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845,876 | Meanwhile, Randall had been appointed to the Chair of Physics at the University of St Andrews. In 1945, he appointed Wilkins as Assistant Lecturer in his department at the University of St Andrews. Randall was negotiating with the Medical Research Council (MRC) to set up a laboratory to apply the experimental methods of physics to problems of biology. The combination of these disciplines as biophysics was a novel idea. The MRC told Randall that this had to be done in another university. In 1946 Randall was appointed Wheatstone Professor of Physics, in charge of the entire Physics department at King's College, London, with the funding to set up a Biophysics Unit. He brought Wilkins with him as Assistant Director of the unit. They appointed a team of scientists trained in both the physical and biological sciences. The "management philosophy" was to explore the use of many techniques in parallel, to find which looked promising, and then to focus on these. Wilkins, as the scientist with most diverse experience of physics and Assistant Director of the unit, had general oversight of the varied projects besides direct involvement in his personal research projects that included new types of optical microscopy. King's College received funding to build completely new Physics and Engineering Departments where vaults beneath the Strand level College forecourt had been destroyed by bombs during the War. The Biophysics Unit, several more experimental physics groups and the theoretical group started to move in, during the early months of 1952. The laboratories were opened formally by Lord Cherwell on 27 June. Wilkins' article for "Nature" described both departments, consistent with his leadership role and prestige within the college at large. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=234248 | 845,426 |
1,163,682 | Examples of conducting networks are electrical power transmission grids, oil and gas pipelines, non-fiber optic undersea communication cables, non-fiber optic telephone and telegraph networks and railways. GIC are often described as being quasi direct current (DC), although the variation frequency of GIC is governed by the time variation of the electric field. For GIC to be a hazard to technology, the current has to be of a magnitude and occurrence frequency that makes the equipment susceptible to either immediate or cumulative damage. The size of the GIC in any network is governed by the electrical properties and the topology of the network. The largest magnetospheric-ionospheric current variations, resulting in the largest external magnetic field variations, occur during geomagnetic storms and it is then that the largest GIC occur. Significant variation periods are typically from seconds to about an hour, so the induction process involves the upper mantle and lithosphere. Since the largest magnetic field variations are observed at higher magnetic latitudes, GIC have been regularly measured in Canadian, Finnish and Scandinavian power grids and pipelines since the 1970s. GIC of tens to hundreds of amperes have been recorded. GIC have also been recorded at mid-latitudes during major storms. There may even be a risk to low latitude areas, especially during a storm commencing suddenly because of the high, short-period rate of change of the field that occurs on the day side of the Earth. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9414169 | 1,163,065 |
1,984,562 | Botball is known for the sophistication and complexity of its robotic competitions. What differentiates Botball from other student robotics programs is that the robots are autonomous; therefore, they are not directed by remote control. Students use computer science to program the robots to recognize challenges and then attempt the objectives of the competition. The robots contain several types of sensors and also two digital cameras for their computer vision systems. Robot Magazine, highlighted in an article the gameplay and systems, "Every year the game offers different challenges at varying levels of difficulty, so participants can focus on harder goals, or find simpler solutions, based on their abilities ... Botball uses the CBC2, a powerful robot controller that easily interfaces with a large number of sensors and effectors and features an ARM 9-based CPU/Vision processor running LINUX, an ARM 7-based DAQ/Motor control system, and integrated display and touch screens that are easy to use. The CBC2 uses the KISS-C Integrated Development Environment and its libraries, especially designed to be friendly to users with vastly different programming experience. Both the CBC2 and KISS-C were developed by KISS Institute and are used in university research programs, as well as the Botball Program." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14867798 | 1,983,423 |
305,210 | The social democratic governments in the post war period introduced measures of social reform and wealth redistribution through state welfare and taxation policy. For instance the newly elected UK Labour government carried out nationalisations of major utilities such as mines, gas, coal, electricity, rail, iron and steel, and the Bank of England. France claimed to be the most state controlled capitalist country in the world, carrying through many nationalisations. In the UK the National Health Service was established bringing free health care to all for the first time. Social housing for working-class families was provided in council housing estates and university education was made available for working-class people through a grant system. However, the parliamentary leadership of the social democracies in general had no intention of ending capitalism, and their national outlook and their dedication to the maintenance of the post-war 'order' prevented the social democracies from making any significant changes to the economy. They were termed 'socialist' by all in 1945, but in the UK, for instance, where Social Democracy had a large majority in the Parliament of the United Kingdom, "The government had not the smallest intention of bringing in the 'common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange'" as written in Clause 4 of the Labour Party constitution. In Germany, the Social Democratic Party of Germany adopted the Godesberg Program in 1959, which rejected class struggle and Marxism. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=47246185 | 305,048 |
1,706,707 | Professor Krylov leads the iOpenShell lab, a research group focused on theoretical modeling of open-shell and electronically excited species. She develops robust black-box methods to describe complicated multi-configurational wave functions in single-reference formalisms, such as coupled-cluster and equation-of-motion (or linear response) approaches. She developed the spin-flip approach, which extends coupled-cluster and density functional methods to biradicals, triradicals, and bond-breaking. Krylov has also contributed to the development of molecular orbital concepts in the framework of many-body wave functions and to the extension of molecular orbital theory to the domain of non-linear optical properties and meta-stable electronic states. In addition, Krylov develops many-body theories for describing metastable electronic states (resonances) and tools for spectroscopy modeling, including non-linear optical properties and core-level transitions. Krylov is also known for her development of efficient algorithms and software for quantum chemistry computations. She is one of the developers of the open-source libtensor library for many-body calculations and the Q-Chem electronic structure package. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11061937 | 1,705,749 |
948,983 | This is a promising and newer microarray application for the diagnosis, study and treatment of complex diseases such as cancer. The technology merges laser capture microdissection (LCM) with micro array technology, to produce reverse-phase protein microarrays. In this type of microarrays, the whole collection of protein themselves are immobilized with the intent of capturing various stages of disease within an individual patient. When used with LCM, reverse phase arrays can monitor the fluctuating state of proteome among different cell population within a small area of human tissue. This is useful for profiling the status of cellular signaling molecules, among a cross-section of tissue that includes both normal and cancerous cells. This approach is useful in monitoring the status of key factors in normal prostate epithelium and invasive prostate cancer tissues. LCM then dissects these tissue and protein lysates were arrayed onto nitrocellulose slides, which were probed with specific antibodies. This method can track all kinds of molecular events and can compare diseased and healthy tissues within the same patient enabling the development of treatment strategies and diagnosis. The ability to acquire proteomics snapshots of neighboring cell populations, using reverse-phase microarrays in conjunction with LCM has a number of applications beyond the study of tumors. The approach can provide insights into normal physiology and pathology of all the tissues and is invaluable for characterizing developmental processes and anomalies. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=55172 | 948,479 |
1,007,358 | This is the area of greatest success for current energy storage technologies. Single-use and rechargeable batteries are ubiquitous, and provide power for devices with demands as varied as digital watches and cars. Advances in battery technology have generally been slow, however, with much of the advance in battery life that consumers see being attributable to efficient power management rather than increased storage capacity. Portable consumer electronics have benefited greatly from size and power reductions associated with Moore's law. Unfortunately, Moore's law does not apply to hauling people and freight; the underlying energy requirements for transportation remain much higher than for information and entertainment applications. Battery capacity has become an issue as pressure grows for alternatives to internal combustion engines in cars, trucks, buses, trains, ships, and aeroplanes. These uses require far more energy density (the amount of energy stored in a given volume or weight) than current battery technology can deliver. Liquid hydrocarbon fuel (such as gasoline/petrol and diesel), as well as alcohols (methanol, ethanol, and butanol) and lipids (straight vegetable oil, biodiesel) have much higher energy densities. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1646838 | 1,006,838 |
302,263 | The Greek wiretapping case 2004–05, also referred to as Greek Watergate, involved the illegal telephone tapping of more than 100 mobile phones on the Vodafone Greece network belonging mostly to members of the Greek government and top-ranking civil servants. The taps began sometime near the beginning of August 2004 and were removed in March 2005 without discovering the identity of the perpetrators. The intruders installed a rootkit targeting Ericsson's AXE telephone exchange. According to "IEEE Spectrum", this was "the first time a rootkit has been observed on a special-purpose system, in this case an Ericsson telephone switch." The rootkit was designed to patch the memory of the exchange while it was running, enable wiretapping while disabling audit logs, patch the commands that list active processes and active data blocks, and modify the data block checksum verification command. A "backdoor" allowed an operator with sysadmin status to deactivate the exchange's transaction log, alarms and access commands related to the surveillance capability. The rootkit was discovered after the intruders installed a faulty update, which caused SMS texts to be undelivered, leading to an automated failure report being generated. Ericsson engineers were called in to investigate the fault and discovered the hidden data blocks containing the list of phone numbers being monitored, along with the rootkit and illicit monitoring software. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=223942 | 302,102 |
1,960,497 | In 1973, the Emergency Medical Services Act was passed in Congress, and Boyd was appointed by Ford to be the Director of the Division of EMS Systems. Boyd was tasked with developing state-wide programs for all 50 states and four territories. Boyd visited states and identified areas where it made social and geographic sense to develop trauma centers in a variety of sizes and uses. Boyd implemented his plan by requiring states to qualify for federal assistance in order to be granted federal funding for their systems. Boyd asserted that qualifying states must have plans that are sufficiently comprehensive by setting up a guideline with fifteen components, including access to care, critical care units, coordinated patient record keeping, and transportation. He hosted a White House conference to explain the national program to the states. Cardiology expert Mark Vasu has said about Boyd's EMS program: "Prior to Dave's program, there was virtually no training, no standards, no 'system' of emergency care in this country." The program was terminated by President Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s at the federal level, but Boyd's work is continued to this day at the local and state levels. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=61269479 | 1,959,370 |
721,981 | The design process for what became the Pelican began in early 2000, when designers in the Phantom Works division of Boeing started working on solutions for the United States armed forces objective of moving thousands of troops, weapons, military equipment, and provisions to a war or battle scene faster, such as successfully deploying an Army brigade of 3,000 troops and of equipment within instead of the it required in the past. In particular, the Department of Defense had requested a vehicle of any mode (land, air, or sea) with the ability to move of cargo. Knowing that the United States Army was investigating large airships and airship-airplane hybrids, Boeing Phantom Works internally considered and rejected at least three known design iterations: a large blimp or dirigible airship, a smaller but wider airship that creates dynamic lift while in forward motion, and then back to a larger airship that flies at low altitude with wings spanning . It also looked at and discarded a fast oceangoing ship and a sea-based ground effect vehicle. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1879209 | 721,601 |
1,035,953 | Just behind the presumed position of the stomach a very conspicuous large and thick intestine is visible, that has been identified as the duodenum. It is preserved partly in the form of a natural endocast, partly as a petrification still showing the cellular structure, including the mucosa and connective tissue. Some mesenteric blood vessels cover the intestine in the form of up to a centimetre long and 0.02 to 0.1 millimetre wide hollow tubes. The duodenum forms a large loop, the descending part of which first is directed downwards towards the gastralia and then runs to the back. There in a sharp bend, the folds of which are clearly visible, it turns to the front, proceeding as an ascending tract, its visible part ending near the stomach. At this point the tract is directed to the left of the body, perpendicular to the fossil slab, and its course can thus no longer be followed. Nearby and slightly above, a subsequent intestine part surfaces that has been interpreted as the jejunum. This thinner intestine turns to the back, running parallel to the ascending tract of the duodenum and ultimately disappearing under it, at the level of the twelfth dorsal vertebra. Apparently a loop to the front is made because it resurfaces below the tenth dorsal vertebra, first running upwards and then turning to the back below the hind vertebral column — or at places even over it: probably after death its position partly shifted upwards. The jejunum seems to blend with an exceptionally short ileum. A contraction below the thirteenth dorsal vertebra might indicate the transition to the rectum. A caecum seems absent. The rectum runs to the back between the upper shafts of the pubes and ischia. Then it bends downwards parallel to the ischium shaft, at the end of it turning upwards again. In this final part faeces are still present. The cloaca is lacking. Dal Sasso & Maganuco suggested the cloaca exit was rather low, at the level of the ischial feet and that a rectocoprodaeal valve separated faeces and urine. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3558454 | 1,035,413 |
1,914,014 | Focusing his studies mainly on multiphase phenomena, Kumar is known to have done extensive researches on hydrodynamics and mass transfer in multiphase systems. He developed a two-stage model of bubble formation from single submerged nozzles which clarified the discrepancies in experimental data and is in use with industrially–relevant distributors. He developed a set of performance prediction protocols to be employed in foam bed contactors and batch sonochemical reactors. He also contributed to the development of a large scale fluidized bed reactor by which copper sulphate is manufactured directly from chalcopyrites. His researches have been documented in several peer-reviewed articles; the online article repository of Indian Academy of Sciences has listed 63 of them. He sat in the Society and the Governing Body of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and has been associated with government departments and agencies such as the Department of Science and Technology, Indian Council of Medical Research, National Digital Research Centre and National Innovation Foundation as a member of their various committees. He was a member of the Indian National Science Academy Council in 1990 and held the vice-president's chair during 1991–92. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=52869306 | 1,912,915 |
1,359,355 | Alyeska reported that about half were too minor to affect the running of the pipeline, but questions lay with more than a thousand welds that might be dangerous. Re-examining the welds would be extremely difficult, since those sections of pipeline were sealed (and in many cases buried). By July, the U.S. Congress began holding hearings into the welding problems. President Gerald Ford sent a team to Alaska to oversee and examine Alyeska's work. At the recommendations of this team and to avoid further investigations, Alyeska began repairing the welds on its own. By September, more than 3,000 of the questionable welds had been redone or certified as safe. Alyeska asked for waivers on the remaining 612 welds, and more hearings resulted. By the end of November, only 34 welds were still at issue. The leader of Ford's team ordered 31 of the welds to be dug up and re-done. Waivers were granted for the other three welds only, all of which were buried under the Koyukuk River south of the Brooks Range. Proof of the integrity of those three questionable yet inaccessible welds were evaluated by a unique solution in Section Five north of the Brooks Range. On either side of the Sagavanirktok River, the above ground pipeline was cut and 48 inch fans installed to circulate air. Then a team of 12 men and inspectors riding on wheeled sleds pulled by a modified John Deere lawnmower entered the pipe. Welds were counted during the passage. After arriving at the questionable weld under the Sagavanirktok River, an ultrasound was taken on the inside of the pipe. Then the team exited the pipe on the opposite side and the ultrasound was taken back to camp for evaluation. Alyeska estimated the total cost of redoing the welds to be $55 million. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=24084810 | 1,358,604 |
45,487 | Semiconductor sub-micrometer and nanometer electronic circuits are the primary concern for operating within the normal tolerance in harsh radiation environments like outer space. One of the design approaches for making a radiation-hardened-by-design (RHBD) device is enclosed-layout-transistor (ELT). Normally, the gate of the MOSFET surrounds the drain, which is placed in the center of the ELT. The source of the MOSFET surrounds the gate. Another RHBD MOSFET is called H-Gate. Both of these transistors have very low leakage currents with respect to radiation. However, they are large in size and take up more space on silicon than a standard MOSFET. In older STI (shallow trench isolation) designs, radiation strikes near the silicon oxide region cause the channel inversion at the corners of the standard MOSFET due to accumulation of radiation induced trapped charges. If the charges are large enough, the accumulated charges affect STI surface edges along the channel near the channel interface (gate) of the standard MOSFET. This causes a device channel inversion to occur along the channel edges, creating an off-state leakage path. Subsequently, the device turns on; this process severely degrades the reliability of circuits. The ELT offers many advantages, including an improvement of reliability by reducing unwanted surface inversion at the gate edges which occurs in the standard MOSFET. Since the gate edges are enclosed in ELT, there is no gate oxide edge (STI at gate interface), and thus the transistor off-state leakage is reduced very much. Low-power microelectronic circuits including computers, communication devices, and monitoring systems in space shuttles and satellites are very different from what is used on earth. They are radiation (high-speed atomic particles like proton and neutron, solar flare magnetic energy dissipation in Earth's space, energetic cosmic rays like X-ray, gamma ray etc.) tolerant circuits. These special electronics are designed by applying different techniques using RHBD MOSFETs to ensure safe space journeys and safe space-walks of astronauts. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=40345 | 45,470 |
763,683 | A high-quality image requires a large number of different separations between telescopes. Projected separation between any two telescopes, as seen from the radio source, is called a baseline. For example, the Very Large Array (VLA) near Socorro, New Mexico has 27 telescopes with 351 independent baselines at once, which achieves a resolution of 0.2 arc seconds at 3 cm wavelengths. Martin Ryle's group in Cambridge obtained a Nobel Prize for interferometry and aperture synthesis. The Lloyd's mirror interferometer was also developed independently in 1946 by Joseph Pawsey's group at the University of Sydney. In the early 1950s, the Cambridge Interferometer mapped the radio sky to produce the famous 2C and 3C surveys of radio sources. An example of a large physically connected radio telescope array is the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope, located in Pune, India. The largest array, the Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR), finished in 2012, is located in western Europe and consists of about 81,000 small antennas in 48 stations distributed over an area several hundreds of kilometers in diameter and operates between 1.25 and 30 m wavelengths. VLBI systems using post-observation processing have been constructed with antennas thousands of miles apart. Radio interferometers have also been used to obtain detailed images of the anisotropies and the polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background, like the CBI interferometer in 2004. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=46656 | 763,274 |
294,354 | Nineteenth century wrestling matches were particularly long, and especially Greco-Roman bouts (where holds below the waist and the use of the legs are not allowed) could last as many as eight to nine hours, and even then, it was only decided by a draw. In the 20th century, time limits were set for matches. For more than forty years into the twentieth century, freestyle and its American counterpart, collegiate wrestling, did not have a scoring system that decided matches in the absence of a fall. The introduction of a point system by Oklahoma State University wrestling coach Art Griffith gained acceptance in 1941 and influenced the international styles as well. By the 1960s international wrestling matches in Greco-Roman and freestyle were scored by a panel of three judges in secret, who made the final decision by raising colored paddles at the match's end. Dr. Albert de Ferrari from San Francisco who became vice president of FILA (now UWW), lobbied for a visible scoring system and a rule for "controlled fall", which would recognize a fall only when the offensive wrestler had done something to cause it. These were soon adopted internationally in Greco-Roman and freestyle. By 1996, before a major overhaul of FILA rules, an international freestyle match consisted of two three-minute periods, with a one-minute rest between periods. Today, wrestlers from post-Soviet states, Iran, the United States, Bulgaria, Cuba, Turkey, and Japan have had the strongest showings. Alexander Medved of Belarus won 10 world championships and three Olympic gold medals from 1964 to 1972. Many collegiate wrestlers have moved on to freestyle competition, particularly internationally with great success. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1123339 | 294,195 |
1,667,600 | Another system of dichoptic presentation for binocular vision therapy has been proposed by researchers of the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre. Using a modified puzzle video game "Tetris", the interocular suppression of patients with amblyopia was successfully treated with dichotomic training in which certain parameters of the training material were systematically adapted during the course of four weeks. Clinical supervision of such procedures is required to ensure that double vision does not occur. Most of the patients who underwent this treatment gained improved visual acuity of the weaker eye, and some also showed increased stereoacuity. Another study performed at the same institute showed that dichoptic training can be more effective in adults than the more conventional amblyopia treatment of an eye patch. For this investigation, 18 adults played the game Tetris for one hour each day, half of the group wearing eye patches and the other half playing a dichoptic version of the game. After two weeks, the group who played dichoptically showed a significant improvement of vision in the weaker eye and in stereopsis acuity; the eye patch group had moderate improvements, which increased substantially after they, too, were given the dichoptic training afterwards. Dichoptic-based perceptual learning therapy, presented by means of a head-mounted display, is amenable also to amblyopic children, as it improves both the amblyopic eye's visual acuity and the stereo function. The researchers at McGill University have shown that one to three weeks of playing a dichoptic video game for one to two hours on a hand-held device "can improve acuity and restore binocular function, including stereopsis in adults". Furthermore, it has been suggested that these effect can be enhanced by anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=40018674 | 1,666,661 |
538,116 | Diver trails also called wreck trails can be used to allow scuba-divers to visit and understand archaeological sites that are suitable for scuba-diving One excellent example is the Florida Public Archaeology Network's (FPAN) "Florida Panhandle Shipwreck Trail." The Florida Panhandle Shipwreck Trail features 12 shipwrecks including artificial reefs and a variety of sea life for diving, snorkeling and fishing offshore of Pensacola, Destin, Panama City and Port St. Joe, Florida. Otherwise presentation will typically rely on publication (book or journal articles, web-sites and electronic media such as CD-ROM). Television programs, web videos and social media can also bring an understanding of underwater archaeology to a broad audience. The "Mardi Gras" Shipwreck Project integrated a one-hour HD documentary, short videos for public viewing and video updates during the expedition as part of the educational outreach. Webcasting is also another tool for educational outreach. For one week in 2000 and 2001, live underwater video of the "Queen Anne's Revenge" Shipwreck Project was webcast to the Internet as a part of the "QAR DiveLive" educational program that reached thousands of children around the world. Created and co-produced by Nautilus Productions and Marine Grafics, this project enabled students to talk to scientists and learn about methods and technologies utilized by the underwater archaeology team. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=51795 | 537,837 |
556,233 | Between 1874 and 1878, he studied medicine at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Akademie in Berlin, an academy for military doctors, since his family could not afford the university. As a military doctor, he studied the action of iodoform. Due to his work on Neurotomia opticociliaris (or optociliary neurotomy), Behring became a doctor from the institute and later was able to pass his exam for licensed work in his area of Marburg. In 1878, his service required him to be sent to Poland where he focused on septic diseases. His potential was becoming well known to many. This led to his commanded return to Prussia to study with Robert Koch. He was employed by the military as he received his grants and money from the Prussian army. For each semester of education, he owed 1 year of service as a military surgeon. This accumulated to 2 years, from 1881 to 1883 as he served under the Second Hussar regiment. A lesser known part of his studies was his research in ophthalmology and how he furthered the understanding of the eye and its diseases. He wrote a paper during his time at Wicherkiewicz's hospital in Poznan from 1881 to 1883 on an eye tumor case that ended up with the patient dying from leukemia, but it did allow for much needed research on treatments for the eye and what the preferred pathways for surgery would be. He learned under some of the great ophthalmologists like Carl Ernst Schweigger and Wilhelm Uhthoff, leading to his interest in the subject and his writing his doctoral dissertation on it. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=53373 | 555,944 |
857,434 | The Romans' part in the clearances of the once extensive Caledonian forest remains a matter of debate. That these forests were once considerably more extensive than they are now is not in dispute, but the timing and causes of the reduction are. The 16th-century writer Hector Boece believed that the woods in Roman times stretched north from Stirling into Atholl and Lochaber and was inhabited by white bulls with "crisp and curland mane, like feirs lionis". Later historians such as Patrick Fraser Tytler and William Forbes Skene followed suit as did the 20th-century naturalist Frank Fraser Darling. Modern techniques, including palynology and dendrochronology suggest a more complex picture. Changing post-glacial climates may have allowed for a maximum forest cover between 4000 and 3000 BC and deforestation of the Southern uplands, caused both climatically and anthropogenically, was well underway by the time the legions arrived. Extensive analyses of Black Loch in Fife suggest that arable land spread at the expense of forest from about 2000 BC until the 1st-century Roman advance. Thereafter, there was re-growth of birch, oak and hazel for a period of five centuries, suggesting the invasions had a very negative impact on the native population. The situation outside the Roman-held areas is harder to assess, but the long-term influence of Rome may not have been substantial. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=18691820 | 856,979 |
18,755 | Following early engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq, U.S. Special Operations Forces reported that M855 ammunition used in M4A1 rifles was ineffective. In 2005, the Pentagon issued a formal request to the ammunition industry for "enhanced" ammunition. The only business that responded was the Federal Cartridge Company, owned by Alliant Techsystems. Working with the Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division, the team created performance objectives for the new ammo: increased consistency from shot to shot regardless of temperature changes, accuracy out of an M4A1 better than 2 minute of angle (2 inches at 100 yards, 6.3 inches at 300 yards), increased stopping power after passing through "intermediate barriers" like walls and car windshields, increased performance and decreased muzzle flash out of shorter barrel FN SCAR rifles, and costs close to the M855. The first prototypes were delivered to the government in August 2007. Increased velocity and decreased muzzle flash were accomplished by the type of powder used. The design of the bullet was called the Open Tip Match Rear Penetrator (OTMRP). The front of it is an open tip backed up by a lead core, while the rear half is solid brass. When the bullet hits a hard barrier, the front half of the bullet crushes against the barrier, breaking it so the penetrating half of the bullet can go through and hit the target. With the lead section penetrating the target and the brass section following, it was referred to as a "barrier blind" bullet. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=35022 | 18,747 |
768,762 | Formula One had recently lost one of its top drivers: Bruce McLaren had been killed testing a Can-Am car at the Goodwood circuit in southern England. But the F1 circus had returned to a wild and dangerous place: the notorious ultra-fast Spa-Francorchamps circuit had returned to the calendar for the 1970 season after some safety upgrades, including steel Armco barriers now lined around the circuit. A chicane had also been inserted at the incredibly fast Malmedy corner to reduce speeds onto the Masta straight. The field only consisted of 18 entrants; Spa often had a small number of entrants compared to other circuits because most racing drivers in Europe were frightened of the circuit and did not like racing there. Stewart took pole, followed by New Zealander Chris Amon and Rindt. Rindt took the lead going into Eau Rouge, and once the cars came back around towards La Source, Amon was leading. Then, Stewart took the lead, but then retired his March-Ford/Cosworth with engine problems. Amon took the lead, but Mexican Pedro Rodríguez in a BRM was making the most of his BRM engine's V12 power, and he and Amon battled until the 28th and last lap – and Rodriguez beat the perennially unlucky Amon to the checkered flag by a mere 1.1 seconds. Frenchman Jean-Pierre Beltoise took the final podium spot, followed by home favorite Jacky Ickx in a Ferrari. But this was the last time the old triangle-shaped Spa was to be used for Formula One – the circuit proved to be just too fast and dangerous, even with safety modifications. The Belgian Grand Prix was originally scheduled to be on the following year's calendar, but was taken off the calendar after the circuit was not up to FIA-newly mandated safety specs. The race would move to Nivelles and Zolder. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1140091 | 768,350 |
1,498,851 | The "EMT 950 Schallplatten-Wiedergabe-Maschine" was introduced in 1976 in two types, ‘Standard’, (‘950’, 693 millimeters wide) with controls on the left side of the disc, and a ‘Narrowline Model’ (‘950 E’ or ‘Schmale Ausführung’, 519 mm wide, 573 mm deep, introduced at the end of 1977) conceived for less spacious studios; the ‘narrowline’ 950 had the same controls, but its pushbuttons were all lined up in the front panel. Starting time at 33 rpm was 200 milliseconds, and, just pushing a button, the record would rotate backwards to find the beginning of a track: the user could monitor the cueing with the inbuilt speaker. Both machines could be mounted on their own ‘legs’ or in a console; the shock absorber frame was built-in. In stock form, whichever the cabinet, the ‘950’ had three speeds (33, 45 and 78 rpm) with automatic selection of 33 or 45 at the raising of the central adapter for the smaller records, a ‘929’ arm in stock aluminium finish with brass or black counterweight and a ‘TSD15’ "Tondose" with ‘4 150 056’ transformers on the equalizer board ‘7 950 038’ or ‘7 950 088’ board (‘9 950 110’ or ‘narrow’ ‘9 950 210’). It was possible to order a tailor-made 950 to suit any professional need, provided that the customer could pay the extremely high prices of this machine. In 1976, 15000 Deutsche Marks was the basic list price of a 950. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=7933660 | 1,498,007 |
213,673 | A snowball earth, from around 720-635 mya in the Cryogenian period, is believed to have been caused by early photosynthetic organisms, which reduced the concentration of carbon dioxide and increased the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere. Based on molecular clock studies of the previous decade or so, a 2022 study observed that the estimated time for the origin of the "multicellular" streptophytes (all except the unicellular basal clade Mesostigmatophyceae) fell in the cool Cryogenian while that of the subsequent separation of streptophytes fell in the warm Ediacaran, which they interpreted as an indication of selective pressure by the glacial period to the photosynthesizing organisms, a group of which succeeded in surviving in relatively warmer edaphic refugia, subsequently flourishing in the later Ediacaran and Phanerozoic on land as embryophytes. The study also theorized that the unicellular morphology and other unique features of the Zygnematophyceae may reflect further adaptations to a cryophilic life. The establishment of a land-based flora increased the rate of accumulation of oxygen in the atmosphere, as the land plants produced oxygen as a waste product. When this concentration rose above 13%, around 0.45 billion years ago, wildfires became possible, evident from charcoal in the fossil record. Apart from a controversial gap in the Late Devonian, charcoal is present ever since. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11008314 | 213,565 |
1,133,592 | Arthur R. Marshall led the efforts to undo the damage. According to Douglas, Marshall was successful in portraying the Everglades from the Kissimmee Chain of Lakes to Florida Bay—including the atmosphere, climate, and limestone—as a single organism. Rather than remaining the preserve of conservation organizations, the cause of restoring the Everglades became a priority for politicians. Douglas observed, "Marshall accomplished the extraordinary magic of taking the Everglades out of the bleeding-hearts category forever". At the insistent urging of Marshall, newly elected Governor Bob Graham announced the formation of the "Save Our Everglades" campaign in 1983, and in 1985 Graham lifted the first shovel of backfill for a portion of the C-38 canal. Within a year the area was covered with water returning to its original state. Graham declared that by the year 2000, the Everglades would resemble its predrainage state as much as possible. The Kissimmee River Restoration Project was approved by Congress in the Water Resources Development Act of 1992. The project was estimated to cost $578 million to convert only of the canal; the cost was designed to be divided between the state of Florida and the U.S. government, with the state being responsible for purchasing land to be restored. A project manager for the Army Corps of Engineers explained in 2002, "What we're doing on this scale is going to be taken to a larger scale when we do the restoration of the Everglades". The entire project is estimated to be completed by 2011. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17601646 | 1,132,999 |
1,511,458 | In the extreme environment of high temperatures and the leaching caused by the heavy rain of tropical rain forests, the clay and organic colloids are largely destroyed. The heavy rains wash the alumino-silicate clays from the soil leaving only sesquioxide clays of low CEC. The high temperatures and humidity allow bacteria and fungi to virtually decay any organic matter on the rain-forest floor overnight and much of the nutrients are volatilized or leached from the soil and lost, leaving only a thin root mat lying directly on the mineral soil. However, carbon in the form of finely divided charcoal, also known as black carbon, is far more stable than soil colloids and is capable of performing many of the functions of the soil colloids of sub-tropical soils. Soil containing substantial quantities of charcoal, of an anthropogenic origin, is called terra preta. In Amazonia it testifies for the agronomic knowledge of past Amerindian civilizations. The pantropical peregrine earthworm "Pontoscolex corethrurus" has been suspected to contribute to the fine division of charcoal and its mixing to the mineral soil in the frame of present-day slash-and-burn or shifting cultivation still practiced by Amerindian tribes. Research into terra preta is still young but is promising. Fallow periods "on the Amazonian Dark Earths can be as short as 6 months, whereas fallow periods on oxisols are usually 8 to 10 years long" The incorporation of charcoal to agricultural soil for improving water and nutrient retention has been called biochar, being extended to other charred or carbon-rich by-products, and is now increasingly used in sustainable tropical agriculture. Biochar also allows the irreversible sorption of pesticides and other pollutants, a mechanism by which their mobility, and thus their environmental risk, decreases. It has also been argued as a mean of sequestering more carbon in the soil, thereby mitigating the so-called greenhouse effect. However, the use of biochar is limited by the availability of wood or other products of pyrolysis and by risks caused by concomitent deforestation. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=64613245 | 1,510,608 |
880,378 | Single-event upsets were first described during above-ground nuclear testing, from 1954 to 1957, when many anomalies were observed in electronic monitoring equipment. Further problems were observed in space electronics during the 1960s, although it was difficult to separate soft failures from other forms of interference. In 1972, a Hughes satellite experienced an upset where the communication with the satellite was lost for 96 seconds and then recaptured. Scientists Dr. Edward C. Smith, Al Holman, and Dr. Dan Binder explained the anomaly as a single-event upset (SEU) and published the first SEU paper in the IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science journal in 1975. In 1978, the first evidence of soft errors from alpha particles in packaging materials was described by Timothy C. May and M.H. Woods. In 1979, James Ziegler of IBM, along with W. Lanford of Yale, first described the mechanism whereby a sea-level cosmic ray could cause a single-event upset in electronics. 1979 also saw the world’s first heavy ion "single-event effects" test at a particle accelerator facility, conducted at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's 88-Inch Cyclotron and Bevatron. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2158886 | 879,914 |
781,687 | From 1983 to 1997, "Scientific American" has produced an encyclopedia set of volumes from their publishing division, the Scientific American Library. These books were not sold in retail stores, but as a Book of the Month Club selection priced from $24.95 to $32.95. Topics covered dozens of areas of scientific knowledge and included in-depth essays on: The Animal Mind; Atmosphere, Climate, and Change; Beyond the Third Dimension; Cosmic Clouds; Cycles of Life • Civilization and the Biosphere; The Discovery Of Subatomic Particles; Diversity and the Tropical Rain Forest; Earthquakes and Geological Discovery; Exploring Planetary Worlds; Gravity's Fatal Attraction; Fire; Fossils And The History Of Life; From Quarks to the Cosmos; A Guided Tour Of The Living Cell; Human Diversity; Perception; The Solar System; Sun and Earth; The Science of Words (Linguistics); The Science Of Musical Sound; The Second Law (of Thermodynamics); Stars; Supercomputing and the Transformation of Science. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29507 | 781,269 |
959,930 | Frank E. Horton, former president of the University of Oklahoma, was selected thirteenth president in October 1988 and continued the growth of the university, fostered by the previous presidents. Horton began a large strategic planning effort and organized the growth of the university. To help achieve the plans, in 1993 the university launched a $40 million fund-raising campaign called UT40. During the mid-1990s, UT renovated commercial buildings at Dorr Street and Secor Road for classrooms. A new Academic Center and Residence Hall was built in 1992 to house the Honors Program. The Center for the Visual Arts at the Toledo Museum of Art was also finished that same year; followed by the International House Residence Hall and Nitschke Hall in 1995. And construction began in 1995 on a Pharmacy, Chemistry and Life Sciences complex on the main campus and a Lake Erie Research Center at Maumee Bay State Park. The 1990s also included significant growth in technology. The university joined OhioLINK, a statewide library network, in 1994. Computer labs and hook-ups in dorms and offices provided Internet access and the university established a homepage on the World Wide Web. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=33431636 | 959,422 |
717,715 | Split-ring resonators (SRRs) in various test configurations have been shown to be extremely effective as radar absorbers. SRR technology can be used in conjunction with the technologies above to provide a cumulative absorption effect. SRR technology is particularly effective when used on faceted shapes that have perfectly flat surfaces that present no direct reflections back to the radar source (such as the F-117A). This technology uses photographic process to create a resist layer on a thin (about 0,1778 mm or 0,007") copper foil on a dielectric backing (thin circuit board material) etched into tuned resonator arrays, each individual resonator being in a "C" shape (or other shape—such as a square). Each SRR is electrically isolated and all dimensions are carefully specified to optimize absorption at a specific radar wavelength. Not being a closed loop "O", the opening in the "C" presents a gap of specific dimension which acts as a capacitor. At 35 GHz, the diameter of the "C" is near 5 mm. The resonator can be tuned to specific wavelengths and multiple SRRs can be stacked with insulating layers of specific thicknesses between them to provide a wide-band absorption of radar energy. When stacked, the smaller SRRs (high-frequency) in the range face the radar source first (like a stack of donuts that get progressively larger as one moves away from the radar source) stacks of three have been shown to be effective in providing wide-band attenuation. SRR technology acts very much in the same way that antireflective coatings operate at optical wavelengths. SRR technology provides the most effective radar attenuation of any technologies known previously and is one step closer to reaching complete invisibility (total stealth, "cloaking"). Work is also progressing in visual wavelengths, as well as infrared wavelengths (LIDAR-absorbing materials). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4148025 | 717,336 |
1,099,736 | The low level of connectivity and the high proportion of specialists in pollination networks contrast with the view that generalization rather than specialization is the norm in networks. Indeed, most plants species are visited by a diverse array of pollinators which exploit floral resources from a wide range of plant species. A main cause evoked to explain this apparent contradiction is the incomplete sampling of interactions. Indeed, most network properties are highly sensitive to sampling intensity and network size. Network studies are basically phytocentric i.e. based on the observations of pollinator visits to flowers. This plant-centered approach suffers nevertheless from inherent limitations which may hamper the comprehension of mechanisms contributing to community assembly and biodiversity patterns. First, direct observations of pollinator visits to certain taxa such as orchids are often scarce and rare interactions are very difficult to detect in field in general. Pollinator and plant communities usually are composed of few abundant species and many rare species that are poorly recorded in visit surveys. These rare species appear as specialists, whereas in fact they could be typical generalists. Because of the positive relationship between interaction frequency (f) and connectivity (s), undersampled interactions may lead to overestimating the degree of specialization in networks. Second, network analyses have mostly operated at species levels. Networks have very rarely been up scaled to the functional groups or down scaled to the individual-based networks, and most of them have been focused on one or two species only. The behavior of either individuals or colonies is commonly ignored, although it may influence the structure of the species networks. Species accounted as generalists in species networks could, therefore, entail cryptic specialized individuals or colonies. Third, flower visitors are by no means always effective pollinators as they may deposit no conspecific pollen and/or a lot of heterospecific pollen. Animal-centered approaches based on the investigation of pollen loads on visitors and plant stigmas may be more efficient at revealing plant-pollinator interactions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=66619486 | 1,099,176 |
409,847 | Aside from the "Uranverein" and von Ardenne's team in Berlin-Lichterfelde, there was also a small research team in the Henschel Flugzeugwerke: the study group under the direction of Prof. Dr. Ing. Herbert Wagner (1900–1982) searched for alternative sources of energy for airplanes and became interested in nuclear energy in 1940. In August 1941, they finished a detailed internal survey of the history and potential of technical nuclear physics and its applications ("Übersicht und Darstellung der historischen Entwicklung der modernen technischen Kernphysik und deren Anwendungsmöglichkeit sowie Zusammenfassung eigener Arbeitsziele und Pläne", signed by Herbert Wagner and Hugo Watzlawek (1912–1995) in Berlin. Their application to the Aviation Ministry (RLM) to found and fund an Institute for Nuclear Technology and Nuclear Chemistry ("Reichsinstituts für Kerntechnik und Kernchemie") failed, but Watzlawek continued to explore potential applications of nuclear energy and wrote a detailed textbook on technical nuclear physics. It includes one of the most detailed presentations of contemporary German knowledge about the various processes of isotope separation, and recommends their combined usage to get to sufficient amounts of enriched uranium. Walther Gerlach refused to print this textbook, but it is preserved as a typed manuscript and it appeared after the War in 1948 virtually unchanged (with just a few additions on the US atomic bomb released in 1945). In October 1944, Hugo Watzlawek wrote an article on the potential usage of nuclear energy and its many potential applications. In his view, to follow up this route of research and development was the "new pathway" to becoming the "Master of the World". It is thus a mistake to focus only on the efforts of the "Uranverein"—other research groups in Germany were also active in research to exploit nuclear energy, especially for military purposes. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1397318 | 409,645 |
1,923,514 | Ecosystem engineers, such as many types of corals, deep-sea mussels, and hydrothermal vent tubeworms, contribute to primary productivity and create the structural habitats and nutrient resources that are the foundation of their respective ecosystems. All of these taxa engage in mutualistic nutritional symbioses with microbes. There are many examples of marine nutritional mutualisms in which microbes enable hosts to utilize resources or substrates otherwise unavailable to the host alone. Such symbioses have been described in detail in reduced and anoxic sediments (e.g., lucinid clams, stilbonematid nematodes, and gutless oligochaetes) and hydrothermal vents (e.g., the giant tube worm or deep-sea mussels). Moreover, many foundational species of marine macroalgae are vitamin auxotrophs (for example, half of more than 300 surveyed species were unable to synthesize cobalamin), and their productivity depends on provisioning from their epiphytic bacteria. Reefs often consist of stony corals, one of the most well-known examples of a mutualistic symbiosis, in which the dinoflagellate alga Symbiodiniaceae supplies the coral with glucose, glycerol, and amino acids, while the coral provides the algae with a protected environment and limiting compounds (e.g., nitrogen species) needed for photosynthesis. However, this is a classic example of a mutualistic symbiosis that is sensitive to environmental disturbances, which can disrupt the fragile interactions between host and microbe. When reefs become warm and eutrophic, mutualistic Symbiodiniaceae may induce cellular damage to the host and/or sequester more resources for their own growth, thereby injuring and parasitizing their hosts. Reef fishes, which seek homes on coral reefs, are important in fostering coral recovery in the wake of disturbance. Epulopiscium bacteria in the guts of surgeonfishes produce enzymes that allow their hosts to digest complex polysaccharides, enabling the host fish to feed on tough, leathery red and brown macroalgae. This trophic innovation has facilitated niche diversification among coral reef herbivores. Surgeonfishes are critical to the functioning of Indo-Pacific coral reefs, as they are among the only fishes capable of consuming large macroalgae that bloom in the wake of ecosystem disturbance and suppress coral recovery. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=62893752 | 1,922,411 |
306,148 | In patients with kidney failure, there is a risk of a rare but serious illness called nephrogenic systemic fibrosis (NSF) that is caused by the use of gadolinium based contrast agents. The disease resembles scleromyxedema and to some extent scleroderma. It may occur months after a contrast agent has been injected. Its association with gadolinium and not the carrier molecule is confirmed by its occurrence with various contrast materials in which gadolinium is carried by very different carrier molecules. Due to this, it is not recommended to use these agents for any individual with end-stage kidney failure as they will require emergent dialysis. Similar but not identical symptoms to NSF may occur in subjects with normal or near-normal renal function within hours to 2 months following the administration of GBCAs; the name "gadolinium deposition disease" (GDD) has been proposed for this condition, which occurs in the absence of pre-existent disease or subsequently developed disease of an alternate known process. A 2016 study reported numerous anecdotal cases of GDD. However, in that study, participants were recruited from online support groups for subjects self-identified as having gadolinium toxicity, and no relevant medical history or data were collected. There have yet to be definitive scientific studies proving the existence of the condition. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12243 | 305,984 |
59,446 | Archaea are the target of a number of viruses in a diverse virosphere distinct from bacterial and eukaryotic viruses. They have been organized into 15-18 DNA-based families so far, but multiple species remain un-isolated and await classification. These families can be informally divided into two groups: archaea-specific and cosmopolitan. Archaeal-specific viruses target only archaean species and currently include 12 families. Numerous unique, previously unidentified viral structures have been observed in this group, including: bottle-shaped, spindle-shaped, coil-shaped, and droplet-shaped viruses. While the reproductive cycles and genomic mechanisms of archaea-specific species may be similar to other viruses, they bear unique characteristics that were specifically developed due to the morphology of host cells they infect. Their virus release mechanisms differ from that of other phages. Bacteriophages generally undergo either lytic pathways, lysogenic pathways, or (rarely) a mix of the two. Most archaea-specific viral strains maintain a stable, somewhat lysogenic, relationship with their hosts – appearing as a chronic infection. This involves the gradual, and continuous, production and release of virions without killing the host cell. Prangishyili (2013) noted that it has been hypothesized that tailed archaeal phages originated from bacteriophages capable of infecting haloarchaeal species. If the hypothesis is correct, it can be concluded that other double-stranded DNA viruses that make up the rest of the archaea-specific group are their own unique group in the global viral community. Krupovic et al. (2018) states that the high levels of horizontal gene transfer, rapid mutation rates in viral genomes, and lack of universal gene sequences have led researchers to perceive the evolutionary pathway of archaeal viruses as a network. The lack of similarities among phylogenetic markers in this network and the global virosphere, as well as external linkages to non-viral elements, may suggest that some species of archaea specific viruses evolved from non-viral mobile genetic elements (MGE). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19179592 | 59,421 |
1,684,001 | Structuralists have proposed different mechanisms that might have guided the formation of body plans. Before Darwin, Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire argued that animals shared homologous parts, and that if one was enlarged, the others would be reduced in compensation. After Darwin, D'Arcy Thompson hinted at vitalism and offered geometric explanations in his classic 1917 book "On Growth and Form". Adolf Seilacher suggested mechanical inflation for "pneu" structures in Ediacaran biota fossils such as "Dickinsonia". Günter P. Wagner argued for developmental bias, structural constraints on embryonic development. Stuart Kauffman favoured self-organisation, the idea that complex structure emerges holistically and spontaneously from the dynamic interaction of all parts of an organism. Michael Denton argued for laws of form by which Platonic universals or "Types" are self-organised. Stephen J. Gould and Richard Lewontin proposed biological "spandrels", features created as a byproduct of the adaptation of nearby structures. Gerd B. Müller and Stuart A. Newman argued that the appearance in the fossil record of most of the current phyla in the Cambrian explosion was "pre-Mendelian" evolution caused by physical factors. Brian Goodwin, described by Wagner as part of "a fringe movement in evolutionary biology", denies that biological complexity can be reduced to natural selection, and argues that pattern formation is driven by morphogenetic fields. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=6914308 | 1,683,057 |
222,142 | From that set of considerations, Boyd concluded that to maintain an accurate or effective grasp of reality one must undergo a continuous cycle of interaction with the environment geared to assessing its constant changes. He was hardly the first to do so but expanded Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by suggesting that natural selection applies not only in biological but also social contexts (such as the survival of nations during war or businesses in free market competition). Integrating both concepts, he stated that the decision cycle was the central mechanism of adaptation (in a social context) and that increasing one's own rate and accuracy of assessment as opposed to one's counterpart's rate and accuracy of assessment provides a substantial advantage in war or other forms of competition. The key to survival and autonomy is the ability to adapt to change, not the perfect adaptation to existing circumstances. Indeed, Boyd noted that radical uncertainty is a necessary precondition of physical and mental vitality: all new opportunities and ideas spring from some mismatch between reality and ideas about it, as examples from the history of science, engineering, and business illustrate. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=163161 | 222,033 |
394,990 | These tests have prompted US responses in weapons development. By 2018, the AGM-183 and Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon were in development per John Hyten's USSTRATCOM statement on 8 August 2018 (UTC). At least one vendor is developing ceramics to handle the temperatures of hypersonics systems. There are over a dozen US hypersonics projects as of 2018, notes the commander of USSTRATCOM; from which a future hypersonic cruise missile is sought, perhaps by Q4 FY2021. The Long range precision fires (LRPF) CFT is supporting Space and Missile Defense Command's pursuit of hypersonics. Joint programs in hypersonics are informed by Army work; however, at the strategic level, the bulk of the hypersonics work remains at the Joint level. Long Range Precision Fires (LRPF) is an Army priority, and also a DoD joint effort. The Army and Navy's Common Hypersonic Glide Body (C-HGB) had a successful test of a prototype in March 2020. A wind tunnel for testing hypersonic vehicles will be built in Texas (2019). The Army's Land-based Hypersonic Missile "is intended to have a range of ". By adding rocket propulsion to a shell or glide body, the joint effort shaved five years off the likely fielding time for hypersonic weapon systems. Countermeasures against hypersonics will require sensor data fusion: both radar and infrared sensor tracking data will be required to capture the signature of a hypersonic vehicle in the atmosphere. There are also privately developed hypersonic systems, as well as critics. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14564979 | 394,795 |
1,801,770 | Contracts for constructing a new runway, 32/14, were awarded in late November 1955 to R. B. Tyler and Hyde Construction Co. of Jackson, Mississippi, whose $3,191,577 bid was the lowest received for the project, said Col. Walter W. Woodard, deputy chief of staff for material for the Air Proving Ground Command. The new runway will connect with the existing north-south runway at its south end, and head northwest from that point. The new runway will be wide, with a parallel taxiway, X . One thousand feet of the new runway at each end will be constructed of cement concrete, with the remainder and taxiways of asphaltic concrete. The intermediate area's surface depth will be total four inches (102 mm) combined of asphaltic concrete binder and surface materials. Underlying will be a sub-base of oyster shells seven to eight inches (203 mm) deep, with a strip in the center of the runway further reinforced by an additional four-inch (102 mm) deep stabilized sub-base. Emergency overruns of will be at the ends of the new facility. The contract includes clearing and grubbing of of reservation as well as relocation of a section of the base railroad main line and the ammunition area spur. Some parking aprons and connecting taxiways are also part of the project, which will be supervised for the Mobile District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers by Resident Engineer James K. Glennon. Work commenced on 15 December 1955. The runway was expected to be completed in January 1957. "The use of barges for delivery of materials is being used extensively. Oyster shell is being dredged from Choctawhatchee Bay and delivered to Garnier Bayou by barge. Gravel is also being delivered by barge to Weekly Bayou on Eglin Main Base. From the above barge delivery points, the materials are then hauled by truck to the construction site. Slag for manufacture of asphaltic concrete is shipped from Birmingham, Ala., and cement concrete will be shipped by rail from the Ideal Cement Company, Mobile, Ala." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=33714574 | 1,800,761 |
1,042,017 | In 1949, the huge carbonatite-hosted bastnäsite deposit was discovered at Mountain Pass, San Bernardino County, California. This discovery alerted geologists to the existence of a whole new class of rare earth deposit: the rare earth containing carbonatite. Other examples were soon recognized, particularly in Africa and China. The exploitation of this deposit began in the mid-1960s after it had been purchased by Molycorp (Molybdenum Corporation of America). The lanthanide composition of the ore included 0.1% europium oxide, which was needed by the color television industry, to provide the red phosphor, to maximize picture brightness. The composition of the lanthanides was about 49% cerium, 33% lanthanum, 12% neodymium, and 5% praseodymium, with some samarium and gadolinium, or distinctly more lanthanum and less neodymium and heavies as compared to commercial monazite. The europium content was at least double that of a typical monazite. Mountain Pass bastnäsite was the world's major source of lanthanides from the 1960s to the 1980s. Thereafter, China became an increasingly important rare earth supply. Chinese deposits of bastnäsite include several in Sichuan Province, and the massive deposit at Bayan Obo, Inner Mongolia, which had been discovered early in the 20th century, but not exploited until much later. Bayan Obo is currently (2008) providing the majority of the world's lanthanides. Bayan Obo bastnäsite occurs in association with monazite (plus enough magnetite to sustain one of the largest steel mills in China), and unlike carbonatite bastnäsites, is relatively closer to monazite lanthanide compositions, with the exception of its generous 0.2% content of europium. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=191159 | 1,041,474 |
1,384,802 | During this period, Prosser met and married Allen Rufus Prosser, who worked as an elevator operator at a department store in Austin, and the two were married in 1916. While working at Anderson in 1921, Prosser also began to work towards her bachelor's degree at Samuel Huston College. She completed her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1926, minoring in English and Psychology and graduating with distinction. Prosser received several awards and embraced the opportunity to continue her education. She went on to receive a Master's degree in Educational Psychology from the University of Colorado. Prosser began this work in the summer of 1924, taking four undergraduate courses (two in English, one in Abnormal Psychology, and a Physical Education class) to make up for what Colorado thought she lacked in her record at Samuel Huston College. At Colorado, Prosser took several courses that were particularly relevant to her Master's thesis whose subject areas include mental tests, tests and measurement, and research methods. Her thesis, "The Comparative Reliability of Objective Tests in English Grammar", examined four kinds of English grammar tests (using the standards proposed by the National Education Association). Her four test types included true-false, multiple choice, completion, and matching questions. All tests covered the same subject areas and difficulty levels as well as comparable numbers of factual and reasoning questions. This unpublished thesis did not change the course of grammar assessment, but it motivated Prosser to further her education and appeared to ignite her interests in psychology. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=13646566 | 1,384,035 |
608,986 | Although there is some uncertainty and ambiguity in defining safety culture, there is no uncertainty over the relevance or significance of the concept. Mearns et al. stated that "safety culture is an important concept that forms the environment within which individual safety attitudes develop and persist and safety behaviours are promoted". With every major disaster, considerable resources are allocated to identify factors that might have contributed to the outcome of the event. Consideration of the considerable detail revealed by inquiries into such disasters is invaluable in identifying generic factors that "make organisations vulnerable to failures." From such inquiries, a pattern emerges; organizational accidents are not a result of randomly coinciding "operator error" or chance environmental or technical failures alone. Rather, the disasters are a result of a breakdown in the organization's policies and procedures that were established to deal with safety, and the breakdown flows from inadequate attention being paid to safety issues. In the UK, investigations into incidents such as the sinking of the MS Herald of Free Enterprise passenger ferry (Sheen, 1987), the Kings Cross underground station fire (1987) and the Piper Alpha oil platform explosion (1988) raised awareness of the effect of organisational, managerial and human factors on safety outcomes, and the decisive effect of 'safety culture' on those factors. In the US, similar issues were found to underlie the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, subsequent investigation of which identified that cultural issues had influenced numerous "flawed" decisions on behalf of NASA and Thiokol management that had contributed to the disaster. The lesson drawn from the UK disasters was that, "It is essential to create a corporate atmosphere or culture in which safety is understood to be and is accepted as, the number one priority." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2994173 | 608,675 |
1,547,772 | In 1969, Lawrence Hall became the center of one of the largest student protests at Pitt during the late 1960s era when many student demonstrations were occurring around the world. A group calling itself the Concerned Students and Faulty attempted a three-day, round-the-clock fast in the lobby of the building to protest academic and administrative policies at the university, including demands to open access to all meetings and files and to abolish grade averages. Reaching approximately 350 protesters, the group gradually diminished to slightly over half that size by the time the building officially closed. A court order obtained by the university chancellor Wesley Posvar led to a peaceable relocation at 4:30 am, approximately 16 hours after the beginning of the sit-in. The approximately 70 remaining protesters moved to the ballroom of the William Pitt Union where some continued their protest. The protest had little effect, although some of the students promised more sit-ins and the group continued on, but soon after folded due to a lack of student interest. The events did prompt Posvar to attempt to hold an open hearing in the Commons Facilities Building in the spring of 1970 in order to let students air their gripes and opinions. However, the meeting was lightly attended. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11939694 | 1,546,894 |
528,334 | The White Paper consists of two main building blocks, an ‘ecosystem of excellence’ and a ‘ecosystem of trust’. The latter outlines the EU's approach for a regulatory framework for AI. In its proposed approach, the Commission differentiates between 'high-risk' and 'non-high-risk' AI applications. Only the former should be in the scope of a future EU regulatory framework. Whether this would be the case could in principle be determined by two cumulative criteria, concerning critical sectors and critical use. Following key requirements are considered for high-risk AI applications: requirements for training data; data and record-keeping; informational duties; requirements for robustness and accuracy; human oversight; and specific requirements for specific AI applications, such as those used for purposes of remote biometric identification. AI applications that do not qualify as ‘high-risk’ could be governed by a voluntary labeling scheme. As regards compliance and enforcement, the Commission considers prior conformity assessments which could include 'procedures for testing, inspection or certification' and/or 'checks of the algorithms and of the data sets used in the development phase'. A European governance structure on AI in the form of a framework for cooperation of national competent authorities could facilitate the implementation of the regulatory framework. A January 2021 draft was leaked online on April 14, 2021, before the Commission ultimately presented their official "Proposal for a Regulation laying down harmonised rules on artificial intelligence (Artificial Intelligence Act)" a week later. Shortly after, the Artificial Intelligence Act was formally proposed. This includes a fine-tune of the 2020 risk-based approach. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=63451675 | 528,060 |
1,085,589 | Most of the language's slowness stemmed from three problems. The first is that the floating-point math routines were poorly optimized. In the Ahl benchmark, a single exponent operation, which internally loops over the slow multiplication function, was responsible for much of the machine's poor showing. Second, the conversion between the internal floating-point format and the 16-bit integers used in certain parts of the language was relatively slow. Internally, these integers were used for line numbers and array indexing, along with a few other tasks, but numbers in the tokenized program were always stored in binary-coded decimal (BCD) format. Whenever one of these is encountered, for instance, in the line number in , the tokenized BCD value has to be converted to an integer, an operation that can take as long as 3500 microseconds. Other BASICs avoided this delay by special-casing the conversion of numbers that could only possibly be integers, like the line number following a , switching to special ASCII-to-integer code to improve performance. Third was how Atari BASIC implemented branches and codice_37 loops. To perform a branch in a codice_38 or codice_39, the interpreter searches through the entire program for the matching line number it needs. One minor improvement found in most Microsoft-derived BASICs is to compare the target line number to the current line number, and search forward from that point if it is greater, or start from the top if less. This improvement was missing in Atari BASIC. Unlike almost all other BASICs, which would push a pointer to the location of the codice_37 on a stack, so when it reached the codice_41 it could easily return to the codice_37 again in a single branch operation, Atari BASIC pushed the line number instead. This meant every time a codice_41 was encountered, the system had to search through the entire program to find the corresponding codice_37 line. As a result, any loops in an Atari BASIC program cause a large loss of performance relative to other BASICs. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=64701882 | 1,085,031 |
1,441,032 | In the mid 1970s Mark Cummins, while working for the Texas Forest Service, developed a water expansion system known as the Texas Snow Job. Mr. Cummins invented the CAFS and was issued the US Patent 4318443 in 1982. This pioneering Class A CAFS used dish-washing detergents or a pine soap derivative, which was readily available as waste from local paper manufacturing industries, as a foaming agent mixed as 8 to 9 parts agent to 91 to 92 parts water, flowing up to per minute. The duration was limited by the use of compressed air cylinders rather than compressors (The US and foreign patent issued to Mark Cummins also included all types of air compressors and inert gas generators). By the mid-1980s, research by the United States Bureau of Land Management in co-operation with Mark Cummins, led to modern design features of rotary air compressors, centrifugal pumps, and direct-injection foam-proportioning systems (Fornell, 1991; IFSTA, 1966). CAFS received national attention in 1988 during the Yellowstone Park wildfires when the four-story Old Faithful Inn was successfully protected by blanketing it with compressed air foam (Darley, 1994). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=6323833 | 1,440,222 |
1,564,326 | Although the timpani was still considered primarily an outdoor instrument, it started being used during indoor concerts to provide rhythmic support for trumpet fanfares. Most of the time, players would not have written music to follow because parts were handed down from generation to generation and were learned by rote. By the 17th century, the timpani moved indoors for good and composers began to demand more from timpanists than ever before. The timpani was first introduced to the court orchestras and opera ensembles as well as in larger church works. Due to this move indoors, a much more formalized way of playing and approaching the timpani was developed. The old practice of learning parts by rote gave way to written music and composers began writing more regularly for the timpani. More notes were written than just two simultaneous pitches and as a result, timpanists were faced with the issue of how to play their parts on the equipment they had. One solution was for timpanists to add more drums to their set-up, but this also created a problem: During this time, performances often took place in courts or at smaller theaters that had limited stage space and large timpani set-ups did not fit very well. Timpanists at this time were faced with a problem; using a large, cumbersome set of timpani to play their parts would not be possible due to space restraints. However, a solution was found, and with the help of technological advancements during the 18th century in Europe, devices were developed and added to the drums to change the pitch. These changes allowed for a single drum to play more than just two notes. This provided a way for timpanists to not only play their parts more easily but also use fewer drums. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26164030 | 1,563,439 |
983,230 | In 1975, Amotz Zahavi proposed a verbal model for how signal costs could constrain cheating and stabilize an "honest" correlation between observed signals and unobservable qualities, based on an analogy to sports handicapping systems. He called this idea the handicap principle. The purpose of a sports handicapping system is to reduce disparities in performance, making the contest more competitive. In a handicap race, intrinsically faster horses are given heavier weights to carry under their saddles. Similarly, in amateur golf, better golfers have fewer strokes subtracted from their raw scores. This creates correlations between the handicap and unhandicapped performance, if the handicaps work as they are supposed to, between the handicap imposed and the corresponding horse's handicapped performance. If nothing was known about two race horses or two amateur golfers except their handicaps, an observer could infer who is most likely to win: the horse with the bigger weight handicap, and the golfer with the smaller stroke handicap. By analogy, if peacock 'tails' (large tail covert feathers) act as a handicapping system, and a peahen knew nothing about two peacocks except the sizes of their tails, she could "infer" that the peacock with the bigger tail has greater unobservable intrinsic quality. Display costs can include extrinsic social costs, in the form of testing and punishment by rivals, as well as intrinsic production costs. Another example given in textbooks is the extinct Irish elk, "Megaloceros giganteus". The male Irish elk's enormous antlers could perhaps have evolved as displays of ability to overcome handicap, though biologists point out that if the handicap is inherited, its genes ought to be selected against. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1318175 | 982,716 |
140,212 | On 11 February 2016, the LIGO collaboration announced the first observation of gravitational waves, from a signal detected at 09:50:45 GMT on 14 September 2015 of two black holes with masses of 29 and 36 solar masses merging about 1.3 billion light-years away. During the final fraction of a second of the merger, it released more than 50 times the power of all the stars in the observable universe combined. The signal increased in frequency from 35 to 250 Hz over 10 cycles (5 orbits) as it rose in strength for a period of 0.2 second. The mass of the new merged black hole was 62 solar masses. Energy equivalent to three solar masses was emitted as gravitational waves. The signal was seen by both LIGO detectors in Livingston and Hanford, with a time difference of 7 milliseconds due to the angle between the two detectors and the source. The signal came from the Southern Celestial Hemisphere, in the rough direction of (but much farther away than) the Magellanic Clouds. The gravitational waves were observed in the region more than 5 sigma (in other words, 99.99997% chances of showing/getting the same result), the probability of finding enough to have been assessed/considered as the evidence/proof in a experiment of statistical physics. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8111079 | 140,155 |
1,630,007 | The University of Economics in Katowice maintains international partnerships with numerous higher education institutions. The cooperation includes such initiatives as: ERASMUS program, business trips of academic and administrative staff, organization of scientific conferences and promotional events, as well as joint international programs and projects. UE Katowice has signed partnership agreements with selected universities located in: Albania, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Belarus, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Croatia, Cyprus, Montenegro, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Spain, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Kazakhstan, Colombia, South Korea, Lebanon, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Mauritius, Norway, Palestine, Paraguay, Portugal, Russia, Romania, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, Ukraine, USA, and the United Kingdom. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2667396 | 1,629,088 |
1,625,045 | The "DIO3" gene codes for type 3 iodothyronine deiodinase (D3), an enzyme that inactivates thyroid hormones and is highly expressed throughout fetal development, peaking early and decreasing towards the end of gestation. Part of the DLK1-Dio3 imprinting control region, this gene is one involved in the epigenetic process that causes a subset of genes to be regulated based on their parental origin . Such imprinted genes are required for the formation of the placenta as well as the development of cellular lineages such as those derived from the mesoderm and ectoderm. D3 is found in the pregnant uterus, placenta, and mammalian fetal tissues where it is thought to be involved in the transfer of thyroid hormone between the mother and fetus. Expression of D3 contributes to the development of the brain, skin, liver, bone, ovary, testis, intestine, and brown adipose tissue. Introductory observations of D3-deficient mice indicate growth retardation and even some neonatal death. Due to its ability to activate or inactivate thyroid hormone, Dio3 coding of D3 could be a target for therapeutic intervention in insulin-related illness such as diabetes. In addition, an abnormal amount of Dio3 related to insufficient thyroid hormone levels could be responsible for the disruption of brain development in conjunction with alcohol exposure. Many factors modify genetic imprinting of Dio3, making it a potential aid in understanding prenatal insults and their production of spectrum disorders. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=5196189 | 1,624,129 |
2,016,625 | He was appointed in 1954 to the position of Department Head and Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Metal Research in Stuttgart. A year later, he received the Habilitation from the University of Stuttgart for his comprehensive study of the discharge of metal ions in corrosion. The years 1954–1961 in Stuttgart were prolific and it was here that Gerischer began his work on semiconductor electrochemistry. It began with a short note on the electrochemistry of n-type and p-type germanium; a study that grew out of a seminar on solid state physics at the university, where the recent results of Brattain and Garrett on germanium were discussed. Gerischer recognized the theoretical implications of semiconductor electrochemistry in charge transfer and its potential applications in photochemistry and photovoltaic devices. His papers considered the differentiation between Faradaic reactions of electrons and holes (1959), the theory of electron tunneling at semiconductor-electrolyte interfaces, solution Fermi levels, and densities of states. He extended his studies to metal electrodes which he studied with his electronic potentiostat (1957), to stress corrosion (1957), to hydrogen evolution and hydrogen adatom formation (1957), to fast electrode processes (1960) and to the reaction kinetics of water dissociation, which he probed by the microwave pulse method (1961). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=13660531 | 2,015,463 |
51,824 | During a user trial on 20 January 2009, BrahMos was tested with a new navigation system but it failed to hit the target. BrahMos Aerospace Corporation's director Dr A. Sivathanu Pillai said, ""The missile performance was absolutely normal until the last phase, but the missile missed the target, though it maintained the direction."" and that "The problem was in the software, not hardware". The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) said that there were "small hitches" in the last stage of the test firing due to delay in input of satellite navigation input to the Inertial Navigation System, the missile travelled for 112 seconds instead of the slated 84 seconds and fell 7 km away from the target. According to BrahMos Corporation, another test of the new missile was to be conducted within one month, but it was eventually conducted on 4 March 2009 and was deemed successful. BrahMos was test-fired again on 29 March 2009. For the test, the missile had to identify a building among a cluster of buildings in an urban environment. BrahMos successfully hit the intended target in two and a half minutes of launch. According to official sources, ""The new seeker is unique and would help us to hit our targets, which are insignificant in terms of size, in a cluster of large buildings. India is now the only nation in the world with this advanced technology"". After the third test, Lt Gen Noble Thamburaj, said that the Indian Army wanted the BrahMos to achieve high standards of accuracy and congratulated the scientists on behalf of the Indian Army. The Indian Army confirmed that the test was successful and the army is satisfied with the missile. This marking the completion of the development phase of BrahMos Block-II, and it was ready for induction. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1814876 | 51,804 |
1,440,557 | HTLV-1 and HTLV-2 share broad similarities in their overall genetic organization and expression pattern, but they differ substantially in their pathogenic properties. The virus utilizes the GLUT-1 and NRP1 cellular receptors for their entry, although HTLV-1, but not HTLV-2, is dependent on heparan sulfate proteoglycans. Cell-to-cell transmission is essential for virus replication and occurs through the formation of a virological synapse. The family of Human T-lymphotropic virus (Figure 2) can be further categorized into four sub types. The figure also divides the retroviruses into exogenous and endogenous. Retroviruses can exist as two different forms: endogenous which consist of normal genetic components and exogenous which are horizontally transferred genetic components that are usually infectious agents that cause disease i.e. HIV. In (Figure 3) open reading frames (ORF) are shown which can if translated can predict which genes will be present and this can help to better understand human retroviruses. Of the four subtypes, HTLV-2 may be linked to Cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL). In one study involving cultured lymphocytes from patients with mycosis fungoides (Figure 1), PCR amplification showed gene sequences of HTLV-II. This finding may suggest a possible correlation with HTLV-2 and CTCL. Further research and studies must be conducted to show a positive relationship. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21410982 | 1,439,747 |
544,305 | A popular hypothesis mentioned by Peter Milner, in his 1974 article "A Model for Visual Shape Recognition", has been that features of individual objects are bound/segregated via synchronization of the activity of different neurons in the cortex. The theory, called binding-by-synchrony (BBS), is hypothesized to occur through the transient mutual synchronization of neurons located in different regions of the brain when the stimulus is presented. Empirical testing of the idea was brought to light when von der Malsburg proposed that feature binding posed a special problem that could not be covered simply by cellular firing rates. However, it has been shown this theory may not be a problem since it was revealed that the modules code jointly for multiple features, countering the feature-binding issue. Temporal synchrony has been shown to be the most prevalent when regarding the first problem, "General Considerations on Coordination," because it is an effective method to take in surroundings and is good for grouping and segmentation. A number of studies suggested that there is indeed a relationship between rhythmic synchronous firing and feature binding. This rhythmic firing appears to be linked to intrinsic oscillations in neuronal somatic potentials, typically in the gamma range around 40 - 60 hertz. The positive arguments for a role for rhythmic synchrony in resolving the segregational object-feature binding problem have been summarized by Singer. There is certainly extensive evidence for synchronization of neural firing as part of responses to visual stimuli. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=941613 | 544,023 |
1,042,611 | Toyota opted to develop the car to minimise the impact of the 2013 Technical Regulations which increased the minimum weight of manufacturer Le Mans Prototype 1 (LMP1) vehicles by by focusing on fine-tuning the engine for power improvement, efficiency and reliability. They also manufactured new chassis tubs consisting of a narrower front nose because there was no longer a need to have an option to operate the hybrid system on the front wheels. The company had limited resources, so they elected to run one TS030 Hybrid for the entire WEC season with a second vehicle participating in selected rounds including the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The first race of the season, the 6 Hours of Silverstone, saw Toyota bring two 2012-specification cars in place of the updated 2013 chassis. Nakajima was absent from Silverstone because of a Super Formula commitment. Despite a timing system malfunction preventing lap times from being published for more than an hour, the No. 7 and No. 8 Toyota cars qualified in first and second places, separated by nearly two seconds. However, the event was at best uneventful, with neither car being able to match either Audi's pace, finishing third and fourth overall having struggled in the first few hours of the race with tyre management. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=34484574 | 1,042,068 |
819,812 | Following the initial flights of the type, in addition to continuing flight testing, an increasing emphasis was placed on the performance of pre-arranged aerial displays at various airshows; in such a capacity, the EAP would demonstrate its capabilities, such as its high level of agility, to a wide audience, often consisting of both the general public and figures interested in the prospective production programme. The EAP's one hundredth flight was performed during the 1987 Paris Air Show. During December 1987, the third phase of test flying commenced, after which an increasing emphasis was placed upon testing various technologies for the future Eurofighter Typhoon, such as the direct voice input interface and multi-function displays. The flight control laws would also be progressively refined, improving the handling and enabling the EAP to reach a recorded maximum speed of Mach 2.0 during its latter years of operation; the aircraft also demonstrated an ability to maintain controlled flight while flown at very high angles of attack, reportedly in excess of 35 degrees. The final round of test flights involved exploring the functionality of the in-flight flutter and structural coupling mode. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=979983 | 819,371 |
2,168,484 | Lars Jaeger (born 1969 in Heidelberg, Germany) is a Swiss-German author, entrepreneur, financial theorist, and alternative investment manager. He writes on the history and philosophy of science and technology, and has in the past been an author on hedge funds, quantitative investing, and risk management. In his widely read blog as well as other media he frequently writes on issues concerning scientific developments, new technologies, and their meaning for society. He is the author of many books on various topics.In 2014, Jaeger published a universal history of science (in German), and in September 2016 a book on the interplay of science and spirituality (again in German). His next book "Supermacht Wissenschaften" ("Superpower Science", 2017, again in German) outlines scenarios of mankind's technological future. His 2018 book "The Second Quantum Revolution - From Entanglement to Quantum Computing and Other Super-Technologies" (2018, English as well as German editions) deals with the latest quantum technologies. His 2019 book "Mehr Zukunft wagen" (Daring more future", 2019, in German) is a confrontation with the impending technological upheavals that lead to what Jaeger calls “The Human Crisis”. In 2020 he published "Sternstunden der Wissenschaft. A Success Story of Thinking" (in German) in which he describes the triumph of science on the basis of four essential intellectual virtues. His 2021 book "Ways Out of the Climate Catastrophe - Ingredients for a Sustainable Energy and Climate Policy" provides an outlook on a possible climate-friendly economy of the future. In 2022 Jaeger published two books: 1. "Emmy Noether - Her rocky Path to the topf of Mathematics" (in German) and 2. "The Stumbling Progress of 20th Century Science - How Crises and Great Minds Have Shaped Our Modern World". The first gives a biography - readable also for non-mathematicians - of the greatest female mathematician in history. The second books describes the revolutionary development of ALL sciences from around 1880 to 1950. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=37030760 | 2,167,247 |
1,889,340 | Respected by colleagues for his design versatility, Jones was also masterful at understanding structural engineering. Described as possessing both an artist's eye and engineer's intellect, he set both aptitudes to work in winning combination. Among the three hundred structures Jones designed, from whimsical park buildings to octagonal log houses, and humble church chapels, he is best remembered in Minnesota for the second Lake Harriet Pavilion (1891–1903)—“a Chinese timber-framed pagoda form in a shingle-clad exterior”(LHHSG 2001), the monumental Butler Brothers Warehouse (1908)—“a sternly poetic mass of wine-colored brick that conveys the commercial might of Minneapolis at the dawn of the twentieth century” (Millett 2007:50), the exquisite Lakewood Cemetery Chapel (1910)—“an elaborate example of Byzantine Mosaic art and one of the finest of its type to be found anywhere in the United States”(NRHP 1983), the Northfield Bank (1910)—whose entire roof structure is designed like spokes around its domed top causing its architect to proclaim at its completion “another building just like it cannot be found in this country” (Northfield News 1910), and the Washburn Park Water Tower (1932)—“linking function and artistic splendor with 16-foot medieval knights and eight-foot eagles”(Balcom 1984). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=16278316 | 1,888,257 |
574,307 | C-values vary enormously among species. In animals they range more than 3,300-fold, and in land plants they differ by a factor of about 1,000. Protist genomes have been reported to vary more than 300,000-fold in size, but the high end of this range ("Amoeba") has been called into question. Variation in C-values bears no relationship to the complexity of the organism or the number of genes contained in its genome; for example, some single-celled protists have genomes much larger than that of humans. This observation was deemed counterintuitive before the discovery of non-coding DNA. It became known as the C-value paradox as a result. However, although there is no longer any paradoxical aspect to the discrepancy between C-value and gene number, this term remains in common usage. For reasons of conceptual clarification, the various puzzles that remain with regard to genome size variation instead have been suggested to more accurately comprise a complex but clearly defined puzzle known as the C-value enigma. C-values correlate with a range of features at the cell and organism levels, including cell size, cell division rate, and, depending on the taxon, body size, metabolic rate, developmental rate, organ complexity, geographical distribution, or extinction risk (for recent reviews, see Bennett and Leitch 2005; Gregory 2005). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2354482 | 574,013 |
108,853 | The Younger Dryas impact hypothesis (YDIH) or Clovis comet hypothesis is a speculative attempt to explain the onset of the Younger Dryas (YD) as an alternative to the long standing and widely accepted cause due to a significant reduction or shutdown of the North Atlantic "Conveyor" in response to a sudden influx of fresh water from Lake Agassiz and deglaciation in North America. The YDIH posits that fragments of a large (more than 4 kilometers in diameter), disintegrating asteroid or comet struck North America, South America, Europe, and western Asia around 12,850 years ago, coinciding with the beginning of the Younger Dryas cooling event. Multiple meteor air bursts and/or impacts are said to have produced the Younger Dryas boundary layer (YDB), depositing peak concentrations of platinum, high-temperature spherules, meltglass, and nanodiamonds, forming an isochronous datum at more than 50 sites across about 50 million km of Earth's surface. Some scientists have proposed that this event triggered extensive biomass burning, a brief impact winter and the Younger Dryas abrupt climate change, contributed to extinctions of late Pleistocene megafauna, and resulted in the end of the Clovis culture. A group known as the Comet Research Group are the primary advocates for the impact hypothesis, though other groups have published supporting evidence. The YDIH remains a minority and disputed view and has failed to gain acceptance by the mainstream planetary impact and paleoclimate communities. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11338425 | 108,808 |
1,470,193 | This method is typical of 'pump-probe' experiments, where a pulsed laser is used to excite the electrons in a material (such as a molecule or semiconducting solid) from their ground states to higher-energy excited states. A probing light source, typically a xenon arc lamp or broadband laser pulse created by supercontinuum generation, is used to obtain an absorption spectrum of the compound at various times following its excitation. As the excited molecules absorb the probe light, they are further excited to even higher states or induced to return to the ground state radiatively through stimulated emission. After passing through the sample, the unabsorbed probe light continues to a photodetector such as an avalanche photodiode array or CMOS camera, and the data is processed to generate an absorption spectrum of the excited state. Since all the molecules or excitation sites in the sample will not undergo the same dynamics simultaneously, this experiment must be carried out many times (where each "experiment" comes from a single pair of pump and probe laser pulse interactions), and the data must be averaged to generate spectra with accurate intensities and peaks. Because photobleaching and other photochemical or photothermal reactions can happen to the samples, this method requires evaluating these effects by measuring the same sample at the same location many times at different pump and probe intensities. Most time the liquid samples are stirred during measurement making relatively long-time kinetics difficult to measure due to flow and diffusion. Unlike time-correlated single photon counting (TCSPC), this technique can be carried out on non-fluorescent samples. It can also be performed on non-transmissive samples in a reflection geometry. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4136723 | 1,469,368 |
436,646 | Often such buildings, especially if constructed on a moderate slope, are erected on a platform connected to a perimeter foundation through low stud-walls called "cripple wall" or "pin-up". This low wall structure itself may fail in shear or in its connections to itself at the corners, leading to the building moving diagonally and collapsing the low walls. The likelihood of failure of the pin-up can be reduced by ensuring that the corners are well reinforced in shear and that the shear panels are well connected to each other through the corner posts. This requires structural grade sheet plywood, often treated for rot resistance. This grade of plywood is made without interior unfilled knots and with more, thinner layers than common plywood. New buildings designed to resist earthquakes will typically use OSB (oriented strand board), sometimes with metal joins between panels, and with well attached stucco covering to enhance its performance. In many modern tract homes, especially those built upon expansive (clay) soil the building is constructed upon a single and relatively thick monolithic slab, kept in one piece by high tensile rods that are stressed after the slab has set. This poststressing places the concrete under compression – a condition under which it is extremely strong in bending and so will not crack under adverse soil conditions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=923301 | 436,432 |
1,806,977 | A line of research investigates long term potentiation (LTP), a process that describes how a memory can be consolidated between two neurons, or brain cells, ultimately by creating a circuit within the brain that can encode a memory. To initiate a learning circuit between two neurons, one prominent study described using tetanus stimulations to depolarize one neuron by 30mV, which, in turn, activated its NMDA glutamate receptors (Nowak, Bregestovski, Ascher, Herbert, & Prochiantz, 1984). The activation of these receptors resulted in Ca flooding the cell, initiating a cascade of secondary messengers. The cascade of resulting reactions, brought about by secondary messengers, terminates with the activation of cAMP response binding element protein (CREB), which acts as a transcription factor for various genes and initiates their expression (Hawkins, Kandel, & Bailey, 2006). Some proponents argue that the genes stimulate changes in communication between neurons, which underlie the encoding of memory; others suggest that the genes are byproducts of the LTP signaling pathway and are not directly involved in LTP. However, following the cascade of secondary messengers, no one would dispute that more AMPA receptors appear in the postsynaptic terminal (Hayashi et al., 2000). Higher numbers of AMPA receptors, taken together with the aforementioned events, allow for increased firing potential in the postsynaptic cell, which creates an improved learning circuit between these two neurons (Hayashi et al., 2000). Because of the specific, activity-dependent nature of LTP, it is an ideal model for a neural correlate of memory, as postulated by numerous studies; together, these studies show that the abolishment of LTP prevents the formation of memory at the neuronal level (Hawkins, Kandel, & Bailey, 2006). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=37957946 | 1,805,958 |
416,571 | Conceptions of what constitutes capitalism have changed significantly over time, as well as being dependent on the political perspective and analytical approach adopted by the observer in question. Adam Smith focused on the role of enlightened self-interest (the "invisible hand") and the role of specialization in promoting the efficiency of capital accumulation. Ayn Rand defined capitalism as a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned, and called it the . Robert LeFevre, an American libertarian and primary theorist of autarchism, defined capitalism as savings and capital—in essence—as savings made by men, which are then invested in the tools of production. Some proponents of capitalism (like Milton Friedman) emphasize the role of free markets, which, they claim, promote freedom and democracy. For many (like Immanuel Wallerstein), capitalism hinges on the extension into a global dimension of an economic system in which goods and services are traded in markets and capital goods belong to non-state entities. For others (like Karl Marx), it is defined by the creation of a labor market in which most people must sell their labor power in order to make a living. Marx, along with others like Hilaire Belloc, also argued that capitalism differs from other market economies that feature private ownership because it features the concentration of the means of production in the hands of a few. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1375342 | 416,368 |
642,905 | CMF has been tested against large-caliber armor-piercing rounds. S-S CMF panels were manufactured and paired with a ceramic faceplate and aluminum backplate. The layered hard armors were tested against 12.7 × 99 mm ball and AP rounds at a range of impact velocities. The mild steel cores of the ball rounds penetrated one of the three samples but revealed the benefits of using multiple tiles over a single ceramic faceplate to limit the spread of damage. The hardened steel core of the AP rounds penetrated deep into the ceramic faceplate, compressing the CMF layer until the projectile was either stopped and embedded within the armor or was able to fully penetrate and exit the backing plate. The experimental results were compared to commercially available armor materials and offer improved performance with reduced weight. The CMF layer is estimated to absorb between 69 and 79% of the bullet's kinetic energy, in their unoptimized testing condition. At impact velocities above 800 m/s, the CMF layer consistently absorbed up to 79% of the impact energy. As the impact velocity increased, so did the effective strength of the CMF layer due to the strain rate sensitivity of the material. The mass efficiency ratio of the armors, when compared to RHA, was calculated to be 2.1. The CMF hard armors can effectively stop an incoming round at less than half the weight of the required rolled homogeneous armor. The weight savings afforded by using such novel armor can improve the fuel efficiency of military vehicles without sacrificing the protection of the personnel or the equipment inside. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2324595 | 642,566 |
1,411,483 | Groundwater transportation of radionuclides belongs to the key pathways of contamination of lands engaged in agricultural production. In particular, due to vertical migration with rises of water levels, radioactive particles infiltrate soils and subsequently get into plants through the absorption system of their roots. This leads to internal irradiation of animals and people during consumption of contaminated vegetables This situation is aggravated by a predominantly rural type of settlement in the Chernobyl area, with most of population engaged in active agricultural production. It makes the authorities either remove the contaminated areas near Chernobyl from agricultural activities or spend funds for excavation and treatment of surface layers. These problems of damage to initially intact soils puts a heavy burden primarily on Ukrainian and especially Belorussian economy. Nearly one-quarter of the entire territory of Belarus was seriously contaminated with isotopes of Cesium. The authorities were obliged to exclude nearly 265 thousands hectares of cultivated lands from agricultural use till present day. Although complex chemical and agro-technological measures led to limited decrease of radionuclide content in food produced on contaminated territories, the problem remains largely unresolved | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=59803219 | 1,410,690 |
928,669 | In the Communist Bloc, the music of the Second Viennese School proved an often bewildering or professionally dangerous but sometimes exciting or inspiring alternative to socialist realist art music, given access. Whereas Berg's "Lyric Suite", performed by the Kolisch Quartet at the 1927 Baden-Baden ISCM festival where Bartók performed his own Piano Sonata, could inspire Bartók in his subsequent third and fourth string quartets and later Concerto for Orchestra, Second Viennese influence on composers behind the Iron Curtain was mediated by anti-fascist and anti-German sentiment and obstructed by anti-formalist cultural policies and Cold War separation more generally. In 1970 Ligeti explained, "In countries where there exists a certain isolation, in Eastern Europe, one cannot obtain correct information. One is cut off from the circulation of blood." Following the 1956 uprising in Hungary, the influence of Webern initially predominated, bearing on Pál Kadosa, Endre Szervánszky, and György Kurtág. Among Czechs, Marek Kopelent, who discovered the Second Viennese School as an editor and was particularly taken by Webern, was ostracized and blacklisted for his avant-garde music at home and despaired, unable to attend performances of his own works abroad; while Pavel Blatný, who attended the and wrote music with serial techniques in the late 1960s, returned to tonality in Brno and was rewarded. Later still and farther east, Sofia Gubaidulina, for whom music was an escape from the sociopolitical atmosphere of post-Stalinist Soviet Russia, cited the influence of both JS Bach and Webern in particular; she emigrated to Germany in 1992. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=65676 | 928,179 |
1,372,483 | Kaito Gakko was formed under David Kawaikoolihilihi Nu'uhiwa, who studied with Okazaki starting in 1938, and John Cahill, (Danzan-Ryu's sensei, during Okazaki's internment.) After a fighting career with more than 100 consecutive undefeated matches, Professor Nuuhiwa blended his real world fighting experiences, including death matches in Africa and Asia, with his training in Danzan-Ryu Jujitsu, Karate, Aikido, Makaho, and Lua, and started teaching self-defense classes under the name 'Kaito Gakko', a title he was given in Japan in 1958, upon receiving a 12th Dan in karate. Kaito literally means “The Best of the East and West.” He was awarded the legendary Red Belt in Japan. At the time, he was one of only five in the world to hold this rank and the first American ever to hold this honor. David was also an expert in the ancient Hawaiian fighting art of Lua and a healing arts practitioner. Many professional athletes, including Sugar Ray Leonard, came to Nu'uhiwa for pre-fight training, or physical therapy. David Nu'uhiwa Sr. died on January 21, 2005 in Honolulu, Hawai’i after a courageous battle with cancer. Today, his Kaito Gakko school, aloha and teachings are carried on by Professor Nu'uhiwa's students: Kalani Akui (President of Kaito Gakko), Alyxzander Bear (Vice President of Kaito Gakko), Bruce Keaulani of 'Kaito Gakko Nu'uhiwa Ryu' in Oahu, Hawaii, and Carlos Gallegos of 'Kaito Gakko Martial Arts' in Orange County, California. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1383904 | 1,371,726 |
818,478 | Computational physics problems are in general very difficult to solve exactly. This is due to several (mathematical) reasons: lack of algebraic and/or analytic solvability, complexity, and chaos. For example, - even apparently simple problems, such as calculating the wavefunction of an electron orbiting an atom in a strong electric field (Stark effect), may require great effort to formulate a practical algorithm (if one can be found); other cruder or brute-force techniques, such as graphical methods or root finding, may be required. On the more advanced side, mathematical perturbation theory is also sometimes used (a working is shown for this particular example here). In addition, the computational cost and computational complexity for many-body problems (and their classical counterparts) tend to grow quickly. A macroscopic system typically has a size of the order of formula_1 constituent particles, so it is somewhat of a problem. Solving quantum mechanical problems is generally of exponential order in the size of the system and for classical N-body it is of order N-squared. Finally, many physical systems are inherently nonlinear at best, and at worst chaotic: this means it can be difficult to ensure any numerical errors do not grow to the point of rendering the 'solution' useless. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=106418 | 818,039 |
314,425 | Frail elderly people may choose to decline some kinds of medical care, because the risk-benefit ratio is different. For example, frail elderly women routinely stop screening mammograms, because breast cancer is typically a slowly growing disease that would cause them no pain, impairment, or loss of life before they would die of other causes. Frail people are also at significant risk of post-surgical complications and the need for extended care, and an accurate prediction—based on validated measures, rather than how old the patient's face looks—can help older patients make fully informed choices about their options. Assessment of older patients before elective surgeries can accurately predict the patients' recovery trajectories. One frailty scale uses five items: unintentional weight loss, muscle weakness, exhaustion, low physical activity, and slowed walking speed. A healthy person scores 0; a very frail person scores 5. Compared to non-frail elderly people, people with intermediate frailty scores (2 or 3) are twice as likely to have post-surgical complications, spend 50% more time in the hospital, and are three times as likely to be discharged to a skilled nursing facility instead of to their own homes. Frail elderly patients (score of 4 or 5) who were living at home before the surgery have even worse outcomes, with the risk of being discharged to a nursing home rising to twenty times the rate for non-frail elderly people. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=436825 | 314,256 |
1,678,902 | Esau was born on 3 April 1898 in Yekaterinoslav, Russian Empire ("now Dnipro, Ukraine") to a family of Mennonites of German descent, so-called "Russian Mennonites". She began studying agriculture in Moscow, but after a year her family was prompted by the Bolshevik Revolution to move to Germany where she completed her studies at the Agricultural College of Berlin. This had provided training in plant breeding. The Esau family moved to California in 1922, where Esau worked for the Spreckels Sugar Company on sugar beet resistance to curly top virus. From 1927 Esau was employed as a graduate assistant in the Botany Division and resumed her education at the University of California, Davis, through registering for a PhD degree at University of California Berkeley in 1928 (Davis did not have a graduate school at this time). Her doctoral committee were W.W. Robbins, (botanist and the chair), T.H. Goodspeed, cytologist, and T.E. Rawlins, plant pathologist. She was formally awarded a doctorate in 1931 which was granted by UC Berkeley in 1932. She was also elected to the Phi Beta Kappa honor society in 1932. Esau then joined the faculty in the new post of Junior Botanist in the Experimental Station of the College of Agriculture, and remained until her retirement at age 67. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2164542 | 1,677,959 |
454,958 | The user interface design (UI) for "The Last of Us" underwent various different iterations throughout development. User interface designer Alexandria Neonakis originally intended to integrate the weapon upgrade system into the weapon slotting system, in order to constantly remind players to upgrade their weapons. Upon further iterations, Neonakis discovered that this integration resulted in a cluttered interface. Ultimately, it was decided that the upgrade system would be integrated in the form of upgrade benches, occasionally found throughout the game's world; this also solved another problem that Neonakis witnessed, in which players would upgrade to the lowest possible option, as opposed to saving parts for the higher options. Once it was decided to split the upgrade and slotting systems, the initial design was to select the weapons from a circle. This design, eventually considered "clunky and slow", was replaced in preference of a list system. Neonakis has identified that the main problem with the list design was that it forced players to focus on navigating through menus during intense combat. This led to the final design, which allows players to swap and slot weapons in the same menu. To integrate the UI into the game, Neonakis separated the individual elements and changed their format. User interface programmer Paul Burg provided Neonakis with tools to move elements using their coordinates. All animated transitions were hard coded, which led to difficulty in creating smooth transitions. "This was tedious and at times incredibly frustrating, but it also meant that we all had to be pretty creative in how things were designed," Neonakis said. The game's crafting system was implemented into immediate gameplay, in order for players to feel involved. "We needed to make it streamlined and fast enough that you felt like you could take just that moment and be able to craft that thing that's going to mean your survival in the next thirty seconds, or your failure to survive," lead game designer Jacob Minkoff said. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=45204814 | 454,736 |
2,161,984 | This work has since progressed to show that exercise can have beneficial effects for the brains of animals that have been exposed to ethanol while in the womb, an animal model of fetal alcohol syndrome effects. His current work continues to examine how exercise can benefit the brain. He is part of the Island Medical Program and the Division of Medical Sciences, a joint venture of the University of British Columbia and the University of Victoria to increase the number of medical doctors being trained in Canada, and teaches neuroanatomy and problem-based learning (PBL) in this program . His current research concentrates on how exercise generates new brain cells, enhances synaptic plasticity, and affects learning and memory processes in people with Alzheimer's Disease, stroke, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Disorder (FASD), Fragile X Syndrome (FXS) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). particularly in the hippocampus. This work is funded by a variety of organizations including NSERC, FRAXA, Azrieli, and CIHR. Christie also has an extensive research program focused on mild traumatic brain injury at the University of Victoria. He is the director of the concussion laboratory at UVic, which focuses on clinical research, but has also initiated an extensive pre-clinical research program around repeated mild traumatic brain injury and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) that is funded by CIHR. He has recently expanded the focus of his prenatal exposure research to include both prenatal cannabis and prenatal ethanol exposure, and is funded by CIHR to determine how prenatal exposure to these substances impacts learning and memory processes in the developing brain. The Christie laboratory operates with an explicit mandate for ensuring equity and inclusion, and all trainees take part in gender and equity training, as well as indigenous acumen training. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=6841939 | 2,160,749 |
641,055 | Hooker regularly corresponded with the chief government scientist in New Zealand, Sir James Hector. He sent his son Willy (aged 15) to stay in New Zealand with the recently married Hector in 1869, Willy was sickly and coughing up blood, and a warmer climate was recommended. Though well-behaved he was indolent. Hector sent him on a cruise on a Government steamer the "Sturt" with a son (also 15) of Colonel Haultain the Defence minister. Mrs Hector treated him like a younger brother. After eight months and in better health Hector sent him home to England, saying he had greatly improved. His father was grateful, and surprised when Willy passed the civil service examination. He got an administrative job in the India Office, and lived to 89. However his third son Brian was a "great worry" to him. He qualified as a geologist and mining engineer at the Royal School of Mines but unable to get a job in Britain emigrated to Australia, where he married. He resigned a Queensland lectureship to invest (with his brother Willy) in an impressively named but cash-strapped gold-mining company which collapsed, the Queensland Minerals Exploration Company. Joseph was appalled; Brian could not support his wife and children or find employment. In 1891 Hector sent a pessimistic report on a proposed tin mine on Stewart Island, and saw Brian in 1892 and 1893, after he left his family in Australia. Hector ceased to be involved with mining in New Zealand under the new Liberal government. Brian returned to his family in Australia in 1894. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=364723 | 640,716 |
1,559,773 | The University's buildings, along with most of its records and files, were destroyed in a widespread 1845 fire that wiped out 20 square blocks of the most valuable part of Pittsburgh. Classes were held in Trinity Church until a new building was constructed on Duquesne Way (on what was the site of the former Horne's department store). However, four years later this building also was destroyed by fire. Due to the catastrophic nature of these fires, operations were suspended for a few years to allow the University time to regroup and rebuild. By 1854, WUP had erected a 16-room brick building with a slate roof that was designed to be nearly fireproof. This building was erected on the corner of Ross and Diamond (now Forbes Avenue) streets (site of the present day Pittsburgh City-County Building), and classes resumed in 1855. It is during this era, in 1867, that Samuel Pierpoint Langley, inventor and aviation pioneer for whom Langley Air Force Base is named, was chosen as director of the Allegheny Observatory, which was donated to WUP in 1865. Langley was professor of astronomy and physics and remained at WUP until 1891, when he was succeeded by another prominent astronomer, James Edward Keeler. Growing quickly during this period, WUP constructed a second building, in 1877, on Ross Street. However, in 1882, the Allegheny County courthouse was severely damaged in yet another fire, so the University sold its buildings to the county for use as a courthouse until a new one could be constructed. This action prompted the University to move its campus from the downtown area. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=13999007 | 1,558,887 |
1,900,274 | Kim has worked on a diverse set of research areas. His early works concentrated on mathematical phylogenetics, which started during his graduate school with Drs. Robert R. Sokal and F. James Rohlf who pioneered computational methods in evolutionary tree estimation. Among his works in this area, Junhyong Kim introduced the use of algebraic geometric techniques in phylogenetic estimation. In 1999, working with John Carlson at Yale, he developed a novel algorithm for computationally identifying G Protein-Coupled Receptors (GPCR) without using primary sequence homology, which led to the cloning of olfactory receptors in insects. After his move to Penn, his research has concentrated on comparative functional genomics, especially gene expression and RNA biology in two model systems. In one area, he is working with budding yeast to understand the mechanisms and evolution of timing control for gene expression. In the other area, he is working with James Eberwine to understand the RNA biology of mammalian neurons and the evolution of individual cell characteristics. With Dr. Eberwine he helped develop a novel method for using direct RNA transfer to reprogram mammalian cells and helped decipher the mechanisms of RNA localization in neurons. More recently, the Kim and Eberwine labs have been working together to understand transcriptome variability in single cells and how the variation relates to dysfunction of cells. Drs. Kim and Eberwine are currently directing a new 5-year project with a grant from the National Institutes of Health. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38570216 | 1,899,186 |
1,823,964 | Perpendicular to the beam path, there exist a number of optical ports for viewing the plasma at different radial positions. For a given plasma discharge, a fiber bundle system is placed on one of these ports, and is used to collect emission along its line-of-sight (black tubes on top of the machine contain light collection optics; fibers are placed in the long, curved white tube when not in use). This emission is sent to a spectrometer where it is dispersed over a finite wavelength range — which is centered on the emission line of interest — by a pair of optical gratings. However, because the collected emission is dominated by radiation from along the beam path, the measurements are effectively localized to the intersection volume between the fiber view and the beam. On MST, this intersection volume is small (~ 2 cm) compared to the plasma volume, allowing spatially resolved measurements of "T" and "v" to be obtained. Data collected from a number of plasma discharges — for which the location of the fiber bundle system is varied — are used to construct radial profiles of the impurity ion temperature and velocity, providing important information for understanding the physics of plasmas in MST. Typical ion temperatures measured by CHERS on MST are in the range of 100 to 800 eV (2 million to 17 million degrees Fahrenheit), depending on position in the plasma and type of discharge. Likewise, measured equilibrium ion velocities are on the order of 1,000 to 10,000 meters per second. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2203151 | 1,822,926 |
1,352,976 | There are many uses imaginable on this basis. A surfboard of vitrimers could be brought into a new shape, scratches on a car body could be "cured" and cross-linked plastic or synthetic rubber items could be welded. Vitrimers which are prepared from metathesis of dioxaborolanes with different polymers that are commercially available, can have both good processibility and outstanding performance such as mechanical, thermal, and chemical resistance. The polymers that can be utilized in such methodology range from poly(methylmethacrylate), polyimine, polystyrene, to polyethylene with high density and cross-linked robust structures, which makes this preparative method of vitrimers able to be applied to a wide range of industries. Recent NASA-funded work on reversible adhesives for in-space assembly has used a high performance vitrimer system called aromatic thermosetting copolyester (ATSP) as the basis for coatings and composites reversibly bondable in the solid state – providing new possibilities for the assembly of large, complex structures for space exploration and development. Start-up Mallinda Inc claims to have applications across the composites market from wind energy, sporting goods, automotive, aerospace, marine, and carbon fiber reinforced pressure vessels among others. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=42791912 | 1,352,229 |
1,070,342 | Laccases have the potential to crosslink food polymers such as proteins and nonstarch polysaccharides in dough. In non-starch polysaccharides, such as arabinoxylans (AX), laccase catalyzes the oxidative gelation of feruloylated arabinoxylans by dimerization of their ferulic esters. These cross-links have been found to greatly increase the maximum resistance and decrease extensibility of the dough. The resistance was increased due to the crosslinking of AX via ferulic acid and resulting in a strong AX and gluten network. Although laccase is known to crosslink AX, under the microscope it was found that the laccase also acted on the flour proteins. Oxidation of the ferulic acid on AX to form ferulic acid radicals increased the oxidation rate of free SH groups on the gluten proteins and thus influenced the formation of S-S bonds between gluten polymers. Laccase is also able to oxidize peptide-bound tyrosine, but very poorly. Because of the increased strength of the dough, it showed irregular bubble formation during proofing. This was a result of the gas (carbon dioxide) becoming trapped within the crust so it could not diffuse out (like it would have normally) and causing abnormal pore size. Resistance and extensibility was a function of dosage, but at very high dosage the dough showed contradictory results: maximum resistance was reduced drastically. The high dosage may have caused extreme changes in the structure of dough, resulting in incomplete gluten formation. Another reason is that it may mimic overmixing, causing negative effects on gluten structure. Laccase-treated dough had low stability over prolonged storage. The dough became softer and this is related to laccase mediation. The laccase-mediated radical mechanism creates secondary reactions of FA-derived radicals that result in breaking of covalent linkages in AX and weakening of the AX gel. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=6664738 | 1,069,788 |
169,788 | Social embodiment calls for a more rigid definition of what a hegemonically masculine man is and how the idea is actually carried out in real life. The pattern of embodiment involved in hegemony has been recognized in the earliest formulations of the concept but called for more theoretical attention. The importance of masculine embodiment for identity and behaviour emerges in many contexts. For example, in youth, skill in physical activity becomes a prime indicator of masculinity. This notion continues to manifest itself into many different health and sexual practices such as eating meat or having multiple sexual partners. Marios Kostas writes in "Gender and Education" that "hegemonic masculinity is also related to professional success in the labour market, which describes the social definition of tasks into as either 'men's work' or 'women’s work' and the definition of some kinds of work as more masculine than others". The emergence of transgender issues has made it particularly clear that embodiment be given more focus in reconceptualizations. The circuits of social embodiment may be very direct and simple or may be long and complex, passing through institutions, economic relations, cultural symbols, and so forth without ceasing to involve material bodies. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9928314 | 169,698 |
1,746,989 | Pediatric nurse practitioners deliver care across the country to children aging from newborn to 21. Most PNPs practice on all pediatric ages but some specialize in specific age groups such as adolescents or neonatal. Nurse practitioners are able to prescribe medications in all 50 states however, each state has different guidelines for practice and prescription abilities. Pediatric nurse practitioners are capable of performing many tasks other pediatricians and physicians perform. These tasks include developmental screenings, physical assessments (vision, hearing and dental), school and sport physicals, vaccines and diagnosing common childhood illnesses such as allergies, ear infections and skin conditions. PNPs also diagnose chronic diseases like asthma and diabetes, provide advice on common health concerns like obesity, and treat unintentional and sports injuries. Nurse practitions are also able to order diagnostic tests and perform small procedures, including but not limited to suturing, starting IVs, administering medications and wound care. All care that is needed for children is very different patient to patient. It depends on the age, development and response to what is wrong. PNPs can deal with illnesses such as obesity, diabetes, hypertension, asthma, anxiety and depression. Some of these illnesses are still newer to the childcare environment. Having certain childhood illnesses can be extreme and effect later life or even the patient's daily life. PNPs are shown to give high quality care to their patients and is a vital role in dealing with the chronic and critical health conditions of their patients. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=41624007 | 1,746,003 |
1,592,102 | As expected, Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary on the afternoon of 23 May, and almost the entire Austro-Hungarian fleet left Pola soon after to deliver an immediate response against Italian cities and towns along the Adriatic coast, aiming to interdict land and sea transport between southern Italy and the northern regions of that country which were expected to be a theatre of land operations. The fleet split into six groups with a range of targets up and down the coast. Group A included three dreadnought battleships, six pre-dreadnought battleships, and four destroyers, accompanied by "50 E", "51 T", "53 T" – "54 T", "57 T" – "58 T", "60 T", "62 T" – "63 T", "67 F"–"70 F", and "72 F", four s and six seaplanes, and participated in the Bombardment of Ancona, a shore bombardment operation against the northern Adriatic coast of Italy. The bombardment began at 04:04 on 24 May, and caused significant damage in the shipyard, killing 68, 30 of them military personnel, and wounding 150. The destroyers entered the harbour and launched several torpedoes, sinking one steam ship and damaging two others. Group A withdrew after 05:00 when news was received of Italian submarines leaving Venice en route to Pola. Group C, consisting of the pre-dreadnought escorted by "56 T" and "73 F", bombarded Potenza Picena, Termoli and Campomarino, damaging some bridges. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=51038733 | 1,591,206 |
191,254 | Eugene Fama (born 1939) is an American financial economist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2013 for his work on empirical asset pricing and is the fourth most highly cited economist of all time. He has spent all of his teaching career at the University of Chicago and is the originator of the efficient-market hypothesis, first defined in his 1965 article as market where "at any point in time, the actual price of a security will be a good estimate of its intrinsic value". The notion was further explored in his 1970 article, "Efficient Capital Markets: A Review of Theory and Empirical Work", which brought the notion of efficient markets into the forefront of modern economic theory, and his 1991 article, "Efficient Markets II". Whilst his 1965 Ph.D. thesis, "The Behavior of Stock Market Prices", showed that stock prices can be approximated by a random walk in the short-term; in later work he showed that insofar as stock prices are predictable in the long-term, it is largely due to rational time-varying risk premia which can be modelled using the Fama–French three-factor model (1993, 1996) or their updated five-factor model (2014). His work showing that the value premium can persist despite rational forecasts of future earnings and that the performance of actively managed funds is almost entirely due to chance or exposure to risk are all supportive of an efficient-markets view of the world. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=417454 | 191,155 |
672,120 | Treatment of strongyloidiasis can be difficult and if ceasing treatment before being entirely cleared "Strongyloides" via the autoinfective cycle has been known to live in individuals for decades; even after initial or inadequate sustained treatment. Continued treatment, blood and stool monitoring thus may be necessary even if symptoms temporarily resolve. As cited earlier, due to the fact that some infections are insidiously asymptomatic, and relatively expensive bloodwork is often inconclusive via false-positives or false-negatives, just as stool samples can be unreliable in diagnoses, there is yet unfortunately no real gold standard for proof of cure, mirroring the lack of an efficient and reliable methodology of diagnosis. An objective eradication standard for strongyloidiasis is elusive given the high degree of suspicion needed to even begin treatment, the sometimes difficulty of the only definitive diagnostic criteria of detecting and isolating larvae or adult "Strongyloides", the importance of early diagnosis, particularly before steroid treatments, and the very wide variability and exclusion/inclusion of differing collections of diffuse symptoms. Disregarding mis-ascribing bonafide delusional parasitosis disorders, strongyloidiasis should be more well known among medical professionals and have serious consideration for broad educational campaigns in effected geographic locales both within the semi-tropical developed world and otherwise, as well as in the tropical developing world where, among many other neglected tropical diseases, it is endemic. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1494024 | 671,768 |
1,875,648 | AoT encompasses not only the study of the processes and products of modern science and engineering, but also the techniques of small-scale societies (such as basket-weaving and bow and arrow fabrication), and the technologies of the past recoverable only by archaeology. Methodologically, AoT shares much in common with Science and Technology Studies (STS), typically employing intensive fieldwork methodologies in order to grasp the social and cultural shaping of technological artifacts and systems. These may include a phenomenological approach: how people feel, see, sense, smell, and apprehend through the body as technology is practiced and the products used. AoT also emphasizes bodily skill and know-how; that technology cannot be practiced without the muscle memory that exists beyond the mental learning. Unique to anthropology is the growing influence of AoT theory in archaeology, a development that is raising critical questions regarding long-held theories of cultural evolution. Additionally, AoT scholars often draw inspiration from anthropological concepts and theories that are not well known to STS scholars; an example is Bryan Pfaffenberger's use of Victor Turner's social dramas theory in framing his technological dramas theory. But the overall trend is convergence rather than differentiation, as STS scholars, anthropologists, and historians of technology increasingly traverse disciplinary lines in building a larger and richer perspective on human technological activities. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=71498816 | 1,874,571 |
649,150 | In March 2011, the journal "Nature" published a pair of articles on micro-connectomes: Bock et al. and Briggman et al. In both articles, the authors first characterized the functional properties of a small subset of cells, and then manually traced a subset of the processes emanating from those cells to obtain a partial subgraph. In alignment with the principles of open science, the authors of Bock et al. (2011) have released their data for public access. The full resolution 12 terabyte dataset from Bock et al. is available at "NeuroData". In 2012, a citizen science project called "EyeWire" began attempting to crowdsource the mapping of the connectome through an interactive game. Independently, important topologies of functional interactions among several hundred cells are also gradually going to be declared (Shimono and Beggs, 2014). Scaling up ultrastructural circuit mapping to the whole mouse brain is currently underway (Mikula, 2012). An alternative approach to mapping connectivity was recently proposed by Zador and colleagues (Zador et al., 2012). Zador's technique, called BOINC (barcoding of individual neuronal connections) uses high-throughput DNA sequencing to map neural circuits. Briefly, the approach consists of labelling each neuron with a unique DNA barcode, transferring barcodes between synaptically coupled neurons (for example using "Suid herpesvirus 1", SuHV1), and fusion of barcodes to represent a synaptic pair. This approach has the potential to be cheap, fast, and extremely high-throughput. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=15978180 | 648,809 |
1,792,119 | Article 10 creates an administrative agency lodged within the Department of Public Service, the Board on Electric Generation Siting and the Environment, to conduct the reviews and make final administrative siting decisions. The Board has seven members; five are agency heads (the "Permanent Board") and two are appointed on a project-specific basis (the local, ad hoc public members). The new law provides a unified review process for the state permits, licenses, and other approvals required to site, construct, and operate a major electric generating facility. Department of Environmental Conservation review of permit applications under federally delegated or approved Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act programs is coordinated with, and conducted through, the Article 10 review. The Department of State's coastal zone consistency determination is also coordinated with the Article 10 review. Federal permitting and licensing reviews may be coordinated with the Article 10 review. Article 10 provides for consideration of local laws, and Board decisions must provide reasons for deviation from local substantive requirements. Article 10 seeks to promote early and effective public participation in the siting process, facilitating communication between the applicant and interested persons, to minimize later delays and reduce the likelihood of litigation challenging siting decisions. It provides numerous public participation opportunities, including the distribution of "intervenor funds" derived from application fees to enable municipalities and local parties to hire technical experts and lawyers to assist them in participating in the proceeding. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21401237 | 1,791,112 |
1,218,058 | Social epidemiologists research how SES (socio-economic status) determines varying access to resources like income and prestige can generate stratification in health and quality of life. Often, their investigations relate to the social determinants of health which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports as the "conditions in the places where people live, learn, work, and play ... that affect a wide range of health risks and outcomes". These epidemiologists must work in conjunction with environmental social scientists to understand the significance of different environments' effects on humans. Such work influences environmental and public health policies to better the living standards for humans globally. The Fifth European Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health agreed to work on improving low-income housing conditions with new urban planning, health equity, and environmental justice policies with a specific focus on preventing children from exposure to significant environmental health risks. Certain environments' affects on humans provides trends that social epidemiologists can investigate to determine if they are related to a divide of social status especially if only a certain part of the population is negatively affected. Epidemiology uses a host-agent-environment triangle framework to understand why humans are falling ill and this three prong approach allows social epidemiologists to explore how the environment is contributing to the decline in health status for a subsection of or the entire population. It promotes the idea that the social, cultural, economic, political and environmental factors are all important factors to be considered, and health impact assessments (HIA) recommended by social epidemiologists working with environment social scientists are effectively making positive changes in the environment. The World Health Organization (WHO) worked with its members to compose the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) protocol in 2001 to ensure health impact assessments would be made with environmental assessments for policies relating to bettering the quality of life especially within low socioeconomic communities all around the world. As the environment can create stressors that are factors (i.e. low quality housing in areas of high pollution) that limit the quality of life of millions of people globally, environmental social scientists work collaboratively with the data social epidemiologists investigate and provide to understand the relationship between health status and environmental issues. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=24842835 | 1,217,404 |
496,626 | Zack Handlen of "The A.V. Club" considered "The Law of Non-Contradiction" one of the best episodes in the entire show, including previous seasons, as well as his possible personal favourite. He gave it an A rating, stating "It lacks the emotional power of events from previous seasons, but in its place achieves a sustained, knife's edge sort of curiosity, a high-wire act that keeps threatening to tip over into utter meaninglessness without quite doing so". "What holds all this together, for me, is Gloria finding out where Ennis got his name. It's like a shaggy dog story [...] Ennis's past isn't why he got killed, but there is a chain of events that brought him to that house in the midwest, a series of decisions that both put him into Gloria's life and also made him the inadvertent target of someone looking for someone else. [...] It wanders, and eventually finds its way back home, but it's maybe the closest the series has yet come to actually capturing more than just quirk and crime: that all tragedies are just farce if you step back far enough, but that doesn't make them any less tragic. Or less funny. Noting the many references to the works of the Coen brothers as usual, he however expressed concern that "Fargo" "runs the risk of becoming a series of paper dolls being slotted into new outfits without much variation at the source". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=53977445 | 496,370 |
113,231 | In order to meet ever more demanding specifications, over time the CH-53G received modifications from 1990 designed to improve its service life and operational capabilities. These involved three major upgrades: new missile warning and self-protection systems; provision for two external fuel tanks allowing range to be increased to when carrying 36 armed soldiers or a payload; and addition of a night vision goggles-compatible cockpit for night low-level flying capabilities. All CH-53Gs were upgraded by Eurocopter Germany by early 2001, resulting in updated GS/GE/GA variants. As a result of foreign military operations 20 CH-53G helicopters were converted to perform Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) missions. Version CH-53GS is equipped with modernized IFR equipment, additional exterior fuel tanks, low-flight night vision cockpit and NVG, partial ballistic protection, engine dust collectors, missile counter measure and self-defence armament. Additionally the original engines were replaced by the more powerful T64-100 engines. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=674186 | 113,186 |
248,246 | At the critical level Peirce examined the forms of abductive arguments (as discussed above), and came to hold that the hypothesis should economize explanation for plausibility in terms of the feasible and natural. In 1908 Peirce described this plausibility in some detail. It involves not likeliness based on observations (which is instead the inductive evaluation of a hypothesis), but instead optimal simplicity in the sense of the "facile and natural", as by Galileo's natural light of reason and as distinct from "logical simplicity" (Peirce does not dismiss logical simplicity entirely but sees it in a subordinate role; taken to its logical extreme it would favor adding no explanation to the observation at all). Even a well-prepared mind guesses oftener wrong than right, but our guesses succeed better than random luck at reaching the truth or at least advancing the inquiry, and that indicates to Peirce that they are based in instinctive attunement to nature, an affinity between the mind's processes and the processes of the real, which would account for why appealingly "natural" guesses are the ones that oftenest (or least seldom) succeed; to which Peirce added the argument that such guesses are to be preferred since, without "a natural bent like nature's", people would have no hope of understanding nature. In 1910 Peirce made a three-way distinction between probability, verisimilitude, and plausibility, and defined plausibility with a normative "ought": "By plausibility, I mean the degree to which a theory ought to recommend itself to our belief independently of any kind of evidence other than our instinct urging us to regard it favorably." For Peirce, plausibility does not depend on observed frequencies or probabilities, or on verisimilitude, or even on testability, which is not a question of the critique of the hypothetical inference "as" an inference, but rather a question of the hypothesis's relation to the inquiry process. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=60459 | 248,118 |
1,688,777 | Single-lip deep hole drilling is usually used to produce holes in the diameter range of D = 0.5...40 mm. This range of application is currently limited at the lower end by the manufacturing technology to realize the coolant channels inside the tool and the increasing challenges in grinding technology with decreasing tool diameters. The upper limit results from the more economical use of alternative deep hole drilling methods. Characteristic for single-lip deep hole drilling is the internal coolant supply through one kidney-shaped or two circular cooling channels. The chip/coolant mixture is discharged in a v-shaped longitudinal groove on the tool, the so-called gullet. The coolant mass flow is the only transport mechanism for removing the chips. For this reason, a diameter-dependent high-pressure coolant supply is necessary. The general structure of single-lip tools is divided into three parts: the drill head, the shank and the clamping sleeve. Usually the drill head is joined to the shank by brazing. The clamping sleeve is the clamping element of the tool and forms the interface to the tool holder and thus to the machine tool. Solid carbide tools are often used for smaller tool diameters and tools with a high-performance design. With these more powerful tools, the drill head and the shank are made of a single carbide rod. The drill head is usually made of carbides of the ISO cutting application group K 10 to K 20 and is coated if required. In special applications, PCD, cermets, ceramics or high-speed steels are also used. The choice of the drill head geometry is made depending on the existing machining situation. In this respect, a distinction is made between different cutting edge angles and the circumferential shape of the guide pads. With the usual standard grinding for single-lip drills, the main cutting edge is divided into an outer and an inner cutting edge, which differ in different cutting edge angles depending on the bore hole diameter. The choice of the circumferential shape, i.e. the number and arrangement of the guide pads on the circumference of the single-lip drill, is also important. Compared to conventional drilling with twist drills, single-lip drilling is characterized by its suitability and high process reliability with large length-to-diameter ratios. In addition, single-lip drilling achieves comparatively high bore hole qualities, which can reduce the need for post-processing. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=65795802 | 1,687,831 |
281,463 | In September 1854, Lister house surgeoncy appointment was finished. With the prospect of being out of a job, he had spoken to his father about seeking a position at the Royal Free Hospital in London. However, Sharpey had written to Syme, warning him that it was unlikely that Lister would be welcome at the Royal Free as it was he would have likely eclipsed Thomas H. Wakley, whose father held considerable sway at the hospital. Lister then planned to tour Europe for a year. However an opportunity presented itself, when the noted infirmary surgeon and surgical lecturer at the Edinburgh Extramural Richard James Mackenzie had died. Mackenzie had been seen as a successor to Syme but had contracted cholera in Balbec in Scutari, Istanbul, while on a four-month volunteer sabbatical as field surgeon to the 79th Highlanders during the Crimean War. Lister took advantage of the situation and proposed to Syme that he take over Mackenzie's position to become assistant surgeon to Syme. Syme initially rejected the idea as Lister wasn't licensed to operate in Scotland, but later warned to the idea. In October 1854, Lister was appointed a lecturer Lister successfully transferred the lease held by Mackenzie at his lecture room at 4 High School Yards, to himself. On 21 April 1855, Lister was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and two days later, rented a house at 3 Rutland Square for living. In June 1855, Lister made a hurried trip to Paris to take a course on operative surgery on the dead body and returned in June. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=16535 | 281,310 |
987,718 | In its interferometric operating mode, the light from the telescopes is reflected off mirrors and directed through tunnels to a central beam combining laboratory. In the year 2001, during commissioning, the VLTI successfully measured the angular diameters of four red dwarfs including Proxima Centauri. During this operation it achieved an angular resolution of ±0.08 milli-arc-seconds (0.388 nano-radians). This is comparable to the resolution achieved using other arrays such as the Navy Prototype Optical Interferometer and the CHARA array. Unlike many earlier optical and infrared interferometers, the Astronomical Multi-Beam Recombiner (AMBER) instrument on VLTI was initially designed to perform coherent integration (which requires signal-to-noise greater than one in each atmospheric coherence time). Using the big telescopes and coherent integration, the faintest object the VLTI can observe is magnitude 7 in the near infrared for broadband observations, similar to many other near infrared / optical interferometers without fringe tracking. In 2011, an incoherent integration mode was introduced called AMBER "blind mode", which is more similar to the observation mode used at earlier interferometer arrays such as COAST, IOTA and CHARA. In this "blind mode", AMBER can observe sources as faint as K=10 in medium spectral resolution. At more challenging mid-infrared wavelengths, the VLTI can reach magnitude 4.5, significantly fainter than the Infrared Spatial Interferometer. When fringe tracking is introduced, the limiting magnitude of the VLTI is expected to improve by a factor of almost 1000, reaching a magnitude of about 14. This is similar to what is expected for other fringe tracking interferometers. In spectroscopic mode, the VLTI can currently reach a magnitude of 1.5. The VLTI can work in a fully integrated way, so that interferometric observations are actually quite simple to prepare and execute. The VLTI has become worldwide the first general user optical/infrared interferometric facility offered with this kind of service to the astronomical community. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=151648 | 987,202 |
281,266 | In the same year as MX-798, 1946, William B. McLean began studies of a similar concept at the Naval Ordnance Test Station, today known as Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake. He spent three years simply considering various designs, which led to a considerably less complicated design than the Falcon. When his team had a design they believed would be workable, they began trying to fit it to the newly introduced Zuni 5-inch rocket. They presented it in 1951 and it became an official project the next year. Wally Schirra recalls visiting the lab and watching the seeker follow his cigarette. The missile was given the name Sidewinder after a local snake; the name had a second significance as the sidewinder is a pit viper and hunts by heat, and moves in an undulating pattern not unlike the missile. The Sidewinder entered service in 1957, and was widely used during the Vietnam war. It proved to be a better weapon than the Falcon: B models managed a 14% kill ratio, while the much longer ranged D models managed 19%. Its performance and lower cost led the Air Force to adopt it as well. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1396771 | 281,113 |
1,252,575 | His grandson James Riordon, a former physicist and engineer who heads the American Physical Society media relations office, initially conceived of the distributed computing project Einstein@home, which searches gravitational wave data for signals from massive rotating objects such as pulsars. His granddaughter Barbara Riordon Maher now Barbara Jean Meadows earned her MS in Emergency Management in 2006 and holds a registered nurse license. She is currently the Regional Planning Branch Chief in the Planning and Exercise Division of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. She is a retired Maryland State Police Trooper/Flight Paramedic. Her publications include articles in plant physiology as well as medical nuclear, biological, chemical, and explosive responses for the Department of Defense. She has obtained the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Maryland Army National Guard and serves as the Force Protection Officer (J34) for the Maryland National Guard Joint Staff with 30 years of military service. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=365255 | 1,251,897 |
469,113 | Electromagnetic emission from HH objects is caused when their associated shock waves collide with the interstellar medium, creating what is called the "terminal working surfaces". The spectrum is continuous, but also has intense emission lines of neutral and ionized species. Spectroscopic observations of HH objects' doppler shifts indicate velocities of several hundred kilometers per second, but the emission lines in those spectra are weaker than what would be expected from such high-speed collisions. This suggests that some of the material they are colliding with is also moving along the beam, although at a lower speed. Spectroscopic observations of HH objects show they are moving away from the source stars at speeds of several hundred kilometres per second. In recent years, the high optical resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope has revealed the proper motion (movement along the sky plane) of many HH objects in observations spaced several years apart. As they move away from the parent star, HH objects evolve significantly, varying in brightness on timescales of a few years. Individual compact knots or clumps within an object may brighten and fade or disappear entirely, while new knots have been seen to appear. These arise likely because of the precession of their jets, along with the pulsating and intermittent eruptions from their parent stars. Faster jets catch up with earlier slower jets, creating the so-called "internal working surfaces", where streams of gas collide and generate shock waves and consequent emissions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1123615 | 468,877 |
1,377,865 | Metriorhynchids were the only group of archosaurs to become fully adapted to the marine realm, becoming pelagic in lifestyle. With tail flukes, reduced limb musculature, and long bones histologically comparable to other obligately aquatic animals, they were almost certainly incapable of terrestrial locomotion; combined with an unusually tall hip opening, as also seen in other obligately aquatic reptiles including the viviparous "Keichousaurus", these characters suggest that metriorhynchids gave live birth. A fossil of a pregnant "Dakosaurus" female recovered from the Late Jurassic Plattenkalk, Bavaria, preserves the complete skeleton of a neonate with small, paddle-like forelimbs unsuited for walking on land, similar to those of adults, further supporting live birth in metriorhynchids. Recent research posits that despite their successful adaptation to a pelagic lifestyle, basal metriorhynchids were uniquely disadvantaged among aquatic tetrapods in evolving into sustained swimmers due to little to no posterodorsal retraction of the external nares (unlike other reptilian groups such as mesosaurs, phytosaurs, thalattosaurians, saurosphargids, ichthyosauriforms, sauropterygians, pleurosaurids or mosasauroids, as well as mammalian cetaceans or sirenians). The family has a wide geographic distribution, with material found in Argentina, Chile, Cuba, England, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Switzerland and Czech Republic. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=5353692 | 1,377,103 |
438,106 | Mitchell, with limited time to prepare an entry, knew that there was not enough time left to design a new aircraft from scratch. The obvious means of improving the S.6's performance was by obtaining more power from the R-Type engine. Engineers at Rolls-Royce had managed to increase the available power of the engine by 400 hp (298 kW), enabling it to now provide up to 2,300 hp (1,715 kW); however, this level of performance was only guaranteed for a short time. To improve the engine performance, the use of an exotic fuel mix was necessary, as well as the adoption of sodium-cooled valves. Instead, he refined the design of the existing Supermarine S.6, the new variant being referred to as the "Supermarine S.6B". Mitchell retained the majority of the S.6's design, his efforts being principally focused on improving the prospective aircraft's heat dissipation; speaking on a radio broadcast, he later referred to the S.6B as a "flying radiator". Mitchell decided to use the aircraft's floats as an additional radiator area; these were longer than those of the S.6, their design being supported by a series of wind tunnel tests performed at the National Physical Laboratory, which was also an area in which government support was helpful to the project. The floats were extended forward by some three feet (0.9 m); while longer than their predecessors, they were streamlined and had a smaller frontal area. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4091776 | 437,892 |
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