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Caesar (video game) Caesar is a city-building computer game where the player undertakes the role of a Roman governor, building ancient Roman cities. Released in 1992 on the Amiga, ported the next year to Atari ST, PC and Macintosh, the game was similar to "SimCity". In addition to similar graphics and user interfaces, it also came with issues of micromanagement, including complicated city-planning requirements such as building the right number of schools, theaters, libraries, bathhouses, and other amenities, within suitable distances of residential areas. "Caesar" spawned three direct sequels and several spin-offs set in other ancient civilizations, together known as the "City Building" series. Notable differences of "Caesar" from "Sim City" included: In "Caesar" the player was required to organize and fund armed campaigns against barbarians, and budget accordingly. The battles themselves were not featured in the original game, but the player needed to accommodate expenses such as travelling troops, billeting and provisions, as well as maintaining a road network to transport legions more effectively. "SimCity" eventually offered historical city graphics to overlay its game engine but the underlying user interface and growth simulation remained unchanged. "Caesar" was developed and designed by Impressions Games and distributed by Sierra On-Line | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=653525 | 484,793 |
Hardware watermarking Hardware watermarking, also known as IP core watermarking is the process of embedding covert marks as design attributes inside a hardware or IP core design itself. Hardware Watermarking can represent watermarking of either DSP Cores (widely used in consumer electronics devices) or combinational/sequential circuits. Both forms of Hardware Watermarking are very popular. In DSP Core Watermarking a secret mark is embedded within the logic elements of the DSP Core itself. DSP Core Watermark usually implants this secret mark in the form of a robust signature either in the RTL design or during High Level Synthesis (HLS) design. The watermarking process of a DSP Core leverages on the High Level Synthesis framework and implants a secret mark in one (or more) of the high level synthesis phases such as scheduling, allocation and binding. DSP Core Watermarking is performed to protect a DSP core from hardware threats such as IP piracy, forgery and false claim of ownership. Some examples of DSP cores are FIR filter, IIR filter, FFT, DFT, JPEG, HWT etc. Few of the most important properties of a DSP core watermarking process are as follows: (a) Low embedding cost (b) Secret mark (c) Low creation time (d) Strong tamper tolerance (e) Fault tolerance. Hardware or IP core watermarking in the context of DSP/Multimedia Cores are significantly different from watermarking of images/digital content | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=57655715 | 129,992 |
Pfizer Since 2004, has received a 100% rating every year on the Corporate Equality Index, released by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation. In 2012, Pfizer's Canadian division, which then employed 2,890 people, was named one of Montreal's Top 15 Employers, the only research-based pharmaceutical company to receive this honor. In 2010, Ian Read took over as CEO from Jeff Kindler. In 2019, Ian Read left the CEO role and became executive chairman, with COO Albert Bouria taking the CEO role. makes the anti-fungal drug fluconazole available free of charge to governmental and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in developing countries with a greater than 1% prevalence of HIV/AIDS. The company has also pledged to provide up to 740 million doses of its anti-pneumococcal vaccine at discounted rates to infants and young children in 41 developing countries in association with the GAVI Alliance. In 2012, and the Gates Foundation announced a joint effort to provide affordable access to Pfizer's long-lasting injectable contraceptive, medroxyprogesterone acetate, to three million women in developing countries. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=62304 | 13,389 |
Compressor They are more expensive though, so peltier coolers or rotary and reciprocating compressors may be used in applications where cost is the most important or one of the most important factors to consider when designing a refrigeration or air conditioining system. This type of compressor was used as the supercharger on Volkswagen G60 and G40 engines in the early 1990s. When compared with reciprocating and rolling piston compressors, scroll compressors are more reliable since they have fewer components and have a simpler structure, is more efficient since they have no clearance volume nor valves, has less surging and it doesn't vibrate as much. But, when compared with screw and centrifugal compressors, scroll compressors have lower efficiencies and smaller capacities. A diaphragm compressor (also known as a membrane compressor) is a variant of the conventional reciprocating compressor. The compression of gas occurs by the movement of a flexible membrane, instead of an intake element. The back and forth movement of the membrane is driven by a rod and a crankshaft mechanism. Only the membrane and the compressor box come in contact with the gas being compressed. The degree of flexing and the material constituting the diaphragm affects the maintenance life of the equipment. Generally stiff metal diaphragms may only displace a few cubic centimeters of volume because the metal can not endure large degrees of flexing without cracking, but the stiffness of a metal diaphragm allows it to pump at high pressures | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=508504 | 34,276 |
Knowledge policy The policy comprises a framework of objectives, guiding principles, staff responsibilities, and policy directives. The directives include: ownership and use; roles, rights, and responsibilities; levels of access and accessibility; service to clients; and cost of access. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=10875316 | 253,279 |
Dendrite (metal) The dendrites are also common in cast products, where they may become visible by etching of a polished specimen. As dendrites develop further into the liquid metal, they get hotter because they continue to extract heat. If they get too hot, they will remelt. This remelting of the dendrites is called recalescence. Dendrites usually form under non-equilibrium conditions. An application of dendritic growth in directional solidification is gas turbine engine blades which are used at high temperatures and must handle high stresses along the major axes. At high temperatures, grain boundaries are weaker than grains. In order to minimize the effect on properties, grain boundaries are aligned parallel to the dendrites. The first alloy used in this application was a nickel-based alloy (MAR M-200) with 12.5% tungsten, which accumulated in the dendrites during solidification. This resulted in blades with high strength and creep resistance extending along the length of the casting, giving improved properties compared to the traditionally-cast equivalent. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2343250 | 29,157 |
Nonpoint source pollution The EPA mandates updates to NPS programs state-to-state in order to effectively manage the ever-changing nature of their waters, and to ensure effective use of the 319 grant money and resources. The Coastal Zone Act Reauthorization Amendments (CZARA) of 1990 created a program under the Coastal Zone Management Act that mandates development of nonpoint source pollution management measures in states with coastal waters. CZARA requires states with coastlines to implement management measures to remediate water pollution, and to make sure that the product of these measures is implementation as opposed to adoption. To control nonpoint source pollution, many different approaches can be undertaken in both urban and suburban areas. Buffer strips provide a barrier of grass in between impervious paving material like parking lots and roads, and the closest body of water. This allows the soil to absorb any pollution before it enters the local aquatic system. Retention ponds can be built in drainage areas to create an aquatic buffer between runoff pollution and the aquatic environment. Runoff and storm water drain into the retention pond allowing for the contaminants to settle out and become trapped in the pond. The use of porous pavement allows for rain and storm water to drain into the ground beneath the pavement, reducing the amount of runoff that drains directly into the water body. Restoration methods such as constructing wetlands are also used to slow runoff as well as absorb contamination | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4146576 | 42,094 |
Sheraton Princess Kaiulani Hotel The is a large resort hotel in Honolulu, Hawaii. The hotel is located on the site of ʻĀinahau, the royal estate of Princess Victoria Kaʻiulani, heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. The estate was demolished in the 1930s by the owners of the Moana Hotel, located across Kalakaua Avenue. Bungalows for the hotel were constructed on the site. The bungalows were demolished in 1953 and the Matson Line constructed the Princess Kaiulani Hotel, which opened on June 11, 1955. The 11-story building was the tallest in Hawaii at the time. In 1959, Matson sold their hotels to Sheraton Hotels. Sheraton added a second wing to the successful Princess Kaiulani Hotel in 1960, with 210 additional rooms. The hotel was sold to Kyo-Ya Company Limited in July 1963, though Sheraton continued to operate it. Kyo-Ya added a third wing, the 29-story Ainahau Tower, in 1970. Later in the 1970s, they renamed the hotel the Sheraton Princess Kaiulani. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=699442 | 338,508 |
History of computer science These registers include the "IR" (instruction register), "IBR" (instruction buffer register), "MQ" (multiplier quotient register), "MAR" (memory address register), and "MDR" (memory data register)." The architecture also uses a program counter ("PC") to keep track of where in the program the machine is. The concept of a field-effect transistor was proposed by Julius Edgar Lilienfeld in 1925. John Bardeen and Walter Brattain, while working under William Shockley at Bell Labs, built the first working transistor, the point-contact transistor, in 1947, which was followed by Shockley's bipolar junction transistor in 1948. In 1953, the University of Manchester built the first transistorized computer, called the Transistor Computer. However, early junction transistors were relatively bulky devices that were difficult to manufacture on a mass-production basis, which limited them to a number of specialised applications. The metal–oxide–silicon field-effect transistor (MOSFET), also known as the MOS transistor, was invented by Mohamed M. Atalla and Dawon Kahng at Bell Labs in 1959. It was the first truly compact transistor that could be miniaturised and mass-produced for a wide range of uses. With its high scalability, and much lower power consumption and higher density than bipolar junction transistors, the MOSFET made it possible to build high-density integrated circuits. The MOSFET later led to the microcomputer revolution, and became the driving force behind the computer revolution | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3271413 | 201,786 |
Twproject is a web-based project and groupware management tool developed by Open Lab, an Italian software house founded in 2001. It won the 17th Jolt Productivity Award in 2007 in the project management category. It has widespread use in universities as a teaching tool in project management courses. It is used by Canonical Ltd., Oracle Corporation, General Electric and many other companies from corporations to small start-ups. The database structure and the relative Java sources are available from Sourceforge in GPL. A basic JSON API is available for a simple integration. The applications runs in Java JDK 6 on the Hibernate object/relational mapping. The standard distribution uses Apache Tomcat 6, but can run on any J2EE application server. is tested on these DB servers: MySQL, Oracle, SQL Server, PostgreSql, HSQLDB, but as uses Hibernate can run on many others. There is simple graphical step-by-step installer for Windows, Mac, Linux both 32 or 64 bit processors or .zip/.tar.gz/.rpm packages. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=10637734 | 472,067 |
Western blot normalization The linear range for stain-free normalization is up to 80 µg of protein per lane for 18-well and up to 100 µg per lane for 12-well Criterion mid-sized gels. This range is compatible with typical protein loads in quantitative western blots and enables loading control calculations over a wide protein-loading range. A more efficient stain-free method has also recently become available. When using high protein loads, stain-free technology has demonstrated greater success than stains. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=51807728 | 186,440 |
University of Sydney Quadrangle Adjacent to the Quadrangle is the University's Great Hall, which holds an organ designed by Rudolf von Beckerath of Hamburg. A jacaranda tree was planted in the Quadrangle in 1928 by Professor E. G. Waterhouse, who was also a keen horticulturalist and dedicated contributor to the landscape design of the university. The tree was a well-loved specimen that served as the background to many graduations and private events before its death in 2016. Its flowering at examination time was believed to be a clear sign that students should start studying. The Philosophy Room located within the quadrangle is home to two murals which are placed at the back of the room. On the 14 November 1921, these two mural decorations were unveiled in the Philosophy Room within the quadrangle at the University of Sydney. They were painted by Norman Carter and were commissioned to celebrate the 30 years of work of Professor Francis Anderson. One mural depicts Socrates, Aristotle and Plato together whilst the other depicts Descartes, Bacon and Spinoza. Both murals were unveiled by Professor Anderson's wife. The University of Sydney established a Conservation of Grounds Plan in October 2002. Being the most photographed area in the university, and having a one-hour heritage tour, the Quadrangle must keep up its appearances. Of the many, three policies are stated in order to maintain and conserve the vegetation and foliage of the university's grounds including the Quadrangle. These three are: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=40643514 | 335,281 |
Libor scandal Around 20 major banks have been named in investigations and court cases. Early estimates are that the rate manipulation scandal cost US states, counties, and local governments at least $6 billion in fraudulent interest payments, above $4 billion that state and local governments have already had to spend to unwind their positions exposed to rate manipulation. An increasingly smaller set of banks are participating in setting the Libor, calling into question its future as a benchmark standard, but without any viable alternative to replace it. The United States Congress began investigating on 10 July 2012. Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Johnson (D., South Dakota) said he would question Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke about the scandal during scheduled hearings. Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R., Texas) of the House Financial Services Committee, wrote New York Federal Reserve (New York Fed) President William Dudley. He was seeking records of communications between the New York Fed and Barclays between August 2007 and November 2009 related to Libor-like rates. On 4 October 2012, Republican US Senators Chuck Grassley (Iowa) and Mark Kirk (Illinois) announced that they were investigating Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner for complicity with the rate manipulation scandal | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=36348056 | 476,280 |
Buffer overflow The earliest documented hostile exploitation of a buffer overflow was in 1988. It was one of several exploits used by the Morris worm to propagate itself over the Internet. The program exploited was a service on Unix called finger. Later, in 1995, Thomas Lopatic independently rediscovered the buffer overflow and published his findings on the Bugtraq security mailing list. A year later, in 1996, Elias Levy (also known as Aleph One) published in "Phrack" magazine the paper "Smashing the Stack for Fun and Profit", a step-by-step introduction to exploiting stack-based buffer overflow vulnerabilities. Since then, at least two major internet worms have exploited buffer overflows to compromise a large number of systems. In 2001, the Code Red worm exploited a buffer overflow in Microsoft's Internet Information Services (IIS) 5.0 and in 2003 the SQL Slammer worm compromised machines running Microsoft SQL Server 2000. In 2003, buffer overflows present in licensed Xbox games have been exploited to allow unlicensed software, including homebrew games, to run on the console without the need for hardware modifications, known as modchips. The PS2 Independence Exploit also used a buffer overflow to achieve the same for the PlayStation 2. The Twilight hack accomplished the same with the Wii, using a buffer overflow in "". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4373 | 359,644 |
Base-richness in ecology is the level in water or soil of chemical bases, such as calcium or magnesium ions. Many organisms are restricted to base-rich environments. Chemical bases are alkalis, and so base-rich environments are neutral or alkaline. Because base-poor environments have few bases, they are dominated by environmental acids (usually organic acids) and so are acidic. However, the relationship between base-richness and acidity is not a rigid one – changes in the levels of acids (such as dissolved carbon dioxide) may significantly change acidity without affecting base-richness. Base-rich terrestrial environments are characteristic of areas where the underlying rocks are limestone. Seawater is also base-rich, so maritime and marine environments are themselves base-rich. Base-poor environments are characteristic of areas where the underlying rocks are sandstone or granite, or where the water is derived directly from rainfall (ombrotrophic). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=16806577 | 42,994 |
Combined sewer Without careful management of this storage period, the water in the CSO storage facility runs the risk of going septic. Washington, D.C. is building underground storage capacity as its primary strategy to address CSOs. In 2011 the city began construction on a system of four deep storage tunnels, adjacent to the Anacostia River, that will reduce overflows to the river by 98 percent, and 96 percent system-wide. The system will comprise over 18 miles of tunnels with a storage capacity of 157 million gallons. The first segment of the tunnel system, 7 miles in length, went online in 2018. The remaining segments of the storage system are scheduled for completion in 2023. (The city's overall "Clean Rivers" project, projected to cost $2.6 billion, includes other components, such as reducing stormwater flows.) The South Boston CSO Storage Tunnel is a similar project, completed in 2011. Some cities have expanded their basic sewage treatment capacity to handle some or all of the CSO volume. In 2002 litigation forced the city of Toledo, Ohio to double its treatment capacity and build a storage basin in order to eliminate most overflows. The city also agreed to study ways to reduce stormwater flows into the sewer system. ("See" Reducing stormwater flows.) Retention treatment basins or large concrete tanks that store and treat combined sewage are another solution. These underground structures can range in storage and treatment capacity from to of combined sewage | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3012047 | 312,182 |
Amylin Pharmaceuticals In March 2005, Symlin was approved by the FDA for use in diabetics who have difficulty maintaining glycemic control. In October 1996, Dr. John Eng licensed his discovery, exendin-4 to Amylin. Dr. Eng discovered exendin-4 in the venom of a Gila monster. Exendin-4 is similar to the human gut hormone GLP-1, which is responsible for regulating insulin and glucagon release. Unlike human GLP-1, however, exendin-4 doesn’t degrade for hours, making it a much better candidate for a drug. Amylin developed exenatide, a synthetic version of exendin-4. In 2002, Eli Lilly signed an agreement with Amylin for $325 million to partner in development of exenatide. In May 2005, Byetta (commercial name for exenatide) was approved in the United States. In July 2012, Bristol-Myers Squibb announced it would acquire for $5.3 billion. As part of the acquisition, AstraZeneca made a $3.4 billion cash payment to make Amylin a wholly owned subsidiary within the existing BMS/AZ joint venture in diabetes. In April 2013, Bristol-Myers Squibb announced it would close Amylin's San Diego operations by the end of 2014 and merge the Amylin manufacturing facility in West Chester, Ohio and all field-based sales personnel into Bristol-Myers Squibb operations. In December 2013, AstraZeneca purchased the Bristol-Myers Squibb share of the diabetes joint venture, and as a result, became the sole owner of all former Amylin products and business, including the manufacturing facility in West Chester, Ohio. On February 4, 2014, the U.S | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11635760 | 464,925 |
Water tariff A water tariff (often called water rate in the United States and Canada) is a price assigned to water supplied by a public utility through a piped network to its customers. The term is also often applied to wastewater tariffs. Water and wastewater tariffs are not charged for water itself, but to recover the costs of water treatment, water storage, transporting it to customers, collecting and treating wastewater, as well as billing and collection. Prices paid for water itself are different from water tariffs. They exist in a few countries and are called water abstraction charges or fees. Abstraction charges are not covered in this article, but in the article on water pricing). Water tariffs vary widely in their structure and level between countries, cities and sometimes between user categories (residential, commercial, industrial or public buildings). The mechanisms to adjust tariffs also vary widely. Most water utilities in the world are publicly owned, but some are privately owned or managed (see water privatization). Utilities are network industries and natural monopolies. Economic theory predicts that unregulated private utilities set the price of their product at a level that allows to extract a monopoly profit. However, in reality tariffs charged by utilities are regulated. They can be set below costs, at the level of cost recovery without a return on capital, or at the level of cost recovery including a predetermined rate of return on capital | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26104444 | 337,466 |
Office Open XML file formats rels"), is: As such, images referenced in the document can be found in the relationship file by looking for all relationships that are of type codice_1. To change the used image, edit the relationship. The following code shows an example of inline markup for a hyperlink: In this example, the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is in the Target attribute of the Relationship referenced through the relationship Id, "rId2" in this case. Linked images, templates, and other items are referenced in the same way. Pictures can be embedded or linked using a tag: This is the reference to the image file. All references are managed via relationships. For example, a document.xml has a relationship to the image. There is a _rels directory in the same directory as document.xml, inside _rels is a file called document.xml.rels. In this file there will be a relationship definition that contains type, ID and location. The ID is the referenced ID used in the XML document. The type will be a reference schema definition for the media type and the location will be an internal location within the ZIP package or an external location defined with a URL. Office Open XML uses the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set and DCMI Metadata Terms to store document properties. Dublin Core is a standard for cross-domain information resource description and is defined in ISO 15836:2003. An example document properties file ("docProps/core | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=24902683 | 139,270 |
Electron mobility Quasi-ballistic transport is possible in solids if the electrons are accelerated across a very small distance (as small as the mean free path), or for a very short time (as short as the mean free time). In these cases, drift velocity and mobility are not meaningful. The electron mobility is defined by the equation: where: The hole mobility is defined by the same equation. Both electron and hole mobilities are positive by definition. Usually, the electron drift velocity in a material is directly proportional to the electric field, which means that the electron mobility is a constant (independent of electric field). When this is not true (for example, in very large electric fields), the mobility depends on the electric field. The SI unit of velocity is m/s, and the SI unit of electric field is V/m. Therefore the SI unit of mobility is (m/s)/(V/m) = m/(V⋅s). However, mobility is much more commonly expressed in cm/(V⋅s) = 10 m/(V⋅s). Mobility is usually a strong function of material impurities and temperature, and is determined empirically. Mobility values are typically presented in table or chart form. Mobility is also different for electrons and holes in a given material. There is a simple relation between mobility and electrical conductivity. Let "n" be the number density (concentration) of electrons, and let μ be their mobility. In the electric field E, each of these electrons will move with the velocity vector formula_4, for a total current density of formula_5 (where "e" is the elementary charge) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=760994 | 416,906 |
Lawrence Lessig Lessig has been a proponent of the remix culture since the early 2000s. In his 2008 book "Remix" he presents this as a desirable cultural practice distinct from piracy. Lessig further articulates remix culture as intrinsic to technology and the Internet. Remix culture is therefore an amalgam of practice, creativity, "read/write" culture and the hybrid economy. According to Lessig, the problem with the remix comes when it is at odds with stringent US copyright law. He has compared this to the failure of Prohibition, both in its ineffectiveness and in its tendency to normalize criminal behavior. Instead he proposes more lenient licensing, namely Creative Commons licenses, as a remedy to maintain "rule of law" while combating plagiarism. On March 28, 2004 he was elected to the FSF's board of directors. He proposed the concept of "free culture". He also supports free and open-source software and open spectrum. At his free culture keynote at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention 2002, a few minutes of his speech was about software patents, which he views as a rising threat to free software, open source software and innovation. In March 2006, Lessig joined the board of advisors of the Digital Universe project. A few months later, Lessig gave a talk on the ethics of the Free Culture Movement at the 2006 Wikimania conference. In December 2006, his lecture " On Free, and the Differences between Culture and Code" was one of the highlights at 23C3 "Who can you trust?" | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=54496 | 248,250 |
Aluminium-based nanogalvanic alloys In 2019, the hydrogen fuel company H2 Power, LLC was the first to receive an exclusive license to use the aluminium-based nanogalvanic alloys to investigate automotive and transportation power generation applications for cars, trucks, motorcycles, and other vehicles. As of 2019, ARL researchers are looking for ways to improve the production and manufacturing process of the aluminium-based nanogalvanic alloys. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=62762635 | 16,389 |
Anemometer Icing alters the aerodynamics of an anemometer and may entirely block it from operating. Therefore, anemometers used in these applications must be internally heated. Both cup anemometers and sonic anemometers are presently available with heated versions. In order for wind speeds to be comparable from location to location, the effect of the terrain needs to be considered, especially in regard to height. Other considerations are the presence of trees, and both natural canyons and artificial canyons (urban buildings). The standard anemometer height in open rural terrain is 10 meters. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2994 | 296,185 |
Index of industrial production The working group (set up in 1978) under the Chairmanship of the then Director General of CSO, decided to shift the base to 1980–81, to reflect the changes that had taken place in the industrial structure and to accommodate the items from small-scale sector. A notable feature of the revised 1980 index number series was the inclusion of 18 items from the SSI sector, for which the office of the Development Commissioner of Small-Scale Industries (DCSSI) could ensure regular supply of data. The production data for the small-scale sector were included only from the month of July 1984 onwards; prior to this the production data from the directorate general of technical development (DGTD) for large and medium industries alone had been used. For the period April 1981 to June 1984 in respect of these 18 items, average base year (1980–81) production as obtained from DGTD was used. From July 1984 onwards, combined average base year production both for DGTD and DCSSI products was used. The weights for these items were based on ASI 1980–1981 results and no separate weights for DGTD and DCSSI items were allocated in the 1980–81 series. The next revision of IIP with 1993–94 as the base year containing 543 items (with the addition of 3 items for mining sector and 188 for the manufacturing sector) has come into existence on 27 May 1998 and ever since, the quick estimates of IIP are being released as per the norms set out for the IMF’s SDDS2, with a time lag of six weeks from the reference month | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14177213 | 511,902 |
TopoFlight Exporting the flight plan – The plot can be exported either through SHAPE files, DXF format, or in TIFF format with a TFW header file. Transfer to flight management system – coordinates can be exported to ASCOT, CCNS, or TrackAir. Check overlap for aerial triangulation – Check if the minimal overlap is achieved over the whole strip area. Create image indexes – The coordinates of image centers, stored in a text file can be read by TopoFlight. is currently in use in 19 countries including the United States, Germany, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, Austria, Italy and others. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23970576 | 131,815 |
Tunnel transmitter A tunnel transmitter allows wireless reception in tunnels. It consists of a receiving antenna which receives the signal to be radiated in the tunnel, and a transmitting antenna installed in the tunnel, which is either a Yagi antenna or a line antenna. In principle, a tunnel transmitter can work purely passively, in which case the received signal is passed over a cable to the antenna in the tunnel. Active systems, however, are more often used. In some cases the radio frequency inside the tunnel is different from the one used by the broadcaster. More often the program inside is transmitted on the same frequency as outside, in which case the information signal should be demodulated or converted to an intermediate frequency in the outside receiver, and then modulated/shifted back in the transmitter. Otherwise feedback may occur. Tunnel transmitters are used in Germany only for audio transmitters working in FM-range and for further radio services, such as mobile phone services which also work in this frequency range. Elsewhere, there are also tunnel transmitters for audio broadcast transmitters, which work in the long and medium wave bands. An example of this is in the Dartford Crossing tunnel near London, where the programme "Virgin 1215" in the medium-wave band and the BBC's Radio 4 on 198 kHz long wave are rebroadcast in the tunnel. Emergency information could also be relayed using this system, interrupting programming to relay warnings. Dublin port tunnel radio interruption system | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12828176 | 371,330 |
Wing Chuen Suen (; born 1963) is a Hong Kong economist. He earned a bachelor's degree in economics at the University of Hong Kong and pursued graduate study at the University of Washington in the United States. He began teaching at the University of Hong Kong in 1989, and in 2006 was named the Henry G Leong Professor in Economics. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=58004636 | 503,227 |
Chemistry of ascorbic acid It is oxidized with loss of one electron to form a radical cation and then with loss of a second electron to form dehydroascorbic acid. It typically reacts with oxidants of the reactive oxygen species, such as the hydroxyl radical. Ascorbic acid is special because it can transfer a single electron, owing to the resonance-stabilized nature of its own radical ion, called semidehydroascorbate. The net reaction is: On exposure to oxygen, ascorbic acid will undergo further oxidative decomposition to various products including diketogulonic acid, xylonic acid, threonic acid and oxalic acid. Reactive oxygen species are damaging to animals and plants at the molecular level due to their possible interaction with nucleic acids, proteins, and lipids. Sometimes these radicals initiate chain reactions. Ascorbate can terminate these chain radical reactions by electron transfer. The oxidized forms of ascorbate are relatively unreactive and do not cause cellular damage. However, being a good electron donor, excess ascorbate in the presence of free metal ions can not only promote but also initiate free radical reactions, thus making it a potentially dangerous pro-oxidative compound in certain metabolic contexts. Ascorbic acid and its sodium, potassium, and calcium salts are commonly used as antioxidant food additives | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2268 | 87,487 |
ABISMO (Automatic Bottom Inspection and Sampling Mobile) is a remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV) built by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) for exploration of the deep sea. It is the only remaining ROV rated to 11,000-meters (after "Nereus", built and operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution was lost at sea in 2014), "ABISMO" is intended to be the permanent replacement for "Kaikō", a ROV that was lost at sea in 2003. Between 1995 and 2003, "Kaikō" conducted more than 250 dives, collecting 350 biological species (including 180 different bacteria), some of which could prove to be useful in medical and industrial applications. "Kaikō" reached a maximum depth of 10,911.4 meters at the Challenger Deep on 24 March 1995, during its initial sea trials. "Kaikō" returned to Challenger Deep in February 1996, this time reaching a maximum depth of 10,898 meters. "Kaikō" made its last visit to Challenger Deep in May 1998. On 29 May 2003, "Kaikō" was lost at sea off the coast of Shikoku Island during Typhoon Chan-Hom, when a steel secondary cable connecting it to its launcher at the ocean surface broke. In May 2004, JAMSTEC resumed its research operations, using a converted ROV as its vehicle. This ROV, formerly known as "UROV 7K", was rechristened "Kaikō7000II". The "7000" designation indicates that this vessel is rated for diving to a maximum depth of 7,000 meters | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27873670 | 177,649 |
Tissue microarray Tissue microarrays are particularly useful in analysis of cancer samples. One variation is a Frozen tissue array. The use of tissue microarrays in combination with immunohistochemistry has been a preferred method to study and validate cancer biomarkers in various defined cancer patient cohorts. The possibility to assemble a large number of representative cancer samples from a defined patient cohort that also has a corresponding clinical database, provides a powerful resource to study how different protein expression patterns correlate with different clinical parameters. Since patient samples are assembled into the same block, sections can be stained with the same protocol to avoid experimental variability and technical artefacts. Clinical cancer patient cohorts and corresponding tissue microarray sets have been used to study diagnostic, prognostic and treatment predictive cancer biomarkers in most forms of cancer, including lung, breast, colorectal and renal cell cancer. Immunohistochemistry combined with tissue microarrays has also been used with success in large scale efforts to create a map of protein expression on a more global scale. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2140843 | 169,836 |
Lavabit Citing the impossibility of being able to maintain the confidentiality of its customers' emails should it be served with government orders, Silent Circle permanently erased the encryption keys that allowed access to emails stored or transmitted by its service. In September 2013 Levison appealed the order that resulted in the closing of his website. Levison and his lawyer made two requests to Judge Claude M. Hilton to unseal the records, both of which were denied. They also launched an appeals case regarding legality of the original warrant. The appeals court then requested the records to be unsealed, and Judge Hilton granted the request. On October 2, 2013, the Federal District Court in Alexandria, Virginia unsealed records in this case, but only censored the name and detail of the target of the search order. "Wired" suggested the target was likely Snowden. The court records show that the FBI sought Lavabit's Transport Layer Security (TLS/SSL) private key. Levison objected, saying that the key would allow the government to access communications by all 400,000 customers of Lavabit. He also offered to add code to his servers that would provide the information required just for the target of the order. The court rejected this offer because it would require the government to trust Levison and stated that just because the government could access all customers' communication did not mean they would be legally permitted to do so | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=40191165 | 274,241 |
Thin film is built up from thin Al or Cu layers. These layers dispose of thicknesses in the range of a few 100 nm up to a few µm, and they are often embedded into a few nm thin titanium nitride layers in order to block a chemical reaction with the surrounding dielectric like SiO. The figure shows a micrograph of a laterally structured TiN/Al/TiN metal stack in a microelectronic chip. Thin-film technologies are also being developed as a means of substantially reducing the cost of solar cells. The rationale for this is thin-film solar cells are cheaper to manufacture owing to their reduced material costs, energy costs, handling costs and capital costs. This is especially represented in the use of printed electronics (roll-to-roll) processes. Other thin-film technologies, that are still in an early stage of ongoing research or with limited commercial availability, are often classified as emerging or third generation photovoltaic cells and include, organic, dye-sensitized, and polymer solar cells, as well as quantum dot, copper zinc tin sulfide, nanocrystal and perovskite solar cells. Thin-film printing technology is being used to apply solid-state lithium polymers to a variety of substrates to create unique batteries for specialized applications. Thin-film batteries can be deposited directly onto chips or chip packages in any shape or size. Flexible batteries can be made by printing onto plastic, thin metal foil, or paper | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1033036 | 38,477 |
Naqqar khana Naqqar Khana (, ) or Naubat Khana (Hindi: नौबत ख़ाना, Urdu: ) is a term for a drum house or orchestra pit during ceremonies. The name literally means "drum" (Naqqar/Naubat)-"house" (Khana). They are a distinct sign of Mughal architecture and were constructed under areas their influence in India, Pakistan and nearby countries. Bismillah Khan's family had played shehnai for generations in Naqqar Khanas overlooking palaces and temples which enabled their music to be heard across the countryside. The pavilion named Naubat Khana in Red Fort in Delhi is near the entrance on the eastern side of the ten pillars lane, next to a different pavilion where royal palanquins and other paraphernalia were placed. It housed 18 kinds of musical instruments that used to form part of the royal entourage. It was constructed in 1636 CE by the Mughals. After the end of their patronage, Naubat Khana fell into a state of disrepair and remained in that state for almost a century until a Britisher named George Fisher restored it in 1858 for the new "Zilla School" (district school). After the end of British Raj, the place became dilapidated. The American Mission declined to take it as a gift due to its poor condition. The government used it as the police headquarters for some time, but currently it serves as a middle school. Recently, one of its side was painted white (from the original red) by Archaeological Survey of India as it is thought to be its original color. The Taj Mahal complex has a Naqqar Khana. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=10029242 | 358,308 |
Lightfastness is a property of a colourant such as dye or pigment that describes how resistant to fading it is when exposed to light. Dyes and pigments are used for example for dyeing of fabrics, plastics or other materials and manufacturing paints or printing inks. The bleaching of the color is caused by the impact of ultraviolet radiation in the chemical structure of the molecules giving the color of the subject. The part of a molecule responsible for its color is called the chromophore. Light encountering a painted surface can either alter or break the chemical bonds of the pigment, causing the colors to bleach or change in a process known as photodegradation. Materials that resist this effect are said to be lightfast. The electromagnetic spectrum of the sun contains wavelengths from gamma waves to radio waves. The high energy of ultraviolet radiation in particular accelerates the fading of the dye. The photon energy of UVA-radiation which is not absorbed by atmospheric ozone exceeds the dissociation energy of the carbon-carbon single bond, resulting in the cleavage of the bond and fading of the color. Inorganic colourants are considered to be more lightfast than organic colourants. Black colourants are usually considered the most lightfast. is measured by exposing a sample to a lightsource for a predefined period of time and then comparing it to an unexposed sample. During the fading, colourant molecules undergo various chemical processes which result in fading | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25832512 | 62,407 |
Frame problem The difference between a predicate and a term in first-order logic is that a term is a representation of an object (possibly a complex object composed of other objects), while a predicate represents a condition that can be true or false when evaluated over a given set of terms. In the fluent calculus, each possible state is represented by a term obtained by composition of other terms, each one representing the conditions that are true in state. For example, the state in which the door is open and the light is on is represented by the term formula_45. It is important to notice that a term is not true or false by itself, as it is an object and not a condition. In other words, the term formula_45 represent a possible state, and does not by itself mean that this is the current state. A separate condition can be stated to specify that this is actually the state at a given time, e.g., formula_47 means that this is the state at time formula_48. The solution to the frame problem given in the fluent calculus is to specify the effects of actions by stating how a term representing the state changes when the action is executed. For example, the action of opening the door at time 0 is represented by the formula: The action of closing the door, which makes a condition false instead of true, is represented in a slightly different way: This formula works provided that suitable axioms are given about formula_51 and formula_52, e.g | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11306 | 135,457 |
Het Strijkijzer (, "The Flatiron") is a residential and office skyscraper in The Hague, Netherlands. It is with 42 floors, making it the city's third tallest building. In 2007 the building was awarded the Hague New City Prize and the international Emporis Skyscraper Award, with Emporis citing "its elegant reinterpretation of classic high-rise architecture, its contextual approach to a limited site, and its efficient program for accommodating new entrants to the housing market". Inspired by the Flatiron Building in New York City, its name is the Dutch word for the ironing appliance. The building contains 300 studio flats for students and first-time property owners, and 51 luxury flats, accessible by a separate lift. There are also furnished flats for rental on a weekly or monthly basis. Below is space for catering, a laundromat, ironing facilities and office space. Since 2011, there is a panoramic terrace on the 42nd floor, which is accessible from the ground floor via a dedicated lift. From the terrace, one can see the ships on the North Sea. Construction of started in 2005. The construction site was a piece of land, measuring only , on the edge of the Rijswijkseplein, an important infrastructural crossroad of The Hague, surrounded by heavy car and tram traffic. The contractor, Boele & van Eesteren, thus had to pay close attention to the safety aspect and to the minimising of noise and other nuisance. The lower floors were made of concrete poured on-site and the upper floors were completely constructed with precast concrete | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=16974422 | 314,969 |
Forward osmosis In more recent times a significant amount of research and development work has been undertaken and funded by Statkraft, the Norwegian state energy company. A prototype plant was built in Norway generating a gross output between 2 – 4 kW; see Statkraft osmotic power prototype in Hurum. A much larger plant with an output of 1 – 2 MW at Sunndalsøra, 400 km north of Oslo was considered but was subsequently dropped. The New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organisation (NEDO) in Japan is funding work on osmotic power. An area of current research in FO involves direct removal of draw solutes, in this case by means of a magnetic field. Small (nanoscale) magnetic particles are suspended in solution creating osmotic pressures sufficient for the separation of water from a dilute feed. Once the draw solution containing these particles has been diluted by the FO water flux, they may be separated from that solution by use of a magnet (either against the side of a hydration bag, or around a pipe in-line in a steady state process). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=855056 | 96,628 |
Terminal cleaning is a cleaning method used in healthcare environments to control the spread of infections. Nosocomial infections claim approximately 90,000 lives in the United States annually. When patients are hospitalized and identified as having methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or infections that can be spread to other patients, best practices isolate these patients in rooms that are subjected to terminal cleaning when the patient is discharged. reduces the spread of "C. difficile" infections. methods vary, but usually include removing all detachable objects in the room, cleaning lighting and air duct surfaces in the ceiling, and cleaning everything downward to the floor. Items removed from the room are disinfected or sanitized before being returned to the room. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12293209 | 257,956 |
False advertising They also assist businesses and industries by developing clear laws and guidelines in relation to unfair practices and misleading or deceptive conduct. There are many similarities in the laws and regulation between the Australian ACCC, the New Zealand FTA, the American FCT and United Kingdom CPR. The structure of these policies is to support fair trade and competition alongside offering the consumers exactly what they are selling, in order to reduce deceptive and false practices. However, it is not limited to these countries, as most countries have agreements with the International Consumer Protection and Enforcement Network or ICPEN. In New Zealand, the Fair Trading Act 1986 aims to promote fair competition and trading in the country. The act prohibits certain conduct in trade, provides for the disclosure of information available to the consumer relating to the supply of goods and services and promotes product safety. Although the Act does not require businesses to provide all information to consumers in every circumstances, businesses are obliged to ensure the information they do provide is accurate, and important information is not kept from consumers. A range of selling methods that intend to mislead the consumer are illegal under the Fair Trading Act: The Act also applies to certain activities whether or not the parties are 'in trade' – such as employment advertising, pyramid selling, and the supply of products covered by product safety and consumer information standards | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=932935 | 453,931 |
International Celestial Reference System The (ICRS) is the current standard celestial reference system adopted by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Its origin is at the barycenter of the Solar System, with axes that are intended to be "fixed" with respect to space. ICRS coordinates are approximately the same as equatorial coordinates: the mean pole at J2000.0 in the ICRS lies at 17.3±0.2 mas in the direction 12 h and 5.1±0.2 mas in the direction 18 h. The mean equinox of J2000.0 is shifted from the ICRS right ascension origin by 78±10 mas (direct rotation around the polar axis). The defining extragalactic reference frame of the ICRS is the International Celestial Reference Frame (currently ICRF3) based on hundreds of extra-galactic radio sources, mostly quasars, distributed around the entire sky. Because they are so distant, they are apparently stationary to our current technology, yet their positions can be measured with the utmost accuracy by Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI). The positions of most are known to 0.001 arcsecond or better. At optical wavelengths, the ICRS is currently realized by the Hipparcos Celestial Reference Frame (HCRF), a subset of about 100,000 stars in the Hipparcos Catalogue. A more accurate optical realization of the ICRS ("Gaia"-CRF2), based on the observation by the "Gaia" spacecraft of almost 500,000 extragalactic objects believed to be quasars, is under preparation. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1846548 | 2,924 |
Incubator (culture) An incubator is a device used to grow and maintain microbiological cultures or cell cultures. The incubator maintains optimal temperature, humidity and other conditions such as the CO and oxygen content of the atmosphere inside. Incubators are essential for a lot of experimental work in cell biology, microbiology and molecular biology and are used to culture both bacterial and eukaryotic cells. Louis Pasteur used the small opening underneath his staircase as an incubator. Incubators are also used in the poultry industry to act as a substitute for hens. This often results in higher hatch rates due to the ability to control both temperature and humidity. Various brands of incubators are commercially available to breeders. The simplest incubators are insulated boxes with an adjustable heater, typically going up to 60 to 65 °C (140 to 150 °F), though some can go slightly higher (generally to no more than 100 °C). The most commonly used temperature both for bacteria such as the frequently used E. coli as well as for mammalian cells is approximately 37 °C (99 °F), as these organisms grow well under such conditions. For other organisms used in biological experiments, such as the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a growth temperature of 30 °C (86 °F) is optimal. More elaborate incubators can also include the ability to lower the temperature (via refrigeration), or the ability to control humidity or CO levels | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3359456 | 144,618 |
Richard R. Ernst Richard Robert Ernst (born 14 August 1933) is a Swiss physical chemist and Nobel Laureate. Ernst was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1991 for his contributions towards the development of Fourier transform Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy while at Varian Associates, Palo Alto and the subsequent development of multi-dimensional NMR techniques. These underpin applications to both to chemistry with NMR spectroscopy and to medicine with Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). was born in 1933 in Winterthur, Switzerland. He received both his diploma in chemistry in 1957 and his Ph.D. in physical chemistry in 1962 from ETH Zurich. His dissertation was on nuclear magnetic resonance in the field of physical chemistry. Ernst entered Varian Associates as a scientist in 1963 and invented Fourier transform NMR, noise decoupling, and a number of other methods. He returned to ETH Zurich in 1968 and became a lecturer. His career developed to Assistant Professor in 1970, Associate Professor in 1972. Since 1976, was Full Professor of Physical Chemistry. He led a research group dedicated to magnetic resonance spectroscopy, was the director of the Physical Chemistry Laboratory at the ETH Zurich. He developed two-dimensional NMR and several novel pulse techniques. He retired in 1998. He participated in the development of medical magnetic resonance tomography, as well as the NMR structure determination of biopolymers in solution collaborating with Professor Kurt Wüthrich | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26361 | 97,109 |
Metallacycle Metallacyclopentane intermediates are proposed to isomerize to metallacyclobutanes, which then eliminate propylene giving the alkylidene. Metallacycles often arise by cyclization of arene-containing donor ligands, e.g. aryl phosphines and amines. An early example is the cyclization of IrCl(PPh) to give the corresponding Ir(III) hydride containing a four-membered IrPCC ring. Palladium(II) and platinum(II) have long been known to ortho-metalate aromatic ligands such as azobenzene, benzylamines, and 2-phenylpyridines. These reactions are strongly influenced by substituent effects, including the Thorpe-Ingold Effect. Ligands that lack aryl substituents will sometimes cyclometalate via activation of methyl groups, an early example being the internal oxidative addition of methylphosphine ligands. formation interferes with intermolecular C-H activation processes. For this reason, specialized "pincer ligands" ligands have been developed that resist ortho-metalation. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14825641 | 46,755 |
Irreducible complexity The author asked the reader to "imagine the effects of natural selection on those organisms that fortuitously evolved the flagella ... without the concommitant control mechanisms". An early concept of irreducibly complex systems comes from Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1901-1972), an Austrian biologist. He believed that complex systems must be examined as complete, irreducible systems in order to fully understand how they work. He extended his work on biological complexity into a general theory of systems in a book titled "General Systems Theory". After James Watson and Francis Crick published the structure of DNA in the early 1950s, General Systems Theory lost many of its adherents in the physical and biological sciences. However, systems theory remained popular in the social sciences long after its demise in the physical and biological sciences. Michael Behe developed his ideas on the concept around 1992, in the early days of the 'wedge movement', and first presented his ideas about "irreducible complexity" in June 1993 when the "Johnson-Behe cadre of scholars" met at Pajaro Dunes in California. He set out his ideas in the second edition of "Of Pandas and People" published in 1993, extensively revising Chapter 6 "Biochemical Similarities" with new sections on the complex mechanism of blood clotting and on the origin of proteins. He first used the term "irreducible complexity" in his 1996 book "Darwin's Black Box", to refer to certain complex biochemical cellular systems | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=15387 | 160,848 |
Sonication Commonly, a process is first tested on a laboratory scale to prove feasibility and establish some of the required ultrasonic exposure parameters. After this phase is complete, the process is transferred to a pilot (bench) scale for flow-through pre-production optimization and then to an industrial scale for continuous production. During these scale-up steps, it is essential to make sure that all local exposure conditions (ultrasonic amplitude, cavitation intensity, time spent in the active cavitation zone, etc.) stay the same. If this condition is met, the quality of the final product remains at the optimized level, while the productivity is increased by a predictable "scale-up factor". The productivity increase results from the fact that laboratory, bench and industrial-scale ultrasonic processor systems incorporate progressively larger ultrasonic horns, able to generate progressively larger high-intensity cavitation zones and, therefore, to process more material per unit of time. This is called "direct scalability". It is important to point out that increasing the power capacity of the ultrasonic processor alone does "not" result in direct scalability, since it may be (and frequently is) accompanied by a reduction in the ultrasonic amplitude and cavitation intensity. During direct scale-up, all processing conditions must be maintained, while the power rating of the equipment is increased in order to enable the operation of a larger ultrasonic horn | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2226410 | 21,525 |
Vectorscope The 100% bars represent the maximum amplitude (of the composite signal) that composite encoding allows for. 100% bars are not suitable for broadcast and are not broadcast-safe. 75% bars have reduced amplitude and are broadcast-safe. Some vectorscope models have only one set of bar targets. The vectorscope can be set up for 75% or 100% bars by adjusting the gain so that the color burst vector extends to the "75%" or "100%" marking on the graticule. The reference signal used for the vectorscope's display is the color burst that is transmitted before each line of video, which for NTSC is defined to have a phase of 180°, corresponding to the nine-o'clock position on the graticule. The actual color burst signal shows up on the vectorscope as a straight line pointing to the left from the center of the graticule. In the case of PAL, the color burst phase alternates between 135° and 225°, resulting in two vectors pointing in the half-past-ten and half-past-seven positions on the graticule, respectively. In digital (and component analog) vectorscopes, colorburst doesn't exist; hence the phase relationship between the colorburst signal and the chroma subcarrier is simply not an issue. A vectorscope for SECAM uses a demodulator similar to the one found in a SECAM receiver to retrieve the U and V colour signals since they are transmitted one at a time (Thomson 8300 Vecamscope) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=841199 | 216,813 |
Heinz Falk 1979–present: Johannes Kepler University of Linz In 1979 Falk received a call to become full professor of organic chemistry at Johannes Kepler University of Linz, where he founded the new Institute of Organic Chemistry. From 1989 through 1991 he was elected Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences (TNF) at Johannes Kepler University of Linz. In 2005 Falk was ranked #3 among the "Top 10" scientists in Upper Austria by the newspaper "OÖ Nachrichten". In 2008 he retired as Professor emeritus at the Institute of Organic chemistry of the JKU. Falk's main research area is the structural analysis, synthesis, stereochemistry and photochemistry of plant and animal photosensitizing and photosensory pigments. The main group of compounds covered in his work are pigments derived from the fundamental phenanthro[1,10,9,8-opqra]perylene-7,14-dione chromophore with natural pigments like hypericin, stentorin, the fringelites, the gymnochromes, and blepharismin. In addition, he is focusing on hemin-analogous corrphycene derivatives (e.g. as potential blood substitutes and heme oxygenase blocker) as well as on other natural compounds such as the natural sun blocker urocanic acid. Furthermore, research on applied problems of industrial relevance, like oxidation, ozonization, non natural amino acids and catalysis have been pursued. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17947077 | 43,721 |
Bonnet Carré Spillway The is a flood control operation in the Lower Mississippi Valley. Located in St. Charles Parish, Louisianaabout west of New Orleansit allows floodwaters from the Mississippi River to flow into Lake Pontchartrain and thence into the Gulf of Mexico. The construction of the spillway was completed in 1931. The Bonnet Carré Crevasse was one of several levee breaches in the Bonnet Carré area in 1871. Local drainage systems were unable to contain the floodwater and strong winds caused the water to enter Lake Pontchartrain and surrounding urban areas. The river levee was not restored until 1883. The consists of two basic components: a control structure along the east bank of the Mississippi River and a floodway that transfers the diverted flood waters to the lake. The control structure is a mechanically-controlled concrete weir that extends for over a mile and a half parallel to the river. When opened, the control structure allows overflow volume to flow into Lake Pontchartrain. The lake's opening to the gulf is sufficient to absorb and dissipate any conceivable volume of flood flow. Thus, the flood surcharge portion of the water from the Mississippi is divided between the main river and the diversion channel; with the surcharge bypassing the New Orleans metropolitan area, resulting in the Mississippi being lower (through that area) than it could have been; and reducing the stress on the area's levees that line the river | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3239805 | 320,129 |
Buenos Aires Central Business District The economy of Buenos Aires was the 13th largest among the world's cities in 2006 at US$245 billion in purchasing power parity, which, based on the population of that year, translates into US21,500 per capita. The Buenos Aires Human Development Index (0.925 in 1998) is likewise high by international standards. The Port of Buenos Aires is one of the busiest in South America; navigable rivers by way of the Río de la Plata connect the port to northeastern Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay. As a result, it serves as the distribution hub for a vast area of the south-eastern region of the South American continent. Tax collection related to the port has caused many political problems in the past. Buenos Aires CBD lies in the Pampa region, except some zones like the Buenos Aires Ecological Reserve, the Boca Juniors (football) Club "sports city", Jorge Newbery Airport, the Puerto Madero neighborhood and the main port itself. These latter were all built on reclaimed land along the coast of the Rio de la Plata (the world's largest estuary). The region was formerly crossed by different creeks and lagoons, some of which were refilled and other tubed. Among the most important creeks are: Maldonado, Vega, Medrano, Cildañez and White. In 1908 many creeks were channeled and rectified, as floods were damaging the city's infrastructure. Starting in 1919, most creeks were enclosed. Notably, the Maldonado was tubed in 1954, and currently runs below Juan B. Justo Avenue (north of this district) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23640379 | 457,635 |
Lipogenesis Increased malonyl-CoA level pushes the equilibrium over to increase production of fatty acids through biosynthesis. Long chain fatty acids are negative allosteric regulators of ACC and so when the cell has sufficient long chain fatty acids, they will eventually inhibit ACC activity and stop fatty acid synthesis. AMP and ATP concentrations of the cell act as a measure of the ATP needs of a cell. When ATP is depleted, there is a rise in 5'AMP. This rise activates AMP-activated protein kinase, which phosphorylates ACC and thereby inhibits fat synthesis. This is a useful way to ensure that glucose is not diverted down a storage pathway in times when energy levels are low. ACC is also activated by citrate. When there is abundant acetyl-CoA in the cell cytoplasm for fat synthesis, it proceeds at an appropriate rate. SREBPs have been found to play a role with the nutritional or hormonal effects on the lipogenic gene expression. Overexpression of SREBP-1a or SREBP-1c in mouse liver cells results in the build-up of hepatic triglycerides and higher expression levels of lipogenic genes. Lipogenic gene expression in the liver via glucose and insulin is moderated by SREBP-1. The effect of glucose and insulin on the transcriptional factor can occur through various pathways; there is evidence suggesting that insulin promotes SREBP-1 mRNA expression in adipocytes and hepatocytes | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2944872 | 66,069 |
Somatic embryogenesis Seedlings also had greater root development than emblings through the growing season, but root:shoot ratios for the 2 stock types were similar at the end of the growing season, when the survival rates for seedlings and emblings were 96% and 99%, respectively. Understanding the formation of a somatic embryo through establishment of morphological and molecular markers is important for construction of a fate map. The fate map is the foundation in which to build further research and experimentation. Two methods exist to construct a fate map: synchronous cell-division and time-lapse tracking. The latter typically works more consistently because of cell-cycle-altering chemicals and centrifuging involved in synchronous cell-division. Embryo development in angiosperms is divided into several steps. The zygote is divided asymmetrically forming a small apical cell and large basal cell. The organizational pattern is formed in the globular stage and the embryo then transitions to the cotyledonary stage. Embryo development differs in monocots and dicots. Dicots pass through the globular, heart-shaped, and torpedo stages while monocots pass through globular, scutellar, and coleoptilar stages. Many culture systems induce and maintain somatic embryogenesis by continuous exposure to 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid. Abscisic acid has been reported to induce somatic embryogenesis in seedlings. After callus formation, culturing on a low auxin or hormone free media will promote somatic embryo growth and root formation | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=31570900 | 272,797 |
Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy Five of the report’s seven recommendations are core provisions of legislation introduced by the committee chairs in the 109th Congress and expected to be re-introduced in the 110th. In part through the Board’s outreach efforts and in part because of interest abroad in the contributions of federal and state government policy to U.S. economic performance, there is a growing international audience for STEP’s work, evidenced by the high volume of visits to the website and invitations for presentations to international organizations (e.g., various committees of the OECD, parts of the European Commission, World Intellectual Property Organization, and European Patent Office), and national government officials and international academic gatherings too numerous to list. Originally confined to the industrial countries this interest has extended to the governments of and academics in the emerging economies – China, India, Brazil, Vietnam, and the former Soviet republics. STEP has received project support from the OECD, European Commission, Industry Canada, and Embassy of the United Kingdom. A formal collaboration with two of the German economic research institutes yielded two reports, and in 1995 STEP was asked to host an international conference on technology and jobs preparatory to the G-7 Summit meeting. Congress is a principal consumer of STEP work, and the Board has conducted or is conducting three congressionally mandated projects | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12911652 | 491,115 |
Memory improvement Likewise, human studies have shown that cognitive performance is improved due to physiological arousal, which speeded mental processes and enhanced memory storage and retrieval. Ongoing exercise interventions have been found to favourably impact memory processes in older adults and children. Exercise has been found to positively regulate hippocampal neurogenesis, which is considered an explanation for the positive influence of physical activities on memory performance. Hippocampus-dependent learning, for example, can promote the survival of newborn neurons which may serve as a foundation for the formation of new memories. Exercise has been found to increase the level of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) protein in rats, with elevated BDNF levels corresponding with strengthened performance on memory tasks. Data also suggests that BDNF availability at the beginning of cognitive testing is related to the overall acquisition of a new cognitive task and may be important in determining the strength of recall in memory tasks. Hence, brain exercises are found being practiced and adopted early by children to enhance brain sensory responses and improve performance of the brain by maintaining its health. A meta-analysis concluded that specifically resistance training, as compared to cardiovascular exercise, had no measurable effect on working memory. Aristotle wrote a treatise about memory: "De memoria et reminiscentia" | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30830212 | 156,116 |
Matryoshka (diamond) The Matryoshka () is a unique diamond with another diamond moving freely inside. It was mined in Yakutia at the Nyurba mining and processing division of Alrosa. Due to its features, the stone resembles a traditional Russian Matryoshka doll. Experts who studied the find claim that this is the first and only such diamond in the entire history of world diamond mining until October 2019. The maximum size of the diamond is 4.8 × 4.9 × 2.8 mm. The volume of the internal cavity is 6 mm3. The internal crystal volume is 1.6 mm3 with an estimated weight of 0.02 carats (0.004 grams). The inner diamond has a flat shape, its size is 1.9 × 2.1 × 0.6 mm. The diamond was discovered during the sorting process by the specialists of the Yakut Diamond Trading Company (YDTC). Specialists handed it over to the Research and Development Geological Enterprise of Alrosa. At the Enterprise, diamond was studied by a complex of methods, including Raman spectroscopy and infrared spectroscopy, as well as X-ray microtomography. As a result of the research, it was concluded that the inner diamond appeared before the external diamond. How an external diamond formed is not entirely clear. Two hypotheses are proposed to explain the formation of an external diamond. Alrosa plans to send the Matryoshka diamond to the Gemological Institute of America for further analysis. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=61972011 | 10,229 |
Fiscal multiplier Whether that would or should justify otherwise wasteful government spending is controversial, on the one hand, and on the other hand, whether the supposed wastefulness of government spending justifies reducing multiplier estimates that reflect only GDP effects to smaller estimates reflecting welfare effects, remains a matter of political controversy. It is sometimes argued that if the money is borrowed, it must eventually be paid back with interest, such that the long-term effect on the economy depends on the trade off between the immediate increase to the GDP and the long-term cost of servicing the resulting government debt. This is a fallacy, insofar as marketable government debts are used by central banks as instruments for monetary policy and by the financial system as instruments for hedging risk and portfolio management. The debts may never be "paid back" and even if they are paid back, it will be in purely nominal terms. The central bank is not committed to any future course of policy by the issuing of public debt, and, in any case, there would never be a "tradeoff" in which it would make sense to reduce future resource employment to "pay back" a debt. The capacity to service the debt could only be enhanced by a future policy of full employment of national resources. The concept of the economic multiplier on a macroeconomic scale can be extended to any economic region | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=193717 | 507,872 |
Plastic colorant Plastic colorants are chemical compounds used to color plastic. Those compounds come in a form of dyes and pigments. The type of a colorant is chosen based on the type of a polymeric resin, that needs to be colored. Dyes are usually used with polycarbonates, polystyrene and acrylic polymers. Pigments are better suited for use with polyolefins. The colorant must satisfy various constraints, for example, the compound must be chemically compatible with the base resin, be a suitable match with a color standard (see e.g. International Color Consortium), be chemically stable, which in this case means being able to survive the stresses and processing temperature (heat stability) in the fabrication process and be durable enough to match the life duration of the product. The parameters of the compound vary with a desired effect, which may include the final product being pearlescent, metallic, fluorescent, phosphorescent, thermochromic or photochromic. The exact chemical formula will furthermore depend on the type of application: general purpose, food contact item, toy, package subject to CONEG, etc. Different methods for delivering colorants in molding plastics include masterbatches (concentrates), a method which, which involves a concentrate being separated into resin, cube blends ("salt & pepper mixes" - dry blending) which are natural polymers, already sprayed into natural polymers, surface coating, and precolored resins, which involve using precolored materials to make manufacturing cheaper. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=54588808 | 9,002 |
Osamu Tezuka Tezuka's childhood nickname was "gashagasha-atama": "messy head" ("gashagasha" is slang for messy, "atama" means head). As a child, Tezuka's arms swelled up and he became ill. He was treated and cured by a doctor, which made also him want to be a doctor. At a crossing point, he asked his mother whether he should look into doing manga full-time or whether he should become a doctor. At the time, being a manga author was not a particularly rewarding job. The answer his mother gave was: "You should work doing the thing you like most of all." Tezuka decided to devote himself to manga creation on a full-time basis. He graduated from Osaka University and obtained his medical degree, but he would later use his medical and scientific knowledge to enrich his sci-fi manga, such as "Black Jack". Tezuka enjoyed insect collecting and entomology (even adding the character 'bug' to his pen name), Disney, and baseball — in fact, he licensed the "grown up" version of his character Kimba the White Lion as the logo for the Seibu Lions of the Nippon Professional Baseball League. A fan of Superman, Tezuka was honorary chairman of Japan's Superman Fan Club. In 1959 married Etsuko Okada at a Takarazuka hotel. Tezuka met Walt Disney in person at the 1964 New York World's Fair. In a 1986 entry in his personal diary, Tezuka stated that Disney wanted to hire him for a potential science fiction project | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=321560 | 449,948 |
AM broadcasting This enterprise was supported by a tax on radio sets sales, plus an annual license fee on receivers, collected by the Post Office. Initially the eight stations were allowed regional autonomy. In 1927, the original broadcasting organization was replaced by a government chartered British Broadcasting Corporation. an independent nonprofit supported solely by a 10 shilling receiver license fee. A mixture of populist and high brow programmes were carried by the National and Regional networks. The period from the early 1920s through the 1940s is often called the "Golden Age of Radio". During this period AM radio was the main source of home entertainment, until it was replaced by television. For the first time entertainment was provided from outside the home, replacing traditional forms of entertainment such as oral storytelling and music from family members. New forms were created, including radio plays, mystery serials, soap operas, quiz shows, variety hours, situation comedies and children's shows. Radio news, including remote reporting, allowed listeners to be vicariously present at notable events. Radio greatly eased the isolation of rural life. Political officials could now speak directly to millions of citizens. One of the first to take advantage of this was American president Franklin Roosevelt, who became famous for his fireside chats during the Great Depression | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=113509 | 225,312 |
Japan Consortium The is a joint venture set up by the Japanese public broadcaster Japan Broadcasting Corp. (NHK) and several commercial television and radio networks under the National Association of Commercial Broadcasters in Japan (NAB) in 1984 to cover broadcasts of the Summer Olympic Games, Winter Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=36324456 | 476,259 |
Indexing (motion) Indexing in reference to motion is moving (or being moved) into a new position or location quickly and easily but also precisely. When indexing a machine part, its new location is known to within a few hundredths of a millimeter (thousandths of an inch), or often even to within a few thousandths of a millimeter (ten-thousandths of an inch), despite the fact that no elaborate measuring or layout was needed to establish that location. In reference to multi-edge cutting inserts, indexing is the process of exposing a new cutting edge for use. Indexing is a necessary kind of motion in many areas of mechanical engineering and machining. An object that indexes, or can be indexed, is said to be indexable. Usually when the word "indexing" is used, it refers specifically to rotation. That is, indexing is most often the quick and easy but precise rotation of a machine part through a certain known number of degrees. For example, "Machinery's Handbook", 25th edition, in its section on milling machine indexing, says, "Positioning a workpiece at a precise angle or interval of rotation for a machining operation is called indexing." In addition to that most classic sense of the word, the swapping of one part for another, or other controlled movements, are also sometimes referred to as "indexing", even if rotation is not the focus. There are various examples of indexing that laypersons (non-engineers and non-machinists) can find in everyday life | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=15504805 | 196,847 |
Debit card Some of the first companies to enter this market were: MiCash, RushCard, Netspend, and Green Dot who gained market share as a result of being first to market. However, since 1999, there have been several new providers, such as TransCash, 247card, iKobo, Ripae Card, Argent Card, EuroPYM, AsiaPYM, & DrawPay Card. These prepaid card companies offer a number of benefits, such as money remittance services, card-to-card transfers, and the ability to apply without a social security number. In 2009 a company called PEX Card launched a corporate expense card service aimed at business users. As of 2019, many other companies also offer the cards. As of 2013, several city governments (including Oakland, California and Chicago, Illinois) are now offering prepaid debit cards, either as part of a municipal ID card (for people such as illegal immigrants who are unable to obtain a state driver's license or DMV ID card) in the case of Oakland, or in conjunction with a prepaid transit pass (Chicago). These cards have been heavily criticized for their higher-than-average fees, including some (such as a flat fee added onto every purchase made with the card) that similar products offered by Green Dot and American Express do not have. The U.S. federal government uses prepaid debit cards to make benefits payments to people who do not have bank accounts. In 2008, the U.S. Treasury Department paired with Comerica Bank to offer the Direct Express Debit MasterCard prepaid debit card | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9008 | 496,880 |
RNA-targeting small molecule drugs These molecules were only modestly selective and showed unfavorable toxicity levels at relevant therapeutic concentrations. As another strategy for targeting RNA, antisense oligonucleotides were developed which have been pushed forward through the clinic for several diseases. By this principle, if one can identify an RNA involved in disease then the sequence can be used to design a complementary antisense oligonucleotide, and that agent can be introduced into cells to treat the disease. But, this approach in its basic form has been met with several challenges. The most obvious are their large size and propensity to degradation by nucleases. In order for cellular RNA to be effective it must enter the cells intact. While backbone modifications to antisense oligonucleotides in order to prevent nuclease degradation have been shown to work, this approach is still somewhat limited. Small molecules may present a better way to target RNA and subsequently DNA because they can be designed to be more "drug-like" and have a better chance of reaching their target, most by oral administration. For this reason, there is an emerging interest in designing and discovering small molecules to target RNA secondary and tertiary structures to ultimately treat new diseases. There are limited examples of small molecules that target RNA and are approved drugs for the treatment of human disease. Ribavirin was approved in 2002 to treat Hepatitis C and viral hemorrhagic fever | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=56731305 | 87,940 |
Field emitter array A field emitter array (FEA) is a particular form of large-area field electron source. FEAs are prepared on a silicon substrate by lithographic techniques similar to those used in the fabrication of integrated circuits. Their structure consists of a very large number of individual, similar, small field electron emitters, usually organized in a regular two-dimensional pattern. FEAs need to be distinguished from "film" or "mat" type large-area sources, where a thin film-like layer of material is deposited onto a substrate, using a uniform deposition process, in the hope or expectation that (as a result of statistical irregularities in the process) this film will contain a sufficiently large number of individual emission sites. The original field emitter array was the "Spindt array", in which the individual field emitters are small sharp molybdenum cones. Each is deposited inside a cylindrical void in an oxide film, with a counterelectrode deposited on the top of the film. The counterelectrode (called the "gate") contains a separate circular aperture for each conical emitter. The device is named after Charles A. Spindt, who developed this technology at SRI International, publishing the first article describing a single emitter tip microfabricated on a wafer in 1968. Spindt, Shoulders and Heynick filed a U.S. Patent in 1970 for a vacuum device comprising an array of emitter tips. Each individual cone is referred to as a "Spindt tip" | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12661414 | 373,633 |
Sea salt aerosol Mostly, organic materials are internally mixed due to the drying of air bubbles at the organic-rich sea surface. The fraction of organic components increases with the decreasing particle size. The contained organic materials change the optical properties of sea salt as well as the hygroscopicity, especially when some insoluble organic matter is induced. Size of sea salt aerosols ranges widely from ~0.05 to 10 μm in diameter, with most of masses concentrated in super-micron range (coarse mode), and highest number concentration in sub-micron range. Correspondingly, sea salt aerosols have a wide range of atmospheric lifetimes. As the sea salt aerosols are hygroscopic, their particle sizes may vary with humidity by up to a factor of 2. Sea salt aerosols influence the sulfate aerosol formation in different ways due to the different sizes. Very small sea salt aerosols, which are below the critical diameter for droplet activation at low supersaturations, can serve as nuclei for the growth of sulfate particles, while larger sea salt particles serve as a sink for gaseous hydrogen sulfate (HSO) molecules, reducing the amount of sulfate available for the formation of accumulation mode particles. Sea salt aerosols can alter the Earth radiation budget through directly scattering solar radiation (direct effect), and indirectly changing the cloud albedo by serving as CCN (indirect effect) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=37513579 | 73,708 |
Oxy-fuel welding and cutting , via an extension cord or portable generator) would present difficulties. The oxy-acetylene (and other oxy-fuel gas mixtures) welding torch remains a mainstay heat source for manual brazing and braze welding, as well as metal forming, preparation, and localized heat treating. In addition, oxy-fuel cutting is still widely used, both in heavy industry and light industrial and repair operations. In oxy-fuel welding, a welding torch is used to weld metals. Welding metal results when two pieces are heated to a temperature that produces a shared pool of molten metal. The molten pool is generally supplied with additional metal called filler. Filler material selection depends upon the metals to be welded. In oxy-fuel cutting, a torch is used to heat metal to its kindling temperature. A stream of oxygen is then trained on the metal, burning it into a metal oxide that flows out of the kerf as slag. Torches that do not mix fuel with oxygen (combining, instead, atmospheric air) are not considered oxy-fuel torches and can typically be identified by a single tank (oxy-fuel cutting requires two isolated supplies, fuel and oxygen). Most metals cannot be melted with a single-tank torch. Consequently, single-tank torches are typically suitable for soldering and brazing but not for welding | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12414930 | 441,104 |
Molecular nanotechnology In the latest report "A Matter of Size: Triennial Review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative" put out by the National Academies Press in December 2006 (roughly twenty years after Engines of Creation was published), no clear way forward toward molecular nanotechnology could yet be seen, as per the conclusion on page 108 of that report: "Although theoretical calculations can be made today, the eventually attainable range of chemical reaction cycles, error rates, speed of operation, and thermodynamic efficiencies of such bottom-up manufacturing systems cannot be reliably predicted at this time. Thus, the eventually attainable perfection and complexity of manufactured products, while they can be calculated in theory, cannot be predicted with confidence. Finally, the optimum research paths that might lead to systems which greatly exceed the thermodynamic efficiencies and other capabilities of biological systems cannot be reliably predicted at this time. Research funding that is based on the ability of investigators to produce experimental demonstrations that link to abstract models and guide long-term vision is most appropriate to achieve this goal." This call for research leading to demonstrations is welcomed by groups such as the Nanofactory Collaboration who are specifically seeking experimental successes in diamond mechanosynthesis. The "Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems" aims to offer additional constructive insights | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19637 | 161,064 |
Tachylite in Victorian archaeological sites Tachylite is an unusual and relatively rare stone used in making flaked stone tools, and which is found in Aboriginal archaeological sites in Victoria, Australia. The material is rarely found and apparently is sourced from only one known location at Spring Hill near Lauriston, Victoria. There is another historical reference to a source at Green Hill near Trentham, Victoria, but the exact location has not been confirmed. Daniel James Mahony described "...water worn pebbles of pitchstone, a highly silicious volcanic glass associated with tachylite on the Coliban River. "Mitchell refers to the distribution of the material with: "Small artefacts are common at Willaura, Burrumbeet, Inverleigh, Point Cook and as far north as Dooen near Horsham". Tachylite is a type of volcanic opaque glass, and is applied to basalts with a glassy matrix that contain scattered small phenocrysts (pyroxene, plagioclase, olivine). Aboriginal artefacts flaked from the material are characterised by a black internal colour, which is very often patinated on the surface to a pale grey. This patina rapidly darkens on contact with the skin, turning as dark as the core. Only a few pieces are generally found in archaeological assemblages in southern Victoria and around Melbourne, apart from at sites near Spring Hill, Kyneton, where it is the most common material. Tachylite artefacts have been noted in Aboriginal sites in Victoria from at least the 1920s, when W. H | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=40293196 | 274,295 |
Earth-return telegraph However, this initial failure made Steinheil realise that the earth could be used as a conductor and he then succeeded with only one wire and an earth return. Steinheil realised that the "galvanic excitation" in the earth was not confined to the direct route between the two ends of the telegraph wire, but extended outwards indefinitely. He speculated that this might mean that telegraphy without any wires at all was possible; he may have been the first to consider wireless telegraphy as a real possibility. He succeeded in transmitting a signal 50 feet by electromagnetic induction, but this distance was not of practical use. The use of earth-return circuits rapidly became the norm, helped along by Steinheil not wanting to patent the idea for the public good. Earth return became so ubiquitous that some telegraph engineers appear not to have realised that early telegraphs all used return wires. In 1856, a couple of decades after the introduction of earth return, Samuel Statham of the Gutta Percha Company and Wildman Whitehouse tried to patent a return wire and got as far as provisional protection. The introduction of electric power, especially electric tram lines, seriously disturbed earth-return telegraph lines. The starting and stopping of the trams generated large electromagnetic spikes which obliterated code pulses on telegraph lines. This was particularly a problem on lines where high-speed automatic working was in use, and most especially on submarine telegraph cables | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=63657523 | 296,763 |
LabCorp 5 million in 1982 and then merged it with all of its laboratories, and incorporated the merged company that year as Roche Biomedical Laboratories, Inc. in Burlington. By the early 1990s, Roche Biomedical had become one of the largest clinical laboratory networks in the United States, with US$600 million in sales. By 1993 Roche Biomedical Laboratories had revenues of US$712 million, with 17 major laboratories. Dr. James Powell was President of Roche Biomedical, and after the merger with National Health Laboratories he became President and CEO of the new company, Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings, which then relocated from La Jolla, California to the Roche Biomedical headquarters in Burlington, North Carolina. Hoffmann-La Roche also contributed US$186.7 million in cash to the deal, and retained 49.9 interest in the new merged company. By year-end 1995, the new Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings suffered a marginal loss of a few million dollars. The stock price dropped by almost half again through the year, to within 10% of its all-time low since going public a half dozen years earlier. By early the next year, it broke marginally below that level, and set a new all-time low. In July 1998, acquired the Michigan-based laboratory division of "Universal Standard Healthcare" (UHCI). also acquired an equity position in Universal Standard Healthcare and has become UHCI's clinical laboratory long-term testing provider but terminated this agreement one year later | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=13072917 | 491,190 |
Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (BAIRA) is an association of recruiting agencies of migrant workers in Bangladesh. It has approximately 700 member agencies and works in collaboration with the Government of Bangladesh. Manpower export from Bangladesh was pioneered in 1976. Since then, International Recruiting or Placement Agents under BAIRA have recruited 5.5 million (approximate, 2009) Bangladeshis for jobs abroad. This resulted in record highest remittance inflow and foreign exchange earned of US$10 billion (net) for the fiscal year 2008-9, making migrant workers the leading contributor to Bangladesh's foreign exchange reserve. (BAIRA) is one of the largest trade bodies in Bangladesh affiliated with the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI), established in 1984. Currently BAIRA has about 1100+ Government Approved Recruiting Agents as its members. Promises for change, bringing an end to the concept of one person contesting for many terms and another 27 point election manifesto was pledged by Mustafa to make BAIRA dynamic and vibrant as it should have been. While the opposition promised BAIRA Airlines serving international flights for in and outbound workers. The election recorded highest number of member attendance and votes cast. Result of the election left all stunned; as it was the biggest landslide victory in Bangladesh compared to any other trade body election held, as 'Sammilita Ganatantrik Front' received the majority 70.33%(approx.) of votes | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=24430684 | 458,177 |
Protests against SOPA and PIPA " Others such as "The New York Times" saw the protests as "a political coming of age for the tech industry." By January 20, 2012, the political environment regarding both bills had shifted significantly. The bills were removed from further voting, ostensibly to be revised to take into consideration the issues raised, but according to "The New York Times" probably "shelved" following a "flight away from the bill". Opposers noted the bills had been "indefinitely postponed" but cautioned they were "not dead" and "would return." The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) are bills that were introduced into the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate in the last quarter of 2011. Both are responses to the problem of enforcement of U.S. laws against websites outside U.S. jurisdiction. While the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and other existing laws have generally been considered effective against illegal content or activities on U.S.-based sites, action is more difficult against overseas websites. SOPA and PIPA proposed to rectify this by cutting off infringing sites from their U.S.-based funding (particularly advertising), payment processors, appearances on search engines, and visibility on web browsers, instead. Major providers of all these services are predominantly U.S.-based | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=34405033 | 230,035 |
Lead service line 025 mg/L by 2003, and 0.01 by 2013. A study in 1999 gave an estimate of lead service lines in some European countries. Ireland, United Kingdom, France, Portugal, and Belgium had higher percentages of lead lines ranging between 15% and 51%. Germany, Spain, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands had between 3% and 9%, while Denmark and Greek had less than one percent. The approaches to reduce lead exposure in water distribution systems to meet that goal had also been different. For example, the United Kingdom took the short- and medium-term strategy of dosing the water with orthophosphate as a corrosion control measure and considered lead service line replacement as the long-term strategy. By 2010 (3 years before the new lower standard), 95% of public water supplies was treated with orthophosphate. The tests had 99.8% compliance of 0.025 mg/L 2003 standard and 99.0% compliance of 0.01 mg/L 2013 standard. However, many other European countries considered the practice of adding orthophosphate to the water supply to be undesirable as it would result in sewage with higher concentration of nutrient. That could potentially create problems of harmful algal blooms. An example of countries that took the other approach was Germany. The southern part of Germany prohibited lead pipes for more than 100 years, however, the northern Germany continued to use lead pipes until the 1970s. The approach to meet the new standard for Germany was to put a focus on getting rid of lead service lines | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=62013067 | 351,347 |
Seismic Hazards Mapping Act The Seismic Hazard Mapping Act ("The Act") was enacted by the California legislature in 1990 following the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989. The Act requires the California State Geologist to create maps delineating zones where data suggest amplified ground shaking, liquefaction, or earthquake-induced landsliding may occur ("seismic hazard zones"). The Act requires responsible agencies to approve only projects within seismic hazard zones following a site-specific investigation to determine if the hazard is present and inclusion of appropriate mitigation(s) if so. The Act also requires disclosure by real estate sellers and agents at the time of sale if a property is within one of the designated seismic hazard zones. The Act called for the creation of an advisory board to the State Mining and Geology Board to advise on the Act's implementation. In a 2004 update to the seismic hazard zone mapping guidelines, this advisory body concluded the amplified ground motion hazard was already sufficiently addressed by the 2001 California Building Code. Consequently, zones for this hazard are not being mapped by the State Geologist. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4751003 | 357,833 |
14:9 aspect ratio Weigel Broadcasting uses 14:9 extensively as a compromise format on older shows without widescreen versions airing on their networks, including Decades, Heroes & Icons, MeTV and Start TV. Some television networks use it on a more selective basis, with AMC and Sundance TV using it when showing episodes of M*A*S*H. It is also used on the ISDB-Tb HD service of the Argentinian public television, TV Pública, in order to adjust their old programs and 4:3 SD studio cameras to 16:9 format. The public broadcaster RTP used the 14:9 format to convert 16:9 broadcasts to the 4:3 format it still used until 2013 (for the majority of the programs broadcast). However, since June 8, 2012, they began to broadcast 16:9 material in its original aspect ratio, with the correct flag, thus ending the broadcasts featuring the 14:9 format and since January 2013, the majority of broadcasts are in 16:9 (since late 2017 downscaled from the native HD feed). Private broadcaster TVI started using the 14:9 format in August 2012 to broadcast 16:9 material instead of using 4:3 Pan & Scan, as they refused to broadcast in 16:9. However, on October 3, 2015, it began to broadcast in full widescreen. The aspect ratio of 14:9 (1.555...) is the arithmetic mean (average) of 16:9 and 4:3 (12:9), formula_1 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1643227 | 437,530 |
Centre for Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases The Tanz (Tanz CRND) is a research institute at the University of Toronto, under the umbrella of the Faculty of Medicine, with a focus on the spectrum of neurodegenerative diseases. The Tanz CRND has made a number of important contributions to research in neurodegenerative diseases, particularly on Alzheimer's disease. The association of late-onset Alzheimer's disease with the Epsilon 4 allele of apolipoprotein E was co-discovered there in conjunction with Duke University in a team led by Allen Roses. Two of the genes associated with most aggressive forms of Alzheimer's disease, namely presenilin 1 and presenilin 2, which are both critical for amyloid-beta production, were discovered there. In addition, a robust model organism for the amyloid pathology of Alzheimer's disease was established in the centre as well. The Tanz CRND have also contributed to knowledge about candidate therapies for Alzheimer's disease that are currently under investigation, including amyloid vaccines and scyllo-inositol. The Tanz CRND was established in 1990 via philanthropic support from the Alzheimer Society of Ontario, a group of private individuals led by Drs. Mark Tanz and Lionel Schipper. The Tanz Centre for Research in Neurodegeneration is currently located at the Toronto Western Hospital in the Krembil Discovery Tower. The founding director of the institute was Professor Donald Crapper McLachlan, later the institute was headed by Professor Peter St George-Hyslop | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27696133 | 177,597 |
Organizational culture When one wants to change an aspect of the culture of an organization one has to keep in consideration that this is a long-term project. Corporate culture is something that is very hard to change and employees need time to get used to the new way of organizing. For companies with a very strong and specific culture it will be even harder to change. Prior to a cultural change initiative, a needs assessment is needed to identify and understand the current organizational culture. This can be done through employee surveys, interviews, focus groups, observation, customer surveys where appropriate, and other internal research, to further identify areas that require change. The company must then assess and clearly identify the new, desired culture, and then design a change process. Cummings & Worley (2004, p. 491 – 492) give the following six guidelines for cultural change, these changes are in line with the eight distinct stages mentioned by Kotter (1995, p. 2): One of the biggest obstacles in the way of the merging of two organizations is organizational culture. Each organization has its own unique culture and most often, when brought together, these cultures clash. When mergers fail employees point to issues such as identity, communication problems, human resources problems, ego clashes, and inter-group conflicts, which all fall under the category of "cultural differences". One way to combat such difficulties is through cultural leadership | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=228059 | 500,384 |
Irevna Global Research & Analytics - is an offshoring company based in India operating in the Financial Research & Analytics segment of the Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) industry. It is known for its equity, credit, derivatives research for investment banking clients, actuarial support for the insurance companies and research support for corporates. According to Datamonitor's The Black Book of Outsourcing, survey participants ranked #1 in 14 of the 18 evaluation criteria [2009] Founded in 2001, it is now a division of CRISIL Ltd (NSE:CRISIL, BSE:500092). CRISIL’s majority shareholder is Standard & Poor's, a division of The McGraw-Hill Financial Companies and one of the world's providers of financial market intelligence. In September 2010, CRISIL-signed an agreement to acquire Chicago-based Pipal Research Corporation (Pipal), another player in the KPO space for a consideration of $12.75 million. This marked the first acquisition of a KPO firm by a third party pure-play KPO firm. According to CEO of CRISIL Ltd, the acquisition was completely complementary in terms of research centers, business development centres and service offerings.: In June 2012, CRISIL GR&A acquired UK-headquartered Coalition Development Ltd. along with its subsidiaries (Coalition).Coalition provides high-end analytics, mainly to leading global investment banks. A change from the earlier GR&A service company acquisitions), Coalition, a premium product based company, was formed in 2002 and reported 2011 revenues of GBP 8 million | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=15274275 | 492,495 |
Short-circuit test The purpose of a short-circuit test is to determine the series branch parameters of the equivalent circuit of a transformer. The test is conducted on the high-voltage (HV) side of the transformer where the low-voltage (LV) side or the secondary is short circuited. A wattmeter is connected to the primary. An ammeter is connected in series with the primary winding. A voltmeter is optional since the applied voltage is the same as the voltmeter reading. The LV side of the transformer is short circuited. Now with the help of variac applied voltage is slowly increased until the ammeter gives reading equal to the rated current of the HV side. After reaching at rated current of HV side, all three instruments reading (Voltmeter, Ammeter and Watt-meter readings) are recorded. The ammeter reading gives the primary equivalent of full load current IL. As the voltage applied for full load current in short circuit test on transformer is quite small compared to the rated primary voltage of the transformer, the iron losses in transformer can be taken as negligible here | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=37478174 | 392,277 |
Time-Sensitive Networking 3br for the Ethernet MAC component. Frame preemption defines two MAC services for an egress port, preemptable MAC (pMAC) and express MAC (eMAC). Express frames can interrupt transmission of preemptable frames. On resume, MAC merge sublayer re-assembles frame fragments in the next bridge. Preemption causes computational overhead in the link interface, as the operational context shall be transitioned to the express frame. Figure 4 gives a basic example how frame pre-emption works. During the process of sending a best effort Ethernet frame, the MAC interrupts the frame transmission just before the start of the guard band. The partial frame is completed with a CRC and will be stored in the next switch to wait for the second part of the frame to arrive. After the high priority traffic in time slice 1 has passed and the cycle switches back to time slice 2, the interrupted frame transmission is resumed. Frame pre-emption always operates on a pure link-by-link basis and only fragments from one Ethernet switch to the next Ethernet switch, where the frame is reassembled. In contrast to fragmentation with the Internet Protocol (IP), no end-to-end fragmentation is supported. Each partial frame is completed by a CRC32 for error detection. In contrast to the regular Ethernet CRC32, the last 16 bit are inverted to make a partial frame distinguishable from a regular Ethernet frame. In addition, also the start of frame delimiter (SFD) is changed | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=42906494 | 242,942 |
Printed circuit board milling One of the major challenges with milling PCBs is handling variations in flatness. Since conventional etching techniques rely on optical masks that sit right on the copper layer they can conform to any slight bends in the material so all features are replicated faithfully. When milling PCBs however, any minute height variations encountered when milling will cause conical bits to either sink deeper (creating a wider cut) or rise off the surface, leaving an uncut section. Before cutting some systems perform height mapping probes across the board to measure height variations and adjust the Z values in the G-code beforehand. PCBs may be machined with conventional endmills, conical d-bit cutters, and spade mills. D-bits and spade mills are cheap and as they have a small point allow the traces to be close together. Taylor's equation, Vc T = C, can predict tool life for a given surface speed. A method with similar advantages to mechanical milling is laser etching and laser drilling. Etching PCBs with lasers offers the same advantages as mechanical milling in regards to quick turnaround times, but the nature of the laser etching process is preferable to both milling and chemical etching when it comes to physical variations exerted on the object. Whereas mechanical milling and chemical etching exact physical stress on the board, laser etching offers non-contact surface removal, making it a superior option for PCBs where precision and geometric accuracy are at a premium, such as RF & microwave designs | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1029949 | 406,863 |
Labour economics Many sociologists, political economists, and heterodox economists claim that labour economics tends to lose sight of the complexity of individual employment decisions. These decisions, particularly on the supply side, are often loaded with considerable emotional baggage and a purely numerical analysis can miss important dimensions of the process, such as social benefits of a high income or wage rate regardless of the marginal utility from increased consumption or specific economic goals. From the perspective of mainstream economics, neoclassical models are not meant to serve as a full description of the psychological and subjective factors that go into a given individual's employment relations, but as a useful approximation of human behaviour in the aggregate, which can be fleshed out further by the use of concepts such as information asymmetry, transaction costs, contract theory etc. Also missing from most labour market analyses is the role of unpaid labour such as unpaid internships where workers with little or no experience are allowed to work a job without pay so that they can gain experience in a particular profession. Even though this type of labour is unpaid it can nevertheless play an important part in society if not abused by employers. The most dramatic example is child raising | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=18178 | 516,178 |
Graphometer The graphometer, semicircle or semicircumferentor is a surveying instrument used for angle measurements. It consists of a semicircular limb divided into 180 degrees and sometimes subdivided into minutes. The limb is subtended by the diameter with two sights at its ends. In the middle of the diameter a "box and needle" (compass) is fixed. On the same middle the alidade with two other sights is fitted. The device is mounted on a staff via a ball and socket joint. In effect the device is a half-circumferentor. For convenience, sometimes another half-circle from 180 to 360 degrees may be graduated in another line on the limb. The form was introduced in Philippe Danfrie's, "Déclaration de l’usage du graphomètre" (Paris, 1597) and the term "graphometer" was popular with French geodesists. The preferable English-language terms were semicircle or semicircumferentor. Some 19th-century graphometers had telescopic rather than open sights. Le Nôtre’s "La theorie et la pratique du jardinage" (“The theory and practice of gardening”), published in 1709, described the use of the graphometer in transferring geometric shapes from garden plans onto landscapes at a large scale. To measure an angle, say, EKG, place the diameter middle C at the angle apex K using the plummet at point C of the instrument. Align the diameter with leg KE of the angle using the sights at the ends of the diameter. Align the alidade with the leg KG using another pair of sights, and read the angle off the limb as marked by the alidade | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14684531 | 307,456 |
Power dividers and directional couplers Design criteria are to achieve a substantially flat coupling together with high directivity over the desired band. The Riblet short-slot coupler is two waveguides side-by-side with the side-wall in common instead of the long side as in the Bethe-hole coupler. A slot is cut in the sidewall to allow coupling. This design is frequently used to produce a coupler. The Schwinger reversed-phase coupler is another design using parallel waveguides, this time the long side of one is common with the short side-wall of the other. Two off-centre slots are cut between the waveguides spaced λ/4 apart. The Schwinger is a backward coupler. This design has the advantage of a substantially flat directivity response and the disadvantage of a strongly frequency-dependent coupling compared to the Bethe-hole coupler, which has little variation in coupling factor. The Moreno crossed-guide coupler has two waveguides stacked one on top of the other like the Bethe-hole coupler but at right angles to each other instead of parallel. Two off-centre holes, usually cross-shaped are cut on the diagonal between the waveguides a distance formula_29 apart. The Moreno coupler is good for tight coupling applications. It is a compromise between the properties of the Bethe-hole and Schwinger couplers with both coupling and directivity varying with frequency. The hybrid ring discussed above can also be implemented in waveguide. Coherent power division was first accomplished by means of simple Tee junctions | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=5498670 | 387,973 |
Vacuum interrupter Since air pressure tends to close the contacts, the operating mechanism must hold the contacts open against the closing force of air pressure on the bellows. The interrupter's enclosure is made of glass or ceramic. Hermetic seals ensure that the interrupter vacuum is maintained for the life of the device. The enclosure must be impermeable to gas, and must not give off trapped gas. The stainless-steel bellows isolates the vacuum inside the interrupter from the external atmosphere and moves the contact within a specified range, opening and closing the switch. A vacuum interrupter has shields around the contacts and at the ends of the interrupter, preventing any contact material vaporized during an arc from condensing on the inside of the vacuum envelope. This would reduce the insulation strength of the envelope, ultimately resulting in the arcing of the interrupter when open. The shield also helps control the shape of the electric-field distribution inside the interrupter, which contributes to a higher open-circuit voltage rating. It helps absorb some of the energy produced in the arc, increasing a device's interrupting rating. The contacts carry the circuit current when closed, forming the terminals of the arc when open. They are made of a variety of materials, depending on the vacuum interrupter's use and design for long contact life, rapid recovery of voltage withstand rating, and control of over-voltage due to current chopping | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=53258493 | 390,515 |
Grievance redressal Possibility of fake submissions also remains. Customers therefore have less confidence on such forms. Confidence can be strengthened if a central call center sends an acknowledgement of receipt of such feedback. Another possible reinforcement may be done by taking digitized input, which can be processed using scantron machines. Websites of organizations generally carry the Contact Us page, which lists the email and phone numbers to use to submit any concerns. Many websites also provide a form to fill that automatically gets sent by email, with confirmation to the reporter. Websites such as Yelp and TripAdvisor allow customers to post grievances and recommendations about organizations from personal experience. Designated representatives of these organizations have the option to respond to such communications, though these responses are often just standard text. The feedback also tends to be subjective and unlikely to be auto-sorted and forwarded for action. Organizations can subscribe to grievance redressal portals such as ActPlease.com to invite their customers to report their grievances and request action. As such portals are configured by the organizations themselves, they can ensure that complaints are directed properly. ActPlease, being a third party site, handles anonymity of the reporter from the organization when necessary, while ensuring the genuine nature of the person, through SMS verification | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=44838228 | 475,333 |
Foil bearing Current-generation foil bearings with advanced coatings have greatly exceeded the limitations of earlier designs. Antiwear coatings exist that allow over 100,000 start/stop cycles for typical applications. Turbomachinery is the most common application because foil bearings operate at high speed. The main advantage of foil bearings is the elimination of the oil systems required by traditional bearing designs. Other advantages are: Areas of current research are: The main disadvantages are: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=708581 | 244,701 |
Genosome A genosome (also known as a lipoplex) is a lipid and DNA complex that is used to deliver genes. It can be a form of non-viral gene therapy as the complex does not require any components of a virus in order to transport genetic material. In presence of CT-DNA, genosomes can form through surface electrostatic interaction. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23257752 | 171,311 |
Chapelcross nuclear power station Chapelcross was a Magnox nuclear power plant near Annan in Dumfries and Galloway in southwest Scotland, in operation from 1959 to 2004. It was the sister plant to the Calder Hall plant in Cumbria, England; both were commissioned and originally operated by the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority. The primary purpose of both plants was to produce weapons-grade plutonium for the UK's nuclear weapons programme, but they also generated electrical power for the National Grid. Chapelcross occupies a 92 hectare site on the location of former World War II training airfield, RAF Annan, located 3 km north east of the town of Annan in the Annandale and Eskdale district within the Dumfries and Galloway region of south west Scotland. The nearest hamlet is Creca. Chapelcross was the sister plant to Calder Hall in Cumbria, England. Construction was carried out by Mitchell Construction and was completed in 1959. The primary purpose was to produce plutonium for the UK's nuclear weapons programme, for weapons including the WE.177 series. Electricity was always considered to be a by-product. The Chapelcross Works was officially opened on 2 May 1959 by the Lord Lieutenant of Dumfriesshire, Sir John Crabbe. It was initially owned and operated by the Production Group of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) until the creation of British Nuclear Fuels Limited (BNFL) in 1971 by an act of Parliament | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1323085 | 311,121 |
Idler-wheel The track simply provides a solid "road" for the road wheels to roll over on over all surfaces: the road wheels roll the vehicle along the self-created "road", while the drive sprocket forces the vehicle forward along the track and lays down "fresh" track. The idler picks the "used" track back up, and returns it back to the drive sprocket in the front. This is why an early term for a tracked vehicle was a "track-laying machine" (not to be confused with railroad track laying equipment). Transporting vehicles over muddy ground often required planks or logs to be placed along the track (see corduroy road, plank road). In the later 19th century, inventors figured out a way to make a rolling machine that would lay its own plank road wherever it went, negating the need for farmers to lay down logs in order to traverse muddy areas. Other benefits were discovered later. Note that there are some non-powered tracked transports (i.e. trailers that roll on tracks rather than wheels), which have two idler wheels rather than a drive sprocket. There are also certain pieces of equipment, such as the Caterpillar D9 bulldozer (and numerous other Caterpillar brand bulldozers), Tucker Sno-cat and Mattracks rubber track conversion kits, which configure their tracks in the shape of a triangle, or pyramid (when viewed from the side), with the drive sprocket at the tip of the pyramid. In this configuration, there are two idler/roadwheels and one drive sprocket (as well as a number of small, load-bearing roadwheels) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=7937705 | 439,505 |
Anders and Johanna Olsson Farm The barn has a gambrel roof, a c. 1915 replacement of the original gable roof. In order to counteract the decline in its rural population due to westward migration, in 1861 the state of Maine embarked on an initiative to promote immigration to the rural northern part of the state. This led to an influx of primarily Swedish settlers, the first group arriving in 1870. Anders Olsson arrived in 1871, his wife Johanna the following year. Olsson is believed to have built the log portion of the house at a different location soon after his arrival, and the log portion of the barn in 1873; the existence and dimensions of both buildings are documented in an 1874 article. In 1889, possibly because of his growing family, Olsson built the frame portion of the house, moved the old log house to its position at the new structure's rear. Olsson's buildings demonstrate a high quality of log construction that differs notably from the cruder methods of log construction found in other parts of Maine, with particular attention given to ensuring the weather tightness of the structure. The barn is the only one known to survive from the early period of Swedish immigration to the area. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=46560032 | 353,981 |
Printing When paper became relatively easily available, around 1400, the technique transferred very quickly to small woodcut religious images and playing cards printed on paper. These prints produced in very large numbers from about 1425 onward. Around the mid-fifteenth-century, "block-books", woodcut books with both text and images, usually carved in the same block, emerged as a cheaper alternative to manuscripts and books printed with movable type. These were all short heavily illustrated works, the bestsellers of the day, repeated in many different block-book versions: the Ars moriendi and the Biblia pauperum were the most common. There is still some controversy among scholars as to whether their introduction preceded or, the majority view, followed the introduction of movable type, with the range of estimated dates being between about 1440 and 1460. Movable type is the system of printing and typography using movable pieces of metal type, made by casting from matrices struck by letterpunches. Movable type allowed for much more flexible processes than hand copying or block printing. Around 1040, the first known movable type system was created in China by Bi Sheng out of porcelain. Bi Sheng used clay type, which broke easily, but Wang Zhen by 1298 had carved a more durable type from wood. He also developed a complex system of revolving tables and number-association with written Chinese characters that made typesetting and printing more efficient | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=44723 | 304,344 |
Functional specialization (brain) Functional specialization suggests that different areas in the brain are specialized for different functions. Phrenology, created by Franz Joseph Gall (1758–1828) and Johann Gaspar Spurzheim (1776–1832) and best known for the idea that one's personality could be determined by the variation of bumps on their skull, proposed that different regions in one's brain have different functions and may very well be associated with different behaviours. Gall and Spurzheim were the first to observe the crossing of pyramidal tracts, thus explaining why lesions in one hemisphere are manifested in the opposite side of the body. However, Gall and Spurzheim did not attempt to justify phrenology on anatomical grounds. It has been argued that phrenology was fundamentally a science of race. Gall considered the most compelling argument in favor of phrenology the differences in skull shape found in sub-Saharan Africans and the anecdotal evidence (due to scientific travelers and colonists) of their intellectual inferiority and emotional volatility. In Italy, Luigi Rolando carried out lesion experiments and performed electrical stimulation of the brain, including the Rolandic area. Phineas Gage became one of the first "lesion case studies" in 1848 when an explosion drove a large iron rod completely through his head, destroying his left frontal lobe | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25146378 | 177,092 |
Folding@home In some cases, a team may have their own community-driven sources of help or recruitment such as an Internet forum. The points can foster friendly competition between individuals and teams to compute the most for the project, which can benefit the folding community and accelerate scientific research. Individual and team statistics are posted on the website. If a user does not form a new team, or does not join an existing team, that user automatically becomes part of a "Default" team. This "Default" team has a team number of "0". Statistics are accumulated for this "Default" team as well as for specially named teams. software at the user's end involves three primary components: work units, cores, and a client. A work unit is the protein data that the client is asked to process. Work units are a fraction of the simulation between the states in a Markov model. After the work unit has been downloaded and completely processed by a volunteer's computer, it is returned to servers, which then award the volunteer the credit points. This cycle repeats automatically. All work units have associated deadlines, and if this deadline is exceeded, the user may not get credit and the unit will be automatically reissued to another participant. As protein folding occurs serially, and many work units are generated from their predecessors, this allows the overall simulation process to proceed normally if a work unit is not returned after a reasonable period of time | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=413102 | 59,615 |
System requirements specification A System Requirements Specification (SyRS) (abbreviated SysRS when need to be distinct from a software requirements specification (SRS) ) is a structured collection of information that embodies the requirements of a system. A business analyst, sometimes titled system analyst, is responsible for analyzing the business needs of their clients and stakeholders to help identify business problems and propose solutions. Within the systems development life cycle domain, the BA typically performs a liaison function between the business side of an enterprise and the information technology department or external service providers. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2705889 | 374,047 |
Goldsworthy Gurney By 1825, he had started practical work on a steam carriage, taking space for a small workshop in Oxford Street and filing a first patent for "An apparatus for propelling carriages on common roads or railways – without the aid of horses, with sufficient speed for the carriage of passengers and goods". His work encompassed the development of the blastpipe, which used steam to increase the flow of air through a steam engine's chimney, so increasing the draw of air over the fire and, in short, much increasing the power-to-weight ratio of the steam engine. In 1826 he purchased a manufacturing works at, and moved his family to living space in, 154 Albany Street, near Regent's Park, and proceeded to improve the designs of his carriages, described below. Whilst the carriages certainly had technical merit and much promise, he was unsuccessful in commercialising them; by the spring of 1832 he had run out of funding and was forced to auction his remaining business assets, eventually losing a great deal of his own and investors' money. The circumstances of the failure engendered controversy expressed in contemporary scientific publications, as well as in committees of the House of Commons. In 1830, Gurney leased a plot of land overlooking Summerleaze Beach in Bude, from his friend Sir Thomas Acland, and set about the construction of a new house to be built amongst the sand hills. The construction rested on an innovative concrete raft foundation, representing an early worked example of this technique | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=6488863 | 440,204 |
Metabolomics This bioinformatics-based pairing method enables natural product discovery at a larger-scale by refining non-targeted metabolomic analyses to identify small molecules with related biosynthesis and to focus on those that may not have previously well known structures. Fluxomics is a further development of metabolomics. The disadvantage of metabolomics is that it only provides the user with steady-state level information, while fluxomics determines the reaction rates of metabolic reactions and can trace metabolites in a biological system over time. Nutrigenomics is a generalised term which links genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics and metabolomics to human nutrition. In general a metabolome in a given body fluid is influenced by endogenous factors such as age, sex, body composition and genetics as well as underlying pathologies. The large bowel microflora are also a very significant potential confounder of metabolic profiles and could be classified as either an endogenous or exogenous factor. The main exogenous factors are diet and drugs. Diet can then be broken down to nutrients and non- nutrients. is one means to determine a biological endpoint, or metabolic fingerprint, which reflects the balance of all these forces on an individual's metabolism. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1029211 | 38,432 |
UMTS Unlike the other air interfaces, TD-SCDMA was not part of from the beginning but has been added in Release 4 of the specification. Like TD-CDMA, TD-SCDMA is known as IMT CDMA TDD within IMT-2000. The term "TD-SCDMA" is misleading. While it suggests covering only a channel access method, it is actually the common name for the whole air interface specification. TD-SCDMA / UMTS-TDD (LCR) networks are incompatible with W-CDMA / UMTS-FDD and TD-CDMA / UMTS-TDD (HCR) networks. TD-SCDMA was developed in the People's Republic of China by the Chinese Academy of Telecommunications Technology (CATT), Datang Telecom, and Siemens AG in an attempt to avoid dependence on Western technology. This is likely primarily for practical reasons, since other 3G formats require the payment of patent fees to a large number of Western patent holders. TD-SCDMA proponents also claim it is better suited for densely populated areas. Further, it is supposed to cover all usage scenarios, whereas W-CDMA is optimised for symmetric traffic and macro cells, while TD-CDMA is best used in low mobility scenarios within micro or pico cells. TD-SCDMA is based on spread spectrum technology which makes it unlikely that it will be able to completely escape the payment of license fees to western patent holders. The launch of a national TD-SCDMA network was initially projected by 2005 but only reached large scale commercial trials with 60,000 users across eight cities in 2008. On January 7, 2009, China granted a TD-SCDMA 3G licence to China Mobile | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=32237 | 381,732 |
European BEST Engineering Competition 87 Local Rounds, more than 6000 participants, 116 finalists and more than 500 BEST members across 32 countries contributed in the preparation and successful conduction of the 6th edition of EBEC Final in Riga. In 2015, EBEC Final was held in Porto, reaching the maximum number of participants so far (120) and setting high standards for the upcoming editions. In 2016, the EBEC Final was held in Belgrad between the 2nd to 9 August. In 2017, the EBEC Final was held in Brno, during August. In 2018 there was not a Final round of EBEC. For this reason it was called EBEC Challenge, as there was a slight difference between the editions. EBEC is a competition that spreads all over Europe reaching thousands of students, universities and companies. But what makes EBEC unique is not only the numbers and the technical outcomes, but the renowned "EBEC spirit", that is the atmosphere surrounding the competition consisting of the teamwork, the unbound creativity being interlinked with knowledge, the strive for the best of oneself. This is what makes students passionate to participate and to work for the best solution, what brings professors and experts to offer their expertise and knowledge for the transparency of the competition, what makes the companies want to support the competition again and ensure that students deal with current technological problems and of course what makes BEST members continuously work more and more passionately to develop the competition | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=22322080 | 205,368 |
Spreading resistance profiling The equipment for SIMS tends to be considerably more expensive to manufacture and operate. While spreading resistance is limited to silicon, germanium and a few other semiconductors, SIMS can profile the atomic concentration of almost anything in anything. SIMS has greater spatial resolution useful for ultra-shallow profiles (< 0.1-micrometre) but SRP is more convenient for deeper structures. R. G. Mazur and D. H. Dickey, " A Spreading Resistance Technique for Resistivity Measurements on Silicon ", J. Electrochem. Soc., 113, 255 (1966) D. H. Dickey, "History and Status of the Data Reduction Problem in SRA", Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Solid State and Integrated Circuit Technology, Ellwanger "et al.", Eds., Publishing House of Electronics Industry M.W. Denhoff, "An Accurate Calculation of Spreading Resistance", Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, Volume 39, Number 9 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20738649 | 402,674 |
Kamptulicon Kamptulicon, whose name was derived from the Greek "kamptos" (“flexible”) + "oulos" (“thick”), was a floor covering made from powdered cork and natural rubber. Patented by Elijah Galloway in 1843, kamptulicon was first launched in public at the 1862 International Exhibition in London, where it caused a sensation. Its promoters compared it to thick, soft leather, and lauded its ease of cleaning, water resistance, warmth, and sound-deadening qualities. Critics, however, pointed out that its grey-brown colour was unattractive. Attempts were made to brighten it up by stencilling patterns on it with oil paint, but these suffered from a lack of durability. was manufactured by sprinkling powdered cork on to thin bands of rubber, which was then rolled and rerolled until thoroughly mixed. It was then coated on one or both sides with linseed oil varnish or oil paint. Powdered sulphur was also sometimes mixed in, and the material then heated to produce a form of vulcanized kamptulicon. As well as a floor covering, kamptulicon was also used as cushions in stamping presses, and as polishing wheels for metals. Within a few years, faced by stiff competition from the manufacturers of oilcloth coupled with huge increases in the price of natural rubber, kamptulicon production ceased. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2167518 | 339,725 |
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