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Maclaurin spheroid If such a spheroid is composed of a viscous fluid, and if it suffers a perturbation which breaks its rotational symmetry, then it will gradually elongate into the Jacobi ellipsoidal form, while dissipating its excess energy as heat. This is termed "secular instability". However, for a similar spheroid composed of an inviscid fluid, the perturbation will merely result in an undamped oscillation. This is described as "dynamic" (or "ordinary") "stability". A of eccentricity greater than 0.952887 is dynamically unstable. Even if it is composed of an inviscid fluid and has no means of losing energy, a suitable perturbation will grow (at least initially) exponentially. Dynamic instability implies secular instability (and secular stability implies dynamic stability). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3826733 | 310,958 |
Privacy concerns with social networking services Using social media for academic research is accelerating and raising ethical concerns along the way, as vast amounts of information collected by private companies — including Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Twitter — are giving new insight into all aspects of everyday life. Our social media "audience" is bigger than we actually know; our followers or friends aren't the only ones that can see information about us. Social media sites are collecting data from us just by searching something such as "favorite restaurant" on our search engine. Facebook is transformed from a public space to a behavioral laboratory," says the study, which cites a Harvard-based research project of 1,700 college-based Facebook users in which it became possible to "deanonymize parts of the data set," or cross-reference anonymous data to make student identification possible. Some of Facebook's research on user behavior found that 71% of people drafted at least one post that they never posted. Another analyzed 400,000 posts and found that children's communication with parents decreases in frequency from age 13 but then rises when they move out. The FBI has dedicated undercover agents on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn. One example of investigators using Facebook to nab a criminal is the case of Maxi Sopo. Charged with bank fraud, and having escaped to Mexico, he was nowhere to be found until he started posting on Facebook | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=31602166 | 272,853 |
VisualSim Architect Libraries are used during the specification to optimize and validate the specification; during the hardware and software development phase to come up with the optimal architecture; and during the product debug and testing phase to match the actual output with a set of expected results. VisualSim at the level of deriving Systems Specifications provides a complete visual inspection of the system operation as a combination of traffic input, behavioral system definition and sink. This solution augments tools such as MatLab/Simulink and UML/SysML by providing very early visibility into the full system operation without getting into the details of the algorithm and code-level implementation. Typical example use cases would be Multimedia SoC with Network-On-Chip, In-Car networks using Ethernet, CAN, LIN and FlexRay, Submarine Inertial systems and etc. VisualSim modeling at the level of Hardware and Software are built after the system specification has been optimized and validated. The design can be refined by adding specific hardware implementation details, logic and cycle-level timing to the VisualSim model. The device can be a board, set of boards, SoC, sub-system or an Intellectual Property (IP). Implementation details can include the processor pipeline, functional cache, accelerators and bus arbiters. These refinements provide cycle-by-cycle and address-level evaluation of the system functionality, performance and power. The libraries are at statistical, functional and cycle-accurate levels of abstraction | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=49215989 | 403,745 |
Fraternal Order of Eagles Building (Richmond, Virginia) The Fraternal Order of Eagles Building is a historic Fraternal Order of Eagles clubhouse located in Richmond, Virginia. It was built in 1914, and is a three-story, three bay by six bay, rectangular brick building in the Neoclassical Revival style. In 2005, the building was renovated into apartments with a commercial space in the basement. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28898508 | 353,154 |
KICU-TV On August 28, 1999, after having rejected unsolicited bids to sell the station for the several years, Ralph Wilson Enterprises announced that it would sell KICU-TV. Station management cited the FCC's August 5 decision to relax its ownership rules to allow a single broadcasting company to own two television stations in the same market (on the pretense that one of the stations is not among the four highest-rated) as a caveat in its decision to divest KICU. Among the station groups reportedly interested in acquiring KICU was NBC Television Stations, which sought to acquire an owned-and-operated station in the Bay Area after NBC was outbid by Young Broadcasting for longtime NBC affiliate KRON-TV in November 1999, leading to a dispute between the network and Young (which has since merged with Media General) during negotiations to renew NBC's affiliation agreement with KRON that resulted in the latter group declining to renew the contract after it expired on December 31, 2001. NBC would ultimately reach an affiliation deal with San Jose-based WB affiliate KNTV (channel 11), after then-owner Granite Broadcasting Corporation (from which NBC would later acquire KNTV) on February 18, 2000. On November 29, 1999, Wilson sold the station to the Cox Broadcasting (now Cox Media Group) subsidiary of Cox Enterprises | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1985032 | 411,983 |
Neuroepidemiology The Congress will feature internationally recognized invited speakers, platform lectures, short oral presentations and poster sessions, and will provide an ideal platform for continuing education in all fields of experimental and non-experimental clinical neuroepidemiology. To reflect modern achievements in our knowledge in non-experimental and experimental (clinical trials) epidemiology of neurological disorders, the First International Congress of Clinical will be held in Munich, Germany on August 27–30, 2009 (www.neuro2009.com). This International Congress, for the first time, will bring together scientists and experts in all major fields of experimental and non-experimental neuroepidemiology. Combining scientific sessions in these two interrelated fields of neuroepidemiology with two corresponding half-day teaching courses and a one year-free on-line subscription to the journal of "Neuroepidemiology" for all registered participants are additional unique features of the Congress. The main topics of the Congress that will be addressed during plenary, platform and poster sessions include stroke, TIA, dementia, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, migraine, traumatic brain injury, peripheral neuropathy, neuromuscular disorders, central nervous system infections and tumours, neurological aspects of aging, neuropsychology and neuropsychiatric disorders | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=16316103 | 171,602 |
Coronavirus disease 2019 The droplets are transmitted, and cause new infection, when inhaled by people in close contact (1 to 2 metres, 3 to 6 feet). They are produced during breathing out, however as they are relatively heavy, they usually fall to the ground or surfaces. After the droplets fall to floors or surfaces, they still can infect other people, if they touch contaminated surfaces and then their eyes, nose or mouth with unwashed hands. On surfaces the amount of active virus decreases over time until it can no longer cause infection. However, experimentally, the virus can survive on various surfaces for some time, (for example copper or cardboard for a few hours, and plastic or steel for a few days). Surfaces are easily decontaminated with household disinfectants which kill the virus outside the human body or on the hands. Notably, however disinfectants or bleach should never be swallowed or injected as a treatment or preventative measure, as this is harmful or potentially fatal. Sputum and saliva carry large amounts of virus. Some medical procedures may result in the virus being transmitted easier than normal for such small droplets, known as airborne transmission. The virus is most contagious during the first three days after onset of symptoms, although spread is known to occur up to two days before symptoms appear (presymptomatic transmission) and in later stages of the disease. Some people have been infected and recovered without showing symptoms, but uncertainties remain in terms of asymptomatic transmission | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=63030231 | 495,014 |
Mass production techniques were also used to rather limited extent to make clocks and watches, and to make small arms, though parts were usually non-interchangeable. Though produced on a very small scale, Crimean War gunboat engines designed and assembled by John Penn of Greenwich are recorded as the first instance of the application of mass production techniques (though not necessarily the assembly-line method) to marine engineering. In filling an Admiralty order for 90 sets to his high-pressure and high-revolution horizontal trunk engine design, Penn produced them all in 90 days. He also used Whitworth Standard threads throughout. Prerequisites for the wide use of mass production were interchangeable parts, machine tools and power, especially in the form of electricity. Some of the organizational management concepts needed to create 20th-century mass production, such as scientific management, had been pioneered by other engineers (most of whom are not famous, but Frederick Winslow Taylor is one of the well-known ones), whose work would later be synthesized into fields such as industrial engineering, manufacturing engineering, operations research, and management consultancy. Although after leaving the Henry Ford Company which was rebranded as Cadillac and later was awarded the Dewar Trophy in 1908 for creating interchangeable mass-produced precision engine parts, Henry Ford downplayed the role of Taylorism in the development of mass production at his company | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=63137 | 509,985 |
Association of Official Seed Certifying Agencies The (AOSCA), formerly known as the International Crop Improvement Association, is a trade organization based in the United States. Founded in 1919, its function is to develop and promote certified varieties of seed for agricultural use. The International Crop Improvement Association evolved from the Wisconsin Crop Improvement Association (WCIA), initially called the Wisconsin Experiment Association. This was organized in 1901 by Ransom Asa Moore at the University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Agriculture, aided by graduates of that college and farmers, with the objective of improving and disseminating strains of seed. The establishment of the International Crop Improvement Association followed in December 1919 when Moore presented a proposed constitution for the organization in Chicago, Illinois. It was proposed that the organization be international rather than national to allow Canada to be a member. Moore was named the first president of the organization in 1920. The (AOSCA) assists clients in the production, identification, distribution and promotion of certified classes of seed and other crop propagation materials. Its membership currently includes seed certifying agencies across the US, and member countries including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Argentina, Chile and Brazil | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=39375944 | 488,674 |
Display aspect ratio The aspect ratio of a display device is the proportional relationship between the width and the height of the display. It is expressed as two numbers separated by a colon (x:y). Common aspect ratios for displays, past and present, include , , and . As of 2016, most computer monitors use widescreen displays with an aspect ratio of , although some portable PCs use narrower aspect ratios like 3:2 and 16:10 while some high-end desktop monitors have adopted ultrawide displays. The following table summarises the different aspect ratios that have been used in computer displays: Until about 2003, most computer monitors used an aspect ratio of 4:3, and in some cases 5:4. Between 2003 and 2006, monitors with became commonly available, first in laptops and later also in standalone computer monitors. Reasons for this transition was productive uses for such monitors, i.e. besides widescreen movie viewing and computer game play, are the word processor display of two standard A4 or letter pages side by side, as well as CAD displays of large-size drawings and CAD application menus at the same time. 16:10 became the most common sold aspect ratio for widescreen computer monitors until 2008. In 2008, the computer industry started to move from 4:3 and 16:10 to 16:9 as the standard aspect ratio for monitors and laptops | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17455275 | 402,051 |
Three-phase micro-inverter A three-phase microinverter is a type of solar microinverter specifically design to supply three-phase electric power. In conventional microinverter designs that work with one-phase power, the energy from the panel must be stored during the period where the voltage is passing through zero, which it does twice per cycle (at 50 or 60 Hz). In a three phase system, throughout the cycle, one of the three wires has a positive (or negative) voltage, so the need for storage can be greatly reduced by transferring the output of the panel to different wires during each cycle. The reduction in energy storage significantly lowers the price and complexity of the converter hardware, as well as potentially increasing its expected lifetime. Conventional alternating current power is a sinusoidal voltage pattern that repeats over a defined period. That means that during a single cycle, the voltage passes through zero two times. In European systems the voltage at the plug has a maximum of 230 V and cycles 50 times a second, meaning that there are 100 times a second where the voltage is zero, while North American derived systems are 120 V 60 Hz, or 120 zero voltages a second. Inexpensive inverters can convert DC power to AC by simply turning the DC side of the power on and off 120 times a second, inverting the voltage every other cycle. The result is a square-wave that is close enough to AC power for many devices | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=42432999 | 414,634 |
Periphery countries Becoming industrialized also will help to force trade to come to their cities, if they can produce goods at competitive prices, allowing them to reach out to the global market and take hold. Once a periphery country can industrialize, and use its own resources to its own benefit, it will begin to enter semi-periphery status. In order for a periphery country to industrialize, it must first undergo proto-industrialization. In this stage, a market-based economy begins to form, normally in rural areas, using agricultural products. Proto-industrialization also helps to organize the rural market in these country and allows for them to become more capitalistic. Finally, once these countries develop this style of economy, they can begin to build factories and machines. One of the final steps for a periphery country to rise to semi-periphery or core status is to educate its citizens. Raising the literacy rate allows ideas to spread more quickly through a country and also allows people to better communicate with themselves and the rest of the world. Also once universities are developed a country can begin to research new technology. Researching new technology can help a country to better compete in a global market by becoming more efficient or selling new technology and industrial techniques. If education and industry is allowed to become developed enough it is entirely possible for a periphery country to rise to core country status and become a leader in the global market | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=16985133 | 512,426 |
Austerity " Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke wrote in September 2011, "the two goals—achieving fiscal sustainability, which is the result of responsible policies set in place for the longer term, and avoiding creation of fiscal headwinds for the recovery—are not incompatible. Acting now to put in place a credible plan for reducing future deficits over the long term, while being attentive to the implications of fiscal choices for the recovery in the near term, can help serve both objectives." The term "age of austerity" was popularised by UK Conservative Party leader David Cameron in his keynote speech to the Conservative Party forum in Cheltenham on 26 April 2009, in which he committed to end years of what he called "excessive government spending". Theresa May claimed that "is over" as of 3 October 2018, a statement which was almost immediately met with criticism on the reality of its central claim, particularly in relation to the high possibility of a substantial economic downturn due to Brexit. "Merriam-Webster's Dictionary" named the word "austerity" as its "Word of the Year" for 2010 because of the number of web searches this word generated that year. According to the president and publisher of the dictionary, ""austerity" had more than 250,000 searches on the dictionary's free online [website] tool" and the spike in searches "came with more coverage of the debt crisis" | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=684037 | 516,684 |
History of Grand Central Terminal The terminal spurred development in the surrounding area, particularly in Terminal City, a commercial and office district created above where the tracks were covered. Land values along Park Avenue and in Terminal City more than tripled from 1904 to 1926. Terminal City would eventually include office buildings such as the Chrysler Building; luxury apartment houses along Park Avenue; and an array of high-end hotels. The Commodore Hotel, built on the east side of Grand Central Terminal, was opened in 1919. Terminal City was mostly complete by the late 1920s with the completion of the Graybar Building in 1927 and the Helmsley Building in 1929. The development of Terminal City also included the construction of the Park Avenue Viaduct, surrounding the station; one leg of the viaduct opened in 1919, and another part of the viaduct opened in 1928. The electrification of the commuter lines and subsequent completion of Grand Central Terminal contributed to the development of affluent suburbs in the lower Hudson Valley and southwestern Connecticut. This trend had been observed as early as 1907, following the completion of electrification. Well-to-do passengers were likely to travel to destinations served by electric trains that ran directly from Grand Central, such as Greenwich or Larchmont, while less wealthy passengers were likely to get off at stops that were further away, such as Stamford or New Rochelle. New York Central promoted new private suburban developments through its “Four-Track Series" magazine | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=59471305 | 306,501 |
History of film technology Initially, commercial screenings of motion-pictures for the public were put on in existing theatres and music halls as a novelty, but the main methods of exhibition quickly became either as an item on the programmes of variety theatres, or by traveling showmen in tent theatres, which they took around the fairs in country towns. It became the practice for the producing companies to sell prints outright to the exhibitors, at so much per foot, regardless of the subject. Typical prices initially were 15 cents a foot in the United States, and one shilling a foot in Britain. Hand-coloured films, which were being produced of the most popular subjects before 1900, cost 2 to 3 times as much per foot. There were a few producers, such as the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, who did not sell their films, but exploited them solely with their own exhibition units. The first public motion-picture film presentation in the world was done by Max and Emil Skladanowsky at the Berlin Wintergarten theatre, who projected with their apparatus "Bioscop", a flickerfree duplex construction, from November 1 through 31, 1895. The first theatres dedicated to motion-pictures were established at the turn of the century, soon becoming known as cinemas. The Vitascope Hall in New Orleans was opened in 1896 as one of the first such establishments. It showed two exhibitions, one in the morning and one in the afternoon | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=41496067 | 282,981 |
SL-1 After raising or removing 45 power lines, phone lines, and guy wires from the proposed roadway, the tractor trailer, accompanied by numerous observers and supervisors, proceeded at about to the ANP Hot Shop (originally associated with the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion program), located in a remote area of the NRTS known as Test Area North, about away. A burial ground was constructed approximately northeast of the original site of the reactor. It was opened on May 21, 1961. Burial of the waste helped minimize radiation exposure to the public and site workers that would have resulted from transport of contaminated debris from to the Radioactive-Waste Management Complex over of public highway. Original cleanup of the site took about 18 months. The entire reactor building, contaminated materials from nearby buildings, and soil and gravel contaminated during cleanup operations were disposed of in the burial ground. The majority of buried materials consist of soils and gravel. Recovered portions of the reactor core, including the fuel and all other parts of the reactor that were important to the accident investigation, were taken to the ANP Hot Shop for study. After the accident investigation was complete, the reactor fuel was sent to the Idaho Chemical Processing Plant for reprocessing. The reactor core minus the fuel, along with the other components sent to the Hot Shop for study, was eventually disposed of at the Radioactive Waste Management Complex | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=386696 | 309,427 |
Contact resistance The term contact resistance refers to the contribution to the total resistance of a system which can be attributed to the contacting interfaces of electrical leads and connections as opposed to the intrinsic resistance, which is an inherent property, independent of the measurement method. This effect is often described by the term "electrical contact resistance" ("ECR") and may vary with time, most often decreasing, in a process known as resistance creep. The idea of potential drop on the injection electrode was introduced by William Shockley to explain the difference between the experimental results and the model of gradual channel approximation. In addition to the term ECR, "interface resistance", "transitional resistance", or just simply "correction term" are also used. The term "parasitic resistance" is used as a more general term, of which it is usually assumed that contact resistance is a major component. Here we need to distinguish the contact resistance evaluation in two-electrode systems (e.g. diodes) and three-electrode systems (e.g. transistors). For two electrode systems the specific contact resistivity is experimentally defined as the slope of the I-V curve at : where J is the current density, or current per area. The units of specific contact resistivity are typically therefore in ohms-square meter, or formula_2. When the current is a linear function of the voltage, the device is said to have ohmic contacts | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=7717738 | 42,818 |
Josephson effect The three main effects predicted by Josephson follow from these relations: The DC is a direct current crossing the insulator in the absence of any external electromagnetic field, owing to tunneling. This DC Josephson current is proportional to the sine of the phase difference across the insulator, and may take values between formula_31 and formula_28. With a fixed voltage formula_33 across the junction, the phase will vary linearly with time and the current will be an AC current with amplitude formula_28 and frequency formula_35. This means a Josephson junction can act as a perfect voltage-to-frequency converter. Microwave radiation of a single (angular) frequency formula_36 can induce quantized DC voltages across the Josephson junction, in which case the Josephson phase takes the form formula_37, and the voltage and current across the junction will be: The DC components are: This means a Josephson junction can act like a perfect frequency-to-voltage converter, which is the theoretical basis for Josephson voltage standard. The Resistively Shunted Junction (RSJ) model, also known as Resistively and Capacitively Shunted Junction (RCSJ) model or simply shunted junction model, includes the effect of AC impedance of an actual Josephson junction on top of the two basic Josephson relations stated above. As per Thévenin's theorem, the AC impedance of the junction can be represented by a capacitor and a shunt resistor, both parallel to the ideal Josephson Junction | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=446712 | 68,393 |
D-subminiature Because personal computers first used DB-25 connectors for their serial and parallel ports, when the PC serial port began to use 9-pin connectors, they were often labeled as DB-9 instead of DE-9 connectors, due to an ignorance of the fact that "B" represented a shell size. It is now common to see DE-9 connectors sold as DB-9 connectors. "DB-9" nearly always refers to a 9-pin connector with an E size shell. The non-standard 23-pin D-sub connectors for external floppy drives and video output on most of the Amiga computers are usually labeled "DB-23", even though their shell size is two pins smaller than ordinary DB sockets. Reflecting the same confusion of the letters "DB" with just "D" as mentioned above, high density connectors are also often called DB-15HD (or even DB-15 or HD-15), DB-26HD (HD-26), DB-44HD, DB-62HD, and DB-78HD connectors, respectively, where "HD" stands for "high density". Cannon also produced "combo" D-subs with larger contacts in place of some of the normal contacts, for use for high-current, high-voltage, or co-axial inserts. The DB-13W3 variant was commonly used for high-performance video connections; this variant provided 10 regular (#20) pins plus three coaxial contacts for the red, green, and blue video signals. Combo D-subs are currently manufactured in a broad range of configurations by other companies, including Amphenol, Conec, Teledyne Reynolds, Assmann WSW Components, Norcomp, Positronic, Cinch, 3M, and Tyco | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=383705 | 417,754 |
Error concealment has many digital applications, including web browsing, video conferencing, Skype, and YouTube | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38878679 | 271,830 |
Vienna General Hospital The (), usually abbreviated to AKH, is the general hospital of the city of Vienna, Austria. It is also the city's university hospital, and the site of the Medical University of Vienna. It is Europe's fifth largest hospital, both by number of employees and bed capacity. The origins of go back to Dr. Johann Franckh, who donated properties in 1686, after the end of the second Siege of Vienna, at the corridor Schaffernack for the establishment of a military hospital. However, since money was lacking for the establishment of the buildings, the disabled veterans were quartered, including families, in the Kontumazhof (epidemic hospital), already in existence. In 1693, Emperor Leopold I arranged the establishment of the large hospital. In 1697, the first ward was finished, into which 1,042 persons were quartered. By 1724, 1,740 persons lived there. Extension of the complex was made possible by the will of Ferdinand Baron von Thavonat, who left his estate to disabled soldiers in 1726. The marriage or widow yard, now Thavonathof, was to be finished. Also, the side yards formed by Zwischentrakte, the patient yard (4.), Restaurant economics (5.) and craftsman center (7.) were established. During 1752 to 1774, further development occurred for the student yard (3.) and the house supervisor yard (6.). The inhabitants had to wear their own uniforms and received individual copper coins, which could be redeemed with the bakers in the complex, butchers, etc | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=10342296 | 358,559 |
Eastern Ethics in Business Eastern ethics includes the ethics or ways of thinking derived from East and South East Asia. This includes Chinese, Middle Eastern, Indian and Japanese ethics and the influence of this in business. Through a combination of globalisation and growing diversity, Eastern ethics and spiritual practices have become prominent within businesses and their conduct. Across the Eastern and Oriental region, differing ethics arise from historic philosophies, religions or ways of thinking and may prohibit or encourage specific conduct. Confucianism originates from China and details the social values, institutions, rituals, virtues and transcendental ideals. Confucian ethics develops the personal characters and virtues of benevolence, ritual propriety, righteousness, wisdom and integrity. These teachings were developed by Confucius (551-479 B.C.E.) and overlap with commercial activity and relations. Benevolence (or Ren) is a Confucian ethic that necessitates a person to uphold this characteristic within a business or non-business interaction which mirrors the historic expectation of rulers demonstrating benevolence. Mencius (Mencius, 1970, p. 49) stated that “What is the point of mentioning the word ‘profit’? All that matters is that there should be benevolence and rightness” which entails that profit in business is reasonable if delivered through benevolence and rightness. Business practices are also considered to be carried out with sincerity as indicated by the Analects | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=60678924 | 494,449 |
Hit-and-run tactics In the Vietnam War, Viet Cong forces used hit-and-run tactics to great effectiveness against anti-communist military forces. It has also been used in Afghanistan by rebel forces during the Soviet–Afghan War. Various Iraqi insurgent groups have also used hit-and-run tactics as part of their tactics against Iraqi security forces and American-led coalition forces in Iraq. Improvised fighting vehicles called "technicals" are often used in such operations. The term "hit-and-run" is also used in economics to describe a firm that enters a market to take advantage of abnormal profits and then leave. These tactics can be seen in a contestable market. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=241982 | 508,210 |
Bounding volume hierarchy To solve this problems (as well quick structure update being sub-optimal), the new BVH could be build asynchronously in parallel or synchronously, after sufficient change is detected (leaf overlap is big, number of insertions and removals crossed threshold, and other more refined heuristic). BVHs can also be combined with scene graph methods, and geometry instancing, to reduce memory usage, improve structure update and full rebuild performance, as well guide better object or primitive splitting. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3950612 | 121,144 |
Overburden pressure Overburden pressure, also called lithostatic pressure, confining pressure or vertical stress, is the pressure or stress imposed on a layer of soil or rock by the weight of overlying material. The Oxford Dictionary of Earth Sciences describes 'confining pressure' as "the combined hydrostatic stress and lithostatic stress; i.e. the total weight of the interstitial pore water and rock above a specified depth." Confining pressure might influence ductile behavior of rocks as well. Ductile behavior is enhanced where high confining pressures are combined with high temperatures and low rates of strain, conditions characteristic of deeper crustal levels. The overburden pressure at a depth z is given by where ρ(z) is the density of the overlying rock at depth z and g is the acceleration due to gravity. p is the datum pressure, the pressure at the surface. In deriving the above equation it is assumed that gravitational acceleration "g" is a constant over "z", since it is placed outside the integral. In reality, "g" is a (non-constant) function of "z" and should appear inside the integral. But since "g" varies little over depths which are a very small fraction of the Earth's radius, it is placed outside the integral in practice for most near-surface applications which require an assessment of lithostatic pressure. In deep-earth geophysics/geodynamics, gravitational acceleration varies significantly over depth and "g" may not be assumed to be constant | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=146153 | 13,590 |
DynaRoad is a project management software for heavy civil engineering projects. It is used for planning the mass hauls of an earthworks project, creating a construction schedule, and monitoring the progress of the project. The program's development started in 1999, when Finnish earthworks contractors, the Construction Economics Lab of Helsinki University of Technology and the company started developing a new project management and earthmoving software. The program has been used in road projects between 3 and 60 km in length, such as the E18 Muurla-Lohja motorway in Finland and the E4 road in Hudiksvall, Sweden. The software has a Windows graphical user interface and it includes views such as the Gantt chart, resource graph, mass haul diagram, map view, time distance chart and text reports. The time-location method has strengths compared to Gantt charts and traditional scheduling. The map view indicates live tasks at any moment using different colors. For cut and fill operations, a haul plan based on quantities, bulking factors, possible haul routes and production rates can be calculated automatically. LinearPlus and TILOS are examples of other software for linear scheduling. Scetauroute Masster is a software used in France for mass haul optimization. Microsoft Project and Primavera are popular project management software in the construction industry. Topcon blog on earthworks project management | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29113360 | 485,986 |
Regulation of gene expression However, transcriptional silencing may be of more importance than mutation in causing progression to cancer. For example, in colorectal cancers about 600 to 800 genes are transcriptionally silenced by CpG island methylation (see regulation of transcription in cancer). Transcriptional repression in cancer can also occur by other epigenetic mechanisms, such as altered expression of microRNAs. In breast cancer, transcriptional repression of BRCA1 may occur more frequently by over-expressed microRNA-182 than by hypermethylation of the BRCA1 promoter (see Low expression of BRCA1 in breast and ovarian cancers). One of the cardinal features of addiction is its persistence. The persistent behavioral changes appear to be due to long-lasting changes, resulting from epigenetic alterations affecting gene expression, within particular regions of the brain. Drugs of abuse cause three types of epigenetic alteration in the brain. These are (1) histone acetylations and histone methylations, (2) DNA methylation at CpG sites, and (3) epigenetic downregulation or upregulation of microRNAs. (See Epigenetics of cocaine addiction for some details.) Chronic nicotine intake in mice alters brain cell epigenetic control of gene expression through acetylation of histones. This increases expression in the brain of the protein FosB, important in addiction. Cigarette addiction was also studied in about 16,000 humans, including never smokers, current smokers, and those who had quit smoking for up to 30 years | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=553121 | 26,083 |
Mutation The distinction is also blurred in those animals that reproduce asexually through mechanisms such as budding, because the cells that give rise to the daughter organisms also give rise to that organism's germline. A new germline mutation not inherited from either parent is called a "de novo" mutation. A change in the genetic structure that is not inherited from a parent, and also not passed to offspring, is called a somatic mutation"." Somatic mutations are not inherited by an organism's offspring because they do not affect the germline. However, they are passed down to all the progeny of a mutated cell within the same organism during mitosis. A major section of an organism therefore might carry the same mutation. These types of mutations are usually prompted by environmental causes, such as ultraviolet radiation or any exposure to certain harmful chemicals, and can cause diseases including cancer."" With plants, some somatic mutations can be propagated without the need for seed production, for example, by grafting and stem cuttings. These type of mutation have led to new types of fruits, such as the "Delicious" apple and the "Washington" navel orange. Human and mouse somatic cells have a mutation rate more than ten times higher than the germline mutation rate for both species; mice have a higher rate of both somatic and germline mutations per cell division than humans | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19702 | 153,970 |
Women photographers Berenice Abbott (1898–1991) is best known for her black-and-white photography of New York City from 1929 to 1938. Much of the work was created under the Federal Art Project; a selection was first published in book form in 1939 as "Changing New York". It has provided a historical chronicle of many now-destroyed buildings and neighborhoods of Manhattan. In Mexico, Lola Álvarez Bravo (1903–1993) is remembered for her portraits and her artistic contributions intended to preserve the culture of her country. Her works are featured in the collections of international museums including the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. In her own words: "If my photographs have any meaning, it's that they stand for a Mexico that once existed." The Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division preserves millions of images that were created for publication in magazines and newspapers. The Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalog enables by-name search for images taken by women photojournalists. Canadian-born Jessie Tarbox (1870–1942) is credited with being America's earliest female photojournalist, photographing the Massachusetts state prison for the "Boston Post" in 1899. She was then hired by "The Buffalo Inquirer" and "The Courier" in 1902. Zaida Ben-Yusuf was a woman who made a living independently despite the limited number of careers open to women in the twentieth century. The Gerhard Sisters opened their own photograph studio in St | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=34343651 | 229,980 |
Cell mechanics is a sub-field of biophysics that focuses on the mechanical properties and behavior of living cells and how it relates to cell function. It encompasses aspects of cell biophysics, biomechanics, soft matter physics and rheology, mechanobiology and cell biology. Eukaryotic cells are cells that consist of membrane-bound organelles, a membrane-bound nucleus, and more than one linear chromosome. Being much more complex than prokaryotic cells, cells without a true nucleus, eukaryotes must protect its organelles from outside forces. Plant cell mechanics combines principles of biomechanics and mechanobiology to investigate the growth and shaping of the plant cells. Plant cells, similar to animal cells, respond to externally applied forces, such as by reorganization of their cytoskeletal network. The presence of a considerably rigid extracellular matrix, the cell wall, however, bestows the plant cells with a set of particular properties. Mainly, the growth of plant cells is controlled by the mechanics and chemical composition of the cell wall . A major part of research in plant cell mechanics is put toward the measurement and modeling of the cell wall mechanics to understand how modification of its composition and mechanical properties affects the cell function, growth and morphogenesis. Because animal cells do not have cell walls to protect them like plant cells, they require other specialized structures to sustain external mechanical forces | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=47147824 | 165,196 |
Xin Zhang (professor) " In 2019, she, along with her team, developed acoustic metamaterials that enable high-performance sound silencing and magnetic metamaterials that improve MRI performance. Both breakthroughs have drawn significant attention from the scientific community and the industry and the story has been picked up by 200+ media outlets, including AAU, All3DP, Archinect, ASME, AuntMinnie, Axis Imaging News, BBC, Boing Boing, Bold Business, BrightSurf, Built In Boston, Business Insider, CleanFuture, CN1699, CoolBusinessIdeas, Design & Development Today, Design News, Digital Trends, Discoveries News, Docwire News, DOTmed.com, Electronic Design, EurekAlert!, Fabbaloo, Fast Company, Firstpost, Future Science News, Future Tech News, Futurism, Futurity, Geek.com, Gizmodo, Healthcare-in-Europe, HealthImaging, Hearing Health Matters, Hearing Review, IMechE, Innovation Toronto, IOM3, La Opinion, Magnetics Magazine, Mashable, Materials Today, MDDI Online, Medgadget, Medical Design Briefs, Medical Design and Outsourcing, Medical Device Network, Medical Dialogues, MedicalExpo, Medical News, MedImaging.net, MedTechAsia, Microwaves & RF, Mirage News, Mother Nature Network, MPO Magazine, NanoApps Medical, Nanowerk, New Atlas, NextBigFuture, NIH, Phys | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=53844678 | 194,220 |
Regenerative circuit A regenerative circuit is an amplifier circuit that employs positive feedback (also known as regeneration or reaction). Some of the output of the amplifying device is applied back to its input so as to add to the input signal, increasing the amplification. One example is the Schmitt trigger (which is also known as a regenerative comparator), but the most common use of the term is in RF amplifiers, and especially regenerative receivers, to greatly increase the gain of a single amplifier stage. The regenerative receiver was invented in 1912 and patented in 1914 by American electrical engineer Edwin Armstrong when he was an undergraduate at Columbia University. It was widely used between 1915 and World War II. Advantages of regenerative receivers include increased sensitivity with modest hardware requirements, and increased selectivity because the "Q" of the tuned circuit will be increased when the amplifying vacuum tube or transistor has its feedback loop around the tuned circuit (via a "tickler" winding or a tapping on the coil) because it introduces some negative resistance. Due partly to its tendency to radiate interference when oscillating, by the 1930s the regenerative receiver was largely superseded by other TRF receiver designs (for example "reflex" receivers) and especially by another Armstrong invention - superheterodyne receivers and is largely considered obsolete | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=343276 | 420,505 |
Stirling engine At high temperatures and pressures, the oxygen in air-pressurized crankcases, or in the working gas of hot air engines, can combine with the engine's lubricating oil and explode. At least one person has died in such an explosion. Lubricants can also clog heat exchangers, especially the regenerator. For these reasons, designers prefer non-lubricated, low-coefficient of friction materials (such as rulon or graphite), with low normal forces on the moving parts, especially for sliding seals. Some designs avoid sliding surfaces altogether by using diaphragms for sealed pistons. These are some of the factors that allow Stirling engines to have lower maintenance requirements and longer life than internal-combustion engines. In contrast to internal combustion engines, Stirling engines have the potential to use renewable heat sources more easily, and to be quieter and more reliable with lower maintenance. They are preferred for applications that value these unique advantages, particularly if the cost per unit energy generated is more important than the capital cost per unit power. On this basis, Stirling engines are cost-competitive up to about 100 kW. Compared to an internal combustion engine of the same power rating, Stirling engines currently have a higher capital cost and are usually larger and heavier. However, they are more efficient than most internal combustion engines. Their lower maintenance requirements make the overall "energy" cost comparable | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=186919 | 268,456 |
Flippin–Lodge angle For instance, while a simple amide addition study with relatively small substituents gave an formula_2 of ≈50° in solution, the crystallographic value determined for an enzymatic cleavage of an amide by the serine protease subtilisin gave an formula_2 of 8°, and a compilation of literature crystallographic formula_2 values for the same reaction in different catalysts clustered at 4 ± 6° (i.e., only slightly offset from directly behind the carbonyl, despite significant dissymmetry of the substrate electrophiles). At the same time, the subtilisin formula_1 was 88° (quite distinct from the hydride-formaldehyde formula_1 value of 107°, see the Bürgi–Dunitz article), and formula_1 angle values from the careful literature compilation clustered at 89 ± 7° (i.e., only slightly offset from directly above or below the carbonyl carbon). The Flippin-Lodge and Bürgi-Dunitz angles were central, practically, to the development of a clearer understanding of asymmetric induction during nucleophilic attack at hindered carbonyl centers in synthetic organic chemistry. It was in this area that formula_2 was first defined by Heathcock, and has been primarily used. Larger substituents around the electrophilic center, such as tert-butyls, lead to higher stereoselectivities in asymmetric induction than smaller substituents like methyls. The trajectory of the nucleophile approaching a center flanked by two large substituents is more limited, i.e. the is smaller | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19526078 | 147,289 |
Marine outfall Grease or wax can interfere with dispersion, so that bacteria and viruses could be carried to remote locations where the concentration of bacterial predators would be low and the die-off rate much lower. Outfalls vary in diameter from as narrow as 15 cm to as wide as 8 m; the widest registered outfall in the world with 8 m diameter is located in Navia (Spain) for the discharge of industrial wastewater. Outfalls vary in length from 50 m to 55 km, the longest registered outfalls being the Boston outfall with a length of 16 km and an industrial outfall in Ankleshwar (India) with a length of 55 km. The depth of the deepest point of an outfall varies from 3 m to up to 60 m, the deepest registered outfall being located in Macuto, Vargas (Venezuela) for the discharge of untreated municipal wastewater. Outfall materials include polyethylene, stainless steel, carbon steel, glass-reinforced plastic, reinforced concrete, cast iron or tunnels through rock. Common installation methods for pipelines are float and sink, bottom pull and top pull. Submarine outfalls exist, existed or have been considered in the following locations, among many others: In the 1960s the city of Sydney decided to build ocean sewage outfalls to discharge partially treated sewage 2–4 km offshore at a cost of US$ 300 million. In the late 1980s, however, the government promised to upgrade the coastal treatment plants so that sewage would be treated to at least secondary treatment standards before discharge into the ocean | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17588004 | 313,740 |
Plasma polymerization Some common monomers polymerized by this method include styrene, ethylene, methacrylate and pyridine, just to name a few. The 1970s brought about many advances in plasma polymerization, including the polymerization of many different types of monomers. The mechanisms of deposition however were largely ignored until more recently. Since this time most attention devoted to plasma polymerization has been in the fields of coatings, but since it is difficult to control polymer structure, it has limited applications. Plasma consists of a mixture of electrons, ions, radicals, neutrals and photons. Some of these species are in local thermodynamic equilibrium, while others are not. Even for simple gases like argon this mixture can be complex. For plasmas of organic monomers, the complexity can rapidly increase as some components of the plasma fragment, while others interact and form larger species. Glow discharge is a technique in polymerization which forms free electrons which gain energy from an electric field, and then lose energy through collisions with neutral molecules in the gas phase. This leads to many chemically reactive species, which then lead to a plasma polymerization reaction. The electric discharge process for plasma polymerization is the “low-temperature plasma” method, because higher temperatures cause degradation. These plasmas are formed by a direct current, alternating current or radio frequency generator | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30747793 | 18,835 |
Ethical, Legal and Social Aspects research Examples of academic journals open to publishing ELSA research results are "New Genetics and Society" (Taylor and Francis) and "Life Sciences, Society and Policy" (SpringerOpen). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=46758811 | 240,006 |
Photoelasticity The first quarter-wave plate is placed in between the polarizer and the specimen and the second quarter-wave plate is placed between the specimen and the analyzer. The effect of adding the quarter-wave plate after the source-side polarizer is that we get circularly polarized light passing through the sample. The analyzer-side quarter-wave plate converts the circular polarization state back to linear before the light passes through the analyzer. The basic advantage of a circular polariscope over a plane polariscope is that in a circular polariscope setup we only get the isochromatics and not the isoclinics. This eliminates the problem of differentiating between the isoclinics and the isochromatics. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1533196 | 97,565 |
Social rationality In behavioural sciences, social rationality is a type of decision strategy used in social contexts, in which a set of simple rules is applied in complex and uncertain situations. is a form of bounded rationality applied to social contexts, where individuals make choices and predictions under uncertainty. While game theory deals with well-defined situations, social rationality explicitly deals with situations in which not all alternatives, consequences, and event probabilities can be foreseen. The idea is that, similar to non-social environments, individuals rely, and should rely, on "fast and frugal heuristics" in order to deal with complex and genuinely uncertain social environments. This emphasis on simple rules in an uncertain world contrasts with the view that the complexity of social situations requires highly sophisticated mental strategies, as has been assumed in primate research and neuroscience, among others. is both a descriptive program and a normative program. The "descriptive" program studies the repertoire of heuristics an individual or organization uses, that is, their "adaptive toolbox". The "normative" program studies the environmental conditions to which a heuristic is adapted, that is, where it performs better than other decision strategies. This approach is called the study of the ecological rationality of social heuristics. It assumes that social heuristics are "domain- and problem-specific" | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=41444371 | 503,989 |
William F. Durand He recommended instead that fluid mechanics theory and its application to aeronautics was mature and stable enough for an encyclopedia. The board agreed, tasking Durand to direct and supervise the effort. Durand worked on the encyclopedia full-time for the next six years. He sailed to Europe and met Theodore von Kármán of Aachen University to find the best qualified authors. Twenty five authors wrote twenty divisions in six volumes for a total of 2200 pages. No American publisher was willing to print the encyclopedia due to concern of the number of potential sales. Springer & Co. of Berlin agreed to publish the volumes in English. The final volume was published in 1936. During World War II there was renewed demand for the encyclopedia and a second printing was made by photo-offset printing at the California Institute of Technology. In 1926 Durand and E. P. Leslie reported on comparisons of propeller efficiency in a wind tunnel versus free flight. Leslie tested seven propellers with a VE-7. Durand's wind tunnel model showed similar efficiency to Leslie's measurements, but lagged by 6% to 10% in thrust developed and power absorbed. In 1927 Durand became a member of a board of advisers to the Secretary of Work of the United States Department of the Interior. The board was tasked to survey the Colorado River to find solutions to annual flooding, silting, the development of hydroelectric power, and water usage for irrigation and by cities such as Los Angeles, California | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2294852 | 428,821 |
US Nuclear Corp US Nuclear Corporation is a US radiation detection holding company headquartered in Canoga Park, CA specializing in the development and manufacturing of radiation detection instrumentation. It supplies instrumentation to nuclear power plants, national laboratories, government agencies, homeland security, military and weapon makers, universities and schools, research companies, hospitals, as well as energy companies. Products include: has three divisions: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=49837584 | 473,870 |
Thin film lithium-ion battery Solid polymer electrolytes offer several advantages in comparison to a classical liquid lithium ion battery. Rather than having separate components of electrolyte, binder, and separator, these solid electrolytes can act as all three. This increases the overall energy density of the assembled battery because the constituents of the entire cell are more tightly packed. Separator materials in lithium ion batteries must not block the transport of lithium ions while preventing the physical contact of the anode and cathode materials, e.g. short-circuiting. In a liquid cell, this separator would be a porous glass or polymer mesh that allows ion transport via the liquid electrolyte through the pores, but keeps the electrodes from contacting and shorting. However, in a thin film battery the electrolyte is a solid, which conveniently satisfies both the ion transportation and the physical separation requirements without the need for a dedicated separator. Current collectors in thin film batteries must be flexible, have high surface area, and be cost-effective. Silver nanowires with improved surface area and loading weight have been shown to work as a current collector in these battery systems, but still are not as cost-effective as desired. Extending graphite technology to lithium ion batteries, solution processed carbon nanotubes (CNT) films are being looked into for use as both the current collector and anode material | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19236411 | 370,243 |
Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya On 14 August 1905, the committee passed a resolution saying: "The museum building embodies the pomp and height at which the British raj was moving ahead with their ambitious plans, in building the great metropolis Bombay". "In keeping pace with the best style of local architecture, many buildings were built, among which, Bombay High Court building, and later, Gateway of India buildings were the most notable ones". The foundation stone was laid by the Prince of Wales on 11 November 1905 and the museum was formally named "Prince of Wales Museum of Western India". On 1 March 1907, the government of the Bombay Presidency granted the museum committee a piece of land called the "Crescent Site", where the museum now stands. Following an open design competition, in 1909 the architect George Wittet was commissioned to design the Museum building. Wittet had already worked on the design of the General Post Office and in 1911 would design one of Mumbai's most famous landmarks, the Gateway of India. The museum was funded by the Royal Visit (1905) Memorial Funds. Additionally, the Government and the Municipality granted Rs. 300,000 and Rs. 250,000 respectively. Sir Currimbhoy Ibrahim (first Baronet) donated another Rs. 300,000 and Sir Cowasji Jehangir gave Rs. 50,000. The Museum was established under Bombay Act No. III of 1909. The museum is now maintained by annual grants from the Government and the Bombay Municipal Corporation | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=375037 | 309,192 |
Nuclear gene Genes in the nucleus are arranged in a linear fashion upon chromosomes, which serve as the scaffold for replication and the regulation of gene expression. As such, they are usually under strict copy-number control, and replicate a single time per cell cycle. Many nuclear-derived transcription factors have played a role in respiratory chain expression. These factors may have also contributed to the regulation of mitochondrial functions. Nuclear respiratory factor (NRF-1) fuses to respiratory encoding genes proteins, to the rate-limiting enzyme in biosynthesis, and to elements of replication and transcription of mtDNA.The second nuclear respiratory factor (NRF-2) is necessary for the production of cytochrome c oxidase subunit IV (COXIV) and Vb (COXVb) to be maximized. A nuclear cells such as platelets do not possess nuclear DNA and therefore must have alternative sources for the RNA that they need to generate proteins. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4103495 | 41,981 |
Macro and security This allow a great flexibility for the user, but, this is a flaw too that hackers can exploit to take down the control of the document and the computer where the Word document is opened. Such type of viruses use automatic and semi-automatic macros, they can be launched by any action or some events without the user’s knowledge or consent. For example, a Word document have the following macros: AutoExec, AutoNew, AutoClose, AutoOpen, AutoExit, so it's easy for a hacker to replace these basic functionalities by a macro virus which have the same name as the original functionality. Also, a combination of shortcut keys can be associated with a system command (like Ctrl+B to set up the bold font) and the user can change them, replacing them by customs macros. So a hacker can modify and create such macros that the user will activate by using the shortcut key. Such macros can also be activated by a macro button, like a button "Click here for further information" which seems common and safely. A type of macro virus that cut and paste the text of a document in the macro. The macro could be invoked with the Auto-open macro so the text would be re-created when the document (empty) is opened. The user will not notice that the document is empty. The macro could also convert only some parts of the text in order to be less noticeable. Removing macros from the document, manually or by using an anti-virus program would lead to a loss of the content of the document | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=37176723 | 98,676 |
WS-SecurityPolicy is a web services specification, created by IBM and 12 co-authors, that has become an OASIS standard as of version 1.2. It extends the fundamental security protocols specified by the WS-Security, WS-Trust and WS-SecureConversation by offering mechanisms to represent the capabilities and requirements of web services as policies. Security policy assertions are based on the WS-Policy framework. Policy assertions can be used to require more generic security attributes like transport layer security <TransportBinding>, message level security <AsymmetricBinding> or timestamps, and specific attributes like token types. Most policy assertion can be found in following categories: Policies can be used to drive development tools to generate code with certain capabilities, or may be used at runtime to negotiate the security aspects of web service communication. Policies may be attached to WSDL elements such as service, port, operation and message, as defined in WS Policy Attachment. Namespaces used by the following XML-snippets: Include a timestamp: Use either transport layer security (https) or message level security (XML Dsig/XML Enc): To define a SAML assertion as security token: Issued token assertion of providers with reference to the STS and required token format: Specify that message header and body need to be signed, and attachments are left unsigned: The term "Web Services Security Policy Language" is used for two different XML-based languages: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12121897 | 102,259 |
Triangle of death (Italy) The US Navy report denied any signs of nuclear waste dumping and instead related the traces of uranium to volcanic activity. More than half of the regional land in Campania is used for agriculture, and therefore the economy of the region is adversely affected by the waste crisis. Between January and March 2007, 30,000 kilograms of waste were burned on agricultural land, with a revenue of more than €118,000. In the region, over 12,000 cattle, river buffaloes and sheep had been culled before 2006. High levels of mortality and abnormal foetuses were also recorded in farms in Acerra linked to elevated levels of dioxin. Local studies have shown higher than permissible levels of lead in vegetables grown in the area. The government blames the Mafia's illegal garbage disposal racket. In March 2008, dioxin were found in buffalo milk from farms in Caserta. While only 2.8% of farms in Campania were affected, the sale of dairy products from Campania collapsed in both domestic and global markets. A chain reaction followed, in which several countries including Japan, China, Russia and Germany took various measures ranging from the mere raising of the attention threshold to the suspension of imports. The Italian institutions activated almost immediately, even in response to pressing requests from the European Union, a series of checks and suspended, in some cases, the sale of dairy products from the incriminated provinces | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=31535603 | 31,770 |
History of radar The Cossor and MetroVick sets were overweight for aircraft use and the RAF lacked night fighter pilots, observers, and suitable aircraft. In 1940, John Randall and Harry Boot developed the cavity magnetron, which made ten-centimetre ( wavelength ) radar a reality. This device, the size of a small dinner plate, could be carried easily on aircraft and the short wavelength meant the antenna would also be small and hence suitable for mounting on aircraft. The short wavelength and high power made it very effective at spotting submarines from the air. To aid Chain Home in making height calculations, at Dowding's request, the Electrical Calculator Type Q (commonly called the "Fruit Machine") was introduced in 1940. The solution to night intercepts would be provided by Dr. W. B. "Ben" Lewis, who proposed a new, more accurate ground control display, the Plan Position Indicator (PPI), a new Ground-Controlled Interception (GCI) radar, and reliable AI radar. The AI sets would ultimately be built by EMI. GCI was unquestionably delayed by Watson-Watt's opposition to it and his belief that CH was sufficient, as well as by Bowen's preference for using ASV for navigation, despite Bomber Command disclaiming a need for it, and by Tizard's reliance on the faulty Silhouette system. In March 1936, the work at Orfordness was moved to Bawdsey Manor, nearby on the mainland. Until this time, the work had officially still been under the DSIR, but was now transferred to the Air Ministry | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1280053 | 249,100 |
MBC-550 The was a small and inexpensive personal computer in "pizza-box" style, featuring an Intel 8088 microprocessor and running a version of MS-DOS. It was the lowest-cost of the early IBM PC compatibles and was produced by Sanyo. It had much better video display possibilities than the average CGA card (8 colors at 640x200 resolution, vs CGA's 4 colors at 320x200 or 2 colors at 640x200), but it was not completely compatible with the IBM-PC. It lacked a standard BIOS, having only a minimal bootloader in ROM that accessed hardware directly to load a RAM-based BIOS. The (FM rather than MFM) diskette format used was not completely compatible with the IBM PC, but special software on an original PC or PC/XT (but not PC/AT) could read and write the diskettes, and software expecting a standard 18.2 Hz clock interrupt had to be rewritten. The was also the computer of choice for NRI training. Starting by building the computer, the NRI promised you would be "qualified to service and repair virtually every major brand of computer". They advertised in "Popular Mechanics" and "Popular Science" throughout 1985. By August 1985, "InfoWorld" reported that Sanyo "has initiated a campaign to sell off" its inventory. The company's newer computers were, an executive claimed, 99% PC compatible. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17272318 | 112,233 |
Animal-computer interaction (ACI) is a field of research which studies the design and use of technology with, for and by animals. ACI emerged from, and is heavily influenced by, the discipline of human-computer interaction (HCI). In an "ACI Manifesto" (2011), Mancini defines one aim of ACI as understanding "the interaction between animals and computing technology within the contexts in which animals habitually live, are active, and socialize with members of the same or other species, including humans". Mancini's "ACI Manifesto" additionally proposes three core design goals for the field: enhancing animals' quality of life and wellbeing; supporting animals in the functions assigned to them by humans; and supporting human-animal relationships. Accordingly, ACI research gives considerable attention to questions of animal ethics, welfare, consent and power. A central theme of ACI research lies in establishing how user-centred design approaches and HCI methods can be adapted to designing with and for animals. Accordingly, many ACI studies seek to adopt 'animal-centred' approaches to design and research. Much ACI endeavour focuses on technologies to support communication and relationships between animals and humans. A number of researchers have investigated digital technologies for dogs, including systems for remote communication with dogs left at home, wearable interactive devices for dogs, and interfaces for working dogs ACI researchers have also explored technology to foster interactions with other domestic animals, including cats. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=55866337 | 129,555 |
Variable-length quantity A variable-length quantity (VLQ) is a universal code that uses an arbitrary number of binary octets (eight-bit bytes) to represent an arbitrarily large integer. A VLQ is essentially a base-128 representation of an unsigned integer with the addition of the eighth bit to mark continuation of bytes. See the example below. Base-128 compression is known by many namesVB (Variable Byte), VByte, Varint, VInt, EncInt etc. A variable-length quantity (VLQ) was defined for use in the standard MIDI file format to save additional space for a resource constrained system, and is also used in the later Extensible Music Format (XMF). Base-128 is also used in ASN.1 BER encoding to encode tag numbers and Object Identifiers. It is also used in the WAP environment, where it is called variable length unsigned integer or uintvar. The DWARF debugging format defines a variant called LEB128 (or ULEB128 for unsigned numbers), where the least significant group of 7 bits are encoded in the first byte and the most significant bits are in the last byte (so effectively it is the little-endian analog of a variable-length quantity). Google Protocol Buffers use a similar format to have compact representation of integer values, as does Oracle Portable Object Format (POF) and the Microsoft .NET Framework "7-bit encoded int" in the BinaryReader and BinaryWriter classes. It is also used extensively in web browsers for source mapping – which contain a lot of integer line & column number mappings – to keep the size of the map to a minimum | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12478273 | 102,409 |
Socioeconomics (also known as social economics) is the social science that studies how economic activity affects and is shaped by social processes. In general it analyzes how modern societies progress, stagnate, or regress because of their local or regional economy, or the global economy. Societies are divided into 3 groups: social, cultural and economic. It also refers to the ways that social and economic factors influence the environment. “Socioeconomics” is sometimes used as an umbrella term for various areas of inquiry. The term “social economics” may refer broadly to the "use of economics in the study of society". More narrowly, contemporary practice considers behavioral interactions of individuals and groups through social capital and social "markets" (not excluding, for example, sorting by marriage) and the formation of social norms. In the relation of economics to social values. A distinct supplemental usage describes social economics as "a discipline studying the reciprocal relationship between economic science on the one hand and social philosophy, ethics, and human dignity on the other" toward social reconstruction and improvement or as also emphasizing multidisciplinary methods from such fields as sociology, history, and political science. In criticizing mainstream economics for its alleged faulty philosophical premises (for example the pursuit of self-interest) and neglect of dysfunctional economic relationships, such advocates tend to classify social economics as heterodox | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=503119 | 508,977 |
Flownet The second flownet illustrates a well, which is typically represented mathematically as a point source (the well shrinks to zero radius); this is a singularity because the flow is converging to a point, at that point the Laplace equation is not satisfied. These points are mathematical artifacts of the equation used to solve the real-world problem, and do not actually mean that there is infinite or no flux at points in the subsurface. These types of points often do make other types of solutions (especially numeric) to these problems difficult, while the simple graphical technique handles them nicely. Typically flownets are constructed for homogeneous, isotropic porous media experiencing saturated flow to known boundaries. There are extensions to the basic method to allow some of these other cases to be solved: Although the method is commonly used for these types of groundwater flow problems, it can be used for any problem which is described by the Laplace equation (formula_1), for example electric current flow through the earth. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1633227 | 437,468 |
Density matrix However, it is also possible for a system to be in a statistical ensemble of different state vectors: For example, there may be a 50% probability that the state vector is formula_3 and a 50% chance that the state vector is formula_4. This system would be in a "mixed state". The density matrix is especially useful for mixed states, because any state, pure or mixed, can be characterized by a single density matrix. A mixed state is different from a quantum superposition. The probabilities in a mixed state are classical probabilities (as in the probabilities one learns in classic probability theory / statistics), unlike the quantum probabilities in a quantum superposition. In fact, a quantum superposition of pure states is another pure state, for example formula_5. In this case, the coefficients formula_6 are not probabilities, but rather probability amplitudes. An example of pure and mixed states is light polarization. Photons can have two helicities, corresponding to two orthogonal quantum states, formula_7 (right circular polarization) and formula_8 (left circular polarization). A photon can also be in a superposition state, such as formula_9 (vertical polarization) or formula_10 (horizontal polarization). More generally, it can be in any state formula_11 (with formula_12), corresponding to linear, circular, or elliptical polarization | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=62844 | 433,189 |
Schilling test The is a medical investigation used for patients with vitamin B (cobalamin) deficiency. The purpose of the test is to determine how well the patient is able to absorb B12 from their intestinal tract. It is named for Robert F. Schilling. The has multiple stages. As noted below, it can be done at any time after vitamin B supplementation and body store replacement, and some clinicians recommend that in severe deficiency cases, at least several weeks of vitamin repletion be done before the test (more than one B shot, and also oral folic acid), in order to ensure that impaired absorption of B (with or without intrinsic factor) is not occurring due to damage to the intestinal mucosa from the B and folate deficiency themselves. In the first part of the test, the patient is given radiolabeled vitamin B to drink or eat. The most commonly used radiolabels are Co and Co. An intramuscular injection of unlabeled vitamin B is given an hour later. This is not enough to replete or saturate body stores of B. The purpose of the single injection is to temporarily saturate B receptors in the liver with enough normal vitamin B to prevent radioactive vitamin B binding in body tissues (especially in the liver), so that if absorbed from the G.I. tract, it will pass into the urine. The patient's urine is then collected over the next 24 hours to assess the absorption. Normally, the ingested radiolabeled vitamin B will be absorbed into the body | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1256948 | 50,186 |
Anodizing The component can then be anodized, with anodizing taking to the unmasked areas. The exact process will vary dependent on service provider, component geometry and required outcome.It helps to protect aluminium article. The most widely used anodizing specification in the US is a U.S. military spec, MIL-A-8625, which defines three types of aluminium anodizing. Type I is chromic acid anodising, Type II is sulphuric acid anodizing, and Type III is sulphuric acid hard anodizing. Other anodizing specifications include more MIL-SPECs (e.g., MIL-A-63576), aerospace industry specs by organizations such as SAE, ASTM, and ISO (e.g., AMS 2469, AMS 2470, AMS 2471, AMS 2472, AMS 2482, ASTM B580, ASTM D3933, ISO 10074, and BS 5599), and corporation-specific specs (such as those of Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Airbus and other large contractors). AMS 2468 is obsolete. None of these specifications define a detailed process or chemistry, but rather a set of tests and quality assurance measures which the anodized product must meet. BS 1615 guides the selection of alloys for anodizing. For British defence work, a detailed chromic and sulfuric anodizing processes are described by DEF STAN 03-24/3 and DEF STAN 03-25/3 respectively. The oldest anodizing process uses chromic acid. It is widely known as the Bengough-Stuart process but, due to the safety regulations regarding air quality control, is not preferred by vendors when the additive material associated with type II doesn't break tolerances | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=831650 | 96,423 |
Buckingham potential ceramic materials). The formula for the interaction is where "A", "B", and "C" are suitable constants and the additional term is the electrostatic potential energy. The above equation may be written in its alternate form as where formula_14 is the minimum energy distance, formula_15 is a free dimensionless parameter and formula_16 is the depth of the minimum energy. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26028285 | 62,560 |
Deep-level transient spectroscopy This method in the literature is sometimes called the Photoinduced Transient Spectroscopy (PITS). I-DLTS or PITS are also used for studying defects in the i-region of a p-i-n diode. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1670347 | 401,155 |
Traffic message channel Within these RDS Groups, 32 bits per group would be used for traffic data, giving a total traffic message length of 64 bits. A second proposal, by Bosch-Blaupunkt and the German Road Research Institute BASt, sought to use just a single RDS Group per traffic message. Then, in 1987, the CEC invited Castle Rock Consultants to lead a joint team that would take TMC development a stage further. CRC produced a proposal for a modified BASt/Blaupunkt single group message definition, which became known as the ALERT A coding scheme. Tests also continued at CCETT and BBC on the CARMINAT approach, which formed the basis of an alternative ALERT B coding proposal. A major question addressed in the Alert A scheme was the total number of traffic event locations to be coded. Initial estimates suggested that, in Europe, a maximum of 65,000 significant junctions might be needed for the Federal Republic of Germany. An efficient coding system would require only 16 bits to code these, simply by numbering each intersection from 1 to 65535. Calculations for France, Britain and elsewhere suggested that around 30,000 to 40,000 locations should be enough for most European national or U.S. statewide systems. A standard 16-bit location code was, therefore, adopted for inter-urban networks. The Madrid proposal of 1987, by comparison, had required 33 bits to code problem location, with separate fields for road number, road class, area of the country, etc. These 33 bits gave a theoretical total of 8 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=914773 | 217,097 |
Loss on ignition LOI is also used in the cement industry which operates the furnace in the 950° Celsius range, combustion engineers also use LOI but at temperatures lower than 950° Celsius range. A complete procedure for LOI can be found below, keep in mind however that some of the steps may need to be modified depending on the intended use of LOI. There are many ways to properly utilize loss on ignition for scientific research. A soil sample left overnight in a drying oven at 100° Celsius would have its water content completely evaporated by morning. This could allow the researchers to determine the amount of water initially in the soil sample and its porosity by comparing the change in weight of the sample before and after the evaporation. This new weight of the sample is called the dry weight and its previous weight is called the wet weight. A general procedure of how to perform a loss on ignition is as follows: In many research labs, the use of asbestos gloves is required when operating the furnace as it can reach very hot temperatures. The use of face masks is also recommended at higher temperatures to ensure safety of researchers and junior lab members. It is also recommended that researchers performing LOI procedure remove all jewelry and watches as they are great conductors of heat. When removing samples at high temperatures, these accessories can easily heat up and result in burns | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9984661 | 55,254 |
Bio-FET The choice of reference electrode (liquid gate) or back-gate voltage determines the carrier concentration within the field effect transistor, and therefore its region of operation, therefore the response of the device can be optimised by tuning the gate voltage. If the transistor is operated in the subthreshold region then an exponential increase in current is expected for a unit change in surface potential. The response is often reported as the change in current on analyte binding divided by the initial current (formula_1), and this value is always maximal in the subthreshold region of operation due to this exponential amplification. For most devices, optimum signal-to-noise, defined as change in current divided by the baseline noise, (formula_2) is also obtained when operating in the subthreshold region, however as the noise sources vary between devices, this is device dependent. One optimization of may be to put a hydrophobic passivation surface on the source and the drain to reduce non-specific biomolecular binding to regions which are not the sensing-surface. Many other optimisation strategies have been reviewed in the literature. The MOSFET (metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor, or MOS transistor) was invented by Mohamed M. Atalla and Dawon Kahng in 1959, and demonstrated in 1960. Two years later, Leland C. Clark and Champ Lyons invented the first biosensor in 1962 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=46185615 | 415,053 |
Floyd E. Romesberg is an American biotechnologist, biochemist, and geneticist formerly at Scripps Research in San Diego, California. He is known for leading the team that created the first Unnatural Base Pair (UBP), thus expanding the genetic alphabet of four letters to six in 2012, the first semi-synthetic organism in 2014, and the first functional semi-synthetic organism that can reproduce its genetic material in successive offspring, in 2017. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=59417448 | 158,263 |
Microsoft Project 2000 was the first to use personalized menus, Microsoft Agent-based Office Assistant and to use Windows Installer-based setup interface, like all Office 2000 applications, and introduced Central (later renamed Server). PERT Chart was renamed Network Diagram and was greatly improved in this version. Notable new features include ability to create personal Gantt charts, ability to apply filters in Network Diagram view, AutoSave, task calendars, ability to create projects based on templates and to specify default save path and format, graphical indicators, material resources, deadline dates, OLE DB, grouping, outline codes, estimated durations, month duration, value lists and formulas custom fields, contoured resource availability, ability to clear baseline, variable row height, in-cell editing, fill handle, ability to set fiscal year in timescale, single document interface, accessibility features, COM add-ins, pluggable language user interface, roaming user and Terminal Services support, ability to set task and project priority up to 1,000 (previously 10) and HTML help. Project 2000 was also the last version to support Find Fast (available in Windows 9x and NT 4.0 only) and to run on Windows 95. Project 2000 SR-1 fixed several bugs | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1126158 | 461,780 |
History of marketing The rise of a consumer culture led to the commercial investment in carefully managed company image, retail signage, symbolic brands, trademark protection and the brand concepts of baoji, hao, lei, gongpin, piazi and pinpai, which roughly equate with Western concepts of family status, quality grading, and upholding traditional Chinese values (p. 219). Eckhardt and Bengtsson's analysis suggests that brands emerged in China as a result of the social needs and tensions implicit in consumer culture, in which brands provide social status and stratification. Thus, the evolution of brands in China stands in sharp contrast to the West where manufacturers pushed brands onto the market in order to differentiate, increase market share and ultimately profits (pp 218–219). Scholars have identified specific instances of marketing practices in England and Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. As trade between countries or regions grew, companies required information on which to base business decisions. Individuals and companies carried out formal and informal research on trade conditions. As early as 1380, Johann Fugger travelled from Augsburg to Graben in order to gather information on the international textile industry. He exchanged detailed letters on trade conditions in relevant areas. In the early 1700s British industrial houses were demanding information, that could be used for business decisions | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14202905 | 501,321 |
Jacksonville Landing The (also informally known as The Landing) was a festival marketplace in Downtown Jacksonville, Florida. It was located at the intersection of Independent Drive and Laura Street, along the Jacksonville Riverwalk. It was built by the Rouse Company at a cost of $37.5 million and opened in 1987 and officially closed after the 4th of July festivities in 2019. Demolition commenced around October 8, 2019. The center was comparable to New York City's South Street Seaport, Boston's Faneuil Hall and Miami's Bayside Marketplace, all developed by Rouse. The was designed and built by the Rouse Company, who developed a number of similar structures in other cities. It opened its doors on June 25, 1987. The hosted a week-long celebration featuring a drum and bugle corps, balloon release, community choirs and national acts. The Rouse company partnered with City of Jacksonville, who contributed $20 million toward the construction of a festival marketplace that would revitalize the city's core. The first level of the Landing featured tenants that were common to other shopping malls when it first opened, including stores like Foot Locker, The Gap, Victoria's Secret and more. The entire second level of the main building was devoted to the "Founders Food Hall", a food court with 18 restaurants. The decor featured silhouettes of 17 individuals who had a role in the settlement of North Florida. Outside seating included a view of the center courtyard fountain, stage, and the river | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=15426712 | 307,867 |
Heterodyne On playback, the recorded color information is heterodyned back to the standard subcarrier frequencies for display on televisions and for interchange with other standard video equipment. Some U-matic (3/4″) decks feature 7-pin mini-DIN connectors to allow dubbing of tapes without conversion, as do some industrial VHS, S-VHS, and Hi8 recorders. The theremin, an electronic musical instrument, traditionally uses the heterodyne principle to produce a variable audio frequency in response to the movement of the musician's hands in the vicinity of one or more antennas, which act as capacitor plates. The output of a fixed radio frequency oscillator is mixed with that of an oscillator whose frequency is affected by the variable capacitance between the antenna and the thereminist as that person moves her or his hand near the pitch control antenna. The difference between the two oscillator frequencies produces a tone in the audio range. The ring modulator is a type of frequency mixer incorporated into some synthesizers or used as a stand-alone audio effect. Optical heterodyne detection (an area of active research) is an extension of the heterodyning technique to higher (visible) frequencies. This technique could greatly improve optical modulators, increasing the density of information carried by optical fibers. It is also being applied in the creation of more accurate atomic clocks based on directly measuring the frequency of a laser beam. See NIST subtopic 9.07.9-4 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=41234 | 379,465 |
Martinuzzi Castle Oral tradition suggests that Castaldo assassinated Martinuzzi in an attempt to recover a stash of ancient coins, which the cardinal was rumoured to have acquired from local fisherman and hidden in the castle. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=50499308 | 333,534 |
Discovery and development of direct thrombin inhibitors It is now available in a recombinant form as lepirudin (Refludan) and desirudin (Revasc, Iprivask). Development of other DTIs followed with the hirudin analog, bivalirudin, and then the small molecular DTIs. However, such DTIs were also having side effects such as bleeding complications and liver toxicity, and their long-term effects were in doubt. When a blood vessel ruptures or gets injured, factor VII comes into contact with tissue factors which starts a process called the blood coagulation cascade. Its purpose is to stop bleeding and repair tissue damage. When this process is too active due to various problems the risk of blood clots or embolisms increases. As the name indicates the cascade is a multi-step procedure where the main product thrombin is made by activating various proenzymes (mainly serine proteases) in each step of the cascade. Thrombin has multiple purposes, but mainly it converts soluble fibrinogen to an insoluble fibrin complex. Furthermore, it activates factors V, VIII and XI, all by cleaving the sequences GlyGlyGlyValArg-GlyPro and PhePheSerAlaArg-GlyHis, selectively between Arginine (Arg) and Glycine (Gly). These factors generate more thrombin. Thrombin also activates factor XIII that stabilizes the fibrin complex and therefore the clot and it stimulates platelets, which help with the coagulation. Given this broad action of thrombin it stands as a good drug target for anticoagulant drugs such as heparin, warfarin and DTIs and antiplatelet drugs like aspirin | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=37120076 | 73,418 |
Ed Parsons (born 26 September 1965) is a London-based Geospatial Technologist and tech evangelist at Google. He is working to evangelise geospatial data for commercial application and consequently, to improve the usability and efficiency of location based tools at Google. He is credited as being one of the core proponents of Google Street View. Parsons is a registered member of the Royal Geographical Society and he has been employed at Google since 2007. He is a supporter of the relatively new concept of Neogeography. In 2015, he was appointed co-chair of the W3C/OGC Spatial Data on the Web Working Group, a collaboration between the Open Geospatial Consortium and World Wide Web Consortium along with Kerry Taylor from the Australian National University. Parsons is a British citizen who graduated from the Kingston Polytechnic (now Kingston University) in 1987 with a BSc (hons) in Geography. In 1989, he was a part of the team that established the world's first undergraduate course in Geographic information system at Kingston University. He completed his master's degree from the Cranfield Institute of Technology with an M.S. in Applied Remote sensing in 1989. After completing his M.S., Parsons began teaching GIS at the Kingston University. He continued teaching there until 1998. During his tenure, he is credited with having created the first online map of general election results of 1997. In 1998, he moved to Autodesk as an EMEA Applications Manager for the Geographical Information Systems Division | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=52770475 | 256,177 |
River engineering Engineering works to increase the navigability of rivers can only be advantageously undertaken in large rivers with a moderate fall and a fair discharge at their lowest stage, for with a large fall the current presents a great impediment to up-stream navigation, and there are generally great variations in water level, and when the discharge becomes very small in the dry season. It is impossible to maintain a sufficient depth of water in the low-water channel. The possibility to secure uniformity of depth in a river by lowering the shoals obstructing the channel depends on the nature of the shoals. A soft shoal in the bed of a river is due to deposit from a diminution in velocity of flow, produced by a reduction in fall and by a widening of the channel, or to a loss in concentration of the scour of the main current in passing over from one concave bank to the next on the opposite side. The lowering of such a shoal by dredging merely effects a temporary deepening, for it soon forms again from the causes which produced it. The removal, moreover, of the rocky obstructions at rapids, though increasing the depth and equalizing the flow at these places, produces a lowering of the river above the rapids by facilitating the efflux, which may result in the appearance of fresh shoals at the low stage of the river | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3966984 | 41,713 |
Life-cycle assessment It is also sometimes referred to as "cradle-to-grave analysis". As stated by the National Risk Management Research Laboratory of the EPA, "LCA is a technique to assess the environmental aspects and potential impacts associated with a product, process, or service, by: Hence, it is a technique to assess environmental impacts associated with all the stages of a product's life from raw material extraction through materials processing, manufacture, distribution, use, repair and maintenance, and disposal or recycling. Designers use this process to help critique their products. The goal of LCA is to compare the full range of environmental effects assignable to products and services by quantifying all inputs and outputs of material flows and assessing how these material flows affect the environment. This information is used to improve processes, support policy and provide a sound basis for informed decisions. The term "life-cycle" refers to the notion that a fair, holistic assessment requires the assessment of raw-material production, manufacture, distribution, use and disposal including all intervening transportation steps necessary or caused by the product's existence. There are two main types of LCA. Attributional LCAs seek to attribute the burdens associated with the production and use of a product, or with a specific service or process, at a point in time, typically in the recent past | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=604896 | 347,493 |
Broadway Theatre (Buenos Aires) The top eight floors were originally intended for rental housing and a small confectionery, and beams were used Vierendel 18 meter span to support the roof of the theater space, which has no columns. In 1999, the show businessman Alejandro Romay took over the Broadway Theatre, performing a work of modernization. The upper floors were converted into a hotel complex called "Broadway Hotel & Suites". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=43258407 | 355,429 |
Plant collecting This issue can be solved with proper research on the status of species before a plant is collected and taking the smallest sample possible. While plant collecting may seem like a very safe and harmless practice, there is a few things collectors should keep in mind to protect themselves. First collectors should always be aware of the land where they are collecting. As in hiking there will be certain limitations to whether or not public access is granted on a plot of land and if collection from that land is allowed. For example, in a National park of the United States, plant collection is not allowed unless given special permission. Collecting internationally will involve some logistics, such as official permits which will most likely be required to bring plants both from the country of collection and to the destination country. The major herbaria can be useful to the average hobbyist in aiding them in acquiring these permits. If traveling to a remote location to access samples, it is safe practice to inform someone of your whereabouts and planned time of return. If traveling in hot weather, collectors should bring adequate water to avoid dehydration. Forms of sun protection such as sunscreen and wide brimmed hats may be essential depending on location. Travel to remote locations will most likely involve walking measurable distances in wild terrain, so precautions synonymous with those related to hiking should be taken | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4576518 | 143,328 |
Tristar and Red Sector Incorporated In June, Titan, TRSI and Sun Spire Records got 1st place in the PC competition with their coop invitro Nordlicht, presented at "Flashback" and sporting graphics by Forcer. Later this month, TRSI & Desire won the Overhead Projector compo of "At Party" with the OHP Mega Demo 9000, engineered by Luis, with a soundtrack by Cons, while Forcer was crowned in the Freestyle Graphics slot. July brought the "Nordlicht" party with this high-score: Forcer and Cons got 1st and 2nd place in the Graphics compo, Virgill and Cons secured a second in the Photo competition and Vampires Empire was the runner up in the Demo compo on DTV, by Peiselulli, Streetuff, Forcer, Zabu plus Aegis. August's "Evoke" in Cologne handed the gold medal to Hardy and Virgill for Zuckz in the 4K competition. In September, the "Demodays" party got a win for Forcer and a 3rd place for Wodk in the Graphics compo, followed by a 2nd slot for Cons at "Sundown" in the Old School Graphics discipline. "Main" party in October brought the 2nd place in a Combined Intro category by Hardy and Virgill with Gangnam. Montreal hosted the "Recursion" party in November, where TRSI won first prizes in: Graphics, the Demo compo for Chalcogens as a coop with Desire and Quebarium, plus the Wild Demo slot for Metal Skin Slidetro by Forcer, Luis, Romeo Knight Kepler and Spotter. Also, their new official .nfo file with ASCII art by H7 was released | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1038578 | 236,356 |
Reference ellipsoid For rigid-surface nearly-spherical bodies, which includes all the rocky planets and many moons, ellipsoids are defined in terms of the axis of rotation and the mean surface height excluding any atmosphere. Mars is actually egg shaped, where its north and south polar radii differ by approximately , however this difference is small enough that the average polar radius is used to define its ellipsoid. The Earth's Moon is effectively spherical, having almost no bulge at its equator. Where possible, a fixed observable surface feature is used when defining a reference meridian. For gaseous planets like Jupiter, an effective surface for an ellipsoid is chosen as the equal-pressure boundary of one bar. Since they have no permanent observable features, the choices of prime meridians are made according to mathematical rules. Small moons, asteroids, and comet nuclei frequently have irregular shapes. For some of these, such as Jupiter's Io, a scalene (triaxial) ellipsoid is a better fit than the oblate spheroid. For highly irregular bodies, the concept of a reference ellipsoid may have no useful value, so sometimes a spherical reference is used instead and points identified by planetocentric latitude and longitude. Even that can be problematic for non-convex bodies, such as Eros, in that latitude and longitude don't always uniquely identify a single surface location. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=621182 | 278,588 |
Neuroscience During the same period, Schmitt established a neuroscience research program within the Biology Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, bringing together biology, chemistry, physics, and mathematics. The first freestanding neuroscience department (then called Psychobiology) was founded in 1964 at the University of California, Irvine by James L. McGaugh. This was followed by the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, which was founded in 1966 by Stephen Kuffler. The understanding of neurons and of nervous system function became increasingly precise and molecular during the 20th century. For example, in 1952, Alan Lloyd Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley presented a mathematical model for transmission of electrical signals in neurons of the giant axon of a squid, which they called "action potentials", and how they are initiated and propagated, known as the Hodgkin–Huxley model. In 1961–1962, Richard FitzHugh and J. Nagumo simplified Hodgkin–Huxley, in what is called the FitzHugh–Nagumo model. In 1962, Bernard Katz modeled neurotransmission across the space between neurons known as synapses. Beginning in 1966, Eric Kandel and collaborators examined biochemical changes in neurons associated with learning and memory storage in "Aplysia". In 1981 Catherine Morris and Harold Lecar combined these models in the Morris–Lecar model. Such increasingly quantitative work gave rise to numerous biological neuron models and models of neural computation | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21245 | 154,138 |
Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology The workshop was organised by American researcher Lawrence Hunter, then director of the Machine Learning Project at the United States National Institutes of Health's National Library of Medicine (NLM) in Bethesda, Maryland. A subsequent workshop on the same topic held in 1992, hosted by the NLM and the National Science Foundation, made it clear that a regular international conference for the field was required. Such a conference would be dedicated to molecular biology as a rapidly emerging application of artificial intelligence. Having successfully applied for grants from AAAI, NIH and the Department of Energy Office of Health and Environmental Research, the first ISMB conference was held in July 1993, at the NLM. The conference was chaired by Hunter, David Searls (research associate professor at University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine) and Jude Shavlik (assistant professor of computer science at University of Wisconsin–Madison) and attracted over 200 attendees from 13 countries, submitting 69 scientific papers. The success of the first conference prompted the announcement of a second ISMB conference at the end of the meeting. ISMB 1994 was initially planned to be held in Seattle. However, a competing meeting forced ISMB to change venues at short notice. The conference was held at Stanford University in August 1994 and was organised by Russ Altman, a research scientist at Stanford University School of Medicine | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9943124 | 153,870 |
Nanorobotics They generate new technology inside a Borg when needed, as well as protecting them from many forms of disease. Nanites play a role in the video game Deus Ex, being the basis of the nano-augmentation technology which gives augmented people superhuman abilities. Nanites are also mentioned in the Arc of a Scythe book series by Neal Shusterman and are used to heal all nonfatal injuries, regulate bodily functions, and considerably lessen pain. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1006597 | 118,910 |
ATA Spec 100/iSpec 2200 ATA Spec 100 and iSpec 2200 are information standards for aviation maintenance and flight operations published by Airlines for America (formerly Air Transport Association). These standards provide recommended specifications for the content, structure and deliverables to meet communication requirements [physical, electronic and future technology] of aircraft product technical information. Current iSpec 2200 comprises a suite of data specifications and data modules for the digital representation and exchange of technical data. Objective is to: ATA Spec 100 was originally published in 1956. It established an industry-wide numbering scheme to organize aviation technical documentation as well as content and formatting guidelines for its conventional printed distribution. ATA Spec 2100 focused on electronic data exchange implemented in SGML. iSpec 2200 was first published in 2000. It incorporates the previous 100 and 2100 specs which won't be maintained beyond their final 1999 revisions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3091726 | 425,999 |
Marine debris The ocean is a global common, so negative externalities of marine debris are not usually experienced by the producer. In the 1950s, the importance of government intervention with marine pollution protocol was recognized at the First Conference on the Law of the Sea. Ocean dumping is controlled by international law, including: One of the earliest anti-dumping laws was Australia's "Beaches, Fishing Grounds and Sea Routes Protection Act 1932", which prohibited the discharge of "garbage, rubbish, ashes or organic refuse" from "any vessel in Australian waters" without prior written permission from the federal government. It also required permission for scuttling. The act was passed in response to large amounts of garbage washing up on the beaches of Sydney and Newcastle from vessels outside the reach of local governments and the New South Wales government. It was repealed and replaced by the "Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Act 1981", which gave effect to the London Convention. In 1972 and 1974, conventions were held in Oslo and Paris respectively, and resulted in the passing of the OSPAR Convention, an international treaty controlling marine pollution in the north-east Atlantic Ocean. The Barcelona Convention protects the Mediterranean Sea. The Water Framework Directive of 2000 is a European Union directive committing EU member states to free inland and coastal waters from human influence | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1827851 | 94,909 |
Saxon milepost Several routes crossed state borders, and this was indicated by the letters "gr" (for "Grenze" or "border") or a horizontal line. Part of the inscription on all columns was a post horn on all four sides, which was the emblem of the state's postal sovereignty. The arms of the Electorate of Saxony with a gilded crown and the Polish royal crown with the royal Polish-Lithuanian coat of arms were shown on the superstructure. The mileposts originally erected in front of the town gates usually had the distances marked on two sides and the names of the destination towns on the other two sides. Later columns, erected in the market squares, had the distances marked on all four sides. The full mile stone ("Ganzmeilensäule") was to mark every full mile along the post road. It is about 3.75 metres high and resembles the large distance milepost in shape. They are however more slender and have no section showing the coat of arms. The information was inscribed on two sides so that travellers in both directions could read them. On the road side was the so-called serial number ("Reihennummer") with which all roadside columns and mileposts were numbered in sequence. Because a number was assigned every quarter of a mile, each full-milepost had a serial number divisible by four. The half mile stone ("Halbmeilensäule"), also called the league post ("Stundensäule") because the league corresponded to half a mile, had a lower pedestal surmounted by a shaft that tapered from top to bottom | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=37372585 | 334,236 |
State machine replication The problem of voting for a "single" value by a group of independent entities is called Consensus. By extension, a "series" of values may be chosen by a series of consensus instances. This problem becomes difficult when the participants or their communication medium may experience failures. Inputs may be ordered by their position in the series of consensus instances (Consensus Order). Consensus Order may be derived independently by each server. Inputs to the State Machine may be executed in Consensus Order, guaranteeing consistent State and Output for all non-faulty replicas. Client requests are interpreted as Inputs to the State Machine, and processed into Outputs in the appropriate order. Each replica will generate an Output independently. Non-faulty replicas will always produce the same Output. Before the client response can be sent, faulty Outputs must be filtered out. Typically, a majority of the Replicas will return the same Output, and this Output is sent as the response to the client. The permanent, unplanned compromise of a replica is called a "Failure". Proof of failure is difficult to obtain, as the replica may simply be slow to respond, or even lie about its status. Non-faulty replicas will always contain the same State and produce the same Outputs. This invariant enables failure detection by comparing States and Outputs of all replicas. Typically, a replica with State or Output which differs from the majority of replicas is declared faulty | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=5407093 | 121,031 |
Trisilane The trisilane method is a solution-liquid-solid method (SLS) and relatively clean with little amorphous or particulate byproducts. Though this process is still in its infancy, the advantages are worth exploring. Further experimentation will be required to fine-tune to process, but preliminary results look promising. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27951915 | 71,955 |
List of interface bit rates Where single values are given below, they are examples from high-end cards. Since many cards have more than one pair of chips, the total bandwidth is correspondingly higher. For example, high-end cards often have eight chips, each 32 bits wide, so the total bandwidth for such cards is four times the value given below. Data rates given are from the video source (e.g., video card) to receiving device (e.g., monitor) only. Out of band and reverse signaling channels are not included. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=399520 | 246,530 |
RoboCop (character) Murphy is virtually completely reconstructed with a cybernetic body; his face, central nervous systems, circulatory systems and respiratory systems are the largest part of him left intact, along with his right hand, but various chips have been implanted into his brain, as well as at least one eye being replaced, along with the rest of his body. However, he proves to operate at a slower rate than the drone counterparts in field simulations due to his natural hesitation when making judgements in the field. Attempting to get around this, Dr. Norton, the cyberneticist responsible for creating Murphy's implants, has a new chip installed in Murphy's brain that compensates for this by taking control of his responses in action. When faced with his public debut, Murphy is so overwhelmed by his emotions that Dr. Norton is forced to shut down Murphy's ability to feel emotions to prevent a psychological breakdown. With his emotions shut down, Murphy proves to be an effective detective and police officer, quickly tracking down assorted unarrested suspects through his access to various security systems. His inability to emotionally connect results in him avoiding contact with his wife Clara and son David. When Clara confronts Murphy about his distance, it causes the reversal of the effects of Dr | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=7094393 | 299,412 |
Rumford fireplace The is a tall, shallow fireplace designed by Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, an Anglo-American physicist best known for his investigations of heat. Its shallow, angled sides are designed to reflect heat into the room, and its streamlined throat minimizes turbulence, thereby carrying away smoke with little loss of heated room air. Rumford applied his knowledge of heat to the improvement of fireplaces in the 1790s. He made them smaller and shallower with widely angled covings so they would radiate better. And he streamlined the throat, or in his words "rounded off the breast" so as to "remove those local hindrances which forcibly prevent the smoke from following its natural tendency to go up the chimney..." Rumford wrote two papers detailing his improvements on fireplaces in 1796 and 1798. He was well known and widely read in his lifetime and almost immediately in the 1790s his "Rumford fireplace" became state-of-the-art worldwide. Subsequent testing of Rumford's designs has shown that their efficiency would qualify them as clean-burning stoves. The created a sensation in London when he introduced the idea of restricting the chimney opening to increase the updraught. He and his workers changed fireplaces by inserting bricks into the hearth to make the side walls angled, and they added a choke to the chimney to create a circulation of air inside the chimney | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1261801 | 442,762 |
Horseshoe Curve (Pennsylvania) The Pennsylvania pitted the scenery of Horseshoe Curve against rival New York Central Railroad's "Water Level Route" during the 1890s. A raised-relief, scale model of the curve was included as part of the Pennsylvania Railroad's exhibit at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Pennsylvania Railroad conductors were told to announce the Horseshoe Curve to daytime passengers—a tradition that continues aboard Amtrak trains. During World War II PRR carried troops and matériel for the Allied war effort, and the Curve was under armed guard. The military intelligence arm of Nazi Germany, the "Abwehr", plotted to sabotage important industrial assets in the United States in a project code-named Operation Pastorius. In June 1942 four men were brought by submarine and landed on Long Island, planning to destroy such sites as the Curve, Hell Gate Bridge, Alcoa aluminum factories and locks on the Ohio River. The would-be saboteurs were quickly apprehended by the Federal Bureau of Investigation after one, George John Dasch, turned himself in. During the 1954 celebration of the centennial of the opening of Horseshoe Curve, a night photo was arranged by Sylvania Electric Products using 6,000 flashbulbs and of wiring to illuminate the area. The event also commemorated the 75th anniversary of the incandescent light bulb. Pennsylvania steam locomotive 1361 was placed at the park inside the Horseshoe Curve on June 8, 1957 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=647287 | 212,098 |
Extinction Currently an important aspect of extinction is human attempts to preserve critically endangered species. These are reflected by the creation of the conservation status "extinct in the wild" (EW). Species listed under this status by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) are not known to have any living specimens in the wild, and are maintained only in zoos or other artificial environments. Some of these species are functionally extinct, as they are no longer part of their natural habitat and it is unlikely the species will ever be restored to the wild. When possible, modern zoological institutions try to maintain a viable population for species preservation and possible future reintroduction to the wild, through use of carefully planned breeding programs. The extinction of one species' wild population can have knock-on effects, causing further extinctions. These are also called "chains of extinction". This is especially common with extinction of keystone species. A 2018 study indicated that the sixth mass extinction started in the Late Pleistocene could take up to 5 to 7 million years to restore 2.5 billion years of unique mammal diversity to what it was before the human era. of a parent species where daughter species or subspecies are still extant is called pseudoextinction or phyletic extinction. Effectively, the old taxon vanishes, transformed (anagenesis) into a successor, or split into more than one (cladogenesis) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=49417 | 191,181 |
Amphotericin B is an antifungal medication used for serious fungal infections and leishmaniasis. The fungal infections it is used to treat include aspergillosis, blastomycosis, candidiasis, coccidioidomycosis, and cryptococcosis. For certain infections it is given with flucytosine. It is typically given by injection into a vein. Common side effects include a reaction with fever, chills, and headaches soon after the medication is given, as well as kidney problems. Allergic symptoms including anaphylaxis may occur. Other serious side effects include low blood potassium and inflammation of the heart. It appears to be relatively safe in pregnancy. There is a lipid formulation that has a lower risk of side effects. It is in the polyene class of medications and works in part by interfering with the cell membrane of the fungus. was isolated from "Streptomyces nodosus" in 1955 and came into medical use in 1958. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines, the safest and most effective medicines needed in a health system. It is available as a generic medication. The cost in the developing world of a course of treatment as of 2010 is between US$ 162 and 229. One of the main uses of amphotericin B is treating a wide range of systemic fungal infections. Due to its extensive side effects, it is often reserved for severe infections in critically ill, or immunocompromised patients | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=732448 | 142,872 |
Adverse effect This often occurs when patients fail to inform their physician and pharmacist of all the medications they are taking, including herbal and dietary supplements. The new medication may interact agonistically or antagonistically (potentiate or decrease the intended therapeutic effect), causing significant morbidity and mortality around the world. Drug-drug and food-drug interactions may occur, and so-called "natural drugs" used in alternative medicine can have dangerous adverse effects. For example, extracts of St John's wort ("Hypericum perforatum"), a phytotherapic used for treating mild depression are known to cause an increase in the cytochrome P450 enzymes responsible for the metabolism and elimination of many drugs, so patients taking it are likely to experience a reduction in blood levels of drugs they are taking for other purposes, such as cancer chemotherapeutic drugs, protease inhibitors for HIV and hormonal contraceptives. The scientific field of activity associated with drug safety is increasingly government-regulated, and is of major concern for the public, as well as to drug manufacturers. The distinction between adverse and nonadverse effects is a major undertaking when a new drug is developed and tested before marketing it. This is done in toxicity studies to determine the nonadverse effect level (NOAEL). These studies are used to define the dosage to be used in human testing (phase I), as well as to calculate the maximum admissible daily intake | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1474961 | 84,382 |
Ravenswood Ambulance Station The ambulance centre was established in Macrossan Street, a date commemorated on the parapet of the current ambulance building. Ambulances were equipped with harnesses which were used to pull up injured men from mine shafts. In 1904, the current building was constructed to serve 4700 people, the highest population level that Ravenswood would ever have. After 1908 the town began to decline and the hospital closed. As time went by the cost of extraction grew as returns lessened and Wilson lost money searching for "mother" lodes at deep levels and began to lay off miners. A strike in 1912 dragged out for eight months causing hardship and although judgement eventually favoured the miners, Wilson could no longer afford to employ many of them. The decline of the Ravenswood mines continued with the outbreak of war in 1914 increasing costs and disruptions to the labour supply. Buildings began to be sold for removal and in 1916 rail services were cut. In 1917 the New Ravenswood Company closed. In the 1920s most of the timber buildings in Ravenswood were moved away, although brick buildings, such as the ambulance station, could not be moved. Ravenswood Shire was absorbed into Dalrymple Shire in 1929 and in 1930 Ravenswood became the first Queensland town to lose its railway connection and therefore the use of the railway ambulance which had served Ravenswood from Charters Towers since 1919. Mining had a modest revival in the 1930s, but this had little effect on the life of the town | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=44754439 | 361,020 |
Bohr–van Leeuwen theorem The states that when statistical mechanics and classical mechanics are applied consistently, the thermal average of the magnetization is always zero. This makes magnetism in solids solely a quantum mechanical effect and means that classical physics cannot account for diamagnetism. What is today known as the was discovered by Niels Bohr in 1911 in his doctoral dissertation and was later rediscovered by Hendrika Johanna van Leeuwen in her doctoral thesis in 1919. In 1932, van Vleck formalized and expanded upon Bohr's initial theorem in a book he wrote on electric and magnetic susceptibilities. The significance of this discovery is that classical physics does not allow for such things as paramagnetism, diamagnetism and ferromagnetism and thus quantum physics are needed to explain the magnetic events. This result, "perhaps the most deflationary publication of all time," may have contributed to Bohr's development of a quasi-classical theory of the hydrogen atom in 1913. The applies to an isolated system that cannot rotate. If the isolated system is allowed to rotate in response to an externally applied magnetic field, then this theorem does not apply. If, in addition, there is only one state of thermal equilibrium in a given temperature and field, and the system is allowed time to return to equilibrium after a field is applied, then there will be no magnetization | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19968510 | 424,999 |
Malic acid Malate, as a double anion, often accompanies potassium cations during the uptake of solutes into the guard cells in order to maintain electrical balance in the cell. The accumulation of these solutes within the guard cell decreases the solute potential, allowing water to enter the cell and promote aperture of the stomata. was first isolated from apple juice by Carl Wilhelm Scheele in 1785. Antoine Lavoisier in 1787 proposed the name "acide malique", which is derived from the Latin word for apple, "mālum"—as is its genus name "Malus". In German it is named "" (or "Apfelsäure") after plural or singular of the fruit apple, but the salt(s) "Malat(e)". is the main acid in many fruits, including apricots, blackberries, blueberries, cherries, grapes, mirabelles, peaches, pears, plums, and quince and is present in lower concentrations in other fruits, such as citrus. It contributes to the sourness of unripe apples. Sour apples contain high proportions of the acid. It is present in grapes and in most wines with concentrations sometimes as high as 5 g/l. It confers a tart taste to wine; the amount decreases with increasing fruit ripeness. The taste of malic acid is very clear and pure in rhubarb, a plant for which it is the primary flavor. It is also a component of some artificial vinegar flavors, such as "salt and vinegar" flavored potato chips. In citrus, fruits produced in organic farming contain higher levels of malic acid than fruits produced in conventional agriculture | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=243074 | 25,598 |
Son of Man (novel) Son of Man is a science fiction novel by American writer Robert Silverberg, published in 1971. The book is about Clay, a 20th-century man, who travels billions of years into the future and meets humanity in its future forms. Some of the issues discussed in the book are sexuality, telepathic communication between people, physical prowess or frailty, division of humans by caste or ability, and the preservation of ancient wisdom, among other things. Norman Spinrad has described it as "brilliant". Matt Hughes considers it "an artifact of its period, a remarkable, heady, head-trippy plunge into a new way of writing sf, and into a new way of thinking", but notes that because Silverberg is addressing "the timeless questions -- what are we? where do we come from? where are we going?", the book has not become "stale and musty". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14897195 | 175,687 |
Technological singularity Naam further points out that the computational complexity of higher intelligence may be much greater than linear, such that "creating a mind of intelligence 2 is probably "more" than twice as hard as creating a mind of intelligence 1." J. Storrs Hall believes that "many of the more commonly seen scenarios for overnight hard takeoff are circular – they seem to assume hyperhuman capabilities at the "starting point" of the self-improvement process" in order for an AI to be able to make the dramatic, domain-general improvements required for takeoff. Hall suggests that rather than recursively self-improving its hardware, software, and infrastructure all on its own, a fledgling AI would be better off specializing in one area where it was most effective and then buying the remaining components on the marketplace, because the quality of products on the marketplace continually improves, and the AI would have a hard time keeping up with the cutting-edge technology used by the rest of the world. Ben Goertzel agrees with Hall's suggestion that a new human-level AI would do well to use its intelligence to accumulate wealth. The AI's talents might inspire companies and governments to disperse its software throughout society. Goertzel is skeptical of a very hard, 5-minute takeoff but thinks a takeoff from human to superhuman level on the order of 5 years is reasonable. He calls this a "semihard takeoff" | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=54245 | 248,233 |
Induction welding is a form of welding that uses electromagnetic induction to heat the workpiece. The welding apparatus contains an induction coil that is energised with a radio-frequency electric current. This generates a high-frequency electromagnetic field that acts on either an electrically conductive or a ferromagnetic workpiece. In an electrically conductive workpiece, the main heating effect is resistive heating, which is due to induced currents called eddy currents. In a ferromagnetic workpiece, the heating is caused mainly by hysteresis, as the electromagnetic field repeatedly distorts the magnetic domains of the ferromagnetic material. In practice, most materials undergo a combination of these two effects. Nonmagnetic materials and electrical insulators such as plastics can be induction-welded by implanting them with metallic or ferromagnetic compounds, called susceptors, that absorb the electromagnetic energy from the induction coil, become hot, and lose their heat to the surrounding material by thermal conduction. Plastic can also be induction welded by embedding the plastic with electrically conductive fibers like metals or carbon fiber. Induced eddy currents resistively heat the embedded fibers which lose their heat to the surrounding plastic by conduction. of carbon fiber reinforced plastics is commonly used in the aerospace industry. is used for long production runs and is a highly automated process, usually used for welding the seams of pipes | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=341133 | 450,049 |
Standard Generalized Markup Language According to the reference syntax, letter-case (upper- or lower-) is not distinguished in tag names, thus the three tags: (i) codice_2, (ii) codice_3, and (iii) codice_4 are equivalent. ("NOTE:" A concrete syntax might "change" this rule via the NAMECASE NAMING declarations). SGML has features for reducing the number of characters required to mark up a document, which must be enabled in the SGML Declaration. SGML processors need not support every available feature, thus allowing applications to tolerate many types of inadvertent markup omissions; however, SGML systems usually are intolerant of invalid structures. XML is intolerant of syntax omissions, and does not require a DTD for checking well-formedness. Both start tags and end tags may be omitted from a document instance, provided: For example, if OMITTAG YES is specified in the SGML Declaration (enabling the OMITTAG feature), and the DTD includes the following declarations: <!ELEMENT chapter - - (title, section+)> <!ELEMENT title o o (#PCDATA)> <!ELEMENT section - - (title, subsection+)> then this excerpt: <chapter>Introduction to SGML <section>The SGML Declaration <subsection> which omits two tags and two tags, would represent valid markup. Omitting tags is optional – the same excerpt could be tagged like this: <chapter><title>Introduction to SGML</title> <section><title>The SGML Declaration</title> <subsection> and would still represent valid markup | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28994 | 113,735 |
Infrastructure asset management The ISO 55000 series provides terminology, requirements and guidance for implementing, maintaining and improving an effective asset management system. Politically, many legal and governmental initiatives have emphasized proactive asset management given the current state of an aging infrastructure and fiscal challenges. Recent developments include the Governmental Accounting Standards Board Statement No. 34 that required state and local entities to report in their accounting "all" infrastructure assets not only the privately financed ones such as water supply and utilities paid by user fees. This helps to determine an agency's overall infrastructure asset inventory, timely assessment of physical condition, and annual projection of financial requirements. Additionally, the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s Capacity, Management, Operation, and Maintenance (CMOM) initiative works to move away from the compliance-mandate enforcement to proactive partnership with public managers to self-audit their infrastructure systems in assessing capacity, management, and operations/maintenance. Still other proponents for proactive management include judicial consent decrees for facility managers to resolve noncompliance with environmental standards set by EPA or state environmental protection departments (i.e | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29332110 | 241,154 |
Geography (Ptolemy) Nevertheless, Byzantine scholars continued these geographical traditions throughout the Medieval period. Whereas previous Greco-Roman geographers such as Strabo and Pliny the Elder demonstrated a reluctance to rely on the contemporary accounts of sailors and merchants who plied distant areas of the Indian Ocean, Marinus and Ptolemy betray a much greater receptiveness to incorporating information received from them. For instance, Grant Parker argues that it would be highly implausible for them to have constructed the Bay of Bengal as precisely as they did without the accounts of sailors. When it comes to the account of the Golden Chersonese (i.e. Malay Peninsula) and the "Magnus Sinus" (i.e. Gulf of Thailand and South China Sea), Marinus and Ptolemy relied on the testimony of a Greek sailor named Alexandros, who claimed to have visited a far eastern site called "Cattigara" (most likely Oc Eo, Vietnam, the site of unearthed Antonine-era Roman goods and not far from the region of Jiaozhi in northern Vietnam where ancient Chinese sources claim several Roman embassies first landed in the 2nd and 3rd centuries). Muslim cartographers were using copies of Ptolemy's "Almagest" and "Geography" by the 9th century. At that time, in the court of the caliph al-Maʾmūm, al-Khwārazmī compiled his "Book of the Depiction of the Earth" which mimicked the "Geography" in providing the coordinates for 545 cities and regional maps of the Nile, the Island of the Jewel, the Sea of Darkness, and the Sea of Azov | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3418022 | 320,468 |
History of the battery Bird's experiments with this cell were of some importance to the new discipline of electrometallurgy. The porous pot version of the Daniell cell was invented by John Dancer, a Liverpool instrument maker, in 1838. It consists of a central zinc anode dipped into a porous earthenware pot containing a zinc sulfate solution. The porous pot is, in turn, immersed in a solution of copper sulfate contained in a copper can, which acts as the cell's cathode. The use of a porous barrier allows ions to pass through but keeps the solutions from mixing. In the 1860s, a Frenchman named Callaud invented a variant of the Daniell cell called the gravity cell. This simpler version dispensed with the porous barrier. This reduces the internal resistance of the system and, thus, the battery yields a stronger current. It quickly became the battery of choice for the American and British telegraph networks, and was widely used until the 1950s. The gravity cell consists of a glass jar, in which a copper cathode sits on the bottom and a zinc anode is suspended beneath the rim. Copper sulfate crystals are be scattered around the cathode and then the jar is filled with distilled water. As the current is drawn, a layer of zinc sulfate solution forms at the top around the anode. This top layer is kept separate from the bottom copper sulfate layer by its lower density and by the polarity of the cell | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8720264 | 287,772 |
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