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Enterprise legal management Legal departments use analytics to inform these budgeting and forecasting decisions, with the selection of outside law firms based on tradeoffs between cost and attorney performance. Internal historical billing data and industry benchmarks identify trends and differences among providers, and average fees associated with matter types. Some ELM software vendors offer comparative metrics harvested from subscribers. Vendors come from one of two backgrounds: content provision or software development. Some vendors specialize in ELM software, while others include ELM software as part of a broader suite of legal software. SaaS-based and on-premises solutions exist, although many on-premises providers have shifted to SaaS-based models or added SaaS-based options. Multiple acquisitions occurred within the industry during 2011–15. In 2011 Bottomline Technologies acquired Allegiant Systems; in 2014 Wolters Kluwer, owner of TyMetrix, acquired competitor Datacert; and in 2015 Mitratech purchased Houston-based Bridgeway Software and EAG's CaseTrack. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=47238886 | 231,726 |
Conductance quantum The 1D current going across is the current density: This results in a quantized conductance: Quantized conductance occurs in wires that are ballistic conductors, when the elastic mean free path is much larger than the length of the wire: formula_11. B. J. van Wees et al. first observed the effect in a point contact in 1988. Carbon nanotubes have quantized conductance independent of diameter. The quantum hall effect can be used to precisely measure the conductance quantum value. A simple, intuitive motivation of the conductance quantum can be made using the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which states that the minimum energy-time uncertainty is formula_12, where "formula_5" is the Planck constant. The current "formula_14" in a quantum channel can be expressed as formula_15, where "τ" is transit time and "e" is the electron charge. Applying a voltage "formula_16" results in an energy "formula_17". If we assume that the energy uncertainty is of order formula_18 and the time uncertainty is of order "τ", we can write formula_19. Using the fact that the electrical conductance formula_20, this becomes formula_21. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3873342 | 41,482 |
Heublein Tower The structure consists of a steel frame of girders anchored into the bedrock of the mountain ridge. The four columns in the four corners extend up to the second level and are made of reinforced concrete. A system of cross-girder braces adds strength to the shaft and cross-beams support the floors. It is also the site of the first home elevator in Connecticut. In 1943, the tower was purchased by "The Hartford Times", and became known as the Times Tower. The plan was to use the tower as a broadcasting location for a radio station owned by the paper, but this didn't work out. However, the tower was a place for parties and social gatherings hosted by the newspaper for nearly 20 years. The is managed by the State of Connecticut Department of Energy & Environmental Protection. Restoration and support of the Tower interior is funded in large part by the work of the non-profit organization, The Friends of Heublein Tower. The Friends' organization was established in 1985 and is dedicated to preserving and restoring the and its surrounding estate. Most recent restoration activities include the installation of a white oak parquet floor in the observation room (known as the ballroom in Gilbert Heublein's day) designed in the same pattern as the original. Due to anti-German sentiment in the United States during World War I, rumors circulated that Gilbert Heublein was using a spotlight on top of the tower's cupola to inform German ships of the location of Allied vessels | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9107668 | 367,856 |
Jan H. van Schuppen Jan Hendrik van Schuppen (born 6 October 1947) is a Dutch mathematician and Professor at the Department of Mathematics of the Vrije Universiteit, known for his contributions in the field of systems theory, particularly on control theory and system identification, on probability, and on a number of related practical applications. Van Schuppen obtained a PhD at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1973, where his PhD supervisor was Pravin Varaiya. Van Schuppen works as a full professor at the Department of Mathematics of the Free University of Amsterdam and as a research leader at the CWI research institute in Amsterdam. He has been coordinating several European Union funded research networks such as the European Research Network System Identification, for which he has been the Netherlands leader. The lists among the PhD students who worked under van Schuppen's supervision Hendrik (Henk) Nijmeijer, Jan Willem Polderman, Peter Spreij and Damiano Brigo. Van Schuppen is Editor in Chief of "Mathematics of Control, Signals, and Systems", has been Departmental Editor of the "Journal of Discrete Event Dynamic Systems" in 1990–2000, and has been Associate Editor-at-Large of the prestigious and leading journal "IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control" in 1999–2001. Van Schuppen's research interest are in the areas of systems theory and probability | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20624916 | 398,269 |
Genetically modified crops This success has depended on factors independent of management strategy, including low initial resistance allele frequencies, fitness costs associated with resistance, and the abundance of non-Bt host plants outside the refuges. Companies that produce Bt seed are introducing strains with multiple Bt proteins. Monsanto did this with Bt cotton in India, where the product was rapidly adopted. Monsanto has also; in an attempt to simplify the process of implementing refuges in fields to comply with Insect Resistance Management(IRM) policies and prevent irresponsible planting practices; begun marketing seed bags with a set proportion of refuge (non-transgenic) seeds mixed in with the Bt seeds being sold. Coined "Refuge-In-a-Bag" (RIB), this practice is intended to increase farmer compliance with refuge requirements and reduce additional labor needed at planting from having separate Bt and refuge seed bags on hand. This strategy is likely to reduce the likelihood of Bt-resistance occurring for corn rootworm, but may increase the risk of resistance for lepidopteran corn pests, such as European corn borer. Increased concerns for resistance with seed mixtures include partially resistant larvae on a Bt plant being able to move to a susceptible plant to survive or cross pollination of refuge pollen on to Bt plants that can lower the amount of Bt expressed in kernels for ear feeding insects. Best management practices (BMPs) to control weeds may help delay resistance | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2291204 | 3,393 |
DI unit DI units are also referred to as a DI box, direct box, or simply DI, with each letter pronounced, as in "Dee Eye." The term is variously claimed to stand for "direct input", "direct injection", "direct induction" or "direct interface". Passive direct boxes first appeared in the United States in the middle 1960s, most notably in Detroit at radio stations and recording studios like "Motown", "United Sound Systems", "Golden World Records", Tera Shirma Studios and the Metro-Audio Capstan Roller remote recording truck. These DIs were custom made by engineers like Ed Wolfrum with his "Wolfbox" and by concert sound companies to solve certain problems associated with amplifying electric musical instruments, especially electric guitars. These boxes typically contained an audio transformer (like the Triad A11J through 1974) with a turns ratio from approximately 8:1 to 12:1, and thus an impedance ratio of around 144:1. With this kind of transformer, the output voltage of the instrument is stepped down to a range compatible with the typical mixing console's microphone preamp. The typical console preamp input impedance of 1,500 ohms would appear to the electronic instrument as a high input impedance of 216,000 ohms. The passive direct box was suitable for most electronic musical instruments but it negatively colored the sound of ones with weaker output signals, such as Fender Rhodes pianos and Fender Precision Basses with single-coil pickups | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=365755 | 204,291 |
Yawata Steel Works dam collapse occurred on May 1, 1916 in Yahata, Fukuoka when the "Great Dam" collapsed killing hundreds and crushing thousands of homes. By 1912, 80% of Japan's pig iron production was from Yawata Steel Works. An integrated mill with coke, iron, and steel facilities, Yahata was also responsible at this time for 80-90% of Japan's steel output. Energy efficiency was greatly improved by the conversion from steam to electricity as a power source, resulting in a drop in consumption of coal per ton of steel produced from four tons in 1920 to 1.58 in 1933. Much of the iron ore was from China and Korea. To supply the energy to the Steelworks a large dam was created. The factories covered many acres and a town sprang up nearby, Yahata, Fukuoka to supply the workers. On May 1, 1916, American media reported that the "Great Dam" at the Yawata Steel Works had collapsed and completely submerged a section of the manufacturing city. Initial reports stated that hundreds of people were killed and thousands made homeless. They army was sent in to help with the recovery. Notes References | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=63831047 | 342,056 |
Systems analyst Some dedicated professionals possess practical knowledge in both areas (business and systems analysis) and manage to successfully combine both of these occupations, effectively blurring the line between business analyst and systems analyst. A systems analyst may: The systems development life cycle (SDLC) is the traditional system development method that organizations use for large-scale IT Projects. The SDLC is a structured framework that consists of sequential processes by which an information system is developed. Once a development project has the necessary approvals from all participants, the systems analysis stage begins. System analysis is the examination of the business problem that organizations plan to solve with an information system. The main purpose of the systems analysis stage is to gather information about the existing system in order to determine the requirements for an enhanced system or a new system. The end product of this stage, known as the deliverable, is a set of system requirements. Perhaps the most difficult task in system analysis is identifying the specific requirements that the system must satisfy. These requirements often are called user requirements because users provide them. When the system developers have accumulated the user requirements for the new system, they proceed to the system design stage. A computer systems analyst is an occupation in the field of information technology. A computer systems analyst works to solve problems related to computer technology | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12098689 | 465,137 |
Prydniprovsky Chemical Plant radioactive dumps The now-defunct Prydniprovsky Chemical Plant (; "Prydniprovsky khimichnyi zavod", PHZ, also PChP) in the city of Kamianske, Ukraine, enriched uranium ore for the Soviet nuclear program from 1948 through 1991, preparing yellowcake. Its processing wastes are now stored in nine open-air dumping grounds containing about 36 million tonnes of sand-like low-radioactive residue, occupying an area of 2.5 million square meters. The sites, improperly constructed from the very beginning, have been abandoned by the industry long ago and remain in very poor condition. The top concern is the dumps’ closeness to both the large Dnieper River and city residential areas. According to government experts, the dams separating the grounds from soil water are already leaking, causing the pollution of Dnieper basin. It is believed that further deterioration of the dams, irrespective of any outer accidents, may cause a devastating radioactive mudslide. The Ukrainian government is now tightening control over the grounds and seeking international aid in projects aimed at securing and the gradual re-processing of the PHZ wastes. Recently, the International Atomic Energy Agency has evaluated the condition of the sites and is considering dispatching a major observation and aid mission to Kamianske | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=16440097 | 51,655 |
Isozyme To identify isozymes, a crude protein extract is made by grinding animal or plant tissue with an extraction buffer, and the components of extract are separated according to their charge by gel electrophoresis. Historically, this has usually been done using gels made from potato starch, but acrylamide gels provide better resolution. All the proteins from the tissue are present in the gel, so that individual enzymes must be identified using an assay that links their function to a staining reaction. For example, detection can be based on the localised precipitation of soluble indicator dyes such as tetrazolium salts which become insoluble when they are reduced by cofactors such as NAD or NADP, which generated in zones of enzyme activity. This assay method requires that the enzymes are still functional after separation (native gel electrophoresis), and provides the greatest challenge to using isozymes as a laboratory technique. Isoenzymes differ in kinetics (they have different "K" and V values). Population genetics is essentially a study of the causes and effects of genetic variation within and between populations, and in the past, isozymes have been amongst the most widely used molecular markers for this purpose | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1079368 | 148,628 |
History of suicide Attitudes toward suicide have varied through time and across cultures. The first recorded person to commit suicide was Empedocles. One of his beliefs was that Death was a transformation. It is possible this idea influenced his suicide. Empedocles died by throwing himself into the Sicilian volcano, Mount Etna. In general, the pagan world, both Roman and Greek, had a relaxed attitude towards the concept of suicide. The Council of Arles (452) stated "if a slave commits suicide no reproach shall fall upon his master." There are some precursors of Christian hostility to suicide in ancient Greek thinkers. Pythagoras, for example, was against the act, though more on mathematical than moral grounds, believing that there was only a finite number of souls for use in the world, and that the sudden and unexpected departure of one would upset a delicate balance. Aristotle also condemned suicide, though for quite different reasons— in that it robbed the community of the services of one of its members. In Rome, suicide was never a general offense in law, though the whole approach to the question was essentially pragmatic. It was specifically forbidden in three cases: those accused of capital crimes, soldiers and slaves. The reason behind all three was the same - it was "uneconomic" for these people to die | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2252808 | 168,554 |
Carbon nanotubes in interconnects However, for dimensions below 7 to 10 nm nodes, the decreased volume of available conducting metal will force innovative material and integration approaches towards novel interconnect architectures. Also for power and high-performance applications the most critical challenges are high ampacity, thermal conductivity and electromigration resistance. Far away from bulk, copper conductors that would already melt at 10 A/cm, current copper metallization lines can withstand 10 A/cm due to good heat dissipation into thermal contact to the surrounding material, optimized liner and capping as well as plating and CMP processes. The reliability of state of the art interconnects is closely linked to electromigration . This adverse effect describes the material transport and consequently void formation especially in thin metal lines to the anode by a combination of the electron wind force, the temperature gradient induced force, the stress gradient induced force and the surface tension force. Depending on the design of the interconnect layout and the used metallization scheme, the dominance of each driving force can change. Even at the current scaling node of CMOS technology, these two issues are among the main reasons for the trend that the increased density scaling of transistors no longer automatically leads to "performance scaling" (i. e. increased performance per transistor) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=51056408 | 53,721 |
Asynchronous transfer mode If the next data item is not available when it is needed, the codec has no choice but to produce silence or guess — and if the data is late, it is useless, because the time period when it should have been converted to a signal has already passed. At the time of the design of ATM, 155 Mbit/s synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) with 135 Mbit/s payload was considered a fast optical network link, and many plesiochronous digital hierarchy (PDH) links in the digital network were considerably slower, ranging from 1.544 to 45 Mbit/s in the US, and 2 to 34 Mbit/s in Europe. At 155 Mbit/s, a typical full-length 1,500 byte (12,000-bit) data packet, sufficient to contain a maximum-sized IP packet for Ethernet, would take 77.42 µs to transmit. In a lower-speed link, such as a 1.544 Mbit/s T1 line, the same packet would take up to 7.8 milliseconds. A queuing delay induced by several such data packets might exceed the figure of 7.8 ms several times over, in addition to any packet generation delay in the shorter speech packet. This was considered unacceptable for speech traffic, which needs to have low jitter in the data stream being fed into the codec if it is to produce good-quality sound. A packet voice system can produce this low jitter in a number of ways: The design of ATM aimed for a low-jitter network interface. However, "cells" were introduced into the design to provide short queuing delays while continuing to support datagram traffic | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2499 | 134,627 |
Stretchable electronics Stretchable electronics, also known as elastic electronics or elastic circuits, is a technology for building electronic circuits by depositing stretchable electronic devices and circuits onto stretchable substrates or embed them completely in a stretchable material such as silicones or polyurethanes. In the simplest case, stretchable electronics can be made by using the same components used for rigid printed circuit boards. One of the things that need to change is the substrate and the interconnections, being made stretchable, rather than flexible (see Flexible electronics) or rigid (Printed Circuit Boards). Typically, polymers are chosen as substrates or material to embed. When rigid components are deposited onto stretchable substrates, the interconnects will be subjected to high mechanical strain whenever the substrate is flexed. This is because, when bending the substrate, the outermost radius of the bend will stretch so that the relative spacing of each interconnect will effectively increase in line with the increasing length of the substrate. attempts biomimicry of human skin and flesh, in being stretchable, whilst retaining full functionality. The design space for products is opened up with stretchable electronics. 3D conformable circuits are now possible by the application of stretchable cyber-skins consisting of elastomeric carrier substrates populated with stretchable conductors and devices | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11897618 | 198,555 |
Northwestern blot Subsequently, other similar blotting techniques were created with similar nomenclature to detect different molecules or interactions between molecules. These techniques include the western blot (protein detection), the northern blot (RNA detection), the southwestern blot (DNA-protein interaction detection), the eastern blot (post translational modification detection) and the northwestern blot (RNA-protein interaction detection). Running a northwestern blot involves separating the RNA binding proteins by gel electrophoresis, which will separate the RNA binding proteins based upon their size and charge. Individual samples can be loaded in to the agarose or polyacrylamide gel (usually an SDS-PAGE) in order to analyze multiple samples at the same time. Once the gel electrophoresis is complete, the gel and associated RNA binding proteins are transferred to a nitrocellulose transfer paper. The newly transferred blots are then soaked in a blocking solution; non-fat milk and bovine serum albumin are common blocking buffers. This blocking solution assists with preventing non-specific binding of the primary and/or secondary antibodies to the nitrocellulose membrane. Once the blocking solution has adequate contact time with the blot, a specific competitor RNA is applied and given time to incubate at room temperature. During this time, the competitor RNA binds to the RNA binding proteins in the samples that are on the blot | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=42301816 | 20,886 |
Fort Worth Water Gardens The park was temporarily closed to the public after four people died there on June 16, 2004. Three children and one adult drowned after one of the children fell in the pool. The water was unusually deep due to a recirculating pump malfunction and heavy rains. The park was reopened on March 4, 2007 after being made safer by reducing the depth of the main pool from to . | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2194086 | 339,784 |
Centrifugal fan Velocity triangle of any turbo machine has three components as shown: These velocities are related by the triangle law of vector addition: This relatively simple equation is used frequently while drawing the velocity diagram. The velocity diagram for the forward, backward face blades shown are drawn using this law. The angle α is the angle made by the absolute velocity with the axial direction and angle β is the angle made by blade with respect to axial direction. The property that distinguishes a centrifugal fan from a blower is the pressure ratio it can achieve. In general, a blower can produce a higher pressure ratio. Per the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), the specific ratio - the ratio of the discharge pressure over the suction pressure – is used for defining the fans and blowers (Table 1). Ratings found in centrifugal fan performance tables and curves are based on standard air SCFM. Fan manufacturers define standard air as clean, dry air with a density of 0.075 pounds mass per cubic foot (1.2 kg/m³), with the barometric pressure at sea level of 29.92 inches of mercury (101.325 kPa) and a temperature of 70 °F (21 °C). Selecting a centrifugal fan to operate at conditions other than standard air requires adjustment to both static pressure and power. At higher-than-standard elevation (sea level) and higher-than-standard temperature, air density is lower than standard density | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=10469923 | 438,894 |
Promontory, Utah Four precious metal spikes were ceremoniously driven (gently tapped with a special spike maul sporting a solid silver head into pre-drilled holes in the Laurelwood tie); one was the golden spike issued by Californian David Hewes, one was a second solid gold spike issued by the San Francisco Newsletter Newspaper, one was a solid silver spike issued by the State of Nevada, and one was an iron spike plated with silver on the shaft and gold on the top issued by Arizona Territory and presented by Arizona Territorial Governor Anson P.K. Safford from the Territorial Capitol of Prescott. In 1898, the golden spike was donated to the Leland Stanford Junior University Museum. The second Golden Spike and the Laurelwood Tie were destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, which also destroyed the San Francisco Newsletter Newspaper Offices where these artifacts were on display. Stanford University loaned the original 1869 gold spike to Cecil B. DeMille for the film "Union Pacific" (1939). It was held aloft in the scene commemorating the actual event, although a brass prop was used for the hammering sequence. The only marks on The Golden Spike were caused by a Union Army Officer who struck the Spike with the pommel of his sword four times on the ride back to California. Nobody tried to fully drive 17.6 Carat Solid Gold Spikes or any of the precious metal spikes into a wooden tie | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=314293 | 321,197 |
First National Bank (Gary, South Dakota) The First National Bank in Gary, South Dakota is a building on South Dakota Highway 22 which was built in 1917. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. It was deemed significant as "the only Neo-Classical Revival style commercial building in Gary. In addition to its singular quality, the structure is also a good example of South Dakota's work with the Neo-Classical Revival on a very small scale." It is a one-story building constructed of cut limestone. Its facade includes two pilasters with Doric capitals, and modillions below the cornice. It served as a bank from 1917 until the Great Depression. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=56795273 | 349,925 |
Consumer Credit Act 1974 The Director's duties under this Act overlap slightly with those given by the Fair Trading Act, but are still an expansion over his original role. The Director General is tasked with issuing licenses, and under Section 35 of the Act, the Director is required to maintain a register containing all appropriate information related to licenses and applications for licenses. The register was created on 2 February 1976, and is kept at Chancery House in London. The Enterprise Act 2002 formally substituted the Office of Fair Trading for the Director General of Fair Trading for the purposes of this Act. Part II contains definitions for many types of agreements covered by the Act. There are three main types of agreement; regulated consumer credit agreements, regulated consumer hire agreements and partially regulated agreements. A regulated consumer credit agreement is defined as an agreement between two parties, one of whom (the debtor) is an individual, and the other of whom (the creditor) is "any other person", in which the creditor provides the debtor with credit not exceeding £5,000 (this figure was subsequently increased to £25,000 and under the Consumer Credit Act 2006 there is no upper limit). An exception to this definition is so-called "exempt agreements", which are agreements made where the creditor is a land improvement company, a charity, a friendly society, a trade union, an insurance company or "a body corporate named or specifically referred to in any public general Act" | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2285313 | 482,565 |
Robertson v. United States Robertson v. United States, 343 U.S. 711 (1952), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that cash contest prizes are taxable, and attributable to the most-recent thirty-six months ending with the close of the year in which it was received. The facts of the case involve American composer Leroy Robertson entering a previously composed symphony, "Trilogy", into a 1947 contest for musical compositions. Robertson won $25,000, claimed the prize on his income taxes as income attributable to the three years he wrote it (1937 through 1939), and thereafter claimed a refund that treated his winnings as a gift. The case is notable, and thus appears in law school casebooks, for the following holdings: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=22744638 | 510,107 |
Epitaxy refers to a type of crystal growth or material deposition in which new crystalline layers are formed with a well-defined orientation with respect to the crystalline substrate. The new layers formed are called the epitaxial film or epitaxial layer. The relative orientation of the epitaxial layer to the crystalline substrate is defined in terms of the orientation of the crystal lattice of each material. For epitaxial growth, the new layer will be crystalline and will all have a single orientation relative to the substrate; amorphous growth or multicrystalline growth with random crystal orientation does not meet this criterion. The term "epitaxy" comes from the Greek roots "epi" (ἐπί), meaning "above", and "taxis" (τάξις), meaning "an ordered manner". One of the main commercial applications of epitaxial growth is in the semiconductor industry, where semiconductor films are grown epitaxially on semiconductor substrate wafers. For the case of epitaxial growth of a planar film atop a substrate wafer, the epitaxial film's lattice will have a specific orientation relative to the substrate wafer's crystalline lattice such as the [001] Miller index of the film aligning with the [001] index of the substrate. In the simplest case, the epitaxial layer can be a continuation of the same exact semiconductor compound as the substrate; this is referred to as homoepitaxy. Otherwise, the epitaxial layer will be composed of a different compound; this is referred to as heteroepitaxy | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=449756 | 417,969 |
Computer lab The MIT Media Lab is a well-known example of a media lab. An Internet café differs from a computer lab in that usage of a computer lab is generally free for those with access, while Internet cafés charge for computer use. The term 'Internet café' is often used interchangeably with 'computer lab' but may differ from a computer lab in that users can also connect to the Internet using their own computer or device, and users of a computer lab generally do not need any equipment of their own. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=361909 | 60,299 |
ANTIC ANTIC's process of vertical fine scrolling works by simply directing to skip a number of scan lines for the first mode line of the scrolling region. Subsequent Mode lines in the scrolling region are not affected. The last line of the region supplies the bottom border of the scrolling region displaying the number of scan lines that were removed from the first line. This number of scan lines is controlled with the VSCROL register. The value ranges from 0 to the Mode line's scan line height - 1. The maximum value range covers fine scrolling 16 scan lines from 0 to 15. When the fine scrolling limit is reached, scrolling continues by resetting the VSCROL value and performing a coarse vertical scroll of the scrolling region. Horizontal coarse scrolling requires a little more effort than vertical scrolling. While horizontal scrolling is expected to present the illusion of a view port moving left and right across a wide panoramic scene made of screen memory, ANTIC's automatic memory scan increment conflicts with this idea that the rows of screen data is wider than the display. Presenting screen memory as long horizontal lines requires an LMS modifier for every Display List Text or Map Mode instruction in the scrolling region. A horizontal step is accomplished by incrementing or decrementing all the LMS addresses of the scrolling region. Horizontal scrolling requires the same Display List implementation as the worst case example described for Vertical Coarse Scrolling | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=870044 | 389,335 |
Boundary marker Prior to 1848, the Principality of Monaco included the villages of Roquebrune, Monti, Garavan and Menton. Of the original 91 boundary stones only 12 remain: 6 within the Principality of Monaco, 3 in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, and 3 in Menton. The boundary stones numbered 9, 12, 15, and 31 are located in Monaco. Another stone has been cast in concrete in the Sainte-Cécile area of Monaco thus rendering its number illegible. Stone number 55, originally located in Roquebrune, was given as a gift from the city of Roquebrune to the Principality of Monaco and is now located in Monaco's city hall. Stones numbered 56, 57, and 58 are located in Roquebrune. Stones numbered 62, 71, and 73 are located in Menton. All the boundary stones have three engraved sides: one side with their individual numbers (1 to 91), one side with the letter "M" indicating Monaco's territory, and one side with a cross (+) indicating the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia's territory. The cross represents the coat of arms of the House of Savoy, rulers of Piedmont-Sardinia. The history of marking the Western Australian border on the ground states that the "Austral Pillar" and the "Deakin Pillar" are points used to determine their position east of Greenwich and then fix a border from, in this case used to determine the line of the 129th meridian east longitude, as the Western Australian border | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=7275586 | 213,331 |
Global sourcing is the practice of sourcing from the global market for goods and services across geopolitical boundaries. often aims to exploit global efficiencies in the delivery of a product or service. These efficiencies include low cost skilled labor, low cost raw material and other economic factors like tax breaks and low trade tariffs. A large number of Information Technology projects and Services, including IS Applications and Mobile Apps and database services are outsourced globally to countries like India and Pakistan for more economical pricing. Common examples of globally sourced products or services include: labor-intensive manufactured products produced using low-cost Chinese labor, call centers staffed with low-cost English speaking workers in the Philippines and India, and Pakistan and IT work performed by low-cost programmers in India and Pakistan and Eastern Europe. While these examples are examples of Low-cost country sourcing, global sourcing is not limited to low-cost countries. Majority of companies today strive to harness the potential of global sourcing in minimizing cost. Hence it is commonly found that global sourcing initiatives and programs form an integral part of the strategic sourcing plan and procurement strategy of many multinational companies. is often associated with a centralized procurement strategy for a multinational, wherein a central buying organization seeks economies of scale through corporate-wide standardization and benchmarking | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=10084075 | 471,783 |
Debit card Chilean banks issue Maestro, Visa Electron and Visa Debit cards. Colombia has a system called Redeban-Multicolor and Credibanco Visa which are currently used in at least 23,000 establishments throughout the country. Goods may be purchased using this system at most supermarkets, retail stores, pubs and restaurants in major urban centers. Colombian debit cards are Maestro (pin), Visa Electron (pin), Visa Debit (as credit) and MasterCard-Debit (as credit). The Danish debit card Dankort is ubiquitous in Denmark. It was introduced on 1 September 1983, and despite the initial transactions being paper-based, the Dankort quickly won widespread acceptance. By 1985 the first EFTPOS terminals were introduced, and 1985 was also the year when the number of Dankort transactions first exceeded 1 million. Today Dankort is primarily issued as a Multicard combining the national Dankort with the more internationally recognized Visa (denoted simply as a "Visa/Dankort" card). In September 2008, 4 million cards had been issued, of which three million cards were Visa/Dankort cards. It is also possible to get a Visa Electron debit card and MasterCard. Most daily customer transactions are carried out with debit cards or online giro/electronic bill payment, although credit cards and cash are accepted. Checks are no longer used. Prior to European standardization, Finland had a national standard ("pankkikortti" = "bank card") | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9008 | 135,238 |
Needlestick injury A needlestick injury is the penetration of the skin by a hypodermic needle or other sharp object that has been in contact with blood, tissue or other body fluids before the exposure. Even though the acute physiological effects of a needlestick injury are generally negligible, these injuries can lead to transmission of blood-borne diseases, placing those exposed at increased risk of infection from disease causing pathogens, such as the hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV), and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Among healthcare workers and laboratory personnel worldwide, more than 25 blood-borne virus infections have been reported to have been caused by needlestick injuries. In addition to needlestick injuries, transmission of these viruses can also occur as a result of contamination of the mucous membranes, such as those of the eyes, with blood or body fluids, but needlestick injuries make up more than 80% of all percutaneous exposure incidents in the United States. Various other occupations are also at increased risk of needlestick injury, including law enforcement, laborers, tattoo artists, food preparers, and agricultural workers. Increasing recognition of the unique occupational hazard posed by needlestick injuries, as well as the development of efficacious interventions to minimize the largely preventable occupational risk, encouraged legislative regulation in the US, causing a decline in needlestick injuries among healthcare workers | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3160300 | 72,263 |
Adoptive cell transfer Evidence suggests that T helper 17 cells can promote sustained antitumor immunity. Other modes of enhancing immuno-therapy include targeting so-called intrinsic immune checkpoint blockades. Many of these intrinsic regulators include molecules with ubiquitin ligase activity, including CBLB. More recently, CISH, another molecule with ubiquitin ligase activity, was found to be induced by T cell receptor ligation (TCR) and negatively regulate it by targeting the critical signaling intermediate PLC-gamma-1 for degradation. The deletion of CISH in effector T cells has been shown to dramatically augment TCR signaling and subsequent effector cytokine release, proliferation and survival. The adoptive transfer of tumor-specific effector T cells knocked out or knocked down for CISH resulted in a significant increase in functional avidity and long-term tumor immunity. Surprisingly there was no changes in activity of Cish's purported target, STAT5. Thus Cish represents a new class of T-cell intrinsic immunologic checkpoints with the potential to radically enhance adoptive immunotherapies for cancer. Neither tumor bulk nor metastasis site affect the likelihood of achieving a complete cancer regression. Of 34 complete responders in two trials, one recurred. Only one patient with complete regression received more than one treatment. Prior treatment with targeted therapy using Braf inhibitor vemurafenib (Zelboraf) did not affect the likelihood that melanoma patients would experience an objective response | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25514357 | 170,180 |
Lock-in amplifier For example, when detecting a small light signal against a bright background, the signal can be modulated either by a chopper wheel, acousto-optical modulator, photoelastic modulator at a large enough frequency so that 1/"f" noise drops off significantly, and the lock-in amplifier is referenced to the operating frequency of the modulator. In the case of an atomic-force microscope, to achieve nanometer and piconewton resolution, the cantilever position is modulated at a high frequency, to which the lock-in amplifier is again referenced. When the lock-in technique is applied, care must be taken to calibrate the signal, because lock-in amplifiers generally detect only the root-mean-square signal of the operating frequency. For a sinusoidal modulation, this would introduce a factor of formula_11 between the lock-in amplifier output and the peak amplitude of the signal, and a different factor for non-sinusoidal modulation. In the case of nonlinear systems, higher harmonics of the modulation frequency appear. A simple example is the light of a conventional light bulb being modulated at twice the line frequency. Some lock-in amplifiers also allow separate measurements of these higher harmonics. Furthermore, the response width (effective bandwidth) of detected signal depends on the amplitude of the modulation. Generally, linewidth/modulation function has a monotonically increasing, non-linear behavior. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1859768 | 411,708 |
Knight shift However, in metals which normally have a broad featureless electronic density of states, Knight shifts are temperature independent. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1181004 | 2,401 |
Event data recorder The limited need to cover less commonly supported vehicles may make the initial investment in software and equipment unnecessary for many in the accident reconstruction or related industries. From 1998 to 2001, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) sponsored a working group specifically tasked with the study of EDRs. After years of evaluation, NHTSA released a formal Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in 2004. This notice declared NHTSA’s intent to standardize EDRs. It was not until August 2006 that NHTSA released its final ruling (49 CFR Part 563). The ruling was lengthy (207 pages), consisting of not only definitions and mandatory EDR standards, but also acted as a formal reply to the dozens of petitions received by NHTSA after the 2004 notice. Since there was already an overwhelming trend for voluntary EDR installation, the ruling did not require manufacturers to install EDRs in vehicles produced for North America. Based on its analysis, NHTSA estimated that by 2010, over 85% of vehicles would already have EDRs installed in them, but warned that if the trend did not continue, the agency would revisit their decision and possibly make installation a requirement. The mandate did, however, provide a minimum standard for the type of data that EDRs would be required to record: at least 15 types of crash data | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=5361228 | 284,701 |
International telecommunications routes Arbitrage is routing traffic via an intermediate country to take advantage of the differences in settlement rates. If country B has much lower settlement rates with country C than with country A, it might be cheaper for country A to send its traffic for country B via country C. One of the first larger arbitrage routes was for traffic between Australia and the US, which was cheaper if sent via New Zealand and Canada. Arbitrage is and was practiced even before the spread of de-regulation. The best quality is usually over 'bilaterals': high-capacity direct fiber-optic links between the former national telephone companies. The calls go straight to the far end company managing the national network. Routes to other licensed telecoms companies in de-regulated countries will usually have as high a quality as bilaterals. Satellite transmission adds a slight delay, which is noticeable even over transatlantic calls, though the call quality can be as good as a call over a fiber-optic cable. At the other end of the quality spectrum is a route using VoIP over the long-distance satellite link terminating in an ISP using a leaky PBX to terminate the calls. VoIP packets contain a lot of signaling overhead: to carry the 64k of data packet a conventional telecoms network transmits needs around 100k of bandwidth with VoIP. VoIP achieves lower bandwidth by using data compression techniques on the voice part of the data packet and this reduces the call quality. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=6734192 | 386,567 |
Windows Vista networking technologies qWave uses different packet priority schemes for real-time flows (such as multimedia packets) and best-effort flows (such as file downloads or e-mails) to ensure that real-time data gets as little delays as possible, while providing a high quality channel for other data packets. qWave is intended to ensure real-time transport of multimedia networks within a wireless network. qWave supports multiple simultaneous multimedia as well as data streams. qWave does not depend solely on bandwidth reservation schemes, as provided by RSVP for providing QoS guarantees, as the bandwidth in a wireless network fluctuates constantly. As a result, it also uses continuous bandwidth monitoring to implement service guarantees. Applications have to explicitly use the qWave APIs to use the service. When the multimedia application requests qWave to initiate a new media stream, qWave tries to reserve bandwidth using RSVP. At the same time, it uses QoS probes to make sure the network has enough bandwidth to support the stream. If the conditions are met, the stream is allowed, and prioritized so that other applications do not eat into its share of bandwidth. However, environmental factors can affect the reception of the wireless signals, which can reduce the bandwidth, even if no other stream is allowed to access the reserved bandwidth | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=10541907 | 110,752 |
Math library In computer science, a math library (or maths library) is a component of a programming language's standard library containing functions (or subroutines) for the most common mathematical functions, such as trigonometry and exponentiation. Examples include: In some languages (such as haskell) parts of the standard library (including maths) are imported by default. More advanced functionality such as linear algebra is usually provided in 3rd party libraries, such as a linear algebra library or vector maths library. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=53168928 | 122,242 |
Foreign legal opinion The substantive opinion statements a foreign legal opinion will make will ordinarily include: Standard qualifications are usually matters of general law which it is impractical to advise upon in the abstract, but which might undermine the effectiveness of the enforceability of the transaction. For example most opinions will indicate that if the foreign party goes into bankruptcy that will limit the ability to enforce obligations against it. Similarly, rights may be lost when statutory limitation periods expire. In certain countries enforcement of obligations may be subject to obligations of good faith and fair dealing, and the foreign legal opinion will normally point this out by way of qualification. The foreign legal opinion will typically express opinions on various issues which might not ordinarily be governed by the laws of the foreign country under its own conflict of laws system. Because a cross border transaction might end up being considered by the courts of any of a number of countries, the addressee(s) of the opinion will wish to be assured that all relevant issues, if determined by that foreign law, would likely be resolved satisfactorily. The courts of a third country may apply different choice of law rules to determine the "lex causae" of a particular issue to the courts of the foreign country. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=43597196 | 474,819 |
Emma Pooley On 2 January 2015 Pooley was a member of the winning team on "Christmas University Challenge", representing Trinity Hall, Cambridge who defeated Balliol College, Oxford, the University of Edinburgh and the University of Hull. Her teammates were international rower Tom James, novelist Adam Mars-Jones and actor Dan Starkey. Pooley has lived in or near Zurich in Switzerland since 2006, and in December 2013 completed her PhD in geotechnical engineering at ETH Zurich, supervised by Sarah Springman, a former British triathlete who is a vice-president of the International Triathlon Union. She received an honorary Doctorate of Civil Law from the University of East Anglia in July 2012. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17685876 | 313,835 |
Sputnik 1 The first, named Sputnik 40 to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the launch of Sputnik 1, was deployed in November 1997. Sputnik 41 was launched a year later, and Sputnik 99 was deployed in February 1999. A fourth replica was launched, but never deployed, and was destroyed when Mir was deorbited. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=28484 | 381,452 |
New England Biotech Association The (NEBA) is a coalition of biotechnology companies, academic institutions, pharmaceutical companies, and trade organizations from all six New England States. NEBA serves as a regional policy and public affairs voice for the biotechnology and biopharmaceutical industry. NEBA is a non-profit, member driven organization, with over 600 members. The Chairman of NEBA is Paul Pescatello, Director of Connecticut United for Research Excellence -(CURE.) In 2010, NEBA advocated against measures that would harm the biotechnology industry in Maine and other New England states. The organization also launched a website www.MassRxHelp.org to help consumers save money on prescription medications. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20165277 | 147,624 |
Lattice and bridged-T equalizers <br> Firstly, the lattice impedance Za can be expressed as the ratio of two polynomials in (jf) formula_17 In this expression, the impedance coefficients a, b, etc., one of which is unity and some may be zero, are algebraic combinations of the network elements. For any given type of network, the coefficients are fixed by the elements, and vice versa. Secondly, the propagation constant Γ can be found from formula_18 <br> in which g, g ,h, etc. are algebraic functions of a, b, etc. From this, the attenuation constant can be derived and expressed as a function of frequency. (It was the usual practice in the 1920s to display attenuation as a positive parameter, so the response of a low pass filter was displayed as a positively rising curve, with increasing frequency). For the attenuation constant, the expression is of the form: formula_19 <br> which is a ratio of two polynomials in f, and in which the coefficients could be determined from the known data, or measurements. Rearranging this, Zobel obtained the “attenuation linear equation”, which holds at all frequencies, thus: formula_20 <br> By having attenuation data at sufficient data points (frequencies), a family of simultaneous equations can be solved to give the values of P, Q, P, Q, etc. From these results, Zobel showed, in the Appendix of his paper how, for each prototype equalizer circuit, it was possible to derive the component values for that section | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=55717769 | 390,795 |
Kinetic isotope effect In the intramolecular case, however, the product ratio is determined by the proton transfer that occurs after the nucleophilic attack, a process for which there is a substantial KIE of 2.6. Thus, Experiments A, B, and C will give results of differing levels of precision and require different experimental setup and ways of analyzing data. As a result, the feasibility of each type of experiment will depend on the kinetic and stoichiometric profile of the reaction, as well as the physical characteristics of the reaction mixture (e.g., homogeneous vs. heterogeneous). Moreover, as noted in the paragraph above, the experiments provide kinetic isotope effect data for different steps of a multi-step reaction, depending on the relative locations of the rate-limiting step, product-determining steps, and/or C-H/D cleavage step. The hypothetical examples below illustrate common scenarios. Consider the following reaction coordinate diagram. For a reaction with this profile, all three experiments (A, B, and C) will yield a significant primary kinetic isotope effect: On the other hand, if a reaction follows the following energy profile, in which the C-H or C-D bond cleavage is irreversible but occurs after the rate-determining step (RDS), no significant kinetic isotope effect will be observed with Experiment A, since the overall rate is not affected by the isotopic substitution | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1106771 | 39,020 |
Convective available potential energy The temperature profile of the atmosphere, the change in temperature, the degree that it cools with height, is the lapse rate. When the rising air parcel cools more slowly than the surrounding atmosphere, it remains warmer and less dense. The parcel continues to rise freely (convectively; without mechanical lift) through the atmosphere until it reaches an area of air less dense (warmer) than itself. The amount, and shape, of the positive-buoyancy area modulates the speed of updrafts, thus extreme CAPE can result in explosive thunderstorm development; such rapid development usually occurs when CAPE stored by a capping inversion is released when the "lid" is broken by heating or mechanical lift. The amount of CAPE also modulates how low-level vorticity is entrained and then stretched in the updraft, with importance to tornadogenesis. The most important CAPE for tornadoes is within the lowest 1 to 3 km (0.6 to 1.9 mi) of the atmosphere, whilst deep layer CAPE and the width of CAPE at mid-levels is important for supercells. Tornado outbreaks tend to occur within high CAPE environments. Large CAPE is required for the production of very large hail, owing to updraft strength, although a rotating updraft may be stronger with less CAPE. Large CAPE also promotes lightning activity. Two notable days for severe weather exhibited CAPE values over 5 kJ/kg. Two hours before the 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak occurred on May 3, 1999, the CAPE value sounding at Oklahoma City was at 5.89 kJ/kg | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1200324 | 318,033 |
Donald Sadoway 091 Introduction to Solid State Chemistry at MIT, one of the largest classes at MIT. Sadoway's animated teaching style was popular with students and freshman enrollment in the course steadily increased through 2010. In the fall of 2007, the number of students registering for 3.091 reached 570 students, over half the freshman class. The largest lecture hall available on campus seats 566 students, enough to amply house the class. Sadoway much preferred teaching in one of the smaller lecture halls, seating only 450; as such, the Institute had to take the unprecedented step of streaming digital video of the lecture into an overflow room to accommodate all the students interested in taking the course. In contrast, most classes at MIT are relatively small with approximately 60% of classes at MIT having fewer than 20 students. The popularity of this course has reached outside of the MIT campus as a result of the MIT OpenCourseWare initiative. This is seen in a comment by Bill Gates who told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer "... Everybody should watch chemistry lectures -- they're far better than you think. Don Sadoway, MIT -- best chemistry lessons anywhere. Unbelievable". Sadoway's lectures often included the history of science, especially with respect to the Nobel Prize. Sadoway gave out "library assignments" in which he asked students to research Nobel Prize–winning papers. He began his lectures by playing music, which has some connection with the lecture's material | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=6909686 | 55,621 |
Shift work Longer shifts are also associated with more injuries and accidents: 10-hour shifts had 13% more and 12-hour shifts had 28% more than 8-hour shifts. Other studies have shown a link between fatigue and workplace injuries and accidents. Workers with sleep deprivation are far more likely to be injured or involved in an accident. One study suggests that, for those working a night shift (such as 23:00 to 07:00), it may be advantageous to sleep in the evening (14:00 to 22:00) rather than the morning (08:00 to 16:00). The study's evening sleep subjects had 37% fewer episodes of attentional impairment than the morning sleepers. There are four major determinants of cognitive performance and alertness in healthy shift-workers. They are: circadian phase, sleep inertia, acute sleep deprivation and chronic sleep deficit. A cross-sectional study investigated the relationship between several sleep assessment criteria and different shift work schedules (3-day, 6-day, 9-day and 21-day shift) and a control group of day shift work in Korean firefighters. The results found that all shift work groups exhibited significant decreased total sleep time (TST) and decreased sleep efficiency in the night shift but efficiency increased in the rest day. Between-group analysis of the different shift work groups revealed that day shift sleep efficiency was significantly higher in the 6-day shift while night shift sleep efficiency was significantly lower in the 21-day shift in comparison to other shift groups ("p" < 0.05) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1051985 | 461,496 |
Common-ion effect 32 x 10 M. However in a solution that is 0.0200 M in barium nitrate, Ba(NO), the increase in the common ion barium leads to a decrease in iodate ion concentration. The solubility is therefore reduced to 1.40 x 10 M, about five times smaller. A practical example used very widely in areas drawing drinking water from chalk or limestone aquifers is the addition of sodium carbonate to the raw water to reduce the hardness of the water. In the water treatment process, highly soluble sodium carbonate salt is added to precipitate out sparingly soluble calcium carbonate. The very pure and finely divided precipitate of calcium carbonate that is generated is a valuable by-product used in the manufacture of toothpaste. The salting-out process used in the manufacture of soaps benefits from the common-ion effect. Soaps are sodium salts of fatty acids. Addition of sodium chloride reduces the solubility of the soap salts. The soaps precipitate due to a combination of common-ion effect and increased ionic strength. Sea, brackish and other waters that contain appreciable amount of sodium ions (Na) interfere with the normal behavior of soap because of common-ion effect. In the presence of excess Na, the solubility of soap salts is reduced, making the soap less effective. A buffer solution contains an acid and its conjugate base or a base and its conjugate acid. Addition of the conjugate ion will result in a change of pH of the buffer solution | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=338192 | 59,939 |
Microbial biodegradation Many novel biochemical reactions were discovered enabling the respective metabolic pathways, but progress in the molecular understanding of these bacteria was rather slow, since genetic systems are not readily applicable for most of them. However, with the increasing application of genomics in the field of environmental microbiology, a new and promising perspective is now at hand to obtain molecular insights into these new metabolic properties. Several complete genome sequences were determined during the last few years from bacteria capable of anaerobic organic pollutant degradation. The ~4.7 Mb genome of the facultative denitrifying "Aromatoleum aromaticum" strain EbN1 was the first to be determined for an anaerobic hydrocarbon degrader (using toluene or ethylbenzene as substrates). The genome sequence revealed about two dozen gene clusters (including several paralogs) coding for a complex catabolic network for anaerobic and aerobic degradation of aromatic compounds. The genome sequence forms the basis for current detailed studies on regulation of pathways and enzyme structures. Further genomes of anaerobic hydrocarbon degrading bacteria were recently completed for the iron-reducing species "Geobacter metallireducens" (accession nr. NC_007517) and the perchlorate-reducing "Dechloromonas aromatica" (accession nr. NC_007298), but these are not yet evaluated in formal publications | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=13475684 | 265,179 |
NEMA connector According to NEMA, NEMA 17 straight-blade devices are "reserved for future configurations," so no designs for this series exist and no devices have been manufactured. There are however NEMA L17 series locking devices specified and available for these applications. NEMA 18 connectors are similar to 14 and 15-series devices, but for 120Y208 V three-phase with no ground conductor (hot-hot-hot-neutral). NEMA 19 series devices are specified for 277/480Y three-pole, four-wire, non-grounding devices. According to NEMA, this is "reserved for future configurations," so no designs for this series exist and no devices have been manufactured. NEMA 20 series devices are specified for 347/600Y three-pole, four-wire, non-grounding devices. According to NEMA, this is "reserved for future configurations," so no designs for this series exist and no devices have been manufactured. NEMA 21 series devices are specified for three-pole plus neutral, five-wire grounding devices for 3 phase 120/208Y supplies. According to NEMA, NEMA 21 straight-blade devices are "reserved for future configurations," so no designs for this series exist and no devices have been manufactured. There are however NEMA L21 series locking devices for 20 and 30 amp devices specified and available for these applications. NEMA 22 series devices are specified for three-pole plus neutral, five-wire grounding devices for 3 phase 277/480Y supplies | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=5551009 | 385,926 |
Penn–Calvert boundary dispute However, the charter only granted the Calverts the right to "uncultivated" lands. The colonists arrived in Maryland in 1634, but made no attempts at surveying the northern border or colonizing the area along the Delaware Bay. The colony of New Sweden was established north of the Delaware Bay, at Fort Christina near present-day Wilmington, Delaware, in 1638. Viewing this as an incursion into their territory, the Dutch in 1651 established a new outpost, Fort Casimir at present-day New Castle, Delaware, south of Fort Christina. The Swedes conquered Fort Casimir in 1654, but Peter Stuyvesant, the Director-General of New Netherland, retaliated and in 1655, he both took back Fort Casmir and conquered Fort Christina. Stuyvesant renamed Fort Casimir as New Amstel, and placed a deputy there to oversee the entire region, reporting back to Stuyvesant at New Amsterdam. The English objected to the colonization attempts of both Sweden and the Netherlands and Maryland sent a delegate to New Amstel in 1659 protesting their presence on land granted to Lord Baltimore. However, it wasn't until 1664 when the English would formally act against their colonial rivals. That year King Charles II granted his brother James, the Duke of York, all the land between the Connecticut and Delaware Rivers. Fort Amsterdam was captured on September 8, 1664, and Stuyvesant formally surrendered the territories of New Netherland the next day | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=46182424 | 218,546 |
Long take The ASL is a relatively recent measure, devised by film scholar Barry Salt in the 1970s as a method of statistically analyzing the editing patterns both of individual films and of groups of films (for example, of the films made by a particular director or made in a particular period). Film scholars who have made use of ASL in their work include David Bordwell and Yuri Tsivian. Tsivian used the ASL as a tool for his analysis of D. W. Griffith's "Intolerance" (ASL 5.9 seconds) in a 2005 article. Tsivian also helped launch a website called Cinemetrics, where visitors can measure, record, and read ASL statistics. A "one-shot feature film" (also called "continuous shot feature film") is a full-length movie filmed in one long take by a single camera, or manufactured to give the impression that it was. Given the extreme difficulty of the exercise and the technical requirements for a long lasting continuous shot, such full feature films have only been possible since the advent of digital movie cameras. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=952407 | 235,680 |
Provisioning (telecommunications) As a tertiary responsibility, it tries to reduce the amount of custom configuration using boot image control and other methods that radically reduce the number of different configurations involved. Discussion of provisioning often appears in the context of virtualization, orchestration, utility computing, cloud computing, and open-configuration concepts and projects. For instance, the OASIS Provisioning Services Technical Committee (PSTC) defines an XML-based framework for exchanging user, resource, and service-provisioning information - SPML (Service Provisioning Markup Language) for "managing the provisioning and allocation of identity information and system resources within and between organizations". Once provisioning has taken place, the process of SysOpping ensures the maintenance of services to the expected standards. Provisioning thus refers only to the setup or startup part of the service operation, and SysOpping to the ongoing support. One type of provisioning. The services which are assigned to the customer in the customer relationship management (CRM) have to be provisioned on the network element which is enabling the service and allows the customer to actually use the service. The relation between a service configured in the CRM and a service on the network elements is not necessarily a one-to-one relationship; for example, services like Microsoft Media Server (mms://) can be enabled by more than one network element | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=41592 | 379,678 |
Allotropes of phosphorus There have been two issues over the years: the first was red phosphorus in epoxy molding compounds inducing elevated leakage current in semiconductor devices and the second was acceleration of hydrolysis reactions in PBT insulating material. Red phosphorus can also be used in the illicit production of narcotics, including some recipes for methamphetamine. Red phosphorus can be used as an elemental photocatalyst for hydrogen formation from the water. They display a steady hydrogen evolution rates of 633ℳmol/(h•g) by the formation of small-sized fibrous phosphorus. Monoclinic phosphorus, or violet phosphorus, is also known as Hittorf's metallic phosphorus. In 1865, Johann Wilhelm Hittorf heated red phosphorus in a sealed tube at 530 °C. The upper part of the tube was kept at 444 °C. Brilliant opaque monoclinic, or rhombohedral, crystals sublimed as a result. Violet phosphorus can also be prepared by dissolving white phosphorus in molten lead in a sealed tube at 500 °C for 18 hours. Upon slow cooling, Hittorf's allotrope crystallises out. The crystals can be revealed by dissolving the lead in dilute nitric acid followed by boiling in concentrated hydrochloric acid. In addition, a fibrous form exists with similar phosphorus cages. The lattice structure of violet phosphorus was presented by Thurn and Krebs in 1969. Imaginary frequencies, indicating the irrationalities or instabilities of the structure, were obtained for the reported violet structure from 1969 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14688273 | 46,615 |
Binding problem The binding problem is a term used at the interface between neuroscience, cognitive science and philosophy of mind that has multiple meanings. Firstly, there is the segregation problem: a practical computational problem of how brains segregate elements in complex patterns of sensory input so that they are allocated to discrete "objects". In other words, when looking at a blue square and a yellow circle, what neural mechanisms ensure that the square is perceived as blue and the circle as yellow, and not vice versa? The segregation problem is sometimes called BP1. Secondly, there is the combination problem: the problem of how objects, background and abstract or emotional features are combined into a single experience. The combination problem is sometimes called BP2. However, the difference between these two problems is not always clear. Moreover, the historical literature is often ambiguous as to whether it is addressing the segregation or the combination problem. The segregation problem, also known as binding problem 1 (BP1), is the problem of how brains segregate elements in complex patterns of sensory input so that they are allocated to discrete "objects". John Raymond Smythies defined BP1 in these terms: "How is the representation of information built up in the neural networks that there is one single object 'out there' and not a mere collection of separate shapes, colours and movements?" Revonsuo refers to this as the problem of "stimulus-related binding" – of sorting stimuli | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=941613 | 145,466 |
Ion association The anion vibration frequency is "shifted" on formation of ion pairs and other associates, and the extent of the shift gives information about the nature of the species. Other monovalent anions that have been studied include nitrate, nitrite and azide. Ion pairs of monatomic anions, such as halide ions, cannot be studied by this technique. NMR spectroscopy is not very useful, as association/dissociation reactions tend to be fast on the NMR time scale, giving time-averaged signals of the cation and/or anion. Nearly the same shift of vibration frequency is observed for solvent-shared ion pairs of LiCN, Be(CN) and Al(CN) in liquid ammonia. The extent of this type of ion pairing decreases as the size of the cation increases. Thus, solvent-shared ion pairs are characterized by a rather small shift of vibration frequency with respect to the "free" solvated anion, and the value of the shift is not strongly dependent on the nature of the cation. The shift for contact ion pairs is, by contrast, strongly dependent on the nature of the cation and decreases linearly with the ratio of the cations charge to the squared radius: The extent of contact ion pairing can be estimated from the relative intensities of the bands due to the ion pair and free ion. It is greater with the larger cations. This is counter to the trend expected if coulombic energy were the determining factor | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=22649721 | 17,389 |
Closure (business) Closure is the term used to refer to the actions necessary when it is no longer necessary or possible for a business or other organization to continue to operate. Closure may be the result of a bankruptcy, where the organization lacks sufficient funds to continue operations, as a result of the proprietor of the business dying, as a result of a business being purchased by another organization (or a competitor) and shut down as superfluous, or because it is the non-surviving entity in a corporate merger. A closure may occur because the purpose for which the organization was created is no longer necessary. While a closure is typically of a business or a non-profit organization, any entity which is created by human beings can be subject to a closure, from a single church to a whole religion, up to and including an entire country if, for some reason, it ceases to exist. Closures are of two types, voluntary or involuntary. Voluntary closures of organizations are much rarer than involuntary ones, as, in the absence of some change making operations impossible or unnecessary, most operations will continue until something happens that causes a change requiring this situation. The most common form of voluntary closure would be when those involved in an organization such as a social club, a band, or other non-profit organization decide to cease operating. Once the organization has paid any outstanding debts and completed any pending operations, closure may simply mean that the organization ceases to exist | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=18958074 | 481,208 |
Bertrand Russell Russell was 17 years old in the summer of 1889 when he met the family of Alys Pearsall Smith, an American Quaker five years older, who was a graduate of Bryn Mawr College near Philadelphia. He became a friend of the Pearsall Smith family—they knew him primarily as "Lord John's grandson" and enjoyed showing him off. He soon fell in love with the puritanical, high-minded Alys, and, contrary to his grandmother's wishes, married her on 13 December 1894. Their marriage began to fall apart in 1901 when it occurred to Russell, while he was cycling, that he no longer loved her. She asked him if he loved her and he replied that he did not. Russell also disliked Alys's mother, finding her controlling and cruel. It was to be a hollow shell of a marriage. A lengthy period of separation began in 1911 with Russell's affair with Lady Ottoline Morrell, and he and Alys finally divorced in 1921 to enable Russell to remarry. During his years of separation from Alys, Russell had passionate (and often simultaneous) affairs with a number of women, including Morrell and the actress Lady Constance Malleson. Some have suggested that at this point he had an affair with Vivienne Haigh-Wood, the English governess and writer, and first wife of T. S. Eliot. Russell began his published work in 1896 with "German Social Democracy", a study in politics that was an early indication of a lifelong interest in political and social theory. In 1896 he taught German social democracy at the London School of Economics | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4163 | 296,419 |
Voigt effect This cycle was obtained by sending a linearly polarized light along the [110] direction with an incident angle of approximately 3° (more details can be found in ), and measuring the rotation due to magneto-optical effects of the reflected light beam. In contrast to the common longitudinal/polar Kerr effect, the hysteresis cycle is even with respect to the magnetization, which is a signature of the Voigt effect. This cycle was obtained with a light incidence very close to normal, and it also exhibits a small odd part; a correct treatment has to be carried out in order to extract the symmetric part of the hysteresis corresponding to the Voigt effect, and the asymmetric part corresponding to the longitudinal Kerr effect. In the case of the hysteresis presented here, the field was applied along the [1-10] direction. The switching mechanism is as follow : The simulation of this scenario is given in the figure 2, with As one can see, the simulated hysteresis is qualitatively the same with respect to the experimental one. Nottice that the amplitude at formula_109 or formula_110 are approximately twice of formula_114 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=5424364 | 401,313 |
Computer Underground Digest The (CuD) was a weekly online newsletter on early Internet cultural, social, and legal issues published by Gordon Meyer and Jim Thomas from March 1990 to March 2000. Meyer and Thomas were Criminal Justice professors at Northern Illinois University, and intended the newsletter to cover topical social and legal issues generated during the rise of the telecommunications and the Internet. It existed primarily as an email mailing list and on USENET, though its archives were later provided on a website. The newsletter came to prominence when it published legal commentary and updates concerning the "hacker crackdowns" and federal indictments of Leonard Rose and Craig Neidorf of Phrack. The CuD published commentary from its membership on subjects including the legal and social implications of the growing Internet (and later the web), book reviews of topical publications, and many off-topic postings by its readership. Overtaken by the growth of online forums on the web, it ceased publication in March, 2000. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=13244260 | 203,644 |
Use value Even so, the investor is obviously interested in "the state of the market" for the enterprise's products—if certain products are being used less or used more, this affects sales and profits. So to evaluate "the state of the market", the investor needs knowledge about the place of a product in the value chain and how it is being used. Often, Marx assumed in "Das Kapital" for argument's sake that supply and demand will balance, and that products do sell. Even so, Marx carefully defines the production process both as a labour process creating use-values, and a valorisation process creating new value. He asserts only that "capital in general" as an abstract social power, or as a property claim to surplus value, is indifferent to particular use-values—what matters in this financial relation is only whether more value can be appropriated through the exchanges that occur. Most share-holders are not interested in whether a company actually satisfies customers, they want an adequate profit on their investment (but a countertrend is so-called "socially responsible investing"). In modern times, business leaders are often very concerned with total quality management in production, which has become the object of scientific studies, as well as a new source of industrial conflict, since attempts are made to integrate "everything" a worker is and does (both his creative potential and how he relates to others) in the battle for improved quality | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=843107 | 517,015 |
Electronic stability control Ford and Toyota announced that all their North American vehicles would be equipped with ESC standard by the end of 2009 (it was standard on Toyota SUVs as of 2004, and after the 2011 model year, all Lexus, Toyota, and Scion vehicles had ESC; the last one to get it was the 2011 model-year Scion tC). However, as of November 2010, Ford still sold models in North America without ESC. General Motors had made a similar announcement for the end of 2010. In 2009, the European Union decided to make ESC mandatory. Since November 1, 2011, EU type approval is only granted to models equipped with ESC. Since November 1, 2014, ESC has been required on all newly registered cars in the EU. The NHTSA required all new passenger vehicles sold in the US to be equipped with ESC as of the 2012 model year, and estimated it will prevent 5,300–9,600 annual fatalities. A similar requirement has been proposed for new trucks and buses, but it has not yet been finalized. During normal driving, ESC continuously monitors steering and vehicle direction. It compares the driver's intended direction (determined by the measured steering wheel angle) to the vehicle's actual direction (determined through measured lateral acceleration, vehicle rotation, and individual road wheel speeds). ESC intervenes only when it detects a probable loss of steering control, such as when the vehicle is not going where the driver is steering | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=420943 | 443,515 |
Halt and Catch Fire (computing) In computer engineering, Halt and Catch Fire, known by the assembly mnemonic HCF, is an idiom referring to a computer machine code instruction that causes the computer's central processing unit (CPU) to cease meaningful operation, typically requiring a restart of the computer. It originally referred to a fictitious instruction in IBM System/360 computers, making a joke about its numerous non-obvious instruction mnemonics. With the advent of the MC6800, a design flaw was discovered by the programmers. Due to incomplete opcode decoding, two illegal opcodes, 0x9D and 0xDD, will cause the program counter on the processor to increment endlessly, which locks the processor until reset. Those codes have been unofficially named HCF. During the design process of MC6802, engineers originally planned to remove this instruction, but kept it as-is for testing purposes. As a result, HCF was officially recognized as a real instruction. Later, HCF became a humorous catch-all term for instructions that may freeze a processor, including intentional instructions for testing purposes, and unintentional illegal instructions. Some are considered hardware defects, and if the system is shared, a malicious user can execute it to launch a denial-of-service attack | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=376486 | 99,969 |
Autonomous cargo ship This would allow autonomous ships to be built lighter and use less of its size for the crew, reducing fuel consumption and environmental impact. Rolls Royce have argued that low-tech piracy activities aimed towards ships and their crews will reduce as a result of ships becoming autonomous. Ships can be constructed so that it will be difficult to board them, with cargo access and manual controls being made unavailable. In the case of a piracy event, control centers can immobilize the ship or having it sail a specific course until naval authorities can reach it. Without the presence of a crew to hold hostage and ransom, the cargo ships are argued to be less valuable target for pirates. Currently most crews on board commercial cargo ships primarily consist of navigational officers and engine crews who maintain the ship's propulsion machinery, auxiliary machinery, generators for procuring electricity, separators, pumps, cooling system. These systems are often quite complex and require regularly maintenance. Increasing redundancy is seen as the solution, either by having two engine systems or by using different propulsion methods that contain fewer moving parts such as electricity on . International regulation is seen as one of the biggest challenges facing autonomous ships | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=60910297 | 386,996 |
Iron overload, which may occur from high consumption of red meat, may initiate tumor growth and increase susceptibility to cancer onset, particularly for colorectal cancer. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14734 | 41,333 |
Water of crystallization Historically, the structures of many hydrates were unknown, and the dot in the formula of a hydrate was employed to specify the composition without indicating how the water is bound. Examples: For many salts, the exact bonding of the water is unimportant because the water molecules are labilized upon dissolution. For example, an aqueous solution prepared from CuSO and anhydrous CuSO behave identically. Therefore, knowledge of the degree of hydration is important only for determining the equivalent weight: one mole of CuSO weighs more than one mole of CuSO. In some cases, the degree of hydration can be critical to the resulting chemical properties. For example, anhydrous RhCl is not soluble in water and is relatively useless in organometallic chemistry whereas RhCl is versatile. Similarly, hydrated AlCl is a poor Lewis acid and thus inactive as a catalyst for Friedel-Crafts reactions. Samples of AlCl must therefore be protected from atmospheric moisture to preclude the formation of hydrates. Crystals of hydrated copper(II) sulfate consist of [Cu(HO)] centers linked to SO ions. Copper is surrounded by six oxygen atoms, provided by two different sulfate groups and four molecules of water. A fifth water resides elsewhere in the framework but does not bind directly to copper. The cobalt chloride mentioned above occurs as [Co(HO)] and Cl. In tin chloride, each Sn(II) center is pyramidal (mean O/Cl-Sn-O/Cl angle is 83°) being bound to two chloride ions and one water | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1249541 | 50,091 |
Productivity (ONS 3, 20) Technology has enabled massive personal productivity gains—computers, spreadsheets, email, and other advances have made it possible for a knowledge worker to seemingly produce more in a day than was previously possible in a year. Environmental factors such as sleep and leisure play a significant role in work productivity and received wage. Drivers of productivity growth for creative and knowledge workers include improved or intensified exchange with peers or co-workers, as more productive peers have a stimulating effect on one's own productivity. is influenced by effective supervision and job satisfaction. An effective or knowledgeable supervisor (for example a supervisor who uses the Management by objectives method) has an easier time motivating their employees to produce more in quantity and quality. An employee who has an effective supervisor, motivating them to be more productive is likely to experience a new level of job satisfaction thereby becoming a driver of productivity itself. There is also considerable evidence to support improved productivity through operant conditioning reinforcement, successful gamification engagement, research-based recommendations on principles and implementation guidelines for using monetary rewards effectively, and recognition, based in social cognitive theory, which builds upon self-efficacy. Workplace bullying results in a loss of productivity, as measured by self-rated job performance | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=424899 | 477,451 |
Fabric computing or unified computing involves constructing a computing fabric consisting of interconnected nodes that look like a "weave" or a "fabric" when viewed/envisaged collectively from a distance. Usually the phrase refers to a consolidated high-performance computing system consisting of loosely coupled storage, networking and parallel processing functions linked by high bandwidth interconnects (such as 10 Gigabit Ethernet and InfiniBand) but the term has also been used to describe platforms such as the Azure Services Platform and grid computing in general (where the common theme is interconnected nodes that appear as a single logical unit). The fundamental components of fabrics are "nodes" (processor(s), memory, and/or peripherals) and "links" (functional connections between nodes). While the term "fabric" has also been used in association with storage area networks and with switched fabric networking, the introduction of compute resources provides a complete "unified" computing system. Other terms used to describe such fabrics include "unified fabric", "data center fabric" and "unified data center fabric". Ian Foster, director of the Computation Institute at the Argonne National Laboratory and University of Chicago suggested in 2007 that grid computing "fabrics" were "poised to become the underpinning for next-generation enterprise IT architectures and be used by a much greater part of many organizations" | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=22133845 | 113,095 |
Mill scale Mill scale, often shortened to just scale, is the flaky surface of hot rolled steel, consisting of the mixed iron oxides iron(II) oxide (FeO), iron(III) oxide (FeO), and iron(II,III) oxide (FeO, magnetite). is formed on the outer surfaces of plates, sheets or profiles when they are being produced by rolling red hot iron or steel billets in rolling mills. is bluish-black in color. It is usually less than thick, and initially adheres to the steel surface and protects it from atmospheric corrosion provided no break occurs in this coating. Because it is electrochemically cathodic to steel, any break in the mill scale coating will cause accelerated corrosion of steel exposed at the break. is thus a boon for a while until its coating breaks due to handling of the steel product or due to any other mechanical cause. becomes a nuisance when the steel is to be processed. Any paint applied over it is wasted, since it will come off with the scale as moisture-laden air gets under it. Thus mill scale can be removed from steel surfaces by flame cleaning, pickling, or abrasive blasting, which are all tedious operations that consume energy. This is why shipbuilders and steel fixers used to leave steel and rebar delivered freshly rolled from mills out in the open to allow it to 'weather' until most of the scale fell off due to atmospheric action. Nowadays, most steel mills can supply their product with mill scale removed and steel coated with shop primers over which welding or painting can be done safely | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=22696307 | 17,410 |
Right to know "Right to know", in the context of United States workplace and community environmental law, is the legal principle that the individual has the right to know the chemicals to which they may be exposed in their daily living. It is embodied in federal law in the United States as well as in local laws in several states. "Right to Know" laws take two forms: Community Right to Know and Workplace Right to Know. Each grants certain rights to those groups. The "right to know" concept is included in Rachel Carson's book "Silent Spring". Environmental illness shares characteristics with common diseases. For example, cyanide exposure symptoms include weakness, headache, nausea, confusion, dizziness, seizures, cardiac arrest, and unconsciousness. Influenza and heart disease include the same symptoms. Cyanide is one of the most toxic known substances, and failure to obtain proper disclosure is likely to lead to improper or ineffective medical diagnosis and treatment. This can contribute to prolonged illness and death. regarding environmental hazard information is protected by Australian law, which is described at Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities. regarding workplace hazard information is protected by Australian law, which is described at Safe Work Australia and at Hazardous Substances Information System. regarding workplace hazard information is protected by Canadian law, which is described at WorkRights.ca | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9543027 | 472,987 |
Gene transfer agent Unlike phage, the well-studied GTAs appear to inject their DNA only across the first of the two membranes surrounding the recipient cytoplasm, and they use a different system, competence-derived rather than phage-derived, to transport one strand of the double-stranded DNA across the inner membrane into the cytoplasm. If the cell's recombinational repair machinery finds a chromosomal sequence very similar to the incoming DNA, it replaces the former with the latter by homologous recombination, mediated by the cell's RecA protein. I the sequences are not identical this will produce a cell with a new genetic combination. However, if the incoming DNA is not closely related to DNA sequences in the cell it will be degraded, and the cell will reuse its nucleotides for DNA replication. The GTA produced by the alphaproteobacterium "Rhodobacter capsulatus", named "R. capsulatus" GTA (RcGTA), is currently the best studied GTA. When laboratory cultures of "R. capsulatus" enter stationary phase, a subset of the bacterial population induces production of RcGTA, and the particles are subsequently released from the cells through cell lysis. Most of the RcGTA structural genes are encoded in a ~ 15 kb genetic cluster on the bacterial chromosome. However, other genes required for RcGTA function, such as the genes required for cell lysis, are located separately. RcGTA particles contain 4.5 kb DNA fragments, with even representation of the whole chromosome except for a 2-fold dip at the site of the RcGTA gene cluster | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29027916 | 178,009 |
Blit (computer terminal) In computing, the Blit was a programmable bitmap graphics terminal designed by Rob Pike and Bart Locanthi Jr. of Bell Labs in 1982. The Blit programmable bitmap graphics terminal was designed by Rob Pike and Bart Locanthi Jr. of Bell Labs in 1982. The Blit technology was commercialized by AT&T and Teletype. In 1984, the DMD (dot-mapped display) 5620 was released, followed by models 630 MTG (multi-tasking graphics) in 1987 and 730 in 1989. The 5620 used a Western Electric 32000 processor (aka Bellmac 32) and had a 15" green phosphor display with 800×1024×1 resolution (66×88 characters in the initial text mode) interlaced at 30 Hz. The 630 and 730 had Motorola 68000 processors and a faster 1024×1024×1 monochrome display (most had orange displays, but some had white or green displays). The folk etymology for the "Blit" name is that it stands for "Bell Labs Intelligent Terminal", and its creators have also joked that it actually stood for "Bacon, Lettuce, and Interactive Tomato". However, Rob Pike's paper on the Blit explains that it was named after the second syllable of "bit blit", a common name for the bit-block transfer operation that is fundamental to the terminal's graphics. Its original nickname was "jerq", inspired by Three Rivers' PERQ graphic workstation. When initially switched on, the Blit looked like an ordinary textual "dumb" terminal, although taller than usual | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1449809 | 400,680 |
Lead shielding refers to the use of lead as a form of radiation protection to shield people or objects from radiation so as to reduce the effective dose. Lead can effectively attenuate certain kinds of radiation because of its high density and high atomic number; principally, it is effective at stopping gamma rays and x-rays. Lead's high density is caused by the combination of its high atomic mass and the relatively small size of its bond lengths and atomic radius. The high atomic mass means that more electrons are needed to maintain a neutral charge and the small bond length and a small atomic radius means that many atoms can be packed into a particular lead structure. Because of lead's density and large number of electrons, it is well suited to scattering x-rays and gamma-rays. These rays form photons, a type of boson, which impart energy onto electrons when they come into contact. Without a lead shield, the electrons within a person's body would be affected, which could damage their DNA. When the radiation attempts to pass through lead, its electrons absorb and scatter the energy. Eventually though, the lead will degrade from the energy to which it is exposed. However, lead is not effective against all types of radiation. High energy electrons (including beta radiation) incident on lead may create bremsstrahlung radiation, which is potentially more dangerous to tissue than the original radiation. Furthermore, lead is not a particularly effective absorber of neutron radiation | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3514565 | 61,420 |
Environmental radioactivity The releases from nuclear reactor accidents and bomb detonations will contain a greater amount of the short-lived radioisotopes (when the amounts are expressed in activity Bq)). An example of a short-lived fission product is iodine-131, this can also be formed as an activation product by the neutron activation of tellurium. In both bomb fallout and a release from a power reactor accident, the short-lived isotopes cause the dose rate on day one to be much higher than that which will be experienced at the same site many days later. This holds true even if no attempts at decontamination are made. In the graphs below, the total gamma dose rate and the share of the dose due to each main isotope released by the Chernobyl accident are shown. An example of a medium lived is Cs, which has a half-life of 30 years. Caesium is released in bomb fallout and from the nuclear fuel cycle. A paper has been written on the radioactivity in oysters found in the Irish Sea, these were found by gamma spectroscopy to contain Ce, Ce, Ru, Ru, Cs, Zr and Nb. In addition, a zinc activation product (Zn) was found, this is thought to be due to the corrosion of magnox fuel cladding in cooling ponds. The concentration of all these isotopes in the Irish Sea attributable to nuclear facilities such as Sellafield has significantly decreased in recent decades | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=5234576 | 78,450 |
Design rationale In software architecture and outcourcing solution design, it can justify the outcome of architectural decisions and serve as a design guide. In civil engineering, it helps to coordinate the variety of work that the designers do at the same time in different areas of a construction project. It also help the designers to understand and respect each other's ideas and resolve any possible issues. The DR can also be used by the project managers to maintain their project plan and the project status up to date. Also, the project team members who missed a design meeting can refer back the DR to learn what was discussed on a particular topic. The unresolved issues captured in DR could be used to organize further meetings on those topics. helps the designers to avoid the same mistakes made in the previous design. This can also be helpful to avoid duplication of work. In some cases DR could save time and money when a software system is upgraded from its previous versions. There are several books and articles that provide excellent surveys of rationale approaches applied to HCI, Engineering Design and Software Engineering. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=10710154 | 200,999 |
Latter Day Saint movement and engraved metal plates Some examples of brief hieroglyphic inscriptions on bronze are known from ancient Egypt. Some ancient European and Mesopotamian cultures did keep short records on metal plates, but extant examples are rare, have comparatively brief texts, and are extremely thin. A six-page, 24-carat gold book bound together with rings, alleged to be written in Etruscan, was found in Bulgaria; and in 2005, an eight-page golden codex bound with rings, allegedly from the Achaemenid period, was recovered from smugglers by the Iranian police. The Pyrgi Tablets (now at the National Etruscan Museum, Rome) are gold plates with a bilingual Phoenician-Etruscan text. In the caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, archaeologists later discovered the "Copper Scroll," two rolled sheets of copper that may describe locations where treasures of the Second Temple of Jerusalem may have been hidden. Another Israelite example is the tiny "Silver Scrolls" dated to the 7th century BCE (First Temple period), containing just a few verses of scripture, perhaps the oldest extant passages of the Old Testament. Nevertheless, there is no known extant example of writing on metal plates from the ancient Mediterranean longer than the eight-page Persian codex, and none from any ancient civilization in the Western Hemisphere. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21852334 | 33,788 |
Bridge scour This can lead to overly conservative design values for scour in low risk or non-critical hydrologic conditions. Thus, equation improvements are continued to be made in an effort to minimize the underestimation and overestimation of scour. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20943440 | 429,487 |
Direct-quadrature-zero transformation The DQZ transformation uses the Clarke transform to convert "ABC"-referenced vectors into two differential-mode components (i.e., "X" and "Y") and one common-mode component (i.e., "Z") and then applies the Park transform to rotate the reference frame about the "Z" axis at some given speed. The "X" component becomes the "D" component, which is in "direct" alignment with the vector of rotation, and the "Y" component becomes the "Q" component, which is at a "quadrature" angle to the direct component. The DQZ transform is For computational efficiency, it makes sense to keep the Clarke and Park transforms separate and not combine them into one transform. A computationally-efficient implementation of the power-invariant Clarke transform is while its inverse is A computationally-efficient implementation of the power-variant Clarke transform is while its inverse is Evidently, the constant coefficients could be pre-calculated. A computationally-efficient implementation of the Park transform is while its inverse is It makes sense to only calculate co and si once if both the Park and inverse Park transforms are going to be used. In electric systems, very often the "A", "B", and "C" values are oscillating in such a way that the net vector is spinning. In a balanced system, the vector is spinning about the "Z" axis. Very often, it is helpful to rotate the reference frame such that the majority of the changes in the abc values, due to this spinning, are canceled out and any finer variations become more obvious | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20526418 | 221,053 |
Research Triangle The older, toll-free portion of the four-lane route—known as the Durham Freeway or the I.L. "Buck" Dean Expressway—traverses downtown Durham and extends through Park to I-40. The Durham Freeway is often used as a detour or alternate route for I-40 through southwestern Durham the Chapel Hill area in cases of traffic accident, congestion or road construction delays. The tolled portion of NC 147, called the Triangle Expressway—North Carolina's first modern toll road when it opened to traffic in late 2011—continues past I-40 to Toll NC 540. Both Toll NC 147 and Toll NC 540 are modern facilities which collect tolls using transponders and license plate photo-capture technology. A partnering system of multiple public transportation agencies currently serves the Triangle region under the joint GoTransit branding. Raleigh is served by the Capital Area Transit (CAT) municipal transit system, while Durham has the Durham Area Transit Authority (DATA) system. Chapel Hill is served by Chapel Hill Transit, and Cary is served by C-Tran public transit systems. However, Triangle Transit, formerly called the Triangle Transit Authority (TTA), works in cooperation with all area transit systems by offering transfers between its own routes and those of the other systems. Triangle Transit also coordinates an extensive vanpool and rideshare program that serves the region's larger employers and commute destinations | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=411765 | 5,250 |
WISE J0005+3737 WISE J0005+3737, full designation WISE J000517.48+373720.5, is a brown dwarf of spectral class T9, located in constellation Andromeda at approximately 23 light-years from Earth. was discovered in 2012 by Mace et al. from data, collected by Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) Earth-orbiting satellite — NASA infrared-wavelength 40 cm (16 in) space telescope, which mission lasted from December 2009 to February 2011. The discovery paper was published in March 2013. Trigonometric parallax of is not yet measured. Therefore, there are only distance estimates of this object, obtained by indirect — spectrophotometric — means (see table). distance estimates | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=35835864 | 221 |
Bulliform cell Bulliform cells or motor cells are large, bubble-shaped epidermal cells that occur in groups on the upper surface of the leaves of many monocots. These cells are present on the adaxial or the upper surface of the leaf. They are generally present near the midvein portion of the leaf and are shown to be large, empty and colourless. They are proposed, though not confirmed, to be involved in folding and unfolding of leaf tissue to control light intensity and reduce overall water loss. The first discussion of bulliform cells occurred in 1909 in the revised and expanded version of the "Plantesamfund" (Oecology of Plants) written by botanist Eugenius Warming for an English audience. One of the features he investigated was the phenomenon of leaf rolling in the Poaceae and Cyperaceae families and how he noticed the bulliform cells, which he termed "hinge-cells", were on the epidermal layer of the leaf tissue, but deeper than the epidermal cells themselves and capable of folding distortion along with the leaf. In the early 1990s, it was suggested by Fahn and Cutler that, at least in grasses, bulliform cells developed as a form of xerophytic adaptation. This was supported by evidence from decades earlier that showed that bulliform cells had larger development in species that lived in a desert ecosystem with a need to control water and salt levels | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12318264 | 11,942 |
Paraquat Helicopters were used to spray the herbicides paraquat and 2,4-D on the fields; marijuana contaminated with these substances began to show up in US markets, leading to debate about the program. Perhaps in an attempt to deter people from using cannabis, representatives of the program warned that spraying rendered the crop unsafe to smoke. Whether any injury came about due to the inhalation of paraquat-contaminated marijuana is uncertain. A 1995 study found that "no lung or other injury in cannabis users has ever been attributed to paraquat contamination". Also a United States Environmental Protection Agency manual states: "... toxic effects caused by this mechanism have been either very rare or nonexistent. Most paraquat that contaminates cannabis is pyrolyzed during smoking to dipyridyl, which is a product of combustion of the leaf material itself (including cannabis) and presents little toxic hazard." In a study by Imperial Chemical Industries, rats who inhaled paraquat showed development of squamous metaplasia in their respiratory tracts after a couple of weeks. This study was included in a report given to the State Department by the Mitre Corporation. The U.S. Public Health Service stated that "this study should not be used to calculate the safe inhalation dose of paraquat in humans." A large majority (93 percent) of fatalities from paraquat poisoning are suicides, which occur mostly in developing countries. For instance, in Samoa from 1979–2001, 70 percent of suicides were by paraquat poisoning | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1065741 | 146,016 |
CoSy (computer conferencing system) CoSy was selected by Byte Magazine to launch their BIX system in 1985 In addition to BIX, it was used to implement a similar British system named CIX, as well as numerous other installations such as CompuLink Network. CoSy was also chosen for The Open University's "electronic campus". Some rights to the software were later acquired by the British Columbia company SoftWords, who developed it into CoSy400 and added a simple web interface, before losing interest. When the BIX system closed down, several former "bixen" approached University of Guelph and SoftWords and obtained the right to release the original version of CoSy under the GPL. It is now developed as an open source project, and was the basis of the BIX-like NLZero (Noise Level Zero) conferencing service. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3141171 | 108,880 |
Feature recognition However, building feature recognition systems that function effectively on real industrial products has been elusive. A real product with hundreds of faces and end edges brings almost all the above approaches to a halt due to computational complexity. Furthermore, the features studied in these approaches are usually over simplified. The bulk of the feature recognition literature normally deals with 2.5D features (those made by sweeping a 2D profile along a linear axis). Graph representations, hint definitions or volume decompositions are much more difficult to define for 3D and free form features. The work done by Sundararajan is focused on free form surfaces, but again it is limited in application. Oversimplification is also evident even in the course of 2.5D features. For example, feature recognition algorithms usually assume sharp concave edges in the feature geometry. However, such edges are barely used in real design of mechanical components due to manufacturing constrains. Some of these issues such as the presence of filleted edges and free form surfaces in the model have been studied by Rahmani and Arezoo. Few commercial feature recognition systems are also available. Though feature recognition technology can be applied for various applications, commercial software have effectively adopted feature recognition technology for recreating the feature tree from imported models so that even the imported models can be edited as if it were a native solid model | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11235056 | 364,712 |
Genetic engineering thermal or electric shock), which increases the cell membrane's permeability to DNA; up-taken DNA can either integrate with the genome or exist as extrachromosomal DNA. DNA is generally inserted into animal cells using microinjection, where it can be injected through the cell's nuclear envelope directly into the nucleus, or through the use of viral vectors. In plants the DNA is often inserted using "Agrobacterium"-mediated recombination, taking advantage of the "Agrobacterium"s T-DNA sequence that allows natural insertion of genetic material into plant cells. Other methods include biolistics, where particles of gold or tungsten are coated with DNA and then shot into young plant cells, and electroporation, which involves using an electric shock to make the cell membrane permeable to plasmid DNA. As only a single cell is transformed with genetic material, the organism must be regenerated from that single cell. In plants this is accomplished through the use of tissue culture. In animals it is necessary to ensure that the inserted DNA is present in the embryonic stem cells. Bacteria consist of a single cell and reproduce clonally so regeneration is not necessary. Selectable markers are used to easily differentiate transformed from untransformed cells. These markers are usually present in the transgenic organism, although a number of strategies have been developed that can remove the selectable marker from the mature transgenic plant | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12383 | 12,746 |
Phytoestrogen Emerging evidence shows that some phytoestrogens bind to and transactivate peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs). In vitro studies show an activation of PPARs at concentrations above 1 μM, which is higher than the activation level of ERs. At the concentration below 1 μM, activation of ERs may play a dominant role. At higher concentrations (>1 μM), both ERs and PPARs are activated. Studies have shown that both ERs and PPARs influence each other and therefore induce differential effects in a dose-dependent way. The final biological effects of genistein are determined by the balance among these pleiotrophic actions. These compounds in plants are an important part of their defense system, mainly against fungi. Phytoestrogens are ancient naturally occurring substances, and as dietary phytochemicals they are considered as co-evolutive with mammals. In the human diet, phytoestrogens are not the only source of exogenous estrogens. Xenoestrogens (novel, man-made), are found as food additives and ingredients, and also in cosmetics, plastics, and insecticides. Environmentally, they have similar effects as phytoestrogens, making it difficult to clearly separate the action of these two kind of agents in studies done on populations. The consumption of plants with unusual content of phytoestrogens, under drought conditions, has been shown to decrease fertility in quail. Parrot food as available in nature has shown only weak estrogenic activity | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=912933 | 145,367 |
Profile (engineering) In standardization, a profile is a subset internal to a specification. Aspects of a complex technical specification may necessarily have more than one interpretation, and there are probably many optional features. These aspects constitute a profile of the standard. Two implementations engineered from the same description may not interoperate due to having a different profile of the standard. Vendors can even ignore features that they view as unimportant, yet prevail in the long run. The use of profiles in these ways can force one interpretation, or create de facto standards from official standards. Engineers can design or procure by using a profile to ensure interoperability. For example, the International Standard Profile, ISP, is used by the ISO in their ISO ISP series of standards; in the context of OSI networking, Britain uses the UK-GOSIP profile and the US uses US-GOSIP; there are also various mobile profiles adopted by the W3C for web standards. In particular, implementations of standards on mobile devices often have significant limitations compared to their traditional desktop implementations, even if the standard which governs both permits such limitations. In structural engineering a profile means a hot rolled structural steel shape like an -beam. In civil engineering, a profile consists of a plotted line which indicates grades and distances (and typically depths of cut and/or elevations of fill) for excavation and grading work | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=5195650 | 215,716 |
Microbiologist A microbiologist (from Greek ) is a scientist who studies microscopic life forms and processes. This includes study of the growth, interactions and characteristics of microscopic organisms such as bacteria, algae, fungi, and some types of parasites and their vectors. Most microbiologists work in offices and/or research facilities, both in private biotechnology companies as well as in academia. Most microbiologists specialize in a given topic within microbiology such as bacteriology, parasitology, virology, or immunology. Microbiologists generally work in some way to increase scientific knowledge, or to utilize that knowledge in a way that improves outcomes in medicine or some industry. For many microbiologists, this work includes planning and conducting experimental research projects in some kind of laboratory setting. Others may have a more administrative role, supervising scientists and evaluating their results. Microbiologists working in the medical field, such as clinical microbiologists, may see patients or patient samples and do various tests to detect disease-causing organisms. For microbiologists working in academia, duties include performing research in an academic laboratory, writing grant proposals to fund research, as well as some amount of teaching and designing courses. Microbiologists in industry roles may have similar duties except research is performed in industrial labs in order to develop or improve commercial products and processes | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=539355 | 167,276 |
First-mover advantage In marketing strategy, first-mover advantage (FMA) is the advantage gained by the initial ("first-moving") significant occupant of a market segment. may be gained by technological leadership, or early purchase of resources. A market participant has first-mover advantage if it is the first entrant and gains a competitive advantage through control of resources. With this advantage, first-movers can be rewarded with huge profit margins and a monopoly-like status. Not all first-movers are rewarded. If the first-mover does not capitalize on its advantage, its "first-mover disadvantages" leave opportunity for new entrants to enter the market and compete more effectively and efficiently than the first-movers; such firms have "second-mover advantage". The three primary sources of first-mover advantages are technological leadership, preemption of scarce assets, and switching costs / buyer choice under uncertainty. The first of the three is technological leadership. A firm can gain FMA when it has had a unique breakthrough in its research and development (R&D). A new, innovative technology can provide sustainable cost advantage for the early entrant; if the technology, and the learning curve to acquire it, can be kept proprietary, and the firm can maintain leadership in market share. The diffusion of innovation can diminish the first-mover advantages over time, through workforce mobility, publication of research, informal technical communication, reverse engineering, and plant tours | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2770468 | 478,116 |
Challenges in Islamic finance (For example, Farooq complains there is "not a single citation for exploitation or injustice" in two substantial bibliographies on (orthodox) Islamic economics -- "Muslim Economic Thinking: A Survey of Contemporary Literature", with "700 entries under 51 subcategories over 115 pages", and "Islamic Economics: Annotated Sources in English and Urdu" by Muhammad Akram Khan.) Timur Kuran complains that while Islamic banks in Egypt and other Muslims countries have followed Western banking practices, and have been little help in economic development or job creation, they have not followed the practices of western venture capitalists, which "have financed the global high-tech industry". Since venture capital operates on the same principles as profit and loss sharing (although VC does not avoid "haram" products), its use could potentially "bring major benefits" to Egypt and other poor Muslims countries seeking economic development. Most Islamic banks have their own Shariah boards ruling on their bank's policies. According to researchers Frank Vogel and Frank Hayes, the four schools ("Madhhab") of Sunni fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) have not come closer to agreement in Islamic banking. They apply "Islamic teachings to business and finance in different ways. Disagreements on specific points of religious law occur both between those four schools and within them. Furthermore, shari'a boards sometimes change their minds, reversing earlier decisions | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=56339824 | 468,951 |
Data synchronization Then data synchronization is the process of reducing edit distance between formula_4 and formula_5, up to the ideal distance of zero. This is applied in all filesystem based synchronizations (where the data is ordered). Many practical applications of this are discussed or referenced above. It is sometimes possible to transform the problem to one of unordered data through a process known as shingling (splitting the strings into "shingles"). In fault-tolerant systems, distributed databases must be able to cope with the loss or corruption of (part of) their data. The first step is usually replication, which involves making multiple copies of the data and keeping them all up to date as changes are made. However, it is then necessary to decide which copy to rely on when loss or corruption of an instance occurs. The simplest approach is to have a single master instance that is the sole source of truth. Changes to it are replicated to other instances, and one of those instances becomes the new master when the old master fails. Paxos and Raft are more complex protocols that exist to solve problems with transient effects during failover, such as two instances thinking they are the master at the same time. Secret sharing is useful if failures of whole nodes are very common. This moves synchronization from an explicit recovery process to being part of each read, where a read of some data requires retrieving encoded data from several different nodes | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=7360695 | 107,297 |
Transistor model Transistors are simple devices with complicated behavior. In order to ensure the reliable operation of circuits employing transistors, it is necessary to scientifically model the physical phenomena observed in their operation using transistor models. There exists a variety of different models that range in complexity and in purpose. Transistor models divide into two major groups: models for device design and models for circuit design. The modern transistor has an internal structure that exploits complex physical mechanisms. Device design requires a detailed understanding of how device manufacturing processes such as ion implantation, impurity diffusion, oxide growth, annealing, and etching affect device behavior. Process models simulate the manufacturing steps and provide a microscopic description of device "geometry" to the device simulator. "Geometry" does not mean readily identified geometrical features such as a planar or wrap-around gate structure, or raised or recessed forms of source and drain (see Figure 1 for a memory device with some unusual modeling challenges related to charging the floating gate by an avalanche process). It also refers to details inside the structure, such as the doping profiles after completion of device processing | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3518436 | 197,675 |
Responsive architecture In the work of dECOi, responsiveness is enabled by a programmable façade, and finally in the work of NOX, a programmable audio–visual interior. All of these works depend upon the abilities of computers to continuously calculate and join digital models that are programmable, to the real world and the events that shape it. Finally an account of the development of the use of responsive systems and their history in respect to recent architectural theory can be found in Tristan d'Estree Sterk's recent opening keynote address (ACADIA 2009) entitled "Thoughts for Gen X— Speculating about the Rise of Continuous Measurement in Architecture" While a considerable amount of time and effort has been spent on intelligent homes in recent years, the emphasis here has been mainly on developing computerized systems and electronics to adapt the interior of the building or its rooms to the needs of residents. Research in the area of responsive architecture has had far more to do with the building structure itself, its ability to adapt to changing weather conditions and to take account of light, heat and cold. This could theoretically be achieved by designing structures consisting of rods and strings which would bend in response to wind, distributing the load in much the same way as a tree. Similarly, windows would respond to light, opening and closing to provide the best lighting and heating conditions inside the building | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=10029655 | 266,085 |
Context-dependent memory This study considered only environmental context-dependence. Additionally, other psychological constructs suggest further limits on how context can affect memory. For example, Johnson et al.'s source monitoring framework proposes that the ability of an individual to remember the source of an episode will affect the likelihood of that memory being recalled. Hence, in the case of context-dependent memory, this framework suggests that the effects of context on memory may also be limited by cognitive factors such as the ability of individuals to differentiate between individual contexts. Context can refer to internal context, referring to state of mind at the time of memory encoding, or temporal context, which refers to the time when a memory was encoded, in addition to external context, or physical and situational surroundings. All of these types of context are incorporated as values into what are known as context vectors, vector representations of multiple context attributes, used in many theories of recall and recognition memory. In summed similarity theory, the use of a memory matrix includes the context as an attribute in a memory vector. Other attributes of a memory make up the remainder of the memory matrix representation of a particular memory item, in an array model for association. Summed Similarity Theory explains that the theoretical memory matrix is searched and the memory representation with the highest summed similarity of all memory vectors to the probe item is selected | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21312301 | 146,789 |
AMPRNet Prior to sale, addresses in the block had been allocated to amateur radio areas for the outer space-amateur radio satellite service, to roaming, Oceania, Antarctica, the Arctic, Italy for (CisarNet) Germany for Stuttgart/Tübingen, Eppstein, plus the Germany/pan-European (HAMNET). Paul Vixie stated after the sale of IP address space that "ampr.org can make better use of money than IP space in fulfilling its nonprofit mission, at this stage of the game." Doug Barton, a former manager of Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, said the "reaction that we're seeing now is 100% predictable ... that doesn't change anything about my opinion that the sale itself was totally reasonable, done by reasonable people, and in keeping with the concept of being good stewards of the space. An Amateur Radio Digital Communications committee was formed to offer advice on digital standards to the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) board of directors, following a meeting in 1981. The original working name was the "ARRL Ad Hoc Committee on Digital Communication", abbreviated to "digital committee". During the mid-1980s, the committee had been meeting twice per year: during the middle of the year, and again at the annual Computer Networking conference. In September 1987, the committee recommended the list of frequencies that would be used in North America for packet radio and digital communications. In January 1988, the committee held a meeting to standardise AX.25 version 3 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3994700 | 121,214 |
Real-time transcription They are different from official court reporters in that they have the chances to work on a wider range of assignments and work on basis of hourly wage. Hearing reporters work at governmental agency hearings. Legislative reporters work in law-making bodies. The demand for reporters is not limited in just the court settings. Reporters are also needed in conferences, meetings, conventions, investigations, and a variety of industries with needs for employers with real-time data entry skills. Transcription services are universally necessary, so it is not limited to the English language. A stenographer's ability to transcribe languages beyond only English is especially valuable as society as a whole becomes increasingly multilingual. Education in non-English transcription demands a comprehensive understanding of the given language. Phonetic differences between English and other languages are a particular challenge in carrying English transcription skills over into other languages. Stenography represents various sounds of a language in a formal system of shorthand, so differences within the sets of sounds that emerge in other languages require an alternative system of shorthand transcription. For example, the presence of many diphthongs and triphthongs in Spanish requires certain sounds to be distinguished that would not be present in transcribing English into shorthand. The usage of transcription in the context of linguistic discussions has been controversial | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9031121 | 300,437 |
Stereochemistry of ketonization of enols and enolates The second is the reaction of an enol acetate with methyllithium. The first of the two reactions is an example of microscopic reversibility. This is the reverse of bromination of a ketone, a reaction well-known to proceed via the enol as an intermediate. This is an example with extreme stereoselectivity due to the severe steric hindrance of an ethano-bridge. With an acid catalyst as well as with a base catalyst such as sodium ethoxide a thermodynamic equilibrium is achieved. The diastereomer formed now has the acetyl group equatorial. Figure 2. Equilibration of the Diastereomers via the Common Enol. Figure 3 show the ketonization results for the two Phenyl-Pyridyl diastereomers. In the exo-pyridyl isomer on the left, the usual steric hindrance control blocks protonation from above. That is, the phenyl group is positioned directly above the enolic alpha carbon and protonation must occur from below. In contrast, in the case of the endo pyridyl isomer on the right, the basic pyridyl moiety proves capable of picking up the proton first and then delivering it to the alpha-carbon from this upper, hindered side. Results from intramolecular proton delivery is the reverse of the common stereochemistry. Figure 3. Two Phenyl-Pyridyl Enol Diastereomers. Figure 4. The Example of Ketonization of the Enol of 4-Phenyl-1-Benzoylcyclohexane. In this example the enol intermediate is generated from either the cis- or the trans-stereoisomer of 1-bromo-1-benzoyl-4-phenylcyclohexane using zinc as the reagent | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27366887 | 71,476 |
Systems art The program, which brought artists and scientists together, was an effort at turning the artist's passive role into an active one by promoting the investigation of contemporary scientific—technological systems and their relationship to art and life. Unlike copier art, which was a simple commercial spin-off, Generative Systems was actually involved in the development of elegant yet simple systems intended for creative use by the general population. Generative Systems artists attempted to bridge the gap between elite and novice by directing the line of communication between the two, thus bringing first generation information to greater numbers of people and bypassing the entrepreneur. Process art is an artistic movement as well as a creative sentiment and world view where the end product of "art" and "craft", the "objet d’art", is not the principal focus. The 'process' in process art refers to the process of the formation of art: the gathering, sorting, collating, associating, and patterning. Process art is concerned with the actual "doing"; art as a rite, ritual, and performance. Process art often entails an inherent motivation, rationale, and intentionality. Therefore, art is viewed as a creative journey or process, rather than as a deliverable or end product. In the artistic discourse the work of Jackson Pollock is hailed as an antecedent. Process art in its employment of serendipity has a marked correspondence with Dada. Change and transience are marked themes in the process art movement | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=16280135 | 197,099 |
Anti-lock braking system Conversely, if the ECU detects a wheel turning significantly faster than the others, brake hydraulic pressure to the wheel is increased so the braking force is reapplied, slowing down the wheel. This process is repeated continuously and can be detected by the driver via brake pedal pulsation. Some anti-lock systems can apply or release braking pressure 15 times per second. Because of this, the wheels of cars equipped with ABS are practically impossible to lock even during panic braking in extreme conditions. The ECU is programmed to disregard differences in wheel rotative speed below a critical threshold, because when the car is turning, the two wheels towards the center of the curve turn slower than the outer two. For this same reason, a differential is used in virtually all roadgoing vehicles. If a fault develops in any part of the ABS, a warning light will usually be illuminated on the vehicle instrument panel, and the ABS will be disabled until the fault is rectified. Modern ABS applies individual brake pressure to all four wheels through a control system of hub-mounted sensors and a dedicated micro-controller. ABS is offered or comes standard on most road vehicles produced today and is the foundation for electronic stability control systems, which are rapidly increasing in popularity due to the vast reduction in price of vehicle electronics over the years. Modern electronic stability control systems are an evolution of the ABS concept | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=59587 | 433,099 |
18-electron rule The is a rule used primarily for predicting and rationalizing formulas for stable metal complexes, especially organometallic compounds. The rule is based on the fact that the valence shells of transition metals consist of nine valence orbitals (five d orbitals, one s orbital and three p orbitals), which collectively can accommodate 18 electrons as either bonding or nonbonding electron pairs. This means that the combination of these nine atomic orbitals with ligand orbitals creates nine molecular orbitals that are either metal-ligand bonding or non-bonding. When a metal complex has 18 valence electrons, it is said to have achieved the same electron configuration as the noble gas in the period. The rule is not helpful for complexes of metals that are not transition metals, and "interesting or useful transition metal complexes will violate the rule" because of the consequences deviating from the rule bears on reactivity. The rule was first proposed by American chemist Irving Langmuir in 1921. The rule usefully predicts the formulas for low-spin complexes of the Cr, Mn, Fe, and Co triads. Well-known examples include ferrocene, iron pentacarbonyl, chromium carbonyl, and nickel carbonyl. Ligands in a complex determine the applicability of the 18-electron rule. In general, complexes that obey the rule are composed at least partly of π-acceptor ligands (also known as π-acids) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=5170027 | 78,361 |
Roland Winter He also investigates the effects of high pressure on lipid membranes and proteins. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=54600456 | 82,590 |
Magnetic-core memory Using smaller cores and wires, the memory density of core slowly increased, and by the late 1960s a density of about 32 kilobits per cubic foot was typical. However, reaching this density required extremely careful manufacture, almost always carried out by hand in spite of repeated major efforts to automate the process. The cost declined over this period from about $1 per bit to about 1 cent per bit. The introduction of the first semiconductor memory chips in the late 1960s, which initially created static random-access memory (SRAM), began to erode the market for core memory. The first successful dynamic random-access memory (DRAM), the Intel 1103, followed in 1970. Its availability in quantity at 1 cent per bit marked the beginning of the end for core memory. Improvements in semiconductor manufacturing led to rapid increases in storage capacity and decreases in price per kilobyte, while the costs and specs of core memory changed little. Core memory was driven from the market gradually between 1973 and 1978. Depending on how it was wired, core memory could be exceptionally reliable. Read-only core rope memory, for example, was used on the mission-critical Apollo Guidance Computer essential to NASA's successful moon landings. Although core memory is obsolete, computer memory is still sometimes called "core" even though it is made of semiconductors, particularly by people who had worked with machines having real core memory | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=78029 | 408,388 |
List of cosmological computation software The cosmic microwave background (CMB) is the thermal radiation assumed to be left over from the "Big Bang" of cosmology. The CMB is a snapshot of the oldest light in our universe, imprinted on the sky when the universe was just 380,000 years old. It shows tiny temperature fluctuations that correspond to regions of slightly different densities, representing the seeds of all future structure: the stars and galaxies of today. Therefore, analysis of the small anisotropies in the CMB helps us to understand the origin and the fate of our universe. In past few decades, there has been a lot of improvement in the observations and several experiments, performed to understand the basic structure of the universe. For analyzing data of different cosmological experiments and for understanding the theoretical nature of the universe many advanced methods and computing software are developed in and used by cosmologists for years. These software are widely used by the cosmologists across the globe. The computational software, used in cosmology can be classified into the following major classes. HEALPix (sometimes written as Healpix), an acronym for Hierarchical Equal Area isoLatitude Pixelisation of a 2-sphere, can refer to either an algorithm for pixelization of the 2-sphere, an associated software package, or an associated class of map projections. Healpix is widely used for cosmological random map generation. The original motivation for devising HEALPix was one of necessity | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=42017954 | 105,408 |
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