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539,028 | A law passed by the Congress of the United States, under the pressure from cellular telephone interests, prohibited scanners sold after a certain date from receiving frequencies allocated to the Cellular Radio Service. The law was later amended to make it illegal to modify radios to receive those frequencies, and also to sell radios that could be easily modified to do so. This law remains in effect even though no cellular subscribers still use analog technology. There are Canadian and European unblocked versions available, but these are illegal to import into the U.S. Frequencies used by early cordless phones at 43.720–44.480 MHz, 46.610–46.930 MHz, and 902.000–906.000 MHz can be picked up by many scanners. The proliferation of scanners led most cordless phone manufacturers to produce cordless handsets operating on a more secure 2.4 GHz system using spread-spectrum technology. Certain states in the United States such as New York and Florida, prohibit the use of scanners in a vehicle unless the operator has a radio license issued from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) (Amateur Radio, etc.) or the operator's job requires the use of a scanner in a vehicle (e.g., police, fire, utilities). Many scanner user manuals include a warning saying that, while it is legal to listen to almost every transmission a scanner can receive, but there are some that persons should not intentionally listen to (such as telephone conversations, pager transmissions, or any scrambled or encrypted transmissions) under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and that modifications to do so are illegal. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1035562 | 538,749 |
384,161 | At a hearing in Washington D.C. on 28 July 2015, and a press release on the same day the NTSB cited inadequate design safeguards, poor pilot training, lack of rigorous FAA oversight and a potentially anxious co-pilot without recent flight experience as important factors in the 2014 crash. They determined that the co-pilot, who died in the accident, prematurely unlocked a movable tail section some ten seconds after SpaceShip Two fired its rocket engine and was breaking the sound barrier, resulting in the craft's breaking apart. But the Board also found that the Scaled Composites unit of Northrop Grumman, which designed and flew the prototype space tourism vehicle, did not properly prepare for potential human slip-ups by providing a fail-safe system that could have guarded against such premature deployment. “A single-point human failure has to be anticipated,” board member Robert Sumwalt said. Instead, Scaled Composites “put all their eggs in the basket of the pilots doing it correctly.” | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1021879 | 383,966 |
311,365 | Once the initial scrap charge has been melted down, another bucket of scrap can be charged into the furnace, although EAF development is moving towards single-charge designs. The scrap-charging and meltdown process can be repeated as many times as necessary to reach the required heat weight - the number of charges is dependent on the density of scrap; lower-density scrap means more charges. After all scrap charges have completely melted, refining operations take place to check and correct the steel chemistry and superheat the melt above its freezing temperature in preparation for tapping. More slag formers are introduced and more oxygen is blown into the bath, burning out impurities such as silicon, sulfur, phosphorus, aluminium, manganese, and calcium, and removing their oxides to the slag. Removal of carbon takes place after these elements have burnt out first, as they have a greater affinity for oxygen. Metals that have a poorer affinity for oxygen than iron, such as nickel and copper, cannot be removed through oxidation and must be controlled through scrap chemistry alone, such as introducing the direct reduced iron and pig iron mentioned earlier. A foaming slag is maintained throughout, and often overflows the furnace to pour out of the slag door into the slag pit. Temperature sampling and chemical sampling take place via automatic lances. Oxygen and carbon can be automatically measured via special probes that dip into the steel, but for all other elements, a "chill" sample — a small, solidified sample of the steel — is analysed on an arc-emission spectrometer. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1425422 | 311,197 |
1,134,759 | Prior to the development of the current Earth Observing System, the foundations for this program were laid in the early 1960s and 1970s. TIROS-1, the very first full scale, low orbit weather satellite. The primary objective of TIROS-1 was to explore television infrared observation as a method of monitoring and studying the surface of Earth. Critical to the development of the satellites used today, TIROS-1 was a pioneer program that kickstarted NASA's ability to use experimental instruments and data collection methods to study meteorology worldwide. Crucially, this new information gathered by TIROS-1 would allow meteorologists and scientists to observe large scale weather events. In doing so, they would be able to answer questions such as "should we evacuate the coast because of the hurricane?". Following TIROS, the experimental Applications Technology Satellite (ATS) program was developed. The main objective of these satellites were weather predictions and the study of the environment of space. Significantly, this program focused on launching satellites to orbit geo-synchronously and evaluate the effectiveness of this orbit pattern in observing the Earth. ATS-3, the longest-lasting mission, saw a life span of over 20 years. It was the first satellite to capture colour images from space and acted significantly as a medium of communications. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=471278 | 1,134,166 |
1,254,341 | From 1946 to 1948, Lattes launched on his main research line by studying cosmic rays. He travelled to England arriving in February 1946, to join his teacher Occhialini who had arrived the previous year, to work in the group directed by Cecil Powell at the H. H. Wills Physics Laboratory of the University of Bristol. There, he improved on the nuclear emulsion used by Powell by adding more boron to it. In 1947, he collaborated with Powell, Occhialini and Hugh Muirheadin the experimental discovery of the pion (or pi meson). In the same year, he together with Powell and Occhialini determined the new particle's mass. In April 1947 he visited a weather station on top of the 5,200-meter high Chacaltaya mountain in Bolivia, using photographic plates to register the rays, and reveal more 'pion decay events'. A year later, working with Eugene H. Gardner (1913-1950) at UC Berkeley, Lattes was able to detect the artificial production of pions in the lab's cyclotron, by bombarding carbon atoms with alpha particles. He was just 24 years old. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1586190 | 1,253,660 |
1,725,905 | Based on current evidence, the term of "endothelium-derived hyperpolarising factor" should represent a mechanism rather than a specific factor. The mechanism(s) of endothelium-dependent hyperpolarization (i.e., EDHF-mediated relaxation) seems to be heterogeneous depending on several factors (e.g., size and vascular bed), surrounding environment (oxidative stress, hypercholesterolemia) and demand (compensatory). Different endothelial mediators or pathways involved in EDHF-mediated relaxation may also work simultaneously and/or substitute each other. It implies a reasonable physiological sense, although to some extent and when EDHF acts as backup mechanism for endothelium-dependent relaxation in the present of compromised NO contribution. Thus, alternatives for EDHF-typed responses (HO, K etc.) will provide a guarantee for compensation of endothelial function. However, once the involvement of a certain endothelium-derived vasodilator for a given vascular bed is confirmed, it is preferred that they be described by their proper name (i.e., endothelium-derived HO, or CNP), and no longer be termed as “EDHF”. Although the role of EDHF in the genesis of Cardiovascular Disease remains to be further elucidated, the EDHF contribution and its importance at the level of small arteries delivers a theoretical opportunity to control systemic blood pressure. There is an increasing experimental evidence to suggest that treatment of the EDHF system could provide a means to control blood pressure and blood flow to target organs in compatible way achieved by manipulations of NO system. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3225221 | 1,724,934 |
1,491,363 | Davison attended an academically challenging junior high school in New Jersey and became especially interested in science. In 1940, aged 15, she was granted a scholarship to study in an advanced placement program at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools where she finished high school and the first two years of college, followed by completion of her degree at the University of Chicago, where she earned a Bachelor of Philosophy degree in 1944, a Bachelor of Science degree in 1946, and Doctor of Medicine degree in 1948, aged 23. Davison, only 19 years of age, had to wait 9 months in order to attend the university because their quota had already been filled for that semester. During that time only 3 out of 65 students were to be women in each class accepted. She married Donald Adams Rowley, also a physician, the day after graduating from medical school. He then went on to become a distinguished pathologist later in life. In 1951, both Janet and Donald Rowley completed internships at the United States Public Health Service's Marine Hospital in Chicago. Rowley continued her work throughout Chicago and worked in a clinic for children with Down Syndrome. Rowley worked part-time until the youngest of her four sons was 12 years old. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1532097 | 1,490,524 |
820,720 | In May 2009, DTN was deployed to a payload on board the ISS. NASA and BioServe Space Technologies, a research group at the University of Colorado, have been continuously testing DTN on two Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus (CGBA) payloads. CGBA-4 and CGBA-5 serve as computational and communications platforms which are remotely controlled from BioServe's Payload Operations Control Center (POCC) in Boulder, CO. In October 2012 ISS Station commander Sunita Williams remotely operated Mocup (Meteron Operations and Communications Prototype), a "cat-sized" Lego Mindstorms robot fitted with a BeagleBoard computer and webcam, located in the European Space Operations Centre in Germany in an experiment using DTN. These initial experiments provide insight into future missions where DTN will enable the extension of networks into deep space to explore other planets and solar system points of interest. Seen as necessary for space exploration, DTN enables timeliness of data return from operating assets which results in reduced risk and cost, increased crew safety, and improved operational awareness and science return for NASA and additional space agencies. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1391825 | 820,279 |
312,123 | The 5-inch HARP guns were based on a modified 120 mm T123 service gun and used by the Ballistic Research Laboratory before the HARP program in order to fulfill the needs of the U.S. military's Meteorological Rocket Network, a program dedicated to collecting atmospheric wind and temperature data. They were designed to carry a 0.9 kg payload to an altitude of 65 km, which consisted of radar reflective chaff to collect wind data and small radiosondes that returned radio telemetry of information like temperature and humidity as they drifted back down under large parachutes. This initial design for the 5-inch HARP gun reached an altitude of 130,000 ft when tested in 1961. The 5-inch L70 smoothbore guns was the first vertical firing gun system developed under Project HARP. In 1962, a 10-ft extension was implemented for the 5-inch HARP gun by welding a second barrel section to the first, allowing it to launch projectiles at muzzle velocities of 1554 m/s (5,100 ft/sec) to altitudes of 73,100 m (240,000 ft). Throughout HARP, further modifications were made to the 5-inch gun, such as adding three sets of stiffening wires to maintain barrel alignment. Due to their small size, they were easily transported from their initial site at Aberdeen Proving Ground to different launch sites across North America and the Caribbean. One of the 5-inch HARP guns was acquired by the Atmospheric Sciences Laboratory (which consolidated into the U.S. Army Research Laboratory in 1992) to measure the stratosphere's winds. The 5-inch gun was deemed successful as a low-cost launch system, costing only around $300 to $500 per launch. By May 1966, a total of the HARP program's 5-inch guns launched 162 flights at Wallops Island, 47 flights at White Sands Missile Range, 30 flights at Barbados, and 24 flights at Fort Greeley. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=292089 | 311,955 |
1,248,627 | In 1962, Paul Harrington introduced a metal spinal system of instrumentation that assisted with straightening the spine, as well as holding it rigid while fusion took place. The original (now obsolete) Harrington rod operated on a ratchet system, attached by hooks to the spine at the top and bottom of the curvature that when cranked would distract, or straighten, the curve. The Harrington rod represented a major advance in the field, as it obviated the need for prolonged casting, allowing patients greater mobility in the postoperative period and significantly reducing the quality of life burden of fusion surgery. Additionally, as the first system to apply instrumentation directly to the spine, the Harrington rod was the precursor to most modern spinal instrumentation systems. A major shortcoming of the Harrington method was it failed to produce a posture wherein the skull would be in proper alignment with the pelvis, and it did not address rotational deformity. As a result, unfused parts of the spine would try to compensate for this in the effort to stand up straight. As the person aged, there would be increased wear and tear, early-onset arthritis, disc degeneration, muscular stiffness, and pain with eventual reliance on painkillers, further surgery, inability to work full-time, and disability. "Flatback" became the medical name for a related complication, especially for those who had lumbar scoliosis. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=51305509 | 1,247,951 |
2,630 | Additional modernization and enhancements are under development, with funding currently extending to 2031; upgrades currently being tested include new sensors and antennas, long range advanced infrared search and track (AIRST), and more durable stealth coatings. Other enhancements being developed include all-aspect IRST functionality for the Missile Launch Detector (MLD), manned-unmanned teaming capability, and cockpit improvements. The planned Multifunction Advanced Data Link (MADL) integration was cut due to development delays and lack of proliferation among USAF platforms. Although the Thales Scorpion helmet-mounted cuing system (HMCS) was successfully tested on the F-22 in 2013, funding cuts delayed its deployment to the fleet. Lockheed Martin has also proposed upgrading all Block 20 training aircraft to Block 30/35 in order to increase numbers available for combat. The F-22 has also been used to test technology for its eventual successor from the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program; some advances are expected to be applied to the F-22 as well. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=66299 | 2,630 |
2,091,017 | Studies from India have identified a riboflavin carrier protein (RCP) present in bird (e.g., chicken) eggs, which is considered to be specific for riboflavin, and is essential for normal embryological development. If this protein is rendered ineffective (e.g., by immuno-neutralization) by treatment of the bird with a specific antibody, then embryonic development ceases and the embryo dies. A genetic mutant lacking RCP is likewise infertile. A homologous protein, which can be rendered ineffective by the antibody to pure chicken riboflavin carrier protein, has been shown to occur in several mammalian species, including two species of monkeys, and also in humans. Very recent studies have suggested that circulating RCP levels and the immunohistochemical staining of RCP in biopsy specimens may provide new markers for "breast cancer diagnosis and prognosis". Termination of pregnancy has been demonstrated by immuno-neutralization of RCP in monkeys. There remains some controversy over the roles of RCP, however, the other, less specific riboflavin binders in blood, including gamma-gobulins, also seem to play an important role. These studies have provided an intriguing example of the role of specific vitamin-transporting mechanisms, designed to ensure that the vitamin needs of the developing embryo will be efficiency met. Further evidence of the special needs of developing embryos has been provided by the demonstration that riboflavin analogs can cause teratogenic changes, even in the absence of any detectable damage to maternal tissues. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=6851731 | 2,089,814 |
1,744,994 | Remediation may occur through the creation of a national standardized data base where local governments and companies can report the quantity and chemical concentration of the road salts that are released for de-icing purposes. This would help regulate and monitor the ions being released into the environment so nearby freshwater sources can be monitored for exposure more carefully. There also needs to be a standardized reference developed by reputable scientists that shows what the average expected levels of salt ions for a normal freshwater ecosystem are. A Canadian study suggested the use of halophyte plants to help remediate the salt exposure within the soils and prevent its infiltration into ground water. Halophytes are plants that have a high salt tolerance, and the purpose of the study was to see if they could be planted around areas with high road salt usages to prevent infiltration into water sources. The results showed that when the surrounding soil was tested, 11% of Cl ions and 87% of Na ions were retained within the top soil layers when halophytes were present. This shows potential in the prevention of road salt runoff from accessing freshwater sources. If halophytes were potentially planted around freshwater sources maybe salt ions will be less likely to runoff into freshwater sources and salinity can be limited or prevented. In regards to other harmful human practices such as mining, conservationists and volunteers are planting species of native Appalachian trees and plants on sites used previously for mining activities. Replanting these native plants will hopefully remediate the land that was destroyed by the mountain top mining practices and increase the biodiversity in Appalachia. The red spruce was one native species that was reintroduced due to its important ability to filter and capture water from a deep organic layer within its surrounding soil. 90% of the red spruce trees planted survived, which shows promise towards remediation efforts through the use of native species. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=63996171 | 1,744,010 |
45,586 | Layer silicates, such as the clay minerals and the micas, are very common, and often are formed by horizontal cross-linking of metasilicate chains or planar condensation of smaller units. An example is kaolinite []; in many of these minerals cation and anion replacement is common, so that for example tetrahedral Si may be replaced by Al, octahedral Al by Mg, and by . Three-dimensional framework aluminosilicates are structurally very complex; they may be conceived of as starting from the structure, but having replaced up to one-half of the Si atoms with Al, they require more cations to be included in the structure to balance charge. Examples include feldspars (the most abundant minerals on the Earth), zeolites, and ultramarines. Many feldspars can be thought of as forming part of the ternary system . Their lattice is destroyed by high pressure prompting Al to undergo six-coordination rather than four-coordination, and this reaction destroying feldspars may be a reason for the Mohorovičić discontinuity, which would imply that the crust and mantle have the same chemical composition, but different lattices, although this is not a universally held view. Zeolites have many polyhedral cavities in their frameworks (truncated cuboctahedra being most common, but other polyhedra also are known as zeolite cavities), allowing them to include loosely bound molecules such as water in their structure. Ultramarines alternate silicon and aluminium atoms and include a variety of other anions such as , , and , but are otherwise similar to the feldspars. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27114 | 45,568 |
1,613,555 | The inaugural Android Developer Day took place at Middle East Technical University's Cultural and Convention Center in Ankara, Turkey, as an extension of a similar event, Google Developer Day. The first ADD began on May 21, 2012 and ended the following day after approximately 30 presentations between two simultaneous sessions. In addition, 120 of the roughly 700 attendees participated in 6 workshops discussing mobile technology developments and predicting future trends of its development. Some examples of topics covered in the workshops include "Areas of HTML5 usage and Reasons," "How to use Facebook and Google accounts in Apps," and "Native or Web App Which one?". The event was made possible by 3 platinum, 2 silver, and 9 product sponsors, including General Mobile Inc., Huawei, and ASELSAN. Ankara exhibits a prime location for information technology development, with a 17 major universities in the area. Networking amongst these universities and Google Developer Group Ankara motivated ADD with the intention of featuring foreign participants, ultimately enhancing the technical entrepreneurship networks forming in Ankara. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=39675788 | 1,612,650 |
116,207 | As is a very reactive alkaline earth metal and a so-called "bone seeker" that accumulates in bone-tissue due to its chemical similarity to calcium (once in the bones it can significantly damage the bone marrow, a rapidly dividing tissue), it is usually not employed in pure form in RTGs. The most common form is the perovskite Strontium titanate (SrTiO) which is chemically nigh-inert and has a high melting point. While its Mohs hardness of 5.5 has made it ill-suited as a diamond simulant, it is of sufficient hardness to withstand some forms of accidental release from its shielding without too fine dispersal of dust. The downside to using SrTiO instead of the native metal is that its production requires energy. It also reduces power density, as the TiO part of the material does not produce any decay heat. Starting from the oxide or the native metal, one pathway to obtaining SrTiO is to let it transform to Strontium hydroxide in aqueous solution, which absorbs carbon dioxide from air to become less soluble strontium carbonate. Reaction of strontium carbonate with titanium dioxide at high temperature produces the desired strontium titanate plus carbon dioxide. If desired, the strontium titanate product can then be formed into a ceramic-like aggregate via sintering. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=211485 | 116,162 |
1,170,938 | Despite his Quaker upbringing, Hodgkin was eager to join the war effort as contact with the Nazis during his stay in Germany in 1932 had removed all his pacifist beliefs. His first post was at the Royal Aircraft Establishment where he worked on issues in Aviation Medicine, such as oxygen supply for pilots at high altitude and the decompression sickness caused by nitrogen bubbles coming out of the blood. In February 1940 he transferred to the Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) where he worked on the development of centimetric radar, including the design of the Village Inn AGLT airborne gun-laying system. He was a member of E.G. Bowen's group in St Athan in South Wales and lived in a local guest house together with John Pringle and Robert Hanbury Brown. The group moved to Swanage in May 1940 where Pringle replaced Bowen as leader of the group. In March 1941, Hodgkin flew on the test flight of a Bristol Blenheim fitted with the first airborne centimetric radar system. In February and March 1944, Hodgkin visited the MIT Radiation Laboratory to help foster the interchange of information on developments in radar between Britain and America. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=353862 | 1,170,319 |
483,753 | Flight Day 9 began on 9 December 1993, but concerns about one of HST's four onboard Data Interface Units (DIUs) delayed release. Each of the DIUs transfer data between the HST's main computer, solar arrays and other critical systems. A failure on Side A of DIU #2 experienced erratic current fluctuations and some data dropouts. Controllers at the STOCC and mission control came up with a troubleshooting procedure to determine the extent of the problem. HST was transferred to internal power and disconnected from its power umbilical at 04:43 UTC. Controllers then switched channels on the DIU from the A side to the B side and then back to the A side. They determined HST should be deployed. The drum brakes on the new solar array were applied to prevent them from vibrating during future observations. Claude Nicollier then took hold of the satellite with the Canadarm. The satellite was then lifted and moved away from Endeavour. The telescope's aperture door was then reopened (a 33-minute procedure) and then released at 10:26 UTC. Commander Dick Covey and pilot Kenneth D. Bowersox fired "Endeavour"s small maneuvering jets and moved the shuttle slowly away from HST. Landing of the Shuttle occurred at Kennedy Space Center on Runway 33 at 05:26 UTC on 13 December 1993. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=504305 | 483,506 |
2,000,374 | To address the fundamental problem of scarcity of supply of organs, Tayur has collaborated with the New Jersey Sharing Network and Nevada Donor Network, among other organ procurement organizations (OPOs), to investigate behavioral approaches that will increase the consent rate from legal next of kin (NOK) of deceased individuals through video intervention. This work attracted the attention of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and was featured at the 24th Association for Multicultural Affairs in Transplantation Annual Meeting in 2016. He has studied various aspects of split liver transplantation, including ethics, learning, and decisions support to determine optimal splitting policy, in collaboration with University of California, San Francisco transplant surgeons. His research on geographic disparity, gender inequity and video nudge were discussed at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Committee on "A Fairer and More Equitable, Cost-Effective, and Transparent System of Donor Organ Procurement, Allocation, and Distribution." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=36021710 | 1,999,229 |
354,672 | Webber replaced the Toyota-bound Ralf Schumacher at Williams, and was joined by Nick Heidfeld for most of the season and Pizzonia for the final five races following injury to Heidfeld. The Williams FW27 car was aerodynamically poor due to incorrectly calibrated wind tunnels, lacked race speed and was poor starting, seeing him lose positions after qualifying well. In a pre-season test session in mid-February, he sustained a broken left-side rib and damaged rib cartilage when he did not exercise correctly prior to driving. In the first two races of the season he competed on painkillers prescribed to him by FIA medical director Gary Hartstein to manage the pain from these injuries. Webber finished third in Monaco for his first F1 podium finish and tallied points in ten races in 2005. His best start was second in Spain and qualified within the top five in the first seven rounds. Webber was involved in five race collisions and burnt his right hip in France due to heat generated by an failed external electronics box penetrating his car's cockpit. He was 10th in the Drivers' Championship with 36 points, admitting that his reputation faltered. Webber out-qualified Heidfeld nine times, beat him six times and out-qualifying Pizzonia five times that season. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=564161 | 354,489 |
8,215 | Following the Army Alpha and Army Beta tests, which was developed by psychologist Robert Yerkes in 1917 and then used in World War 1 by industrial and organizational psychologists for large-scale employee testing and selection of military personnel. Mental testing also became popular in the U.S., where it was applied to schoolchildren. The federally created National Intelligence Test was administered to 7 million children in the 1920s. In 1926, the College Entrance Examination Board created the Scholastic Aptitude Test to standardize college admissions. The results of intelligence tests were used to argue for segregated schools and economic functions, including the preferential training of Black Americans for manual labor. These practices were criticized by Black intellectuals such a Horace Mann Bond and Allison Davis. Eugenicists used mental testing to justify and organize compulsory sterilization of individuals classified as mentally retarded (now referred to as "intellectual disability"). In the United States, tens of thousands of men and women were sterilized. Setting a precedent that has never been overturned, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the constitutionality of this practice in the 1927 case "Buck v. Bell". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=22921 | 8,212 |
792,431 | All types of van der Waals forces are also strongly environment-dependent because these forces originate from interactions of induced and "instantaneous" dipoles (see Intermolecular force). The original Fritz London theory of these forces applies only in a vacuum. A more general theory of van der Waals forces in condensed media was developed by A. D. McLachlan in 1963 and included the original London's approach as a special case. The McLachlan theory predicts that van der Waals attractions in media are weaker than in vacuum and follow the "like dissolves like" rule, which means that different types of atoms interact more weakly than identical types of atoms. This is in contrast to "combinatorial rules" or Slater-Kirkwood equation applied for development of the classical force fields. The "combinatorial rules" state that the interaction energy of two dissimilar atoms (e.g., C...N) is an average of the interaction energies of corresponding identical atom pairs (i.e., C...C and N...N). According to McLachlan's theory, the interactions of particles in media can even be fully repulsive, as observed for liquid helium, however, the lack of vaporization and presence of a freezing point contradicts a theory of purely repulsive interactions. Measurements of attractive forces between different materials (Hamaker constant) have been explained by Jacob Israelachvili. For example, ""the interaction between hydrocarbons across water is about 10% of that across vacuum"". Such effects are represented in molecular dynamics through pairwise interactions that are spatially more dense in the condensed phase relative to the gas phase and reproduced once the parameters for all phases are validated to reproduce chemical bonding, density, and cohesive/surface energy. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2916615 | 792,006 |
4,250 | To make the B-2 more effective than previous bombers, many advanced and modern avionics systems were integrated into its design; these have been modified and improved following a switch to conventional warfare missions. One system is the low probability of intercept AN/APQ-181 multi-mode radar, a fully digital navigation system that is integrated with terrain-following radar and Global Positioning System (GPS) guidance, NAS-26 astro-inertial navigation system (first such system tested on the Northrop SM-62 Snark cruise missile) and a Defensive Management System (DMS) to inform the flight crew of possible threats. The onboard DMS is capable of automatically assessing the detection capabilities of identified threats and indicated targets. The DMS will be upgraded by 2021 to detect radar emissions from air defenses to allow changes to the auto-router's mission planning information while in-flight so it can receive new data quickly to plan a route that minimizes exposure to dangers. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4396 | 4,248 |
1,364,959 | Remek (then a Captain) joined the Interkosmos program in 1976; his backup was Oldřich Pelčák, the other Czechoslovak cosmonaut selected to participate with the program. During the flight, Remek experimented with the Kristall furnace on board the capsule. The mission, coinciding with the 30th anniversary of the Soviet-backed 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état, and including Remek, the son of a Czech mother and Slovak father, had propaganda value in stressing Czechoslovak-Soviet cooperation. Remek himself has not denied this although he retains pride in his voyage regardless of the circumstances. On the Soyuz 28 mission that launched 2 March 1978, he became the first cosmonaut from a country other than the Soviet Union or the United States, and with the entry of the Czech Republic into the European Union, Remek is considered to be the first astronaut from the European Union. After Remek's flight, he was celebrated in his home country with a series of receptions at factories and other civil workplaces. He was also recognized at a ceremony at Prague Castle as a guest of Gustáv Husák, then the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. On 16 March, Remek and Aleksei Gubarev, the other member of the crew, were awarded the medal Hero of the Soviet Union. Czechoslovak reaction to Remek's flight included comments about the media's inundation focused on Remek and the fact that he was only able to journey with a Soviet cosmonaut as if Remek needed a minder. One joke went: "Why didn't the Soviets send up two Czechoslovak cosmonauts? Because they would've landed in West Germany." Remek himself joked that his Soviet counterpart would slap Remek's hands off of controls if he touched anything without permission. French astronaut Jean-Loup Chrétien experienced this same behavior onboard Soyuz TM-7 in 1988. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=626707 | 1,364,203 |
914,970 | Typically found in young children and is the most common cause at this age. Generally occurs after a viral infection of adenovirus (types 3, 7, and 21), measles (rubeola), mycoplasma, CMV, influenza, and parainfluenza. Swyer-James syndrome is a rare complication of bronchiolitis obliterans caused by measles or adenovirus. Post-infectious bronchiolitis obliterans is most common in the southern hemisphere particularly in countries such as Brazil, Argentina, Australia, Chile and New Zealand. There was a large prevalence of the disease in these areas during the 1990s and early 2000s. In one hospital in Buenos Aires, the Ricardo Gutiérrez Children's hospital, the disease accounted for 14% of their inpatient respiratory population from 1993 to 2002. As such, much of the information about post-infectious bronchiolitis obliterans has come from research out of South America. The most significant risk factors for the disease are infection with adenovirus and the need for ventilator support. In contrast with another cause of bronchiolitis obliterans in children, Steven's Johnson's syndrome, post-infectious bronchiolitis obliterans tends to be a chronic but non-progressive disease. The disease can have varying impact on children and their quality of life, which has been studied by lung function tests, as well as their exercise tolerance. Children with lower lung function based on their pulmonary function testing, have lower exercise tolerance, which compounds the impact of the disease on cardiovascular function as they are not able to maintain age appropriate aerobic fitness. This ultimately affects their activities of daily living (ADLs) and their quality of life going forward. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3935481 | 914,489 |
10,162 | MIT's involvement in military science surged during World War II. In 1941, Vannevar Bush was appointed head of the federal Office of Scientific Research and Development and directed funding to only a select group of universities, including MIT. Engineers and scientists from across the country gathered at MIT's Radiation Laboratory, established in 1940 to assist the British military in developing microwave radar. The work done there significantly affected both the war and subsequent research in the area. Other defense projects included gyroscope-based and other complex control systems for gunsight, bombsight, and inertial navigation under Charles Stark Draper's Instrumentation Laboratory; the development of a digital computer for flight simulations under Project Whirlwind; and high-speed and high-altitude photography under Harold Edgerton. By the end of the war, MIT became the nation's largest wartime R&D contractor (attracting some criticism of Bush), employing nearly 4000 in the Radiation Laboratory alone and receiving in excess of $100 million ($ billion in 2015 dollars) before 1946. Work on defense projects continued even after then. Post-war government-sponsored research at MIT included SAGE and guidance systems for ballistic missiles and Project Apollo. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=18879 | 10,158 |
1,025,066 | Google had announced plans to demonstrate quantum supremacy before the end of 2017 with an array of 49 superconducting qubits. In early January 2018, Intel announced a similar hardware program. In October 2017, IBM demonstrated the simulation of 56 qubits on a classical supercomputer, thereby increasing the computational power needed to establish quantum supremacy. In November 2018, Google announced a partnership with NASA that would "analyze results from quantum circuits run on Google quantum processors, and ... provide comparisons with classical simulation to both support Google in validating its hardware and establish a baseline for quantum supremacy." Theoretical work published in 2018 suggests that quantum supremacy should be possible with a "two-dimensional lattice of 7×7 qubits and around 40 clock cycles" if error rates can be pushed low enough. On June 18, 2019, Quanta Magazine suggested that quantum supremacy could happen in 2019, according to Neven's law. On September 20, 2019, the "Financial Times" reported that "Google claims to have reached quantum supremacy with an array of 54 qubits out of which 53 were functional, which were used to perform a series of operations in 200 seconds that would take a supercomputer about 10,000 years to complete". On October 23, Google officially confirmed the claims. IBM responded by suggesting some of the claims are excessive and suggested that it could take 2.5 days instead of 10,000 years, listing techniques that a classical supercomputer may use to maximize computing speed. IBM's response is relevant as the most powerful supercomputer at the time, Summit, was made by IBM. Researchers have since developed better algorithms for the sampling problem used to claim quantum supremacy, giving substantial reductions to the gap between Sycamore and classical supercomputers and even beating it. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=54452801 | 1,024,533 |
1,355,085 | Inspired by his work as an EV1 propulsion system engineer, Jeff Ronning began developing concepts for plug-in hybrids in the mid-1990s at then Delco Remy, Division of GM. EV1 prototypes were sometimes attached with "range-extender" trailers, developed by Alan Cocconi of AC Propulsion. These trailers were simply rolling gen sets that could supply power for long trips. It was only natural to conceive of an EV1 with a small turbo-alternator on board (1995 internal publication). External publications (SAE 971629 and 1999-01-2946) followed expounding the merits of using electrical energy for most local travel and proving it with the data from the US DOT. "Unlimited EV" and "Battery Dominant Hybrid" as well as "Energy Hybrid" were the given names for the architecture because the term "plug-in" hybrid coined by Dr. Andy Frank was considered at odds with Toyota's position that Prius did not need to be "plugged in" and their opinion that plugging was inconvenient. In 1997 (ten years before Volt) an internal project at the new spin-off, Delphi Corporation, began to convert an EV1 to a PHEV. However, the project was canceled by the corporate directors of technology. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11443610 | 1,354,337 |
1,782,196 | The Phlebovirus replicates in a 7 step process. First, the cellular attachment is driven through the glycoprotein interactions with host cells. Examples of this are Dendritic Cell-Specific Intercellular Adhesion Molecule-3-Grabbing Non-Integrin (DC-SIGN), heparan sulfate (HS), or Non-Muscle Myosin Heavy Chain (NMMHC-IIA). Second, in the late endosome, the low pH causes fusion activity in the membrane of the Gc protein. Uukuniemi virus (UUKV) penetration is promoted by the expression of vesicle-associated membrane protein 3 (VAMP3). Additionally, the fusion of Rift Valley fever virus (RVFV) in late endosomes is inhibited by the interferon-induced transmembrane proteins 2 and 3 (IFITIM2 and IFITIM3). Third, the viral and endosomal membranes are fused to allow for the release of the viral ribonucleoprotein complexes into the cytoplasm (Also the site of viral transcription and replication). Fourth, the precursor protein, Gn/Gc, is translated at the rough endoplasmic reticulum (ER). This precursor protein is cleaved by signal peptidase. Synthesis of the viral nucleoprotein and viral polymerase in the cytoplasm combines with the newly formed genomic RNA (gRNA) ribonucleic protein complexes (RNP). Fifth, two ER chaperones, binding immunoglobulin protein (BiP) and calnexin, are required to ensure proper folding of GN/Gc. Gn/Gc are similarly catalyzed by protein-disulfide-isomerase through the formation of disulfide bonds. At the same time, calreticulin prevents any misfolded Gn/Gc from being exported to the Golgi. Sixth, The correctly folded Gn/Gc heterodimers are transported to the Golgi apparatus. The cytoplasmic tails of Gn in the budding process associate with RNPs during this time. Seventh, once the budding of the new virus particles is completed, vesicles that contain the virus are transported to the plasma membrane to be released by exocytosis. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4321583 | 1,781,192 |
814,967 | On the ninth and final day of action in the track and field stadium, Matthew Centrowitz Jr. secured a tactical win in the men's 1500 m while Caster Semenya used her sheer speed to win the women's 800 m. Behind her Francine Niyonsaba won only the second ever medal for Burundi at the Olympics. In the women's high jump, Ruth Beitia became Spain's inaugural female Olympic gold medalist in athletics, though this was overshadowed by the fact her winning mark was the lowest since 1980 and she was outperformed by two heptathletes in Rio. Thomas Röhler cleared ninety metres to win the men's javelin throw. Mo Farah became the second most successful track athlete of the 2016 Rio Olympics by defending his 5000 m title, making him one of only two men alongside Finland's Lasse Virén to have defended both long-distance titles at consecutive Olympics. In the last track events of the games, the United States won the men's and women's 4 × 400 metres relays. The women's victory gave Allyson Felix the distinction of setting a medals record for women's Olympic athletics; six gold medals and nine medals overall. In the closing competition of the Olympics, Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya comfortably won the marathon by the largest margin since 1972. The runner-up Feyisa Lilesa of Ethiopia made a political protest by crossing his arms near the finish line in solidarity with the Oromo killed in protests that year and later suggested he would seek asylum. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=36721624 | 814,533 |
124,534 | Modern New Age and Neopagan approaches to ogham largely derive from the now-discredited theories of Robert Graves in his book "The White Goddess". In this work, Graves took his inspiration from the theories of the ogham scholar R. A. S. Macalister (see above) and elaborated on them much further. Graves proposed that the ogham alphabet encoded a set of beliefs originating in the Middle East in Stone Age times, concerning the ceremonies surrounding the worship of the Moon goddess in her various forms. Graves' argument is extremely complex, but in essence, he argues that the Hebrews, Greeks and Celts were all influenced by a people originating in the Aegean, called 'the people of the sea' by the Egyptians, who spread out around Europe in the 2nd millennium BC, taking their religious beliefs with them. He posits that at some early stage these teachings were encoded in alphabet form by poets to pass on their worship of the goddess (as the muse and inspiration of all poets) in a secret fashion, understandable only to initiates. Eventually, via the druids of Gaul, this knowledge was passed on to the poets of early Ireland and Wales. Graves, therefore, looked at the Tree Alphabet tradition surrounding ogham and explored the tree folklore of each of the letter names, proposing that the order of the letters formed an ancient "seasonal calendar of tree magic". Although his theories have been discredited and discarded by modern scholars (including Macalister himself, with whom Graves corresponded), they were taken up with enthusiasm by some adherents of the neopagan movement. In addition, Graves followed the BLNFS order of ogham letters put forward by Macalister (see above), with the result taken up by many New Age and Neopagan writers as the 'correct' order of the letters, despite its rejection by scholars. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=797150 | 124,483 |
884,034 | Proteins are an essential component to many biological functions and participate in virtually all processes within biological cells. They often act as enzymes, performing biochemical reactions including cell signaling, molecular transportation, and cellular regulation. As structural elements, some proteins act as a type of skeleton for cells, and as antibodies, while other proteins participate in the immune system. Before a protein can take on these roles, it must fold into a functional three-dimensional structure, a process that often occurs spontaneously and is dependent on interactions within its amino acid sequence and interactions of the amino acids with their surroundings. Protein folding is driven by the search to find the most energetically favorable conformation of the protein, i.e., its native state. Thus, understanding protein folding is critical to understanding what a protein does and how it works, and is considered a holy grail of computational biology. Despite folding occurring within a crowded cellular environment, it typically proceeds smoothly. However, due to a protein's chemical properties or other factors, proteins may misfold, that is, fold down the wrong pathway and end up misshapen. Unless cellular mechanisms can destroy or refold misfolded proteins, they can subsequently aggregate and cause a variety of debilitating diseases. Laboratory experiments studying these processes can be limited in scope and atomic detail, leading scientists to use physics-based computing models that, when complementing experiments, seek to provide a more complete picture of protein folding, misfolding, and aggregation. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=413102 | 883,570 |
325,374 | "Dreadnought" was the sixth ship of the RN to bear the name "Dreadnought", which means "fear nothing". To meet Admiral Fisher's goal of building the ship in a single year, material was stockpiled in advance and a great deal of prefabrication was done from May 1905 onwards with approximately 6,000 man weeks of work expended before she was formally laid down on 2 October 1905 on No.5 Slip. In addition, she was built at HM Dockyard, Portsmouth which was regarded as the fastest-building shipyard in the world. The slip was screened from prying eyes and attempts made to indicate that the design was no different to other battleships. 1,100 men were already employed by the time she was laid down, but soon this number rose to 3,000. Whereas on previous ships the men had worked a 48-hour week, they were required on "Dreadnought" to work a 69-hour, six-day week from 06:00 to 18:00, which included compulsory overtime with only a 30-minute lunch break. While double shifting was considered to ease the long hours which were unpopular with the men, this was not possible due to labour shortages. Day 6 (7 October), the first of the bulkheads and most of the middle-deck beams were in place. By Day 20, the forward part of the bow was in position and the hull plating was well underway. By Day 55 all of the upper-deck beams were in place, and by Day 83 the upper deck plates were in position. By Day 125 (4 February), the hull was finished. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=717448 | 325,201 |
1,888,865 | In July 1999, Jacoby was assigned as director for intelligence (J2) on the Joint Staff. His tenure began with leading the intelligence lessons learned effort to examine the operations in the Balkans and Kosovo. Operations Northern and Southern Watch continued to enforce No-Fly Zones and sanctions against Iraq. In addition, the U.S. Navy EP-3 reconnaissance aircraft was impounded by the Chinese on Hainan Island following a collision with a Chinese fighter during operations over the South China Sea and the attack on USS "Cole" took place in Aden, Yemen. This latter event prompted a fundamental change in approach to terrorism analysis and support to operating forces which was embodied in the proposed Joint Intelligence Task Force, Combating Terrorism (JITF-CT) operating under the guidance of the Joint Staff J-2 as part of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Jacoby was advocating increased funding for JITF-CT on the afternoon of September 10, 2001 with senior staff on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. He was in the Pentagon when it was attacked on September 11, 2001. He led the stand-up of JITF-CT, was active in intelligence planning for the Global War on Terrorism and military operations in Afghanistan, oversaw J-2 activities during the initial phase of combat operations in Afghanistan and was instrumental in developing and championing an operational concept called "2 Plus 7" which became the center point for U.S. operations to dismantle the Al-Qaeda organization and attack its centralized leadership and planning functions. The effort focused operations against the two leaders and the seven senior operational planners. The result was a significant degradation in the organization's capabilities. Jacoby concluded his one-year extension as Joint Staff J-2 in July 2002. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=24098384 | 1,887,782 |
1,718,144 | Sociodemographic factors include, but are not limited to: patterns of human migration and travel, effectiveness of public health and medical infrastructure in controlling and treating disease, the extent of anti-malarial drug resistance and the underlying health status of the population at hand. Environmental factors include: changes in land-use (e.g. deforestation), expansion of agricultural and water development projects (which tend to increase mosquito breeding habitat), and the overall trend towards urbanization (i.e. increased concentration of human hosts). These changes in landscape can alter local weather more than long term climate change. For example, the deforestation and cultivation of natural swamps in the African highlands has created conditions favorable for the survival of mosquito larvae, and has, in part, led to the increasing incidence of malaria. The effects of these non-climatic factors complicate things and make a direct causal relationship between climate change and malaria difficult to confirm. It is highly unlikely that climate exerts an isolated effect. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=63453251 | 1,717,174 |
1,317,542 | The aimed rover's design lifetime is 50 days. Given the extreme environmental conditions at the surface of Venus, all previous landers and atmospheric probes operated for a few hours at most, so the Glenn Research Center team plans to use materials and electronics developed to withstand not just the extreme pressure, corrosive atmosphere and heat, but also operate with minimum solar power and without a cooling system, which reduces the landing mass significantly. The temperature at the surface is 740 K (467 °C, 872 °F), and the pressure is 93 bar (9.3 MPa), roughly the pressure found underwater on Earth. For the purposes of propulsion, surface wind velocities of at least and up to are assumed. "Zephyr" would sail up to 15 minutes per day to reach its next target. From the images acquired by the Russian Venera probes, the surface of Venus can be seen to have landscapes of flat, even terrain stretching to the horizon, with rocks at only centimeter scale at their locations, making it possible for landsailing. The largest expected surface irregularities are about in height. The vehicle uses three metallic wheels with cleats, each with a diameter of and wide. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=59470764 | 1,316,817 |
168,303 | The campaign to eradicate dracunculiasis began at the urging of the CDC in 1980. Following smallpox eradication (last case in 1977; eradication certified in 1981), dracunculiasis was considered an achievable eradication target since it was relatively uncommon and preventable with only behavioral changes. In 1981, the steering committee for the United Nations International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade (a program to improve global drinking water during the decade from 1981 to 1990) adopted the goal of eradicating dracunculiasis as part of their efforts. The following June, an international meeting termed "Workshop on Opportunities for Control of Dracunculiasis" concluded that dracunculiasis could be eradicated through public education, drinking water improvement, and larvicide treatments. In response, India began its national eradication program in 1983. In 1986, the 39th World Health Assembly issued a statement endorsing dracunculiasis eradication and calling on member states to craft eradication plans. The same year, The Carter Center began collaborating with the government of Pakistan to initiate its national program, which then launched in 1988. By 1996, national eradication programs had been launched in every country with endemic dracunculiasis: Ghana and Nigeria in 1989; Cameroon in 1991; Togo, Burkina Faso, Senegal, and Uganda in 1992; Benin, Mauritania, Niger, Mali, and Côte d'Ivoire in 1993; Sudan, Kenya, Chad, and Ethiopia in 1994; Yemen and the Central African Republic in 1995. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1041031 | 168,213 |
514,060 | The TPS was housed in an old weather-beaten wooden hangar along the flight line of what became known as South Base. Although the quarters were spartan, the weather was superb with only two flying days lost due to weather in the first seven months of operation. Taking advantage of the calm morning air, students started the day flying missions to collect test data. Afternoons were spent in the lecture hall, and evenings were devoted to reducing data from the day's flights. Data reduction was dull and labor-intensive, requiring the student to transcribe information recorded on film or oscillograph paper and perform calculations by hand or slide rule. Once reduced, the data were woven into a report that summarized the test and the student's conclusions. Some students were not prepared for the rigorous academics and had to be dropped from enrollment. This situation improved in 1953, when the school was moved out of Air Research and Development Command, which allowed the selection boards to draw from a much larger, USAF-wide, pool of applicants, rather than just the local test squadrons. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=610257 | 513,794 |
1,242,269 | In 1941, Groom Mine was visited by individuals who stayed at the mine with the Sheahan family while surveying the area for a gunnery and bombing range to be used during World War II. The outhouse and bunkhouse at the mine were accidentally strafed during the war by aircraft using the Las Vegas Bombing and Gunnery Range. Beginning in the 1950s, Groom Mine began to be impacted by nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site; Groom Mine was away. In 1951, the Atomic Energy Commission informed the Sheahan family of the planned detonations and set up instrumentation at the mine. The instrumentation was monitored by an employee of the United States Public Health Service, who lived at the mine along with the Sheahan family. The first mention of a nuclear tests impacting operations at Groom Mine was the Operation Tumbler–Snapper Easy Test, which led to the mine being evacuated due to its proximity to the detonation. Following the detonation, measurements of radiation at the mine reached 0.19 roentgen per hour. It caused some structural damage, breaking the front door of the Sheahan's home. Further away, fallout impacted nearby Tempiute. Returning to the mine had to be done using a different route; the normal route was too radioactive to travel on. The following Fox test in late May 1952 led to fallout falling on the mine; the highest-recorded radiation was 0.32 roentgen per hour. It was, however, the view of the Atomic Energy Commission that the nuclear detonations "had not subjected Groom Mine personnel to any real danger from fallout". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=56836491 | 1,241,597 |
736,294 | When George Westinghouse became interested in electricity, he quickly and correctly concluded that Edison's low voltages were too inefficient to be scaled up for transmission needed for large systems. He further understood that long-distance transmission needed high voltage and that inexpensive conversion technology only existed for alternating current. Transformers would play the decisive role in the victory of alternating current over direct current for transmission and distribution systems. In 1876, Pavel Yablochkov patented his mechanism of using induction coils to serve as a step up transformer prior to the Paris Exposition demonstrating his arc lamps. In 1881, Lucien Gaulard and John Dixon Gibbs developed a more efficient device which they dubbed the secondary generator, namely an early step down transformer whose ratio could be adjusted by configuring the connections between a series of wired bobbins around a spindle, from which an iron core could be added or removed as necessary to vary the power output. The device was subject to various critisims and was occasionally misunderstood as only providing a 1:1 turn ratio. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=18179220 | 735,906 |
1,520,710 | In his report of finding of a new type of scattering, Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman proposed that a similar effect should be found also in the X-ray regime. Around the same time, Bergen Davis and Dana Mitchell reported in 1928 on the fine-structure of the scattered radiation from graphite and noted that they had lines that seemed to be in agreement with carbon K shell energy. Several researchers attempted similar experiments in the late 1920s and early 1930s but the results could not always be confirmed. Often the first unambiguous observations of the XRS effect is credited to K. Das Gupta (reported findings 1959) and Tadasu Suzuki (reported 1964). It was soon realized that the XRS peak in solids was broadened by the solid-state effects and it appeared as a band, with a shape similar to that of a XAS spectrum. The potential of the technique was limited until modern synchrotron light sources became available. This is due to the very small XRS probability of the incident photons, requiring radiation with a very high intensity. Today, XRS techniques are rapidly growing in importance. They can be used to study near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS or XANES) as well as extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=18383939 | 1,519,849 |
1,951,325 | Dr. Michael Skinner is a professor in the School of Biological Sciences at Washington State University. He did his B.S. in chemistry at Reed College in Portland Oregon, his Ph.D. in biochemistry / chemistry at Washington State University and his Postdoctoral Fellowship at the C.H. Best Institute at the University of Toronto. He has been on the faculty of Vanderbilt University and the University of California at San Francisco. He is the Founding Director of the Center for Reproductive Biology at WSU and UI. Dr. Skinner is an expert in testis and ovary biology and cell-cell interactions, and his current research has demonstrated the ability of environmental toxicants to promote the epigenetic transgenerational inheritance of disease phenotypes due to abnormal germ line epigenetic programming in gonadal development. This non-genetic form of inheritance is how the environment can impact biology, evolution and disease etiology. He has identified epigenetic biomarkers for a number of human diseases including male infertility, paternal transmission of autism, arthritis, and preterm birth. Dr. Skinner has over 350 peer reviewed publications and has given over 350 invited symposia, plenary lectures and university seminars. He has done Ted talks and had documentaries done on his research with BBC Horizon, PBS Nova, Smithsonian, and France ARTE. He has founded several biotechnology companies. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=41256961 | 1,950,204 |
1,340,910 | Meningiomas have been divided into three types based on their patterns of growth. Histological factors that increase the grade include a high number of mitotic figures, necrosis and local invasion. Treatment of sphenoid wing meningiomas often depends on the location and size of the tumor. Gamma knife radiation and microscopic surgery are common options. Their encapsulated, slow growth makes meningiomas good targets for radiosurgery. In one series, less than one-third of clinoidal meningiomas could be completely resected without unacceptable risk of damaging of blood vessels (especially the carotid artery) or cranial nerves, risks that are lower with radiosurgery. If surgery is done and the entire tumor cannot be removed, then external beam radiation helps reduce recurrence of the growth. In fact, surgery followed by radiation at recurrence provided excellent tumor control in cases where gross-total resection cannot be achieved. Most all meningiomas grow very slowly and almost never metastasize to other parts of the body. In part because of its slow growth, if a tumor is asymptomatic and found only by imaging, the best course is often observation with serial clinical exams and imaging. Possible indications for intervention would be a rapid increase in growth or involvement of cranial nerves. Untreated, one small series showed survival rates ranging from five to over twenty years, though most had unilateral blindness as well as paresis of extraocular movements. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=5138392 | 1,340,177 |
1,315,466 | Brown bears will also commonly consume animal matter, which in summer and autumn may regularly be in the form of insects, larvae such as grubs and including beehives. Most insects eaten are of the highly social variety found in colonial nests, which provide a likely greater quantity of food, although they will also tear apart rotten logs on the forest floor, turn over rocks or simply dig in soft earth in attempts to consume individual invertebrates such as bugs, beetles and earthworms. Honey bees and wasps are important supplemental foods in Eurasia from the furthest west of their range, in Spain, to the furthest east, in Hokkaido. Bears in Yellowstone and Montana eat an enormous number of moths during the summer, sometimes consuming as many as 40,000 army cutworm moths ("Euxoa auxiliaris") in a single day, and may derive up to half of their annual food energy from these insects. In Europe, a variety of species of ants have been found to factor heavily into the diet in some areas such as Scandinavia and eastern Europe. In Slovenia, for example, up to 25% of the dry mass consumed by brown bears was ants. Locally heavy consumption of ants has been reported in North America as well, as in west-central Alberta, 49% of scat contained ants. Brown bears mainly feed on ants with a passive response to the colony being dug out and low levels of formic acid, therefore carpenter ants ("Camponotus" ssp.), which are accessed through rotten logs rather than underground colonies, are preferred where available. Other important insect aggregations that brown bears feed heavily on in some regions include ladybird beetles and caddisfly. Brown bears living near coastal regions will regularly eat crabs and clams. In Alaska's Katmai National Park and Preserve, brown bears along the beaches of estuaries regularly dig through the sand for soft-shell clam ("Mya arenaria") and Pacific razor clam ("Siliqua patula"), providing a more nutritious source of dietary energy in spring than plant life before fish become available there.> The zarigani ("Cambaroides japonicus"), a type of crayfish, of Hokkaido is also an important, protein-rich dietary supplement for brown bears there. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=63866123 | 1,314,745 |
3,310 | Ultraviolet light from the Sun has antiseptic properties and can be used to sanitize tools and water. It also causes sunburn, and has other biological effects such as the production of vitamin D and sun tanning. It is also the main cause of skin cancer. Ultraviolet light is strongly attenuated by Earth's ozone layer, so that the amount of UV varies greatly with latitude and has been partially responsible for many biological adaptations, including variations in human skin color in different regions of the Earth.High-energy gamma ray photons initially released with fusion reactions in the core are almost immediately absorbed by the solar plasma of the radiative zone, usually after traveling only a few millimeters. Re-emission happens in a random direction and usually at slightly lower energy. With this sequence of emissions and absorptions, it takes a long time for radiation to reach the Sun's surface. Estimates of the photon travel time range between 10,000 and 170,000 years. In contrast, it takes only 2.3 seconds for the neutrinos, which account for about 2% of the total energy production of the Sun, to reach the surface. Because energy transport in the Sun is a process that involves photons in thermodynamic equilibrium with matter, the time scale of energy transport in the Sun is longer, on the order of 30,000,000 years. This is the time it would take the Sun to return to a stable state if the rate of energy generation in its core were suddenly changed. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26751 | 3,310 |
909,961 | With the fall of France, it was clear that the type was unsuitable for the coastal patrol and army co-operation role, being described by Air Marshal Arthur Barratt, commander-in-chief of the British Air Forces in France as "quite unsuited to the task; a faster, less vulnerable aircraft was required." The view of Army AOP pilots was that the Lysander was too fast for artillery spotting purposes, too slow and unmanoeuverable to avoid fighters, too big to conceal quickly on a landing field, too heavy to use on soft ground and had been developed by the RAF without ever asking the Army what was needed. Nevertheless, throughout the remainder of 1940, Lysanders flew dawn and dusk patrols off the coast and in the event of an invasion of Britain, they were tasked with attacking the landing beaches with light bombs and machine guns. They were replaced in the home-based army co-operation role from 1941 by camera-equipped fighters such as the Curtiss Tomahawk and North American Mustang carrying out reconnaissance operations, while light aircraft such as the Taylorcraft Auster were used to direct artillery. Some UK-based Lysanders went to work operating air-sea rescue, dropping dinghies to downed RAF aircrew in the English Channel. Fourteen squadrons and flights were formed for this role in 1940 and 1941. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=559595 | 909,482 |
728,360 | The overly complex design of the reactor, which is contrary to the general concept of self moderated thorium reactors designed in the U.S., also suffered from the unplanned high destruction rate of pebbles during the test series at the start up, and the resulting higher contamination of the containment structure. Pebble debris and graphite dust blocked some of the coolant channels in the bottom reflector, as was discovered during fuel removal some years after final shut-down. A failure of insulation required frequent reactor shut-downs for inspection, because the insulation could not be repaired. Further metallic components in the hot gas duct failed in September 1988, probably due to thermal fatigue induced by unexpected hot gas currents. This failure led to a long-term shut-down for inspections. In August, 1989, the THTR company almost went bankrupt, but was financially rescued by the government. Because of the unexpected high costs of THTR operation, and this accident, there was no longer any interest in THTR reactors. The government decided to terminate the THTR operation at the end of September, 1989. This particular reactor was built despite strong criticism at the design phase. Most of those design critiques by German physicists, and by American physicists at the National Laboratory level, went ignored until it was shut down. Nearly every problem encountered by the THTR 300 reactor was predicted by the physicists that criticized it as "overly complex." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=143354 | 727,976 |
761,374 | Attacks by special forces have been seen by some commanders as a way to level the playing field when faced by superior numbers or technology. Given the disparity in effectiveness between their own and South Korean and US fighters, North Korea maintains a large force of infiltration troops; in the event of a war, they would be tasked, among other missions, with attacking coalition airfields with mortar, machine gun and sniper fire, possibly after insertion by some 300 An-2 low radar-observable biplanes. This strategy has been practiced in active conflicts even in recent decades; during the asymmetrical warfare of the War in Afghanistan, 15 fedayeen destroyed or severely damaged eight United States Marine Corps Harrier jump jets in the September 2012 Camp Bastion raid, one result of which being pilots fighting as infantry for the first time in 70 years. Similarly, during the Iraqi War, four Apaches were destroyed on the ground in 2007 by insurgents armed with mortar, which were unintentionally aided by web-published geotagged photographs taken by coalition soldiers. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=537478 | 760,967 |
1,023,601 | A significant challenge facing 19th-century organic chemists was the lack of instruments and methods of analysis to support accurate, replicable analyses of organic materials. Many chemists worked on the problem of organic analysis, including French Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac and Swedish Jöns Jacob Berzelius, before Liebig developed his version of an apparatus for determining the carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen content of organic substances in 1830. It involved an array of five glass bulbs, called a Kaliapparat to trap the oxidation product of the carbon in the sample, following combustion of the sample. Before reaching the Kaliapparat, the combustion gases were conducted through a tube of hygroscopic calcium chloride, which absorbed and retained the oxidation product of the hydrogen of the sample, namely water vapor. Next, in the Kaliapparat, carbon dioxide was absorbed in a potassium hydroxide solution in the three lower bulbs, and used to measure the weight of carbon in the sample. For any substance consisting only of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, the percentage of oxygen was found by subtracting the carbon and hydrogen percentages from 100%; the remainder must be the percentage of oxygen. A charcoal furnace (a sheet-steel tray in which the combustion tube was laid) was used for the combustion. Weighing carbon and hydrogen directly, rather than estimating them volumetrically, greatly increased the method's accuracy of measurement. Liebig's assistant Carl Ettling perfected glass-blowing techniques for producing the Kaliapparat, and demonstrated them to visitors. Liebig's kaliapparat simplified the technique of quantitative organic analysis and rendered it routine. Brock suggests that the availability of a superior technical apparatus was one reason why Liebig was able to attract so many students to his laboratory. His method of combustion analysis was used pharmaceutically, and certainly made possible many contributions to organic, agricultural and biological chemistry. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=16024 | 1,023,068 |
64,279 | Aristotle's works and other Greek natural philosophy did not reach the West until about the middle of the 12th century, when works were translated from Greek and Arabic into Latin. The development of European civilization later in the Middle Ages brought with it further advances in natural philosophy. European inventions such as the horseshoe, horse collar and crop rotation allowed for rapid population growth, eventually giving way to urbanization and the foundation of schools connected to monasteries and cathedrals in modern-day France and England. Aided by the schools, an approach to Christian theology developed that sought to answer questions about nature and other subjects using logic. This approach, however, was seen by some detractors as heresy. By the 12th century, Western European scholars and philosophers came into contact with a body of knowledge of which they had previously been ignorant: a large corpus of works in Greek and Arabic that were preserved by Islamic scholars. Through translation into Latin, Western Europe was introduced to Aristotle and his natural philosophy. These works were taught at new universities in Paris and Oxford by the early 13th century, although the practice was frowned upon by the Catholic church. A 1210 decree from the Synod of Paris ordered that "no lectures are to be held in Paris either publicly or privately using Aristotle's books on natural philosophy or the commentaries, and we forbid all this under pain of ex-communication." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38890 | 64,254 |
1,088,696 | In the summer of 1951, the United Kingdom held the Festival of Britain, a national exhibition held throughout the UK to promote the British contribution to science, technology, industrial design, architecture, and the arts and to commemorate the centenary of the 1851 Great Exhibition. British engineering firm and nascent computer developer Ferranti promised to develop an exhibit for the Festival. In late 1950, John Makepeace Bennett, an Australian employee of the firm and recent Ph.D. graduate from the University of Cambridge, proposed that the company create a computer that could play the game of Nim. In Nim, players take turns removing at least one object from a set of objects, with the goal of being the player who removes the last object; gameplay options can be modeled mathematically. Bennett's suggestion was supposedly inspired by an earlier Nim-playing machine, "Nimatron", which had been displayed in 1940 at the New York World's Fair. The Nimatron machine had been designed by Edward Condon and constructed by Westinghouse Electric from electromechanical relays, and had weighed over a ton. Although Bennett's suggestion was a game, his goal was to show off the computer's ability to do mathematical calculations, as Nim is based on mathematical principles, and thus showcase Ferranti's computer design and programming skills rather than to entertain. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=5842363 | 1,088,137 |
108,765 | In media appearances, Kurzweil has stressed the extreme potential dangers of nanotechnology but argues that in practice, progress cannot be stopped because that would require a totalitarian system, and any attempt to do so would drive dangerous technologies underground and deprive responsible scientists of the tools needed for defense. He suggests that the proper place of regulation is to ensure that technological progress proceeds safely and quickly, but does not deprive the world of profound benefits. He stated, "To avoid dangers such as unrestrained nanobot replication, we need relinquishment at the right level and to place our highest priority on the continuing advance of defensive technologies, staying ahead of destructive technologies. An overall strategy should include a streamlined regulatory process, a global program of monitoring for unknown or evolving biological pathogens, temporary moratoriums, raising public awareness, international cooperation, software reconnaissance, and fostering values of liberty, tolerance, and respect for knowledge and diversity." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25984 | 108,720 |
753,676 | In 2013, the discovery of two new "Deinocheirus" specimens was announced before the annual Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP) conference by Lee, Barsbold, Currie, and colleagues. Housed at the Mongolian Academy of Sciences, these two headless individuals were given the specimen numbers MPC-D 100/127 and MPC-D 100/128. MPC-D 100/128, a subadult specimen, was found by scientists in the "Altan Ula IV" locality (coordinates: ) of the Nemegt Formation during the Korea-Mongolia International Dinosaur Expedition in 2006, but had already been damaged by fossil poachers. The second specimen, MPC-D 100/127, was found by scientists in the "Bugiin Tsav" locality (coordinates: ) in 2009. It is slightly larger than the holotype, and it could be clearly identified as "Deinocheirus" by its left forelimb, and therefore helped identify the earlier collected specimen as "Deinocheirus". The specimen had also been excavated by poachers, who had removed the skull, hands and feet, but left behind a single toe bone. It had probably been looted after 2002, based on money left in the quarry. Skulls, claw bones and teeth are often selectively targeted by poachers on the expense of the rest of the skeletons (which are often vandalized), due to their saleability. Currie stated in an interview that it was a policy of their team to investigate quarries after they had been looted and recover anything of significance, and that finding any new "Deinocheirus" fossils was cause for celebration, even without the poached parts. A virtual model of "Deinocheirus" revealed at the SVP presentation brought applause from the crowd of attending palaeontologists, and the American palaeontologist Stephen L. Brusatte stated he had never been as surprised by a SVP talk, though new fossils are routinely presented at the conference. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1952495 | 753,274 |
873,349 | There are many different ways insects can be fossilized and preserved including compressions and impressions, concretions, mineral replication, charcoalified (fusainized) remains, and their trace remains. Compressions and impressions are the most extensive types of insect fossils, occurring in rocks from the Carboniferous to the Holocene. Impressions are like a cast or mold of a fossil insect, showing its form and even some relief, like pleating in the wings, but usually little or no color from the cuticle. Compressions preserve remains of the cuticle, so color distinguishes structure. In exceptional situations, microscopic features such as microtrichia on sclerites and wing membranes are even visible, but preservation of this scale also requires a matrix of exceptionally fine grain, such as in micritic muds and volcanic tuffs. Because arthropod sclerites are held together by membranes, which readily decompose, many fossil arthropods are known only by isolated sclerites. Far more desirable are complete fossils. Concretions are stones with a fossil at the core whose chemical composition differs from that of the surrounding matrix, usually formed as a result of mineral precipitation from decaying organisms. The most significant deposit consists of various localities of the Late Carboniferous Francis Creek Shale of the Carbondale Formation at Mazon Creek, Illinois, which are composed of shales and coal seams yielding oblong concretions. Within most concretions is a mold of an animal and sometimes a plant that is usually marine in origin. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3969819 | 872,889 |
783,146 | The "Ming Shilu" goes on to mention another possible instance of volley fire, this time during the Yongle Emperor's campaigns against the Mongols. In 1414 "the commander-in-chief (都督) Zhu Chong led Lü Guang and others directly to the fore, where they assaulted the enemy by firing firearms and guns continuously and in succession. Countless enemies were killed." In this case the source makes no mention of taking turns or forming lines, but Andrade believes that since the Ming were facing horseback Mongol forces, it would have been impossible to keep continuous fire in the face of a cavalry charge had ordered ranks of gunners not been implemented. The same rationality is applied to another passage on the 1422 expedition, where "the emperor ordered that all the generals train their troops outside each encampment by arranging their formations so that the gunnery units (神機銃) occupied the foremost positions and the cavalry units occupied the rear. He ordered officers to exercise and drill in their free time (暇閑操習). He admonished them as follows: "A formation that is dense is solid, while an advance force is sparse, and when they arrive at the gates of war and it's time to fight, then first use the guns to destroy their advance guard and then use cavalry to rush their solidity. In this way there is nothing to fear."" Some historians have extrapolated from this that the Ming forces were using volley fire with firearms since their opponents were cavalry units, and hence impossible to stop with slow firing hand cannons unless it was through continuous volley fire, much less with a thin advance guard of gunnery units. According to Wang Zhaochun, "the meaning of this is that when fighting, the gun troops line up in front of the entire formation, and between them there must be a certain amount of space, so that they can load bullets and powder and employ shooting by turns and in concert to destroy the enemy advance guard. Once the enemy has been thrown into chaos, the rear densely arrayed cavalry troops together come forth in great vigor, striking forth with irresistible force." Even if Wang is correct, the evidence is still inconclusive. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=33076634 | 782,727 |
1,027,433 | Distance, lack of access, and regulations meant that the formal theory of montage was not widely known until well after its explosion in the Soviet Union. It was only in 1928, for example, that Eisenstein's theories reached Britain in "Close Up". Additionally, filmmakers in Japan during the 1920s were "quite unaware of montage" according to Eisenstein. Despite this, both nations produced films that used something tantamount to continuity editing. According to Chris Robé, the internal strife between Soviet theories of montage mirrored the liberal and radical debates in the West. In his book "Left of Hollywood: Cinema, Modernism, and the Emergence of U.S. Radical Film Culture", Robé illustrates the Western Left's attempts to tone-down revolutionary language and psychoanalyze characters on the screen. Hanns Sach's essays "Kitsch"(1932) and "Film Psychology" (1928) are used here to demonstrate Kitsch's aesthetic distinction from the Realist project of the Soviet Union, and also to affirm Kitsch's ability to create a more powerful affect than realism ever could. As such, Sach argued, a psychological montage was recognizable in all films, even abstract ones which held no resemblance to classic Soviet cinema. Robé also cites Zygmunt Tonecky's essay "The Preliminary of Art Film" as a reformulation of montage theory in service of abstract cinema. Zygmunt's argument centers around his disagreement with Eisenstein that montage was logical, but rather psychological. As such, abstract films defamiliarize objects and have the potential to create critical spectators. Defamiliarization was seen a catalyst for revolutionary thinking. Clearly, the adoption of Montage Theory was rarely hard and fast, but rather a stepping stone for other theories. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8648013 | 1,026,899 |
236,270 | One of the frequent uses of the technique is to date organic remains from archaeological sites. Plants fix atmospheric carbon during photosynthesis, so the level of in plants and animals when they die approximately equals the level of in the atmosphere at that time. However, it decreases thereafter from radioactive decay, allowing the date of death or fixation to be estimated. The initial level for the calculation can either be estimated, or else directly compared with known year-by-year data from tree-ring data (dendrochronology) up to 10,000 years ago (using overlapping data from live and dead trees in a given area), or else from cave deposits (speleothems), back to about 45,000 years before the present. A calculation or (more accurately) a direct comparison of carbon-14 levels in a sample, with tree ring or cave-deposit carbon-14 levels of a known age, then gives the wood or animal sample age-since-formation. Radiocarbon is also used to detect disturbance in natural ecosystems; for example, in peatland landscapes, radiocarbon can indicate that carbon which was previously stored in organic soils is being released due to land clearance or climate change. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=146250 | 236,151 |
1,259,586 | Wundt became interested in Völkerpsychologie very early in his career. He became so interested in the topic that he offered a course on social psychology at Heidelberg University in 1859. In his first book, "Beiträge zur Theorie der Sinneswahrnehmung (Natural History of Man)", which he wrote when he was at Heidelberg, Wundt talked about the programs involving experimental psychology and Völkerpsychologie. In the second volume, "Vorlesungen über die Menschen-und Thierseele (Lectures on the Human and Animal Mind)", which Wundt wrote 16 years prior to when he started the experimental psychology program at Leipzig. He devoted many pages to the explanation and development of Völkerpsychologie. This shows his growing interest in and seriousness for implementing this form of psychology into mainstream psychology. The immediate topics in Völkerpsychologie are language, myth, and custom. For Wundt, the whole reason for the comparative and historical study of these mental topics was to provide an objective point of view for making inferences about the psychological processes involved when they are produced. However, Wundt was not interested in studying these topics just because they are interesting topics, as other professionals might. An example of this: "The origin and development of these products depend in every case on general psychical conditions which may be inferred from their objective attributes. Psychological analysis can, consequently, explain the psychical processes operative in their formation and development." Wundt naturally thought that experimental methods were wrong for the study of whole languages, myths, and customs, because they cannot be used properly in a scientific manner by introspection itself. Although the "supraindividual" (which means above or beyond the individual in groups) nature of whole languages, myths, and customs comes before their experimental investigation. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=41358018 | 1,258,899 |
1,590,360 | The construction workforce reached a peak of 45,096 on 21 June 1944. About thirteen percent were women, and non-whites made up 16.45 percent. African-Americans lived in segregated quarters, and had their own messes and recreation areas. They were paid less than white workers. Although DuPont agreed to hire African-Americans as construction workers, it had no intention of hiring them as operating personnel. These workers were all white and most were Protestant; fifteen percent were Catholic and ten were Jewish. Not all the 1,532 operating personnel had worked for DuPont before, but most came from its ordnance plants in Colorado, Illinois, Tennessee and Utah, where production had been scaled back or halted during 1943. Some were given special training at Oak Ridge or the Metallurgical Laboratory. More than half of them were over the maximum draft age of 38, and three-quarters of the 3,705 men aged 18 to 26 in the construction workforce were classified as 4-F by the Selective Service System, and were not required to serve because they did not meet the Army's minimum physical, mental, or moral standards. The Manhattan District arranged with local draft boards for exemptions for key personnel. The Selective Service Section of the area engineer's office handled 14,701 requests for exemption, and 50 percent were approved. These were forwarded to the local draft board with a letter signed by Matthias. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=72002318 | 1,589,466 |
460,686 | The use of antibiotics to treat and prevent disease has followed a similar path to that used in human medicine in terms of therapeutic and metaphylactic applications to treat and manage disease and improve population health, and the application of case-by-case strategic preventative treatments when animals are deemed at particular risk. However, in the late 1940s, studies examining the supplementation of B12 in chicks' diets found that B12 produced from the fermentation of "Streptomyces aureofaciens", an antibiotic for use in human medicine, produced a better weight gain for chicks than B12 supplied from other sources, and a reduced amount of feed to bring the birds to market weight. Further studies on other livestock species showed a similar improved growth and feed efficiency effect with the result that as the cost of antibiotics came down, they were increasingly included at low ('sub-therapeutic') levels in livestock feed as a means of increasing production of affordable animal protein to meet the needs of a rapidly-expanding post-war population. This development coincided with an increase in the scale of individual farms and the level of confinement of the animals on them, and so routine preventative antibiotic treatments became the most cost-effective means of treating the anticipated disease that could sometimes arise as a result. Veterinary medicine increasingly embraced the therapeutic, metaphylactic and strategic preventative use of antibiotics to treat disease. The routine use of antibiotics for growth stimulation and disease prevention also grew. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=40364158 | 460,460 |
777,489 | The Lavi performed successfully in flight-tests, with its flight handling described as "excellent" by test pilots. The Lavi was planned to be the mainstay of the Israeli Air Force, and considerable export sales for the aircraft had been forecast. The uniqueness of its design was in the combination of a small, aerodynamic, highly maneuverable plane, with sophisticated, software-rich systems, low armed drag, and the ability to carry a large payload at high speed and over long distances. As of 2012, two of the prototypes have been preserved, and have been placed on public display. The Israeli cabinet's late-stage cancellation of the program, by a 12–11 vote, continued to arouse controversy and bitterness in Israel for decades, with Moshe Arens stating in 2013 that if the project had not been cancelled the IAF "would be operating the world's most advanced fighter, upgraded over the years to incorporate operational experience and newer technology." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1254910 | 777,072 |
947,602 | He died at the age of 70, on December 29, 1919, in Oxford, during the Spanish influenza epidemic, most likely of complications from undiagnosed bronchiectasis. His wife, Grace, lived another nine years but succumbed to a series of strokes. Sir William and Lady Osler's ashes now rest in a niche in the Osler Library at McGill University. They had two sons, one of whom died shortly after birth. The other, Edward Revere Osler, was mortally wounded in combat in World War I at the age of 21, during the 3rd battle of Ypres (also known as the battle of Passchendaele). At the time of his death in August 1917, he was a second lieutenant in the (British) Royal Field Artillery; Lt. Osler's grave is in the Dozinghem Military Cemetery in West Flanders, Belgium. According to one biographer, Osler was emotionally crushed by the loss; he was particularly anguished by the fact that his influence had been used to procure a military commission for his son, who had mediocre eyesight. Lady Osler (Grace Revere) was born in Boston in 1854; her paternal great-grandfather was Paul Revere. In 1876, she married Samuel W. Gross, chairman of surgery at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia and son of Dr. Samuel D. Gross. Gross died in 1889 and in 1892 she married William Osler who was then professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=146219 | 947,099 |
688,631 | Spectrophotometry in infrared light is mainly used to study structure of substances, as given groups give absorption at defined wavelengths. Measurement in aqueous solution is generally not possible, as water absorbs infrared light strongly in some wavelength ranges. Therefore, infrared spectroscopy is either performed in the gaseous phase (for volatile substances) or with the substances pressed into tablets together with salts that are transparent in the infrared range. Potassium bromide (KBr) is commonly used for this purpose. The substance being tested is thoroughly mixed with specially purified KBr and pressed into a transparent tablet, that is placed in the beam of light. The analysis of the wavelength dependence is generally not done using a monochromator as it is in UV-Vis, but with the use of an interferometer. The interference pattern can be analyzed using a Fourier transform algorithm. In this way, the whole wavelength range can be analyzed simultaneously, saving time, and an interferometer is also less expensive than a monochromator. The light absorbed in the infrared region does not correspond to electronic excitation of the substance studied, but rather to different kinds of vibrational excitation. The vibrational excitations are characteristic of different groups in a molecule, that can in this way be identified. The infrared spectrum typically has very narrow absorption lines, which makes them unsuited for quantitative analysis but gives very detailed information about the molecules. The frequencies of the different modes of vibration varies with isotope, and therefore different isotopes give different peaks. This makes it possible also to study the isotopic composition of a sample with infrared spectrophotometry. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=862694 | 688,273 |
1,106,536 | A falconry bird is usually housed in a mew. Mews in the US have to be inspected for compliance with federal and state laws. These laws ensure that the facilities meet what is required to safely and humanely house a bird of prey. The mews (along with other perching equipment) are carefully designed to prevent bodily injury and especially feather damage. The laws and regulations generally prescribe characteristics that would allow a captive raptor some measure of security and health maintenance in the absence of an attentive experienced falconer. The mews may be used as a free-flight arrangement (especially during the summer molt or change of feathers) or it may provide a place for tethering the raptor during the night—during the day, when not actually hunting, the bird might be kept perched on a grassy lawn. Much depends on the species of raptor, the housing of the falconer, the weather, and the style of keeping, training and hunting. The less a bird is hunted, the more important the mews and domestic quarters. A falconer who likes to hunt with passage Cooper's hawks (an American Accipiter) just for one season then release them may be content to use a spare bedroom of his/her apartment, if permitted by the state wildlife agency. Another who desires an eyass female peregrine falcon for hunting ducks on ponds and later hopes that she will lay eggs for captive breeding (long relationship, special considerations), will probably want a large special outdoor building. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4047535 | 1,105,972 |
2,246,327 | Following the turn of the century the lack of athletic facilities prohibited students from participating in physical training and athletics. The Institute had little interest in this matter, so at the 1911 Alumni Council meeting, the Class of 1886 started the efforts to raise funds for new facilities. An initial goal of $200,000 ($ in dollars) was set, which would provide funds for the construction of a gymnasium and field, as well as the purchasing of equipment and starting an endowment. In the summer of 1913, this goal was reached and ground was broke on Alumni Stadium. With the stadium's completion in 1914, many were eager to begin work on the gymnasium and later that year Hewitt & Brown, a firm from Minneapolis composed of Edwin Hawley Hewitt and alumnus Edwin H. Brown '98, was selected as the architect. Central Building Company, whose president was alumnus Bradford A. Gibson '91, was awarded the construction contract in April 1915 and broke ground shortly afterward with the cornerstone being laid in June 1915. On June 6, 1916, the gym was opened following a dedication ceremony which included remarks by then Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor and future U.S. President, Calvin Coolidge. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=58986944 | 2,245,055 |
644,912 | An alternative educational approach informed by cognitive flexibility is hypertext, which is frequently computer-supported instruction. Computers allow for complex data to be presented in a multidimensional and coherent format, allowing users to access that data as needed. The most widely used example of hypertext is the Internet, which dynamically presents information in terms of interconnection (e.g. hyperlinks). Hypertext documents, therefore, include nodes – bits of information – and links, the pathways between these nodes. Applications for teacher education have involved teacher-training sessions based on video instruction, whereby novice teachers viewed footage of master teachers conducting a literacy workshop. In this example, the novice teachers received a laserdisc of the course content, a hypertext document that allowed the learners to access content in a self-directed manner. These cognitive flexibility hypertexts (CFH) provide a "three-dimensional" and "open-ended" representation of material for learners, enabling them to incorporate new information and form connections with preexisting knowledge. While further research is needed to determine the efficacy of CFH as an instructional tool, classrooms where cognitive flexibility theory is applied in this manner are hypothesized to result in students more capable of transferring knowledge across domains. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27016834 | 644,572 |
886,776 | Upon completing his B.S. degree from Columbia, Massimino worked for IBM as a systems engineer in New York City from 1984 until 1986. In 1986 he entered graduate school at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he conducted research on human operator control of space robotics systems in the MIT Mechanical Engineering Department's Human-machine systems Laboratory. His work resulted in the awarding of two patents. While a student at MIT he worked during the summer of 1987 as a general engineer at NASA Headquarters in the Office of Aeronautics and Space Technology. He received an MS in Mechanical Engineering from MIT in 1988, and MS in Technology and Policy from MIT in 1988. During the summers of 1988 and 1989 as a research fellow in the Man-Systems Integration Branch at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, and during the summer of 1990 as a visiting research engineer at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany. He received the Degree of Mechanical Engineer from MIT in 1990, and a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from MIT in 1992. Massimino worked at McDonnell Douglas Aerospace in Houston, Texas as a research engineer where he developed laptop computer displays to assist operators of the Space Shuttle remote manipulator system. These displays included the Manipulator Position Display, which was evaluated on STS-69. From 1992 to 1994 he was also an adjunct assistant professor in the Mechanical Engineering & Material Sciences Department at Rice University, where he taught feedback control of mechanical systems. In September 1995, Massimino joined the faculty of the Georgia Institute of Technology as an assistant professor in the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering. At Georgia Tech he taught human-machine systems engineering classes and conducted research on human-machine interfaces for space and aircraft systems in the Center for Human-Machine Systems Research. He has published papers in technical journals and in the proceedings of technical conferences. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=622277 | 886,312 |
1,560,105 | Schizophrenia is characterized by hallucinations, delusions, paranoia, and mood disorder symptoms with evidence showing that physical exercise can alleviate neuroinflammation that could be a root cause of this affective disorder. Although it is still uncertain what exactly causes this disorder, several explanations exist such as the dopaminergic and glutamatergic hypotheses. The dopaminergic hypothesis states that schizophrenia is caused by presynaptic dopamine dysregulation. This dysregulation stems from an abnormal increase in key dopamine receptors that results in its excessive release. The glutamatergic hypothesis was previously believed to be closely tied to excessive dopamine release mentioned. However, recent literature finds that the dysfunction of N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors(NMDAR) can serve as the mechanism behind schizophrenia. Dysfunction of NMDAR receptors causes increased levels of glutamate at non-NMDA sites. Higher generalized glutamate levels in the prefrontal cortex results in atypically high signaling at AMPA receptors. Abnormal signaling activity at the AMPA receptors disrupts cell excitability believed to be connected to schizophrenia. A relatively new explanation within the topic focuses on dysfunctional neuroinflammation pathways and oxidative stress similar to what has been discussed in disorders such as Alzheimer's disease. Patients afflicted with schizophrenia show a drastic increase in microglial activation and arachidonic acid signaling, both major inflammation contributors which are known to cause neuronal loss and reduced function. This combination of factors is particularly unique to Schizophrenia patients, so much so that a profile capable of identifying the extent of related inflammation by-products(cytokines and chemokines) is used to diagnose schizophrenia with approximately 90% accuracy. As discussed previously, consistent exercise produces greater amounts of myokine IL-6 which regulates inflammatory pathways and increases production of IL-10, a cytokine that inhibits microglial activation. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=42663845 | 1,559,219 |
2,148,918 | With J. R. Schwendeman as head, and three assistant professors, Harry K. Hutter and Guy N. Parmenter (also from Clark) and Thomas P. Field (from UNC-Chapel Hill) and an associate professor, Richard L. Tuthill (Columbia University), the new department had five full-time faculty and an enrollment of 354 students from 1944 to 1945. In 1952, James Shear (Clark) and Daniel Jacobson (LSU) joined the department to teach climatology and cultural geography. The department, along with anthropology and sociology, established an interdisciplinary general education course for first year students attending the university after World War II entitled Societies Around the World. This two-semester program was taught by members of the three departments for most of the next two decades. Three societies were studied each semester. The first course examined the Eskimo, the Navajo, and Buganda in East Africa; the second analyzed three other areas: China, the Cotton South (in the U.S.), and the British Midlands. Thousands of students were enrolled in these courses to satisfy lower level requirements. It was a bold academic enterprise in multidisciplinary and cross-disciplinary studies led by the geography department. With the support of the Sears Roebuck Foundation, the department also maintained a summer field studies program at this time in Monterrey, Mexico. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=47120039 | 2,147,687 |
1,471,709 | On 10 April 1959, Berg sent a report edited by Lyapunov to a presidium of the Academy of Sciences, recommending the establishment of an organisation dedicated to advancing cybernetics. The presidium determined that the Council on Cybernetics would be formed, with Berg as the chairman (due to his strong administrative connections) and Lyapunov his deputy. This council was wide-reaching, subsuming as many as 15 disciplines as of 1967, from "cybernetic linguistics" to "legal cybernetics". During Khrushchev's relaxation of scientific culture, the Council on Cybernetics served as an umbrella organisation for formerly suppressed research, including such subjects as non-Pavlovian physiology ("physiological cybernetics"), structural linguistics ("cybernetic linguistics"), and genetics ("biological cybernetics"). Thanks to Lyapunov, a further, 20 person Department of Cybernetics was created, in order to solicit official funding for cybernetic research. Even with these institutions, Lyapunov still lamented that "the field of cybernetics in our country is not organized", and, from 1960–61, worked with the Department to establish an official Institute of Cybernetics. Lyapunov joined forces with the structural linguists, who had been authorised to create Institute of Semiotics directed by Andrey Markov Jr., and, in June 1961, together planned to create an Institute of Cybernetics. Despite these efforts, Lyapunov lost faith in the project after Krushchev's refusal to build more Moscow scientific institutes, and the Institute never emerged, settling with the Council of Cybernetics instead gaining the formal powers of an institute, without any expansion of staff. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=54974049 | 1,470,880 |
96,466 | AMCA will be a single-seat, twin-engine aircraft. The AMCA Mark 1 will come equipped with 5.5 generation technologies and Mark 2 will have the incremental 6th generation technology upgrades. The AMCA which is intended to perform a multitude of missions including Air supremacy, Ground-Strike, Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD) and Electronic Warfare (EW) missions would be a potent replacement for the Sukhoi Su-30MKI air superiority fighter, which forms the backbone of the IAF fighter fleet. The AMCA design is optimised for low radar cross section and supercruise capability. Feasibility study on AMCA and the preliminary design stage have been completed, and the project entered the detailed design phase in February 2019. A CAD model of the aircraft was shown at Aero India 2019. The first flight is expected to be by 2024-25 and serial production might begin by 2030. The AMCA is currently the only 5th generation fighter under development in India, expected to get Ministry of Defence approval in 2022. The aircraft, along with its naval variant, is intended to provide the bulk of the manned tactical airpower of the Indian Air Force and the Indian Navy over the coming decades. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3199026 | 96,425 |
679,638 | In November 2022, the Nordic Shooting Region issued an open letter to all ISSF member federations expressing deep concern regarding the development of the sport and calling for stability in the rule book and competition programme. This followed organisational difficulties at the 2022 Rifle & Pistol World Championships in Cairo, backdropped by a recent history of fluid rules. The ISSF Technical Rules are typically updated once every 4 years in the January following an Olympic Games. However, since the publication of the 2017 rules (following the 2016 Olympic Games), the format of multiple events had been changed and updated, sometimes just weeks before major matches. This was exacerbated by one of the constitutional amendments, which permitted the Executive Committee to enact rule changes - a role previously reserved for the larger Administrative Committee. This increased the personal influence of the President on the rule book. In 2018 the Women's Three Position Rifle format was changed mid-cycle to a 3x40 format, matching the Men's event. In July 2021 the format was changed back to 3x20 for both Men and Women. Matters came to a head in May 2022 when Lisin unilaterally announced rule changes for the shotgun disciplines prior to the Baku World Cup. This reportedly occurred without consultation, following an incident at the previous World Cup in Lonato where Lisin had interrupted the semi-final of the Trap competition, asking the competition jury to deviate from the prescribed format. The jury had declined, sticking to the published rule book. Lisin allegedly replied "Then I change the rules". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2528826 | 679,284 |
47,954 | Lidar can also help to create high-resolution digital elevation models (DEMs) of archaeological sites that can reveal micro-topography that is otherwise hidden by vegetation. The intensity of the returned lidar signal can be used to detect features buried under flat vegetated surfaces such as fields, especially when mapping using the infrared spectrum. The presence of these features affects plant growth and thus the amount of infrared light reflected back. For example, at Fort Beauséjour – Fort Cumberland National Historic Site, Canada, lidar discovered archaeological features related to the siege of the Fort in 1755. Features that could not be distinguished on the ground or through aerial photography were identified by overlaying hill shades of the DEM created with artificial illumination from various angles. Another example is work at Caracol by Arlen Chase and his wife Diane Zaino Chase. In 2012, lidar was used to search for the legendary city of La Ciudad Blanca or "City of the Monkey God" in the La Mosquitia region of the Honduran jungle. During a seven-day mapping period, evidence was found of man-made structures. In June 2013, the rediscovery of the city of Mahendraparvata was announced. In southern New England, lidar was used to reveal stone walls, building foundations, abandoned roads, and other landscape features obscured in aerial photography by the region's dense forest canopy. In Cambodia, lidar data were used by Damian Evans and Roland Fletcher to reveal anthropogenic changes to Angkor landscape. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=41958 | 47,934 |
660,881 | The British Agricultural Revolution (17th–19th centuries) not only caused many changes in the way people worked, but in social structure as well. When industrialisation provided the cheapest and most efficient tools for agricultural production, it caused a reduced need for the peasant farm workers which displaced most of the working class from the countryside. Faced with the choice of selling their labor for a wage or becoming a capitalist, there emerged a class of entrepreneurs who through the exploitation of wage laborers became the capitalist class. As the system grew, there became a need for cheaper and more readily available materials, thus colonization was born. By expanding into new territories and enslaving indigenous cultures, primitive accumulation became a source of quick and easy capital. Famine even became a tool for capitalists in 1769–1770 when England raised the price of rice in India so that only the rich could afford it. National debt soon became a tool of control for capitalists who turned unproductive money into capital through lending and exchange. Encouraged to participate in the creation of debt, each worker participates in the creation of "joint-stock companies, the stock-exchange, and modern bankocracy". The international credit system conceals the source of its generation, i.e. the exploitation of slave and wage laborers. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8937649 | 660,536 |
1,148,289 | Trepanation, similar to some techniques used today, is the oldest surgical procedure known and was practised in the Stone Age in many parts of the world, and in some areas may have been quite widespread. The main pieces of archaeological evidence are in the forms of cave paintings and human remains. One third of 120 skulls found at a site in France dating to 6500 BCE had undergone trepanning. It was also practised widely in the pre-Columbian Andes. These procedures were mostly performed on combatants, with evidence from skeletal remains revealing that the earliest methods usually resulted in death. However, by the 1400s, Incas proved to be "skilled surgeons", as survival rates rose to about 90%, infection rates following the procedure were low and evidence was found showing that some individuals survived the surgery on multiple occasions. Incan surgeons learned to avoid areas of the head that would cause injury, using a scraping method on the skull that would cause less trauma. They also likely used medicinal herbs of the time, such as coca and alcohol for pain while balsam and saponin would be employed for antibiotic purposes. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1536547 | 1,147,684 |
417,144 | In 1924, Oort returned to the Netherlands to work at Leiden University, where he served as a research assistant, becoming Conservator in 1926, Lecturer in 1930, and Professor Extraordinary in 1935. In 1926, he received his doctorate from Groningen with a thesis on the properties of high-velocity stars. The next year, Swedish astronomer Bertil Lindblad proposed that the rate of rotation of stars in the outer part of the galaxy decreased with distance from the galactic core, and Oort, who later said that he believed it was his colleague Willem de Sitter who had first drawn his attention to Lindblad's work, realized that Lindblad was correct and that the truth of his proposition could be demonstrated observationally. Oort provided two formulae that described galactic rotation; the two constants that figured in these formulae are now known as "Oort's constants". Oort "argued that just as the outer planets appear to us to be overtaken and passed by the less distant ones in the solar system, so too with the stars if the Galaxy really rotated", according to the "Oxford Dictionary of Scientists". He "was finally able to calculate, on the basis of the various stellar motions, that the Sun was some 30,000 light-years from the center of the Galaxy and took about 225 million years to complete its orbit. He also showed that stars lying in the outer regions of the galactic disk rotated more slowly than those nearer the center. The Galaxy does not therefore rotate as a uniform whole but exhibits what is known as 'differential rotation'." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=413430 | 416,941 |
935,620 | The Yak-1's armament would be considered too light by Western standards but was typical of Soviet aircraft, pilots preferring a few guns grouped on the centerline to improve accuracy and reduce weight. Wing guns were rarely used on Soviet fighters and when they were supplied, they were often removed (as they were from US-supplied Bell P-39 Airacobras). Avoiding wing guns reduced weight and demonstrably improved roll rates (the same was true of the Bf 109F). The US and Britain considered heavy armament and high performance necessary, even at the cost of inferior maneuverability, while the Soviets relied on the marksmanship of their pilots coupled with agile aircraft. Even with the Yak-1's light armament, to reduce weight, modifications were made on the front line and on about thirty production aircraft: the 7.62 mm ShKAS machine-guns were removed, retaining only the single ShVAK cannon. Nevertheless, these lighter aircraft were popular with experienced pilots, for whom the reduction in armament was acceptable and combat experience in November 1942 showed a much improved kill-to-loss ratio. In the autumn of 1942, the Yak-1B appeared, with the more powerful M-105P engine and a single 12.7 mm UBS machine gun instead of the two ShKAS. Although this did not increase the total weight of fire much, the UBS machine-gun was much more effective than the two 7.62 mm ShKAS. The simple VV ring sight replaced the PBP gun-sight because of the very poor quality of the latter's lenses. The Yak-1 had a light tail, and it was easy to tip over and to hit the ground with the propeller. Often, technicians had to keep the tail down, which could lead to accidents, with aircraft taking off with technicians still on the rear fuselage. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1493765 | 935,126 |
2,068,344 | In 1868 Bloede secured a position at Chemical Works, a small chemical company in Brooklyn, New York, along the Gowanus creek canal. There he began to study chemical manufacturing and pharmaceutical preparations. In 1873 Bloede moved to Pomeroy, Ohio, the center of salt manufacturing along the Ohio River. He joined the Oakes & Rathbone Company in Parkersburg, West Virginia, which produced sulfuric acid for the bromine distillers in the region. The plant was located on the south side of the Little Kanawha River a tributary of the Ohio River. Oakes left the firm in 1875 and Bloede acquired his interests, the company became known as Bloede & Rathbone. The product line was extended to iron sulfates, iron nitrate, tin salts, mordants and other chemicals used mainly by the textile industry. Bloede's familiarity with the textile industry led to the idea of manufacturing aniline dyes to increase profits. At the time most dyes were imported from Germany. There were only two companies producing dyes in the U.S. Bloede was determined to manufacture aniline by nitrating benzene to form nitrobenzene, followed by reduction. One problem he faced was to purify benzene from the light tar oils, which was supplied in barrels by coal tar distilleries and gas plants. Lacking a distillation column, he used an old boiler shell connected with a condensing coil but the benzene quality was poor. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14490922 | 2,067,153 |
297,903 | In 2001 Lockheed Martin claimed a potential market of 5,179 aircraft, including exports beyond the partner countries. The size of the market was instrumental in determining many of the cost calculations and economies of scale. More recent critical analysis has seriously questioned the assumptions made in estimating these markets and hence the resulting unit cost of the aircraft and its life-cycle costs as well. Congress may allow the U.S. military to perform a "block buy" of 477 aircraft over 3 years, starting the cost/scale-spiral in a desirable direction. Several government officials, including Canadian Industry Minister Tony Clement, have used the production number of 5,000 as recently as September 2010 as an indication of the supposed benefit to industry in providing components and services for this large fleet. Analyst Kenneth Epps stated in November 2010: "The global F-35 market of 'up to' 5,000 aircraft cited by Canadian industry and government officials is outdated and now greatly overstated. Realistically, the likelihood of worldwide F-35 sales is closer to the figure now given as the order total for the program partner countries, that is, 'up to' 3,500 aircraft. The uncritical use of F-35 sales projections that are now almost 10 years out of date calls into question other claims made by officials about the F-35 program." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28702755 | 297,743 |
665,133 | Chief designer of the Soviet space program, Sergei Korolev, decided that the cosmonauts must be male, between 25 and 30 years old, no taller than 1.75 meters, and weigh no more than 72 kilograms. The final specifications for cosmonauts were approved in June 1959. By September interviews with potential cosmonauts had begun. Although the pilots were not told they might be flying into space, one of the physicians in charge of the selection process believed that some pilots had deduced this. Just over 200 candidates made it through the interview process, and by October a series of demanding physical tests were conducted on those remaining, such as exposure to low pressures, and a centrifuge test. By the end of 1959, 20 men had been selected. Korolev insisted on having a larger group than NASA's astronaut team of seven. Of these 20, five were outside the desired age range; hence, the age requirement was relaxed. Unlike NASA's astronaut group, this group did not particularly consist of experienced pilots; Belyayev was the most experienced with 900 flying hours. The Soviet spacecraft were more automated than the American counterparts, so significant piloting experience was not necessary. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=393892 | 664,786 |
789,375 | Augmentative and alternative communication is used by individuals to compensate for severe speech-language impairments in the expression or comprehension of spoken or written language. People making use of AAC include individuals with a variety of congenital conditions such as cerebral palsy, autism, intellectual disability, and acquired conditions such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, traumatic brain injury and aphasia. Prevalence data vary depending on the country and age/disabilities surveyed, but typically between 0.1 and 1.5% of the population are considered to have such severe speech-language impairments that they have difficulty making themselves understood, and thus could benefit from AAC. An estimated 0.05% of children and young people require high technology AAC. Well-known AAC users include physicist Stephen Hawking, broadcaster Roger Ebert and poet Christopher Nolan. Award-winning films such as "My Left Foot" and "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly", based on books by AAC users Christy Brown and Jean-Dominique Bauby respectively, have brought the lives of those who use AAC to a wider audience. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2106968 | 788,951 |
1,881,059 | As the professional body representing biologists, the IoB was frequently consulted on biological issues by Government, Parliament, industry and other organisations. Due to its widespread members and affiliated societies, it prided itself on producing a balanced response that reflected the views of the biological profession as a whole. At its peak of policy activity in the late 1990s the Institute was each year responding to over 40 consultations and organising half a dozen policy events and workshops in addition to its usual committee meetings. Topics addressed were wide and varied, for example including relating to: agricultural research, AIDS, antibiotic resistance, alternative medicine regulation, bioethics, biodiversity, biotechnology, careers in biology (both for school leavers and at the research level), climate change, GMOs, public understanding of science, national park formation, renewable energy impact, research assessment, safety in biological fieldwork, safety in laboratories, xenotransplantation... among many others. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1358822 | 1,879,978 |
93,856 | The widespread introduction of jet-powered interceptor aircraft upset this imbalance somewhat by reducing the effectiveness of the American bomber fleet. In 1949 Curtis LeMay was placed in command of the Strategic Air Command and instituted a program to update the bomber fleet to one that was all-jet. During the early 1950s the B-47 Stratojet and B-52 Stratofortress were introduced, providing the ability to bomb the Soviet Union more easily. Before the development of a capable strategic missile force in the Soviet Union, much of the war-fighting doctrine held by western nations revolved around using a large number of smaller nuclear weapons in a tactical role. It is debatable whether such use could be considered "limited" however because it was believed that the United States would use its own strategic weapons (mainly bombers at the time) should the Soviet Union deploy any kind of nuclear weapon against civilian targets. Douglas MacArthur, an American general, was fired by President Harry Truman, partially because he persistently requested permission to use his own discretion in deciding whether to utilize atomic weapons on the People's Republic of China in 1951 during the Korean War. Mao Zedong, China's communist leader, gave the impression that he would welcome a nuclear war with the capitalists because it would annihilate what he viewed as their "imperialist" system. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=36880 | 93,815 |
112,807 | Helping people and children learn in ways that are easier, faster, more accurate, or less expensive can be traced back to the emergence of very early tools, such as paintings on cave walls. Various types of abacus have been used. Writing slates and blackboards have been used for at least a millennium. From their introduction, books and pamphlets have held a prominent role in education. From the early twentieth century, duplicating machines such as the mimeograph and Gestetner stencil devices were used to produce short copy runs (typically 10–50 copies) for classroom or home use. The use of media for instructional purposes is generally traced back to the first decade of the 20th century with the introduction of educational films (the 1900s) and Sidney Pressey's mechanical teaching machines (1920s). The first all multiple choice, large-scale assessment was the Army Alpha, used to assess the intelligence and, more specifically, the aptitudes of World War I military recruits. Further large-scale use of technologies was employed in training soldiers during and after WWII using films and other mediated materials, such as overhead projectors. The concept of hypertext is traced to the description of memex by Vannevar Bush in 1945. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1944675 | 112,762 |
1,289,243 | An RAAF team headed by the Deputy Chief of the Air Staff, Air Vice Marshal Charles Read, was sent to the United States in May 1970 to negotiate the lease arrangements. After considering the proposed deal, Read recommended that it go ahead; according to RAAF historian Alan Stephens this decision "delighted RAAF senior officers and aircrews". The Cabinet subsequently approved the lease of 24 Phantoms for two years at a total cost of $US 41.554 million (including training, spare parts and technical advice) and the formal agreement to do so was signed on 29 June 1970. The USAF designated this project "Peace Reef". The terms of the lease agreement allowed the Australian Government to purchase the Phantoms outright if the F-111C program was cancelled, but also allowed the USAF to demand the immediate return of the aircraft and their support equipment in the event of a national emergency. Laird provided Fraser with a written commitment that this option would not be exercised, and it was never publicised. Laird also promised that USAF tankers would be made available to support the Australian Phantoms during crises, subject to American national requirements and the terms of relevant agreements between the two countries. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=36437816 | 1,288,534 |
48,315 | The United States Department of Justice and FBI have not enforced the DMCA as rigorously as had been feared by some, but the law, nonetheless, remains a controversial one. Niels Ferguson, a well-respected cryptography researcher, has publicly stated that he will not release some of his research into an Intel security design for fear of prosecution under the DMCA. Cryptologist Bruce Schneier has argued that the DMCA encourages vendor lock-in, while inhibiting actual measures toward cyber-security. Both Alan Cox (longtime Linux kernel developer) and Edward Felten (and some of his students at Princeton) have encountered problems related to the Act. Dmitry Sklyarov was arrested during a visit to the US from Russia, and jailed for five months pending trial for alleged violations of the DMCA arising from work he had done in Russia, where the work was legal. In 2007, the cryptographic keys responsible for Blu-ray and HD DVD content scrambling were discovered and released onto the Internet. In both cases, the Motion Picture Association of America sent out numerous DMCA takedown notices, and there was a massive Internet backlash triggered by the perceived impact of such notices on fair use and free speech. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=18934432 | 48,295 |
1,208,815 | Following the initial run of 36 Scout C airframes, later Scout C production batches, consisting of 50 aircraft built for the RNAS and 75 for the RFC, changed the cowl to a flat-fronted shorter-depth version able to house either the Gnome Lambda rotary, or the alternate choice of a nine-cylinder 80 hp Le Rhône 9C rotary engine when the Gnome Lambda was not used, and moved the oil tank forward to a position in front of the pilot for better weight distribution and more reliable engine operation. The later, relatively "flat"-fronted cowl for the remaining Scout C aircraft still had the small opening of the domed unit, with both cowl designs having a circumferential slot-style cutaway made at mid-cowl depth of about one-sixth the circumference, to the lowest perimeter of the cowl to increase the cooling effect, and to allow any unburned fuel/oil mix to drain away. A total of some 161 Scout C airframes were produced for the British military as a whole, with the transition to the Scout D standard taking place in a gradual progression of feature changes. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4115009 | 1,208,168 |
2,148,937 | In 1975 Karl Raitz was named chair. Student enrollment in the program approached 2500 students each semester in the 1970s. Between 1967 and 1980, the department awarded 53 MA and 23 PhD degrees. Graduates of the department were employed at universities in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kansas, Ohio, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Canada in addition to colleges and universities in Kentucky. Others held positions in state and city planning boards, in the U.S. government, and in civil service programs. Departmental interest in overseas areas grew rapidly during this period. The faculty conducted research in the Philippines, Indonesia, Sumatra, Western Australia, and the Himalaya and Japan with support from various funding agencies. This period also marked increased interest in the department's immediate surroundings with the publication of the first comprehensive "Atlas of Kentucky" (1976), an effort that involved the entire faculty. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=47120039 | 2,147,706 |
303,804 | Losses suffered by F-105 Wild Weasels spurred on the development of a new variant based on the F-4C Phantom II, the EF-4C Phantom Wild Weasel IV. The first thirty-six of these were delivered to Southeast Asia in 1969 and so missed taking part in Rolling Thunder. While carrying the same electronics as in the F-105G, the dense internal structure of the F-4 Phantom prevented the EF-4C from efficiently mounting this equipment, which meant it could not carry the superior AGM-78 Standard missile. By the start of Operation Linebacker, Wild Weasel missions were both more and less effective. Tactics and technology had evolved which improved the suppression of individual SAM sites, however the American military still failed to consider the integrated nature of North Vietnam's air defense network. Not only did the network possess thousands of radar- and optical-guided AAA and SAM sites, it also consisted of early-warning radars, intelligence-gathering agencies, and hundreds of ground-controlled interceptors. Thus, while fewer American aircraft were lost to SAMs during Linebacker, many more were lost in air-to-air combat. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=573491 | 303,642 |
1,604,587 | Early results from Dan Nocera, a researcher at Harvard University, gave insight on how his newly created bionic leaf can be used for fertilizer production. This new bionic leaf uses photovoltaic cells in conjunction with "Xanthobacter autotrophicus" bacteria to create a plastic called polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB). PHB supplies energy to the bacteria's natural enzymes which then converts nitrogen gas from the air into ammonia. The bionic leaf, can perform this process using renewable electricity, allowing for the sustainable production of ammonia and bio-fertilizers. Currently, the main industrial production of ammonia is performed by what is known as the Haber-Bosch Process, which uses natural gas as the main energy source. The bacteria within the bionic leaf also help to remove carbon dioxide from the environment. The bionic leaf must still pass an environmental impact study in order to determine if this bacteria is safe to release into the wild. Although the bionic leaf currently operates at a mere 25% efficiency, research and development is still with the hopes of improving the process. "X. autotrophicus" cells act as a living bio-fertilizer due to their ability to directly promote plant growth when applied to organic material. A study was conducted by comparing plants treated with no fertilizer to the same treated with increasing amounts of "X. autotrophicus" culture. The treated plants root mass and total mass increased by approximately 130% and 100% respectively, compared to that of the untreated control group. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=60018379 | 1,603,686 |
765,999 | Most viruses have an outer capsule 20 to 300 nm in diameter. Virus capsules are remarkably robust and capable of withstanding temperatures as high as 60 °C; they are stable across the pH range 2-10. Viral capsules can be used to create nano device components such as nanowires, nanotubes, and quantum dots. Tubular virus particles such as the tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) can be used as templates to create nanofibers and nanotubes, since both the inner and outer layers of the virus are charged surfaces which can induce nucleation of crystal growth. This was demonstrated through the production of platinum and gold nanotubes using TMV as a template. Mineralized virus particles have been shown to withstand various pH values by mineralizing the viruses with different materials such as silicon, PbS, and CdS and could therefore serve as a useful carriers of material. A spherical plant virus called cowpea chlorotic mottle virus (CCMV) has interesting expanding properties when exposed to environments of pH higher than 6.5. Above this pH, 60 independent pores with diameters about 2 nm begin to exchange substance with the environment. The structural transition of the viral capsid can be utilized in Biomorphic mineralization for selective uptake and deposition of minerals by controlling the solution pH. Possible applications include using the viral cage to produce uniformly shaped and sized quantum dot semiconductor nanoparticles through a series of pH washes. This is an alternative to the apoferritin cage technique currently used to synthesize uniform CdSe nanoparticles. Such materials could also be used for targeted drug delivery since particles release contents upon exposure to specific pH levels. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=45784 | 765,589 |
204,868 | In 2022, Ioannidis authored a paper in "BMJ Open" arguing that signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration were shunned as a fringe minority by those in favor of the John Snow Memorandum. According to him, the latter used their large numbers of followers on Twitter and other social media and op-eds to shape a scientific groupthink against the former, who had less influence as measured by the Kardashian Index. "The BMJ" published responses to his paper, including a comment by Gavin Yamey, David Gorski, and Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz which argued that Ioannidis's paper featured "factual errors, statistical shortcomings, failure to protect the named research subjects from harm, and potentially undeclared conflicts of interest that entirely undermine the analysis presented." In the same exchange of comments on "The BMJ", Ioannidis addressed the concerns of Yamey, Gorski and Meyerovitz-Katz in his "Fourth set of replies", additionally stating that his "COVID-19 papers have been cited about 5 thousand times in the scientific literature by tens of thousands of scientists and were discussed by millions of people," and dismissed conflict of interest by asserting that he did not sign the Great Barrington Declaration or any other petition or signature collection on COVID-19, as he is against the notion that scientific matters and evidence could be decided by signature collections and prefers these matters be handled by heavily moderated public debates. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20900378 | 204,762 |
1,881,398 | This diversification in both plants and mycorrhizae brought about their second wave of evolution within the Cretaceous period, which introduced alongside arbuscular mycorrhizae three new types of mycorrhizae: orchid mycorrhizae, ericoid mycorrhizae, and ectomycorrhizae. The taxonomic diversification of all plants with and without mycorrhizal symbiosis shows that 71% makes up arbuscular mycorrhizae, 10% makes up Orchidaceae, 2% make up ectomycorrhizae, and 1.4% make up ericoid mycorrhizae. The defining feature of this wave of evolution was the consistency of root types (or in other words, the similarities shared between root types, though characteristically different for individual families or even species) within the families that allowed for appropriate symbiosis with the plants of the period. The environments of this period had a radiation of angiosperms, showing a different reproductive strategy than before and providing distinct morphological traits for most varieties of plants as opposed to prior periods and before the K-Pg extinction event. The climate that allowed for these developments could be described as relatively warm, leading to higher sea levels and shallow inland bodies of water. These areas were occupied mostly by reptiles that fed on animals, and insects that fed on plants, showing a more complex ecosystem than was present in the Triassic period and further pushing evolution in plants and mycorrhizae via ever-present natural selection. There is plenty of plant evidence to support most of these findings; however, the information necessary to form hypotheses regarding the mycorrhizae of the time, as well as other related symbioses, is incredibly limited as the fossilization of such individuals is very rare. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=59393212 | 1,880,317 |
803,805 | The concept of the replicator as a genetic entity has proven very useful in the quest to identify replicator DNA sequences and initiator proteins in prokaryotes, and to some extent also in eukaryotes, although the organization and complexity of replicators differ considerably between the domains of life. While bacterial genomes typically contain a single replicator that is specified by consensus DNA sequence elements and that controls replication of the entire chromosome, most eukaryotic replicators – with the exception of budding yeast – are not defined at the level of DNA sequence; instead, they appear to be specified combinatorially by local DNA structural and chromatin cues. Eukaryotic chromosomes are also much larger than their bacterial counterparts, raising the need for initiating DNA synthesis from many origins simultaneously to ensure timely replication of the entire genome. Additionally, many more replicative helicases are loaded than activated to initiate replication in a given cell cycle. The context-driven definition of replicators and selection of origins suggests a relaxed replicon model in eukaryotic systems that allows for flexibility in the DNA replication program. Although replicators and origins can be spaced physically apart on chromosomes, they often co-localize or are located in close proximity; for simplicity, we will thus refer to both elements as ‘origins’ throughout this review. Taken together, the discovery and isolation of origin sequences in various organisms represents a significant milestone towards gaining mechanistic understanding of replication initiation. In addition, these accomplishments had profound biotechnological implications for the development of shuttle vectors that can be propagated in bacterial, yeast and mammalian cells. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=619137 | 803,376 |
2,148,672 | In 1976 Fawcett resigned the chairmanship and became Senior Associate Dean for Preclinical Science, a position for which, by his own description, he was ill-suited. After spending some time annually in Africa as examiner in the School of Veterinary Medicine of the University of Nairobi, Kenya, where he indulged his profound love of and talent for animal and nature photography, Fawcett left Boston in 1985 to take the position of senior research scientist and director of electron microscopy at the International Laboratory for Research on Animal Diseases in Nairobi. There, he worked in parasitology in a well-equipped laboratory financed by the World Bank and other international agencies. Its mission was to find methods of controlling two parasitic diseases, theileriosis (also known as East Coast Fever) and trypanosomiasis, which together killed hundreds of thousands of cattle annually in East and Central Africa. Fawcett relished the freedom from administrative duties that he enjoyed there. With just a small German microscope and all the accessories he needed, Fawcett could devote all his energy to studying what he considered an interesting new field. He found that he was able to "add significantly to what was then known about the parasites and their arachnid and dipteran vectors." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27794457 | 2,147,441 |
849,991 | In his second start of the 2003 season, Prior pitched his first career shutout, striking out 12 and allowing four hits in a 3–0 win over the Montreal Expos. In six innings on May 12, he allowed four runs to the Milwaukee Brewers but struck out 11 and earned the victory in an 11–5 triumph. He struck out 16 Brewers on June 26, allowing two runs in eight innings but getting a no decision in a 5–3 loss. In the second inning of a game against the Atlanta Braves on July 11, Prior had to exit after suffering a violent on-field collision with Atlanta second baseman Marcus Giles. The injury forced him to the disabled list (DL) with shoulder stiffness. Selected as National League All-Stars in 2003, both Prior and fellow right-handed pitcher Kerry Wood were dubbed "Chicago Heat" by "Sports Illustrated". Sportswriter George Vecsey compared them to other famed rotation twosomes, like Warren Spahn and Lew Burdette, or Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling. According to CBS Local, sportswriters and fans criticized Cubs manager Dusty Baker on the high pitch counts of the two aces. Prior averaged 113.4 pitches per starts in the regular season, that number rising to 126.1 in September and 122.7 in the playoffs. However, the contributions of the two aces helped lead the Cubs to an 88-win season and an NL Central division title. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=297465 | 849,539 |
2,073,071 | Professor Griffin has been awarded the John Smythe medal for excellence in research for his work on profiling literacy development and his work on profile reporting was identified in the annual 1996 yearbook of the American Society for Curriculum Development in Washington as world's best practice. He is a project team leader for UNESCO in southern Africa, and was awarded, in 2005, a UNESCO Research Medal by the Ministers of Education from southern African nations. Professor Griffin is a World Bank consultant in Vietnam and China, leading national and international teams in studies of literacy and numeracy assessment and has developed a system of teacher assessment recently signed into law by the Vietnam Government to be applied to more than 380000 teachers and to be replicated in China. His work currently focuses on item response modelling applications in interpretive frameworks for criterion referenced performance and developmental competence assessment. He has also addressed major professional associations, and taught and conducted assessment and evaluation research projects in Australia, Hong Kong, France, Ireland, the United States, Vietnam, China, New Zealand, Canada and Britain. Professor Griffin is one of only six Australians admitted to the International Academy of Education. His current work includes the application of item response modelling to performance assessment and the development of professional standards for classroom teachers and educational managers in Australia, Vietnam and China. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=34060807 | 2,071,880 |
2,144,824 | Individuals with FA-DLBCL are typically males (~70% of cases) aged 25–96 years (~75% of cases are >50 years old). They present with abnormalities associated with a long-standing (1–20 years): a) cardiac myxoma (i.e. a myxoid tumor of primitive connective tissue in the heart's atrium); b) subdural hematoma (i.e. a collection of blood between the inner layer of the dura mater and the arachnoid mater of the meninges surrounding the brain; c) testicular hyrocoele (i.e. fluid accumulation within the potential space between the two layers of the cavum vaginale, of a testicle); d) pseudocyst (i.e. a cyst that lacks epithelial or endothelial cells) or cyst of the kidneys, spleen, ovary, adrenal gland, retroperitoneal space, or other tissue; and e) intravascular thrombi; f) implants of a foreign body such as an artificial heart valve, joint replacement, or metal stent (i.e. a tube placed within a blood vessel to keep it open). Most cases have involved atrial myxomas (~31%), pseudocysts (~28%), prosthetic devices (23%), and chronic hematoma (18%). Symptoms of the disease are attributable to the pre-existing condition, not the FA-DLBCL that has developed in the immune-sequestered site. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=63408853 | 2,143,593 |
461,906 | In the 1940s, great strides were made in the field of antibiotic discovery by researchers like Albert Schatz, Selman A. Waksman, and H. Boyd Woodruff that inspired significant effort to be allocated to the search for novel antibiotics. Studies searching for antibiotic and anticancer agents in the mid to late 20th century have illuminated the existence of numerous unique families of both TopI and TopII inhibitors, with the 1960s alone resulting in the discovery of the camptothecin, anthracycline and epipodophyllotoxin classes. Knowledge of the first topoisomerase inhibitors, and their medical potential as anticancer drugs and antibiotics, predates the discovery of the first topoisomerase ("Escherichia. coli" omega protein, a TopI) by Jim Wang in 1971. In 1976, Gellert et al. detailed the discovery of the bacterial TopII DNA gyrase and discussed its inhibition when introduced to coumarin and quinolone class inhibitors, sparking greater interest in topoisomerase-targeting antibiotic and antitumor agents. Topoisomerase inhibitors have been used as important experimental tools that have contributed to the discovery of some topoisomerases, as the quinolone nalidixic acid helped elucidate the bacterial TopII proteins it binds to. Topoisomerase inhibitor classes have been derived from a wide variety of disparate sources, with some being natural products first extracted from plants (camptothecin, etoposide) or bacterial samples (doxorubicin, indolocarbazole), while others possess purely synthetic, and often accidental, origins (quinolone, indenoisoquinoline). After their initial discoveries, the structures of these classes have been fine tuned through the creation of derivatives in order to make safer, more effective, and are more easily administered variants. Currently, topoisomerase inhibitors hold a prominent place among antibiotics and anticancer drugs in active medical use, as inhibitors like doxorubicin (anthracycline, TopII inhibitor), etoposide (TopII inhibitor), ciprofloxaxin (fluoroquinolone, TopII inhibitor), and irinotecan (camptothecin derivative, TopI inhibitor) were all included in the 2019 WHO Model List for Essential Medicines. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=6688255 | 461,677 |
819,628 | Platinum-containing chemotherapeutic agents, including cisplatin and carboplatin, are associated with cochleotoxicity characterized by progressive, high-frequency hearing loss with or without tinnitus (ringing in the ears). Ototoxicity is less frequently seen with the related compound oxaliplatin. The severity of cisplatin-induced ototoxicity is dependent upon the cumulative dose administered and the age of the patient, with young children being most susceptible. The exact mechanism of cisplatin ototoxicity is not known. The drug is understood to damage multiple regions of the cochlea, causing the death of outer hair cells, as well as damage to the spiral ganglion neurons and cells of the stria vascularis. Long-term retention of cisplatin in the cochlea may contribute to the drug's cochleotoxic potential. Once inside the cochlea, cisplatin has been proposed to cause cellular toxicity through a number of different mechanisms, including through the production of reactive oxygen species. The decreased incidence of oxaliplatin ototoxicity has been attributed to decreased uptake of the drug by cells of the cochlea. Administration of amifostine has been used in attempts to prevent cisplatin-induced ototoxicity, but the American Society of Clinical Oncology recommends against its routine use. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=618910 | 819,187 |
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