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781,872 | At Portsea on the Australian shore, at a "rough and tumble training resort", Percy Cerutty had, through the 1950s and into the 1960s, applied forms of fartlek focusing on the freedom of training variations it allowed; his forms were "deeper and steeper", involving "20 percent beach running in heavy sand, 10 percent repetitions [running] up dunes... and the remainder... sprints, jogs and middle-distance runs" akin to those introduced by Holmér, which he led "along cliff top paths... [and] seashore and dirt roads." The work on the dunes was noteworthy in that some were "as high as 80 feet and as steeply graded as the stairs up the Statue of Liberty". (Quoting sprint champion Joe Schatzle, Sr., Runner's World notes that "Cerruty... took training to places no one ever thought of before—and few have thought about since.") For Australian runners training at Portsea, which for some comprised half of their yearly schedules, the training was without any traditional, structured track work. In the early 1960s, innovative and highly regarded distance coaches such as New Zealander Arthur Lydiard adapted Holmér's training approach, and like Cerutty, introduced fartlek-type workouts (alongside his long slow distance methods), again "over both flat and varied trails", using markers to indicate points at which sprint and middle-distance changes in pace were to be made. As described by Joe Rogers, who coached at Ball State University and West Point, "[t]he Swedes used... pine needle forest trails... terrain training, and hilly Fartlek courses... [but] primarily, it was on level paths", whereas Lydiard used both flat and graded elements in his training: "On the flats, athletes changed paces at markers. The hill courses had built-in stressors." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=944016 | 781,454 |
911,821 | The tree is extremely susceptible to fire, and is damaged by even low-intensity burns. The resinous bark is capable of igniting quickly, and a crown fire will almost certainly kill the tree. However, populations of "Pinus longaeva" are known to be extremely resilient, and as a primary succession species, it is believed that populations of the tree would reestablish itself quickly after a fire. That said, large-scale fires are extremely uncommon where the species grows, and are not a major factor in the species' long-term viability. Historically, "Pinus longaeva" stands experienced low to high severity fires, and fuels structures changed considerably across elevational gradients. In low elevation, mixed species stands, fuels are often heavy and in close proximity to anthropogenic ignition sources. Yet at high elevations near treeline, "Pinus longaeva" typically grow on limestone outcroppings that provide little or no surface fuels to propagate a wildfire. However, warmer temperatures will likely increase the duration of fire season, and thus the frequency of fire in "Pinus longeava" systems at low and mid elevations could increase where stands are typically denser and surface fuel is greatest. While rare, wild fires such as The Carpenter 1 fire in southern Nevada (July 2013) and the Phillips Fire in Great Basin National Park, (September 2000) that started in lower elevation fuel types and moved through the crowns of trees with the aid of extreme fire weather, could become more likely. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=649634 | 911,342 |
758,603 | All of the schools were small, with a limited undergraduate curriculum oriented on the classical liberal arts. Because they were expected to become members of the governing class, Harvard applicants were required before entering to "readily make and speak or write true Latin prose and [have] skill in making verse and [be] competently grounded in the Greek language . . ." and the other Colonial colleges followed Harvard. Students were drilled in Greek, Latin, geometry, ancient history, logic, ethics, and rhetoric, with few discussions, little homework, and no lab sessions. The college president typically tried to enforce strict discipline. Many students were younger than 17, and most of the colleges also operated a preparatory school. There were no organized sports, or Greek-letter fraternities, but many of the schools had active literary societies. Tuition was very low and scholarships were few.Thirty-six of the eighty-nine men who signed both the Declaration of Independence and participated in the Constitutional Convention attended a Colonial college. Therefore, the Founders shared common cultural references and values regardless of which colony they were raised in. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9083795 | 758,197 |
1,795,565 | sHsps have some structural features in common: Very characteristic is a homologous and highly conserved amino acid sequence, the so-called α-crystallin domain near the C-terminus. These domains consist of 80 to 100 residues with sequence homology between 20% and 60% and fold into β-sheets, which are important for the formation of stable dimers. Hsp27 is rather unique among sHsps in that its α-crystallin domain contains a cysteine residue at its dimer interface, which can become oxidized to form a disulfide bond that covalently links the dimer. The N-terminus consists of a less conserved region, the so-called WD/EPF domain, followed by a short variable sequence with a rather conservative site near the end of this domain. The C-terminal region of sHsps consists of the above mentioned α-crystallin domain, followed by a variable sequence with high motility and flexibility. Despite relatively low levels of global sequence conservation in the C-terminal region, many sHsps contain a locally conserved Ile-Xxx-Ile/Val (IxI/V) motif that plays a role in regulating the assembly of oligomers. It is highly flexible and polar because of its negative charges. Probably it functions as a mediator of solubility for hydrophobic sHsps and it stabilizes the protein and protein/substrate complexes. This was shown by elimination of the C-terminal tail in Hsp27Δ182-205 and in Hsp25Δ18. In the case of Hsp27, the IxI/V motif corresponds to 181-Ile-Pro-Val-183, and this region of the protein plays a critical role, as the mutation of the central Pro residue causes the hereditary motor neuropathy Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=5961325 | 1,794,556 |
713,658 | Software that creates machine-processable structure can utilize the linguistic, auditory, and visual structure that exist in all forms of human communication. Algorithms can infer this inherent structure from text, for instance, by examining word morphology, sentence syntax, and other small- and large-scale patterns. Unstructured information can then be enriched and tagged to address ambiguities and relevancy-based techniques then used to facilitate search and discovery. Examples of "unstructured data" may include books, journals, documents, metadata, health records, audio, video, analog data, images, files, and unstructured text such as the body of an e-mail message, Web page, or word-processor document. While the main content being conveyed does not have a defined structure, it generally comes packaged in objects (e.g. in files or documents, ...) that themselves have structure and are thus a mix of structured and unstructured data, but collectively this is still referred to as "unstructured data". For example, an HTML web page is tagged, but HTML mark-up typically serves solely for rendering. It does not capture the meaning or function of tagged elements in ways that support automated processing of the information content of the page. XHTML tagging does allow machine processing of elements, although it typically does not capture or convey the semantic meaning of tagged terms. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2751096 | 713,286 |
10,047 | The dispute did not delay work. Although progress on the reactor design at Metallurgical Laboratory and DuPont was not sufficiently advanced to accurately predict the scope of the project, a start was made in April 1943 on facilities for an estimated 25,000 workers, half of whom were expected to live on-site. By July 1944, some 1,200 buildings had been erected and nearly 51,000 people were living in the construction camp. As area engineer, Matthias exercised overall control of the site. At its peak, the construction camp was the third most populous town in Washington state. Hanford operated a fleet of over 900 buses, more than the city of Chicago. Like Los Alamos and Oak Ridge, Richland was a gated community with restricted access, but it looked more like a typical wartime American boomtown: the military profile was lower, and physical security elements like high fences, towers, and guard dogs were less evident. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19603 | 10,043 |
1,323,426 | An essential component of directed evolution is the maintenance of the linkage between enzymatic genotypes and phenotypes. The ability to form DEs on-chip and subsequently sort using fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) pushed the field forward. In 2013, Yan "et al." showed the use of FACS to sort DEs. In 2014, Zinchenko "et al." published a system to formulate monodisperse DEs and to sort and quantitatively analyze them using a commercially available flow cytometer. The authors demonstrated the power of their system by enriching an active wild-type arylsulfatase from populations of 0.1% and 0.01% active cells by 800- to 2500-fold, respectively. In 2016, Larsen "et al." developed a fluorescence-based optical sorting system to monitor polymerases activity inside a microfluidic device. Using their system, Larsen and colleagues showed approximately 1200-fold enrichment of an engineered polymerase. After one round of selection of an alpha-L-threofuranosyl nucleic acid (TNA) polymerase, they demonstrated roughly 14-fold improvement in activity and >99% correct placement of residues in a growing polypeptide. In 2017, S. S. Terekhov "et al." developed monodisperse microfluidic double water-in-oil-in-water emulsion (MDE) sorting, which they combined with FACS followed by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) and next-generation sequencing (NGS). The authors demonstrated high sensitivity sorting of enzymatically active yeast cells from non-active cells using fluorescence. Further, they showed the ability of their MDE-FACS system to interrogate interactions between target and effector cells within droplets without interference from other yeast and bacterial cells. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=54022162 | 1,322,700 |
774,019 | Around 65,000 to 50,000 years ago, a variety of new technologies, such as projectile weapons, fish hooks, porcelain, and sewing needles, made their appearance. Bird-bone flutes were invented 30,000 to 35,000 years ago, indicating the arrival of music. Artistic creativity also flowered, as can be seen with Venus figurines and cave paintings. Cave paintings of not just actual animals but also imaginary creatures that could reliably be attributed to "Homo sapiens" have been found in different parts of the world. Radioactive dating suggests that the oldest of the ones that have been found, as of 2019, are 44,000 years old. For researchers, these artworks and inventions represent a milestone in the evolution of human intelligence, the roots of story-telling, paving the way for spirituality and religion. Experts believe this sudden "great leap forward"—as anthropologist Jared Diamond calls it—was due to climate change. Around 60,000 years ago, during the middle of an ice age, it was extremely cold in the far north, but ice sheets sucked up much of the moisture in Africa, making the continent even drier and droughts much more common. The result was a genetic bottleneck, pushing "Homo sapiens" to the brink of extinction, and a mass exodus from Africa. Nevertheless, it remains uncertain (as of 2003) whether or not this was due to some favorable genetic mutations, for example in the FOXP2 gene, linked to language and speech. A combination of archaeological and genetic evidence suggests that humans migrated along Southern Asia and down to Australia 50,000 years ago, to the Middle East and then to Europe 35,000 years ago, and finally to the Americas via the Siberian Arctic 15,000 years ago. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=54472601 | 773,603 |
437,666 | The Cycadeoideaceae (originally “Cycadeoideae”) were named by English geologist William Buckland in 1828, from fossil trunks found in Jurassic strata on the Isle of Portland, England, which Buckland gave the genus name "Cycadeoidea". Buckland provided a description of the family and two species, but failed to give a description of the genus, which has led to Buckland's description of the family being considered invalid by modern taxonomic standards. In publications in 1870, Scottish botanist William Carruthers and English paleobotanist William Crawford Williamson described the first known reproductive organs of the Bennettitales from Jurassic strata of Yorkshire and Jurassic-Cretaceous strata of the Isle of Wight and the Isle of Portland. Caruthers was the first to recognise that Bennettitales had distinct differences from cycads, and established the tribes "Williamsonieae" and "Bennettiteae", with the latter being named after the genus "Bennettites" named by Caruthers in the same publication"," the name being in honour of British botanist John Joseph Bennett. The order Bennettitales was erected by German botanist Adolf Engler in 1892, who recognised the group as separate from the Cycadales. The Anthophyte hypothesis erected by Arber and Parking in 1907 posited that angiosperms arose from Bennettitales, as suggested by the wood-like structures and rudimentary flowers. Based on morphological data, however, Bennettitales were classified as a monophyletic group when paired with Gnetales. a study in 2006 suggested that Bennettitales, Angiosperms, and Gigantopteridales form a clade based on the presence of oleanane. A 2007 study examining phase-contrast X-ray images of gymnosperm seeds supported the Anthophyte hypothesis. Evidence from seed coats suggest that Bennettitales form a clade with the gymnosperm orders of Gnetales and Erdtmanithecales. Molecular evidence has consistently contradicted the Anthophyte hypothesis, finding that Angiosperms are the sister group to all living gymnosperms, including Gnetales. A 2017 phylogeny based on molecular signatures of fossilised cuticles found that Bennettitales were more closely related to the "Ginkgo"+Cycads clade than conifers, and were closely related to "Nilssonia" and "Ptilozamites." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1885646 | 437,452 |
728,200 | The following review focuses on traditions that incorporate the three pillars of PAR. Closely related approaches that overlap but do not bring the three components together are left out. Applied research, for instance, is not necessarily committed to participatory principles and may be initiated and controlled mostly by experts, with the implication that 'human subjects' are not invited to play a key role in science building and the framing of the research questions. As in mainstream science, this process "regards people as sources of information, as having bits of isolated knowledge, but they are neither expected nor apparently assumed able to analyze a given social reality". PAR also differs from participatory inquiry or collaborative research, contributions to knowledge that may not involve direct engagement with transformative action and social history. PAR, in contrast, has evolved from the work of activists more concerned with empowering marginalized peoples than with generating academic knowledge for its own sake. Lastly, given its commitment to the research process, PAR overlaps but is not synonymous with action learning, action reflection learning (ARL), participatory development and community development—recognized forms of problem solving and capacity building that may be carried out with no immediate concern for research and the advancement of knowledge. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2819542 | 727,816 |
1,111,695 | In the early 1950s, the Hollywood Temple had its name changed to Calvary Temple. The college had been expanding as had the church. Even with the acquisition of other buildings for dorms and the building of a new sanctuary for the church, the space was very limited. They started a campus fund in 1952 with $112.41. In 1955, the city of Seattle proposed the new I-5 freeway that would cut through the middle of campus. Butterfield knew that they needed a new place to go. Through many travels and visitations, he came to an old military shipbuilding facility and housing project on the east side of Lake Washington. As he prayed, he felt that God was promising this location as the future campus of Northwest Bible College. He pursued the purchase of the land and structures but was rejected. However, in 1958, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare awarded Northwest Bible College twenty-two and one-thirds acres at no cost. The college purchased an additional for 30,000 dollars. That summer, construction began and finished with 4 buildings designed by Butterfield's son, Robert. H.J. Secrist, son of J.S. Secrist, volunteered as the construction manager with all other laborers volunteering their time as well. Classes began on September 28, 1959, and within a few years the campus had expanded to women and men's dormitories, a cafeteria, a student center, and a gymnasium. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=422926 | 1,111,129 |
158,554 | Production of reactive oxygen species is a particularly destructive aspect of oxidative stress. Such species include free radicals and peroxides. Some of the less reactive of these species (such as superoxide) can be converted by oxidoreduction reactions with transition metals or other redox cycling compounds (including quinones) into more aggressive radical species that can cause extensive cellular damage. Most long-term effects are caused by damage to DNA. DNA damage induced by ionizing radiation is similar to oxidative stress, and these lesions have been implicated in aging and cancer. Biological effects of single-base damage by radiation or oxidation, such as 8-oxoguanine and thymine glycol, have been extensively studied. Recently the focus has shifted to some of the more complex lesions. Tandem DNA lesions are formed at substantial frequency by ionizing radiation and metal-catalyzed HO reactions. Under anoxic conditions, the predominant double-base lesion is a species in which C8 of guanine is linked to the 5-methyl group of an adjacent 3'-thymine (G[8,5- Me]T). Most of these oxygen-derived species are produced by normal aerobic metabolism. Normal cellular defense mechanisms destroy most of these. Repair of oxidative damages to DNA is frequent and ongoing, largely keeping up with newly induced damages. In rat urine, about 74,000 oxidative DNA adducts per cell are excreted daily. There is also a steady state level of oxidative damages in the DNA of a cell. There are about 24,000 oxidative DNA adducts per cell in young rats and 66,000 adducts per cell in old rats. Likewise, any damage to cells is constantly repaired. However, under the severe levels of oxidative stress that cause necrosis, the damage causes ATP depletion, preventing controlled apoptotic death and causing the cell to simply fall apart. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2150549 | 158,473 |
8,154 | Philosopher John Stuart Mill believed that the human mind was open to scientific investigation, even if the science is in some ways inexact. Mill proposed a "mental chemistry" in which elementary thoughts could combine into ideas of greater complexity. Gustav Fechner began conducting psychophysics research in Leipzig in the 1830s. He articulated the principle that human perception of a stimulus varies logarithmically according to its intensity. The principle became known as the Weber–Fechner law. Fechner's 1860 "Elements of Psychophysics" challenged Kant's negative view with regard to conducting quantitative research on the mind. Fechner's achievement was to show that "mental processes could not only be given numerical magnitudes, but also that these could be measured by experimental methods." In Heidelberg, Hermann von Helmholtz conducted parallel research on sensory perception, and trained physiologist Wilhelm Wundt. Wundt, in turn, came to Leipzig University, where he established the psychological laboratory that brought experimental psychology to the world. Wundt focused on breaking down mental processes into the most basic components, motivated in part by an analogy to recent advances in chemistry, and its successful investigation of the elements and structure of materials. Paul Flechsig and Emil Kraepelin soon created another influential laboratory at Leipzig, a psychology-related lab, that focused more on experimental psychiatry. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=22921 | 8,151 |
962,561 | Joseph Priestley (1733–1804) was an English polymath who discovered nitrous oxide, nitric oxide, ammonia, hydrogen chloride and (along with Carl Wilhelm Scheele and Antoine Lavoisier) oxygen. Beginning in 1775, Priestley published his research in "Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air", a six-volume work. The recent discoveries about these and other gases stimulated a great deal of interest in the European scientific community. Thomas Beddoes (1760–1808) was an English philosopher, physician and teacher of medicine, and like his older colleague Priestley, was also a member of the Lunar Society of Birmingham. With an eye toward making further advances in this new science as well as offering treatment for diseases previously thought to be untreatable (such as asthma and tuberculosis), Beddoes founded the "Pneumatic Institution" for inhalation gas therapy in 1798 at Dowry Square in Clifton, Bristol. Beddoes employed chemist and physicist Humphry Davy (1778–1829) as superintendent of the institute, and engineer James Watt (1736–1819) to help manufacture the gases. Other members of the Lunar Society such as Erasmus Darwin and Josiah Wedgwood were also actively involved with the institute. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28755089 | 962,052 |
217,759 | The Pelusium fortress served as means of protection from invaders coming towards the Nile Delta. While the site served this role for more than a millennium, Pelusium was also known for being a center of trade (both land and maritime). Trade was primarily conducted between Egypt and the Levant. While information is not concrete in terms of the fortresses establishment, it is suggested that Pelusium was erected during either the Middle Kingdom period or during the Saite and Persian periods from the 16th and 18th century. Pelusium is also seen as an integral part of the Nile as other ruins were found outside its borders, indicating that the area was large in occupation. Architecturally, structures of Pelusium (such as its gates and towers) appear to be built from limestone. A metallurgy industry is also indicated to have taken place at this site due to the discovery of copper-ore. Excavations of the site have also discovered older materials that date back some of the early dynasties. The found materials include basalt, granite, diorite, marble, and quartzite. How these materials were utilized during the operation of is unclear as they may have been placed at the location more recently. Seeing as the fortress was placed in close proximity to the Nile River, the fort was largely surrounded by both dunes and coastal lines. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2672171 | 217,651 |
2,198,243 | The Pleistocene epoch was characterized by frequent large swings in climate, which dramatically impacted ecosystem structure and function, especially in the Arctic. While global temperatures were below the present average for much of this epoch, significantly warmer periods did occur. For example, it is thought that during the last interglacial stage (from 130-116 ka) temperatures rose to 4 °C above present as result of increased insolation values during boreal summer (11% higher than present), which resulted in below-current ice extent and tree line advancement to approximately 600 km north of the modern limit. Later on the climate was drastically colder (5-6 °C lower than the current global average between 25 and 21 ka) in the midst of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), which resulted in widespread northern hemispheric glaciation and a decrease in sea level of approximately 125 meters. During this time Beringia remained unglaciated as a result of it becoming significantly drier because of the shift towards a more interior continental regime caused by increased exposure of land mass as sea level decreased. This resulted in an Arctic landscape that is thought to have been much colder, drier, and windier than present which subsequently caused a significant southward retreat of tree line. The warming at the end of the LGM subsequently lead to the transition from the Pleistocene into the Holocene, a period of reduced climatic variability in relation to the preceding epoch. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=58657379 | 2,196,992 |
1,407,128 | To judge by the intense media coverage of deCODE's discoveries, ordinary people were very certainly interested in these genetic risk factors and how they might be relevant to their health. In late 2007, the company effectively launched the field of personal genomics with its deCODEme direct-to-consumer (DTC) scan aimed at enabling people to better understand their risk of common diseases and use this information to stay healthy. deCODEme hit the market a day before the now widely known, Google-funded 23andMe. deCODEme's marketing emphasized its pedigree, seriousness and scientific rigor: "provided by a world leader in the discovery of genetic risk factors for disease...[so that its customers] benefit directly from the knowledge and experience of scientists carrying out internationally renowned research" (its competitors used deCODE's published variants as the basis for many of their results); with the scan processed in the same labs that had found them. By 2012, the deCODEme complete scan measured one million SNPs and calculated risk for 47 common diseases and traits as well as basic information on maternal and paternal ancestry, noting that most ancestry scans of the period were not back by much data. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1494572 | 1,406,338 |
1,240,878 | Environmental aspects for single-use bioreactors are important to consider due to the amount of disposable material used compared with conventional bioreactors. A complete life cycle assessment comparing single-use bioreactors and conventional bioreactors does not exist, but many ecological reasons are supporting the concept of single-use bioreactors. For a complete life cycle assessment not only the manufacturing, but also the repeated use need to be considered. Even the main part of a single-use bioreactor is not a disposable, but will be continuously reused. The plastic bag that is used instead of a culture vessel is a disposable, as well as all the integrated sub-assemblies like sensors, tubing, and stirrers. The bag and all its parts are mainly made from plastics that are derived from petroleum. Current recycling concepts are mainly focused on incineration, to recover the energy originated from the petroleum as heat and electricity. Most of the petroleum would be burned anyway in power plants or automobiles (citation required). Burning of the single use components of bioreactors creates a detour through biochemical engineering during their life cycle that does not have a big influence. The making of conventional culture vessels form stainless steel or glass requires more energy than making plastic bags. Using conventional bioreactors the culture vessel need to be cleaned and sterilized after each fermentation. Cleaning requires large amounts of water, in addition to acids, alkali and detergents. Sterilization with steam at 121 degrees C and 1 bar pressure requires large quantities of energy and large amounts of distilled water. This distilled water (often called "water for injection" in pharmaceutical nomenclature) must be prepared by expending a large amount of energy as well. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=31108393 | 1,240,207 |
197,692 | During the 1930s, political tensions between the world powers quickly increased. The Soviet Union and France began to rearm in the early thirties. In the Soviet Union, the mechanisation of the armed forces was part of a massive general industrialisation programme, the successive Five Years Plans, and the country soon had more tanks than the rest of the world combined, thousands of them being produced per year. In this period, before the rise to power of the Nazi Party in Germany, German officers were sent to observe and participate in development of armoured doctrine in the USSR. Red Army and German experts collaborated in developing the use of tanks based on second generation vehicles with turreted main weapons, and experimenting to design different chassis configurations and drive trains. One important acquisition for the Red Army turned out to be the purchase of a T3 chassis, using the Christie suspension, from US designer John Walter Christie, which served as the basis of the Soviet BT series of fast tanks. The Red Army tactics were influenced by the theoretical works of Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky who advocated "large scale tank warfare" as part of the deep battle doctrine. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1559537 | 197,590 |
200,121 | In light of the adverse effects and fatal hyperthermia caused by DNP when it was used clinically, the dose was slowly titrated according to personal tolerance, which varies greatly. Concerns about dangerous side-effects and rapidly developing cataracts resulted in DNP being discontinued in the United States by the end of 1938. In 1938, the FDA included DNP in a list of drugs potentially so toxic that they should not be used even under a physician's supervision."In studies of intermediate-duration oral exposure to 2,4-DNP, cases of death from agranulocytosis (described in the discussion of Hematological Effects) have been attributed to 2,4-DNP. These cases occurred during the usual dosing regimens for weight loss, employing increasing doses in one case from 2.9 to 4.3 mg/kg/day of 2,4-DNP for 6 weeks (Dameshek and Gargill 1934); a dose of 1.03 mg/kg/day 2,4-DNP for 46 days in another case (Goldman and Haber 1936); and in another, from 0.62 to 3.8 mg/kg/day 2,4-DNP as sodium 2,4-DNP for 41 days (Silver 1934). In all cases, the patients were under medical supervision."Back in 1952 UK enacted new Agriculture (Poisonous Substances) Act to control very dangerous poisons, such as DNP and DNOC. Dinitrophenol was included in the Poisons Act 1972 poisons list order 1972. However DNP was dropped from the list in 1982. In 2021 December Home Office have launched a public consultation on potential amendments to the Poisons Act 1972. This consultation includes a proposal to add 2,4-Dinitrophenol (DNP) to the Poisons Act as a regulated poison. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=948020 | 200,018 |
76,853 | In 1920 Belgian arms manufacturer Fabrique Nationale (FN) acquired sales and production rights to the BAR series of firearms in Europe from Colt. The first BAR model sold by FN was the Kg m/21 (Kg—"Kulsprutegevär" or "machinegun rifle") chambered for the 6.5×55mm m/94 cartridge. The m/21 is a variant of the Model 1919 designed to Swedish specifications and manufactured initially by Colt's and later under license at the Carl Gustafs Stads Gevärsfaktori in Eskilstuna. Compared to the Model 1919, the Swedish weapon has—apart from the different caliber—a spiked bipod and dust covers for ejection. The m/21 would become one of Sweden's main support weapons in the interwar years together with the water-cooled, belt-fed Ksp m/1914 medium machine gun (Swedish adaptation of the Austrian M07/12). Dissatisfied with the rapidly overheating fixed barrel of the m/21, Carl Gustaf began to design a new quick-detach mechanism for the barrel that mates the externally grooved chamber to a series of rotating flanges in the receiver operated by a locking lever. The barrel also received cooling fins along its entire length. These enhancements were incorporated into the fm/1935 prototype, which was favorably evaluated during trials in 1935. The final version was the Kg m/37, adopted for service in 1937, which uses a smooth-contour, unfinned barrel. Numerous m/21 guns were retrofitted with the screw-on receiver extension and quick-change barrel and renamed the Kg m/21-37. The m/37 remained in service until replaced by the FN MAG, but was still in second-line use until 1980. Carl Gustaf also developed a belt-fed prototype; however, it was never adopted. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=378838 | 76,824 |
51,312 | An important example is Henri Poincaré, who in 1898 argued that the simultaneity of two events is a matter of convention. In 1900, he recognized that Lorentz's "local time" is actually what is indicated by moving clocks by applying an explicitly "operational definition" of clock synchronization assuming constant light speed. In 1900 and 1904, he suggested the inherent undetectability of the aether by emphasizing the validity of what he called the principle of relativity, and in 1905/1906 he mathematically perfected Lorentz's theory of electrons in order to bring it into accordance with the postulate of relativity. While discussing various hypotheses on Lorentz invariant gravitation, he introduced the innovative concept of a 4-dimensional spacetime by defining various four vectors, namely four-position, four-velocity, and four-force. He did not pursue the 4-dimensional formalism in subsequent papers, however, stating that this line of research seemed to "entail great pain for limited profit", ultimately concluding "that three-dimensional language seems the best suited to the description of our world". Furthermore, even as late as 1909, Poincaré continued to believe in the dynamical interpretation of the Lorentz transform. For these and other reasons, most historians of science argue that Poincaré did not invent what is now called special relativity. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28758 | 51,292 |
556,738 | The car gained a reputation as being difficult to drive as the turbocharged engine required a more delicate touch on the throttle than the GP2/11. The opening five rounds of the 2018 championship saw several drivers stalling on the starting grid, prompting criticism of the design, led by drivers Artem Markelov, Lando Norris and George Russell. The Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile—the governing body of motorsport—also expressed concerns, with race director Charlie Whiting regularly examining the system. With no apparent solution to the problems, Norris expressed concerns that the stalling issue would ultimately settle the drivers' championship title, while Arjun Maini suggested that it was causing irreparable damage to their careers. Further criticism was also directed at reliability issues that prevented drivers from starting races. Series organiser Bruno Michel acknowledged that the car had too many problems at its launch, but argued that the introduction of the F2 2018 was necessary in light of the obsolete GP2/11 chassis, a view shared by team principals. The series introduced rolling starts as a temporary solution to the problem. The changes were introduced as the 2018 calendar featured three rounds over three consecutive weeks, making the introduction of a lasting solution difficult. Drivers expressed disappointment with the decision to use rolling starts, but also noted its necessity on safety grounds. A start-line accident in a Formula 3 race saw Ameya Vaidyanathan, starting from the eleventh row of the grid, crash into the stationary car of Dan Ticktum after Ticktum stalled, prompting concerns of a similar accident happening in Formula 2. A similar accident happened at the final round of the season in Abu Dhabi when Nicholas Latifi stalled on the grid and Arjun Maini was unable to avoid hitting him. Both drivers escaped unhurt. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=53806623 | 556,449 |
847,259 | Introducing a second semiconductor/metal interface and a gate stack overlapping both junctions, one can obtain a Schottky barrier field effect transistor (SB-FET). The gate steers the carrier injection inside the channel modulating the band bending at the interface, and thus the resistance of the Schottky barriers. Generally the most significantly resistive path for the current is represented by the Schottky barriers, and so the channel itself does not contribute significantly to the conduction when the transistor is turned on. This kind of device has an ambipolar behavior since when a positive voltage is applied to both junctions, their band diagram is bent downwards enabling an electron current from source to drain (the presence of a formula_12 voltage is always implied) due to direct tunneling. In the opposite case of a negative voltage applied to both junctions the band diagram is bent upwards and holes can be injected and flow from the drain to the source. Setting the gate voltage to 0 V suppresses the tunneling current and enables only a lower current due to thermionic events. One of the main limitations of such a device is strongly related to the presence of this current that makes it difficult to properly switch it off. A clear advantage of such a device is that there is no need for channel doping and expensive technological steps like ion implantation and high temperature annealings can be avoided, keeping the thermal budget low. However the band bending due to the voltage difference between drain and gate often injects enough carriers to make impossible a proper switch off of the device. Also, low on-currents due to the intrinsic resistance of the Schottky contacts are typical of this kind of device just like a very hard and unreliable scalability due to the difficult control of the junction area. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=512564 | 846,809 |
1,769,374 | Since the establishment of the People's Republic, considerable investment has gone consistently to expand steel output. However, steel production has been very sensitive to changes in economic policies and political climate. Steel output rose steadily in the 1950s when Soviet advisers helped establish the basis of the iron and steel industry, installing numerous Soviet-designed blast and open hearth furnaces. The Great Leap Forward (1958–60) saw great growth of primitive backyard furnaces producing poor-quality pig iron, numerous new, small, modern plants, overuse of large plants, and exaggerated production reports. In 1961 the industry broke down; nearly all small plants were closed, and output fell to less than half the amount reported for 1960. From 1960 to 1965, output gradually recovered with equipment repair and the purchase of basic oxygen furnaces from Austria and electric furnaces from Japan. Production fell in 1967 and 1968 during the Cultural Revolution, but it grew rapidly in the relative political stability from 1969 through the early 1970s. In the mid-1970s political upheaval retarded output, as did the catastrophic Tangshan earthquake of 1976. That event severely damaged the Tangshan steel plant and the Kailuan coal mines. The latter are a major source of coking coal. After 1976 output climbed steadily, reaching 34.5 million tons in 1979. Steel production for 1986 was fifty million tons. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14189344 | 1,768,380 |
227,669 | His "Staffel", which had been flying a tight formation around him, peeled away to give him the necessary room to manoeuvre. Marseille rolled his aircraft onto its back, the standard procedure for bail out, but due to the smoke and slight disorientation, he failed to notice that the aircraft had entered a steep dive at an angle of 70–80 degrees and was now travelling at a considerably faster speed (about ). He worked his way out of the cockpit only to be carried backwards by the slipstream. The left side of his chest struck the vertical stabiliser of his fighter, which either killed him instantly or rendered him unconscious to the point that he could not deploy his parachute. He fell almost vertically, hitting the desert floor south of Sidi Abdel Rahman. As it transpired, a gaping 40 cm (16 in) hole had been made in his parachute and the canopy spilled out. After recovering the body, the parachute release handle was still on "safe," suggesting Marseille had not attempted to open it. Whilst the body was checked, a regimental doctor noted Marseille's wristwatch had stopped at exactly 11:42 am. The doctor had been the first to reach the crash site, having been stationed just to the rear of the forward mine defences. He had also witnessed Marseille's fatal fall. The autopsy report stated: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1441176 | 227,552 |
69,953 | The L85A2 achieved an average reliability rate of 25,200 mean rounds between failure, and the L86A2 achieved 12,897 mean rounds between failures. Both weapons have higher reliability rates in cold/dry, temperate, and hot/wet conditions, but lower rates in hot/dry environments. The minimum expected life of A2 components is 10,000 rounds, meaning they might never suffer stoppages during their lifetimes. Mean rounds between failure was the measure of the average number of rounds that are fired between failures of a battlefield mission test. A battlefield mission was counted as a failure when there was more than one stoppage that the soldier could clear immediately on their own or there was a stoppage that required an armourer or a tool to clear. The Individual Weapon fired 165 battlefield missions, each comprising 150 rounds over a period of 8 mins 40 secs. A total of 24,750 rounds fired and suffered only 51 stoppages. Out of 165 battlefield missions, the A2 passed 156; the nine failures stoppages were easily cleared and not mission critical. The L85A2 achieved a 95% success rate, above operational requirement of 90%, and its nearest rival of popular choice achieved only 47%. Originally slated for introduction in 2002, the first A2-style SA80 weapons were rushed into action in Afghanistan in December 2001, and all 200,000 were converted by February 2006. Three to four thousand weapons were converted per month. Despite the modifications, reports emerged that the L85A2 was still jamming; in reality, there were few jams and problems were much less serious than they were made out to be, since they stemmed from isolated cases of soldiers not cleaning their weapons correctly. The modified A2 variants are distinguished by the "HK A2" marking on the top of the weapon just forward of the buttplate and the distinctive comma-shaped cocking handle (shaped to aid the ejection of the empty round casing and prevent stoppages). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=84350 | 69,926 |
1,636,826 | On May 27, 1960, the AEC issued the thirteen page report CF-169 regarding the accident. The report provides a detailed account of the events of the accident. Notably, the report concludes that all of the radiation values recorded by the Westinghouse staff immediately following the accident, including an observation of 200 millirem/hour at the plant gate around 9:00 p.m., was direct gamma radiation from the elevated head tank, which contained released fission products. The dose rate at two meters from the head tank piping radiation monitor (the monitor was at ground level, well below the elevated head tank) was 5000 millirem/hour. Radioactive fission product gasses Xenon-133-135, Argon-41, and Krypton-85 were released through the 250 feet tall exhaust stack which served the facility. This report reiterated no contamination was found outside of the facility structures and equipment. The report did not provide a definitive cause for the accident while noting local low flow perturbations of the coolant past the fuel element, debris blocking flow past the fuel element, and a number of fuel element manufacturing defects (e.g. aluminum cladding to uranium bonding) were viewed as the most likely causes by the Westinghouse investigating team. The final Westinghouse report issued July 7, 1960 concluded that the immediate cause of the accident could not be conclusively determined, but that a pre-existing defect in the subject fuel element was the most likely cause. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=66995964 | 1,635,901 |
336,065 | HDC plays an especially important role in the field of microfluidics. The first successful apparatus for HDC-on-a-chip system was proposed by Chmela, et al. in 2002. Their design was able to achieve separations using an 80 mm long channel on the timescale of 3 minutes for particles with diameters ranging from 26 to 110 nm, but the authors expressed a need to improve the retention and dispersion parameters. In a 2010 publication by Jellema, Markesteijn, Westerweel, and Verpoorte, implementing HDC with a recirculating bidirectional flow resulted in high resolution, size based separation with only a 3 mm long channel. Having such a short channel and high resolution was viewed as especially impressive considering that previous studies used channels that were 80 mm in length. For a biological application, in 2007, Huh, et al. proposed a microfluidic sorting device based on HDC and gravity, which was useful for preventing potentially dangerous particles with diameter larger than 6 microns from entering the bloodstream when injecting contrast agents in ultrasounds. This study also made advances for environmental sustainability in microfluidics due to the lack of outside electronics driving the flow, which came as an advantage of using a gravity based device. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=6329 | 335,887 |
1,259,390 | In an era when municipal water supply systems had not yet been established, Monier realised that his containers could be used for the collection and storage of water for gardens. He continued his education with courses in horticulture and landscape gardening. In 1849, without quitting his post at the Tuileries, he opened a small workshop, and began to take on landscaping projects. These took him as far afield as Strasburg. The fashion at the time was to decorate large gardens with rockeries and grottoes and to form these from plain concrete. For further economy, formed hollow artificial boulders from his ferro-cement (French: "ciment et fer"). He also created small garden pavilions, shaping and carving the concrete surface to imitate the rustic wooden originals. In July 1867 he exhibited his ideas at the second Paris International Exhibition (Exposition universelle). In the same month he applied for his first patent for containers, which was granted as No. 77165. Soon after he applied for an addition covering pipes, and yet another for ornamental pools. His projects included a 20 cubic metre reservoir and a terrace roof. By 1869 his establishment included offices, workshops, and greenhouses, plus stables for eight draught horses and three carriage horses. In September of that year he applied for a patent for panels suitable for cladding buildings, and for use as pavers and tiles. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=10286525 | 1,258,703 |
1,278,242 | The various interactions of ataxin 1 lead to many possible factors that can exasperate or moderate toxicity of its mutant form. Wild type ataxin 1 is quickly degraded in the cytoplasm, but can be stabilized by phosphorylation and 14-3-3 binding as needed by the cell. SCA1 positive mice haplodeficient in 14-3-3ε were shown not to exhibit cerebellar degeneration but still exhibited lethal bulbar degeneration, suggesting that cerebellar atrophy may be related to increased stability of the expanded ataxin 1 protein and that there may be different pathogenic mechanisms for different regions of the brain. The site of phosphorylation is the serine at the 776th residue in ataxin 1. Similar to those that lack 14-3-3 proteins, mice with this residue replaced with alanine do not exhibit cerebellar syndrome. Similarly, removal of the AXH domain from ataxin 1 prevents aberrant interactions with growth factor independent transcription repressor 1 that leads to GFI1 degradation in the proteasome. The expanded polyglutamine region results in increased affinity of the ataxin 1 AXH domain for certain transcription factors, and this effect is believed to play a significant role in ataxin 1 toxicity. Another protein shown to have significant interactions with ataxin 1 is the leucine-rich acidic nuclear protein or LANP. Its function is unknown, but it is predominately expressed in the same neurons as ataxin 1 and has been shown to localize in the nuclei of these neurons at the same substructures as ataxin 1. LANP only interacts with the polyglutamine region of ataxin 1, and its interactions are stronger as the number of glutamine residues increases, so the two proteins are likely vital to each other's functions in neurons and LANP may also facilitate pathology of mutant ataxin 1 proteins. Ataxin 1 like, also called Brother of Ataxin 1 or Boat, has significant interactions with ataxin-1 and many associated proteins, like N-CoR. Ataxin 1 like has reduced expression in transgenic mice models and has been shown to moderate cytotoxicity of ataxin-1. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=54421246 | 1,277,549 |
817,302 | Power consumption has become increasingly important, not only in mobile devices such as laptops but also in server and desktop markets. Increasing data center machine density has led to problems delivering sufficient power to devices (especially for spin up), and getting rid of the waste heat subsequently produced, as well as environmental and electrical cost concerns (see green computing). Heat dissipation is tied directly to power consumption, and as drives age, disk failure rates increase at higher drive temperatures. Similar issues exist for large companies with thousands of desktop PCs. Smaller form factor drives often use less power than larger drives. One interesting development in this area is actively controlling the seek speed so that the head arrives at its destination only just in time to read the sector, rather than arriving as quickly as possible and then having to wait for the sector to come around (i.e. the rotational latency). Many of the hard drive companies are now producing Green Drives that require much less power and cooling. Many of these Green Drives spin slower (<5,400 rpm compared to 7,200, 10,000 or 15,000 rpm) thereby generating less heat. Power consumption can also be reduced by parking the drive heads when the disk is not in use reducing friction, adjusting spin speeds, and disabling internal components when not in use. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=32279697 | 816,866 |
546,296 | Nearly 29,000 Australians were taken prisoner by the Axis during the war, the bulk of them members of the Australian Army. During the fighting in the Middle East and Greece, 7,116 Australian soldiers were taken prisoner by German and Italian forces. Of these men, 3,109 were captured at Crete and 2,065 on the mainland of Greece. Most of the other POWs were members of the 9th Division captured during the retreat from Cyrenaica in early 1941, the siege of Tobruk or the fighting near El Alamein in mid-1942. Like other western Allied POWs, the Australians were held in permanent camps in Italy and Germany and were generally treated in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. As the war neared its end the Germans moved many prisoners towards the interior of the country to prevent them from being liberated by the advancing Allied armies. These movements were often made through forced marches in harsh weather and resulted in many deaths. As the war drew to a close, a unit designated the AIF Reception Group (United Kingdom) was established near Eastbourne in England to provide accommodation and support for the POWs once they were released. By August 1945 all the former Australian POWs in Europe had embarked on ships bound for Australia. While Australian prisoners suffered a higher death rate in German and Italian captivity than their counterparts in World War I, it was much lower than the rate suffered under Japanese internment. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=22738876 | 546,010 |
962,175 | The most commonly used membrane is Nafion by Chemours, which relies on liquid water humidification of the membrane to transport protons. This implies that it is not feasible to use temperatures above 80 to 90 °C, since the membrane would dry. Other, more recent membrane types, based on polybenzimidazole (PBI) or phosphoric acid, can reach up to 220 °C without using any water management (see also High Temperature Proton Exchange Membrane fuel cell, HT-PEMFC): higher temperature allow for better efficiencies, power densities, ease of cooling (because of larger allowable temperature differences), reduced sensitivity to carbon monoxide poisoning and better controllability (because of absence of water management issues in the membrane); however, these recent types are not as common. PBI can be doped with phosphoric or sulfuric acid and the conductivity scales with amount of doping and temperature. At high temperatures, it is difficult to keep Nafion hydrated, but this acid doped material does not use water as a medium for proton conduction. It also exhibits better mechanical properties, higher strength, than Nafion and is cheaper. However, acid leaching is a considerable issue and processing, mixing with catalyst to form ink, has proved tricky. Aromatic polymers, such as PEEK, are far cheaper than Teflon (PTFE and backbone of Nafion) and their polar character leads to hydration that is less temperature dependent than Nafion. However, PEEK is far less ionically conductive than Nafion and thus is a less favorable electrolyte choice. Recently, protic ionic liquids and protic organic ionic plastic crystals have been shown as promising alternative electrolyte materials for high temperature (100–200 °C) PEMFCs. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1049596 | 961,666 |
922,102 | Jupiter's thermosphere is located at pressures lower than 1 μbar and demonstrates such phenomena as airglow, polar aurorae and X-ray emissions. Within it lie layers of increased electron and ion density that form the ionosphere. The high temperatures prevalent in the thermosphere (800–1000 K) have not been explained yet; existing models predict a temperature no higher than about 400 K. They may be caused by absorption of high-energy solar radiation (UV or X-ray), by heating from the charged particles precipitating from the Jovian magnetosphere, or by dissipation of upward-propagating gravity waves. The thermosphere and exosphere at the poles and at low latitudes emit X-rays, which were first observed by the Einstein Observatory in 1983. The energetic particles coming from Jupiter's magnetosphere create bright auroral ovals, which encircle the poles. Unlike their terrestrial analogs, which appear only during magnetic storms, aurorae are permanent features of Jupiter's atmosphere. The thermosphere was the first place outside the Earth where the trihydrogen cation () was discovered. This ion emits strongly in the mid-infrared part of the spectrum, at wavelengths between 3 and 5 μm; this is the main cooling mechanism of the thermosphere. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30873277 | 921,616 |
19,014 | According to the International Programme on Chemical Safety (IPCS) and the United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA), amphetamine is contraindicated in people with a history of drug abuse, cardiovascular disease, severe agitation, or severe anxiety. It is also contraindicated in individuals with advanced arteriosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), glaucoma (increased eye pressure), hyperthyroidism (excessive production of thyroid hormone), or moderate to severe hypertension. These agencies indicate that people who have experienced allergic reactions to other stimulants or who are taking monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) should not take amphetamine, although safe concurrent use of amphetamine and monoamine oxidase inhibitors has been documented. These agencies also state that anyone with anorexia nervosa, bipolar disorder, depression, hypertension, liver or kidney problems, mania, psychosis, Raynaud's phenomenon, seizures, thyroid problems, tics, or Tourette syndrome should monitor their symptoms while taking amphetamine. Evidence from human studies indicates that therapeutic amphetamine use does not cause developmental abnormalities in the fetus or newborns (i.e., it is not a human teratogen), but amphetamine abuse does pose risks to the fetus. Amphetamine has also been shown to pass into breast milk, so the IPCS and the USFDA advise mothers to avoid breastfeeding when using it. Due to the potential for reversible growth impairments, the USFDA advises monitoring the height and weight of children and adolescents prescribed an amphetamine pharmaceutical. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2504 | 19,006 |
1,977,383 | The most common alternative to tradition passwords and PIN codes has been biometric authentication. Biometric authentication is a method where systems use physical and/or behavioral traits unique to a specific individual to authorize access. Some of the most popular forms of biometric passwords are as follows: fingerprint, palm prints, iris, retina, voice, and facial structure. The appeal of biometrics as a form of passwords is that they increase security. Only one person has access to a set of fingerprints or retinal patterns which means the likelihood of hacking decreases significantly. Biometric authentication has 4 important factors, or modules, that keep systems and accounts from being compromised: sensor module, feature extraction module, template database, and matching module. These 4 sections of biometric authentication, while more involved, create a layer of protection that a tradition password option cannot. The sensor module is responsible for getting a hold of a user’s method of protection whether it be fingerprint scan, facial scan, or voice. The second module, feature extraction, is where all the raw data acquired from the previous module is broken down into the key components. The template, or database module, takes the key components gathered previously and saves them virtually. Lastly, the matching module is employed in order to verify if the inputted biometric method is legitimate. The modules that record, process, and verify biometrics, need to be run in 2 different stages, enrollment and recognition; within these 2 stages we see more sub-stages. In the enrollment stage we see the entirety of the four modules working at once as a digital version of the biometric data is generated and stored. The recognition stage has two sub-sections called verification and identification. During verification process the systems job is to ensure that the individual trying to gain access is who they are stating they are. The identification process fully identifies the individual. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2636626 | 1,976,245 |
911,592 | NHS informatics in England was contracted out to several vendors for national health informatics solutions under the National Programme for Information Technology (NPfIT) label in the early to mid-2000s, under the auspices of NHS Connecting for Health (part of the Health and Social Care Information Centre as of 1 April 2013). NPfIT originally divided the country into five regions, with strategic 'systems integration' contracts awarded to one of several Local Service Providers (LSP). The various specific technical solutions were required to connect securely with the NHS 'Spine', a system designed to broker data between different systems and care settings. NPfIT fell significantly behind schedule and its scope and design were being revised in real time, exacerbated by media and political lambasting of the Programme's spend (past and projected) against the proposed budget. In 2010 a consultation was launched as part of the new Conservative/Liberal Democrat Coalition Government's White Paper 'Liberating the NHS'. This initiative provided little in the way of innovative thinking, primarily re-stating existing strategies within the proposed new context of the Coalition's vision for the NHS. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=351581 | 911,113 |
1,008,326 | The focal lengths are made equal for the lines C and F. In the neighborhood of 550 nm the tangent to the curve is parallel to the axis of wavelengths; and the focal length varies least over a fairly large range of color, therefore in this neighborhood the color union is at its best. Moreover, this region of the spectrum is that which appears brightest to the human eye, and consequently this curve of the secondary on spectrum, obtained by making formula_27, is, according to the experiments of Sir G. G. Stokes (Proc. Roy. Soc., 1878), the most suitable for visual instruments ("optical achromatism,"). In a similar manner, for systems used in photography, the vertex of the color curve must be placed in the position of the maximum sensibility of the plates; this is generally supposed to be at G'; and to accomplish this the F and violet mercury lines are united. This artifice is specially adopted in objectives for astronomical photography ("pure actinic achromatism"). For ordinary photography, however, there is this disadvantage: the image on the focusing-screen and the correct adjustment of the photographic sensitive plate are not in register; in astronomical photography this difference is constant, but in other kinds it depends on the distance of the objects. On this account the lines D and G' are united for ordinary photographic objectives; the optical as well as the actinic image is chromatically inferior, but both lie in the same place; and consequently the best correction lies in F (this is known as the "actinic correction" or "freedom from chemical focus"). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2704 | 1,007,805 |
77,419 | Looking at the history of the passage of the Dickey Amendment, in 1992, Mark L. Rosenberg and five CDC colleagues founded the CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, with an annual budget of approximately $260,000. They focused on "identifying causes of firearm deaths, and methods to prevent them". Their first report, published in the "New England Journal of Medicine" in 1993 entitled "Guns are a Risk Factor for Homicide in the Home", reported "mere presence of a gun in a home increased the risk of a firearm-related death by 2.7 percent, and suicide fivefold—a "huge" increase." In response, the NRA launched a "campaign to shut down the Injury Center." Two conservative pro-gun groups, Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership and Doctors for Integrity and Policy Research joined the pro-gun effort, and, by 1995, politicians also supported the pro-gun initiative. In 1996, Jay Dickey (R) Arkansas introduced the Dickey Amendment statement stating "none of the funds available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control" as a rider. in the 1996 appropriations bill." In 1997, "Congress re-directed all of the money for gun research to the study of traumatic brain injury." David Satcher, CDC head 1993-98 advocated for firearms research. In 2016 over a dozen "public health insiders, including current and former CDC senior leaders" told "The Trace" interviewers that CDC senior leaders took a cautious stance in their interpretation of the Dickey Amendment and that they could do more but were afraid of political and personal retribution. Rosenberg told "The Trace", "Right now, there is nothing stopping them from addressing this life-and-death national problem!" | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=6811 | 77,390 |
676,049 | A number of accessories are issued with the rifle, including a blade-type bayonet (AKM clipped point or the AK-74 spear point bayonet), four spare magazines, a leather or nylon sling, magazine pouch, cleaning kit and an accessory/maintenance kit for the telescopic sight. Also included is a cold weather battery case with a "shirt clip", with a permanently attached cord [approximately 24" long] ending with another battery case cap that has an extension to press against the internal contact in lieu of the battery to complete the circuit. Placing the external battery case into the shooters' clothing close to the body keeps it from freezing; using the clip ensures it remains in place. The clamp-style bipod attaches to machined-out reliefs near the front of the receiver, it literally grabs the two cut out areas and securely mounts with a large round sized head on the clamp bolt able to tightly attach the bipod. The legs are individually adjustable [as opposed to fixed length found on many rifles and LMG's] and can be folded and stowed in a forward position negating the need to remove the bipod before placing the rifle into the canvas carrying case. The two legs are held close together with a "J" shaped clamp attached to one leg and swung over the other leg. Original Soviet/Russian SVD bipods fetch a very high price when they rarely appear on the market. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=337494 | 675,696 |
702,158 | In 1988, Arsys Software's "Star Cruiser" was an innovative action RPG released for the PC-8801. It was notable for being an early example of an RPG with fully 3D polygonal graphics, combined with first-person shooter gameplay, which would occasionally switch to space flight simulator gameplay when exploring outer space with six degrees of freedom. All the backgrounds, objects and opponents in the game were rendered in 3D polygons, many years before they were widely adopted by the video game industry. The game also emphasized storytelling, with plot twists and extensive character dialogues, taking place in a futuristic science fiction setting. It won the 1988 Game of the Year awards from the Japanese computer game magazines "" and "". "Star Cruiser" was later ported to the Mega Drive console in 1990. Another 1988 release, "Last Armageddon", produced for the PC-8801 and later ported to the PC Engine CD and NES consoles in 1990, featured a unique post-apocalyptic storyline set in a desolate future where humanity has become extinct and the protagonists are demon monsters waging war against an alien species. "The Scheme", released by Bothtec for the PC-8801 in 1988, was an action RPG with a similar side-scrolling open-world gameplay to "Metroid". That same year, "Ys II" introduced the unique ability to transform into a monster, which allows the player to both scare human non-player characters for unique dialogues as well as interact with all the monsters. This is a recurring highlight in the series, offering the player insight into the enemies. Also that same year, "War of the Dead Part 2" for the MSX2 and PC-88 abandoned certain RPG elements of its predecessor, such as random encounters, and instead adopted more action-adventure elements from "Metal Gear" while retaining the horror atmosphere of its predecessor. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=32408675 | 701,793 |
157,753 | The form and function of modern-day humans' upper bodies appear to have evolved from living in a more forested setting. Living in this kind of environment would have made it so that being able to travel arboreally would have been advantageous at the time. It has also been proposed that, like some modern-day apes, early hominins had undergone a knuckle-walking stage prior to adapting the back limbs for bipedality while retaining forearms capable of grasping. Numerous causes for the evolution of human bipedalism involve freeing the hands for carrying and using tools, sexual dimorphism in provisioning, changes in climate and environment (from jungle to savanna) that favored a more elevated eye-position, and to reduce the amount of skin exposed to the tropical sun. It is possible that bipedalism provided a variety of benefits to the hominin species, and scientists have suggested multiple reasons for evolution of human bipedalism. There is also not only the question of why the earliest hominins were partially bipedal but also why hominins became more bipedal over time. For example, the postural feeding hypothesis describes how the earliest hominins became bipedal for the benefit of reaching food in trees while the savanna-based theory describes how the late hominins that started to settle on the ground became increasingly bipedal. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4210 | 157,681 |
1,104,779 | Spartan 201-04 was a Solar Physics Spacecraft designed to perform remote sensing of the hot outer layers of the sun's atmosphere or solar corona. It was expected to be deployed on orbit 18 and retrieved on orbit 52. The objective of the observations was to investigate the mechanisms causing the heating of the solar corona and the acceleration of the solar wind that originates in the corona. Two primary experiments were the Ultraviolet Coronal Spectrometer from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the White Light Coronograph (WLC) from the High Altitude Observatory. Spartan 201 had three secondary experiments. The Technology Experiment Augmenting Spartan (TEXAS) was a Radio Frequency (RF) communications experiment that provided flight experience for components baselined on future Spartan missions, and a real-time communications and control link with the primary Spartan 201 experiments. This link was used to provide a fine-pointing adjustment to the WLC based on solar images downlinked in real-time. The Video Guidance Sensor (VGS) Flight Experiment was a laser guidance system that tested a key component of the Automated Rendezvous and Capture (AR&C) system. The Spartan Auxiliary Mounting Plate (SPAM) was a small equipment mounting plate that provided a mounting location for small experiments or auxiliary equipment of the Spartan Flight Support Structure (SFSS) It was a honeycomb plate using an experimental silicon carbide aluminum face sheet material with an aluminum core. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=557153 | 1,104,216 |
526,536 | In about the mid-19th century scientific communication changed. Until this time ideas were largely exchanged by reading the works of authoritative individuals who dominated in their field: these were often wealthy and influential "gentlemen scientists". Now research was reported by the publication of "papers" that emanated from research "schools" that promoted the questioning of conventional wisdom. This process had started in the late 18th century when specialist journals began to appear. Even so, botany was greatly stimulated by the appearance of the first "modern" textbook, Matthias Schleiden's (1804–1881) ', published in English in 1849 as "Principles of Scientific Botany". By 1850 an invigorated organic chemistry had revealed the structure of many plant constituents. Although the great era of plant classification had now passed the work of description continued. Augustin de Candolle (1778–1841) succeeded Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu in managing the botanical project ' (1824–1841) which involved 35 authors: it contained all the dicotyledons known in his day, some 58000 species in 161 families, and he doubled the number of recognized plant families, the work being completed by his son Alphonse (1806–1893) in the years from 1841 to 1873. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25007304 | 526,263 |
449,374 | Jackknifing and bootstrapping, well-known statistical resampling procedures, have been employed with parsimony analysis. The jackknife, which involves resampling without replacement ("leave-one-out") can be employed on characters or taxa; interpretation may become complicated in the latter case, because the variable of interest is the tree, and comparison of trees with different taxa is not straightforward. The bootstrap, resampling with replacement (sample x items randomly out of a sample of size x, but items can be picked multiple times), is only used on characters, because adding duplicate taxa does not change the result of a parsimony analysis. The bootstrap is much more commonly employed in phylogenetics (as elsewhere); both methods involve an arbitrary but large number of repeated iterations involving perturbation of the original data followed by analysis. The resulting MPTs from each analysis are pooled, and the results are usually presented on a 50% Majority Rule Consensus tree, with individual branches (or nodes) labelled with the percentage of bootstrap MPTs in which they appear. This "bootstrap percentage" (which is not a P-value, as is sometimes claimed) is used as a measure of support. Technically, it is supposed to be a measure of repeatability, the probability that that branch (node, clade) would be recovered if the taxa were sampled again. Experimental tests with viral phylogenies suggest that the bootstrap percentage is not a good estimator of repeatability for phylogenetics, but it is a reasonable estimator of accuracy. In fact, it has been shown that the bootstrap percentage, as an estimator of accuracy, is biased, and that this bias results on average in an underestimate of confidence (such that as little as 70% support might really indicate up to 95% confidence). However, the direction of bias cannot be ascertained in individual cases, so assuming that high values bootstrap support indicate even higher confidence is unwarranted. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1130020 | 449,156 |
499,577 | With the diversity of plant life in the Yixian well known, including examples of a variety of petrified wood and growth rings, and with the help of chemical analysis, scientists have been able to determine the climate of the formation. The Yixian flora was dominated by conifers closely related to modern species that are found mainly in subtropical and temperate upland forests. The presence of ferns, cycads, and horsetails indicates a generally humid climate. However, evidence from the growth rings of petrified wood indicates that the humidity and water supply dropped regularly. This shows that the wet, humid conditions were punctuated by dry seasons, in which the environment became more arid. Evidence from the study of oxygen isotopes has shown that the average yearly temperature during this time period was 10 degrees celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit), significantly colder than once thought. This indicates a temperate climate with unusually cold winters for the generally warm Mesozoic era, possibly due to northern China's high latitude during this time. A study by Wu et al. (2013) concluded that orbital forcing, which is the effect on climate caused by shifts in the tilt of the Earth's axis and by the shape of the Earth's orbit, contributed to the climate fluctuations of this formation. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1963670 | 499,320 |
1,422,178 | For decades, the main cellular target for radiation induced damage was thought to be the DNA molecule. This view has been challenged by data indicating that in order to increase survival, the cells must protect their proteins, which in turn repair the damage in the DNA. An important part of protection of proteins (but not DNA) against the detrimental effects of reactive oxygen species (ROS), which are the main mechanism of radiation toxicity, is played by non-enzymatic complexes of manganese ions and small organic metabolites. These complexes were shown to protect the proteins from oxidation "in vitro" and also increased radiation survival in mice. An application of the synthetically reconstituted protective mixture with manganese was shown to preserve the immunogenicity of viral and bacterial epitopes at radiation doses far above those necessary to kill the microorganisms, thus opening a possibility for a quick whole-organism vaccine production. The intracellular manganese content and the nature of complexes it forms (both measurable by electron paramagnetic resonance) were shown to correlate with radiosensitivity in bacteria, archaea, fungi and human cells. An association was also found between total cellular manganese contents and their variation, and clinically-inferred radioresponsiveness in different tumor cells, a finding that may be useful for more precise radiodosages and improved treatment of cancer patients. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1967838 | 1,421,377 |
2,032,519 | On January 5, Durham's Y.M.C.A. team traveled to Chapel Hill, North Carolina to face the Tar Heel in their season–opening match. The Y.M.C.A. brought a strengthened team that featured a couple players who were members of Trinity College's team the prior year. These additions were thought to have made the team better and quicker. North Carolina remained in front for much of the game; however, in the closing minutes, the Y.M.C.A. rallied to take the lead and won 29–18. One writer commented that the Tar Heels missed Ritch's presence. Chapel Hill's Bynum Gymnasium hosted Elon College four days later, where the Tar Heels beat them 36–5 with a strong performance from captain Junius Smith. The Tar Heels were thought to have played fast and showed improved teamwork relative to their opening game. The Tar Heels faced William & Mary on January 12. The first half featured back-and-forth scoring and visiting team led the Tar Heels 19–15 at the half. William & Mary's Metcalf scored several points from foul shots. Carolina held William & Mary to just three points for the whole second half, while the Tar Heels scored 15 more points to seal the victory. Smith again was said to have played the best for the Heels, while Tillett and Hanes were also thought to have played well. Following the game there was a break in the schedule due to the school's exam schedule from January 15 to 25. "The Tar Heel" reflected on the team's performance by stating they did not have great teamwork or a star player, but just needed practice and could develop into a fast and "good, fighting quint." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=62180062 | 2,031,349 |
2,005,728 | The Von Frey assay, introduced by Maximilian von Frey and modified by Weinstein, uses Von Frey hair or fibers, which are small pieces of nylon rod, approximately 50 mm in length, and of varying diameters, to test a rodent's sensitivity to a mechanical stimulus. It is unclear whether the process is really considered noxious versus simply annoying, so this assay is a test of mechanical nociception or simply mechanical sensibility. In this test, the animal stands on an elevated mesh platform, and the Von Frey hairs are inserted through the mesh to poke the animal’s hindpaw. Normal reactions for the animal include withdrawing or licking or shaking the paw, and possible vocalization, but these can depend on variability within the experiment. For example, the tarsal surface of the hind paw is typically associated with lower withdrawal thresholds compared to the dorsal surface, and the exact force of the fiber is determined by its thickness. It is also important to note that thresholds usually are initially decreasing during successive tests, but do become stable after about 3 sessions. Algorithms such as up-down or Bruceton analysis are available to concentrate testing into the most dynamic part of the range, and subsequent curve fitting and parameter estimation can be similarly standardised. Alternatively, automated von Frey systems have recently been discovered that gradually increase the force of a single probe so that a researcher can observe when withdrawal responses occur. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=31479566 | 2,004,579 |
202,648 | If symptoms do not improve after 4–6 weeks of conservative treatment, or the person is more than 50 years old, further tests are recommended. The American College of Radiology recommends that projectional radiography is the most appropriate initial study in all patients with chronic neck pain. Two additional diagnostic tests that may be of use are magnetic resonance imaging and electrodiagnostic testing. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the portion of the spine where radiculopathy is suspected may reveal evidence of degenerative change, arthritic disease, or another explanatory lesion responsible for the patient's symptoms. Electrodiagnostic testing, consisting of NCS (nerve conduction study) and EMG (electromyography), is also a powerful diagnostic tool that may show nerve root injury in suspected areas. On nerve conduction studies, the pattern of diminished Compound muscle action potential and normal sensory nerve action potential may be seen given that the lesion is proximal to the posterior root ganglion. Needle EMG is the more sensitive portion of the test, and may reveal active denervation in the distribution of the involved nerve root, and neurogenic-appearing voluntary motor units in more chronic radiculopathies. Given the key role of electrodiagnostic testing in the diagnosis of acute and chronic radiculopathies, the American Association of Neuromuscular & Electrodiagnostic Medicine has issued evidence-based practice guidelines, for the diagnosis of both cervical and lumbosacral radiculopathies. The American Association of Neuromuscular & Electrodiagnostic Medicine has also participated in the Choosing Wisely Campaign and several of their recommendations relate to what tests are unnecessary for neck and back pain. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8639835 | 202,544 |
173,442 | Flerovium, with the expected magic 114 protons, was first synthesized in 1998 at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia, by a group of physicists led by Yuri Oganessian. A single atom of element 114 was detected, with a lifetime of 30.4 seconds, and its decay products had half-lives measurable in minutes. Because the produced nuclei underwent alpha decay rather than fission, and the half-lives were several orders of magnitude longer than those previously predicted or observed for superheavy elements, this event was seen as a "textbook example" of a decay chain characteristic of the island of stability, providing strong evidence for the existence of the island of stability in this region. Even though the original 1998 chain was not observed again, and its assignment remains uncertain, further successful experiments in the next two decades led to the discovery of all elements up to oganesson, whose half-lives were found to exceed initially predicted values; these decay properties further support the presence of the island of stability. However, a 2021 study on the decay chains of flerovium isotopes suggests that there is no strong stabilizing effect from "Z" = 114 in the region of known nuclei ("N" = 174), and that extra stability would be predominantly a consequence of the neutron shell closure. Although known nuclei still fall several neutrons short of "N" = 184 where maximum stability is expected (the most neutron-rich confirmed nuclei, Lv and Ts, only reach "N" = 177), and the exact location of the center of the island remains unknown, the trend of increasing stability closer to "N" = 184 has been demonstrated. For example, the isotope Cn, with eight more neutrons than Cn, has a half-life almost five orders of magnitude longer. This trend is expected to continue into unknown heavier isotopes in the vicinity of the shell closure. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=66394 | 173,351 |
802,355 | One active area of research is efficiently delivering personalized drugs generated from pharmacy compounding to the disease sites of the body. For instance, researchers are trying to engineer nanocarriers that can precisely target the specific site by using real-time imaging and analyzing the pharmacodynamics of the drug delivery. Several candidate nanocarriers are being investigated, such as iron oxide nanoparticles, quantum dots, carbon nanotubes, gold nanoparticles, and silica nanoparticles. Alteration of surface chemistry allows these nanoparticles to be loaded with drugs, as well as to avoid the body's immune response, making nanoparticle-based theranostics possible. Nanocarriers' targeting strategies are varied according to the disease. For example, if the disease is cancer, a common approach is to identify the biomarker expressed on the surface of cancer cells and to load its associated targeting vector onto nanocarrier to achieve recognition and binding; the size scale of the nanocarriers will also be engineered to reach the enhanced permeability and retention effect (EPR) in tumor targeting. If the disease is localized in the specific organ, such as the kidney, the surface of the nanocarriers can be coated with a certain ligand that binds to the receptors inside that organ to achieve organ-targeting drug delivery and avoid non-specific uptake. Despite the great potential of this nanoparticle-based drug delivery system, the significant progress in the field is yet to be made, and the nanocarriers are still being investigated and modified to meet clinical standards. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2652481 | 801,926 |
88,458 | Most microkernels use a message passing system to handle requests from one server to another. The message passing system generally operates on a port basis with the microkernel. As an example, if a request for more memory is sent, a port is opened with the microkernel and the request sent through. Once within the microkernel, the steps are similar to system calls. The rationale was that it would bring modularity in the system architecture, which would entail a cleaner system, easier to debug or dynamically modify, customizable to users' needs, and more performing. They are part of the operating systems like GNU Hurd, MINIX, MkLinux, QNX and Redox OS. Although microkernels are very small by themselves, in combination with all their required auxiliary code they are, in fact, often larger than monolithic kernels. Advocates of monolithic kernels also point out that the two-tiered structure of microkernel systems, in which most of the operating system does not interact directly with the hardware, creates a not-insignificant cost in terms of system efficiency. These types of kernels normally provide only the minimal services such as defining memory address spaces, inter-process communication (IPC) and the process management. The other functions such as running the hardware processes are not handled directly by microkernels. Proponents of micro kernels point out those monolithic kernels have the disadvantage that an error in the kernel can cause the entire system to crash. However, with a microkernel, if a kernel process crashes, it is still possible to prevent a crash of the system as a whole by merely restarting the service that caused the error. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21346982 | 88,423 |
2,156,433 | The WHO declared Zika a Public Health Emergency of International Concern following a series of global outbreaks and rising cases of neurological disorders in humans in 2015–2016. In March 2015, Zika virus was first discovered in the Americas when Brazil reported a large spike in fine, maculopapular rashes among people, soon identified as Zika virus infection. Between January and November 2015, several Brazilian states also reported an increase in cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome. Additionally, an increase in fetal microcephaly, as well as other neurological abnormalities in unborn babies, was reported in Brazil. The timing on the microcephaly, the history of rash in more than half of the pregnant mothers, and the ongoing circulation of Zika in urban environments suggested a link between the neurological disorder and the virus. Outside of Brazil, Zika virus was transmitted at an alarming rate and by March 2016 the virus had affected at least 33 countries and territories in America. A public health emergency was also announced in Puerto Rico by Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Sylvia Burwell at the behest of Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla, suggesting that the ongoing outbreak of Zika virus presented a serious threat to public safety. In the same year, the CDC recognized that Zika virus was not just a mosquito-borne disease; it could also be transmitted sexually between individuals. As such, the organization issued an official advisory to men who resided in or had traveled to areas with active Zika virus transmission and their sexual partners. In response to Zika outbreaks within the US, the Senate and the House of Representatives approved bills offering $1.1 billion in funding to combat Zika, which President Obama eventually signed. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=63936969 | 2,155,202 |
690,771 | Red Bull arrived in Singapore with a new "double-DRS" device fitted on the car. The system had been used by Mercedes near the start of the season, causing a stir due to an effect it created similar to that of the F-duct system, banned after season. The teams unanimously agreed to ban its use for the 2013 season after the , but despite this Lotus made a version which they attempted to use before Red Bull. McLaren still looked to have a strong car with Hamilton in pole. Vettel and Webber qualified third and seventh respectively, and after Hamilton's gearbox failed when he was leading the race, Vettel inherited the victory. Webber finished in eleventh after taking a time penalty and losing the tenth place slot he initially finished in. The RB8, like the previous three of its predecessors, seemed very well suited the Suzuka Circuit at the . Vettel took pole position and Webber qualified second to take the team's first row lock-out of the season. Vettel led every lap of the race, and set the fastest lap, to become the first driver to take successive wins in the 2012 season. Webber lost one place at the first corner and then was spun by Romain Grosjean meaning he had to fight his way through the grid to finish ninth. As a consequence of Alonso's retirement at the start, Vettel narrowed the gap between himself and the Ferrari driver from 29 to just 4 points in the drivers' standings with 5 races remaining. Webber remained just in contention behind Räikkönen and Hamilton. Red Bull remained a healthy lead in the Constructors' standings over McLaren and Ferrari. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=33899691 | 690,408 |
1,237,630 | Project Vela development was started by the Advanced Research Projects Agency in response to international conferences and congressional hearings. A joint Defense Department-United States Atomic Energy Commission program, Project Vela consisted of three segments: Vela Uniform, which detected underground or surface detonations using seismic monitors, Vela Sierra, which used ground-based sensors to detect above-surface detonations, and Vela Hotel, which consisted of a constellation of space-based sensors for atmospheric and exoatmospheric nuclear detonations. ARPA assigned the Air Force Ballistic Missile Division responsibility for the spacecraft and boosters, while Atomic Energy Commission laboratories provided instrumentation and the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory provided the sensors. The first test launches were authorized on 22 June 1961 by ARPA, launching on Atlas-Agena boosters. On 16 October 1963, the first operational Vela Hotel satellites were launched, with a second pair following on 17 July 1964. In the 1970s, dedicated Vela Hotel satellites were phased out and were replaced with the Integrated Operational Nuclear Detonation Detection System (IONDS), which were placed on Defense Support Program and Navstar Global Positioning System satellites as secondary payloads. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=66185637 | 1,236,965 |
1,536,775 | Cancer research: The study of brain cancers has been significantly hampered by the lack of an easy imaging modality to study animals "in vivo". To do so, a craniotomy is often needed, in addition to hours of anesthesia, mechanical ventilation, etc. which significantly alters experimental parameters. For this reason, many researchers have been content to sacrifice animals at different time points and study brain tissue with traditional histological methods. Compared to an "in vivo" longitudinal study, many more animals are needed to obtain significant results, and the sensitivity of the entire experiment is cast in doubt. As stated earlier, the problem is not reluctance by researchers to use "in vivo" imaging modalities, but rather a lack of suitable ones. For example, although optical imaging provides fast functional data and oxy- and deoxyhemoglobin analysis, it requires a craniotomy and only provides a few hundred micrometres of penetration depth. Furthermore, it is focused on one area of the brain, while research has made it apparently clear that brain function is interrelated as a whole. On the other hand, micro-fMRI is extremely expensive, and offers dismal resolution and image acquisition times when scanning the entire brain. It also provides little vasculature information. Micro-PAT has been demonstrated to be a significant enhancement over existing "in vivo" neuro-imaging devices. It is fast, non-invasive, and provides a plethora of data output. Micro-PAT can image the brain with high spatial resolution, detect molecular targeted contrast agents, simultaneously quantify functional parameters such as SO2 and HbT, and provide complementary information from functional and molecular imaging which would be extremely useful in tumor quantification and cell-centered therapeutic analysis. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26065582 | 1,535,907 |
1,550,216 | Carrageen is the active polysaccharide compound that is responsible for the mechanisms that give the plant its antioxidant, anticoagulant, and gelling properties. The process of extracting the carrageenan from the "M. stellatus" usually consists of boiling the plant for several hours and using ethanolic precipitation to isolate the compound. Researchers found that the concentration of carrageen substance and efficiency of properties is dependent on the extraction conditions including boiling temperatures, drying methods, and dilution techniques. These compounds were used to create films to determine how chemical structures and biological reactions can be manipulated to produce beneficial levels of elasticity, durability, solubility, water resistance, and thickness required for an effective alternative to food packaging. Their findings suggest that higher concentrations of sulfate and proteins in the carrageenan reinforces the molecular structure, increases thickness, increases elasticity, and prevents water filtration, making the gel stronger. However, the strength between these bonds causes a concentration of force at their intersection which makes it easier to break. More studies must be conducted to test for more factors of "M. stellatus" and degrees of property efficacy. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=6749073 | 1,549,335 |
1,035,404 | Despite the introduction of the Norwegian cyclone model just after World War I, the United States did not formally analyze fronts on surface analyses until late 1942, when the WBAN Analysis Center opened in downtown Washington, D.C. The effort to automate map plotting began in the United States in 1969, with the process complete in the 1970s. Hong Kong completed their process of automated surface plotting by 1987. By 1999, computer systems and software had finally become sophisticated enough to allow for the ability to underlay on the same workstation satellite imagery, radar imagery, and model-derived fields such as atmospheric thickness and frontogenesis in combination with surface observations to make for the best possible surface analysis. In the United States, this development was achieved when Intergraph workstations were replaced by n-AWIPS workstations. By 2001, the various surface analyses done within the National Weather Service were combined into the Unified Surface Analysis, which is issued every six hours and combines the analyses of four different centers. Recent advances in both the fields of meteorology and geographic information systems have made it possible to devise finely tailored weather maps. Weather information can quickly be matched to relevant geographical detail. For instance, icing conditions can be mapped onto the road network. This will likely continue to lead to changes in the way surface analyses are created and displayed over the next several years. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=73218 | 1,034,864 |
1,258,775 | Results published in the journal "Science" after the "Phoenix" mission ended reported that chloride, bicarbonate, magnesium, sodium, potassium, calcium, and possibly sulfate were detected in the samples. The pH was narrowed down to 7.7 + or - 0.5. Perchlorate (ClO), a strong oxidizer, was detected. This was a significant discovery. The chemical has the potential of being used for rocket fuel and as a source of oxygen for future colonists. Under certain conditions perchlorate can inhibit life; however some microorganisms obtain energy from the substance (by anaerobic reduction). The chemical when mixed with water can greatly lower freezing points, in a manner similar to how salt is applied to roads to melt ice. Perchlorate strongly attracts water; consequently it could pull humidity from the air and produce a small amount of liquid water on Mars today. Gullies, which are common in certain areas of Mars, may have formed from perchlorate melting ice and causing water to erode soil on steep slopes. Two sets of experiments demonstrated that the soil contains 3-5% calcium carbonate. When a sample was slowly heated in the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer (TEGA), a peak occurred at 725 °C, which is what would happen if calcium carbonate were present. In a second experiment acid was added to a soil sample in the Wet Chemistry Laboratory (WCL) while a pH electrode measured the pH. Since the pH rose from 3.3 to 7.7, it was concluded that calcium carbonate was present. Calcium carbonate changes the texture of soil by cementing particles. Having calcium carbonate in the soil may be easier on life forms because it buffers acids, creating a pH more friendly toward life. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2383195 | 1,258,088 |
2,014,519 | Due to its close connection with other diseases and disorders, glomerulonephrosis is rarely diagnosed independently and is superseded by those other conditions. The primary test to diagnose a form of glomerulonephrosis is a urinalysis to look for any proteinuria. This is a very important step as an otherwise healthy individual will have low protein levels in the urine. A Comprehensive metabolic panel (CMP) is also often used to test for hypoalbuminemia, levels of albumin lower than ≤2.5 g/dL. This is a key step in differentiating glomerulonephrosis from conditions that also cause proteinuria, such as multiple myeloma and diabetes mellitus, that are not marked by hypoalbuminemia. A Creatinine Clearance test will also be used to determine the glomerular filtration rate (GFR), or the rate at which blood flows through the glomerulus. Creatinine is a byproduct of creatine metabolism that will be released as waste in urine, so it is a good benchmark for estimating how much fluid is being filtered through the glomerulus. To differentiate it from glomerulonephritis, microscopy may be used to examine a urinary cast, which is caused by inflammation. In cases involving Minimal Change Disease, an electron microscope can be used to visualize changes in podocyte structure. Additional tests such as a kidney biopsy, lipid profile, ultrasound, and electrolyte, urea, creatinine (EUC) tests can also be performed, but these evaluate overall kidney function rather than the glomerulus specifically. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20401801 | 2,013,360 |
1,124,522 | Use of RSSI to locate a transmitter from a single receiver requires that both the transmitted (or backscattered) power from the object to be located are known, and that the propagation characteristics of the intervening region are known. In empty space, signal strength decreases as the inverse square of the distance for distances large compared to a wavelength and compared to the object to be located, but in most real environments, a number of impairments can occur: absorption, refraction, shadowing, and reflection. Absorption is negligible for radio propagation in air at frequencies less than about 10 GHz, but becomes important at multi-GHz frequencies where rotational molecular states can be excited. Refraction is important at long ranges (tens to hundreds of kilometers) due to gradients in moisture content and temperature in the atmosphere. In urban, mountainous, or indoor environments, obstruction by intervening obstacles and reflection from nearby surfaces are very common, and contribute to multipath distortion: that is, reflected and delayed replicates of the transmitted signal are combined at the receiver. Signals from different paths can add constructively or destructively: such variations in amplitude are known as fading. The dependence of signal strength on position of transmitter and receiver becomes complex and often non-monotonic, making single-receiver estimates of position inaccurate and unreliable. Multilateration using many receivers is often combined with calibration measurements ("fingerprinting") to improve accuracy. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1932188 | 1,123,948 |
2,039,218 | Evidence has been collected that suggests that cross-protection against a diverse range of CBSD-causing virus isolates can be achieved through RNAi silencing. The conserved CP gene, which serves multiple functions in the CBSV life cycle, was used as the transgene of interest. Three distinct RNAi constructs were designed to target the FL, N-terminal, and C-terminal of the UCBSV-CP gene: the FL-CP construct exhibiting the highest level of protection. In conclusion, the study found a significant positive correlation between the presence of siRNAs and viral protection against UCBSV. A negative drawback to this antiviral approach is that RNAi is highly sequence specific. Viruses with more than 10% nucleotide diversity require the development of an RNAi construct with multiple fragments from different virus species. A construct made out of such large sections of genes could be very unstable during cloning and transformation procedures. However, the study included two transgenic plant lines in which remained completely immune to viral infection against six unique isolates of both UCBSV and CBSV. RNAi FL-CP transgenic cassava lines also experienced 100% immunity when grafted with UCBSV infected cassava samples compared to nontransgenic control lines which became 100% infected with UCBSV over the 60-day period. In the fields, it is common for asymptomatic plants to carry the virus and serve as a source of transmission with the help of whitefly vectors or stem cuttings. However, the study also collected RT-PCR data that suggested all asymptomatic plants also lacked detectable levels of UCBSV. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=48797038 | 2,038,039 |
1,055,969 | Hau and her associates at Harvard University "have demonstrated exquisite control over light and matter in several experiments, but her experiment with 2 condensates is one of the most compelling". In 2006 they successfully transferred a qubit from light to a matter wave and back into light, again using Bose–Einstein condensates. Details of the experiment are discussed in the February 8, 2007 publication of the journal "Nature". The experiment relies on the way that, according to quantum mechanics, atoms may behave as waves as well as particles. This enables atoms to do some counterintuitive things, such as passing through two openings at once. Within a Bose–Einstein condensate a light pulse is compressed by a factor of 50 million, without losing any of the information stored within it. In this Bose–Einstein condensate, information encoded in a light pulse can be transferred to the atom waves. Because all the atoms move coherently, the information does not dissolve into random noise. The light drives some of the cloud's roughly 1.8 million sodium atoms to enter into "quantum superposition" states, with a lower-energy component that stays put and a higher-energy component that travels between the two clouds. A second 'control' laser then writes the shape of the pulse into the atom waves. When this control beam is turned off and the light pulse disappears, the 'matter copy' remains. Prior to this, researchers could not readily control optical information during its journey, except to amplify the signal to avoid fading. This experiment by Hau and her colleagues marked the first successful manipulation of coherent optical information. The new study is "a beautiful demonstration", says Irina Novikova, a physicist at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA. Before this result, she says, light storage was measured in milliseconds. "Here it's fractional seconds. It's a really dramatic time." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1300275 | 1,055,421 |
1,058,662 | In June 1983, researcher Ross Gundersen demonstrated for the first time that a substance released by developing muscle tissue exerts an attraction on growing spinal nerves, illustrating that growing nerves communicate with the muscles to which they eventually attach. That year the university enrolled a record 6,008 students. In September 1985, Chancellor Guskin left UW-Parkside to become president of Antioch University in Yellow Springs, Ohio, and Sheila I. Kaplan, vice chancellor for academic affairs in the Minnesota State University System, became UW–Parkside's third chancellor the following July. In December 1987, the university's biological sciences Professor Chong-maw Chen, a researcher on plant hormones and genetic engineering, was named one of six Wisconsin Distinguished Professors by the Board of Regents, and later reappointed in 1993. The following September, the entire Biological Sciences Department was designated a Center of Excellence by the same board, and approval was granted for the university to offer a master's degree in applied molecular biology, including the study of advanced techniques in cloning, gene splicing and isolating traits on genetic material. In December 1988, professor of engineering science George Perdikaris was also named a Wisconsin Distinguished Professor of Applied Science. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=496736 | 1,058,113 |
1,381,046 | DESI can be coupled to ultra-fast liquid chromatography using an LC eluent splitting strategy. It is a strategy through a tiny orifice on an LC capillary tube. There is negligible dead volume and back pressure that allows for almost real time mass spectrometry detection with a fast elution and purification. This coupling can be used to ionize a wide range of molecules, from small organics to high mass proteins. This is different from ESI (electrospray ionization) in that it can be used to directly analyze salt-containing sample solutions without requiring “make-up” solvents/ acids to be doped into the sample. This set up allows for a high flow rate without splitting. The high resolution that is accomplished by reverse-phase HPLC can be combined with this procedure to produce high throughput screening of natural products as well. The incorporation of the electrochemistry component helps with ionization efficiency via the electrochemical conversion. This method is proved better than ESI in the fact that you don't have to separate the small potential that is applied to the cell from the potential on the spray in DESI. DESI also shows a better tolerance to inorganic salt electrolytes and you can use traditional solvents used in electrolysis. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=13281848 | 1,380,283 |
856,308 | On the evening of 27 October, a depressed and tired Boelcke left the squadron mess early to return to his room. He complained of the racket in the mess to his batman, then sat staring into the fire. Böhme joined him, also stating the mess was too noisy. They shared a long talk, ending only when the orderly suggested bedtime. The following day was misty with a cloud layer, but the squadron still flew four missions during the morning, as well as another later in the day. On the sixth mission, Boelcke and five of his pilots attacked a pair of British airplanes from 24 Squadron RFC. Boelcke and Böhme chased the Airco DH.2 of Captain Arthur Knight, while Richthofen pursued the other DH.2, flown by Captain Alfred McKay. McKay evaded Richthofen by crossing behind Knight, cutting off Boelcke and Böhme. Both of them jerked their planes upward to avoid colliding with McKay, each hidden from the other by their aircraft's wings. Neither was aware of the other's position. Just as Böhme spotted the other plane bobbing up below him, Boelcke's upper left wing brushed the undercarriage of Böhme's airplane. The slight impact split the fabric on the wing of Boelcke's Albatros. As the fabric tore away, the wing lost lift, and the aircraft spiralled down to glide into an impact near a German artillery battery near Bapaume. Although the crash seemed survivable, Boelcke was not wearing his crash helmet, nor was his safety belt fastened. He died of a fractured skull. Böhme returned to base and overturned while landing, blanking the accident from his mind in his distress. He lamented, "Destiny is generally cruelly stupid in her choices..." but he was exonerated by an enquiry. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=193002 | 855,853 |
789,976 | 600,000 men and women participated in the war by enlisting as nurses, soldiers and chaplains. In general, non-white people and those born in enemy nations were not welcomed into the military. When Black people from Sydney, Nova Scotia volunteered their services, they were told, "This is not for you fellows, this is a white man's war." Nonetheless, some segregated units were formed. In 1915, Indigenous people were allowed to enlist and accepted into a 114th Battalion as well as others. In total, about 3,500 Indigenous people would serve with the Canadian Forces, but this figure has been disputed. The Canadian Japanese Association in British Columbia put forward a volunteer reserve force of 227 men, some of whom were later admitted into the military. The No. 2 Construction Battalion included black soldiers from both Canada and the United States, the latter having crossed into Canada in order to participate. The over one thousand Black Canadians who served would continue to be segregated during their tour, both on ships and in camps. A deal between the Chinese government and the allies resulted in the enlistment of thousands of Chinese who formed the Chinese Labour Corps (CLC) mainly poor Chinese men from the North who were told they would be in non-combatant roles. The Canadian government had restricted the arrival of all Asians and the CLC were secretly landed in Victoria, British Columbia. They were drilled in the old quarantine station at William Head and secretly shipped across Canada in cattle-trucks. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=5567596 | 789,551 |
173,454 | It may also be possible to generate isotopes in the island of stability such as Fl in multi-nucleon transfer reactions in low-energy collisions of actinide nuclei (such as U and Cm). This inverse quasifission (partial fusion followed by fission, with a shift away from mass equilibrium that results in more asymmetric products) mechanism may provide a path to the island of stability if shell effects around "Z" = 114 are sufficiently strong, though lighter elements such as nobelium and seaborgium ("Z" = 102–106) are predicted to have higher yields. Preliminary studies of the U + U and U + Cm transfer reactions have failed to produce elements heavier than mendelevium ("Z" = 101), though the increased yield in the latter reaction suggests that the use of even heavier targets such as Es (if available) may enable production of superheavy elements. This result is supported by a later calculation suggesting that the yield of superheavy nuclides (with "Z" ≤ 109) will likely be higher in transfer reactions using heavier targets. A 2018 study of the U + Th reaction at the Texas A&M Cyclotron Institute by Sara Wuenschel et al. found several unknown alpha decays that may possibly be attributed to new, neutron-rich isotopes of superheavy elements with 104 < "Z" < 116, though further research is required to unambiguously determine the atomic number of the products. This result strongly suggests that shell effects have a significant influence on cross sections, and that the island of stability could possibly be reached in future experiments with transfer reactions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=66394 | 173,363 |
1,565,493 | The first efforts that can be considered photogeochemical research can be traced to the "formaldehyde hypothesis" of Adolf von Baeyer in 1870, in which formaldehyde was proposed to be the initial product of plant photosynthesis, formed from carbon dioxide and water through the action of light on a green leaf. This suggestion inspired numerous attempts to obtain formaldehyde "in vitro", which can retroactively be considered photogeochemical studies. Detection of organic compounds such as formaldehyde and sugars was reported by many workers, usually by exposure of a solution of carbon dioxide to light, typically a mercury lamp or sunlight itself. At the same time, many other workers reported negative results. One of the pioneer experiments was that of Bach in 1893, who observed the formation of lower uranium oxides upon irradiation of a solution of uranium acetate and carbon dioxide, implying the formation of formaldehyde. Some experiments included reducing agents such as hydrogen gas, and others detected formaldeyhde or other products in the absence of any additives, although the possibility was admitted that reducing power may have been produced from the decomposition of water during the experiment. In addition to the main focus on synthesis of formaldehyde and simple sugars, other light-assisted reactions were occasionally reported, such as the decomposition of formaldehyde and subsequent release of methane, or the formation of formamide from carbon monoxide and ammonia. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=47664587 | 1,564,606 |
1,891,786 | D. S. Bhakuni, born on 30 December 1930 in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, graduated in chemistry from Allahabad University and completed his master's degree at the same institution. He started his career in 1958 as a teaching faculty but a year later, joined Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI), Lucknow and worked there for three years. His next move was to National Botanical Research Institute in 1962 but later went to the UK to pursue his doctoral studies. He secured a Phd in 1965 from the University of London under the guidance of Sir Derek Barton of Imperial College London, a renowned organic chemist and 1969 Nobel laureate; his thesis being "Studies in alkaloid biosynthesis". He would also receive the degree of Doctor of Science from London University in 1978. Returning to India, he joined CDRI in 1965 where he spent the rest of his official career till his superannuation in 1990 as a director general-grade scientist. In between, he had a stint at University of Concepción, Chile as a visiting professor. Post-retirement, he was selected as an emeritus scientist by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=52286500 | 1,890,703 |
1,933,935 | The geology of South Dakota began to form more than 2.5 billion years ago in the Archean eon of the Precambrian. Igneous crystalline basement rock continued to emplace through the Proterozoic, interspersed with sediments and volcanic materials. Large limestone and shale deposits formed during the Paleozoic, during prevalent shallow marine conditions, followed by red beds during terrestrial conditions in the Triassic. The Western Interior Seaway flooded the region, creating vast shale, chalk and coal beds in the Cretaceous as the Laramide orogeny began to form the Rocky Mountains. The Black Hills were uplifted in the early Cenozoic, followed by long-running periods of erosion, sediment deposition and volcanic ash fall, forming the Badlands and storing marine and mammal fossils. Much of the state's landscape was reworked during several phases of glaciation in the Pleistocene. South Dakota has extensive mineral resources in the Black Hills and some oil and gas extraction in the Williston Basin. The Homestake Mine, active until 2002, was a major gold mine that reached up to 8000 feet underground and is now used for dark matter and neutrino research. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=57844838 | 1,932,827 |
990,612 | By the 18th century, the term "statistics" designated the systematic collection of demographic and economic data by states. For at least two millennia, these data were mainly tabulations of human and material resources that might be taxed or put to military use. In the early 19th century, collection intensified, and the meaning of "statistics" broadened to include the discipline concerned with the collection, summary, and analysis of data. Today, data is collected and statistics are computed and widely distributed in government, business, most of the sciences and sports, and even for many pastimes. Electronic computers have expedited more elaborate statistical computation even as they have facilitated the collection and aggregation of data. A single data analyst may have available a set of data-files with millions of records, each with dozens or hundreds of separate measurements. These were collected over time from computer activity (for example, a stock exchange) or from computerized sensors, point-of-sale registers, and so on. Computers then produce simple, accurate summaries, and allow more tedious analyses, such as those that require inverting a large matrix or perform hundreds of steps of iteration, that would never be attempted by hand. Faster computing has allowed statisticians to develop "computer-intensive" methods which may look at all permutations, or use randomization to look at 10,000 permutations of a problem, to estimate answers that are not easy to quantify by theory alone. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14986442 | 990,095 |
142,532 | The Chernobyl reactor was a RBMK type. The disaster was caused by a power excursion that led to a steam explosion, meltdown and extensive offsite consequences. Operator error and a faulty shutdown system led to a sudden, massive spike in the neutron multiplication rate, a sudden decrease in the neutron period, and a consequent increase in neutron population; thus, core heat flux increased rapidly beyond the design limits of the reactor. This caused the water coolant to flash to steam, causing a sudden overpressure within the reactor core (the first of the two major explosions that occurred), leading to granulation of the upper portion of the core and the ejection of the upper biological shield atop the core along with core debris from the reactor building in a widely dispersed pattern. The lower portion of the reactor remained somewhat intact; the graphite neutron moderator was exposed to oxygen-containing air; heat from the power excursion in addition to residual heat flux from the remaining fuel rods left without coolant induced oxidation in the moderator and in the opened fuel rods; this in turn evolved more heat and contributed to the melting of more of the fuel rods and the outgassing of the fission products contained therein. The melted core material initially flowed into a more compact configuration, allowing it to reach prompt criticality (the same mechanism by which a fission weapon explodes, although with far lower efficiency and orders of magnitude lower yield) and resulting in a second, larger thermal explosion which partly disassembled the fissile mass and terminated the chain reaction. The liquefied remains of the melted fuel rods (less those dispersed in the two explosions), pulverized concrete and any other objects in the path flowed through a drainage pipe into the basement of the reactor building and solidified in a mass, though the primary threat to the public safety was the dispersed core ejecta, vaporized and gaseous fission products and fuel, and the gases evolved from the oxidation of the moderator. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=162498 | 142,474 |
307,148 | The arcade game received positive to mixed reviews, with critics praising the combat and graphics but criticizing the pressure-pad controls. Upon release in August 1987, "Commodore User" magazine said it has some of the "most unusual features which make it worthy of note" such as the experimental rubber pad controls and the large 24-inch screen displaying large detailed sprite graphics. However, the review said "the fairly repetitive nature of the game, and the large amount of physical effort needed to play it, will prevent "Street Fighter" from being much more than a novel experiment in coin-op technology" but that only "time will tell". In September, Tony Thompson of "Crash" said it "breathes new life" into martial arts games, with a "huge" cabinet, "big" characters, pads where "the harder you hit the pads the harder your character hits" and "secret techniques" but criticized it for making his "hands hurt". In December 1987, Julian Rignall and Daniel Gilbert of "Crash" said "it adds a new dimension with pneumatic punch buttons" and the action is "gratifying" with "great feedback from the buttons" but "there's very little to draw you back" after the novelty wears off. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2829113 | 306,984 |
953,252 | In the case law to date in 1988, the courts decided that a decision to withhold or withdraw treatment was only for the physician to make, not the courts. However, the Manitoba court decided that given the scarcity of related cases and how none of them considered the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, it would try the case. Previous courts had held that physicians should not be bound by law to provide treatment that they didn't believe the patient would want. Otherwise, the physician would be acting against his conscience and his duty as a physician. However, if the patient disagreed, they can sue the physician for negligence. To avoid this, Justice Beard ruled in favor of the patient. Resuscitation is not controversial and only requires CPR, which would be performed by the first qualified person on the scene. Even if resuscitation was an ethical dilemma, it was minor given that the doctor had allowed resuscitation for several months already. In contrast with related cases in which patients were comatose, Mrs. Sawatzky provided evidence that her husband was able to communicate and believed that he could recover, but the doctor disagreed. The uncertainty of recovery pushed the Court to order the physician to allow resuscitation. Where rulings discuss end of life issues, the question is more, "Is continued life a benefit to this person" instead of, "Is it possible to treat this person". These questions are beyond the scope of the medical profession and can be answered philosophically or religiously, which is also what builds our sense of justice. Both philosophy and religion value life as a basic right for humans and not as the ability to contribute to society and purposely encompasses all people. Mr. Sawatzky fell under the umbrella, so the judge ruled in his favor. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=261763 | 952,747 |
2,072,364 | They had built the Caledonian Canal, linking the three lochs of the Great Glen with the sea at each end. Old Highland footpaths, and the narrow military roads built by General Wade after 1715, had been replaced by wider roads and more substantial bridges. Around 875 miles of road were constructed, and over 1,300 bridges, mostly small but including many which spanned the larger rivers. As a result of this activity, the people of Inverness and its environs were well used to the presence of engineers, and a new career was opened to young men who previously might have passed their lives as labourers, or joined the army, or emigrated. One such was John Mitchell, born in Forres, and trained as a stonemason, whose diligence attracted the favourable notice of Thomas Telford, supremo of all the works. Mitchell was appointed as chief superintendent of all the Highland Roads in 1806. His eldest son, Joseph, was also born in Forres, in 1803. He attended Inverness Academy, which had been founded in 1791 and a flourishing school. Showing some aptitude for technical drawing, he was sent to Aberdeen for a year's tuition in drawing and architecture. It became clear that engineering would be his profession and, at the age of seventeen, he was employed as a trainee mason at the canal works then under way at Fort Augustus, on the south end of Loch Ness. As the son of John Mitchell, he was already on a fast career track, and from here he was taken to London by Telford, who liked the idea of a couple of 'raw Scotchmen' to act as his clerks and learn engineering at his house-cum-office. Joseph's years with Telford in London taught him a lot about dealing with officialdom, the rich and the nobility, as well as about engineering. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28138694 | 2,071,173 |
609,598 | Similar to the rotational effect mentioned above, the phenomena associated with flapping wings are not completely understood or agreed upon. Because every model is an approximation, different models leave out effects that are presumed to be negligible. For example, the Wagner effect, as proposed by Herbert A. Wagner in 1925, says that circulation rises slowly to its steady-state due to viscosity when an inclined wing is accelerated from rest. This phenomenon would explain a lift value that is less than what is predicted. Typically, the case has been to find sources for the added lift. It has been argued that this effect is negligible for flow with a Reynolds number that is typical of insect flight. The Reynolds number is a measure of turbulence; flow is laminar (smooth) when the Reynolds number is low, and turbulent when it is high. The Wagner effect was ignored, consciously, in at least one model. One of the most important phenomena that occurs during insect flight is leading edge suction. This force is significant to the calculation of efficiency. The concept of leading edge suction first was put forth by D. G. Ellis and J. L. Stollery in 1988 to describe vortex lift on sharp-edged delta wings. At high angles of attack, the flow separates over the leading edge, but reattaches before reaching the trailing edge. Within this bubble of separated flow is a vortex. Because the angle of attack is so high, a lot of momentum is transferred downward into the flow. These two features create a large amount of lift force as well as some additional drag. The important feature, however, is the lift. Because the flow has separated, yet it still provides large amounts of lift, this phenomenon is called stall delay, first noticed on aircraft propellers by H. Himmelskamp in 1945. This effect was observed in flapping insect flight and it was proven to be capable of providing enough lift to account for the deficiency in the quasi-steady-state models. This effect is used by canoeists in a sculling draw stroke. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3409272 | 609,287 |
1,591,466 | Protective lactobacilli inhibit the growth of other microorganisms by competing for adherence to epithelial cells and by producing antimicrobial compounds. These compounds include lactic acid, which lowers the vaginal pH, hydrogen peroxide and bacteriocins. Aberrant strains of "Lactobacilli" are incapable to effectively control the vaginal microbiota, leading to an overgrowth of a mixed flora of aerobic, anaerobic and microaerophilic bacterial species. Antibodies and cellular defense mechanisms directed against aberrant lactobacilli induced by vaccination have been shown to change the composition of the vaginal flora. Milovanović and his coworkers found a marked reduction in prevalence of "Klebsiella" and "Proteus" infestations in 36 trichomoniasis patients under therapy with SolcoTrichovac, while normal, metabolically active "Lactobacillus" species that could initially be found in only 11% of patients, were present in 72% after finishing treatment. Karkut observed a significant reduction in the incidence of "Escherichia coli" (55% to 23%), "Group B Streptococci" (37% to 10%), "Enterococci" (36% to 12%), "Bacteroides" (25% to 3%) and "Gardnerella vaginalis" (37% to 9%) in 94 patients treated for recurrent bacterial vaginitis eight weeks after initial injection. The incidence of aberrant lactobacilli fell from 17% to 3%, while that of normal lactobacilli rose from 31% to 72% during the course of the eight weeks. Harris reported a significant reduction of the number of microbial species (other than lactobacilli) found in post-treatment cultures from 77 patients. Litschgi found, that the incidence of mixed bacterial infections characterized by the presence of "G. vaginalis", haemolytic "Streptococci" and "Staphylococci" was reduced by two-thirds four weeks after finishing therapy in 120 patients treated for bacterial colpitis. He observed a similar reduction of the less frequent "Klebsiella", "Proteus"-dominant infections. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=64530838 | 1,590,571 |
1,723,053 | Scientists have deemed vector borne diseases to be sensitive to changes in weather and climate. The abundance of disease carrying vectors in the environment depends on multiple factors, including temperature, relative humidity, and water availability, all factors necessary for the reproductive processes and success of disease carrying vectors. Climate change predictions include rising temperatures and changes in rainfall pattern which can create suitable habitats and increases the overall survival rate and fitness of pathogen carrying species. With a warming climate, pathogens and parasites can begin shifting their native geographic ranges to higher latitudes and infect host species in which they have no prior interaction with. The shift in rainfall patterns can additionally indicate the presence of disease carrying vectors. For example, mosquitos spread diseases such as malaria and lymphatic filariasis. The distribution of lymphatic filariasis via mosquitos can be determined by looking at soil moisture content, an indicator of viable mosquito breeding habitat (as mosquito larvae need shallow, stagnant water to survive). As temperature and precipitation patterns change, so will soil moisture levels and the corresponding mosquito populations. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=59716835 | 1,722,083 |
2,161,706 | Using paleomagnetism of rocks from South Africa, Australia, Canada, Brazil, Russia and China, Evans has worked to reassemble the configuration of supercontinents that preceded Pangea. He was a member of drilling projects of the Kaapvaal craton with the Agouron institute for geobiology, and a member of the scientific team to develop a large igneous province global "barcode" record of plume magmatism on Earth. He has also contributed primary data demonstrating that ancient ice ages had continental ice sheets reaching tropical latitudes, which has been incorporated into the Snowball Earth theory of the planet's long term paleoclimate. Evans is involved with the latest efforts at reconstructing the history of supercontinents on Earth through the last three billion years. He is the Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Geology and Geophysics at Yale University; and the current coordinator of field student expeditions to locations including Norway, Queensland, Australia, British Columbia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa, as well as undergraduate excursions to Sicily and Barbados. He has spent sabbatical leaves in Taiwan and Australia, where he studied modern and ancient mountain building processes. Evans is a 2002 honoree of the Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering, and a finalist for the Blavatnik Awards for young scientists. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=31117281 | 2,160,472 |
1,131,225 | Second-harmonic light emerging from an SHG material is exactly half the wavelength (frequency doubled) of the light entering the material. While two-photon-excited fluorescence (TPEF) is also a two photon process, TPEF loses some energy during the relaxation of the excited state, while SHG is energy conserving. Typically, an inorganic crystal is used to produce SHG light such as lithium niobate (LiNbO), potassium titanyl phosphate (KTP = KTiOPO), and lithium triborate (LBO = LiBO). Though SHG requires a material to have specific molecular orientation in order for the incident light to be frequency doubled, some biological materials can be highly polarizable, and assemble into fairly ordered, large noncentrosymmetric structures. While some biological materials such as collagen, microtubules, and muscle myosin can produce SHG signals, even water can become ordered and produce second-harmonic signal under certain conditions, which allows SH microscopy to image surface potentials without any labeling molecules. The SHG pattern is mainly determined by the phase matching condition. A common setup for an SHG imaging system will have a laser scanning microscope with a titanium sapphire mode-locked laser as the excitation source. The SHG signal is propagated in the forward direction. However, some experiments have shown that objects on the order of about a tenth of the wavelength of the SHG produced signal will produce nearly equal forward and backward signals. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12641022 | 1,130,636 |
1,957,167 | Fisheries-induced evolution is a function of the fishing-induced genetic drift, and to some extent represent the reduction of genetic diversity within the targeted population. For many exploited population, this reduction in genetic diversity has been predicted to reduce their adaptability to both environmental variability and ecological competitiveness. Indeed, the commonly observed fisheries-induced adaptation of younger and smaller size at sexual maturation counter specific life-history characteristics that would enable interspecies competition for resources. A biological model by Kindsvater and Palkovacs (2017) shows that FIE Atlantic cod, due to their smaller sizes, actually belong to a lower trophic level irrespective of their original position prior to the species moratorium. Furthermore, the FIE effect of reducing egg counts and their viability have weakened the number of recruitments back into the population after spawning, thereby reducing the localised population density. However, at the reduced population abundance and smaller sizes, the increase in "per capita" resource has been stipulated to counteract the effects of competitions between different species by reducing intraspecific interactions, which can allow for maximal density-dependent growth to happen. This also means that for harvesting to be sustainable, yearly or seasonal assessment of viable reproductive stocks and their recruitment rates must be performed to account for the compromised fecundity and recovery statuses. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=58476264 | 1,956,043 |
1,613,287 | Traditionally, pulmonary lobectomy is performed through a poster-lateral thoracotomy incision; over decades, thoracotomy has demonstrated its effectiveness in providing access to structures in the thorax and is in general tolerated by patients. Thoracotomy, as most commonly performed, requires cutting through one or more major muscles of the chest wall including the latissimus dorsi, pectoralis or serratus muscles, and spreading of the ribs with a rib spreader. Because the joints of the ribs with the vertebral bodies have only limited flexibility, the use of a rib spreader usually results in rib fracture in the process of rendering the interspace between the ribs wide enough to perform a pulmonary lobectomy. Because of this, thoracic surgeons generally intentionally remove a section of one or more ribs in an effort to prevent splintered rib fracture associated with the use of the rib spreader. There is wide consensus that thoracotomy is one of the most painful incisions that patients can undergo. In the initial post-operative setting after thoracotomy, the use of epidural catheters, patient-controlled analgesia pumps for intravenous narcotic administration, and intravenous ketorolac are commonplace and patients generally require a 7- to 10-day hospital stay before their pain is adequately controlled with oral opioid analgesics that they can take at home. A great deal of emphasis is placed on post-operative pulmonary toilet because the incisional pain associated with thoracotomy leads to a decreased ability of patients to cough and clear bronchial secretions, which in turn leads to an increased risk of persistent atelectasis (collapsed areas of lung) or pneumonia. Finally, to allow time for the divided muscles and bone fractures to heal, patients must refrain from strenuous activity or lifting greater than 5 lbs for 6 weeks after surgery. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=22682698 | 1,612,382 |
25,500 | The delta wing, while excellent for a fast-climbing interceptor, meant any form of turning combat led to a rapid loss of speed. However, the light loading of the aircraft could mean that a climb rate of 235 m/s (46,250 ft/min) was possible with a combat-loaded MiG-21bis, not far short of the performance of the later F-16A. MiG-21's Tumansky R-25 jet engine's specialty was the addition of a second fuel pump in the afterburning stage. Activating the ЧР (rus. "чрезвычайный режим" - emergency mode)(Emergency Power Rating, EPR in India) booster feature allows the engine to develop 97.4 kilonewtons (21,896 lbf) of thrust under 2,000 meters (6,600 ft) of altitude. The rpm of the engine would increase by 2.5% and the compression ratio would thus increase, with a rise in exhaust temperature. The limit of operation is 2 minutes for both practice and actual wartime use, as further use causes the engine to overheat. The fuel consumption increased by 50% over the rate in full afterburner. Use of this temporary power gave the MiG-21bis slightly better than 1:1 thrust-to-weight ratio and a climbing rate of 254 meters/second, equalling the F-16's nominal capabilities in a close-quarters dogfight. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=61962 | 25,491 |
867,041 | "Alamosaurus" was a gigantic quadrupedal herbivore with a long neck and tail and relatively long limbs. Its body was at least partly covered in bony armor. In 2012 Thomas Holtz gave a total length of or more and an approximate weight of 72.5–80 tonnes (80–88 short tons) or more.Though most of the complete remains come from juvenile or small adult specimens, three fragmentary specimens, SMP VP−1625, SMP VP−1850 and SMP VP−2104, suggest that adult "Alamosaurus" could have grown to enormous sizes comparable to the largest known dinosaurs like "Argentinosaurus", which has been estimated to weigh . Scott Hartman estimates "Alamosaurus," based on a huge incomplete tibia that probably refers to it, being slightly shorter at and equal in weight to other massive titanosaurs such as "Argentinosaurus" and "Puertasaurus". It is currently the only titanosaur from North America. However, he says that at the moment, scientists do not know whether the massive tibia belongs to an "Alamosaurus" or a completely new species of sauropod. In 2019 Gregory S. Paul estimated the (SMP VP−1625) specimen at 27 tonnes (30 short tons), and he also mentioned a large partial anterior caudal vertebra which suggests an Alamosaurus specimen that is 15 percent dimensionally larger with similar mass to his "Dreadnoughtus" estimation of 31 tonnes (34 short tons). In 2020 Molina-Perez and Larramendi estimated the size of the largest individual at 26 meters (85.3 ft) and 38 tonnes (42 short tons). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3026115 | 866,581 |
1,888,126 | At the same time that the US Navy was looking to improve the air defense capabilities of the fleet, air defense in the United States also took on a much greater priority after the Soviet Union exploded its first nuclear weapon on 29 August 1949. The United States established a committee chaired by MIT professor George Valley, later to be known as the Valley Committee. The committee determined that the greatest threat to the nation's air defense was low-flying aircraft capable of avoiding widely dispersed GCI radars. To counter this the committee recommended that a large number of ground based radar systems be installed all over the United States to provide complete coverage. This large number of stations required a command and control center that could aggregate radar track data in real time. The amount of data necessary for this meant that it could not be done manually and would require a computer. Thus was born the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment also known as "SAGE." SAGE was a system of large computers and associated networking equipment that coordinated data from many radar sites and processed it to produce a single unified image of the airspace over a wide area. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=62305142 | 1,887,043 |
120,766 | In the 17th century, mathematicians Blaise Pascal and Christiaan Huygens solved problems involving sometimes complex decisions (problem of points) by using game-theoretic ideas and expected values; others, such as Pierre de Fermat and Jacob Bernoulli, solved these types of problems using combinatorial reasoning instead. Charles Babbage's research into the cost of transportation and sorting of mail led to England's universal "Penny Post" in 1840, and to studies into the dynamical behaviour of railway vehicles in defence of the GWR's broad gauge. Beginning in the 20th century, study of inventory management could be considered the origin of modern operations research with economic order quantity developed by Ford W. Harris in 1913. Operational research may have originated in the efforts of military planners during World War I (convoy theory and Lanchester's laws). Percy Bridgman brought operational research to bear on problems in physics in the 1920s and would later attempt to extend these to the social sciences. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=43476 | 120,717 |
1,240,640 | While many of the cited studies suggest that one or more of the EETs released by vascular endothelial cells are responsible for the actions of the vasodilators and that deficiencies in EET production or excessive EET inactivation by sEH underlie certain types of hypertension in humans, they are not conclusive. They do not exclude a possibility that other polyunsaturated fatty acid epoxides such as those derived from eicosatetraenoic, docosatetraenoic, or linoleic acids made by CYP2C9 or other CYP epoxygenases (see epoxygenase) contribute in small or large part to vasodilation responses and by this action promote blood flow to tissues and function in lowering high blood pressures. Furthermore, the genetic studies conducted to date on SNP variants do not give strong support for an antihypertensive role for the EETs or EET-forming epoxygenases in humans. Recently developed drugs which are metabolically stable analogs of the EETs and thereby mimic the EETs actions or, alternatively of drugs which inhibit sEH and thereby increase EET levels are in the Pre-clinical development stage for treating human hypertension. Testing for their usefulness in treating human hypertension is made difficult because of: 1) the large number of CYP epoxygenases along with their differing tissue distributions and sensitivities to drug inhibitors; 2) the diversity of EETs made by the CYP epoxygenases, some of which differ in activities; 3) the diversity of fatty acid substrates metabolized by the CYP epoxygenases some of which are converted to epoxides (e.g. the epoxide metabolites of linoleic, docosahexaenoic, eicosapentaenoic acids) with have different activities than the EETs or may even be overtly toxic to humans (see Coronaric acid); 4) the sEH-derived dihydroxy metabolites of the EETs some of which have potent vasodilating effects in the certain vascular networks in rodents and therefore potentially in humans; and 5) the non-specificity and side effects of the latter drugs. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4367754 | 1,239,969 |
266,186 | In their original description, Charig and Milner did not consider "Baryonyx" to be aquatic (due to its nostrils being on the sides of its snout—far from the tip—and the form of the post-cranial skeleton), but thought it was capable of swimming, like most land vertebrates. They speculated that the elongated skull, long neck, and strong humerus of "Baryonyx" indicated that the animal was a facultative quadruped, unique among theropods. In their 1997 article they found no skeletal support for this, but maintained that the forelimbs would have been strong enough for a quadrupedal posture and it would probably have caught aquatic prey while crouching—or on all fours—near (or in) water. A 2014 re-description of "Spinosaurus" by the German-Moroccan palaeontologist Nizar Ibrahim and colleagues based on new remains suggested that it was a quadruped, based on its anterior centre of body mass. The authors found quadrupedality unlikely for "Baryonyx", since the better-known legs of the closely related "Suchomimus" did not support this posture. Various theories have been proposed for the tall neural spines (or "sails") of spinosaurids, such as use in thermoregulation, fat-storage in a hump, or display, and in 2015, the German biophysicist Jan Gimsa and colleagues suggested that this feature could also have aided aquatic movement by improving manoeuvrability when submerged, and acted as fulcrum for powerful movements of the neck and tail (similar to those of sailfish or thresher sharks). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1091918 | 266,042 |
912,360 | In comparison with terrestrial-based biofuel crops such as corn or soybeans, microalgal production results in a much less significant land footprint due to the higher oil productivity from the microalgae than all other oil crops. Algae can also be grown on marginal lands useless for ordinary crops and with low conservation value, and can use water from salt aquifers that is not useful for agriculture or drinking. Algae can also grow on the surface of the ocean in bags or floating screens. Thus microalgae could provide a source of clean energy with little impact on the provisioning of adequate food and water or the conservation of biodiversity.<ref name="doi10.1111/j.1523-1739.2007.00879.x"></ref> Algae cultivation also requires no external subsidies of insecticides or herbicides, removing any risk of generating associated pesticide waste streams. In addition, algal biofuels are much less toxic, and degrade far more readily than petroleum-based fuels. However, due to the flammable nature of any combustible fuel, there is potential for some environmental hazards if ignited or spilled, as may occur in a train derailment or a pipeline leak. This hazard is reduced compared to fossil fuels, due to the ability for algal biofuels to be produced in a much more localized manner, and due to the lower toxicity overall, but the hazard is still there nonetheless. Therefore, algal biofuels should be treated in a similar manner to petroleum fuels in transportation and use, with sufficient safety measures in place at all times. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14205946 | 911,881 |
157,752 | There are at least twelve distinct hypotheses as to how and why bipedalism evolved in humans, and also some debate as to when. Bipedalism evolved well before the large human brain or the development of stone tools. Bipedal specializations are found in "Australopithecus" fossils from 4.2 to 3.9 million years ago and recent studies have suggested that obligate bipedal hominid species were present as early as 7 million years ago. Nonetheless, the evolution of bipedalism was accompanied by significant evolutions in the spine including the forward movement in position of the foramen magnum, where the spinal cord leaves the cranium. Recent evidence regarding modern human sexual dimorphism (physical differences between male and female) in the lumbar spine has been seen in pre-modern primates such as "Australopithecus africanus". This dimorphism has been seen as an evolutionary adaptation of females to bear lumbar load better during pregnancy, an adaptation that non-bipedal primates would not need to make. Adapting bipedalism would have required less shoulder stability, which allowed the shoulder and other limbs to become more independent of each other and adapt for specific suspensory behaviors. In addition to the change in shoulder stability, changing locomotion would have increased the demand for shoulder mobility, which would have propelled the evolution of bipedalism forward. The different hypotheses are not necessarily mutually exclusive and a number of selective forces may have acted together to lead to human bipedalism. It is important to distinguish between adaptations for bipedalism and adaptations for running, which came later still. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4210 | 157,680 |
2,055,318 | However, only a fraction of the total concentration of ALDH3A1 in the cornea is used for metabolizing aldehydes. This observation has sparked multiple investigations of ALDH3A1's role beyond aldehyde metabolism. Although the full scope of ALDH3A1's function is yet to be firmly established, there is strong evidence suggesting that ALDH3A1 serves to maintain the cellular redox balance as well as the structural integrity and transparency of the cornea. One study elucidates that ALDH3A1 not only indirectly protects the cornea from UVR induced oxidative stress by metabolizing aldehydes, but also protects the tissue directly, by competitively absorbing UVR in a “suicide response” that reduces damage to other proteins of the cornea In fact, 50% percent of the UVR that the cornea is exposed to is absorbed by ADLH3A1. ALDH3A1's absorption of UVR oxidizes several key amino acid residues, leading to conformational changes that convert the alpha and beta sheets into random coils. These conformational changes ultimately relieve the dimer structure. This loss of secondary and tertiary structure leads to protein aggregation and complete loss of enzymatic activity. Peptide mapping and spectroscopic experiments reveal that the loss of activity is not a result of Cys244 oxidation (which, together with the active site, remains intact during photo-excitation), but instead, due to the degradation of other key amino residues (most notably methionine and tryptophan). These amino acid residues degrade under oxidative stress, leading to the formation of non-reducible cross-links that stabilize the soluble aggregates. Tryptophan for instance is doubly oxidized to generate ROSs such as HO, which elicit further oxidation and adduction. Nevertheless, the abundance of ALDH3A1 in the cornea ensures that this suicide response neither impedes with aldehyde metabolism nor leads to the formation of insoluble aggregates that would affect the transparency of the cornea. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14764096 | 2,054,135 |
1,968,308 | In 1977 at Rice University Clayton had been named "Co-Investigator" for the NASA-approved proposal for the OSSE spectrometer on Compton, and in 1982 he summarized physical expectations for several gamma-ray-line emitting young nuclei. Key to the intense supernova radioactivity had been Clayton's 1967 discovery that rapid-silicon-burning was dominated by abundances of radioactive alpha-particle nuclei (those having equal numbers of protons and neutrons). Clayton has quipped that SN explosions are "the largest nuclear accidents of all time". Supernova 1987A ejected 20,000 times the mass of the earth as pure radioactive Ni nuclei! Abundant iron of our world was demonstrated to be a daughter of radioactive nickel, the most important of the radioactive nuclei. Modern studies of supernovae are dominated by their intensely radioactive natures. Spacetime data for cosmology relies on Ni radioactivity providing the energy for the optical brightness of supernovae of Type Ia, which are the "standard candles" of cosmology but whose diagnostic 847keV and 1238keV gamma rays were first detected only in 2014, fully 47 years after Clayton's prediction of their emission by supernovae. Clayton's work earned for him NASA's 1992 "Exceptional Scientific Achievement Award" and in the same year the "NASA Public Service Group Achievement Award for the OSSE Spectrometer" on the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. Both the OSSE instrument and the Comptel instrument confirmed predictions. Clayton had previously attempted to establish gamma-ray-line astronomy from r process radioactive nuclei; but r-process nuclei are much less abundant in supernovae than are the nuclei fused during silicon-burning. So it was the latter that became the demonstrated source of radioactive nuclei. Chapters 8, 11, 17 and 18 in "Catch a Falling Star", whose title Clayton has said he chose as an allusion to the gravitational core collapse that triggers these supernovae. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=36061850 | 1,967,177 |
372,395 | Crucial to U.S. participation was the sweeping domestic propaganda campaign. In order to achieve this, President Wilson created the Committee on Public Information through Executive Order 2594 on April 13, 1917, which was the first state bureau in the United States that's main focus was on propaganda. The man charged by President Wilson with organizing and leading the CPI was George Creel, a once relentless journalist and political campaign organizer who would search without mercy for any bit of information that would paint a bad picture on his opponents. Creel went about his task with boundless energy. He was able to create an intricate, unprecedented propaganda system that plucked and instilled an influence on almost all phases of normal American life. In the press—as well as through photographs, movies, public meetings, and rallies—the CPI was able to douse the public with Propaganda that brought on American patriotism whilst creating an anti-German image into the young populace, further quieting the voice of the neutrality supporters. It also took control of market regarding the dissemination of war-related information on the American home front, which in turn promoted a system of voluntary censorship in the country's newspapers and magazines while simultaneously policing these same media outlets for seditious content or anti-American support. The campaign consisted of tens of thousands of government-selected community leaders giving brief carefully scripted pro-war speeches at thousands of public gatherings. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25604889 | 372,200 |
425,461 | A variant fitted to the British Royal Navy's s differed in several respects from the original Australian version designed to operate in the Pacific. The Royal Navy required changes to the frequencies used in order to enable Ikara to be used in the NATO area, where different electronic warfare conditions and international frequency agreements had to be taken into account. Neither the Australian-built analogue computer system, nor the American Bunker Ramo Corporation 133 digital computer system, used in most RAN systems, were compatible with the ADA digital battle-control computers being fitted into Royal Navy ships, and this was also changed. The UK-manufactured version of the Mark 44 torpedo also differed from the US-built version purchased by the Australians for their Ikara missiles. The British also required the missile payload to be changeable aboard ship to permit different payload combinations to be used, including a nuclear depth bomb (NDB) option, and this, together with the different internal ship layouts required further changes to the missile, storage and handling arrangements. The Australian practice was to combine the missile and payload at a shore-based ordnance facility and issuing the complete unit to a ship; repair or maintenance was only possible ashore. In the British ships, the changes made enabled a faulty torpedo on a missile in working order to be replaced, increasing the flexibility of use of very limited stocks aboard; especially on lengthy deployments around the globe, as was more common with British ships than their Australian counterparts. The facility to change a torpedo payload aboard ship also permitted a change from a conventional torpedo to a WE.177A NDB, a facility for a nuclear option that was not needed on ships fitted with the Australian variant of Ikara. The British launcher also differed, covered by a zareba (breakwater) when not in use to prevent icing in northern waters, and extremely accurate in training in bearing. It was also notoriously noisy. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=867825 | 425,253 |
10,449 | Commoners are estimated to have comprised over 90% of the population, but relatively little is known about them. Their houses were generally constructed from perishable materials, and their remains have left little trace in the archaeological record. Some commoner dwellings were raised on low platforms, and these can be identified, but an unknown quantity of commoner houses were not. Such low-status dwellings can only be detected by extensive remote-sensing surveys of apparently empty terrain. The range of commoners was broad; it consisted of everyone not of noble birth, and therefore included everyone from the poorest farmers to wealthy craftsmen and commoners appointed to bureaucratic positions. Commoners engaged in essential production activities, including that of products destined for use by the elite, such as cotton and cacao, as well as subsistence crops for their own use, and utilitarian items such as ceramics and stone tools. Commoners took part in warfare, and could advance socially by proving themselves as outstanding warriors. Commoners paid taxes to the elite in the form of staple goods such as maize, flour and game. It is likely that hard-working commoners who displayed exceptional skills and initiative could become influential members of Maya society. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=18449273 | 10,444 |
51,067 | At the end of the Devonian period (360 million years ago), the seas, rivers and lakes were teeming with life while the land was the realm of early plants and devoid of vertebrates, though some, such as "Ichthyostega", may have sometimes hauled themselves out of the water. It is thought they may have propelled themselves with their forelimbs, dragging their hindquarters in a similar manner to that used by the elephant seal. In the early Carboniferous (360 to 345 million years ago), the climate became wet and warm. Extensive swamps developed with mosses, ferns, horsetails and calamites. Air-breathing arthropods evolved and invaded the land where they provided food for the carnivorous amphibians that began to adapt to the terrestrial environment. There were no other tetrapods on the land and the amphibians were at the top of the food chain, occupying the ecological position currently held by the crocodile. Though equipped with limbs and the ability to breathe air, most still had a long tapering body and strong tail. They were the top land predators, sometimes reaching several metres in length, preying on the large insects of the period and the many types of fish in the water. They still needed to return to water to lay their shell-less eggs, and even most modern amphibians have a fully aquatic larval stage with gills like their fish ancestors. It was the development of the amniotic egg, which prevents the developing embryo from drying out, that enabled the reptiles to reproduce on land and which led to their dominance in the period that followed. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=621 | 51,047 |
503,873 | SMPs are smart materials with potential applications as, e.g., intravenous cannula, self-adjusting orthodontic wires and selectively pliable tools for small scale surgical procedures where currently metal-based shape-memory alloys such as Nitinol are widely used. Another application of SMP in the medical field could be its use in implants: for example minimally invasive, through small incisions or natural orifices, implantation of a device in its small temporary shape. Shape-memory technologies have shown great promise for cardiovascular stents, since they allow a small stent to be inserted along a vein or artery and then expanded to prop it open. After activating the shape memory by temperature increase or mechanical stress, it would assume its permanent shape. Certain classes of shape-memory polymers possess an additional property: biodegradability. This offers the option to develop temporary implants. In the case of biodegradable polymers, after the implant has fulfilled its intended use, e.g. healing/tissue regeneration has occurred, the material degrades into substances which can be eliminated by the body. Thus full functionality would be restored without the necessity for a second surgery to remove the implant. Examples of this development are vascular stents and surgical sutures. When used in surgical sutures, the shape-memory property of SMPs enables wound closure with self-adjusting optimal tension, which avoids tissue damage due to overtightened sutures and does support healing and regeneration. SMPs have also potential for use as compression garments and hands-free door openers, whereby the latter can be produced via so-called 4D printing. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9111849 | 503,614 |
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