the first computer-controlled, electronic, Jacquard loom. In 1988, the first US patent was awarded for a "pick and place" robot. Advancements such as these changed the nature of work for machine operators, introducing computer literacy as a skill alongside machine literacy. Advances in sensing technology and data processing of the 20th century include the spectrophotometer for color matching and automatic inspection machines. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8288124 | 276,109 |
1,771,698 | Thelen's works expanded Gerald Edelman's model of development by proposing a broader conceptualization of development. Edelman, in his theory of neuronal development, showed that development occurs in the brain between neuro-networks that overlap and interconnect. The epigenetic process of neural development is grounded in the idea of experience-dependent changes which is development or growth by selectively and simultaneously reinforcing neural pathways. As children, humans are constantly moving and interacting. Visual and kinematic information becomes mapped together in the brain and the pathways are strengthened and retained through every interaction. When the child encounters a novel or new skill, the child takes a similar previously learned motor map and applies it to the new novel skill. As the novel skill develops into a new behavior, it then in turn can be used to help develop future skills. Recurrent activities in the world reinforce this Dynamical systems theory of development and helps explain the constructivist view of the Developmental Systems Theory. Thelen's contribution in this area involves the notion that the nature of physical development is not absolute but flexible. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=33768425 | 1,770,701 |
959,052 | In the automotive industry, research has shown that civilian volunteers decided to participate in vehicle safety research to help automobile designers improve upon safety restraints for vehicles. This research allows designers to gather more data on the tolerance of the human body in the event of an automobile accident, to better improve safety features in automobiles. Some of the tests conducted ranged from sled runs evaluating head–neck injuries, airbag tests, and tests involving military vehicles and their restraint systems. From thousands of tests involving human subjects, results indicate no serious injuries were persistent. This is largely due to the preparation efforts of researchers to ensure all ethical guidelines are followed and to ensure the safety and well-being of their subjects. Although this research provides positive contributions, there are some drawbacks and resistance to human subject research for crash testing due to the liability of injury and the lack of facilities that have appropriate machinery to perform such experiments. Research with live persons provides additional data which might be unobtainable when testing with cadavers or crash test dummies. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=447842 | 958,546 |
795,179 | The most common Passive trackers use a low boiling point compressed gas fluid that is driven to one side or the other (by solar heat creating gas pressure) to cause the tracker to move in response to an imbalance. As this is a non-precision orientation it is unsuitable for certain types of concentrating photovoltaic collectors but works fine for common PV panel types. These will have viscous dampers to prevent excessive motion in response to wind gusts. Shader/reflectors are used to reflect early morning sunlight to "wake up" the panel and tilt it toward the Sun, which can take some hours dependent on shading conditions. The time to do this can be greatly reduced by adding a self-releasing tiedown that positions the panel slightly past the zenith (so that the fluid does not have to overcome gravity) and using the tiedown in the evening. (A slack-pulling spring will prevent release in windy overnight conditions.) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4232526 | 794,754 |
81,537 | For scientific purposes, the main advantage is that this allows measurements at very low and very high temperatures to be made more accurately, as the techniques used depend on the Boltzmann constant. It also has the philosophical advantage of being independent of any particular substance. The unit J/K is equal to kg⋅m⋅s⋅K, where the kilogram, metre and second are defined in terms of the Planck constant, the speed of light, and the duration of the caesium-133 ground-state hyperfine transition respectively. Thus, this definition depends only on universal constants, and not on any physical artifacts as practiced previously. The challenge was to avoid degrading the accuracy of measurements close to the triple point. For practical purposes, the redefinition was unnoticed; water still freezes at 273.15 K (0 °C), and the triple point of water continues to be a commonly used laboratory reference temperature. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19593121 | 81,504 |
2,001,937 | Reviewer James Rauff recommends "Mathematics in India" to all students or teachers of the history of mathematics, calling it "meticulously researched, carefully argued, and beautifully written", and Benno van Dalen goes further, calling it required reading for all future students of this topic. Dominik Wujastyk calls it "path-breaking", "a classic work that should be owned and read by any scholar interested in the history of science in South Asia". Although calling it difficult reading for non-specialists, Ward Stewart suggests that it could also be valuable to high school teachers and that some of its material could be incorporated into their lessons, and although A. K. Bag calls it "mainly meant for the foreign audience", B. Ramanujam writes that it deserves to be better known among Indian schoolteachers in particular. Dominik Wujastyk suggests using it as the basis for university-level courses, and Toke Knudsen highlights its value as reference material for researchers in this area. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=66223516 | 2,000,789 |
622,596 | However, the major advances in early discovery and utilisation of the avalanche gain mechanism were a product of the study of Zener breakdown, related (avalanche) breakdown mechanisms and structural defects in early silicon and germanium transistor and p–n junction devices. These defects were called 'microplasmas' and are critical in the history of APDs and SPADs. Likewise investigation of the light detection properties of p–n junctions is crucial, especially the early 1940s findings of Russel Ohl. Light detection in semiconductors and solids through the internal photoelectric effect is older with Foster Nix pointing to the work of Gudden and Pohl in the 1920s, who use the phrase primary and secondary to distinguish the internal and external photoelectric effects respectively. In the 1950s and 1960s, significant effort was made to reduce the number of microplasma breakdown and noise sources, with artificial microplasmas being fabricated for study. It became clear that the avalanche mechanism could be useful for signal amplification within the diode itself, as both light and alpha particles were used for the study of these devices and breakdown mechanisms. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=972711 | 622,264 |
910,220 | The rotation of the orientation of linearly polarized light was first observed in 1811 in quartz by French physicist François Arago. In 1820, the English astronomer Sir John F.W. Herschel discovered that different individual quartz crystals, whose crystalline structures are mirror images of each other (see illustration), rotate linear polarization by equal amounts but in opposite directions. Jean Baptiste Biot also observed the rotation of the axis of polarization in certain liquids and vapors of organic substances such as turpentine. In 1822, Augustin-Jean Fresnel found that optical rotation could be explained as a species of birefringence: whereas previously known cases of birefringence were due to the different speeds of light polarized in two perpendicular planes, optical rotation was due to the different speeds of right-hand and left-hand circularly polarized light. Simple polarimeters have been used since this time to measure the concentrations of simple sugars, such as glucose, in solution. In fact one name for -glucose (the biological isomer), is "dextrose", referring to the fact that it causes linearly polarized light to rotate to the right or dexter side. In a similar manner, levulose, more commonly known as fructose, causes the plane of polarization to rotate to the left. Fructose is even more strongly levorotatory than glucose is dextrorotatory. Invert sugar syrup, commercially formed by the hydrolysis of sucrose syrup to a mixture of the component simple sugars, fructose, and glucose, gets its name from the fact that the conversion causes the direction of rotation to "invert" from right to left. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=39774 | 909,741 |
820,160 | Overall, hemispherectomy is a successful procedure. A 1996 study of 52 individuals who underwent the surgery found that 96% of patients experienced reduced or completely ceased occurrence of seizures post-surgery. Studies have found no significant long-term effects on memory, personality, or humor, and minimal changes in cognitive function overall. For example, one case followed a patient who had completed college, attended graduate school and scored above average on intelligence tests after undergoing this procedure at age 5. This patient eventually developed "superior language and intellectual abilities" despite the removal of the left hemisphere, which contains the classical language zones. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1196674 | 819,719 |
435,356 | Tesla employed the Tesla coil in his efforts to achieve wireless power transmission, his lifelong dream. In the period 1891 to 1900 he used it to perform some of the first experiments in wireless power, transmitting radio frequency power across short distances by inductive coupling between coils of wire. In his early 1890s demonstrations such as those before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers and at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago he lit light bulbs from across a room. He found he could increase the distance by using a receiving LC circuit tuned to resonance with the Tesla coil's LC circuit, transferring energy by resonant inductive coupling. At his Colorado Springs laboratory during 1899–1900, by using voltages of the order of 10 million volts generated by his enormous magnifying transmitter coil (described below), he was able to light three incandescent lamps at a distance of about . Today the resonant inductive coupling discovered by Tesla is a familiar concept in electronics, widely used in IF transformers and short range wireless power transmission systems such as cellphone charging pads. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=56714254 | 435,142 |
310,495 | There was to be a store, or memory, capable of holding 1,000 numbers of 40 decimal digits each (ca. 16.7 kB). An arithmetical unit, called the "mill", would be able to perform all four arithmetic operations, plus comparisons and optionally square roots. Initially it was conceived as a difference engine curved back upon itself, in a generally circular layout, with the long store exiting off to one side. (Later drawings depict a regularized grid layout.) Like the central processing unit (CPU) in a modern computer, the mill would rely on its own internal procedures, roughly equivalent to microcode in modern CPUs, to be stored in the form of pegs inserted into rotating drums called "barrels", to carry out some of the more complex instructions the user's program might specify. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=13636 | 310,327 |
2,159,880 | As a research mathematician, Eccles specialised in topology and homotopy theory, publishing numerous journal papers in this area of study. Eccles's most significant contributions are concerned with the multiple points of immersions of manifolds in Euclidean space and their relationship with classical problems in the homotopy groups of spheres. His interest in this area began when he clarified the relationship between multiple points and the Hopf invariant (disproving a conjecture by Michael Freedman) and the Kervaire invariant. His teaching ranged over most areas of pure mathematics as well as the history of mathematics, relativity theory and probability theory. He became particularly interested in the transition from school to university mathematics and this led in 1967 to the publication by Cambridge University Press of his book "'Introduction to mathematical reasoning: numbers, sets and functions"’.which continues to be used at universities in Britain and North America. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=53635941 | 2,158,648 |
1,992,011 | The 1997–98 Michigan Wolverines men's basketball team represented the University of Michigan in intercollegiate college basketball during the 1997–98 season. The team played its home games in the Crisler Arena in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and was a member of the Big Ten Conference. Under the direction of head coach Brian Ellerbe, the team finished fourth in the Big Ten Conference. The team emerged victorious in the inaugural 1998 Big Ten Conference men's basketball tournament. The team earned an invitation to the 1998 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament as a number three seed where it was eliminated in the second round. The team was ranked for twelve of the eighteen weeks of Associated Press Top Twenty-Five Poll, starting the season unranked, peaking at number twelve where it ended the season, and it also ended the season ranked twelve in the final USA Today/CNN Poll. The team had a 4–3 December 13, 1997, against #1 Duke 81–73 at home, December 26, 1997, against #19 Syracuse 93–61 at the Puerto Rico Holiday Classic, Eugene Guerra Sports Complex in San Juan, Puerto Rico, February 1 against #16 Iowa 80–66 on the road, March 8 against #9 Purdue 76–67 at the 1998 Big Ten Conference men's basketball tournament at the United Center. The victory over Duke was one of only two victories over the number one ranked team in the country in the history of the school. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28825507 | 1,990,868 |
1,451,861 | One of the protesters, "Levi Little Moustache," stood and quoted Flanagan's 2009 comments on child pornography. Flanagan responded that "I certainly have no sympathy for child molesters, but I do have some grave doubts about putting people in jail because of their taste in pictures. I don't look at these pictures." A video of the remarks was posted to YouTube overnight and his remarks proved controversial. Danielle Smith, who was mentored by Flanagan, and served as Wildrose Party leader in 2009, cut her ties with him saying "there is no language strong enough to condemn [his] comments". Andrew McDougall (the Director of Communications for the Prime Minister of Canada) considered them to be "repugnant, ignorant, and appalling." CBC News immediately announced that, "In light of recent remarks made by Tom Flanagan at the University of Lethbridge, CBC News has taken the decision to end our association with him as a commentator on Power and Politics. While we support and encourage free speech across the country and a diverse range of voices, we believe Mr Flanagan's comments to have crossed the line and impacted his credibility as a commentator for us (McGuire February 28, 2013)". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1725890 | 1,451,044 |
370,864 | A recent study about the rising electronic pollution in the USA revealed that the average computer screen has five to eight pounds or more of lead representing 40 percent of all the lead in US landfills. All these toxins are persistent, bioaccumulative toxins (PBTs) that create environmental and health risks when computers are incinerated, put in landfills or melted down. The emission of fumes, gases, and particulate matter into the air, the discharge of liquid waste into water and drainage systems, and the disposal of hazardous wastes contribute to environmental degradation. The processes of dismantling and disposing of electronic waste in developing countries led to a number of environmental impacts as illustrated in the graphic. Liquid and atmospheric releases end up in bodies of water, groundwater, soil, and air and therefore in land and sea animals – both domesticated and wild, in crops eaten by both animals and humans, and in drinking water. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3887690 | 370,670 |
721,755 | The use of departmental or user developed tools has been a controversial topic in the past. However, with the widespread availability of data analytics tools, dashboards, and statistical packages users no longer need to stand in line waiting for IT resources to fulfill seemingly endless requests for reports. The task of IT is to work with business groups to make authorized access and reporting as straightforward as possible. To use a simple example, users should not have to do their own data matching so that pure relational tables are linked in a meaningful way. IT needs to make non-normalized, data warehouse type files available to users so that their analysis work is simplified. For example, some organizations will refresh a warehouse periodically and create easy to use "flat' tables which can be easily uploaded by a package such as Tableau and used to create dashboards. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1724471 | 721,375 |
2,007,973 | The World of Chemistry is a television series on introductory chemistry hosted by Nobel prize-winning chemist Roald Hoffmann. The series consists of 26 half-hour video programs, along with coordinated books, which explore various topics in chemistry through experiments conducted by Stevens Point emeritus professor Don Showalter the "series demonstrator" and interviews with working chemists, it also includes physics and earth science related components. The series was produced by the University of Maryland, College Park and the Educational Film Center and was funded by the Annenberg/CPB Project (now the Annenberg Foundation), it was filmed in 1988 and first aired on PBS in 1990. This series supports science standards recognized nationally by the United States (NSTA and NCSESA) and is still widely used in high school and college chemistry courses. The entire series was previously available on learner.org for free in an online video streaming format, but streaming for this series was discontinued on June 25, 2019. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3062306 | 2,006,822 |
1,163,237 | Disruption of CYP7A1 from classic bile acid synthesis in mice leads to either increased postnatal death or a milder phenotype with elevated serum cholesterol. The latter is similar to the case in humans, where CYP7A1 mutations associate with high plasma low-density lipoprotein and hepatic cholesterol content, as well as deficient bile acid excretion. There is also a synergy between plasma low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) and risks of coronary artery disease (CAD). Glucose signaling also induces CYP7A1 gene transcription by epigenetic regulation of the histone acetylation status. Glucose induction of bile acid synthesis have an important implication in metabolic control of glucose, lipid, and energy homeostasis under normal and diabetic conditions. CYP7A1-rs3808607 and apolipoprotein E (APOE) isoform are associated with the extent of reduction in circulating LDL cholesterol in response to plant sterol consumption and could serve as potential predictive genetic markers to identify individuals who would derive maximum LDL cholesterol lowering with plant sterol consumption. Genetic variations in CYP7A1 influence its expression and thus may affect the risk of gallstone disease and gallbladder cancer. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8042122 | 1,162,620 |
854,303 | The CFTR gene codes for an ABC transporter-class ion channel protein that conducts chloride and bicarbonate ions across epithelial cell membranes. Mutations of the CFTR gene affecting anion channel function lead to dysregulation of epithelial lining fluid (mucus) transport in the lung, pancreas and other organs, resulting in cystic fibrosis. Complications include thickened mucus in the lungs with frequent respiratory infections, and pancreatic insufficiency giving rise to malnutrition and diabetes. These conditions lead to chronic disability and reduced life expectancy. In male patients, the progressive obstruction and destruction of the developing vas deferens (spermatic cord) and epididymis appear to result from abnormal intraluminal secretions, causing congenital absence of the vas deferens and male infertility. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1230676 | 853,848 |
49,870 | Photon-counting computed tomography is a CT technique currently under development. Typical CT scanners use energy integrating detectors; photons are measured as a voltage on a capacitor which is proportional to the x-rays detected. However, this technique is susceptible to noise and other factors which can affect the linearity of the voltage to x-ray intensity relationship. Photon counting detectors (PCDs) are still affected by noise but it does not change the measured counts of photons. PCDs have several potential advantages, including improving signal (and contrast) to noise ratios, reducing doses, improving spatial resolution, and through use of several energies, distinguishing multiple contrast agents. PCDs have only recently become feasible in CT scanners due to improvements in detector technologies that can cope with the volume and rate of data required. As of February 2016, photon counting CT is in use at three sites. Some early research has found the dose reduction potential of photon counting CT for breast imaging to be very promising. In view of recent findings of high cumulative doses to patients from recurrent CT scans, there has been a push for scanning technologies and techniques that reduce ionising radiation doses to patients to sub-milliSievert (sub-mSv in the literature) levels during the CT scan process, a goal that has been lingering. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=50982 | 49,850 |
338,642 | It has been found in a cladistic study that the anthracobunids and the desmostylians - two lineages that have been previously classified as Afrotherians (more specifically closer to elephants) - have been classified as a clade that is closely related to the perissodactyls. The desmostylians were large amphibious quadrupeds with massive limbs and a short tail. They grew to in length and were thought to have weighed more than . Their fossils were known from the northern Pacific Rim, from southern Japan through Russia, the Aleutian Islands and the Pacific coast of North America to the southern tip of Baja California. Their dental and skeletal form suggests desmostylians were aquatic herbivores dependent on littoral habitats. Their name refers to their highly distinctive molars, in which each cusp was modified into hollow columns, so that a typical molar would have resembled a cluster of pipes, or in the case of worn molars, volcanoes. They were the only marine mammals to have gone extinct. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=31744 | 338,462 |
2,023,349 | His 1986 doctorate in physics came from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There, he held Compton and Hertz Foundation fellowships. His work involved experiments with high-powered magnets at the MIT Francis Bitter Magnet Laboratory, and it was there he became a graduate assistant for two scientists who would later win the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physics: Horst Ludwig Störmer, then of Bell Laboratories, and Daniel Tsui, then a professor at Princeton University. His thesis research utilized high magnetic fields and ultra-low temperatures to study fractional quantum Hall effect. He spent a year as a NATO Postdoctoral Fellow in Paris at the Ecole Normale Supérieure studying other quantum behaviors of electrons in quantum wells. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=10891121 | 2,022,185 |
1,561,667 | Several limestone slabs have been discovered in which fossils of "Rhamphorhynchus" are found in close association with "Aspidorhynchus". In one of these specimens, the jaws of an "Aspidorhynchus" pass through the wings of the "Rhamphorhynchus" specimen. The "Rhamphorhynchus" also has the remains of a small fish, possibly "Leptolepides", in its throat. This slab, cataloged as WDC CSG 255, may represent two levels of predation; one by "Rhamphorhynchus" and one by "Aspidorhynchus". In a 2012 description of WDC CSG 255, researchers proposed that the "Rhamphorhynchus" individual had just caught a "Leptolepides" while it was flying low over a body of water. As the "Leptolepides" was travelling down its pharynx, a large "Aspidorhynchus" would have attacked from below the water, puncturing the left wing membrane of the "Rhamphorhynchus" with its sharp rostrum. The teeth in its snout were ensnared in the fibrous tissue of the wing membrane, and as the fish thrashed to release itself the left wing of the "Rhamphorhynchus" was pulled backward into the distorted position seen in the fossil. The encounter resulted in the death of both individuals, most likely because the two animals sank into an anoxic layer in the water body, depriving the fish of oxygen. The two may have been preserved together as the weight of the head of the "Aspidorhynchus" held down the much lighter body of the "Rhamphorhynchus". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=5521282 | 1,560,781 |
83,780 | Hypatia has been described as a universal genius, but she was probably more of a teacher and commentator than an innovator. No evidence has been found that Hypatia ever published any independent works on philosophy and she does not appear to have made any groundbreaking mathematical discoveries. During Hypatia's time period, scholars preserved classical mathematical works and commented on them to develop their arguments, rather than publishing original works. It has also been suggested that the closure of the Mouseion and the destruction of the Serapeum may have led Hypatia and her father to focus their efforts on preserving seminal mathematical books and making them accessible to their students. The "Suda" mistakenly states that all of Hypatia's writings have been lost, but modern scholarship has identified several works by her as extant. This kind of authorial uncertainty is typical of female philosophers from antiquity. Hypatia wrote in Greek, which was the language spoken by most educated people in the Eastern Mediterranean at the time. In classical antiquity, astronomy was seen as being essentially mathematical in character. Furthermore, no distinction was made between mathematics and numerology or astronomy and astrology. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38375 | 83,746 |
1,038,242 | By Mercer's theorem, the kernel of formula_33, i.e., the covariance function formula_73, has spectral decomposition formula_74, where the series convergence is absolute and uniform, and formula_75 are real-valued nonnegative eigenvalues in descending order with the corresponding orthonormal eigenfunctions formula_76 . By the Karhunen–Loève theorem, the FPCA expansion of an underlying random trajectory is formula_77, where formula_78 are the functional principal components (FPCs), sometimes referred to as scores. The Karhunen–Loève expansion facilitates dimension reduction in the sense that the partial sum converges uniformly, i.e., formula_79 as formula_80 and thus the partial sum with a large enough formula_81 yields a good approximation to the infinite sum. Thereby, the information in formula_82 is reduced from infinite dimensional to a formula_81-dimensional vector formula_84 with the approximated process： Other popular bases include spline, Fourier series and wavelet bases. Important applications of FPCA include the modes of variation and functional principal component regression. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2141368 | 1,037,701 |
838,426 | Network neutrality is an issue. Wu and Lessig set out two reasons for network neutrality: firstly, by removing the risk of future discrimination, it incentivizes people to invest more in the development of broadband applications; secondly, it enables fair competition between applications without network bias. The two reasons also coincide with FCC's interest to stimulate investment and enhance innovation in broadband technology and services. Despite regulatory efforts of deregulation, privatization, and liberalization, the infrastructure barrier has been a negative factor in achieving effective competition. Kim et al. argues that IP dissociates the telephony application from the infrastructure and Internet telephony is at the forefront of such dissociation. The neutrality of the network is very important for fair competition. As the former FCC Charman Michael Copps put it: "From its inception, the Internet was designed, as those present during the course of its creating will tell you, to prevent government or a corporation or anyone else from controlling it. It was designed to defeat discrimination against users, ideas and technologies". Because of these reasons, Shin concludes that regulator should make sure to regulate application and infrastructure separately. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=206586 | 837,977 |
579,214 | Aeronautical ratings were established on 23 February 1912, by War Department Bulletin No. 6, as a new measurement of pilot skill. Before that time most pilots of the Aeronautical Division, Signal Corps soloed by the "short hop method" (also known as "grass-cutting"), in which student pilots, flying alone, learned to handle airplane controls on the ground, taxied in further practice until just short of takeoff speeds, and finally took off to a height of just ten feet, gradually working up to higher altitudes and turns. The practice resulted in the first pilot death only a month into training. At least three of these pilots had been previously instructed by Glenn Curtiss at North Island field, California. Concurrently, two pilots (future General of the Air Force Henry H. Arnold and Thomas DeWitt Milling) were instructed by the Wright Brothers and certified by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) in July 1911. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8296503 | 578,917 |
1,861,820 | Also in 2009, the company released the first so-called MegaLibrary(TM) for 65 nm SoC design. A MegaLibrary is a very large standard cell library in terms of logic functions and variants in terms of drive strength and relative transistor sizing (such as P/N ratio or tapered inputs). A pre-made MegaLibrary presents an alternative to creating new standard cells on-the-fly (e.g. using NanGate Library Creator) for optimization purposes. As a typical standard cell library contains only a small subset of the possible Boolean functions, 2 or more standard cells are needed to implement functions not found in the library. As an example, there are 3984 Boolean P-equivalent functions with 4 inputs and about 37 million with 5 inputs. The concept of automatic generation of footprint-compatible cells was also introduced. A set of standard cells are said to be footprint compatible when they are interchangeable from a place-and-route perspective without causing DRC errors. Footprint-compatibility is typically obtained from a maximum sized base cell from which versions are derived having identical layers from metal-1 and up but having differently sized diffusion areas to implement transistor sizing variants. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38498036 | 1,860,751 |
708,993 | Felipe Massa debuted in 2002 and drove for Ferrari from 2006 to 2013. In his first three seasons with the team he finished third, fourth, and then second in the drivers' championship. All eleven of his race victories happened during those three seasons. He has found himself as the number two driver in the team on several occasions, firstly to Michael Schumacher and then Fernando Alonso, having to yield the lead and let the senior driver through for the victory. Massa came very close to winning the 2008 season, eventually losing to Lewis Hamilton by just one point. He lost it on the last lap of the final race of the season when Hamilton managed to pass Timo Glock for fifth position and secure enough points to win the championship. The Ferrari team, unaware of Hamilton's late overtaking move, were celebrating in the belief that Massa had won the title. When the situation became clear the message was relayed to a very disappointed Massa. For 2014, Massa moved to Williams. He announced that he would retire from Formula One at the end of the 2016 season. However, the abrupt retirement of 2016 Formula One Champion Nico Rosberg from Mercedes precipitated the late move of Valtteri Bottas from Williams to Mercedes, leaving a late vacancy at Williams. Massa subsequently postponed his retirement, returning to Williams to partner rookie Lance Stroll for the 2017 season. On 4 November 2017, Massa confirmed that he would be retiring from Formula One at the end of the 2017 season. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=36958322 | 708,624 |
1,271,051 | OHS is a milder allelic variant of Menkes disease, having a later age of onset and being associated with far less severe central neurodegeneration. The milder nature of OHS is often attributable to ‘leaky’ splice junction mutations that allow 20–30% of ATP7A messenger RNA (mRNA) transcripts to be correctly processed. As in cases of Menkes disease, individuals with OHS manifest connective tissue abnormalities resulting from deficient activity of lysyl oxidase, a copper-requiring enzyme that normally deaminates lysine and hydroxylysine in the first step of collagen crosslink formation. Such individuals also often endure inconvenient dysautonomic signs and symptoms related to a partial deficiency in dopamine-β-hydroxylase (DBH) activity. DBH, another copper-dependent enzyme, normally converts dopamine to norepinephrine, a crucial neurotransmitter in norepinephrinergic neurons. A natural mouse model of OHS, the so-called mottled blotchy model, recapitulates the connective tissue abnormalities, DBH deficiency and mild CNS damage seen in humans. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=442863 | 1,270,360 |
784,632 | SS2PL has been the concurrency control protocol of choice for most database systems and used since their early days in the 1970s. It is proven to be an effective mechanism in many situations, and provides besides Serializability also Strictness (a special case of cascadeless Recoverability), which is instrumental for efficient database recovery, and also Commitment ordering (CO) for participating in distributed environments where a CO based distributed serializability and global serializability solutions are employed. Being a subset of CO, an efficient implementation of "distributed SS2PL" exists without a distributed lock manager (DLM), while distributed deadlocks (see below) are resolved automatically. The fact that SS2PL employed in multi database systems ensures global serializability has been known for years before the discovery of CO, but only with CO came the understanding of the role of an atomic commitment protocol in maintaining global serializability, as well as the observation of automatic distributed deadlock resolution (see a detailed example of Distributed SS2PL). As a matter of fact, SS2PL inheriting properties of Recoverability and CO is more significant than being a subset of 2PL, which by itself in its general form, besides comprising a simple serializability mechanism (however serializability is also implied by CO), is not known to provide SS2PL with any other significant qualities. 2PL in its general form, as well as when combined with Strictness, i.e., Strict 2PL (S2PL), are not known to be used in practice. The popular SS2PL does not require marking "end of phase 1" as 2PL and S2PL do, and thus is simpler to implement. Also, unlike the general 2PL, SS2PL provides, as mentioned above, the useful Strictness and Commitment ordering properties. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=244602 | 784,212 |
405,336 | The story focuses on the activities of three species in a part of the Milky Way known as the Koprulu Sector. Millennia before any of the events of the games, a species known as the Xel'Naga genetically engineer the Protoss and later the Zerg in attempts to create pure beings. These experiments backfire and the Xel'Naga are largely destroyed by the Zerg. Centuries before the beginning of "StarCraft" in 2499, the hardline international government of Earth, the United Earth Directorate (UED), commissions a colonization program as part of a solution to overpopulation. On the way, the computers automating the colony ships malfunction, propelling the Terran colonists far off course to the edge of Protoss space. Out of contact with Earth, they form various factions to maintain their interests. Intrigued by the behavior and mentality of the Terrans, the Protoss remain hidden to examine the humans, while protecting them from other threats without their knowledge. The Zerg, however, target the Terrans for assimilation to harness their psionic potential, forcing the Protoss to destroy tainted Terran colonies to contain the Zerg infestation. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14271726 | 405,136 |
1,066,573 | Before the industrial era, travel by water was often easier than over land. As a result, marine channels, navigable rivers and sea crossings formed the trade routes of historic and ancient civilisations. For example, the Mediterranean Sea was known to the Romans as the inner sea because the Roman empire spread around its coasts. The historic record as well as the remains of harbours, ships and cargoes, testify to the volume of trade that crossed it. Later, nations with a strong maritime culture such as the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark, Portugal and Spain were able to establish colonies on other continents. Wars were fought at sea over the control of important resources. The material cultural remains that are discovered by maritime archaeologists along former trade routes can be combined with historical documents and material cultural remains found on land to understand the economic, social and political environment of the past. Of late maritime archaeologists have been examining the submerged cultural remains of China, India, Korea and other Asian nations. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20064 | 1,066,019 |
1,407,093 | Historically, acquisition of such knowledge through functional and mechanistic studies has been uncoordinated, random, and inefficient. The process of moving from cancer genomic discoveries to personalised medicine involves some major scientific, logistical and regulatory hurdles. This includes patient consent, sample acquisition, clinical annotation and study design, all of which can lead to data generation and computational analyses. Additionally, functional and mechanistic studies remain a challenge, which can lead to drug and biomarker discovery and development, commercial challenges and genomics-informed clinical trials. Importantly, these key scientific challenges are interdependent with each other. Directed and streamlined approaches are sought to be developed for a rapid generation of biological discoveries, which can allow for cancer genomic discoveries to translate to the clinic. Delivering personalised cancer medicine benefits from traditional, unconstrained and non-directed academic exploration, with the goal of directing scientific inquiry to convert genomic discovery to diagnostic and therapeutic targets. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2780651 | 1,406,303 |
963,045 | The elite controlled agriculture, practiced by means of mixed systems of ground-clearing, and intensive platforms around the cities. As in the rest of Mesoamerica, they imposed on the lowest classes taxes—in kind or in labor—that permitted them to concentrate sufficient resources for the construction of public monuments, which legitimized the power of the elites and the social hierarchy. During the Early Classic Period, c. 370, the Maya political elite sustained strong ties to Teotihuacan, and it is possible that Tikal may have been an important ally of Teotihuacan that controlled commerce with the Gulf coast and highlands. Finally, it seems the great drought that ravaged Central America in the 9th century, internal wars, ecological disasters, and famine destroyed the Maya political system, which led to popular uprisings and the defeat of the dominant political groups. Many cities were abandoned, remaining unknown until the 19th century, when descendants of the Maya led a group of European and American archaeologists to these cities, which had been swallowed over the centuries by the jungle. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=399215 | 962,536 |
832,646 | New financial tools were developed to fund the rapidly increasing costs of warfare, such as popular bond sales and income taxes, and the funding of permanent research centers. Many 19th century innovations were largely invented and promoted by lone individuals with small teams of assistants, such as David Bushnell and the submarine, John Ericsson and the battleship, Hiram Maxim and the machine gun, and Alfred Nobel and high explosives. By 1900 the military began to realize that they needed to rely much more heavily on large-scale research centers, which needed government funding. They brought in leaders of organized innovation such as Thomas Edison in the U.S. and chemist Fritz Haber of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Germany. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=90815 | 832,197 |
334,578 | Prior to joining the Navy, Hopper earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale University and was a professor of mathematics at Vassar College. Hopper attempted to enlist in the Navy during World War II but was rejected because she was 34 years old. She instead joined the Navy Reserves. Hopper began her computing career in 1944 when she worked on the Harvard Mark I team led by Howard H. Aiken. In 1949, she joined the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation and was part of the team that developed the UNIVAC I computer. At Eckert–Mauchly she managed the development of one of the first COBOL compilers. She believed that a programming language based on English was possible. Her compiler converted English terms into machine code understood by computers. By 1952, Hopper had finished her program linker (originally called a compiler), which was written for the A-0 System. During her wartime service, she co-authored three papers based on her work on the Harvard Mark 1. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12590 | 334,400 |
926,564 | Richard Nixon replaced Johnson as president on 20 January 1969, and cost cutting became the order of the day. NASA program funding was somewhat reduced by Congress for the 1969 budget, shutting down the Saturn V production line. On 4 January 1970, NASA Administrator Thomas O. Paine announced the cancellation of Apollo 20 to make its Saturn V available to launch Skylab. The cancellation of Apollo 18 and 19 followed in September 1970. But NERVA remained; Klein endorsed a plan whereby the Space Shuttle would lift a NERVA engine into orbit, then later returned with fuel and a payload. This could be repeated, as NERVA was restartable. NERVA now needed the shuttle, but the shuttle did not need NERVA. NERVA still had the steadfast support of Anderson and Cannon in the Senate, but Anderson was aging and tiring, and now delegated many of his duties to Cannon. NERVA received $88 million in fiscal year (FY) 1970 and $85 million in FY 1971, funds coming jointly from NASA and the AEC. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=712716 | 926,078 |
1,599,400 | "A. candidus" is a common type of fungus found worldwide, particularly in tropical and subtropical regions. There have been reports of this fungus in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Kuwait, Sri Lanka, South and West Africa, Somalia, Sahara, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Israel, Argentina, Bahamas, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, China, Central America, Chile, Nepal, and the US, indicating a very wide distribution in the world. "A. candidus" has been reported as a contaminant of many agricultural food products (such as wheat, oats, barley, corn, and rice), decay matter, soil, fur, compost, dead bees, dung, animal nests, and wood submerged in seawater. The species is also known from indoor environments and has been isolated from air, flooring, carpets, mattresses, and dust. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=42062495 | 1,598,500 |
1,695,857 | The military sea services also responded swiftly to the tsunami that struck Indonesia and Southeast Asia in December 2004. Marines from Naval Environmental and Preventive Medicine Unit Six (NEPMU-6) left their home base of Pearl Harbor a few days later deploying to Indonesia. Once there, dozens of NEPMU members provided humanitarian support including medical help and conducted water quality testing and insect collection for disease examination. Less than a week after the storm hit, Navy helicopters from the aircraft carrier, were flying over the Indian Ocean transporting supplies, bringing in disaster relief teams and supporting humanitarian airlifts to tsunami-stricken coastal regions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17579031 | 1,694,904 |
1,220,396 | Between the late 1980s to early 1990's South Korea would experience drastic changes from within and outside the country. In 1987, the country's political system would historically transition from a military dictatorship to a democratic government. The early 1990s would also see Germany reunified, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent end to the Cold War. As the threat of the Soviet military began to wane (and later end) the US began another phase of reduction of its military presence in East Asia. In response the newly elected President Roh Tae-woo would implement new rounds of military reforms called the "August 18 Plan" or "818 Plan" on 18 August 1988. The plan aims to further reduce South Korea's military dependence on the United States by further increasing self-reliance; "Koreanization of Korean defense" as Rho puts it. The defense industry would find itself reinvigorated as part of the "818 Plan" includes restructuring the military and procuring new weapons. The plan desired the military to possess a balanced mix of highly advanced (albeit expensive) weapons and moderately priced conventional weapons. In addition, the air force and navy would increase and strengthen its assets to fill the gap the US military would leave behind. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=66301957 | 1,219,742 |
403,374 | The U.S. Army wanted a dedicated USAF presence on the battlefield to reduce fratricide, or the harm of friendly forces. This preference led to the creation of the air liaison officer (ALO) position. The ALO is an aeronautically rated officer that has spent a tour away from the cockpit, serving as the primary adviser to the ground commander on the capabilities and limitations of airpower. The Korean War revealed important flaws in the application of CAS. Firstly, the USAF preferred interdiction over fire support while the Army regarded support missions as the main concern for air forces. Then, the Army advocated a degree of decentralization for good reactivity, in contrast with the USAF-favored centralization of CAS. The third point dealt with the lack of training and joint culture, which are necessary for an adequate air-ground integration. Finally, USAF aircraft were not designed for CAS: "the advent of jet fighters, too fast to adjust their targets, and strategic bombers, too big to be used on theatre, rendered CAS much harder to implement". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=600792 | 403,174 |
842,260 | Meanwhile, White set in motion a series of highly visible promotions for American DeForest: "Wireless Auto No.1" was positioned on Wall Street to "send stock quotes" using an unmuffled spark transmitter to loudly draw the attention of potential investors, in early 1904 two stations were established at Wei-hai-Wei on the Chinese mainland and aboard the Chinese steamer "SS Haimun", which allowed war correspondent Captain Lionel James of "The Times" of London to report on the brewing Russo-Japanese War, and later that year a tower, with "DEFOREST" arrayed in lights, was erected on the grounds of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in Saint Louis, Missouri, where the company won a gold medal for its radiotelegraph demonstrations. (Marconi withdrew from the Exposition when he learned de Forest would be there). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=256764 | 841,810 |
969,094 | At the time, hadrosaurids were thought to have been aquatic animals, and Kräusel made a point of stating that the specimen did not rule out hadrosaurids eating water plants. The discovery of possible gut contents made little impact in English-speaking circles, except for another brief mention of the aquatic-terrestrial dichotomy, until it was brought up by John Ostrom in the course of an article reassessing the old interpretation of hadrosaurids as water-bound. Instead of trying to adapt the discovery to the aquatic model, he used it as a line of evidence that hadrosaurids were terrestrial herbivores. While his interpretation of hadrosaurids as terrestrial animals has been generally accepted, the Senckenberg plant fossils remain equivocal. Kenneth Carpenter has suggested that they may actually represent the gut contents of a starving animal, instead of a typical diet. Other authors have noted that because the plant fossils were removed from their original context in the specimen and were heavily prepared, it is no longer possible to follow up on the original work, leaving open the possibility that the plants were washed-in debris. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1585380 | 968,584 |
985,259 | In designing a test for the aforementioned model, it is necessary to determine the quality of an argument, i.e., whether it is viewed as strong or weak. If the argument is not seen as strong, then the results of persuasion will be inconsistent. A strong argument is defined by Petty and Cacioppo as "one containing arguments such that when subjects are instructed to think about the message, the thoughts they generate are fundamentally favorable." An argument that is universally viewed as weak will elicit unfavorable results, especially if the subject considers it under high elaboration, thus being the central route. Test arguments must be rated by ease of understanding, complexity and familiarity. To study either route of the elaboration likelihood model, the arguments must be designed for consistent results. Also, when assessing persuasion of an argument, the influence of peripheral cues needs to be taken into consideration as cues can influence attitude even in the absence of argument processing. The extent or direction of message processing also needs to be taken into consideration when assessing persuasion, as variables can influence or bias thought by enabling or inhibiting the generation of a particular kind of thought in regard to the argument. "While the ELM theory continues to be widely cited and taught as one of the major cornerstones of persuasion, questions are raised concerning its relevance and validity in 21st century communication contexts." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2176826 | 984,745 |
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