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1,354,127 | The result of the formerly mentioned development on the WZ-1224 is the WZ-1226, a more conservative design with a round cast turret and more domestically produced parts. There are two tanks in this prototype stage: the WZ-1226 and the WZ-1226F2; the two tanks have no visible difference, the only significant difference is that the former used a 8V165 engine produced by Plant 636, and the latter using an improved version of the 12150ZL engine produced by Plant 616. Both tanks used a hydraulic automatic gearbox with four forward gears and one reverse, developed by Plant 617, combining the transmission and engine into a single modular powerpack that is easily replaceable and removable. The prototypes also replaced the torsion bar suspension with a combined suspension utilizing both torsion bar and hydro-pneumatic systems similar to the suspension on the Japanese Type 74 Main Battle Tank. Combined with the hydraulic assisted power steering, the "three-liquid" technical expectation was realized on the WZ-1226 after more than ten years. The tanks inherited the 120mm smoothbore gun from the WZ-1224, but simplified the loading mechanism to a semi-automatic loader. The WZ-1226 prototypes also featured composite armor. The prototypes were tested from 1981 to 1982, with satisfactory results. However, due to the unreliability of the transmission as well as low durability of some parts, the tank was set aside by the PLA with some technologies proven by the tank used by other vehicles, such as the PTZ-89 tank destroyer, using a modified version of the gun on the WZ-122 series. The project also provided the Chinese military industry with experience in producing a modern main battle tank, which would prove valuable in the development of Chinese third generation MBTs. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=43410769 | 1,353,379 |
1,676,441 | The ZBD patents included two other major interrelated innovations: one concerning the use of parallel connected, instead of series connected, utilization loads, the other concerning the ability to have high turns ratio transformers such that the supply network voltage could be much higher (initially 1,400 to 2,000 V) than the voltage of utilization loads (100 V initially preferred). When employed in parallel connected electric distribution systems, closed-core transformers finally made it technically and economically feasible to provide electric power for lighting in homes, businesses and public spaces. Bláthy had suggested the use of closed cores, Zipernowsky had suggested the use of parallel shunt connections, and Déri had performed the experiments; The other essential milestone was the introduction of 'voltage source, voltage intensive' (VSVI) systems' by the invention of constant voltage generators in 1885. Ottó Bláthy also invented the first AC electricity meter. Transformers today are designed on the principles discovered by the three engineers. They also popularized the word 'transformer' to describe a device for altering the emf of an electric current, although the term had already been in use by 1882. In 1886, the ZBD engineers designed, and the Ganz factory supplied electrical equipment for, the world's first power station that used AC generators to power a parallel connected common electrical network, the steam-powered Rome-Cerchi power plant. The reliability of the AC technology received impetus after the Ganz Works electrified a large European metropolis: Rome in 1886. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=35639573 | 1,675,499 |
1,463,746 | In antebellum South Carolina trade was considered secondary to agriculture. Towns were reliant on nearby plantations and farms for business while planters could mostly rely on themselves for food and clothing if needed. In some districts, every farm was recorded as self-sufficient. But, in many areas of South Carolina, merchants were still needed in order to provide planters with credit which was an essential in a cash-poor region. Inland merchants were relatively rare compared to farmers until the middle of the nineteenth century. They extended credit to planters for the purchase of commodities such as coffee, sugar, and salt. The most common item sold was alcohol and sales seldom exceeded a couple of dollars. Toward the latter part of the antebellum period, merchants in the southwestern portion of the state began advocating for and receiving significant concessions from the general assembly such as the incorporation of towns, tax breaks to encourage development, and infrastructure to connect markets. These concessions often put the town merchants at odds with their rural counterparts. By the 1850s, commercial activity was no longer centered on just Charleston and began expanding in the upcountry. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21927183 | 1,462,923 |
1,400,594 | Biogerontology is the sub-field of gerontology concerned with the biological aging process, its evolutionary origins, and potential means to intervene in the process. The term "biogerontology" was coined by S. Rattan, and came in regular use with the start of the journal BIOGERONTOLOGY in 2000. It involves interdisciplinary research on the causes, effects, and mechanisms of biological aging. Biogerontologist Leonard Hayflick has said that the natural average lifespan for a human is around 92 years and, if humans do not invent new approaches to treat aging, they will be stuck with this lifespan. James Vaupel has predicted that life expectancy in industrialized countries will reach 100 for children born after the year 2000. Many surveyed biogerontologists have predicted life expectancies of more than three centuries for people born after the year 2100. Other scientists, more controversially, suggest the possibility of unlimited lifespans for those currently living. For example, Aubrey de Grey offers the "tentative timeframe" that with adequate funding of research to develop interventions in aging such as strategies for engineered negligible senescence, "we have a 50/50 chance of developing technology within about 25 to 30 years from now that will, under reasonable assumptions about the rate of subsequent improvements in that technology, allow us to stop people from dying of aging at any age". The idea of this approach is to use presently available technology to extend lifespans of currently living humans long enough for future technological progress to resolve any remaining aging-related issues. This concept has been referred to as longevity escape velocity. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=748539 | 1,399,807 |
264,081 | The specialisation and concentration of the workers on their single subtasks often leads to greater skill and greater productivity on their particular subtasks than would be achieved by the same number of workers each carrying out the original broad task, in part due to increased quality of production, but more importantly because of increased efficiency of production, leading to a higher nominal output of units produced per time unit. Smith uses the example of a production capability of an individual pin maker compared to a manufacturing business that employed 10 men:One man draws out the wire; another straights it; a third cuts it; a fourth points it; a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving the head; to make the head requires two or three distinct operations; to put it on is a peculiar business; to whiten the pins is another; it is even a trade by itself to put them into the paper; and the important business of making a pin is, in this manner, divided into about eighteen distinct operations, which, in some manufactories, are all performed by distinct hands, though in others the same man will sometimes perform two or three of them. I have seen a small manufactory of this kind, where ten men only were employed, and where some of them consequently performed two or three distinct operations. But though they were very poor, and therefore but indifferently accommodated with the necessary machinery, they could, when they exerted themselves, make among them about twelve pounds of pins in a day. There are in a pound upwards of four thousand pins of a middling size. Those ten persons, therefore, could make among them upwards of forty-eight thousand pins in a day. Each person, therefore, making a tenth part of forty-eight thousand pins, might be considered as making four thousand eight hundred pins in a day. But if they had all wrought separately and independently, and without any of them having been educated to this peculiar business, they certainly could not each of them have made twenty, perhaps not one pin in a day.Smith saw the importance of matching skills with equipment—usually in the context of an organisation. For example, pin makers were organised with one making the head, another the body, each using different equipment. Similarly, he emphasised a large number of skills, used in cooperation and with suitable equipment, were required to build a ship. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8824 | 263,938 |
585,274 | Towards the end of August 1942, the Luftwaffe began launching high-level bombing raids against England. A unit called the "Höhenkampfkommando der Versuchsstelle für Höhenflüge", equipped with a small number of Junkers Ju 86R bombers, was able to bomb England from above without impediment from RAF fighters, or from anti-aircraft guns. On one such attack on 28 August a single bomb dropped on Bristol killed 48 people and injured another 46. To counter the threat, the "High Altitude Flight" was formed at RAF Northolt; this unit used a pair of Spitfire Mk Vcs which were converted into IXs by Rolls-Royce at the Hucknall plant. These were stripped of everything not required for the role of high-level interception, lightening them by 450 lb each. On 12 September 1942 Flying Officer Emanuel Galitzine, flying "BS273", successfully intercepted a Ju 86R piloted by Fw Horst Göetz and commanded by Leutnant Erich Sommer above Southampton at . The ensuing battle went up to and was the highest air battle of the war. However, problems were caused by the freezing air at that altitude and the combat was not decisive: the port cannon suffered a jam and, whenever the pilot fired a burst, the aircraft would slew and fall out of the sky. The bomber escaped safely with just one hit to its port wing, but having found it to be vulnerable to the RAF at high altitudes, the Luftwaffe launched no further high-altitude attacks against England. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=15630676 | 584,974 |
1,466,243 | The building was officially and solemnly opened on 24 February 1952, when the Academy finally and permanently moved in into the building. In 1967, Samojlov did the design for the adaptation of the gallery on the corner of Knez Mihailova and Vuka Karadžića Street. Perfectly composed interior left room for additional improvement during the next couple of years, so that until today it has been enriched by our eminent artists. The glass gaps of the final collimation line in the entrance hall were replaced by the stained glass done in 2000, after the drawings by Branko Miljuš , whereas the stained glass windows in the Congress Hall and in the foyer in front of the hall were made after the design of the academic Mladen Srbinović in 2005. Serbian Academy of Science and Arts, as the most significant scientific institution in Serbia, gave the biggest contribution to the improvement of the scientific thought, gathering many prominent names of Serbian, Yugoslav and world science and artistic creation. Its building, built at one of the most representative locations of Belgrade urban space, with its architecture makes the inevitable part of the evaluation of, not only local, but also national construction heritage for almost one century. Taking into consideration the undeniable values and the importance, it was designated as a cultural monument in 1992. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4705234 | 1,465,420 |
1,458,563 | Apart from his contributions to magazines and newspapers in the US and abroad, Gleiser writes a weekly science column for the Brazilian "Folha de S.Paulo" newspaper. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, and currently serves as General Councilor. He has been awarded the Presidential Faculty Fellows Award from the White House and the National Science Foundation. He is also a member of the Brazilian Academy of Philosophy. In Brazil, he received the José Reis Award for the Public Understanding of Science from the Brazilian National Research Council and the Brazilian Diaspora Prize . He has been featured in several TV documentaries, including "Stephen Hawking's Universe," the History Channel's "Beyond the Big Bang" (2007) and "How Life Began" (2008), "Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman" (2014), Oprah Winfrey's "Belief", as well as many radio programs, including Fresh Air, Radiolab, On Being, and many others. In Brazil, his two science series for TV Globo's "Fantastico" were watched by over 30 million viewers. He is the co-founder of the science and culture blog, hosted by National Public Radio, a science blog now hosted by ORBITER magazine under the new name 13.8: Science, Culture, and Meaning. He recently founded and directs the Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Engagement at Dartmouth, dedicated to foster a constructive dialogue between the sciences and the humanities. On 19 March 2019 he received the Templeton Prize for his works exploring the complex relationship between science, philosophy, and religion as complementary pathways for humankind's search for meaning. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2406519 | 1,457,743 |
611,803 | On flight day 10, the third spacewalk of the STS-134 mission was conducted. The spacewalk made use of a new spacewalk pre-breathe protocol, called In-Suit Light Exercise (ISLE), instead of the normal campout pre-breathe protocol. The new pre-breathe protocol had the astronauts breathe pure oxygen for 60 minutes in the airlock, which had its air pressure lowered to 10.2 Psi (703hPa). The astronauts then put their spacesuits on, performed light exercise and rested for an additional 50 minutes, breathing pure oxygen all the while. After astronauts Drew Feustel and Mike Fincke exited the "Quest" Airlock, the pair began installing the Power Data Grapple Fixture (PDGF). The fixture itself and most of its components were installed, but the data cable associated with it was to be installed later. The spacewalking pair then moved on and routed some new power cables from the "Unity" module to the "Zarya" module on the Russian segment of the ISS, providing a redundant power supply to the Russian segment. Feustel and Fincke then moved on to finish up the installation of the wireless video system which Fuestel and Greg Chamitoff had begun to install on EVA 1. The pair also took pictures of the "Zarya" module's thrusters and captured some infrared video of an experiment delivered on board the Express Logistics Carrier (ELC) 3. Commander Mark Kelly documented the spacewalk from inside the station. While the EVA was going on, pilot Greg Johnson and mission specialist Roberto Vittori assisted Expedition 28 flight engineer Ron Garan in stowing new equipment and supplies on the ISS. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=18089765 | 611,492 |
1,555,373 | UIUC and its alumni are particularly well known for their contributions to engineering, including inventions such as the LED, plasma screen, and the integrated circuit. The library is notable both for being the largest public academic library in the country, with over forty departmental libraries, and for possessing over twelve million volumes. Each year, the library circulates about 1.2 million items and answers about 293,000 reference questions. The university is highly ranked in psychology, engineering, law, library and information science, chemistry, computer science, labor and industrial relations, educational psychology, finance, accounting, business administration, communication, and music. Physics professor John Bardeen won the Nobel Physics Prize twice in his lifetime, an honor no other researcher has received. The school's marching band, named the Marching Illini, also enjoys a superb reputation. Until 2007, the symbol of the university's athletic teams was a Native American figure, Chief Illiniwek, which sparked significant controversy. Chief Illiniwek completed his last performance on February 21, 2007, and has since been retired from performing and as the official symbol of the school. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=148541 | 1,554,490 |
1,740,814 | When a carbohydrate-rich food has been eaten before AMP has been eliminated from muscle cells, when bulk absorption starts, plenty of glucose becomes available in the blood, is taken up by muscle cells, is added to the glycogen store, but then immediately becomes liberated by the still up-regulated myophosphorylase. The resulting excess of glucose is metabolized down to lactic acid (the body cannot increase aerobic metabolism in an instant), recharging all AMP to ATP. The lactate is dumped back into blood and urine. The higher the glycemic index of the food is, the greater proportion of carbohydrates (and calories) is wasted into urine. If the person is at rest at this moment, and pays attention, a sudden increase in the breathing frequency due to lactate dumping is readily observable. If the rise in the blood lactate is particularly sharp, and the person happened to be breathing slowly, a heart palpitation may sometimes be observable. The lactic acidosis with palpitation may also occur during sleep, if stomach emptying has been delayed e.g. due to digestion requirements of the food or its high volume, and the person went to sleep before absorption has started. In this case the person will be awaken in a state of distress, with rapid breathing. The person may recall seeing a nightmare. Delayed stomach emptying creates especially favorable conditions for the shock lactic acidosis, because the digestive system may meanwhile still inhibit fatty acid release and oxidation, helping more muscles to run out of glycogen in those persons, who are otherwise still able to maintain its stores between meals. It has been experimentally demonstrated, that delayed gastric emptying prolongs the duration of the GLP-1 signal. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=159670 | 1,739,833 |
762,222 | Although infringement remains a significant issue for copyright owners, the development of digital audio has had considerable benefits for consumers and labels. In addition to facilitating the high-volume, low-cost transfer and storage of digital audio files, this new technology has also powered an explosion in the availability of so-called "back-catalogue" titles stored in the archives of recording labels, thanks to the fact that labels can now convert old recordings and distribute them digitally at a fraction of the cost of physically reissuing albums on LP or CD. Digital audio has also enabled dramatic improvements in the restoration and remastering of acoustic and pre-digital electric recordings, and even freeware consumer-level digital software can very effectively eliminate scratches, surface noise and other unwanted sonic artefacts from old 78rpm and vinyl recordings and greatly enhance the sound quality of all but the most badly damaged records. In the field of consumer-level digital data storage, the continuing trend towards increasing capacity and falling costs means that consumers can now acquire and store vast quantities of high-quality digital media (audio, video, games and other applications), and build up media libraries consisting of tens or even hundreds of thousands of songs, albums, or videos — collections which, for all but the wealthiest, would have been both physically and financially impossible to amass in such quantities if they were on 78 or LP, yet which can now be contained on storage devices no larger than the average hardcover book. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4556078 | 761,814 |
810,220 | Past supernovae might be detectable on Earth in the form of metal isotope signatures in rock strata. Subsequently, iron-60 enrichment has been reported in deep-sea rock of the Pacific Ocean by researchers from the Technical University of Munich. Twenty-three atoms of this iron isotope were found in the top 2 cm of crust (this layer corresponds to times from 13.4 million years ago to the present). It is estimated that the supernova must have occurred in the last 5 million years or else it would have had to happen very close to the solar system to account for so much iron-60 still being here. A supernova occurring so close would have probably caused a mass extinction, which did not happen in that time frame. The quantity of iron seems to indicate that the supernova was less than 30 parsecs away. On the other hand, the authors estimate the frequency of supernovae at a distance less than "D" (for reasonably small "D") as around ("D"/10 pc) per billion years, which gives a probability of only around 5% for a supernova within 30 pc in the last 5 million years. They point out that the probability may be higher because the Solar System is entering the Orion Arm of the Milky Way. In 2019, the group in Munich found interstellar dust in Antarctic surface snow not older than 20 years which they relate to the Local Interstellar Cloud. The detection of interstellar dust in Antarctica was done by the measurement of the radionuclides Fe-60 and Mn-53 by highly sensitive accelerator mass spectrometry, where Fe-60 is again the clear signature for a recent near-Earth supernova origin. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1870708 | 809,788 |
1,572,542 | In 2004, Symyx Technologies acquired Intellichem, a software manufacturer for electronic laboratory notebooks and, in 2007 Symyx Technologies acquired MDL Information Systems (originally Molecular Design Limited, Inc.), a provider of R&D informatics in the chemistry and life sciences industries, which had been launched as a computer-aided drug design firm in January 1978. With this purchase came the purveyorship of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-NIOSH Registry of Toxic Effects of Chemical Substances (RTECS, www.cdc.gov/niosh/rtecs), a database of basic toxicity information on household chemical substances, food additives, drugs, solvents, biocides, and chemical waste components which as of first quarter of 2012 contained ≈170,000 entries. In 2008, Symyx sold non-RTECS portions of the occupational health and safety (OHS) component of the MDL business to ChemAdvisor, Inc., of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Subsequent innovations derived from these business components included an enterprise electronic laboratory notebook (ELN) capable of supporting multiple scientific disciplines. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=275883 | 1,571,654 |
345,059 | In 2012, physicist Harold White and collaborators announced that modifying the geometry of exotic matter could reduce the mass–energy requirements for a macroscopic space ship from the equivalent of the planet Jupiter to that of the Voyager 1 spacecraft (c. 700 kg) or less, and stated their intent to perform small-scale experiments in constructing warp fields. White proposed to thicken the extremely thin wall of the warp bubble, so the energy is focused in a larger volume, but the overall peak energy density is actually smaller. In a flat 2D representation, the ring of positive and negative energy, initially very thin, becomes a larger, fuzzy torus (donut shape). However, as this less energetic warp bubble also thickens toward the interior region, it leaves less flat space to house the spacecraft, which has to be smaller. Furthermore, if the intensity of the space warp can be oscillated over time, the energy required is reduced even more. According to White, a modified Michelson–Morley interferometer could test the idea: one of the legs of the interferometer would appear to have a slightly different length when the test devices were energised. Alcubierre has expressed skepticism about the experiment, saying: "from my understanding there is no way it can be done, probably not for centuries if at all". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=37856 | 344,878 |
1,479,692 | Similar fossils were reported in 1902 from nearby Mount Field, another part of the Stephen formation. These may have been why Charles Doolittle Walcott visited Mount Field in 1909. While taking photographs there Walcott found a slab of fossils that he described as "Phyllopod crustaceans". From late August to early September 1909, his team, including his family, collected fossils there, and in 1910 Walcott opened a quarry that he and his colleagues re-visited in 1911, 1912, 1913, 1917 and 1924, bringing back over 60,000 specimens in total. Walcott was Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution from 1907 to his death in 1927, and this kept him so busy that he was still trying to make time for analyzing his finds two years before his death. Although he drew attention to the exceptional detail of the specimens, which were the first known fossils of soft-bodied animals from the Cambrian period, he also had other research interests: the Early Paleozoic stratigraphy of the Canadian Rockies, which took up the great majority of his time there; and Precambrian fossils of algae and bacteria, to which he assigned as much importance as to the fossils of animals. He managed to publish four "preliminary" papers on the fossil animals in 1911 and 1912, and further articles in 1918, 1919 and 1920. Four years after Walcott's death his associate Charles Resser produced a package of additional descriptions from Walcott's notes. Walcott's classifications of most of the fossils are now rejected, but were supported at the time, and he accepted a change for one of the few where his conclusion was disputed. Many of the later comments were made with the benefits of hindsight, and of techniques and concepts unknown in Walcott's time. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=22547077 | 1,478,859 |
323,981 | The transition from aerobic to anaerobic metabolism during intense work requires that several systems are rapidly activated to ensure a constant supply of ATP for the working muscles. These include a switch from fat-based to carbohydrate-based fuels, a redistribution of blood flow from nonworking to exercising muscles, and the removal of several of the by-products of anaerobic metabolism, such as carbon dioxide and lactic acid. Some of these responses are governed by transcriptional control of the fast twitch (FT) glycolytic phenotype. For example, skeletal muscle reprogramming from an ST glycolytic phenotype to an FT glycolytic phenotype involves the Six1/Eya1 complex, composed of members of the Six protein family. Moreover, the hypoxia-inducible factor 1-α (HIF1A) has been identified as a master regulator for the expression of genes involved in essential hypoxic responses that maintain ATP levels in cells. Ablation of HIF-1α in skeletal muscle was associated with an increase in the activity of rate-limiting enzymes of the mitochondria, indicating that the citric acid cycle and increased fatty acid oxidation may be compensating for decreased flow through the glycolytic pathway in these animals. However, hypoxia-mediated HIF-1α responses are also linked to the regulation of mitochondrial dysfunction through the formation of excessive reactive oxygen species in mitochondria. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=380541 | 323,809 |
345,128 | The use of phages has continued since the end of the Cold War in Russia, Georgia, and elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe. The first regulated, randomized, double-blind clinical trial was reported in the "Journal of Wound Care" in June 2009, which evaluated the safety and efficacy of a bacteriophage cocktail to treat infected venous ulcers of the leg in human patients. The FDA approved the study as a Phase I clinical trial. The study's results demonstrated the safety of therapeutic application of bacteriophages, but did not show efficacy. The authors explained that the use of certain chemicals that are part of standard wound care (e.g. lactoferrin or silver) may have interfered with bacteriophage viability. Shortly after that, another controlled clinical trial in Western Europe (treatment of ear infections caused by "Pseudomonas aeruginosa") was reported in the journal "Clinical Otolaryngology" in August 2009. The study concludes that bacteriophage preparations were safe and effective for treatment of chronic ear infections in humans. Additionally, there have been numerous animal and other experimental clinical trials evaluating the efficacy of bacteriophages for various diseases, such as infected burns and wounds, and cystic fibrosis-associated lung infections, among others. On the other hand, phages of "Inoviridae" have been shown to complicate biofilms involved in pneumonia and cystic fibrosis and to shelter the bacteria from drugs meant to eradicate disease, thus promoting persistent infection. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4185 | 344,947 |
738,793 | The other key steps in the recent MBR development were the acceptance of modest fluxes (25 percent or less of those in the first generation), and the idea to use two-phase bubbly flow to control fouling. The lower operating cost obtained with the submerged configuration along with the steady decrease in the membrane cost led to an exponential increase in MBR plant installations from the mid-90s. Since then, further improvements in the MBR design and operation have been introduced and incorporated into larger plants. While earlier MBRs were operated at solid retention times (SRT) as high as 100 days with MLSS up to 30 g/L, the recent trend is to apply lower solid retention times (around 10–20 days), resulting in more manageable MLSS levels (10 to 15 g/L). Thanks to these new operating conditions, the oxygen transfer and the pumping cost in the MBR have tended to decrease and the overall maintenance has been simplified. There is now a range of MBR systems commercially available, most of which use submerged membranes although some external modules are available; these external systems also use two-phase flow for fouling control. Typical hydraulic retention times (HRT) range between 3 and 10 hours. In terms of membrane configurations, mainly hollow fiber and flat sheet membranes are utilized in MBR applications. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=16743975 | 738,402 |
1,191,621 | Within the first two weeks, the IAF had carried out more than 4,000 sorties in East Pakistan and provided successful air cover for the advancing Indian army in East Pakistan. IAF also assisted the Indian Navy in sinking several Pakistani naval vessels in the Bay of Bengal. In the west, the airforce demolished scores of tanks and armoured vehicles in a single battle – the Battle of Longewala. The IAF pursued strategic bombing by destroying oil installations in Karachi, the Mangla Dam and gas plant in Sindh. As the IAF achieved complete air superiority over the eastern wing of Pakistan within a few days, the ordnance factories, runways, and other vital areas in East Pakistan were severely crippled. In the end, the IAF played a pivotal role in the victory for the Allied Forces leading to the liberation of Bangladesh. In addition to the overall strategic victory, the IAF had also claimed 94 Pakistani aircraft destroyed, with some 45 of their own aircraft admitted lost. The IAF had however, flown over 7000 combat sorties on both East and West fronts and its overall sortie rate numbered over 15000. Comparatively the PAF was flowing fewer sorties (though PAF had qualitative advantage; its Mirage III fighter/bombers could fly at night, where no IAF fighter had that capability—the only aircraft in IAF with this capability was the Canberra bomber) by the day fearing loss of planes. Towards the end of the war, IAF's transport planes dropped leaflets over Dhaka urging the Pak forces to surrender; East Pakistani sources note that as the leaflets floated down, the morale of the Pakistani troops sunk. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9196710 | 1,190,986 |
1,215,028 | According to the Oxford dictionary, deviance can be defined as "departing from usual or accepted standards, especially in social or sexual behavior." The power to label behavior as "deviant" arises partly from the unequal distribution of power within the state, and because the judgment carries the authority of the state, it attributes greater stigma to the prohibited behavior. This is true no matter what the political orientation of the state. All states enact laws which, to a greater or lesser extent, protect property. This may take the form of theft, or prohibit damage or trespass. Even though a theft law may not appear judgmental, a Marxist analysis of the conviction rates may detect inequalities in the way in which the law is applied. Thus, the decision whether to prosecute or to convict may be skewed by having the resources to employ a good lawyer. The same analysis may also show that the distribution of punishment for any given crime may vary according to the social class of the perpetrator. But, the law of theft exists to protect the interests of all those who own property. It does not discriminate by reference to the class of the owner. Indeed, few laws in any states are drafted to protect property interests by reference to class, and the acceptance and enforcement of laws generally depend on a consensus within the community that such laws meet local needs. In this, a comparison of the crime rates between states shows little correlation by reference to political orientation. Such correlations as do exist tend to reflect disparities between rich and poor, and features describing the development of the social and economic environment. Hence, the crimes rates are comparable in states where there are the largest disparities of wealth distribution, regardless of whether they are first, second or third world. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3849813 | 1,214,376 |
1,258,582 | The astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini, who made many important discoveries about the Solar System; the physicist Alessandro Volta, who invented the electric battery, thus providing for the first time a sustained source of current electricity; the mathematicians Giuseppe Peano, Lagrange, Fibonacci, and Gerolamo Cardano, whose "Ars Magna" is generally recognized as the first modern treatment on mathematics, made fundamental advances to the field; Marcello Malpighi, a doctor and founder of microscopic anatomy, his student Antonio Maria Valsalva, who became famous for his research focused on the anatomy of the ears, and finally Valvasia pupil Giovanni Battista Morgagni, the anatomist generally regarded as the father of modern anatomical pathology; the biologist Lazzaro Spallanzani, who conducted important research in bodily functions, animal reproduction, and cellular theory; the physician, pathologist, scientist, and Nobel laureate Camillo Golgi, whose many achievements include the discovery of the Golgi apparatus, and his role in paving the way to the acceptance of the Neuron doctrine; Giulio Natta, Nobel prize for the polymerization of plastics. The first internal combustion engine was invented by Eugenio Barsanti and Felice Matteucci, the Barsanti-Matteucci engine, in 1852. It was fueled by a mix of air and hydrogen. The first gasoline internal combustion engine motor vehicle was invented by Enrico Bernardi in 1884. The first pc (personal computer), the Olivetti P6040 and the P6060 was invented by Olivetti engineer Pier Giorgio Perotto in 1975. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23296431 | 1,257,895 |
41,048 | The crucial break from the concept of constant typological classes or types in biology came with the theory of evolution through natural selection, which was formulated by Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace in terms of variable populations. Darwin used the expression "descent with modification" rather than "evolution". Partly influenced by "An Essay on the Principle of Population" (1798) by Thomas Robert Malthus, Darwin noted that population growth would lead to a "struggle for existence" in which favourable variations prevailed as others perished. In each generation, many offspring fail to survive to an age of reproduction because of limited resources. This could explain the diversity of plants and animals from a common ancestry through the working of natural laws in the same way for all types of organism. Darwin developed his theory of "natural selection" from 1838 onwards and was writing up his "big book" on the subject when Alfred Russel Wallace sent him a version of virtually the same theory in 1858. Their separate papers were presented together at an 1858 meeting of the Linnean Society of London. At the end of 1859, Darwin's publication of his "abstract" as "On the Origin of Species" explained natural selection in detail and in a way that led to an increasingly wide acceptance of Darwin's concepts of evolution at the expense of alternative theories. Thomas Henry Huxley applied Darwin's ideas to humans, using paleontology and comparative anatomy to provide strong evidence that humans and apes shared a common ancestry. Some were disturbed by this since it implied that humans did not have a special place in the universe. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9236 | 41,033 |
95,186 | In 1928, Popper earned a doctorate in psychology, under the supervision of Karl Bühler—with Moritz Schlick being the second chair of the thesis committee. His dissertation was titled "Zur Methodenfrage der Denkpsychologie" ("On Questions of Method in the Psychology of Thinking"). In 1929, he obtained an authorisation to teach mathematics and physics in secondary school and began doing so. He married his colleague Josefine Anna Henninger (1906–1985) in 1930. Fearing the rise of Nazism and the threat of the "Anschluss", he started to use the evenings and the nights to write his first book "Die beiden Grundprobleme der Erkenntnistheorie" ("The Two Fundamental Problems of the Theory of Knowledge"). He needed to publish a book to get an academic position in a country that was safe for people of Jewish descent. In the end, he did not publish the two-volume work; but instead, a condensed version with some new material, as "Logik der Forschung" ("The Logic of Scientific Discovery") in 1934. Here, he criticised psychologism, naturalism, inductivism, and logical positivism, and put forth his theory of potential falsifiability as the criterion demarcating science from non-science. In 1935 and 1936, he took unpaid leave to go to the United Kingdom for a study visit. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=16623 | 95,145 |
1,637,480 | While crater counting has been refined in past years to be an accurate method of determining surface age of a planet despite a lack of isotopic samples, there is dissension in the planetary scientific community concerning the acceptance of crater counting as a precise and accurate form of geochronology. This method is influenced by assumption that at time zero of a planet, the surface had no craters and the craters which followed time zero are spatially and temporally random. It can only be applied with accuracy to planets which have little to no tectonic activity, since constant resurfacing (like on Earth) would distort the true number of craters over time. Shallow surface mechanism such as aeolian deposition, erosion, and diffusional creep can also alter crater morphology, making the surface appear younger than it truly is. Planets heavily covered by water or dense atmosphere would also impede the accuracy of this method, since observational efforts would be hampered. Planets with dense atmospheres will also cause incoming meteors to burn up due to friction before impacting the surface of the planet. The Earth is bombarded with approximately 100 tons of space dust, sand, and pebble particles every day; however, most of this material burns up in the atmosphere before ever reaching the surface of the planet. This is common for space material that is smaller than 25 meters, burning up due to friction in the atmosphere. While resulting observational values dating the Lunar surface from Hartman and Öpik do illustrate ages that correspond to isotopic data, they are potentially hampered by observational bias and human error. New advances continue to improve upon the original method. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=7985592 | 1,636,555 |
601,858 | By mid-2014, the Navy had shifted the concept of the UCLASS for a third time. In 2006, it was envisioned to extend the inland reach of carriers beyond manned aircraft. In 2011, that was altered to a cheaper design that would act as a carrier ISR asset without the rest of the air wing that could also be used to hunt down terrorists. The third concept was an unmanned vehicle that would operate almost exclusively over the ocean, with initial missions including permissive airspace ISR and strike, then expanding to contested littoral and coastal ISR and strike and attacking enemy surface ships. It has been speculated that one of the reasons for making the UCLASS more ISR-centric was to prevent it from taking the role of the F/A-XX, the manned future fighter replacement for the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. The F/A-XX is envisioned as a manned multi-role fighter, and the Navy cannot simultaneously develop the F-35C, UCLASS, and F/A-XX all as expensive strike assets. On 18 December 2014, the Navy released a directive saying the UCLASS would be embedded in the same air wing that operates E-2C/D Hawkeye command and control aircraft, meaning a detachment of the E-2 wing, the commander of the E-2 unit on board the carrier, would have control over the unmanned platform during air operations and it would not act as a standalone unit or be operated under an F-35C wing. In the Navy's FY 2016 budget request, the planned fielding date of the UCLASS was pushed from 2020 to 2022–2023, and the RFP was again delayed as a result of the ongoing review of what roles the aircraft will perform. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=39092723 | 601,549 |
1,838,806 | However, the Hadley cell is weak during the summer months when the anticyclones still exist and dryness often reaches its peak in the deserts, and the latitudes of the Sahara coincide with these of wet climates. Mark J. Rodwell and Brian J. Hoskins in 1996 proposed that instead, a Gill-type response to the Asian monsoon induces a Rossby wave response to the west which triggers descent west of the monsoon. This involves similar processes as the Hadley cell theory but east–west horizontal advection modifies the energy balance, focusing descent at certain longitudes unlike in equatorial regions where horizontal advection is less important. The descending air does not originate in the monsoonal regions, thus it is not a Walker circulation; rather it originates in the mid-latitude westerlies and descends along atmospheric isentropes. In the Rodwell and Hoskins 1996 simulation the location of the descent is controlled by orography just west of the descending region, which induce anticyclonic (clockwise) flow and thus southward movement of cold air to their east through the heating over the topography, although the direction of the mean wind modulates the longitude direction of the forcing. The Etesian winds over Greece can be interpreted as the southward flow linked to the Rossby wave. Ossó "et al." 2019 showed that coupled sea surface temperature responses are important in inducing the descent west of the eastern Mediterranean as otherwise the Indian monsoon is located too far south to induce a Rossby wave train. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=68737496 | 1,837,757 |
37,878 | Appreciation of the JSDF continued to grow in the 1980s, with over half of the respondents in a 1988 survey voicing an interest in the JSDF and over 76% indicating that they were favourably impressed. Although the majority (63.5%) of respondents were aware that the primary purpose of the JSDF was maintenance of national security, an even greater number (77%) saw disaster relief as the most useful JSDF function. The JSDF therefore continued to devote much of its time and resources to disaster relief and other civic action. Between 1984 and 1988, at the request of prefectural governors, the JSDF assisted in approximately 3,100 disaster relief operations, involving about 138,000 personnel, 16,000 vehicles, 5,300 aircraft, and 120 ships and small craft. The disaster relief operations increased its favorability with the public. In addition, the JSDF participated in earthquake disaster prevention operations and disposed of a large quantity of World War II explosive ordnance, especially in Okinawa Prefecture. The forces also participated in public works projects, cooperated in managing athletic events, took part in annual Antarctic expeditions, and conducted aerial surveys to report on ice conditions for fishermen and on geographic formations for construction projects. Especially sensitive to maintaining harmonious relations with communities close to defense bases, the JSDF built new roads, irrigation networks, and schools in those areas. Soundproofing was installed in homes and public buildings near airfields. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2785204 | 37,865 |
2,213,436 | On 24 July 1896, Reynolds and Branson attended the Photographic Convention of the United Kingdom at Leeds. The firm was represented in various sessions. During the session on Orthochromatic Photography, Branson gave a presentation on X-ray apparatus that included a well received demonstration and repeated as follows:“... Mr. Branson, of Messrs. Reynolds and Branson, who had made a special study of X-ray work, gave a demonstration which for lucidity and completeness has rarely been equalled. In the course of his remarks he fully explained the construction and exhaustion of the tubes, and showed various forms and explained his method of making calcium tungstate, which was to mix solutions of sodium tungstate and calcium chloride, collect, wash, and dry the precipitate of calcium tungstate which was formed, and then to fuse this in a small muffle furnace at the temperature of the melting point of cast-iron, and reduce to small crystals in a mortar, mix with varnish, and coat a screen. With such a screen in contact with the plate he had been able to show osseous structure of the hand, measuring only one-hundredth of an inch, with an exposure of one minute. A comparison of the fluorescent appearance of the three salts, calcium tungstate, platinocyanide of barium, and platinocyanide of potassium, was shown, the first and last being the best for photographic work, as the fluorescence was blue, and the barium salt was most satisfactory for visual work, as the fluorescence was yellow.” | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=49400566 | 2,212,176 |
1,280,064 | The entire western portion of North America was being deformed from the Laramide orogeny starting around 70 million years ago. Gradually during millions of years, crustal rocks were folded and fractured and the seas driven away. This same bending and breaking of rocks relieved pressure on the hot material beneath the Earth's crust and permitted magma to rise toward the surface. Volcanoes burst into activity starting 30 million years ago from Washington southward along the Cascades and in the area now occupied by the Sierra Nevada. This activity continued until approximately 11 or 12 million years ago. Lava and ash reached a thickness of up to in some areas, forming what is now known as the western Cascades. These have been eroded until they are now rolling hills. The northern end of the San Andreas Fault and the Mendocino Triple Junction have moved northward over time, and with them the southern margin of Cascade volcanism retreats north; it currently is located at the southern end of the Lassen national park. The extensional tectonics of the Basin and Range and the widespread fault system of the Walker Lane are also encroaching on the Lassen region and faults associated with them provide pathways for magma to reach the surface. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=345245 | 1,279,369 |
1,613,943 | Junior year students attend classes from 7:45 a.m. until 2:45 p.m, followed by extracurricular activities until 4 PM. Mandatory classes include Mathematical Modeling, Physics, Humanities, Computer Science, STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math), Science and Technical Writing, and Foreign Language. STEM I is a class in which students take on an original research investigation that makes some contribution in that field. Students can either conduct science, math or engineering projects. This class culminates with a science fair in February. STEM II is an engineering class in which students work in three- and four-person teams to develop a piece of assistive technology. These projects are designed with a specific client in mind, usually a young student with a physical handicap. The foreign language classes are also different from most schools. In addition to grammar and translation, the class period consists of making a movie completely in either Spanish or French, singing songs written in foreign language, and discussion in the target language. Two days a week after school students participate in 1.5 hour elective periods, where students can take a class of their choosing. The electives offered each term differ, but have included social dancing, cooking, machine shop, bowling, film appreciation, water colors, photography, advanced mathematics, mock trial, speech and debate, FIRST Robotics Competition, kickboxing, puzzles, German, and drama. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1950200 | 1,613,038 |
276,081 | The first year of Atari VCS sales were modest and limited by Atari's own supply. While many of initial games were arcade conversions of Atari arcade games, the second wave of games in 1983 were more abstract and difficult to promote. Warner placed Ray Kassar, a former vice president of Burlington Industries, to help with Atari's marketing. Kassar created successful advertising and marketing throughout 1978, positioning the Atari VCS for a larger sales period at the end of the year. However, Bushnell had concerns on Kassar's plans and feared they had produced too many units to be sold, and at a board meeting with Warner near the end of the year, reiterated this position. Bushnell recommended that funds be used in R&D for developing a new, technologically superior console, as he feared rising competition would make the aging tech specs of the VCS obsolete. Bushnell's concerns never materialized as a combination of Kassar's marketing and the popularity of Taito's "Space Invaders" at the arcade drove Atari VCS sales. Both Warner Communications and Bushnell commonly recognized he was no longer a good leader for the company, removing him as CEO and Chairman in early 1979. Warner offered Bushnell the opportunity to stay as a director and creative consultant, but Bushnell refused. Before leaving, Bushnell negotiated the rights to Pizza Time Theatre from Atari for . Keenan replaced Bushnell but left a few months later, with Kassar being named as Atari's CEO by mid-1979. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=77245 | 275,931 |
1,472,896 | Bone loss is best treated by correction of the underlying cause. Patients should undergo evaluation of bone marrow density using a DEXA scan and started on Vitamin D and calcium supplementation. If menstruation does not resume after 6 months with reasonable trial of non-pharmaceutical management, loss of bone mass becomes the main concern. Short-term use of transdermal estradiol E2 with cyclic oral progestin may be used for estrogen replacement. Care must be taken to exclude risks for thromboembolic disease prior to implementation of hormonal therapy given the associated increase in risk for venous thromboembolism. The Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guidelines on Functional Hypothalamic Amenorrhea (FHA) recommend against oral contraceptives, bisphosphonates, denosumab, testosterone, and leptin for the improvement of bone mass density in FHA. The limited numbers of studies evaluating the effect of bisphosphonates on BMD did not provide significant evidence of improvement, and the scope of studies are inadequate to ensure safety and efficacy in FHA patients. While denosumab has been used to improve fracture risk in postmenopausal women with osteoporosis, it has not been adequately studied in premenopausal women and may pose a risk of inadvertent fetal exposure. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=15738568 | 1,472,065 |
564,550 | Irwin moved on to landscape projects after developing a stylistic move towards experiential space, projecting what he learned about line, color, and most of all, light onto the built environment. Since 1975 Irwin has conceived of fifty-five site projects. "9 Spaces 9 Trees" (1980–3) originally was commissioned in 1980 for the rooftop of the Public Safety Building by the Seattle Arts Commission; it was re-imagined in 2007 and sited on campus at the University of Washington. Irwin's "Filigreed Line" (1979) made for Wellesley College, Massachusetts, consists of a stainless steel line, running along a ridge of grass near a lake, in which a pattern of leaflike forms is cut. His 1983 work "Two Running Violet V Forms", two crossing blue-violet, plastic coated wire fences fixed with high poles, is featured as part of the Stuart Collection of public artwork on the campus of the University of California, San Diego. For "Sentinel Plaza" (1990) in the Pasadena Civic Center District, Irwin chose small desert plants and cacti. He later consulted on the master plan for , creating, in particular, the design and landscaping of the outdoor spaces, and the entrance building and the window design. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=645174 | 564,260 |
933,245 | After a serious accident, the Western Railroad of Massachusetts put in place a system of responsibility for district managers and dispatchers to keep track of all train movements. Discipline was essential—everyone had to follow the rules exactly to prevent accidents. Decision-making powers had to be distributed to ensure safety and to juggle the complexity of numerous trains running in both directions on a single track, keeping to schedules that could easily be disrupted by weather mechanical breakdowns, washouts or hitting a wandering cow. As the lines grew longer with more and more business originating at dozens of different stations, the Baltimore and Ohio set up more complex system that separated finances from daily operations. The Erie Railroad, faced with growing competition, had to make lower bids for freight movement, and had to know on a daily basis how much each train was costing them. Statistics was the weapon of choice. By the 1860s, the Pennsylvania Railroad—the largest in the world—was making further advances in using bureaucracy under John Edgar Thomson, president 1852–1874. He divided the system into several geographical divisions, which each reported daily to a general superintendent in Philadelphia. All the American railroads copied each other in the new managerial advances, and by the 1870s emerging big businesses in the industrial field likewise copied the railroad model. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=587997 | 932,753 |
1,007,881 | McDonnell test pilot Edwin Foresman Schoch was assigned to the project, riding in the XF-85 while it was stowed aboard the EB-29B, before attempting a "free" flight on 23 August 1948. After Schoch was released from the bomber at a height of 20,000 ft (6,000 m), he completed a 10-minute proving flight at speeds between 180 and 250 mph (290–400 km/h), testing controls and maneuverability. When he attempted a hook-up, it became obvious the Goblin was extremely sensitive to the bomber's turbulence, as well as being affected by the air cushion created by the two aircraft operating in close proximity. Constant but gentle adjustments of throttle and trim were necessary to overcome the cushioning effect. After three attempts to hook onto the trapeze, Schoch miscalculated his approach and struck the trapeze so violently that the canopy was smashed and ripped free and his helmet and mask were torn off. He saved the prototype by making a belly landing on the reinforced skid at the dry lake bed at Muroc. All flight testing was suspended for seven weeks while the XF-85 was repaired and modified. Schoch used the down period to undertake a series of problem-free dummy dockings with a Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star fighter. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=307179 | 1,007,361 |
851,105 | As IUA frequently reform after surgery, techniques have been developed to prevent recurrence of adhesions. Methods to prevent adhesion reformation include the use of mechanical barriers (Foley catheter, saline-filled balloon uterine stents, gel barriers (Seprafilm, Spraygel, autocrosslinked hyaluronic acid gel Hyalobarrier) and mechanical barrier film (Womed Leaf) to maintain opposing walls apart during healing, thereby preventing the reformation of adhesions. Antibiotic prophylaxis is necessary in the presence of mechanical barriers to reduce the risk of possible infections. A common pharmacological method for preventing reformation of adhesions is sequential hormonal therapy with estrogen followed by a progestin to stimulate endometrial growth and prevent opposing walls from fusing together. However, there have been no randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing post-surgical adhesion reformation with and without hormonal treatment and the ideal dosing regimen or length of estrogen therapy is not known. A recent meta analysis compared different post surgical prevention barrier strategies and concluded that there was no single clearly superior treatment. Furthermore, diagnostic severity and outcomes are assessed according to different criteria (e.g. menstrual pattern, adhesion reformation rate, conception rate, live birth rate). Clearly, more comparable studies are needed in which reproductive outcome can be analysed systematically. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1402675 | 850,652 |
2,020,984 | In 1928, Alwin Walther was appointed professor of mathematics at the Technische Hochschule Darmstadt. Walther established the Institute for Practical Mathematics (IPM) there, which was part of the Department of Mathematics and Natural Sciences. In Germany, the beginnings of computer science go back to this institute. The institute was concerned with automating computing using mechanical and electromechanical devices and developing machines that could be used to solve mathematical problems. One of the earliest results was the System Darmstadt slide rule, which was widely used in mechanical engineering. Another development was an electromechanical integration system. After the Second World War, the institute concentrated increasingly on the development of electronic computer systems. Due to the reputation that TH Darmstadt had at that time in automatic computation research, the first congress on the subject of computer science (electronic calculators and information processing) held in German-speaking countries with international participation took place at TH Darmstadt in October 1955. The Darmstadt Electronic Calculator (DERA), which was completed in 1959, was created with the help of the German Research Foundation (DFG). At that time, the computer capacity was unique in Europe. Two decades before the invention of programming languages, algorithms were tested on the computing station and successfully used to process problems from industry. In 1956, the first students at DERA were able to deal with the problems of automatic calculating machines. At the same time, the first programming lectures and practical courses were offered at TH Darmstadt. In 1957, Walther made sure that TH Darmstadt got an IBM 650, which was the most powerful computer at that time. Thus TH Darmstadt was also the first university in Germany with a mainframe computer. In 1961, in response to Walther's efforts, the German Computer Center (DRZ) was founded in Darmstadt, the first mainframe computer center in Germany with which TH Darmstadt entered into a cooperation to train mathematical-technical assistants. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=62391933 | 2,019,821 |
33,021 | During World War II approximately 40 B-17s were captured and refurbished by Germany after crash-landing or being forced down, with about a dozen put back into the air. Given German "Balkenkreuz" national markings on their wings and fuselage sides, and ""Hakenkreuz"" swastika tail fin-flashes, the captured B-17s were used to determine the B-17's vulnerabilities and to train German interceptor pilots in attack tactics. Others, with the cover designations Dornier Do 200 and Do 288, were used as long-range transports by the "Kampfgeschwader" 200 special duties unit, carrying out agent drops and supplying secret airstrips in the Middle East and North Africa. They were chosen specifically for these missions as being more suitable for this role than other available German aircraft; they never attempted to deceive the Allies and always wore full "Luftwaffe" markings. One B-17 of KG200, bearing the "Luftwaffe's" KG 200 "Geschwaderkennung" (combat wing code) markings "A3+FB", was interned by Spain when it landed at Valencia airfield, 1944, remaining there for the rest of the war. It has been alleged that some B-17s kept their Allied markings and were used by the "Luftwaffe" in attempts to infiltrate B-17 bombing formations and report on their positions and altitudes. According to these allegations, the practice was initially successful, but Army Air Force combat aircrews quickly developed and established standard procedures to first warn off, and then fire upon any "stranger" trying to join a group's formation. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4997 | 33,009 |
777,634 | From the late 1970s, the popularity of modern digital circuitry rapidly grew. As the technology developed, with ever-faster switching speeds (increasing emissions) and lower circuit voltages (increasing susceptibility), EMC increasingly became a source of concern. Many more nations became aware of EMC as a growing problem and issued directives to the manufacturers of digital electronic equipment, which set out the essential manufacturer requirements before their equipment could be marketed or sold. Organizations in individual nations, across Europe and worldwide, were set up to maintain these directives and associated standards. In 1979, the American FCC published a regulation that required the electromagnetic emissions of all "digital devices" to be below certain limits. This regulatory environment led to a sharp growth in the EMC industry supplying specialist devices and equipment, analysis and design software, and testing and certification services. Low-voltage digital circuits, especially CMOS transistors, became more susceptible to ESD damage as they were miniaturised and, despite the development of on-chip hardening techniques, a new ESD regulatory regime had to be developed. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=41093 | 777,217 |
1,165,683 | The 2005–06 season was UNO's most successful to date. The team used a ten-game unbeaten streak in January and February to finish 20–12–6 to earn their first ever berth in the NCAA Tournament. Parse set team records with 41 assists and 61 points and was UNO's first Hobey Baker Award finalist. Following the season, Parse became the first Maverick selected as a first-team All-American and Conference Player of the Year. Thomas scored a team-record 27 goals, combining with Parse to form the most potent first line in UNO history. The two helped the Mavericks to 141 goals, the most in the CCHA. The team struggled defensively after last year's goaltender Chris Holt signed with the New York Rangers in the offseason. Walk-on freshman Jerad Kaufmann – the third-string goalie at the beginning of the season – eventually laid claim to the job. UNO's inexperience eventually got the best of the team, as they were dominated by Boston University in a 9–2 loss in the first round of the NCAA tournament. The Terriers broke open a 1–1 game with a six-goal second period to end UNO's first NCAA Tournament appearance. Once again, the Mavericks could not build on their successes in the following seasons, as they finished in the middle of the pack each year in the conference. The squad finished two games over .500 in 2006–07, followed by finishing two games under .500 for the next two seasons. In 2008–09, the team started out 12–4–3 – the best start in school history – before collapsing down the stretch and winning only three of their last 21 games. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=22283832 | 1,165,066 |
361,564 | Multiplayer online battle arena games (MOBA) have originated as a subgenre of real-time strategy games, however this fusion of real-time strategy, role-playing, and action games has lost many traditional RTS elements. These type of games moved away from constructing additional structures, base management, army building, and controlling additional units. Map and the main structures for each team are still present, and destroying enemy main structure will secure victory as the ultimate victory condition. Unlike in RTS, a player has control over the only one single powerful unit, called "hero" or "champion", who advances in level, learns new abilities, and grows in power over the course of a match. Players can find various friendly and enemy units on the map at any given time assisting each team, however, these units are computer-controlled and players usually don't have direct control over their movement and creation; instead, they march forward along set paths. "Defense of the Ancients" ("DotA"), a "" mod from 2003, and its standalone sequel "Dota 2" (2013), as well as "League of Legends" (2009), and "Heroes of the Storm" (2015), are the typical representatives of the new strategy subgenre. Former game journalist Luke Smith called "DotA" "the ultimate RTS". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=77251 | 361,374 |
368,360 | The original method of diagnosing rheumatic heart disease was through heart auscultation, specifically listening for the sound of blood regurgitation from possibly dysfunctional valves. However, studies have shown that echocardiography is much more efficient in detecting RHD due to its high sensitivity. An echocardiogram has the ability to detect signs of RHD before the development of more obvious symptoms such as tissue scarring and stenosis. Modified Jones criteria were first published in 1944 by T. Duckett Jones, MD. They have been periodically revised by the American Heart Association in collaboration with other groups. According to revised Jones criteria, the diagnosis of rheumatic fever can be made when two of the major criteria, or one major criterion plus two minor criteria, are present along with evidence of streptococcal infection: elevated or rising antistreptolysin O titre or anti-DNase B. A recurrent episode is also diagnosed when three minor criteria are present. Exceptions are chorea and indolent carditis, each of which by itself can indicate rheumatic fever. An April 2013 review article in the "Indian Journal of Medical Research" stated that echocardiographic and Doppler (E & D) studies, despite some reservations about their utility, have identified a massive burden of rheumatic heart disease, which suggests the inadequacy of the 1992 Jones' criteria. E & D studies have identified subclinical carditis in patients with rheumatic fever, as well as in follow-ups of rheumatic heart disease patients who initially presented as having isolated cases of Sydenham's chorea. Signs of a preceding streptococcal infection include: recent scarlet fever, raised antistreptolysin O or other streptococcal antibody titre, or positive throat culture. The last revision of 2015 suggested variable diagnostic criteria in low-risk and high-risk populations to avoid overdiagnosis in the first category and underdiagnosis in the last one. Low-risk populations were defined as those with acute rheumatic fever annual incidence ≤2 per 100 000 school-aged children or all-age rheumatic heart disease prevalence of ≤1 per 1000. All other populations were categorised as having a moderate or high risk. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=412735 | 368,167 |
1,398,795 | The function and importance of sound in the environment may not be fully appreciated unless one adopts an organismal perspective on sound perception, and, in this way, soundscape ecology is also informed by sensory ecology. Sensory ecology focuses on understanding the sensory systems of organisms and the biological function of information obtained from these systems. In many cases, humans must acknowledge that sensory modalities and information used by other organisms may not be obvious from an anthropocentric viewpoint. This perspective has already highlighted many instances where organisms rely heavily on sound cues generated within their natural environments to perform important biological functions. For example, a broad range of crustaceans are known to respond to biophony generated around coral reefs. Species that must settle on reefs to complete their developmental cycle are attracted to reef noise while pelagic and nocturnal crustaceans are repelled by the same acoustic signal, presumably as a mechanism to avoid predation (predator densities are high in reef habitats). Similarly, juvenile fish may use biophony as a navigational cue to locate their natal reefs, and may also be encouraged to resettle damaged coral reefs by playback of healthy reef sound. Other species’ movement patterns are influenced by geophony, as in the case of the reed frog which is known to disperse away from the sound of fire. In addition, a variety of bird and mammal species use auditory cues, such as movement noise, in order to locate prey. Disturbances created by periods of environmental noise may also be exploited by some animals while foraging. For example, insects that prey on spiders concentrate foraging activities during episodes of environmental noise to avoid detection by their prey. These examples demonstrate that many organisms are highly capable of extracting information from soundscapes. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=31352483 | 1,398,022 |
247,902 | In August 1949, the company finally proposed to cut 10% of wages and cut retirement pay in half. As a result, the company promised not to dismiss employees, instead of accepting a 10% wage reduction. Under this circumstance, the other car companies laid down their workforce. For example, at Nihon Denso (currently Denso), which was established in December 1949, a labor dispute arose over personnel rearrangement. On March 31, 1950, four months after its establishment, Nihon Denso announced a company restructuring plan that included personnel reduction of 473 people. Under such situation, the reason why Kiichiro did not perform personnel reduction was that he experienced the employment problem at Toyota Industries Corporation during the Showa Depression in 1930, so decided that such a situation would never occur again. Moreover, the advance into the automobile business was also a measure to prevent the recurrence of employment problems due to business diversification. Therefore, He absolutely tried to avoid personnel reduction. Kiichiro visited the banks in the city every day to get finance account. After all, no financial institution provided the funds for company. However, Shotaro Kamiya, who was a managing director of sales, persistently requested the financing provision from Sogo Takanashi who was a branch manager of the Bank of Japan, Nagoya Branch. After that, finally, the syndicate consisting of 24 banks was established through the placement of the Bank of Japan. Toyota Motor Company could get 188.2 million yen in loans, subject to Toyota's reconstruction plan formulation. In this way, Kiichiro overcame the bankruptcy crisis of 1949. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4670679 | 247,774 |
823,811 | The fullest expression of the Indonesian army's founding doctrines is found in Abdul Haris Nasution's 1953 "Fundamentals of Guerrilla Warfare". The work is a mix of reproduced strategic directives from 1947 to 1948, Nasution's theories of guerrilla warfare, his reflections on the period just past (post-Japanese occupation) and the likely crises to come, and outlines of his legal frameworks for military justice and "guerrilla government". The work contains similar principles to those espoused or practiced by other theorists and practitioners from Michael Collins in Ireland, T. E. Lawrence in the Middle East and Mao in China in the early Twentieth Century, to contemporary insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq. Nasution willingly shows his influences, frequently referring to some guerrilla activities as "Wingate" actions, quoting Lawrence and drawing lessons from the recent and further past to develop and illustrate his well-thought out arguments. Where the work substantially differs from other theorist/practitioners is that General Nasution was one of the few men to have led both a guerrilla and a counter-guerrilla war. This dual perspective on the realities of ‘people's war’ leaves the work refreshingly free of the perceived hyperbole and ideological leanings of similar revolutionary works from the period. It is direct when discussing the methods and the effect of revolutionary guerrilla war on all involved, especially civilians. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=22634688 | 823,368 |
352,254 | The ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and pterosaur she found, along with the first dinosaur fossils which were discovered by Gideon Mantell and William Buckland during the same period, showed that during previous eras the Earth was inhabited by creatures different from those living today, and provided important support for another controversial suggestion of Cuvier's: that there had been an "age of reptiles" when reptiles rather than mammals had been the dominant form of animal life. This phrase became popular after the publication in 1831 of a paper by Mantell entitled "The Age of Reptiles" that summarised the evidence that there had been an extended geological era when giant reptiles had swarmed the land, air, and sea. These discoveries also played a key role in the development of a new discipline of geohistorical analysis within geology in the 1820s that sought to understand the history of the Earth by using evidence from fossils to reconstruct extinct organisms and the environments in which they lived. This discipline eventually came to be called palaeontology. Illustrations of scenes from "deep time" (now known as palaeoart), such as Henry De la Beche's ground-breaking painting "Duria Antiquior", helped convince people that it was possible to understand life in the distant past. De la Beche had been inspired to create the painting by a vivid description of the food chain of the Lias by William Buckland that was based on analysis of coprolites. The study of coprolites, pioneered by Anning and Buckland, would prove to be a valuable tool for understanding ancient ecosystems. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38334 | 352,071 |
450,164 | In the early 2000s, scholars noted a lack of theory and conceptual frameworks to inform and guide research and teacher preparation in technology integration. The classic definition of PCK proposed by Shulman included one dynamic and complex relationship between two different knowledge bodies: content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge. Shulman defined PCK as the blend between content and pedagogy, highlighting the teacher's comprehension of how specific topics are organized, adapted, and represented according to students' diverse interests and capabilities. For five years, Mishra & Koehler participated in a design experiment whose focus was to understand P-20 educators’ professional development of rich technology uses as well as helping them develop their teaching with technology. As a result of this work, they offered Technological, Pedagogical, Content Knowledge (TPCK). TPACK was called “TPCK” in the literature until 2008 when some in the research community proposed using the more easily spoken term TPACK. The critical questions of "what the teachers need to know in order to appropriately incorporate technology into their teaching" as well as "and how they might develop it" were key to the framework development. Additionally, technology was identified as a significant player in the learning and teaching process as educational entities moved into the 21st century. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=52738128 | 449,945 |
581,951 | The Tom Van Flandern model was first proposed in 1993 in the first edition of his book. In the revised version from 1999 and later, the original Solar System had six pairs of twin planets, and each fissioned off from the equatorial bulges of an overspinning Sun, where outward centrifugal forces exceeded the inward gravitational force, at different times, giving them different temperatures, sizes, and compositions, and having condensed thereafter with the nebular disk dissipating after some 100 million years, with six planets exploding. Four of these were helium-dominated, fluid, and unstable. These were V (Maldek, V standing for the fifth planet, the first four including Mercury and Mars), K (Krypton), T (transneptunian), and Planet X. In these cases, the smaller moons exploded because of tidal stresses, leaving the four component belts of the two major planetoid zones. Planet LHB-A, the explosion for which is postulated to have caused the Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB) about 4 eons ago, was twinned with Jupiter, and LHB-B, the explosion for which is postulated to have caused another LHB, was twinned with Saturn. In planets LHB-A, Jupiter, LHB-B, and Saturn, the inner and smaller partner in each pair was subjected to enormous tidal stresses, causing it to blow up. The explosions took place before they were able to fission off moons. As the six were fluid, they left no trace. Solid planets fissioned off only one moon, and Mercury was a moon of Venus but drifted away as a result of the Sun's gravitational influence. Mars was a moon of Maldek. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17052696 | 581,653 |
1,011,486 | It is commonly believed that good information management is crucial to the smooth working of organisations, and although there is no commonly accepted theory of information management "per se", behavioural and organisational theories help. Following the behavioural science theory of management, mainly developed at Carnegie Mellon University and prominently supported by March and Simon, most of what goes on in modern organizations is actually information handling and decision making. One crucial factor in information handling and decision making is an individual's ability to process information and to make decisions under limitations that might derive from the context: a person's age, the situational complexity, or a lack of requisite quality in the information that is at hand – all of which is exacerbated by the rapid advance of technology and the new kinds of system that it enables, especially as the social web emerges as a phenomenon that business cannot ignore. And yet, well before there was any general recognition of the importance of information management in organisations, March and Simon argued that organizations have to be considered as cooperative systems, with a high level of information processing and a vast need for decision making at various levels. Instead of using the model of the "economic man", as advocated in classical theory they proposed "administrative man" as an alternative, based on their argumentation about the cognitive limits of rationality. Additionally they proposed the notion of satisficing, which entails searching through the available alternatives until an acceptability threshold is met - another idea that still has currency. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=464877 | 1,010,965 |
1,902,888 | The growth seen under the Rogers administration was curtailed by the United States' involvement in World War II following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Throughout 1943 enrollment dropped and the school's military program was halved. In spite of the declining enrollment and economic hardship Rogers worked diligently to satisfy the Army's standards in order to preserve NGC's military program. Not only was the military integrity of NGC preserved, but during this time it was the only junior college in the nation to have an (ASTP) Army Specialized Training Program. On the eve of the Allied forces' invasion of German-occupied France war demands of the U.S. Army caused the ASTP at NGC to be discontinued. As a response Rogers succeeded in acquiring an Army Specialized Training Reserve Program (ASTRP) in lieu of the school's lost ASTP. By the end of the war NGC had trained close to 1,300 cadets through its involvement in ASTP and ASTRP. North Georgia College returned to operating at full capacity as soon as the war ended. The return of WWII soldier to civilian life compounded with the recently passed G.I. Bill to result in an influx in college enrollment all throughout the nation. Upon regaining this momentum Rogers immediately resumed work on his ambitious expansion and construction projects. The alumni were impressed by Rogers' achievement following the war, and they began to advocate for the reversion of the school back into a senior college. On the other hand, Rogers was in favor of the school remaining a junior college that would specialize in technical training and preparatory programs. Regardless of Rogers' preferences, in 1946 the Board of Regents declared their intention to revert the school back into a senior college. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38647111 | 1,901,797 |
1,477,475 | There are many things to be considered prior to surgical treatment in order to decide which technique will have the best outcome. When determining an approach for surgical approaches, clinicians must establish the correct diagnosis of the lesion to make sure there isn’t treatment being done on healthy (vital) teeth. It is also important to take into consideration the distance (proximity) of the lesion to the vital teeth. If the lesion is in close proximity to the roots of vital teeth, a surgical approach may have negative outcomes that include the blood vessels and nerves of the adjacent teeth being injured, this of which would jeopardize their vitality (life). Surgical approaches increase the risk of the anatomic structures being damaged. Some of these anatomic structures include: the nasal cavity, mental foramen, the inferior alveolar nerve and / or the inferior alveolar artery and the maxillary sinus. When sinus cavities or adjacent tissue spaces are involved, the nonsurgical aspiration-irrigation technique is also not advised. The patient’s cooperation and age of the patient are very important as well. Patients may experience pain or discomfort during or after treatment when taking the surgical approach which could make them uncooperative. Patients that are older may not be able to tolerate this pain or discomfort, therefore they may require nonsurgical approaches. If access to the apical foramen is prevented due to blockages in the root canal system, a surgical approach may be warranted. Finally, surgery is recommended in cases where patients have the presence of cholesterol crystals or inflammatory apical true cysts (the top of an enclosed space lined by the epithelium and usually contains fluid) due to the fact that these can prevent the healing of the lesions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=59666991 | 1,476,643 |
1,958,209 | Many dinosaur species in North America during the Late Cretaceous had "remarkably small geographic ranges" despite their large body size and high mobility. Large herbivores like ceratopsians and hadrosaurs exhibited the most obvious endemism, which strongly contrasts with modern mammalian faunas whose large herbivores' ranges "typical[ly] ... span much of a continent." Lehman observes that "it is often the most conspicuous and abundant species with the most restricted distributions." He notes that "Corythosaurus" and "Centrosaurus" haven't been discovered outside of southern Alberta even though they are the most abundant Judithian dinosaurs in the region. Another example is "Pentaceratops", the only known Judithian ceratopsian from New Mexico. In modern North America if one was to sample hypothetical future sites in southwestern Texas, northern New Mexico and southern Alberta, 34 of the 41 large mammal species in the continent could be represented, with the remainder's geographic ranges not overlapping with the sites. Roughly 20 species would be located at each site, but contrasting with the provinciality of dinosaurs, 11-16 species out of twenty would be shared between all three sites. Only the rarer species among modern mammal communities would be able to distinguish different latitudinal zones, and some of these taxa are likely too rare to fossilize. This lack of provinciality is despite the strong temperature gradient. Restrictions in herbivorous dinosaur distribution may be due to foliage preferences, narrow tolerance for variation in climate or other environmental factors. The restrictions on herbivorous dinosaur distribution must have been due to ecological factors rather than physical barriers because carnivorous dinosaurs tended to have wider distributions, especially smaller ones. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=31430681 | 1,957,085 |
778,202 | Let us imagine that an absolutely unbiased investigator on another planet, perhaps on Mars, is examining human behavior on earth, with the aid of a telescope whose magnification is too small to enable him to discern individuals and follow their separate behavior, but large enough for him to observe occurrences such as migrations of peoples, wars, and similar great historical events. He would never gain the impression that human behavior was dictated by intelligence, still less by responsible morality. If we suppose our extraneous observer to be a being of pure reason, devoid of instincts himself and unaware of the way in which all instincts in general and aggression in particular can miscarry, he would be at a complete loss how to explain history at all. The ever-recurrent phenomena of history do not have reasonable causes. It is a mere commonplace to say that they are caused by what common parlance so aptly terms "human nature." Unreasoning and unreasonable human nature causes two nations to compete, though no economic necessity compels them to do so; it induces two political parties or religions with amazingly similar programs of salvation to fight each other bitterly, and it impels an Alexander or a Napoleon to sacrifice millions of lives in his attempt to unite the world under his scepter. We have been taught to regard some of the persons who have committed these and similar absurdities with respect, even as "great" men, we are wont to yield to the political wisdom of those in charge, and we are all so accustomed to these phenomena that most of us fail to realize how abjectly stupid and undesirable the historical mass behavior of humanity actually is | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17077 | 777,785 |
577,152 | Progress on loudspeaker enclosure design and analysis using acoustic analogous circuits by academic acousticians like Harry F. Olson continued until 1954 when Leo L. Beranek of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology published "Acoustics", a book summarizing and extending the electroacoustics of the era. J. F. Novak used novel simplifying assumptions in an analysis in a 1959 paper which led to a practical solution for the response of a given loudspeaker in sealed and vented boxes, and also established their applicability by empirical measurement. In 1961, leaning heavily on Novak's work, A. N. Thiele described a series of sealed and vented box "alignments" (i.e., enclosure designs based on electrical filter theory with well-characterized behavior, including frequency response, power handling, cone excursion, etc.) in a publication in an Australian journal. This paper remained relatively unknown outside Australia until it was re-published in the "Journal of the Audio Engineering Society" in 1971. It is important to note that Thiele's work neglected enclosure losses and, although the application of filter theory is still important, his alignment tables now have little real-world utility due to neglecting enclosure losses. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1311933 | 576,856 |
411,732 | Others have suggested that Tyrsenian languages may yet be distantly related to early Indo-European languages, such as those of the Anatolian branch. More recently, Robert S. P. Beekes argued in 2002 that the people later known as the Lydians and Etruscans had originally lived in northwest Anatolia, with a coastline to the Sea of Marmara, whence they were driven by the Phrygians "circa" 1200 BC, leaving a remnant known in antiquity as the Tyrsenoi. A segment of this people moved south-west to Lydia, becoming known as the Lydians, while others sailed away to take refuge in Italy, where they became known as Etruscans. This account draws on the well-known story by Herodotus (I, 94) of the Lydian origin of the Etruscans or Tyrrhenians, famously rejected by Dionysius of Halicarnassus (book I), partly on the authority of Xanthus, a Lydian historian, who had no knowledge of the story, and partly on what he judged to be the different languages, laws, and religions of the two peoples. In 2006, Frederik Woudhuizen went further on Herodotus' traces, suggesting that Etruscan belongs to the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European family, specifically to Luwian. Woudhuizen revived a conjecture to the effect that the Tyrsenians came from Anatolia, including Lydia, whence they were driven by the Cimmerians in the early Iron Age, 750–675 BC, leaving some colonists on Lemnos. He makes a number of comparisons of Etruscan to Luwian and asserts that Etruscan is modified Luwian. He accounts for the non-Luwian features as a Mysian influence: "deviations from Luwian [...] may plausibly be ascribed to the dialect of the indigenous population of Mysia." According to Woudhuizen, the Etruscans were initially colonizing the Latins, bringing the alphabet from Anatolia. For both archaeological and linguistic reasons, a relationship between Etruscan and the Anatolian languages (Lydian or Luwian) and the idea that Etruscans were initially colonizing the Latins, bringing the alphabet from Anatolia, have not been accepted, just as the story of the Lydian origin reported by Herodotus is no longer considered trustworthy. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9455 | 411,530 |
264,382 | In 1984, a Beaker period copper dagger blade was recovered from the Sillees River near Ross Lough, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. The flat, triangular-shaped copper blade was long, with bevelled edges and a pointed tip, and featured an integral tang that accepted a riveted handle. Flint arrow-heads and copper-blade daggers with handle tangs, found in association with Beaker pottery in many other parts of Europe, have a date later than the initial phase of Beaker People activity in Ireland. Also the typical Beaker wristguards seem to have entered Ireland by cultural diffusion only, after the first intrusions, and unlike English and Continental Beaker burials never made it to the graves. The same lack of typical Beaker association applies to the about thirty found stone battle axes. A gold ornament found in County Down that closely resembles a pair of ear-rings from Ermegeira, Portugal, has a composition that suggests it was imported. Incidental finds suggest links to non-British Beaker territories, like a fragment of a bronze blade in County Londonderry that has been likened to the "palmella" points of Iberia, even though the relative scarcity of beakers, and Beaker-compatible material of any kind, in the "south-west" are regarded as an obstacle to any colonisation directly from Iberia, or even from France. Their greater concentration in the northern part of the country, which traditionally is regarded as the part of Ireland least blessed with sources of copper, has led many authorities to question the role of Beaker People in the introduction of metallurgy to Ireland. However, indications of their use of stream sediment copper, low in traces of lead and arsenic, and Beaker finds connected to mining and metalworking at Ross Island, County Kerry, provide an escape to such doubts. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=263746 | 264,239 |
2,177,602 | The rapid technological advances of the U.S. rocket industry during World War II, accomplished primarily through the wartime Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) and its cadre of leading scientists, produced a substantial foundation of technical reports and data on solid rockets, propellants, and ballistics. Following deactivation of the OSRD in 1945, several of these early scientists accepted positions at the fledgling Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and were subsequently appointed by Commander (later Admiral) Levering Smith to serve on the post-war Navy Bureau of Ordnance (BuOrd) Propellant and Ignition Advisory Group. In April 1946, at the suggestion of Dr. Ralph E. Gibson (later to become the second director of APL), the group recommended the establishment of “a rocket intelligence agency with one main responsibility—that of promoting rapid circulation of technical information to all activities concerned.” Armed with $20,000 in BuOrd funding, APL established the initial Rocket Propellant Information Agency (RPIA) on 3 December 1946 to consolidate, organize, and catalog the inventory of wartime reports. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=15381860 | 2,176,357 |
1,061,389 | "Blastomyces dermatitidis" is one of the most ecologically mysterious organisms causing human and animal disease. Prediction of disease risk and prevention of disease are both made extraordinarily difficult by our very poor understanding of where and how this organism normally grows in nature. Despite decades of attempts at isolating organisms from epidemiological foci, "B. dermatitidis" has only been isolated from the environment 21 times. Most of these isolations have been based on the arduous isolation techniques involving the suspension of soil or other environmental materials in aqueous medium with antibacterial antibiotics, and injection of mice with these materials, followed by sacrifice of the animals when they appear ill or at the end of six weeks. The internal organs of the mice are then checked microscopically for evidence of blastomycosis. Needless to say, the cost and complexity of performing such studies is imposing, especially as the ethical clearance procedures for work involving animals become ever more involved. More direct and economical mycological techniques for environmental isolation, such as dilution plating, have never yielded positive results for "Blastomyces" growth. Since "B. dermatitidis" will grow readily from clinical samples on common laboratory media, the lack of success in isolating it from environmental materials is generally ascribed to the inhibitory effects of co-occurring common molds and antibiotic-resistant bacteria. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12618169 | 1,060,836 |
869,492 | Increasingly, exosomes are being recognized as potential therapeutics as they have the ability to elicit potent cellular responses "in vitro" and "in vivo". Exosomes mediate regenerative outcomes in injury and disease that recapitulate observed bioactivity of stem cell populations. Mesenchymal stem cell exosomes were found to activate several signaling pathways important in wound healing (Akt, ERK, and STAT3), bone fracture repair and participates in the regulation of immune-mediated responses and inflammatory diseases. They induce the expression of a number of growth factors (hepatocyte growth factor (HGF), insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF1), nerve growth factor (NGF), and stromal-derived growth factor-1 (SDF1)). Exosomes secreted by human circulating fibrocytes, a population of mesenchymal progenitors involved in normal wound healing via paracrine signaling, exhibited "in-vitro" proangiogenic properties, activated diabetic dermal fibroblasts, induced the migration and proliferation of diabetic keratinocytes, and accelerated wound closure in diabetic mice in vivo. Important components of the exosomal cargo were heat shock protein-90α, total and activated signal transducer and activator of transcription 3, proangiogenic (miR-126, miR-130a, miR-132) and anti-inflammatory (miR124a, miR-125b) microRNAs, and a microRNA regulating collagen deposition (miR-21). Researchers have also found that exosomes released from oral keratinocytes can accelerate wound healing, even when human exosomes were applied to rat wounds. Exosomes can be considered a promising carrier for effective delivery of small interfering RNA due to their existence in body's endogenous system and high tolerance. Patient-derived exosomes have been employed as a novel cancer immunotherapy in several clinical trials. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9577488 | 869,032 |
2,005,699 | Discovery and validation of protein biomarkers are crucial for diseases diagnosis. Coupling of SPRM with MALDI-mass spectrometer (SUPRA-MS) enables the multiplex quantification of binding and molecular characterization on the basis of different masses. SUPRA-MS is used to detect, identify and characterize the potential breast cancer biomarker, LAG3 protein, introduced in the human plasma. Glass slides were taken to prepare gold chips via coating with thin layers of chromium and gold by sputtering process. Gold surface was functionalized using solution of 11-Mercapto-1-undecanol (11-MUOH) and 16-mercapto-1-hexadecanoic acid (16-MHA). This self-assembled monolayer was activated with sulfo-NHS and EDC. Pattern of sixteen droplets was deposited on the macroarray. Immunoglobin G antibodies were spotted against Lymphocyte activation gene 3 (α-LAG3) and rat serum albumin (α-RSA). After placing biochip in the SPRi and running buffer solution in the flow cell, α-LAG3 was injected. Special image station was used on the proteins that are attached. This station can also be placed on the MALDI. Before placing on the MALDI, captured proteins were reduced, digested and loaded with matrix in order to avoid contamination. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=47482842 | 2,004,550 |
329,222 | LCDs are used in a wide range of applications, including LCD televisions, computer monitors, instrument panels, aircraft cockpit displays, and indoor and outdoor signage. Small LCD screens are common in LCD projectors and portable consumer devices such as digital cameras, watches, digital clocks, calculators, and mobile telephones, including smartphones. LCD screens are also used on consumer electronics products such as DVD players, video game devices and clocks. LCD screens have replaced heavy, bulky cathode-ray tube (CRT) displays in nearly all applications. LCD screens are available in a wider range of screen sizes than CRT and plasma displays, with LCD screens available in sizes ranging from tiny digital watches to very large television receivers. LCDs are slowly being replaced by OLEDs, which can be easily made into different shapes, and have a lower response time, wider color gamut, virtually infinite color contrast and viewing angles, lower weight for a given display size and a slimmer profile (because OLEDs use a single glass or plastic panel whereas LCDs use two glass panels; the thickness of the panels increases with size but the increase is more noticeable on LCDs) and potentially lower power consumption (as the display is only "on" where needed and there is no backlight). OLEDs, however, are more expensive for a given display size due to the very expensive electroluminescent materials or phosphors that they use. Also due to the use of phosphors, OLEDs suffer from screen burn-in and there is currently no way to recycle OLED displays, whereas LCD panels can be recycled, although the technology required to recycle LCDs is not yet widespread. Attempts to maintain the competitiveness of LCDs are quantum dot displays, marketed as SUHD, QLED or Triluminos, which are displays with blue LED backlighting and a Quantum-dot enhancement film (QDEF) that converts part of the blue light into red and green, offering similar performance to an OLED display at a lower price, but the quantum dot layer that gives these displays their characteristics can not yet be recycled. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17932 | 329,047 |
1,498,583 | Since 80 to 90% of newborns with transient myeloproliferative disease recover within ~3 months (organ enlargement make take longer to resolve), treatment is generally restricted to cases with life-threatening complications. These complications include severe: a) hydrops fetalis; b) increases in circulating white blood cells (e.g. >10-fold elevations) that can lead to a blood disorder termed the hyperviscosity syndrome; c) bleeding due to disseminated intravascular coagulation or, less commonly, reduced levels of circulating platelet; d) liver dysfunction; or e)cardiac dysfunction. There have been no large controlled studies published on treatment but several small studies report that low dose cytarabine, a chemotherapeutic drug, has beneficial effects in these cases. High dose cytarabine, however, has been found to be highly toxic in infants with TMD; it is recommended that these dosages be avoided in TMD. The goal of low dose cytarabine in TMD is to reduce the load but not eradicate platelet precursors in tissues and/or circulating megakaryoblasts or, in cases of extreme leukocytosis, white blood cells, particularly since none of these cells are malignant. There is insufficient data to indicate the value of therapy in prenatal cases. Supportive fetal therapy consisting of repeated ub utero transfusion of packed red blood cells and platelet concentrates has been reported to reduce the proportion of circulating blast cell, reduce fluid accumulations in fetal cavities, and reduce the size of an enlarged liver; preterm induction of delivery has also been used in infants with fetal distress. However, further studies are required to determine the clinical usefulness of these and other interventions in prenatal TMD. The Cochrane Organization rated the quality of evidence for these fetal interventions as very low. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=68511227 | 1,497,739 |
988,295 | Breuer was awarded the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architects at their 100th annual convention in 1968 at Portland, Oregon. In an ironic timing of events, it coincided with general criticism of one of America's favorite architects for his willingness to design a multi-story office building on top of Grand Central Terminal. The project was never built. It cost him many friends and supporters although its defeat by the US Supreme Court established the right of New York and other cities to protect their landmarks. During his lifetime, Breuer rarely acknowledged the influence of other architects’ work upon his own but he had certainly picked up the use of rough board-formed concrete from Le Corbusier and the noble dignity of his second New Canaan house seems to have directly descended from Mies’ Barcelona Pavilion. Shortly before his death, he told an interviewer that he considered his principal contribution to have been the adaptation of the work of older architects to the needs of modern society. He died in his apartment in Manhattan in 1981, leaving his wife Connie (died 2002) and his son Tamas. With his permission, his partners kept offices going in his name in Paris and New York for several years but, with their eventual retirement, both are now closed. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1174550 | 987,779 |
977,390 | Speculation about animal intelligence gradually yielded to scientific study after Darwin placed humans and animals on a continuum, although Darwin's largely anecdotal approach to the cognition topic would not pass scientific muster later on. This method would be expanded by his protégé George J. Romanes, who played a key role in the defense of Darwinism and its refinement over the years. Still, Romanes is most famous for two major flaws in his work: his focus on anecdotal observations and entrenched anthropomorphism. Unsatisfied with the previous approach, E. L. Thorndike brought animal behavior into the laboratory for objective scrutiny. Thorndike's careful observations of the escape of cats, dogs, and chicks from puzzle boxes led him to conclude that what appears to the naive human observer to be intelligent behavior may be strictly attributable to simple associations. According to Thorndike, using Morgan's Canon, the inference of animal reason, insight, or consciousness is unnecessary and misleading. At about the same time, I. P. Pavlov began his seminal studies of conditioned reflexes in dogs. Pavlov quickly abandoned attempts to infer canine mental processes; such attempts, he said, led only to disagreement and confusion. He was, however, willing to propose unseen physiological processes that might explain his observations. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=425938 | 976,879 |
958,222 | The idea of ethnobotany was first proposed by the early 20th century botanist John William Harshberger. While Harshberger did perform ethnobotanical research extensively, including in areas such as North Africa, Mexico, Scandinavia, and Pennsylvania, it was not until Richard Evans Schultes began his trips into the Amazon that ethnobotany became a more well known science. However, the practice of ethnobotany is thought to have much earlier origins in the first century AD when a Greek physician by the name of Pedanius Dioscorides wrote an extensive botanical text detailing the medical and culinary properties of "over 600 mediterranean plants" named De Materia Medica. Historians note that Dioscorides wrote about traveling often throughout the Roman empire, including regions such as "Greece, Crete, Egypt, and Petra", and in doing so obtained substantial knowledge about the local plants and their useful properties. European botanical knowledge drastically expanded once the New World was discovered due to ethnobotany. This expansion in knowledge can primarily be attributed to the substantial influx of new plants from the Americas, including crops such as potatoes, peanuts, avocados, and tomatoes. The French explorer Jacques Cartier learned a cure for scurvy (a tea made from the needles of a coniferous tree, likely spruce) from a local Iroquois tribe. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=571941 | 957,716 |
95,504 | Diffusion of carbon dioxide and oxygen is approximately 10,000 times slower in water than in air. When soils are flooded, they quickly lose oxygen, becoming hypoxic (an environment with O concentration below 2 mg/liter) and eventually completely anoxic where anaerobic bacteria thrive among the roots. Water also influences the intensity and spectral composition of light as it reflects off the water surface and submerged particles. Aquatic plants exhibit a wide variety of morphological and physiological adaptations that allow them to survive, compete, and diversify in these environments. For example, their roots and stems contain large air spaces (aerenchyma) that regulate the efficient transportation of gases (for example, CO and O) used in respiration and photosynthesis. Salt water plants (halophytes) have additional specialized adaptations, such as the development of special organs for shedding salt and osmoregulating their internal salt (NaCl) concentrations, to live in estuarine, brackish, or oceanic environments. Anaerobic soil microorganisms in aquatic environments use nitrate, manganese ions, ferric ions, sulfate, carbon dioxide, and some organic compounds; other microorganisms are facultative anaerobes and use oxygen during respiration when the soil becomes drier. The activity of soil microorganisms and the chemistry of the water reduces the oxidation-reduction potentials of the water. Carbon dioxide, for example, is reduced to methane (CH) by methanogenic bacteria. The physiology of fish is also specially adapted to compensate for environmental salt levels through osmoregulation. Their gills form electrochemical gradients that mediate salt excretion in salt water and uptake in fresh water. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9630 | 95,463 |
739,979 | The 1900 NW Rennzweier was one of the first race cars with mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout. Other known historical examples include the 1923 Benz Tropfenwagen. It was based on an earlier design named the Rumpler Tropfenwagen in 1921 made by Edmund von Rumpler, an Austrian engineer working at Daimler. The Benz Tropfenwagen was designed by Ferdinand Porsche along with Willy Walb and Hans Nibel. It raced in 1923 and 1924 and was most successful in the Italian Grand Prix in Monza where it stood fourth. Later, Ferdinand Porsche used mid-engine design concept towards the Auto Union Grand Prix cars of the 1930s which became the first winning RMR racers. They were decades before their time, although MR Miller Specials raced a few times at Indianapolis between 1939 and 1947. In 1953 Porsche premiered the tiny and altogether new RMR 550 Spyder and in a year it was notoriously winning in the smaller sports and endurance race car classes against much larger cars a sign of greater things to come. The 718 followed similarly in 1958. But it was not until the late 1950s that RMR reappeared in Grand Prix (today's "Formula One") races in the form of the Cooper-Climax (1957), soon followed by cars from BRM and Lotus. Ferrari and Porsche soon made Grand Prix RMR attempts with less initial success. The mid-engined layout was brought back to Indianapolis in 1961 by the Cooper Car Company with Jack Brabham running as high as third and finishing ninth. Cooper did not return, but from 1963 on British built mid-engined cars from constructors like Brabham, Lotus and Lola competed regularly and in 1965 Lotus won Indy with their Type 38. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=816369 | 739,587 |
2,023,192 | Rather infamously, from a Penn State perspective, the former Lady Icers team struggled mightily with perennial contender Rhode Island while both were ECWHL members from 2003–12, with the Rams owning a 34–2–1 record against PSU during that time. Early in the Women's Ice Hockey Club's first ACHA Division 1 season, the newer team gave some indication of a change in era by earning a 3–2 win on November 9, 2014 at Bradford R. Boss Arena to split the teams' first-ever series. Cara Mendelson, Anna Marcus and Riley O'Connor scored for the Lady Ice Lions, with the latter's game-winning goal helping her subsequently collect ACHA rookie of the month honors. By the end of 2014–15, both PSU and URI found themselves on the bubble to receive one of the eight bids to the ACHA National Tournament given based on the end-of-season D1 rankings. With an automatic bid set to go outside of the top eight to the Western Women's Collegiate Hockey League champion and the Lady Ice Lions and Rams entering an ECWHL semifinal matchup during the weekend before that decisive poll ranked eighth and seventh, respectively, the result of the game was seen as effectively deciding a tournament bid. The victorious team would not only have that final word of course, but also the head-to-head advantage in the three-game season series. However, although Rhode Island won the game 4–1 with Kristy Kennedy scoring twice in the late going, Penn State was still selected for nationals while URI was left out for the first time since 2003. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=51386378 | 2,022,028 |
483,752 | Musgrave's and Hoffman's first task was to replace the solar array drive electronics and they began the SADE(?) operation while ground controllers initiated the first step in solar array deployment by commanding the Primary Drive Mechanism (PDM). "Endeavour" was placed in free drift to disable any RCS firings that could disrupt the solar arrays and the PDM motors were engaged at 03:48 UTC. The latches were unlocked but the arrays failed to rotate to the deploy position. No motion was detected and the STOCC sent commands to drive a single array with two motors with no success. Finally, the astronauts cranked the deployment mechanism by hand and deployment was successful. After the SADE was replaced the crew fitted an electrical connection to the Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph at 08:30 UTC and it passed its functionality test. The crew then installed some covers on the magnetometers, fabricated on board by Claude Nicollier and Kenneth D. Bowersox. These covers would contain any debris caused by the older magnetometers that showed some signs of UV decay. The EVA ended at 05:51 EST bringing the total EVA time for this mission to 35 hours 28 minutes. During this flight day, Hoffman spun a dreidel in front of a live audience for the holiday of Hanukkah and brought a travel Hanukkah menorah. The HST High Gain Antenna (HGA) was deployed at 11:49 UTC and completed by 11:56 UTC. Release time for HST was set for 07:08 UTC. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=504305 | 483,505 |
779,186 | For example, a skater could successfully complete a jump by making small changes to their arm position partway through the rotation, and a small bend in the hips and knees allows a skater "to land with a lower center of mass than they started with, perhaps seeking out a few precious degrees of rotation and a better body position for landing". When they execute a toe jump, they must use their skate's toe pick to complete a pole-vaulting-type motion off the ice, which along with extra horizontal speed, helps them store more energy in their leg. As they rotate over their leg, their horizontal motion converts into tangential velocity. King, who believes quintuple jumps are mathematically possible, says that in order to execute more rotations, they could improve their rotational momentum as they execute their footwork or approach into their takeoff, creating torque about the rotating axis as they come off the ice. She also says that if skaters can increase their rotational momentum while "still exploding upward" they can rotate faster and increase the number of revolutions they perform. Sports writer Dvora Meyers, reporting on Russian coaching techniques, says female skaters executing more quadruple jumps in competition use what experts call pre-rotation, or the practice of twisting their upper bodies before they take off from the ice, which allows them to complete four revolutions before landing. Meyers also says the technique depends on the skater's being small, light, and young, and that it puts more strain on the back because they do not use as much leg strength. As a skater ages and goes through puberty, however, they tend to not be able to execute quadruple jumps because "the technique wasn't sound to start with". They also tend to retire before the age of 18 due to the increase of back injuries. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=39685 | 778,769 |
1,906,509 | Based on a model at the University of Notre Dame, QuarkNet has offered a summer student research program since 2004. Typically, teams of four high school students supervised by one teacher spend six weeks involved in various physics research projects. Some centers choose to modify this model, involving more students and/or less time. The research is associated with ATLAS and CMS, the International Linear Collider R&D, cosmic ray muon detectors, optical fiber R&D and more. Teams are supported at up to 25 centers each summer. Examples of recent research titles include: "Search and Identification of Comparing the Amount of Muon Events to Daily Weather Changes, Cosmic Ray Signals in Radar Echo, Fibers for Forward Calorimeter, The Effects of Impurities on Radio Signal Detection in Ice, Quartz Plate Calorimetery, Galactic Asymmetry of the Milky Way" and "RF Magnet Design, and Weak Lensing Mass Estimates of the Elliot Arc Cluster." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9208413 | 1,905,413 |
1,176,697 | The global biomass of gelatinous zooplankton (sometimes referred to as "jelly‐C") within the upper 200 m of the ocean amounts to 0.038 Pg C. Calculations for mesozooplankton (200 μm to 2 cm) suggest about 0.20 Pg C. The short life span of most gelatinous zooplankton, from weeks up to 2 to 12 months, suggests biomass‐production rates above 0.038 Pg C year, depending on the assumed mortality rates, which in many cases are species‐specific. This is much smaller than global primary production (50 Pg C year), which translates into export estimates close to 6 Pg C year below 100 m, depending on the method used. Globally, gelatinous zooplankton abundance and distribution patterns largely follow those of temperature and dissolved oxygen as well as primary production as the carbon source. However, gelatinous zooplankton cope with a wide spectrum of environmental conditions, indicating the ability to adapt and occupy most available ecological niches in a water mass. In terms of Longhurst regions (biogeographical provinces that partition the pelagic environment, the highest densities of gelatinous zooplankton occur in coastal waters of the Humboldt Current, NE U.S. Shelf, Scotian and Newfoundland shelves, Benguela Current, East China and Yellow Seas, followed by polar regions of the East Bering and Okhotsk Seas, the Southern Ocean, enclosed bodies of water such as the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, and the west Pacific waters of the Japan seas and the Kuroshio Current. Large amounts of jelly carbon biomass that are reported from coastal areas of open shelves and semi-enclosed seas of North America, Europe, and East Asia come from coastal stranding data. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14562495 | 1,176,075 |
751,629 | Some researchers have misinterpreted ecological footprint accounting as a social theory or a policy guideline, while in reality it is merely a metric that adds up human demands that compete for the planet's regenerative capacity. Examples of such confusions include Grazi "et al." (2007) who performed a systematic comparison of the ecological footprint method with spatial welfare analysis that includes environmental externalities, agglomeration effects and trade advantages. Not recognizing that the ecological footprint is merely a metric, they conclude that the footprint method does not lead to maximum social welfare. Similarly, Newman (2006) has argued that the ecological footprint concept may have an anti-urban bias, as it does not consider the opportunities created by urban growth. He argues that calculating the ecological footprint for densely populated areas, such as a city or small country with a comparatively large population—e.g. New York and Singapore respectively—may lead to the perception of these populations as "parasitic". But in reality, ecological footprints just document the resource dependence of cities—like a fuel gauge documents a car's fuel availability. Newman questions the metric because these communities have little intrinsic biocapacity, and instead must rely upon large "hinterlands". Critics argue that this is a dubious characterization since farmers in developed nations may easily consume more resources than urban inhabitants, due to transportation requirements and the unavailability of economies of scale. Furthermore, such moral conclusions seem to be an argument for autarky. This is similar to blaming a scale for the user's dietary choices. Some even take this train of thought a step further, claiming that the footprint denies the benefits of trade. Therefore such critics argue that the footprint can only be applied globally. Others have made the opposite argument showing that national assessments do provide helpful insights. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=301500 | 751,231 |
1,992,165 | AutoTutor is an intelligent tutoring system developed by researchers at the Institute for Intelligent Systems at the University of Memphis, including Arthur C. Graesser that helps students learn Newtonian physics, computer literacy, and critical thinking topics through tutorial dialogue in natural language. AutoTutor differs from other popular intelligent tutoring systems such as the Cognitive Tutor, in that it focuses on natural language dialog. This means that the tutoring occurs in the form of an ongoing conversation, with human input presented using either voice or free text input. To handle this input, AutoTutor uses computational linguistics algorithms including latent semantic analysis, regular expression matching, and speech act classifiers. These complementary techniques focus on the general meaning of the input, precise phrasing or keywords, and functional purpose of the expression, respectively. In addition to natural language input, AutoTutor can also accept ad hoc events such as mouse clicks, learner emotions inferred from emotion sensors, and estimates of prior knowledge from a student model. Based on these inputs, the computer tutor (or tutors) determine when to reply and what speech acts to reply with. This process is driven by a "script" that includes a set of dialog-specific production rules. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17397954 | 1,991,022 |
2,018,685 | The research mission of the institute is to design and investigate technologies that enhance social compatibility and long-term market success. The social compatibility of IT systems references the ability of IT systems to support basic human values and rights. These values and rights include privacy, security, autonomy, system control and calmness. Together with industry partners and international political institutions, the institute develops technical policies and procedures to ensure that designers consider these rights and values when they develop systems. The institute's conceptual and technical work is informed and supported by the analysis of economic conditions, which are given in the form of international markets for personal information, a trend towards automation, decision delegation as well as Internet economics. Furthermore, social and psychological dimensions of IT usage and acceptance are considered. Taken together, the institute follows a three-dimensional research approach, allowing for and using technical, economic and social methods of analysis. A wide range of methods to contribute to the development of a "sustainable" technology landscape is applied. The institute is a think tank for business and society that focuses on the sustainable design of information technology. As a think tank, it contributes its work to international policy-relevant processes. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=36167150 | 2,017,522 |
797,707 | Zoltán Kodály (1882–1967) was a prominent Hungarian music educator, philosopher, and composer who highlighted the benefits of sensory perception, physical instruction, and response to music. In reality it is not an educational method, it is an innovative system of literacy and musical training, which proposes that music begins from an early age, such as the development of the mother tongue, where music is an educational tool for social transformation, in addition , proposes that every human being has access to music through the use of the senses, their voice and their corporal expression; His teachings are within a creative and fun educational framework built on a solid understanding of auditory, intuitive, physical, auditory, and visual sensory perception, thereby laying the foundations for listening, musical expression, reading, writing, and musical theory. This occurs in several stages through songs that give rhythmic, melodic, harmonic patterns and all musical elements, in aural, oral, verbal, auditory and visual recognition, reading, writing, creativity and theoretical understanding. Kodály's main goal was to instill in his students a lifelong love of music and he felt it was the duty of the child's school to provide this vital element of education. Some of the characteristic teaching tools of Kodály are the use of hand signs or solfa, rhythmic syllables (stick notation) and mobile C (verbalization). The most important thing is that the methodology belongs to everyone, so music is available to everyone. Most countries have used their own folk or community music traditions to build their own instructional sequence, but in the United States the Hungarian sequence is primarily used. The work of Denise Bacon, Katinka S. Daniel, John Feierabend, Jean Sinor, Jill Trinka, and others brought Kodaly's ideas to the forefront of music education in America. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2025792 | 797,282 |
740,743 | The control chart was invented by Walter A. Shewhart working for Bell Labs in the 1920s. The company's engineers had been seeking to improve the reliability of their telephony transmission systems. Because amplifiers and other equipment had to be buried underground, there was a stronger business need to reduce the frequency of failures and repairs. By 1920, the engineers had already realized the importance of reducing variation in a manufacturing process. Moreover, they had realized that continual process-adjustment in reaction to non-conformance actually increased variation and degraded quality. Shewhart framed the problem in terms of Common- and special-causes of variation and, on May 16, 1924, wrote an internal memo introducing the control chart as a tool for distinguishing between the two. Shewhart's boss, George Edwards, recalled: "Dr. Shewhart prepared a little memorandum only about a page in length. About a third of that page was given over to a simple diagram which we would all recognize today as a schematic control chart. That diagram, and the short text which preceded and followed it set forth all of the essential principles and considerations which are involved in what we know today as process quality control." Shewhart stressed that bringing a production process into a state of statistical control, where there is only common-cause variation, and keeping it in control, is necessary to predict future output and to manage a process economically. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=435754 | 740,351 |
422,080 | In August 1914 on the outbreak of World War I Blackett was assigned to active service as a midshipman. He was transferred to the Cape Verde Islands on HMS "Carnarvon" and was present at the Battle of the Falkland Islands. He was then transferred to HMS "Barham" and saw much action at the Battle of Jutland. While on HMS "Barham", Blackett was co-inventor of a gunnery device on which the Admiralty took out a patent. In 1916 he applied to join the RNAS but his application was refused. In October that year he became a sub-lieutenant on HMS "P17" on Dover patrol, and in July 1917 he was posted to HMS "Sturgeon" in the Harwich Force under Admiral Tyrwhitt. Blackett was particularly concerned by the poor quality of gunnery in the force compared with that of the enemy and of his own previous experience, and started to read science textbooks. He was promoted to lieutenant in May 1918, but had decided to leave the Navy. Then, in January 1919, the Admiralty sent the officers whose training had been interrupted by the war to the University of Cambridge for a course of general duties. On his first night at Magdalene College, Cambridge, he met Kingsley Martin and Geoffrey Webb, later recalling that he had never before, in his naval training, heard intellectual conversation. Blackett was impressed by the prestigious Cavendish Laboratory, and left the Navy to study mathematics and physics at Cambridge. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=326834 | 421,874 |
432,719 | YACs are significantly less stable than BACs, producing "chimeric effects": artifacts where the sequence of the cloned DNA actually corresponds not to a single genomic region but to multiple regions. Chimerism may be due to either co-ligation of multiple genomic segments into a single YAC, or recombination of two or more YACs transformed in the same host Yeast cell. The incidence of chimerism may be as high as 50%. Other artifacts are deletion of segments from a cloned region, and rearrangement of genomic segments (such as inversion). In all these cases, the sequence as determined from the YAC clone is different from the original, natural sequence, leading to inconsistent results and errors in interpretation if the clone's information is relied upon. Due to these issues, the Human Genome Project ultimately abandoned the use of YACs and switched to bacterial artificial chromosomes, where the incidence of these artifacts is very low. In addition to stability issues, specifically the relatively frequent occurrence of chimeric events, YACs proved to be inefficient when generating the minimum tiling path covering the entire human genome. Generating the clone libraries is time consuming. Also, due to the nature of the reliance on sequence tagged sites (STS) as a reference point when selecting appropriate clones, there are large gaps that need further generation of libraries to span. It is this additional hindrance that drove the project to utilize BACs instead. This is due to two factors: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=394765 | 432,506 |
867,728 | Blizzard Entertainment developed the remaster over a year. The game's original artist returned to assist with development. Professional "StarCraft" players from South Korea, including Flash, Bisu, and Jaedong, gave the company feedback during several playtests . Blizzard's president publicly announced the remaster in late March 2017 at a "StarCraft" event in Seoul, South Korea. It was also announced that later that week, Blizzard would make the original games—the "StarCraft Anthology"—free to download and would include an update with some of the remaster's features, including the ability to run on modern computers. The remaster was released on macOS and Windows on August 14, 2017. The developer said that their "classic games team" plans to further support the community after the remaster's launch, and will look for feedback on ideas such as voice chat integration. Players who purchased the title in advance of its release received alternative aesthetic options for in-game assets in both the remaster and "StarCraft II". Blizzard's Robert Bridenbecker and Pete Stilwell explained to Team Liquid that in almost every respect that "Brood War" fans care about, "StarCraft: Remastered" will be the same as "Brood War", as it's the same client powering each version. Lemon Sky Studios partnered with Blizzard to provide most of the remastered art assets. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=53599061 | 867,268 |
1,732,195 | Historian Tonio Andrade supports the gun transmission theory, noting that while records of gunpowder weapons and their evolution into the gun exist in China, "there are no records of any such developments in Europe," and that the arrival of the gun in Europe was such that it "appears fully formed around 1326." This is not strictly true, as Kelly DeVries points out that compilers of early gunpowder recipes in Europe understood that should the instrument carrying gunpowder be enclosed on one end, the gunpowder reaction inside would produce "flying fire." Andrade goes on to analyze the nature and etymology of gunpowder in Europe and comes to the conclusion that it is intrinsically in favor of the transmission theory rather than an independent invention. There are the older and more numerous formulas of gunpowder using a variety of different proportions of key ingredients – saltpeter, sulphur, and charcoal – which he believes is proof of its evolution and experimentation in China, where gunpowder was first applied to warfare as an incendiary, then explosive, and finally as a propellant. In contrast gunpowder formulas in Europe appear both later and offer very little divergence from the already ideal proportions for the purpose of creating an explosive and propellant powder. Another facet of the gunpowder transmission theory is the appearance of gunpowder in Europe ready made for military usage, and is generally referred to as "gun"powder rather than a civilian term such as the Chinese "fire-drug," which suggests an originally non-military usage, whereas in Europe it was almost immediately and exclusively used for its military qualities. Muslim terms of saltpeter may also point toward a gunpowder transmission, if not the gun itself, as an Andalusian botanist referred to it as "Chinese snow," while in Persia it was called "Chinese salt." Perhaps even further in the Sinocentric gun transmission camp is Joseph Needham who claims that "all the long preparations and tentative experiments were made in China, and everything came to Islam and the West fully fledged, whether it was the fire-lance or the explosive bomb, the rocket or the metal-barrel hand-gun and bombard." However, theories of European, Islamic, and Indian origins for the gun and gunpowder still persist today in tandem with the transmission theory. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=61793153 | 1,731,219 |
1,099,715 | By 2019 methods in eDNA research had been expanded to be able to assess whole communities from a single sample. This process involves metabarcoding, which can be precisely defined as the use of general or universal polymerase chain reaction (PCR) primers on mixed DNA samples from any origin followed by high-throughput next-generation sequencing (NGS) to determine the species composition of the sample. This method has been common in microbiology for years, but, as of 2020, it is only just finding its footing in the assessment of macroorganisms. Ecosystem-wide applications of eDNA metabarcoding have the potential to not only describe communities and biodiversity, but also to detect interactions and functional ecology over large spatial scales, though it may be limited by false readings due to contamination or other errors. Altogether, eDNA metabarcoding increases speed, accuracy, and identification over traditional barcoding and decreases cost, but needs to be standardized and unified, integrating taxonomy and molecular methods for full ecological study. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=66619486 | 1,099,155 |
1,086,651 | For centuries hashish and marijuana from the Indian hemp "Cannabis sativa" L. have been used for medicinal and recreational purposes. In 1840, Schlesinger S. was apparently the first investigator to obtain an active extract from the leaves and flowers of hemp. A few years later, in 1848, Decourtive E. described the preparation of an ethanol extract that on evaporation of the solvent gave a dark resin, which he named “cannabin”. In 1964 the main active constituent of "C. sativa" L., Δ-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), was isolated and synthesized by Mechoulam's laboratory. Two types of cannabinoid receptors, CB and CB, responsible for the effects of THC were discovered and cloned in the early 1990s. Once cannabinoid receptors had been discovered, it became important to establish whether their agonists occur naturally in the body. This search led to the discovery of the first endogenous cannabinoid (endocannabinoid), anandamide (arachidonoyl ethanolamide). Later on other endocannabinoids were found, for example 2-AG (2-arachidonoyl glycerol). These findings raised further questions about the pharmacological and physiological role of the cannabinoid system. This revived the research on cannabinoid receptor antagonists which were expected to help answer these questions. The use of the cannabinoid agonist, THC, in its many preparations to enhance appetite is a well known fact. This fact led to the logical extension that blocking of the cannabinoid receptors might be useful in decreasing appetite and food intake. It was then discovered that the blockage of the CB receptor represented a new pharmacological target. The first specific CB receptor antagonist / inverse agonist was rimonabant, discovered in 1994. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20207596 | 1,086,093 |
1,817,083 | In 1977 JARE approached Yosio Suzuki, who had been involved with JARE drilling in the early 1970s, and asked him to design a method of placing 1.5m of dynamite below 50 m in the Antarctic ice sheet, in order to perform some seismic surveys. Suzuki designed two drills, ID-140 and ID-140A, to drill holes with 140 mm diameter, intended to reach 150 m in depth. The most unusual feature of these drills was their anti-torque mechanism, which consisted of a spiral gear system that transferred rotary motion to small cutting bits that cut vertical grooves in the borehole wall. Fins in the drill above these side cutters fit into the grooves, preventing rotation of the drill. The only difference between the two models was the direction of rotation of the side cutters: in ID-140 the cutting edge of the bits cut upwards into the borehole wall; in ID-140A the edge cut downwards. Testing these drills in a cold laboratory in late 1978 revealed that the outer barrel was not perfectly straight; the deviation was large enough to make it impossible to drill without a heavy load. The jacket was replaced with a machined steel jacket, but further testing made it clear that the auger was ineffective at transporting the chips upwards. A third jacket, rolled from a thin steel sheet, was made, and the drill was sent to Antarctica with JARE XX for the 1978–1979 drilling season; this jacket was too weak and was crushed in the first drilling run, so the second jacket had to be used. Despite the poor cuttings clearance, a 63 m deep hole was drilled, but at that depth the drill became stuck in the hole when the anti-torque fins lost alignment with the grooves cut for them. In 1979 Kazuyuko Shiraishi was appointed to lead the JARE 21 drilling program, and worked with Suzuki to build and test a new drill, ILTS-140, to try to improve the chip transportation. The barrel for the test drill was made of a pipe formed from a sheet of steel, and this immediately solved the problem: the seam formed by the joining of the sheet's edges acted as a rib to drive the cuttings up the auger flights. In retrospect it was apparent to Suzuki and Shiraishi that the third jacket built for ID-140 would have solved the problem had it been strong enough, as it also had a lengthwise seam. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=56017314 | 1,816,048 |
4,941 | The sole foreign customer for the Tomcat was the Imperial Iranian Air Force, during the reign of the last Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. In the early 1970s, the Imperial Iranian Air Force (IIAF) was searching for an advanced fighter, specifically one capable of intercepting Soviet MiG-25 reconnaissance flights. After a visit of U.S. President Richard Nixon to Iran in 1972, during which Iran was offered the latest in American military technology, the IIAF selected and initiated acquisition of the F-14 Tomcat, but offered McDonnell Douglas the chance to demonstrate its F-15 Eagle. The US Navy and Grumman Corporation arranged competitive demonstrations of the Eagle and the Tomcat at Andrews AFB for the Shah and high-ranking officers, and in January 1974 Iran placed an order for 30 F-14s and 424 AIM-54 Phoenix missiles, initiating Project "Persian King", worth US$300 million. A few months later, this order was increased to a total of 80 Tomcats and 714 Phoenix missiles as well as spare parts and replacement engines for 10 years, complete armament package, and support infrastructure (including construction of the Khatami Air Base near Isfahan). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11719 | 4,939 |
705,959 | In the United States hearing is one of the health outcomes measure by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), a survey research program conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics. It examines health and nutritional status of adults and children in the United States. While there is no perfect way to pinpoint hearing loss from excessive noise, researchers look for audiometric notches in a hearing test—dips in the ability to hear certain frequencies—as signs of possible NIHL. As of 2011 data, approximately 24% adults age 20–69 in the United States has an audiometric notch. This data identified differences in NIHL based on age, gender, race/ethnicity, and whether or not a person is exposed to noise at work. Among people aged 20–29, 19.2% had an audiometric notch, compared to 27.3% of people aged 50–59. Males in general had a notch more often than females, regardless of occupational noise exposure, for both unilateral and bilateral audiometric notches. An epidemiological study of 6557 automotive manufacturing workers in China (median age 28 years old) reported that in 62% of the settings where noise exposures were evaluated, levels exceeded the recommended level of 85 dBA. The prevalence of hearing loss was 41% among auto part manufacturing workers, followed by 31% of power train workers and 24% in automotive manufacturing. Across job categories, the highest prevalence rate was observed among welders, of 53%. The prevalence rates were associated with noise levels and the workers' cumulative noise exposure. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=6894544 | 705,590 |
908,783 | Early in the development of DTI based tractography, a number of researchers pointed out a flaw in the diffusion tensor model. The tensor analysis assumes that there is a single ellipsoid in each imaging voxel— as if all of the axons traveling through a voxel traveled in exactly the same direction. This is often true, but it can be estimated that in more than 30% of the voxels in a standard resolution brain image, there are at least two different neural tracts traveling in different directions that pass through each other. In the classic diffusion ellipsoid tensor model, the information from the crossing tract just appears as noise or unexplained decreased anisotropy in a given voxel. David Tuch was among the first to describe a solution to this problem. The idea is best understood by conceptually placing a kind of geodesic dome around each image voxel. This icosahedron provides a mathematical basis for passing a large number of evenly spaced gradient trajectories through the voxel—each coinciding with one of the apices of the icosahedron. Basically, we are now going to look into the voxel from a large number of different directions (typically 40 or more). We use ""n"-tuple" tessellations to add more evenly spaced apices to the original icosahedron (20 faces)—an idea that also had its precedents in paleomagnetism research several decades earlier. We just want to know which direction lines turn up the maximum anisotropic diffusion measures. If there is a single tract, there will be just two maxima pointing in opposite directions. If two tracts cross in the voxel, there will be two pairs of maxima, and so on. We can still use tensor math to use the maxima to select groups of gradients to package into several different tensor ellipsoids in the same voxel, or use more complex higher rank tensors analyses, or we can do a true "model free" analysis that just picks the maxima and go on about doing the tractography. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2574377 | 908,304 |
1,592,682 | "Xanthomonas arboricola" has an extraordinarily destructive potential when infecting crops. It is the most devastating blight on walnut, and can cause up to 100% yield loss if not properly managed. Its host range threatens stone fruits and other nuts. Epidemics have been reported in countries such as The United States, Iran, Turkey, and Italy. These outbreaks are not limited to just these countries, and without extensive epidemiological knowledge, it could spread with devastating effects. Through disease forecasting efforts, "X. arboricola" is known to have its highest virulence and growth rate at around 30 degrees Celsius. Temperature in addition to understanding regional humidity, could help prevent future epidemics in agriculture. Less moisture on the plants, and slightly cooler temperatures can hinder both the dispersal and growth of "X. arboricola". In Australia an estimated 3.1 million AUD were lost on average due to yield losses from "prunus" "spp." in years with pathogen prevalence. The pathogen’s capability to survive in woody tissue over winter, or after plant death proves a major challenge for plant pathologists to find an effective solution. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11291959 | 1,591,785 |
631,855 | The "thought variant" policy may have been introduced for publicity, rather than as a real attempt to define the sort of fiction Tremaine was looking for; the early "thought variant" stories were not always very original or well executed. Ashley describes the first, Nat Schachner's "Ancestral Voices", as "not amongst Schachner's best"; the second, "Colossus", by Donald Wandrei, was not a new idea, but was energetically written. Over the succeeding issues, it became apparent that Tremaine was genuinely willing to publish material that would have fallen foul of editorial taboos elsewhere. He serialized Charles Fort's "Lo!", a nonfiction work about strange and inexplicable phenomena, in eight parts between April and November 1934, in an attempt to stimulate new ideas for stories. The best-remembered story of 1934 is probably Jack Williamson's "The Legion of Space", which began serialization in April, but other notable stories include Murray Leinster's "Sidewise in Time", which was the first genre science fiction story to use the idea of alternate history; "The Bright Illusion", by C.L. Moore, and "Twilight", by John W. Campbell, writing as Don A. Stuart. "Twilight", which was written in a more literary and poetic style than Campbell's earlier space opera stories, was particularly influential, and Tremaine encouraged other writers to produce similar stories. One such was Raymond Z. Gallun's "Old Faithful", which appeared in the December 1934 issue and was sufficiently popular that Gallun wrote a sequel, "Son of Old Faithful", published the following July. Space opera continued to be popular, though, and two overlapping space opera novels were running in "Astounding" late in the year: "The Skylark of Valeron" by E.E. Smith, and "The Mightiest Machine", by Campbell. By the end of the year, "Astounding" was the clear leader of the small field of sf magazines. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=18932608 | 631,517 |
1,194,887 | Vibrational spectroscopy, or infrared (IR) spectroscopy, allows for the identification of functional groups and, due to its low expense and robustness, is often used in teaching labs and the real-time monitoring of reaction progress in difficult to reach environments (high pressure, high temperature, gas phase, phase boundaries). Molecular vibrations are quantized in an analogous manner to electronic wavefunctions, with integer increases in frequency leading to higher energy states. The difference in energy between vibrational states is nearly constant, often falling in the energy range corresponding to infrared photons, because at normal temperatures molecular vibrations closely resemble harmonic oscillators. It allows for the crude identification of functional groups in organic molecules, but spectra are complicated by vibrational coupling between nearby functional groups in complex molecules. Therefore, its utility in structure determination is usually limited to simple molecules. Further complicating matters is that some vibrations do not induce a change in the molecular dipole moment and will not be observable with standard IR absorption spectroscopy. These can instead be probed through Raman spectroscopy, but this technique requires a more elaborate apparatus and is less commonly performed. However, as Raman spectroscopy relies on light scattering it can be performed on microscopic samples such as the surface of a heterogeneous catalyst, a phase boundary, or on a one microliter (µL) subsample within a larger liquid volume. The applications of vibrational spectroscopy are often used by astronomers to study the composition of molecular gas clouds, extrasolar planetary atmospheres, and planetary surfaces. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11304514 | 1,194,247 |
1,104,361 | The TL is the theoretical ideal, and one of the most complex constructions, with which to load a moving-coil drive unit. The most common and practical implementation is to fit a drive unit to the end of a long duct that is usually open at the far end. In practice, the duct is folded inside a conventional shaped cabinet, so that the open end of the duct appears as a vent on the speaker cabinet. There are many ways in which the duct can be folded and the line is often tapered in cross section to avoid parallel internal surfaces that encourage standing waves. Some speaker designs also use a spiral or elliptic spiral shaped duct, usually with one speaker element in the front or two speaker elements arranged one on each side of the cabinet. Depending upon the drive unit, and quantity and various physical properties of absorbent material, the amount of taper will be adjusted during the design process to tune the duct to remove irregularities in its response. The internal partitioning provides substantial bracing for the entire structure, reducing cabinet flexing and colouration. The inside faces of the duct or line, are treated with an absorbent material to provide the correct termination with frequency to load the drive unit as a TL. The enclosure behaves like an infinite baffle, potentially absorbing most or all of the speaker unit's rear energies. A theoretically perfect TL would absorb all frequencies entering the line from the rear of the drive unit but remains theoretical, as it would have to be infinitely long. The physical constraints of the real world, demand that the length of the line must often be less than 4 meters before the cabinet becomes too large for any practical applications, so not all the rear energy can be absorbed by the line. In a realized TL, only the upper bass is TL loaded in the true sense of the term (i.e. fully absorbed); the low bass is allowed to freely radiate from the vent in the cabinet. The line therefore effectively works as a low pass filter, another crossover point in fact, achieved acoustically by the line and its absorbent filling. Below this “crossover point” the low bass is loaded by the column of air formed by the length of the line. The length is specified to reverse the phase of the rear output of the drive unit as it exits the vent. This energy combines with the output of the bass unit, extending its response and effectively creating a second driver. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=44224558 | 1,103,798 |
1,316,507 | Nanocellulose based renewable material has a combination of high surface area with high material strength. It is chemically inert and possesses versatile hydrophilic surface chemistry. These properties make them a most promising nanomaterial for usage as a membrane and filter in water purification systems to remove bacterial and chemical contaminants from polluted water. It is noted that nanocellulose material has high potential in water purification technology. Different types of nanocellulose materials available for water purification system includes Cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) and Cellulose nanofibrils (CNF). These are the rod-like nanomaterials whose size ranges from 100 to 2000 nm with the diameter of 2 to 20 nm. Those length and diameter are mostly based on origin and preparation route for the synthesis of nanocellulose. Those nanocellulose materials are used to remove organic pollutants in water such as dyes, oils and pesticides traces present in water. Currently, fully biobased membrane using nanocellulose are fabricated which is used to remove metal ions such as Cu2+, Fe2+ etc, sulfates, fluorides and other organic compounds. This bio-based nanocellulose filter has more advantage to conventional filters. Nanocellulose is prepared by various methods such as sulphuric acid hydrolysis and mechanical grinding method. Water purification system is mainly based on the principle of absorption. For the absorption of anionic metal species, the nanocellulose materials are functionalized with a positive charged cationic group. Similarly, for the absorption of cationic metal species, the nanocellulose material is functionalized with the negatively charged anionic group. Nanocellulose based materials have limitation in cost for large-scale production and its specificity. Current research is based on the synthesis of hybrid nanocellulose material in combination with several other nanomaterials for the improvement of adsorption capacity. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=55566398 | 1,315,782 |
1,432,785 | Dr. Gill Pratt, Program Manager DARPA Robotics Challenge described DARPA and its goals with the Robotics Challenge:DARPA's role is to spur innovation. And we do it by focused, short term efforts. We pick things that are not impossible, but also not very low risk. So we take very high risk gambles, and those risks have tremendous payoffs. So if we’re successful it means that these robots are actually going to be able to make a difference. In particular, in disaster scenarios making society more resilient. The lesson of the original challenge [DARPA Grand Challenge - driverless cars] is that persistence pays. It’s important if you know the technology is almost there and you can sort of see the light at the end of the tunnel, a little bit of persistence will pay off. What I’m hoping for in the trials is that some of the teams will score some points. I don’t think that any team is going to score all the points that there are. Maybe no teams will even score half the points that there are. But I think some teams will do moderately well. My expectation is that the robots are going to be slow. What we’re looking for right now is for the teams to just do as well as roughly that one year old child. If we can get there, then we think that we have good reason to believe that some of these teams with continued persistence for another year will actually be able to demonstrate robots that show the utility that these things might have in a real disaster scenario. DARPA is in the innovation business, not in the development business. So, what we do is we wait for technology to be almost ready for something big to happen, and then we add a focused effort to catalyze the something. It doesn’t mean that we take it all the way into a system that’s deployed or to the marketplace. We rely on the commercial sector to do that. But we provide the impetus, the extra push the technology needs to do that. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=37423155 | 1,431,981 |
19,642 | In the 1962 Marsh Chapel Experiment, which was run by Pahnke at the Harvard Divinity School under the supervision of Timothy Leary, almost all of the graduate degree divinity student volunteers who received psilocybin reported profound religious experiences. One of the participants was religious scholar Huston Smith, author of several textbooks on comparative religion; he later described his experience as "the most powerful cosmic homecoming I have ever experienced." In a 25-year followup to the experiment, all of the subjects given psilocybin described their experience as having elements of "a genuine mystical nature and characterized it as one of the high points of their spiritual life". Psychedelic researcher Rick Doblin considered the study partially flawed due to incorrect implementation of the double-blind procedure, and several imprecise questions in the mystical experience questionnaire. Nevertheless, he said that the study cast "a considerable doubt on the assertion that mystical experiences catalyzed by drugs are in any way inferior to non-drug mystical experiences in both their immediate content and long-term effects". This sentiment was echoed by psychiatrist William A. Richards, who in a 2007 review stated "[psychedelic] mushroom use may constitute one technology for evoking revelatory experiences that are similar, if not identical, to those that occur through so-called spontaneous alterations of brain chemistry." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38468 | 19,634 |
1,092,831 | Barabási is one of the founders of network medicine, a term he coined in a scientific article entitled "Network Medicine – From Obesity to the "Diseasome", published in The New England Journal of Medicine, in 2007. His work introduced the concept of diseasome, or disease network, showing how diseases are connected through shared genes, capturing their common genetic roots. He subsequently pioneered the use of large patient data, linking the roots of disease comorbidity to molecular networks. A key concept of network medicine is his discovery that genes associated with the same disease are located in the same network neighborhood. This discovery lead to the concept of disease module, currently used to aid drug discovery, drug design, and the development of biomarkers, as he outlined in 2012 in a TEDMED talk. Barabási's work inspired the founding of the Channing Division of Network Medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Network Medicine Institute and Global Alliance, representing 33 universities and institutions around the world committed to advancing the field. Barabási's work in network medicine has led to multiple experimentally falsifiable predictions, helping identify experimentally validated novel pathways in asthma, predicting novel mechanism of action for rosmarinic acid, and novel therapeutic functions of existing drugs (drug repurposing). The products of network medicine are in the clinique, helping doctors decide if rheumatoid arthritis patients respond to anti-TNF therapy. During COVID Barabási led a major collaboration involving researchers from Harvard University, Boston University and The Broad Institute, to predict and experimentally test the efficacy for COVID patients of 6,000 approved drugs. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1554371 | 1,092,271 |
305,234 | In 1965, Wenyuan wrote a thinly veiled attack on the deputy mayor of Beijing, Wu Han. Over the six months that followed, on behalf of ideological purity, Mao and his supporters purged many public figures, Liu Shao-chi among them. By the middle of 1966, Mao had not only put himself back into the centre of things, he had initiated what is known as the Cultural Revolution, a mass and army-supported action against the Communist Party apparatus itself on behalf of a renovated conception of Communism. Chaos continued throughout China for three years, particularly due to the agitations of the Red Guards until the CCP's ninth congress in 1969, when Lin Biao emerged as the primary military figure, and the presumptive heir to Mao in the party. In the months that followed, Lin Biao restored domestic order, while diplomatic efforts by Zhou Enlai cooled border tensions with the Soviet Union. Lin Biao died under mysterious circumstances in 1971. Mao's final years saw a notable thaw in the People's Republic's relations with the United States, the period of "Ping Pong Diplomacy". Mao died in 1976, and almost immediately his ideological heirs, the Gang of Four lost a power struggle to more "pragmatic" figures such as Deng Xiaoping. The term "pragmatic" is often used in media accounts of these factional struggles but should not be confused with the philosophy of pragmatism proper. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=47246185 | 305,071 |
551,824 | The driving force in designing new polymers is the prospect of replacing other materials of construction, especially metals, by using lightweight and heat-resistant polymers. The advantages of lightweight polymers include: high strength, solvent and chemical resistance, contributing to a variety of potential uses, such as electrical and engine parts on automotive and aircraft components, coatings on cookware, coating and circuit boards for electronic and microelectronic devices, etc. Polymer chains based on aromatic rings are desirable due to high bond strengths and rigid polymer chains. High molecular weight and crosslinking are desirable for the same reason. Strong dipole-dipole, hydrogen bond interactions and crystallinity also improve heat resistance. To obtain desired mechanical strength, sufficiently high molecular weights are necessary, however, decreased solubility is a problem. One approach to solve this problem is to introduce of some flexibilizing linkages, such as isopropylidene, C=O, and into the rigid polymer chain by using an appropriate monomer or comonomer. Another approach involves the synthesis of reactive telechelic oligomers containing functional end groups capable of reacting with each other, polymerization of the oligomer gives higher molecular weight, referred to as chain extension. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1786719 | 551,536 |
934,545 | Perhaps the first of these objective systems was the development of the cent as a definitive unit of pitch by phonetician and mathematician Alexander J. Ellis (1885). Ellis made notable contributions to the foundations of comparative musicology and ultimately ethnomusicology with the creation of the cents system; in fact, the ethnomusicologist Hornbostel “declared Ellis the ‘true founder of comparative scientific musicology.’” Prior to this invention, pitches were described by using measurements of frequency, or vibrations per second. However, this method was not reliable, “since the same interval has a different reading each time it occurs across the whole pitch spectrum.” On the other hand, the cents system allowed any interval to have a fixed numerical representation, regardless of its specific pitch level. Ellis used his system, which divided the octave into 1200 cents (100 cents in each Western semitone), as a means of analyzing and comparing scale systems of different musics. He had recognized that global pitch and scale systems were not naturally occurring in the world, but rather “artifices” created by humans and their “organized preferences,” and they differed in various locations. In his article in the "Journal of the Society of Arts and Sciences", he mentions different countries such as India, Japan, and China, and notes how the pitch systems varied “not only [in] the absolute pitch of each note, but also necessarily the intervals between them.” From his experiences with interviewing native musicians and observing the variations in scales across the locations, he concludes that “there is no practical way of arriving at the real pitch of a musical scale, when it cannot be heard as played by a native musician” and even then, “we only obtain that particular musician’s tuning of the scale.” Ellis's study is also an early example of comparative musicological fieldwork (see Fieldwork). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=80077 | 934,053 |
1,122,463 | The oral ingestion of live bacterial cell colonies has been proposed and is currently in therapy for the modulation of intestinal microflora, prevention of diarrheal diseases, treatment of "H. Pylori" infections, atopic inflammations, lactose intolerance and immune modulation, amongst others. The proposed mechanism of action is not fully understood but is believed to have two main effects. The first is the nutritional effect, in which the bacteria compete with toxin producing bacteria. The second is the sanitary effect, which stimulates resistance to colonization and stimulates immune response. The oral delivery of bacterial cultures is often a problem because they are targeted by the immune system and often destroyed when taken orally. Artificial cells help address these issues by providing mimicry into the body and selective or long term release thus increasing the viability of bacteria reaching the gastrointestinal system. In addition, live bacterial cell encapsulation can be engineered to allow diffusion of small molecules including peptides into the body for therapeutic purposes. Membranes that have proven successful for bacterial delivery include cellulose acetate and variants of alginate. Additional uses that have arosen from encapsulation of bacterial cells include protection against challenge from "M. Tuberculosis" and upregulation of Ig secreting cells from the immune system. The technology is limited by the risk of systemic infections, adverse metabolic activities and the risk of gene transfer. However, the greater challenge remains the delivery of sufficient viable bacteria to the site of interest. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4630125 | 1,121,889 |
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