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Pneumatic motor Historically, many individuals have tried to apply pneumatic motors to the transportation industry. Guy Negre, CEO and founder of Zero Pollution Motors, has pioneered this field since the late 1980s. Recently Engineair has also developed a rotary motor for use in automobiles. Engineair places the motor immediately beside the wheel of the vehicle and uses no intermediate parts to transmit motion which means almost all of the motor's energy is used to rotate the wheel. The pneumatic motor was first applied to the field of transportation in the mid-19th century. Though little is known about the first recorded compressed-air vehicle, it is said that the Frenchmen Andraud and Tessie of Motay ran a car powered by a pneumatic motor on a test track in Chaillot, France, on July 9, 1840. Although the car test was reported to have been successful, the pair didn’t explore further expansion of the design. The first successful application of the pneumatic motor in transportation was the Mekarski system air engine used in locomotives. Mekarski’s innovative engine overcame cooling that accompanies air expansion by heating air in a small boiler prior to use. The Tramway de Nantes, located in Nantes, France, was noted for being the first to use Mekarski engines to power their fleet of locomotives. The tramway began operation on December 13, 1879, and continues to operate today, although the pneumatic trams were replaced in 1917 by more efficient and modern electrical trams | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1779482 | 292,894 |
Glycan The terms glycan and polysaccharide are defined by IUPAC as synonyms meaning "compounds consisting of a large number of monosaccharides linked glycosidically". However, in practice the term glycan may also be used to refer to the carbohydrate portion of a glycoconjugate, such as a glycoprotein, glycolipid, or a proteoglycan, even if the carbohydrate is only an oligosaccharide. Glycans usually consist solely of O-glycosidic linkages of monosaccharides. For example, cellulose is a glycan (or, to be more specific, a glucan) composed of β-1,4-linked -glucose, and chitin is a glycan composed of β-1,4-linked "N"-acetyl--glucosamine. Glycans can be homo- or heteropolymers of monosaccharide residues, and can be linear or branched. Glycans can be found attached to proteins as in glycoproteins and proteoglycans. In general, they are found on the exterior surface of cells. O- and N-linked glycans are very common in eukaryotes but may also be found, although less commonly, in prokaryotes. N-Linked glycans are attached in the endoplasmic reticulum to the nitrogen (N) in the side chain of asparagine in the sequon. The sequon is an Asn-X-Ser or Asn-X-Thr sequence, where X is any amino acid except proline and the glycan may be composed of "N"-acetylgalactosamine, galactose, neuraminic acid, "N"-acetylglucosamine, fucose, mannose, and other monosaccharides. In eukaryotes, N-linked glycans are derived from a core 14-sugar unit assembled in the cytoplasm and endoplasmic reticulum | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3023865 | 66,344 |
Fascine The Royal Engineers Experimental Establishment at Christchurch did initial tests on the possible use of 9-inch high-density plastic pipes held together with chains. These would allow water flow, and not be damaged with the higher modern vehicle weight. Further development was done by Lt C Roebuck RE and his troop, 5 Troop, 31 Armoured Engineer Squadron, 32 Armoured Engineer Regiment at Munsterlager, North Germany in 1981/2, to enable full acceptance and provide user instructions for operational use. This development involved testing in different gaps and conditions, eg concrete line canals to earth banked rural field drainage channels, possibility of multiple fascine use in a single gap and launch testing both day, night and in limited visibility. During the trials the development team drivers became skilled at the launching of the fascine and were able to launch two or even 3 fascines into a single gap. However for regular operational use by less skilled crews it was recommended that only single fascines should be used as the use of 2nd or 3rd fascines required the launch vehicle to launch the subsequent fascine whilst on the potentially unstable first fascine. This required a perfect launch to ensure the second fascine was quickly in place to make the first fascine stable and held in position. If this did not happen there was potentially significant risk to the launch vehicle and crew especially in water filled gaps | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1853618 | 345,300 |
AC power plugs and sockets An IEC standard 61558-2-5, adopted by CENELEC and as a national standard in some countries, describes one type of shaver supply unit. Shaver sockets may accept multiple two-pin plug types including Europlug (Type C), Australian (Type I) and BS 4573. The isolation transformer often includes a 115 V output accepting two-pin US plugs (Type A). Shaver supply units must also be current limited, IEC 61558-2-5 specifies a minimum rating of 20 VA and maximum of 50 VA. Sockets are marked with a shaver symbol, and may also say "shavers only" . Isolation transformers and dedicated NEMA 1-15 shaver receptacles were once standard installation practice in North America, but now a GFCI receptacle is used instead. This provides the full capacity of a standard receptacle but protects the user of a razor or other appliance from leakage current. The plugs and sockets used in a given area are regulated by local governments. The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) maintains a guide with letter designations for generally compatible types of plugs, which expands on earlier guides published by the United States Department of Commerce. This is a "de facto" naming standard and guide to travellers. Some letter types correspond to several current ratings or different technical standards, so the letter does not uniquely identify a plug and socket within the type family, nor guarantee compatibility. Physical compatibility of the plug and socket does not ensure correct voltage, frequency, or current capacity | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=773271 | 388,938 |
Creatures (video game series) "Docking Station" added the possibility of interaction between individual player worlds; Norns could 'travel' to other online worlds via a central server, players could chat to other online players, and it was possible to track Norns (and their offspring) that had been present in their worlds via the "Docking Station" website. While "Docking Station" was released late in the series' run, it changed gameplay (and the potential of the series) dramatically. One reviewer stated that it opened up a whole new world for her online. Another reviewer criticised the online portion of the game, as it requires the player to find online buddies. Docking Station also expanded considerably on the game mythos, including the introduction of an 'anti-Shee', the Banshee (a Grendel/Shee hybrid). "Creatures Online" was a planned sequel to the game, which was being developed by Fishing Cactus. The game was announced as "Creatures 4" in Fishing Cactus's blog in May 2011. Creatures Online was to have 5 worlds, was to be completely in 3D graphics instead of 2.5D pre-rendered graphics, and in-game currency was planned to buy Norns toys, food, etc. Creatures Online was designed to be a free-to-play game. A collector's edition box was also announced with a Norn figurine, the three original games for current PCs, and all the money you paid for the game as in-game money for your Norns. Creatures 4 entered an in-house alpha phase in March 2013. The internal systems of the creatures from C3/DS were retained and updated for the 3D environment | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=297098 | 167,805 |
Explicit memory The intrinsic connectivity of these areas are also conserved. Results from an experiment by Davachi, Mitchell, and Wagner (2003) and subsequent research (Davachi, 2006) shows that activation in the hippocampus during encoding is related to a subject's ability to recall prior events or later relational memories. These tests did not differentiate between individual test items later seen and those forgotten. The lateral Prefrontal cortex (PFC) is essential for remembering contextual details of an experience rather than for memory formation. The PFC is also more involved with episodic memory than semantic memory, although it does play a small role in semantics. Using PET studies and word stimuli, Endel Tulving found that remembering is an automatic process. It is also well documented that a hemispheric asymmetry occurs in the PFC: When encoding memories, the Left Dorsolateral PFC (LPFC) is activated, and when retrieving memories, activation is seen in the Right Dorsolateral PFC (RPFC). Studies have also shown that the PFC is extremely involved with autonoetic consciousness (See Tulving's theory). This is responsible for humans' recollective experiences and 'mental time travelling' abilities (characteristics of episodic memory). The amygdala is believed to be involved in the encoding and retrieval of emotionally charged memories. Much of the evidence for this has come from research on a phenomenon known as flashbulb memories | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1717129 | 172,539 |
Composting toilet For instance: The Environmental Protection Agency has no jurisdiction over the byproducts of a dry toilet as long as excreta are not referred to as "fertilizer" (but instead simply a material that is being disposed of). Federal rule 503, known colloquially as the "EPA Biosolids rule" or the "EPA sludge rule" applies only to fertilizer. Thus, individual states regulate composting toilets. The regulations for composting toilets and other forms of dry toilets in Germany vary from state to state and from one application to another (e.g. use in allotment gardens or use in family homes and settlements). In the different states of Germany, it is the "Landesbauordnung" (translates to "state civil engineering regulations") of the respective state that regulates the use of such alternative toilets. Most of them stipulate the use of flush toilets, however there are many exceptions, for example in the states of Hamburg, Lower Saxony, Bavaria, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. These generally make exceptions for the use of composting toilets in homes provided that there are no concerns for public health. Regulations governing the use of compost and urine from composting toilets is less clear in Germany but it seems generally allowed provided it is used on one's own property and not sold to third parties. Numerous sparsely settled villages in rural areas in Finland are not connected to municipal water supply or sewer networks, requiring homeowners to operate their own systems | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1083155 | 303,434 |
Chief customer officer A chief customer officer (CCO) is the executive responsible in customer-centric companies for the total relationship with an organization’s customers. This position is relatively new addition in the CxO hallway, and was developed to provide a single vision across all methods of customer contact. The CCO is often responsible for influencing corporate activities of customer relations in the call centre, sales, marketing, user interface, finance (billing), fulfillment and post-sale support. The CCO typically reports to the chief executive officer, and is potentially a member of the board of directors. Chief Customer Officers may be known by many titles; however, according to the Chief Customer Officer Council, the CCO is properly defined as "an executive who provides the comprehensive and authoritative view of the customer and creates corporate and customer strategy at the highest levels of the company to maximize customer acquisition, retention, and profitability." Today's customer requires access in many forms of media to meet their preferences and lifestyle, such as traditional voice agent, outsourced/offshored voice agent, automated voice (interactive voice response or IVR), Email, traditional mail, web chat, web collaboration, web co-browse, text, point of presence (PoP) such as sales register or kiosk, faxes, etc. A consistent customer experience across all methods of access is required by customers, who often choose to change vendors if they do not get the support they require to meet their expectations | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17731273 | 498,271 |
Octet rule In 1893, Alfred Werner showed that the number of atoms or groups associated with a central atom (the “coordination number”) is often 4 or 6; other coordination numbers up to a maximum of 8 were known, but less frequent. In 1904 Richard Abegg was one of the first to extend the concept of coordination number to a concept of valence in which he distinguished atoms as electron donors or acceptors, leading to positive and negative valence states that greatly resemble the modern concept of oxidation states. Abegg noted that the difference between the maximum positive and negative valences of an element under his model is frequently eight. In 1916, Gilbert N. Lewis referred to this insight as Abegg's rule and used it to help formulate his cubical atom model and the "rule of eight", which began to distinguish between valence and valence electrons. In 1919 Irving Langmuir refined these concepts further and renamed them the "cubical octet atom" and "octet theory". The "octet theory" evolved into what is now known as the "octet rule". Walther Kossel and Gilbert N. Lewis saw that noble gases did not have the tendency of taking part in chemical reactions under ordinary conditions. On the basis of this observation they concluded that atoms of noble gases are stable and on the basis of this conclusion they proposed a theory of valency known as "Electronic Theory of valency" in 1916: The quantum theory of the atom explains the eight electrons as a closed shell with an sp electron configuration | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=266466 | 35,695 |
President (corporate title) Such duties at meetings include: While presiding, a president remains impartial and does not interrupt speakers if a speaker has the floor and is following the rules of the group. In committees or small boards, the president votes along with the other members. However, in assemblies or larger boards, the president should vote only when it can affect the result. At a meeting, the president only has one vote (i.e. the president cannot vote twice and cannot override the decision of the group unless the organization has specifically given the president such authority). The powers of the president vary widely across organizations. In some organizations the president has the authority to hire staff and make financial decisions, while in others the president only makes recommendations to a board of directors, and still others the president has no executive powers and is mainly a spokesperson for the organization. The amount of power given to the president depends on the type of organization, its structure, and the rules it has created for itself. If the president exceeds the given authority, engages in misconduct, or fails to perform the duties, the president may face disciplinary procedures. Such procedures may include censure, suspension, or removal from office. The rules of the particular organization would provide details on who can perform these disciplinary procedures and the extent that they can be done. Usually, whoever appointed or elected the president has the power to discipline this officer | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=40811786 | 487,683 |
Island Ford Lodge The is an historic property in Sandy Springs, Fulton County, Georgia, in the United States. It was built as a summer home for Atlanta attorney Samuel Dunbar Hewlett "circa" 1935 by stonemason John Epps. Hewlett was chief of staff for Georgia governor Eugene Talmadge through Talmadge's first two terms as governor, from 1933 to 1937. Hewlett sold the lodge to the Buckhead Century Club in 1950, retaining rights to an apartment in the building. The club disbanded in 1955 and sold the property to the Atlanta Baptist Assembly, which used the lodge as a retreat for twenty years. After Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area was established in 1978 the property was acquired by the National Park Service. The property was renovated in the early 1980s and serves as the park headquarters. was added to the National Register of Historic Places in November 2016. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=52276940 | 327,113 |
Racket features Racket has been under active development as a vehicle for programming language research since the mid-1990s, and has accumulated many features over the years. This article describes and demonstrates some of these features. Note that one of Racket's main design goals is to accommodate creating new languages, both domain-specific languages and completely new languages. Therefore, some of the following examples are in different languages, but they are all implemented in Racket. Please refer to the main article for more information. The core Racket implementation is highly flexible. Even without using dialects, it can function as a full-featured scripting language, capable of running both with and without windows-native GUI, and capable of tasks from web server creation to graphics. Racket can use three different garbage collectors: Like all implementations in the Scheme family, Racket implements full tail call elimination. Racket takes this further: the language is made fully safe-for-space, via live variable analysis. This complements the precise garbage collector and in some cases, like in the implementation of Lazy Racket, the two features are crucial for proper execution. This is in addition to additional compiler optimizations such as lambda lifting and just-in-time compilation. Racket's system interface includes asynchronous non-blocking I/O, green threads, synchronization channels, semaphores, sub-processes, and TCP sockets. The following program starts an "echo server" on port 12345 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=32757483 | 281,684 |
Michael Joseph (businessman) Michael Joseph is a South-African businessman who was the founding CEO of Safaricom Limited, the largest telco in Kenya, also acting as the interim CEO after the death of former CEO Bob Collymore, from the 2nd of July 2019 to the 31st of March 2020. He is also the Chairman of Kenya Airways. He is credited for transforming Safaricom from a department in Telkom Kenya to one of the largest corporations in the region.. In October 2019, it was announced that he will be succeeded at Safaricom by Peter Ndegwa (business executive) on 1st April 2020. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=61236375 | 494,613 |
Earthquake They are different from earthquakes followed by a series of aftershocks by the fact that no single earthquake in the sequence is obviously the main shock, so none has a notable higher magnitude than another. An example of an earthquake swarm is the 2004 activity at Yellowstone National Park. In August 2012, a swarm of earthquakes shook Southern California's Imperial Valley, showing the most recorded activity in the area since the 1970s. Sometimes a series of earthquakes occur in what has been called an "earthquake storm", where the earthquakes strike a fault in clusters, each triggered by the shaking or stress redistribution of the previous earthquakes. Similar to aftershocks but on adjacent segments of fault, these storms occur over the course of years, and with some of the later earthquakes as damaging as the early ones. Such a pattern was observed in the sequence of about a dozen earthquakes that struck the North Anatolian Fault in Turkey in the 20th century and has been inferred for older anomalous clusters of large earthquakes in the Middle East. Quaking or shaking of the earth is a common phenomenon undoubtedly known to humans from earliest times. Prior to the development of strong-motion accelerometers that can measure peak ground speed and acceleration directly, the intensity of the earth-shaking was estimated on the basis of the observed effects, as categorized on various seismic intensity scales | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=10106 | 447,220 |
Dotmatics is a scientific informatics company, focusing on data management, analysis and visualization. Founded in 2005, the company's headquarters are in Bishops Stortford, Hertfordshire, England and has two US offices in San Diego, CA and Woburn, MA. provides software to half of the world's 20 largest drugmakers. Dotmatics' origins trace back to Merck Sharp and Dohme, a multinational pharmaceutical company, where, in the early 2000s, Merck staff developed what later became Dotmatics' browser and gateway software. Limited was founded in 2005 as a spin-out when Merck closed the site. The company was established with the intent to address the information needs of scientists in the biotech/pharma space. develops web-based tools for querying, browsing, managing, and sharing scientific data and documents. The Informatics Suite is all the software packaged into one integrated suite. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=35187583 | 64,260 |
Stargate Atlantis Flanigan's team, their investors and MGM came up with ""all the numbers"" as well as working out television networks for broadcasting, studios and plans for a 10-year lease of the Stargate franchise. MGM then filed for bankruptcy in November 2010. The company then reemerged later, however Spyglass Entertainment now held the rights for Stargate, meaning Flanigan had to begin negotiations all over again. Flanigan stated that he believed Spyglass were more interested in working with Roland Emmerich on another feature film, outside of the main continuity of the series'. The first and only DVD release of the series from MGM Home Entertainment, was the pilot episode of Stargate Atlantis, "Rising", as a standalone episode. It was released, in North America, on June 7, 2005. The full first season was released, in North America, on November 15, 2005, in new slim line cases. Soon after the release of the first season set Sony received complaints that some Canadian customers bought sets that had the same content on both disk 1 and 5. Sony quickly offered a replacement disc. In early 2006, Sony announced that "Stargate Atlantis" would become the first TV series released on the next generation Blu-ray platform. In mid-2006 MGM, the producers of both Stargate series, switched DVD distribution companies from Sony to 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. The distributor switch led to a delay in the release of the Season 2 box set, which was released on March 6, 2007, in North America | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=418894 | 277,705 |
Power graph analysis First, in Fourier analysis the two spaces (time and frequency domains) are the same function space - but stricto sensu, power graphs are not graphs. Second, there is not a unique power graph representing a given graph. Yet a very interesting class of power graphs are minimal power graphs which have the least number of power edges and power nodes necessary to represent a given graph. In general, there is no unique minimal power graph for a given graph. In this example (right) a graph of four nodes and five edges admits two minimal power graphs of two power edges each. The main difference between these two minimal power graphs is the higher nesting level of the second power graph as well as a loss of symmetry with respect to the underlying graph. Loss of symmetry is only a problem in small toy examples since complex networks rarely exhibit such symmetries in the first place. Additionally, one can minimize the nesting level but even then, there is in general not a unique minimal power graph of minimal nesting level. The power graph greedy algorithm relies on two simple steps to perform the decomposition: The first step identifies candidate power nodes through a hierarchical clustering of the nodes in the network based on the similarity of their neighboring nodes. The similarity of two sets of neighbors is taken as the Jaccard index of the two sets. The second step performs a greedy search for possible power edges between candidate power nodes | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=18411966 | 118,055 |
System on a chip In particular, most SoCs are in a small physical area or volume and therefore the effects of waste heat are compounded because there is little room for it to diffuse out of the system. Because of high transistor counts on modern devices due to Moore's law, oftentimes a layout of sufficient throughput and high transistor density is physically realizable from fabrication processes but would result in unacceptably high amounts of heat in the circuit's volume. These thermal effects force SoC and other chip designers to apply conservative design margins, creating less performant devices to mitigate the risk of catastrophic failure. Due to increased transistor densities as length scales get smaller, each process generation produces more heat output than the last. Compounding this problem, system-on-chip architectures are usually heterogeneous, creating spatially inhomogeneous heat fluxes, which cannot be effectively mitigated by uniform passive cooling. SoCs are optimized to maximize computational and communications throughput. SoCs are optimized to minimize latency for some or all of their functions. This can be accomplished by laying out elements with proper proximity and locality to each-other to minimize the interconnection delays and maximize the speed at which data is communicated between modules, functional units and memories. In general, optimizing to minimize latency is an NP-complete problem equivalent to the boolean satisfiability problem | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=100563 | 381,329 |
IEEE 802.1aq It also provides the carrier with the toolkit to support geo-redundant broadband backhaul; in this applications, many DSLAMs or other access equipments must be backhauled to multiple Broadband Remote Access Server (BRAS) sites, with application-determined binding of sessions to a BRAS. However, DSLAMs must not be allowed to communicate with each other, because carriers then lose the ability to control peer-to-peer connectivity. MEF E-TREE does just this, and further provides an efficient multicast fabric for the distribution of IP TV. SPBM offers both the ideal multicast replication model, where packets are replicated only at fork points in the shortest path tree that connects members, and also the less state intensive head end replication model where in essence serial unicast packets are sent to all other members along the same shortest path first tree. These two models are selected by specifying properties of the service at the edge which affect the transit node decisions on multicast state installation. This allows for a trade-off to be made between optimum transit replication points (with their larger state costs) v.s. reduced core state (but much more traffic) of the head end replication model. These selections can be different for different members of the same Individual Service ID (I-SID) allowing different trade-offs to be made for different members. Figure 5 below is a quick way to understand what SPBM is doing on the scale of the entire network | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=23094504 | 273,489 |
Hollow cathode effect The hollow cathode effect allows electrical conduction at a lower voltage or with more current in a cold-cathode gas-discharge lamp when the cathode is a conductive tube open at one end than a similar lamp with a flat cathode. The hollow cathode effect was recognized by Friedrich Paschen in 1916. In a hollow cathode, the electron emitting surface is in the inside of the tube. Several processes contribute to enhanced performance of a hollow cathode: The hollow cathode effect is utilized in the electrodes for neon signs, in hollow-cathode lamps, and more. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=54240905 | 82,426 |
Chandrasekhar's variational principle In astrophysics, provides the stability criterion for a static barotropic star, subjected to radial perturbation, named after the Indian American astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. "A baratropic star with formula_1 and formula_2 is stable if the quantity" "is non-negative for all real functions formula_4 that conserve the total mass of the star formula_5." where | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=54044650 | 337,114 |
Residual (entertainment industry) , network TV, DVD, ad-supported streaming, online purchases), and whether it involves a domestic or foreign market. Additionally, residuals change a lot: guilds negotiate new contracts with the AMPTP every three years, and residuals for primetime TV tend to increase every year because they are "directly or indirectly keyed to salary minimums, which increase several percent per year". In acting, extras are generally not eligible, but stunt performers, puppeteers, singers, and actors with lines or scripted physical interactions with characters ("supporting actors" or "day players") are eligible. Principal performers generally get larger residuals. In fact, the more prominent the actor, the more generous the residual. Big stars like Tom Cruise, for example, would get a portion of DVD sales in addition to his "regular" residuals. All "credited" writers are eligible for residuals, and the specific credit determines the amount of amount. For example, the "written by" credit yields a 100% residual allocation, "screenplay/teleplay by" yields a 75%, and "adaptation by" yields 10%. Residual payments can sometimes be very small if the role was small or the movie or show was not successful. For example, actor Jeff Cohen received a residual check for $0.67 after appearing in one episode of "The Facts of Life"; he took it to a former bar in Studio City called "Maeve's Re$iduals", which used to trade free drinks for any SAG-AFTRA residual checks for less than $1 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1603046 | 455,145 |
Oxygen cycle The free H and escape into space, leaving O in the atmosphere: The main way free oxygen is lost from the atmosphere is via respiration and decay, mechanisms in which animal life and bacteria consume oxygen and release carbon dioxide. The following tables offer estimates of oxygen cycle reservoir capacities and fluxes. These numbers are based primarily on estimates from (Walker, J. C. G.): <br> Table 2: Annual gain and loss of atmospheric oxygen (Units of 10 kg O per year) The presence of atmospheric oxygen has led to the formation of ozone (O) and the ozone layer within the stratosphere: The ozone layer is extremely important to modern life as it absorbs harmful ultraviolet radiation: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=583598 | 142,157 |
WIPO Lex is an online database of national legislation and international treaties in the field of intellectual property. Maintenance and development of the database is exercised by the World Intellectual Property Organization. The database contains national legislation of the Member States of WIPO, WTO and UN. In 2014 the database included legal acts of 196 States and cumulatively contained 13 thousand entries. also covers international treaties related to intellectual property. In particular, the database includes all . The database is used as source of legal and reference information in universities and libraries all over the world. The team has established partnerships with following academic institutions: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=48782473 | 473,485 |
Excise , an excise is an indirect tax in the constitutional law sense), or (B) a tax that is simply called an excise in the language of the statute imposing that tax (an excise in the statutory law sense, sometimes called a "miscellaneous excise"). An excise under definition (A) is not necessarily the same as an excise under definition (B). An excise (under definition B) has been defined as '"a tax upon manufacture, sale or for a business license or charter, as distinguished from a tax on real property, income or estates." Both the federal and state governments levy excise taxes on goods such as alcohol, motor fuel, and tobacco products. The laws of the federal government and of some state governments impose excises known as the income tax. Even though federal excise taxes are geographically uniform, state excise taxes vary considerably. Taxation constitutes a substantial proportion of the retail prices on alcohol and tobacco products. Local governments may also impose an excise tax. For example, the city of Anchorage, Alaska charges a cigarette tax of $1.30 per pack, which is on top of the federal excise tax and the state excise tax. In 2011, the United States federal excise tax on gasoline was 18.4 cents per gallon (4.86 ¢/L) and 24.4 cents per gallon (6.45 ¢/L) for diesel fuel. Critics of excise have interpreted and described it as simply being a way for government to levy further and unnecessary taxation on the population | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11404033 | 464,723 |
University of Ontario Institute of Technology It is used by the university for research and education and is also used by GM Canada and its other sponsors for various purposes, including testing new car prototypes. It is divided into two sections: a core research facility (CRF) and an integrated research and training facility (IRTF), with a total area of approximately 16,300 square metres. The IRTF is the main portion of the building, spanning five floors with space for research and education. This portion of the ACE building is open to university students and is used as a place to study. The CRF, usually referred to as 'the wind tunnel', has full-size chambers for full climatic, structural durability and life cycle testing including a climatic wind tunnel. In this test chamber, wind speeds can exceed 240 kilometres per hour, temperatures range from -40 to +60 °C and relative humidity ranges from 5 to 95 per cent. The climatic wind tunnel has a variable nozzle that can optimize the airflow from 7 to 13 square metres (and larger) as well as a large flexible chassis dynamometer integrated into a 11.5-metre turntable; these allow for vehicles in a wide range of sizes to be tested at various angles of windflow, including crosswind. The chamber also includes a solar array that can replicate the effects of the sun. The Energy Research Centre (ERC) is a 9,290-square-metre, four-storey facility focusing on clean energy technologies that houses Ontario Tech's nuclear engineering undergraduate program, the only program of its kind in Canada | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=300275 | 245,647 |
Norman Osborn ?", and finally took over when Osborn's Iron Patriot armor was defeated by Captain America and Iron Man at the end of the "Siege" arc. Since being cured of the Goblin formula, Osborn claims that his sanity has also been restored. However, he has expressed satisfaction at plastic surgery that 'restored' him to a twisted version of his original features, and intended to use a modified version of the formula to essentially 'infect' the entire country of Symkaria to become goblin-level soldiers without the intellectual capacity to defy him. A number of alternate universes in Marvel Comics publications allow writers to introduce variations on Osborn, in which the character's origins, behavior, and morality differ from the mainstream setting. Marvel 2099 depicts the Goblin as a radical trickster who wants to prove that Spider-Man (Miguel O'Hara) is in the pay of a megacorp. He has bat-like glider-wings and a bag of "tricks", similar to the 20th century version. He also has the ability to project illusions. In Earth X, Osborn's business ventures have completely taken over the United States. Citizens work in his businesses, shop in his stores and eat his food and is partially responsible for the deaths of the Avengers as he sent them to battle a now Super Intelligent Absorbing Man. In the Marvel Noir universe, Osborn is a former circus freak who was mistreated from the audience for his reptile-like skin disorder. This fueled his ambitions in earning his "respect" by becoming the major Crime Lord in New York | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=18842058 | 226,565 |
Quantum dot Therefore, the sum of these energies can be represented as: where "μ" is the reduced mass, "a" is the radius of the quantum dot, "m" is the free electron mass, "m" is the hole mass, and "ε" is the size-dependent dielectric constant. Although the above equations were derived using simplifying assumptions, they imply that the electronic transitions of the quantum dots will depend on their size. These quantum confinement effects are apparent only below the critical size. Larger particles do not exhibit this effect. This effect of quantum confinement on the quantum dots has been repeatedly verified experimentally and is a key feature of many emerging electronic structures. The Coulomb interaction between confined carriers can also be studied by numerical means when results unconstrained by asymptotic approximations are pursued. Besides confinement in all three dimensions (i.e., a quantum dot), other quantum confined semiconductors include: A variety of theoretical frameworks exist to model optical, electronic, and structural properties of quantum dots. These may be broadly divided into quantum mechanical, semiclassical, and classical. Quantum mechanical models and simulations of quantum dots often involve the interaction of electrons with a pseudopotential or random matrix. Semiclassical models of quantum dots frequently incorporate a chemical potential | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=511547 | 270,813 |
Single-molecule experiment agonist concentration and structure, permeant ion and/or channel blocker, mutations in the ion channel amino acids), can provide information regarding the interconversion of various kinetic states of the ion channel. In a minimal model for an ion channel, there are two states: open and closed. However, other states are often needed in order to accurately represent the data, including multiple closed states as well as inactive and/or desensitized states, which are non-conducting states that can occur even in the presence of stimulus. Single fluorophores can be chemically attached to biomolecules, such as proteins or DNA, and the dynamics of individual molecules can be tracked by monitoring the fluorescent probe. Spatial movements within the Rayleigh limit can be tracked, along with changes in emission intensity and/or radiative lifetime, which often indicate changes in local environment. For instance, single-molecule labeling has yielded a vast quantity of information on how kinesin motor proteins move along microtubule strands in muscle cells. Main article smFRET. In single-molecule fluorescence resonance energy transfer, the molecule is labeled in (at least) two places. A laser beam is focused on the molecule exciting the first probe. When this probe relaxes and emits a photon, it has a chance of exciting the other probe. The efficiency of the absorption of the photon emitted from the first probe in the second probe depends on the distance between these probes | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2781940 | 22,352 |
Fritz Haber Haber was appointed a Privatdozent in Bunte's institute, taking on teaching duties related to the area of dye technology, and continuing to work on the combustion of gases. In 1896, the university supported him in traveling to Silesia, Saxony, and Austria to learn about advances in dye technology. In 1897 Haber made a similar trip to learn about developments in electrochemistry. He had been interested in the area for some time, and had worked with another privatdozent, Hans Luggin, who gave theoretical lectures in electrochemistry and physical chemistry. Haber's 1898 book "Grundriss der technischen Elektrochemie auf theoretischer Grundlage" (Outline of technical electrochemistry based on theoretical foundations) attracted considerable attention, particularly his work on the reduction of nitrobenzene. In the book's foreword, Haber expresses his gratitude to Luggin, who died on 5 December 1899. Haber collaborated with others in the area as well, including Georg Bredig, a student and later an assistant of Wilhelm Ostwald in Leipzig. Bunte and Engler supported an application for further authorization of Haber's teaching activities, and on 6 December 1898, Haber was invested with the title of "Extraordinarius" and an associate professorship, by order of the Grand Duke Friedrich von Baden. Haber worked in a variety of areas while at Karlsruhe, making significant contributions in several areas | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=174645 | 36,641 |
Language creation in artificial intelligence This modified algorithm is preferable in many contexts, even though it scores lower in effectiveness than the opaque algorithm, because clarity to humans is important in many use cases. In "The Atlantic", Adreinne LaFrance analogized the wondrous and "terrifying" evolved chatbot language to cryptophasia, the phenomenon of some twins developing a language that only the two children can understand. In 2017 researchers at OpenAI demonstrated a multi-agent environment and learning methods that bring about emergence of a basic language "ab initio" without starting from a pre-existing language. The language consists of a stream of "ungrounded" (initially meaningless) abstract discrete symbols uttered by agents over time, which comes to evolve a defined vocabulary and syntactical constraints. One of the tokens might evolve to mean "blue-agent", another "red-landmark", and a third "goto", in which case an agent will say "goto red-landmark blue-agent" to ask the blue agent to go to the red landmark. In addition, when visible to one another, the agents could spontaneously learn nonverbal communication such as pointing, guiding, and pushing. The researchers speculated that the emergence of AI language might be analogous to the evolution of human communication | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=56391079 | 129,719 |
Lidar MOLA, the Mars Orbiting Laser Altimeter, used a lidar instrument in a Mars-orbiting satellite (the NASA Mars Global Surveyor) to produce a spectacularly precise global topographic survey of the red planet. Laser altimeters produced global elevation models of Mars, the Moon (e Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA) Mercury (Mercury Laser Altimeter (MLA), NEAR–Shoemaker Laser Rangefinder (NLR). Future missions will also include laser altimeter experiments such as the Ganymede Laser Altimeter (GALA) as part of the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) mission. In September, 2008, the NASA Phoenix Lander used lidar to detect snow in the atmosphere of Mars. In atmospheric physics, lidar is used as a remote detection instrument to measure densities of certain constituents of the middle and upper atmosphere, such as potassium, sodium, or molecular nitrogen and oxygen. These measurements can be used to calculate temperatures. can also be used to measure wind speed and to provide information about vertical distribution of the aerosol particles. At the JET nuclear fusion research facility, in the UK near Abingdon, Oxfordshire, lidar Thomson Scattering is used to determine Electron Density and Temperature profiles of the plasma. has been widely used in rock mechanics for rock mass characterization and slope change detection. Some important geomechanical properties from the rock mass can be extracted from the 3-D point clouds obtained by means of the lidar | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=41958 | 304,083 |
Fair trade cocoa A report later that year by "New Food Economy" stated that the Child Labour Monitoring and Remediation Systems implemented by the International Cocoa Initiative and its partners has been useful, but "they are currently reaching less than 20 percent of the over two million children impacted". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=35785293 | 505,679 |
Eigenstate thermalization hypothesis It is also important to note that the ETH makes statements about "specific observables" on a case by case basis - it does not make any claims about whether every observable in a system will obey ETH. In fact, this certainly cannot be true. Given a basis of energy eigenstates, one can always explicitly construct an operator which violates the ETH, simply by writing down the operator as a matrix in this basis whose elements explicitly do not obey the conditions imposed by the ETH. Conversely, it is always trivially possible to find operators which "do" satisfy ETH, by writing down a matrix whose elements are specifically chosen to obey ETH. In light of this, one may be led to believe that the ETH is somewhat trivial in its usefulness. However, the important consideration to bear in mind is that these operators thus constructed may not have any "physical relevance." While one can construct these matrices, it is not clear that they correspond to observables which could be realistically measured in an experiment, or bear any resemblance to physically interesting quantities. An arbitrary Hermitian operator on the Hilbert space of the system need not correspond to something which is a physically measurable observable. Typically, the ETH is postulated to hold for "few-body operators," observables which involve only a small number of particles. Examples of this would include the occupation of a given momentum in a gas of particles, or the occupation of a particular site in a lattice system of particles | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=39937659 | 18,314 |
Speech synthesis Kelly's voice recorder synthesizer (vocoder) recreated the song "Daisy Bell", with musical accompaniment from Max Mathews. Coincidentally, Arthur C. Clarke was visiting his friend and colleague John Pierce at the Bell Labs Murray Hill facility. Clarke was so impressed by the demonstration that he used it in the climactic scene of his screenplay for his novel "", where the HAL 9000 computer sings the same song as astronaut Dave Bowman puts it to sleep. Despite the success of purely electronic speech synthesis, research into mechanical speech-synthesizers continues. Linear predictive coding (LPC), a form of speech coding, began development with the work of Fumitada Itakura of Nagoya University and Shuzo Saito of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) in 1966. Further developments in LPC technology were made by Bishnu S. Atal and Manfred R. Schroeder at Bell Labs during the 1970s. LPC was later the basis for early speech synthesizer chips, such as the Texas Instruments LPC Speech Chips used in the Speak & Spell toys from 1978. In 1975, Fumitada Itakura developed the line spectral pairs (LSP) method for high-compression speech coding, while at NTT. From 1975 to 1981, Itakura studied problems in speech analysis and synthesis based on the LSP method. In 1980, his team developed an LSP-based speech synthesizer chip | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=42799 | 407,688 |
Deal–Grove model The mathematically describes the growth of an oxide layer on the surface of a material. In particular, it is used to predict and interpret thermal oxidation of silicon in semiconductor device fabrication. The model was first published in 1965 by Bruce Deal and Andrew Grove of Fairchild Semiconductor, building on Mohamed M. Atalla's work on silicon surface passivation by thermal oxidation at Bell Labs in the late 1950s. This served as a step in the development of CMOS devices and the fabrication of integrated circuits. The model assumes that oxidation reaction occurs at the interface between the oxide layer and the substrate material, rather than between the oxide and the ambient gas. Thus, it considers three phenomena that the oxidizing species undergoes, in this order: The model assumes that each of these stages proceeds at a rate proportional to the oxidant's concentration. In the first case, this means Henry's law; in the second, Fick's law of diffusion; in the third, a first-order reaction with respect to the oxidant. It also assumes steady state conditions, i.e. that transient effects do not appear. Given these assumptions, the flux of oxidant through each of the three phases can be expressed in terms of concentrations, material properties, and temperature. By setting the three fluxes equal to each other formula_4, the following relations can be derived: Assuming a diffusion controlled growth i.e | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8559342 | 47,255 |
Cornish hurling For example, during the hurl in the town, if a hurler holds the ball aloft it signals that he intends to give it to a spectator to hold, and other hurlers refrain from tackling him. An act that is widely disapproved of but not considered illegal is to make a particularly early attempt to carry-off the ball to the goal or boundary. Occasional disputes are generally resolved by the hurlers that happen to be present at the time, as there is no referee or higher authority. The hurler who wins the ball for his team is the custodian of it until the next hurl. He has the right to keep it in perpetuity, but to do so he must pay for a new one to be made for the next game. The Townsmen are men who live in St Columb Major town, whilst their opponents, the Countrymen, are those who live in the rural parts of the parish - this includes villages and hamlets such as Talskiddy, Trebudannon, Ruthvoes and Tregatillian, as well as the farms and other rural dwellings of St Columb parish. Sometimes players from outside the parish play (particularly former St Columb residents) but they are not permitted to win the ball. Team allegiance is purely based on residence: if a hurler moves house from the town to the countryside (or vice versa) he changes sides accordingly. The border between the town and the country is undefined and there are some areas around parts of the outskirts of the town that may be considered either town or country | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1448917 | 84,286 |
Transformation in economics Also, correlations in economics are always dangerous because they do not prove or establish causal relationships. The new transformational paradigm could be defined by the ongoing self-organization of the market economy itself: its rates of self-service, disintermediation and mass customization are increasing and becoming most effective on local and regional levels. Because there is no new productive sector to emerge, the economy seeks to reinstate its new balance through these new modes of doing business. Producers and providers are outsourcing their production and services to customers and to technology. Outsourcing to customers is a natural and necessary self-organizing process, including disintermediation, customer integration and mass customization, all driven by the global productivity at the cusp of transformation. Due to its productivity growth rates, each sector must emerge, grow, persist, stagnate, decline and dissipate in terms of its employment generating capacity. The high-productivity growth sectors are emerging and dissipating first, the low-productivity growth sectors (like services) are completing their life cycles only now. Different productivity growth rates in different sectors are accompanied by virtually uniform growth rates in wages and salaries across all sectors, as required by free market forces | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=40624374 | 487,509 |
Finding Darwin's God Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution is a 2000 book by the American cell biologist and Roman Catholic Kenneth R. Miller wherein he argues that evolution does not contradict religious faith. Miller argues that evolution occurred, that the earth is not young, that science must work based on methodological naturalism, and that evolution cannot be construed as an effective argument for atheism. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=7667356 | 162,240 |
Nuclear and radiation accidents and incidents A related cause of accidents is failure of control software, as in the cases involving the Therac-25 medical radiotherapy equipment: the elimination of a hardware safety interlock in a new design model exposed a previously undetected bug in the control software, which could have led to patients receiving massive overdoses under a specific set of conditions. Many of the major nuclear accidents have been directly attributable to operator or human error. This was obviously the case in the analysis of both the Chernobyl and TMI-2 accidents. At Chernobyl, a test procedure was being conducted prior to the accident. The leaders of the test permitted operators to disable and ignore key protection circuits and warnings that would have normally shut the reactor down. At TMI-2, operators permitted thousands of gallons of water to escape from the reactor plant before observing that the coolant pumps were behaving abnormally. The coolant pumps were thus turned off to protect the pumps, which in turn led to the destruction of the reactor itself as cooling was completely lost within the core. A detailed investigation into SL-1 determined that one operator (perhaps inadvertently) manually pulled the central control rod out about 26 inches rather than the maintenance procedure's intention of about 4 inches | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=383813 | 59,157 |
Transfer function For example, the transfer function of an electronic filter is the voltage amplitude at the output as a function of the frequency of a constant amplitude sine wave applied to the input. For optical imaging devices, the optical transfer function is the Fourier transform of the point spread function (hence a function of spatial frequency). Transfer functions are commonly used in the analysis of systems such as single-input single-output filters in the fields of signal processing, communication theory, and control theory. The term is often used exclusively to refer to linear time-invariant (LTI) systems. Most real systems have non-linear input/output characteristics, but many systems, when operated within nominal parameters (not "over-driven") have behavior close enough to linear that LTI system theory is an acceptable representation of the input/output behavior. The descriptions below are given in terms of a complex variable, formula_1, which bears a brief explanation. In many applications, it is sufficient to define formula_2 (thus formula_3), which reduces the Laplace transforms with complex arguments to Fourier transforms with real argument ω. The applications where this is common are ones where there is interest only in the steady-state response of an LTI system, not the fleeting turn-on and turn-off behaviors or stability issues. That is usually the case for signal processing and communication theory | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=31146 | 113,918 |
Centre for Applied Genomics In 2001, a proposal entitled "Genome Resource Core Platform" was submitted to the then newly formed Genome Canada. This provided operational support, enhancing existing facilities and adding a mouse genotyping core at the University of Toronto led by Lucy Osborne. In 2002, SickKids built a new Affymetrix microarray facility. This core has quickly grown to become the largest such service centre in Canada and is in the top ten in North America. In 2004, TCAG entered a second phase of development driven by a $12 million CFI/Ontario Innovation Trust funded project entitled "Integrative Genomics for Health Research", allowing for consolidation of the mouse genotyping core with the SickKids facilities. This award also supported the establishment of an "Ontario Population Genomics Repository" (OPGP) to be used as controls in studies of common diseases. To efficiently complete this project, TCAG partnered with John McLaughlin's group at Mount Sinai Hospital (Toronto). In May, 2004, an application to the newly announced CFI Research Hospital Fund resulted in a $10.9 million award to build out lab space and consolidate all operations on the 14th and 15th floors of the Toronto Medical Discovery Tower (TMDT) in the MaRS Discovery District. TCAG was the first occupant of TMDT (in August, 2005), quickly followed by other SickKids scientists | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=18041561 | 117,874 |
Metal hose They are also used as protective hoses for light conductors and electrical lines in fibre optics, or in measuring and control equipment. As miniature hoses with diameters ranging from 2.0–0.3 mm, they are also employed in medical technology, such as for endoscopy. In addition, stripwound hoses are used for extracting and conveying substances such as smoke, shavings, granulate, etc. They are also suitable as protective hoses for corrugated lines to prevent over-extension and to act as a liner (guide hose inside a corrugated hose) to optimise flow conditions. Stripwound metal hoses also include "bendable arms", or "swan necks". These consist of a round wire coil over which a triangular wire is wound. They can be bent in any direction and remain stationary in any position. These are used for the flexible supports of lamps, magnifying glasses and microphones, for example. Corrugated hoses are pressure and vacuum tight. The permissible operating pressures for hoses with small dimensions reach 380 bar (with a 3-fold burst pressure safety factor). The pressure resistance of large dimensions is lower for technical reasons. Stainless steel models have a temperature resistance of up to approx. 600 °C, depending on the pressure load, and even higher values are possible with special materials. In the low temperature range, stainless steel corrugated hoses can be used down to -270 °C | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=37791108 | 221,440 |
Stefan Tyszkiewicz He was never to return to the dreaming spires, but volunteered instead for the Russian branch of the International Red Cross. For conspicuous bravery in saving, under fire, seven gravely injured soldiers, he was awarded the Order of St. George. In 1915 he was conscripted into the army. He passed out of the Page Corps in St Petersburg. From late 1916 he was adjutant to Gen. Grand Duke Nikolay Romanov, commander-in-chief of the Caucasian Front. He met the step-daughter of Grand Duke Nikolay, who was herself related to several royal houses of Europe, Princess Elena of Leuchtenberg (1892–1971). She was the daughter of George Maximilianovich, 6th Duke of Leuchtenberg and Princess Anastasia of Montenegro. They married in Yalta in July 1917. The couple had one surviving child, Countess Natalia Tyszkiewicz (1921–2003), who was to spend much of her later life in Switzerland. Tyszkiewicz and his wife were in Crimea at the outbreak of the October Revolution. Stefan was able to help many of his countrymen to leave there and return to Poland. He himself left the peninsula with his wife aboard a British ship along with other members of the extended Russian royal family, after King George V was able to prevail upon the then resistant British prime minister, Lloyd George, to rescue them. After a brief stay in Italy, the Tyszkiewicz returned to their estate, Landwarów in Poland in 1919. Shortly after, the Polish–Bolshevik war broke out and Tyszkiewicz volunteered for the cavalry in the Wilno region | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=49575742 | 444,177 |
Motherboard Passive cooling, or a single fan mounted on the power supply, was sufficient for many desktop computer CPU's until the late 1990s; since then, most have required CPU fans mounted on their heat sinks, due to rising clock speeds and power consumption. Most motherboards have connectors for additional computer fans and integrated temperature sensors to detect motherboard and CPU temperatures and controllable fan connectors which the BIOS or operating system can use to regulate fan speed. Alternatively computers can use a water cooling system instead of many fans. Some small form factor computers and home theater PCs designed for quiet and energy-efficient operation boast fan-less designs. This typically requires the use of a low-power CPU, as well as a careful layout of the motherboard and other components to allow for heat sink placement. A 2003 study found that some spurious computer crashes and general reliability issues, ranging from screen image distortions to I/O read/write errors, can be attributed not to software or peripheral hardware but to aging capacitors on PC motherboards. Ultimately this was shown to be the result of a faulty electrolyte formulation, an issue termed capacitor plague. Standard motherboards use electrolytic capacitors to filter the DC power distributed around the board. These capacitors age at a temperature-dependent rate, as their water based electrolytes slowly evaporate. This can lead to loss of capacitance and subsequent motherboard malfunctions due to voltage instabilities | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19945 | 419,334 |
Stock market In short selling, the trader borrows stock (usually from his brokerage which holds its clients' shares or its own shares on account to lend to short sellers) then sells it on the market, betting that the price will fall. The trader eventually buys back the stock, making money if the price fell in the meantime and losing money if it rose. Exiting a short position by buying back the stock is called "covering". This strategy may also be used by unscrupulous traders in illiquid or thinly traded markets to artificially lower the price of a stock. Hence most markets either prevent short selling or place restrictions on when and how a short sale can occur. The practice of naked shorting is illegal in most (but not all) stock markets. In margin buying, the trader borrows money (at interest) to buy a stock and hopes for it to rise. Most industrialized countries have regulations that require that if the borrowing is based on collateral from other stocks the trader owns outright, it can be a maximum of a certain percentage of those other stocks' value. In the United States, the margin requirements have been 50% for many years (that is, if you want to make a $1000 investment, you need to put up $500, and there is often a maintenance margin below the $500). A margin call is made if the total value of the investor's account cannot support the loss of the trade | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=52328 | 466,245 |
Silicon controlled rectifier A silicon controlled rectifier or semiconductor controlled rectifier is a four-layer solid-state current-controlling device. The principle of four-layer p–n–p–n switching was developed by Moll, Tanenbaum, Goldey and Holonyak of Bell Laboratories in 1956. The practical demonstration of silicon controlled switching and detailed theoretical behavior of a device in agreement with the experimental results was presented by Dr Ian M. Mackintosh of Bell Laboratories in January 1958. The name "silicon controlled rectifier" is General Electric's trade name for a type of thyristor. The SCR was developed by a team of power engineers led by Gordon Hall and commercialized by Frank W. "Bill" Gutzwiller in 1957. Some sources define silicon-controlled rectifiers and thyristors as synonymous, other sources define silicon-controlled rectifiers as a proper subset of the set of thyristors, those being devices with at least four layers of alternating n- and p-type material. According to Bill Gutzwiller, the terms "SCR" and "controlled rectifier" were earlier, and "thyristor" was applied later, as usage of the device spread internationally. SCRs are unidirectional devices (i.e. can conduct current only in one direction) as opposed to TRIACs, which are bidirectional (i.e. charge carriers can flow through them in either direction). SCRs can be triggered normally only by currents going into the gate as opposed to TRIACs, which can be triggered normally by either a positive or a negative current applied to its gate electrode | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=319515 | 391,595 |
Industrial wastewater treatment The name is derived from the fact that such separators are designed according to standards published by the American Petroleum Institute (API). The API separator is a gravity separation device designed by using Stokes Law to define the rise velocity of oil droplets based on their density and size. The design is based on the specific gravity difference between the oil and the wastewater because that difference is much smaller than the specific gravity difference between the suspended solids and water. The suspended solids settles to the bottom of the separator as a sediment layer, the oil rises to top of the separator and the cleansed wastewater is the middle layer between the oil layer and the solids. Typically, the oil layer is skimmed off and subsequently re-processed or disposed of, and the bottom sediment layer is removed by a chain and flight scraper (or similar device) and a sludge pump. The water layer is sent to further treatment for additional removal of any residual oil and then to some type of biological treatment unit for removal of undesirable dissolved chemical compounds. Parallel plate separators are similar to API separators but they include tilted parallel plate assemblies (also known as parallel packs). The parallel plates provide more surface for suspended oil droplets to coalesce into larger globules. Such separators still depend upon the specific gravity between the suspended oil and the water. However, the parallel plates enhance the degree of oil-water separation | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1558218 | 460,524 |
Review of Accounting Studies The is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering all aspects of accounting. It was established in 1996 and is published by Springer Science+Business Media. The editor-in-chief is Russell Lundholm (Sauder School of Business). According to the "Journal Citation Reports", the journal has a 2011 impact factor of 2.022, ranking it 10th out of 86 journals in the category "Business, Finance". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=19152705 | 481,286 |
Cavitation There exist macroscopic white lamellae inside quartz and other minerals in the Bohemian Massif resembling wavefronts generated by a meteorite impact according to the Rajlich's Hypothesis. The hypothetical wavefronts are composed of many microcavities. Their origin is seen in a physical phenomenon of ultrasonic cavitation. occurs in the xylem of vascular plants when the tension of water within the xylem exceeds atmospheric pressure. The sap vaporizes locally so that either the vessel elements or tracheids are filled with water vapor. Plants are able to repair cavitated xylem in a number of ways. For plants less than 50 cm tall, root pressure can be sufficient to redissolve the vapor. Larger plants direct solutes into the xylem via "ray cells", or in tracheids, via osmosis through bordered pits. Solutes attract water, the pressure rises and vapor can redissolve. In some trees, the sound of the cavitation is audible, particularly in summer, when the rate of evapotranspiration is highest. Some deciduous trees have to shed leaves in the autumn partly because cavitation increases as temperatures decrease. plays a fundamental role in spore dispersal mechanism of particular types of plants. Fern provides a clear example. Namely, the fern sporangium acts as a catapult. The opening phase is driven by water vaporization and by the resulting pressure decrease inside annulus cells (that is the charging phase of the catapult). When the negative pressure approximately reaches the value of 9 MPa, cavitation occurs | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=7807 | 49,457 |
List of antibiotic-resistant bacteria pyogenes" resistant to macrolide antibiotics have emerged; however, all strains remain uniformly susceptible to penicillin. Resistance of "Streptococcus pneumoniae" to penicillin and other beta-lactams is increasing worldwide. The major mechanism of resistance involves the introduction of mutations in genes encoding penicillin-binding proteins. Selective pressure is thought to play an important role, and use of beta-lactam antibiotics has been implicated as a risk factor for infection and colonization. "S. pneumoniae" is responsible for pneumonia, bacteremia, otitis media, meningitis, sinusitis, peritonitis and arthritis. "Campylobacter" causes diarrhea (often bloody), fever, and abdominal cramps. Serious complications such as temporary paralysis can also occur. Physicians rely on ciprofloxacin and azithromycin for treating patients with severe disease although "Campylobacter" is showing resistance to these antibiotics. "Neisseria gonorrhoeae" is a sexually transmitted pathogen that causes gonorrhea, a sexually transmitted disease that can result in discharge and inflammation at the urethra, cervix, pharynx, or rectum. It can cause pelvic pain, pain on urination, penile and vaginal discharge, as well as systemic symptoms. It can also cause severe reproductive complications. As of 2013 hard-to-treat or untreatable infections of carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE), also known as carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae (CPE), were increasing among patients in medical facilities | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=55868631 | 187,861 |
Garbage disposal unit There are two main types of garbage disposers—continuous feed and batch feed. Continuous feed models are used by feeding in waste after being started and are more common. Batch feed units are used by placing waste inside the unit before being started. These types of units are started by placing a specially designed cover over the opening. Some covers manipulate a mechanical switch while others allow magnets in the cover to align with magnets in the unit. Small slits in the cover allow water to flow through. Batch feed models are considered safer, since the top of the disposal is covered during operation, preventing foreign objects from falling in. Waste disposal units may jam, but can usually be cleared either by forcing the turntable round from above or by turning the motor using a hex-key wrench inserted into the motor shaft from below. Especially hard objects accidentally or deliberately introduced, such as metal cutlery, can damage the waste disposal unit and become damaged themselves, although recent advances, such as swivel impellers, have been made to minimize such damage. Some higher-end units have an automatic reversing jam clearing feature. By using a slightly more-complicated centrifugal starting switch, the split-phase motor rotates in the opposite direction from the previous run each time it is started. This can clear minor jams, but is claimed to be unnecessary by some manufacturers: Since the early sixties, many disposal units have utilized swivel impellers which make reversing unnecessary | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2026889 | 340,819 |
Stiglmaierplatz (Munich U-Bahn) Stiglmaierplatz is a square in Maxvorstadt close to Munich city centre and a U-Bahn station on the U1, opened on 28 May 1983 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=7616757 | 323,106 |
Buildings Department The (BD) is a department of the Hong Kong Government responsible for building codes, building safety, and inspection. It was founded in 1993 and is now subordinate to the Development Bureau. The succeeded the former Buildings Ordinance Office (BOO). BOO first existed under the former Public Works Department. From 1982-1986 it existed under the Building Development Department, and from 1986-1993 under the Buildings and Lands Department. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=49268590 | 332,890 |
SolidRun The major product development line aimed at the consumer market is the CuBox family of mini-computers. The first of which was announced in December 2011, followed by the development of the CuBox-i series, announced in November 2013. The most recent addition to the CuBox line has been the CuBoxTV (announced in December 2014), which has been marketed primarily for the home entertainment market. A further primary product developed by is the Hummingboard, an uncased single-board computer, marketed to developers as an integrated processing component. develops all of its products using Open-source software (such as Linux and OpenELEC), identifying itself as a member of the OSS community and a promoter of Open-source software platforms. The products developed by are classed into three families, based upon the processor maker. Each family offers roughly the same range of mini-computers, SOM's & COM's - currently divided into NXP iMX-6, Marvell Armada & Intel Braswell families. Every processing family offering different advantages with different application capacities. Announced in December 2011, CuBox and CuBox-i are a series of fanless nettop-class mini computers, all cube shaped and approximate 2 × 2 × 2 inches in size, weighing around 91 g (3.2 oz). CuBox is a low-power ARM architecture CPU based computer, using the Marvell Armada 510 (88AP510) SoC with an ARM v6/v7-compliant superscalar processor core, Vivante GC600 OpenGL 3.0 and OpenGL ES 2 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=47237357 | 123,240 |
Web-Based Enterprise Management In computing, (WBEM) comprises a set of systems-management technologies developed to unify the management of distributed computing environments. The WBEM initiative, initially sponsored in 1996 by BMC Software, Cisco Systems, Compaq Computer, Intel, and Microsoft, is now widely adopted. WBEM is based on Internet standards and Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) open standards: Although the name labels WBEM as "web-based", it is not necessarily dependent on any particular user interface (see below). Other systems-management approaches include remote shells, proprietary solutions and IETF standardized network-management architectures like the SNMP and netconf. WBEM allows the management of any element in a standard and inter-operable manner. WBEM provides the technology underlying different management initiatives in information technology: To understand the WBEM architecture, consider the components which lie between the operator trying to manage a device (configure it, turn it off and on, collect alarms, etc.) and the actual hardware and software of the device: So, which pieces of this does a device manufacturer or service provider have to write? | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1375202 | 101,356 |
C10H13NO The molecular formula CHNO (molar mass : 163.21 g/mol, exact mass : 163.099714) may refer to : | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=24150799 | 30,465 |
Electronic switch In electronics, an electronic switch is an electronic component or device that can switch an electrical circuit, interrupting the current or diverting it from one conductor to another. Typically, electronic switches use solid state devices such as transistors, though vacuum tubes can be used as well in high voltage applications. The most widely used electronic switch in digital circuits is the metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8969189 | 300,348 |
Alpha (programming language) The Alpha language was the original database language proposed by Edgar F. Codd, the inventor of the relational database approach. It was defined in Codd's 1971 paper "A Data Base Sublanguage Founded on the Relational Calculus". Alpha influenced the design of QUEL. It was eventually supplanted by SQL (which is however based on the relational algebra defined by Codd in "Relational Completeness of Data Base Sublanguages"), which IBM developed for its first commercial relational database product. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4657107 | 120,312 |
Ephaptic coupling They tested the effects of changing extracellular space (which affects local electrical fields) and found that one can block epileptic synchronization independent of chemical synapse manipulation simply by increasing the space between cells. Later, a model was created to predict this phenomenon and showed scenarios with greater extracellular spacing that effectively blocked epileptic synchronization in the brain. Neurons in the olfactory system are unmyelinated and densely packed and thus the often small effects of ephaptic coupling are more easily seen. A number of studies have shown how inhibition among neurons in the olfactory system work to fine tune integration of signals in response to odor. This inhibition has been shown to occur from changes in electrical potentials alone. The addition of ephaptic coupling to olfactory neuron models adds further support to the "dedicated-line" model in which each olfactory receptor sends its signal to one neuron. The inhibition due to ephaptic coupling would help account for the integration of signals that gives rise to more nuanced perception of smells. Due to the very small electrical fields produced by neurons, mathematical models are often used in order to test a number of manipulations. Cable theory is one of the most important mathematical equations in neuroscience. It calculates electrical current using capacitance and resistance as variables and has been the main basis for many predictions about ephaptic coupling in neurons | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30767825 | 18,880 |
AN thread Originally parts were made compliant to the specification MIL-F-5509, but they are now controlled under SAE AS (Aerospace Standards) specifications AS4841 through AS4843 and AS4975. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=863608 | 438,160 |
Smartmatic Los Angeles County, which has about 5 million registered voters, began searching for a new electoral system in 2009 after the county determined that available systems at the time were not suitable. The Voting System Assessment Project (VSAP) was initiated to establish a publicly owned voting system and to provide research of electoral methods for other voting jurisdictions interested in replicating the process. In 2017, Los Angeles County signed a $282 million contract with to create an election system to be used for future elections and became the first publicly-owned voting system in the United States. The system will be used first during the 2020 California Democratic primary. Both software and hardware was developed in the United States by while ownership of all products and intellectual properties were then given to Los Angeles County. The machines developed incorporate an interactive ballot that is printed by each voter to validate results and then deposited back into voting machines. According to VSAP, interest in the voting system was expressed by other districts in the United States and internationally. was the main technology supplier for fourteen Venezuelan national elections. In March 2018, ceased operations in Venezuela. Venezuela's previously existing laws that were established before Hugo Chávez's Bolivarian Revolution stated that automated voting was required in Venezuela, with United States firm Election Systems & Software and Spanish company Indra Sistemas already being used in the country | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=16928395 | 112,043 |
Critical Care (Star Trek: Voyager) The Doctor is able to convince the nurses to provide him with extra doses of medicine, which he smuggles to the lower level and administers to Tebbis and others. Chellick discovers his scheme and forcibly restricts the Doctor to Level Blue. Meanwhile, the "Voyager" crew tracks down Gar, who had stolen the Doctor's program, and Neelix tricks him into revealing the place where he sold the Doctor. "Voyager" sets course there. The Doctor learns that Tebbis has died despite the fact that continued injections would have saved him. He figures out a means to escape Level Blue to continue to try to save the other patients in the lower levels. Chellick learns of this and arrives to stop the Doctor, but the Doctor injects him with some of Tebbis's blood, infecting him with the same condition. Mistaking him for the late Tebbis, The Allocator mistakenly assigns Chellick a low TC, preventing him from getting the proper treatment. With this leverage, the Doctor convinces Chellick to move the low-TC patients, including himself, to level Blue to receive care. "Voyager" arrives to rescue the Doctor as Chellick's orders are carried out. Back aboard ship, the Doctor considers if his ethics subroutines have failed as he willingly infected Chellick, but Seven of Nine assures him that they did not, which means he acted entirely of his own accord. In "Teaching Medicine and Medical Ethics Using Popular Culture" this episode was suggested as part of curriculum to teach medical ethics | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8611247 | 464,379 |
Wellington Convict and Mission Site The site also has the potential to demonstrate aspects of both British and Wiradjuri culture throughout a period when both groups were adapting to changing conditions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=57741646 | 316,443 |
Life-cycle assessment or life cycle assessment (LCA, also known as life-cycle analysis) is a methodology for assessing environmental impacts associated with all the stages of the life-cycle of a commercial product, process, or service. For instance, in the case of a manufactured product, environmental impacts are assessed from raw material extraction and processing (cradle), through the product's manufacture, distribution and use, to the recycling or final disposal of the materials composing it (grave). An LCA study involves a thorough inventory of the energy and materials that are required across the industry value chain of the product, process or service, and calculates the corresponding emissions to the environment. LCA thus assesses cumulative potential environmental impacts. The aim is to document and improve the overall environmental profile of the product. Widely recognized procedures for conducting LCAs are included in the 14000 series of environmental management standards of the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO), in particular, in ISO 14040 and ISO 14044. Criticisms have been leveled against the LCA approach, both in general and with regard to specific cases, e.g., in the consistency of the methodology, particularly with regard to system boundaries, and the susceptibility of particular LCAs to practitioner bias with regard to the decisions that they seek to inform. (LCA) is sometimes referred to synonymously as life-cycle analysis in the scholarly and agency report literatures | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=604896 | 347,492 |
Depolarizer However, this concept is outdated, since if enough depolarizer is present, it will react directly in most cases by getting electrons from the positive plate of the galvanic cell, i.e. there will be no relevant amount of hydrogen gas present. Therefore, the original concept of polarization does not apply to most batteries, and the depolarizer does not react with hydrogen as H. Still, the term is used today, however, in most cases, it might be replaced with oxidizing agent. Many different substances have been used as depolarizers; the most notable are listed below. These oxidize the hydrogen to water. Examples include: Nitric and chromic acids are powerful oxidizing agents, and effective depolarizers, but their hazardous nature makes them unsuitable for general use. Manganese dioxide is, therefore, the most widely used depolarizer. The hydrogen ions displace metal from the salt so that metal, instead of hydrogen, is deposited on the positive plate. Examples: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11543712 | 81,903 |
Contact (novel) At the conference, Ellie meets Devi Sukhavati, a doctor who left India to marry the man she loved, only to lose him to illness a year later. The final piece of the message is discovered when S. R. Hadden, a billionaire in multiple high-tech industries with an obsessive personal interest in the concept of immortality, suggests that Ellie check for phase modulation. This reveals the primer, thus allowing construction of the machine to begin. The American and Soviet governments enter a race to construct identical copies of the machine. As errors in the Soviet project are discovered, the American machine becomes the only option. Ellie applies to be one of the five passengers but her spot is given to David Drumlin instead. Despite heavy security, a group of extremists is able to get a bomb into one of the fabrication plants in Wyoming. During a visit by three astronomers, the bomb explodes, killing Drumlin and postponing completion of the machine indefinitely. Ellie's family also suffers when her mother has a stroke which causes paralysis. John Staughton accuses Ellie of ignoring her own mother for years. Ellie learns that S. R. Hadden has taken up residence aboard a private space station. While on board, he reveals that his company has been covertly building a third copy of the machine in Hokkaido, Japan. The activation date is set for December 31, 1999 and Ellie, Vaygay and Devi are given three of the seats | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=181622 | 268,221 |
Surface plasmon polariton The properties of an SPP can be derived from Maxwell's equations. We use a coordinate system where the metal–dielectric interface is the formula_1 plane, with the metal at formula_2 and dielectric at formula_3. The electric and magnetic fields as a function of position formula_4 and time "t" are as follows: where A wave of this form satisfies Maxwell's equations "only" on condition that the following equations also hold: and Solving these two equations, the dispersion relation for a wave propagating on the surface is In the free electron model of an electron gas, which neglects attenuation, the metallic dielectric function is where the bulk plasma frequency in SI units is where "n" is the electron density, "e" is the charge of the electron, "m" is the effective mass of the electron and formula_25 is the permittivity of free-space. The dispersion relation is plotted in Figure 3. At low "k", the SPP behaves like a photon, but as "k" increases, the dispersion relation bends over and reaches an asymptotic limit called the "surface plasma frequency". Since the dispersion curve lies to the right of the light line, "ω" = "k"⋅"c", the SPP has a shorter wavelength than free-space radiation such that the out-of-plane component of the SPP wavevector is purely imaginary and exhibits evanescent decay | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30868906 | 413,103 |
Reptation Monte Carlo is a quantum Monte Carlo method. It is similar to Diffusion Monte Carlo, except that it works with paths rather than points. This has some advantages relating to calculating certain properties of the system under study that diffusion Monte Carlo has difficulty with. In both diffusion Monte Carlo and reptation Monte Carlo, the method first aims to solve the time-dependent Schrödinger equation in the imaginary time direction. When you propagate the Schrödinger equation in time, you get the dynamics of the system under study. When you propagate it in imaginary time, you get a system that tends towards the ground state of the system. When substituting formula_1 in place of formula_2, the Schrodinger equation becomes identical with a diffusion equation. Diffusion equations can be solved by imagining a huge population of particles (sometimes called "walkers"), each diffusing in a way that solves the original equation. This is how diffusion Monte Carlo works. works in a very similar way, but is focused on the paths that the walkers take, rather than the density of walkers. In particular, a path may be mutated using a Metropolis algorithm which tries a change (normally at one end of the path) and then accepts or rejects the change based on a probability calculation. The update step in diffusion Monte Carlo would be moving the walkers slightly, and then duplicating and removing some of them. By contrast, the update step in reptation Monte Carlo mutates a path, and then accepts or rejects the mutation. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8988283 | 47,692 |
Unmanned aerial vehicle Another application for a high endurance UAV would be to "stare" at a battlefield for a long interval (ARGUS-IS, Gorgon Stare, Integrated Sensor Is Structure) to record events that could then be played backwards to track battlefield activities. Reliability improvements target all aspects of UAV systems, using resilience engineering and fault tolerance techniques. Individual reliability covers robustness of flight controllers, to ensure safety without excessive redundancy to minimize cost and weight. Besides, dynamic assessment of flight envelope allows damage-resilient UAVs, using non-linear analysis with ad-hoc designed loops or neural networks. UAV software liability is bending toward the design and certifications of crewed avionics software. Swarm resilience involves maintaining operational capabilities and reconfiguring tasks given unit failures. There are numerous civilian, commercial, military, and aerospace applications for UAVs. These include: UAVs are being developed and deployed by many countries around the world. Due to their wide proliferation, no comprehensive list of UAV systems exists. The export of UAVs or technology capable of carrying a 500 kg payload at least 300 km is restricted in many countries by the Missile Technology Control Regime. UAVs can threaten airspace security in numerous ways, including unintentional collisions or other interference with other aircraft, deliberate attacks or by distracting pilots or flight controllers | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=58900 | 248,587 |
Bruce H. Tiffney is an American paleobotanist, professor, and the dean of the College of Creative Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He graduated from Boston University with a degree in geology in 1971, and after earning his PhD at Harvard University in 1977, he became a professor of biology at Yale University, where he taught for nine years, and where he also worked as a curator of the D. C. Eaton Herbarium and paleontological collections at the Peabody Museum of Natural History. His research focuses on the evolution of flowering plants (angiosperms) in the fossil record. Tiffney is a fellow of the Geological Society of America, and appeared on the documentary series "The Future Is Wild". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25022310 | 10,997 |
Dele A dele or deleatur (, ) is an obelism (a proofreading symbol) used to mark something for deletion. "Dele", the more common term in modern American English (sometimes used as a verb, e.g. "that graf"), coincides with the imperative form of the Latin "delere" ("to delete"). However, the Oxford English Dictionary notes an earlier use in English of "deleatur" (Latin "let it be deleted"), and suggests that "dele" in English may have been an abbreviation for the longer word. The origin of the symbol appears to be an archaic letter D in the Kurrent and Sütterlin scripts, as an abbreviation for "dele" or "deleatur". It is markedly similar (if not identical in some cases) to the symbol for the German penny () which is an archaic lowercase d, for "denarius". As with most hand-written letters and symbols, its appearance is variable. The dele is used in proofreading and copy editing, where it may be written over the selected text itself (such that it often resembles a stretched cursive e), or in the margin alongside the selected text, which is usually struck through with a line. The stricken text or the dele itself may be framed by top and bottom curved brackets, as in the above example, to indicate that the space left after deletion is to be closed up. As the need for such closing up can usually be inferred by context, however, the brackets are often omitted. A dele can be undone with a stet. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4893773 | 271,242 |
Mitigation of aviation's environmental impact Over the years 1977–2007, commercial jet airliners have become 70% more fuel efficient, and have been predicted to be another 25% more fuel-efficient by 2025 according to Giovanni Bisignani. The next-generation of aircraft, including the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, Airbus A350 and Bombardier CSeries, are 20% more fuel efficient per passenger kilometre than current generation aircraft. This is primarily achieved through more fuel-efficient engines and lighter airframes & supporting structures made of composite materials but is also achieved through more aerodynamic shapes, winglets, a "one-piece" fuselage and more advanced computer systems for optimising routes and loading of the aircraft. Currently, air traffic corridors that aircraft are forced to follow place unnecessary detours on an aircraft's route forcing higher fuel burn and an increase in emissions. An improved Air Traffic Management System with more direct routes and optimized cruising altitudes would allow airlines to reduce their emissions by up to 18%. In the European Union, a Single European Sky has been proposed for the last 15 years so that there are no overlapping airspace restrictions between countries in the EU and so reduce emissions. As yet, the Single European Sky is still only a plan but progress has been made. If the Single European Sky had been created 15 years ago, 12 million tons of CO could have been saved. Biofuels are fuels derived from biomass material such as plants and waste | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27173352 | 361,950 |
Leonard McCoy McCoy later helps get Kirk posted aboard the USS "Enterprise". He later becomes the chief medical officer after Doctor Puri is killed during an attack by Nero. McCoy remains aboard to see the "Enterprise" defeat Nero and his crew, with Kirk becoming the commanding officer of the ship. "The Guardian" called Urban's portrayal of McCoy in the 2009 film an "unqualified success", and "The New York Times" called the character "wild-eyed and funny". Slate.com said Urban came closer than the other actors to impersonating a character's original depiction. Kelley had worked with "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry on previous television pilots, and he was Roddenberry's first choice to play the doctor aboard the USS "Enterprise". However, for the rejected pilot "" (1964), Roddenberry went with director Robert Butler's choice of John Hoyt to play Dr. Philip Boyce. For the second pilot, "Where No Man Has Gone Before" (1966), Roddenberry accepted director James Goldstone's decision to have Paul Fix play Dr. Mark Piper. Although Roddenberry wanted Kelley to play the character of ship's doctor, he did not put Kelley's name forward to NBC; the network never "rejected" the actor as Roddenberry sometimes suggested. Kelley's first broadcast appearance as Doctor was in "The Man Trap" (1966). Despite his character's prominence, Kelley's contract granted him only a "featuring" credit; it was not until the second season that he was given "starring" credit, at the urging of producer Robert Justman | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=27105 | 12,962 |
Battle of Midway The was a decisive naval battle in the Pacific Theater of World War II that took place on 4–7 June 1942, six months after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea. The United States Navy under Admirals Chester W. Nimitz, Frank J. Fletcher, and Raymond A. Spruance defeated an attacking fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy under Admirals Isoroku Yamamoto, Chūichi Nagumo, and Nobutake Kondō near Midway Atoll, inflicting devastating damage on the Japanese fleet that proved irreparable. Military historian John Keegan called it "the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare", while naval historian Craig Symonds called it "one of the most consequential naval engagements in world history, ranking alongside Salamis, Trafalgar, and Tsushima Strait, as both tactically decisive and strategically influential". The Japanese operation, like the earlier attack on Pearl Harbor, sought to eliminate the United States as a strategic power in the Pacific, thereby giving Japan a free hand in establishing its Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The Japanese hoped another demoralizing defeat would force the U.S. to capitulate in the Pacific War and thus ensure Japanese dominance in the Pacific. Luring the American aircraft carriers into a trap and occupying Midway was part of an overall "barrier" strategy to extend Japan's defensive perimeter, in response to the Doolittle air raid on Tokyo | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=60112 | 248,642 |
Gateway Arch In "The Dallas Morning News", architectural critic David Dillon opined that the arch exists not as a functional edifice but as a symbol of "boundless American optimism". He articulates the arch's multiple "moods"—"reflective in sunlight, soft and pewterish in mist; crisp as a line drawing one moment, chimerical the next"—as a way the arch has "paid for itself many times over in wonder". Some have questioned whether St. Louis really was—as Saarinen said—the "Gateway to the West". Kansas City-born "deadline poet" Calvin Trillin wrote, I know you're thinking that there are considerable differences between T.S. Eliot and me. Yes, it is true that he was from St. Louis, which started calling itself the Gateway to the West after Eero Saarinen's was erected, and I'm from Kansas City, where people think of St. Louis not as the Gateway to the West but as the Exit from the East. In 1966, the arch was given a Special Award for Excellence from the American Institute of Steel Construction for being "an outstanding achievement in technology and aesthetics." On February 9, 1967, the arch received the Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement Award of 1967 from the American Society of Civil Engineers. The arch was once among "Travel + Leisure"s unofficial rankings for the most-visited attraction in the world, after Lenin's Tomb, Disney World, Disneyland, and the Eiffel Tower | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=53353 | 324,163 |
Fort de Montessuy The tops of a few scarps remain visible, emerging from the ground, as well as a <nowiki>"dame"</nowiki>, a column of stone that prevented attackers from walking along the top of the enclosure. It isn't possible to visit the fort, but a few nonprofits have taken up residence in the only surviving building, the barracks, such as AS Caluire - Tir à l'arme de poing or AS Pétanque Caluire. The exterior of the fort has been transformed into green space; there is a skatepark nearby. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=54364570 | 194,291 |
Hisense Established in 1996, Optics has its roots in Qingdao Camera Co, a former subsidiary of Qingdao Electric Instrument Bureau, which in 1995 was facing bankruptcy when the government of Qingdao erased its debts and gave its assets to the Group who renamed it Optics. This subsidiary operates a remote control factory, a degaussing coil factory and an accessory parts factory. Products manufactured include remote controls, degaussing coils and injection molded parts. It may also produce, or did produce, optical instruments, cameras and telephones. It operates an injection molding workshop in Nancun town, Qingdao. Created as a joint venture between Hisense, Ligent Photonics Inc, et al. in 2003 this subsidiary develops fiber optic products. Its R&D facilities are located in Chicago and Qingdao, and it has a production base in latter location. It is also responsible for marketing Ligent Photonics Inc products in Asia. Hisense's first overseas subsidiary, this failed joint venture with South African bank NED had a factory in South Africa that manufactured televisions and home-theater equipment. It may still be responsible for R&D and distribution to local retail outlets. A Georgia-based subsidiary responsible for some activities in the US, USA may distribute products to retailers or establish an R&D center. Founded in 2000 or 2001, it was initially headquartered in Los Angeles. It may initially have included an R&D facility. As of 2009, it has locations in Gwinnett, Suwanee, and unincorporated Gwinnett County, Georgia | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3594394 | 410,566 |
Reuyl (crater) Reuyl is a crater in the Aeolis quadrangle of Mars, located at 9.8° south latitude and 193.2° west longitude. It measures 85.9 kilometers in diameter and was named after Dirk Reuyl, a Dutch-American physicist and astronomer (1906–1972) who made astronomical measurements of the diameter of Mars in the 1940s. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=22163025 | 10,467 |
List of commercial failures in video games The hardware was based on the Amiga computer with a single-speed CD-ROM drive rather than a floppy disk drive, in a case that was designed to integrate unobtrusively with a home entertainment center. However, the expected market for home multimedia appliances did not materialize, and the CDTV was discontinued in 1993, having sold only 30,000 units. Commodore's next attempt at a CD-based console, the Amiga CD32, was considerably more successful. The digiBlast portable console was launched by Nikko at the end of 2005 and promised to be a cheap alternative (selling at $117.86 or thereabouts and featuring a hardware similar to the Game Boy Advance) to the Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable. Cartridges for games, cartoon episodes ("Winx Club", "SpongeBob SquarePants"), and music videos were released on the handheld. A cartridge for MP3 playback and a cartridge with a 1.3-megapixel camera were released as add-ons. However, a shortage of chips around the release date resulted in a failed launch and loss of consumer interest. The Dreamcast, released globally in 1999, was Sega's final console before the company focused entirely on software. Although the console was initially successful and management in the company improved significantly after harsh lessons were learned from the Sega Saturn fiasco, the console also faced stiff competition from the technically superior PlayStation 2 despite being in the market months ahead. The Dreamcast sold less than the Saturn, coming in at 9 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2003810 | 461,195 |
MUSHRA stands for MUltiple Stimuli with Hidden Reference and Anchor and is a methodology for conducting a codec listening test to evaluate the perceived quality of the output from lossy audio compression algorithms. It is defined by ITU-R recommendation BS.1534-3. The methodology is recommended for assessing "intermediate audio quality". For very small audio impairments, Recommendation ITU-R BS.1116-3 (ABC/HR) is recommended instead. The main advantage over the mean opinion score (MOS) methodology (which serves a similar purpose) is that requires fewer participants to obtain statistically significant results. This is because all codecs are presented at the same time, on the same samples, so that a paired t-test or a repeated measures analysis of variance can be used for statistical analysis. Also, the 0–100 scale used by makes it possible to rate very small differences. In MUSHRA, the listener is presented with the reference (labeled as such), a certain number of test samples, a hidden version of the reference and one or more anchors. The recommendation specifies that a low-range and a mid-range anchor should be included in the test signals. These are typically a 7 kHz and a 3.5 kHz low-pass version of the reference. The purpose of the anchors is to calibrate the scale so that minor artifacts are not unduly penalized. This is particularly important when comparing or pooling results from different labs. Both, and ITU BS | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=5860704 | 125,747 |
Medical illustration The program emphasizes anatomical and surgical illustration for print and electronic publication, as well as for projection and broadcast distribution. Because of the importance of good drawing skills, the students learn a variety of traditional illustration techniques during the first year. In addition, computer technologies and digital techniques, used to prepare both vector and raster images for print and motion media, are well and extensively integrated into the curriculum. The Biomedical Communications Program at the University of Toronto. This program was begun in 1945 by Maria Wishart, a student of Max Brödel's. Faculty and graduates of the program contributed the drawings for Grant's Atlas of Anatomy, a renowned guide to dissection, structure, and function for medical students. The current two-year professional Master's program, offered through the Institute of Medical Science, emphasizes a research-based approach to the creation and evaluation of visual material for health promotion, medical education, and the process of scientific discovery. The Biomedical Communication Graduate Program at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center was the first school in the world to offer a graduate degree in medical illustration in 1945. Lewis Boyd Waters, who studied under Max Brodel at Johns Hopkins in the 1920s, was a founding member of the medical school and was responsible for starting the master's program | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3229777 | 201,756 |
Molecular engineering The complexity of molecules being introduced at the surface is increasing, and the techniques used to analyze surface characteristics at the molecular level are ever-changing and improving. Meantime, advancements in high performance computing have greatly expanded the use of computer simulation in the study of molecular scale systems. At least three universities offer graduate degrees dedicated to molecular engineering: the University of Chicago, the University of Washington, and Kyoto University. These programs are interdisciplinary institutes with faculty from several research areas. The academic journal Molecular Systems Design & Engineering publishes research from a wide variety of subject areas that demonstrates "a molecular design or optimisation strategy targeting specific systems functionality and performance." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=177515 | 222,258 |
Poor Clares' Church, Bydgoszcz But another solution came out, which guaranteed the preservation of both monuments A restoration work on polychromed ceiling and wall paintings has been performed from 1987 to 1989, and another in the early 1990s. In 1991 began the restoration work of the main altar, and the plaster covering of the chancel walls and vaults, removing old stucco from the 1920s and revealing original primary colors. Since World War II, the church has received higher titles: From November 13, 1993, the pastoral work of the church has been conducted by the order of Friars Minor Capuchin. The Church of the Poor Clares survived to the present day as an eastward facing church, with an elongated nave with three sides closed chancel, which adjoins the sacristy and a chapel. This church harmoniously combines elements of different architectural styles, Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque The oldest walls in the northern part of the chancel date from 1582. The architecture of the church was established in reference to an older church, the Bernardine Church of Our Lady Queen of Peace in Bydgoszcz. Attics of the priests chapel are the best Renaissance elements of the building. The church's chancel possesses vaults with lunettes, covered with a mesh of arches. It gives the illusion of cross-arched vaults as in medieval buildings, but this network does not play any structural role, it's only a decorative element | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=43956698 | 360,447 |
Planar transmission line Suspended stripline is a type of air stripline in which the substrate is suspended between the ground planes with an air gap above and below. The idea is to minimise dielectric losses by having the wave travel through air. The purpose of the dielectric is only for mechanical support of the conductor strip. Since the wave is travelling through the mixed media of air and dielectric, the transmission mode is not truly TEM, but a thin dielectric renders this effect negligible. Suspended stripline is used in the mid microwave frequencies where it is superior to microstrip with respect to losses, but not as bulky or expensive as waveguide. The idea of two conductor stripline is to compensate for air gaps between the two substrates. Small air gaps are inevitable because of manufacturing tolerances and the thickness of the conductor. These gaps can promote radiation away from the line between the ground planes. Printing identical conductors on both boards ensures the fields are equal in both substrates and the electric field in the gaps due to the two lines cancels out. Usually, one line is made slightly undersize to prevent small misalignments effectively widening the line, and consequently reducing the characteristic impedance. The bilateral suspended stripline has more of the field in the air and almost none in the substrate leading to higher "Q", compared to standard suspended stripline | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=39288501 | 412,604 |
20-Hydroxyeicosatetraenoic acid men have higher rates of hypertension than women, and women with increased levels of androgens (e.g. postmenopausal women and women with polycystic ovarian disease) and higher rates of hypertension. Spontaneously hypertensive rats exhibit elevated levels of CYP4A2 and 20-HETE; blockade of 20-HETE production lowers blood pressure in this model. The effect is particularly well seen in female rats: aging post-menopausal but not pre-menopausal female spontaneously hypertensive rats exhibit highly significant falls in blood pressure when treated with non-selective or selective inhibitors of CYP-induced 20-HETE production. Dahl salt-sensitive rats develop hypertension that develops more quickly and exacerbated by high intake of salt (sodium chloride) and ameliorated by low salt intake. In this model, rats exhibit an up-regulated CYP4A/20-HETE pathway within their cerebral vasculature and vascular endothelial cell overproduction of reactive oxygen species that in turn stimulates the CYp4A/20-HETE pathway. Non-selective and non-selective inhibitors of CYP4A and 20-HETE production reduce hypertension in this model. The hypertension in this model is more severe in male rats and appears to be mediated at least in part by vasopressin, the renin-angiotensin system, and androgens. Lewis rats (see Laboratory rat models) that had one kidney removed and then fed a high salt diet are hypertensive | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=47836404 | 157,238 |
S-Video Though the connectors are different, the Y/C signals for all types are compatible. The mini-DIN pins, being weak, sometimes bend. This can result in the loss of colour or other corruption (or loss) in the signal. A bent pin can be forced back into shape, but this carries the risk of the pin breaking off. These plugs are usually made to be plug-compatible with S-video, and include optional features, such as component video using an adapter. They are not necessarily S-video, although they can be operated in that mode. Non-standard 7-pin mini-DIN connectors (termed "7P") are used in some computer equipment (PCs and Macs). A 7-pin socket accepts, and is pin compatible with, a standard 4-pin plug. The three extra sockets may be used to supply composite (CVBS), an RGB or YPbPr video signal, or an I²C interface. The pinout usage varies among manufacturers. In some implementations, the remaining pin must be grounded to enable the composite output or disable the output. Some Dell laptops have a digital audio output in a 7-pin socket. The 8-pin mini-DIN connector is used in some ATI Radeon video cards 9-pin connectors are used in graphics systems that feature the ability to input video as well as output it. Again, there is no standardization between manufacturers as to which pin does what, and there are two known variants of the connector in use | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=156101 | 279,781 |
Pumpable ice technology The sediment's freezing promotes an increase in the free water quantity of the sediment and improves the efficiency of sediment precipitation. Most of the moisture is capable of diffusion at any of the conditions. Therefore, if the velocity of crystal growing does not exceed 0.02 m/h, there is time for moisture to migrate from colloid cells to the crystal surface, where it is frozen. After thawing, lightened water can be used for industrial and agriculture applications. The concentrated sediments are supplied to press-filters to further decrease their moisture content. The existing commercialized desalination methods are multi-stage flash evaporation, vapor-compression, multi-effect evaporation, reverse osmosis and electrodialysis. Theoretically, freezing has some advantages over the above-mentioned methods. They include a lower theoretical energy requirement, minimal potential for corrosion, and little scaling or precipitating. The disadvantage is that freezing involves a handling of ice and water mixtures that is mechanically complicated, both as to moving and processing. A small number of desalination stations have been built over the last 50 years, but the process has not been a commercial success in the production of freshwater for municipal purposes. Pumpable ice machines offer an affordable alternative because of the high efficient crystallization process | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=25087021 | 284,441 |
Pentose phosphate pathway Dietary pentose sugars derived from the digestion of nucleic acids may be metabolized through the pentose phosphate pathway, and the carbon skeletons of dietary carbohydrates may be converted into glycolytic/gluconeogenic intermediates. In mammals, the PPP occurs exclusively in the cytoplasm. In humans, it is found to be most active in the liver, mammary glands, and adrenal cortex. The PPP is one of the three main ways the body creates molecules with reducing power, accounting for approximately 60% of NADPH production in humans. One of the uses of NADPH in the cell is to prevent oxidative stress. It reduces glutathione via glutathione reductase, which converts reactive HO into HO by glutathione peroxidase. If absent, the HO would be converted to hydroxyl free radicals by Fenton chemistry, which can attack the cell. Erythrocytes, for example, generate a large amount of NADPH through the pentose phosphate pathway to use in the reduction of glutathione. Hydrogen peroxide is also generated for phagocytes in a process often referred to as a respiratory burst. In this phase, two molecules of NADP are reduced to NADPH, utilizing the energy from the conversion of glucose-6-phosphate into ribulose 5-phosphate | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1458783 | 84,316 |
History of Microsoft Microsoft released Windows XP and Office XP in 2001, a version that aimed to encompass the features of both its business and home product lines. The release included an updated version of the Windows 2000 kernel, enhanced DOS emulation abilities, and many of the home-user features found in previous consumer versions. XP introduced a new graphical user interface, the first such change since Windows 95. The operating system was the first to require Microsoft Product Activation, an anti-piracy mechanism that requires users to activate the software with Microsoft within 30 days. Later, Microsoft would enter the multibillion-dollar game console market dominated by Sony and Nintendo, with the release of the Xbox. The Xbox finished behind the dominant PlayStation 2 selling 24 million units compared to 155 million overall; however they managed to outsell the GameCube which sold 21 million units. Microsoft launched their second console, the Xbox 360, in 2005 – which has turned out to be much more successful than their first console. It has sold 40 million units as of 2010 and it has outsold Sony's PlayStation 3 which has so far sold 35 million units. However, despite beating Sony with their last Xbox console, Microsoft so far has been outsold by the Wii which introduced gesture control and opened up a new market for video games. Microsoft later used their popular controller-free Kinect peripheral to increase the popularity of the Xbox. This was very successful | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=4240094 | 121,511 |
Thermite The thermites are characterized by almost complete absence of gas production during burning, high reaction temperature, and production of molten slag. The fuel should have high heat of combustion and produce oxides with low melting point and high boiling point. The oxidizer should contain at least 25% oxygen, have high density, low heat of formation, and produce metal with low melting and high boiling point (so the energy released is not consumed in evaporation of reaction products). Organic binders can be added to the composition to improve its mechanical properties, however they tend to produce endothermic decomposition products, causing some loss of reaction heat and production of gases. The temperature achieved during the reaction determines the outcome. In an ideal case, the reaction produces a well-separated melt of metal and slag. For this, the temperature must be high enough to melt both reaction products, the resulting metal and the fuel oxide. Too low a temperature produces a mixture of sintered metal and slag; too high a temperature (above the boiling point of any reactant or product) leads to rapid production of gas, dispersing the burning reaction mixture, sometimes with effects similar to a low-yield explosion. In compositions intended for production of metal by aluminothermic reaction, these effects can be counteracted. Too low a reaction temperature (e.g., when producing silicon from sand) can be boosted with addition of a suitable oxidizer (e.g | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=52381 | 432,751 |
High Assurance Guard The systems are certified via the Common Criteria; depending on the classification, the system may require Common Criteria Evaluated Assurance Level (EAL) 3 or higher. For examples, in the US, an evaluation at the EAL 5 or EAL 5+ (EAL 5 Augmented) or higher is required to export from a Secret domain to an Unclassified domain. Some manufacturers may use "Trusted Computer System" or "Trusted Applications with High Assurance" as an equivalent term to HAG. The HAG is mostly used in email and DMS environments as certain organizations may only have unclassified network access, and they need to send a message to an organization that has only secret network access. The HAG provides them this ability. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=6800544 | 106,865 |
Duo-Art was one of the leading reproducing piano technologies of the early 20th century, the others being American Piano Company (Ampico), introduced in 1913 too, and Welte-Mignon in 1905. These technologies flourished at that time because of the poor quality of the early Phonograph (Gramophone in Britain). Between 1913 and 1925 a number of distinguished classical and popular pianists, such as Ignace Paderewski, Josef Hofmann, Percy Grainger, Teresa Carreño, Aurelio Giorni, Robert Armbruster and Vladimir Horowitz, recorded for Duo-Art, and their rolls are a legacy of 19th-century and early 20th-century aesthetic and musical practice. The recording process – using a piano wired to a perforating machine – was unable to capture the pianist's dynamics automatically. These were added by a recording technician, who manipulated hand controls to notate the dynamics onto the recording 'master'. Thus, post-recording editing was required to produce the finished performance – usually a joint effort by the recording technician and the pianist themself, who approved the final product. Thus, these recordings do represent the overall style of these great artists and are a good representation of their live performances. The Aeolian Company introduced the mechanism in 1913. It was most commonly installed in piano brands manufactured by Aeolian such as Weber, Steck, Wheelock, and Stroud. Most notably, it was also available in Steinway pianos under an exclusive agreement | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9775169 | 438,719 |
Millennium Tower (San Francisco) The development is also home to International Smoke, a restaurant and bar under the direction of Ayesha Curry and Chef Michael Mina, located on the ground floor of the skyscraper. Millennium Partners first proposed the development in 2002 with 163 condominiums, 108 rentals and a 136-unit "extended stay" hotel. The project was approved in 2003 by the S.F. Planning Commission 4–1 and construction began in 2005. The only vote against the project came from Planning Commissioner Sue Lee. The development was the first high rise built downtown in 20 years. According to "Modern Luxury", a proposed 52-story skyscraper at nearby 80 Natoma by developer Jack Myers which would also have a similar cast in place concrete construction, was rejected by the city's Department of Building Inspections (DBI) after an outside peer review. The Millennium Tower received no such scrutiny, since Millennium Partners would not submit to a peer review, as that study would have potentially delayed construction by years. Treadwell & Rollo, the geotechnical engineer for Millennium Tower, were also the geotechnical engineer for the scrapped project at 80 Natoma. On September 6, 2010, Dan Goodwin, also known as "SpiderDan" and "Skyscraperman", scaled the outside of the tower using suction cups. Following the climb, Goodwin was arrested by the San Francisco police, who charged him with trespassing and creating a public nuisance | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=5830696 | 332,485 |
Kolmanskop (Afrikaans for "Coleman's head", ) is a ghost town in the Namib in southern Namibia, ten kilometres inland from the port town of Lüderitz. It was named after a transport driver named Johnny Coleman who, during a sand storm, abandoned his ox wagon on a small incline opposite the settlement. Once a small but very rich mining village, it is now a tourist destination run by the joint firm Namibia-De Beers. In 1908, the worker Zacharias Lewala found a diamond while working in this area and showed it to his supervisor, the German railway inspector August Stauch. Realizing the area was rich in diamonds, German miners began settlement, and soon after the German Empire declared a large area as a ""Sperrgebiet"", starting to exploit the diamond field. Driven by the enormous wealth of the first diamond miners, the residents built the village in the architectural style of a German town, with amenities and institutions including a hospital, ballroom, power station, school, skittle-alley, theatre and sport-hall, casino, ice factory and the first x-ray-station in the southern hemisphere, as well as the first tram in Africa. It had a railway link to Lüderitz. The town started to decline after World War II when the diamond-field slowly started to deplete. By the early 50s, the area was in decline. Hastening the town’s demise was the discovery in 1928 of the richest diamond-bearing deposits ever known, on the beach terraces 270 km south of Kolmanskop, near the Orange River | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2619266 | 479,430 |
Bankruptcy Law in the Republic of Ireland The classic definition of bankruptcy is that: "it is a law for the benefit and relief of creditors and their debtors, in cases in which the latter are unable or unwilling to pay their debts." Irish bankruptcy law has been the subject of significant recent comment, from both government sources and the media, as being in need of reform. Part 7 of the Civil Law (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2011 has started this process and the government has committed to further reform. While bankruptcy is commonly considered to arise where a person is insolvent, in Ireland a person can be adjudicated bankrupt where he has committed any act of bankruptcy. An act of bankruptcy is defined as: ""an act of default, voluntary or involuntary, committed by a debtor, which is either evidence of intent to deprive creditors of their rights through fraudulent assignment or is an implication of insolvency."" The following situations are considered to be acts of bankruptcy pursuant to section 7 of the Bankruptcy Act 1988: The most common act of bankruptcy is where a bankruptcy summons has been served on the debtor and he has failed to pay. Bankruptcy law is aimed at achieving the following.: When a debtor is adjudicated bankrupt, the most notable effects on his personal situation are as follows: The bankrupt commits a criminal offence if he does not disclose all his property to the Court or conceals any part of his estate or if he obtains by false representation any property or credit | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=31844268 | 486,671 |
Focal adhesion In cell biology, focal adhesions (also cell–matrix adhesions or FAs) are large macromolecular assemblies through which mechanical force and regulatory signals are transmitted between the extracellular matrix (ECM) and an interacting cell. More precisely, focal adhesions are the sub-cellular structures that mediate the regulatory effects (i.e., signaling events) of a cell in response to ECM adhesion. Focal adhesions serve as the mechanical linkages to the ECM, and as a biochemical signaling hub to concentrate and direct numerous signaling proteins at sites of integrin binding and clustering. Focal adhesions are integrin-containing, multi-protein structures that form mechanical links between intracellular actin bundles and the extracellular substrate in many cell types. Focal adhesions are large, dynamic protein complexes through which the cytoskeleton of a cell connects to the ECM. They are limited to clearly defined ranges of the cell, at which the plasma membrane closes to within 15 nm of the ECM substrate. Focal adhesions are in a state of constant flux: proteins associate and disassociate with it continually as signals are transmitted to other parts of the cell, relating to anything from cell motility to cell cycle. Focal adhesions can contain over 100 different proteins, which suggests a considerable functional diversity. More than anchoring the cell, they function as signal carriers (sensors), which inform the cell about the condition of the ECM and thus affect their behavior | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2440776 | 169,058 |
SPARQL Syntax Expressions (alternatively, SPARQL S-Expressions) is a parse tree (a.k.a. concrete syntax) for representing SPARQL Algebra expressions. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20184119 | 117,361 |
Law officers of the Crown Before the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922, the legal advisers to the Crown in the Courts of Ireland were the Attorney-General for Ireland and the Solicitor-General for Ireland. These offices became redundant in 1921. The Crown also had a legal adviser for the High Court of Admiralty, known as the Admiralty Advocate, but this office lapsed in 1875 when the Admiralty Court became part of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division of the High Court of Justice. The Crown's representative in the ecclesiastical courts of England was the King's Advocate (or Queen's Advocate when the monarch was female). This office has been vacant since the resignation of its last holder in 1872. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=576225 | 484,308 |
Acid rain Public awareness of acid rain in the US increased in the 1970s after "The New York Times" published reports from the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire of the harmful environmental effects that result from it. Occasional pH readings in rain and fog water of well below 2.4 have been reported in industrialized areas. Industrial acid rain is a substantial problem in China and Russia and areas downwind from them. These areas all burn sulfur-containing coal to generate heat and electricity. The problem of acid rain has not only increased with population and industrial growth, but has become more widespread. The use of tall smokestacks to reduce local pollution has contributed to the spread of acid rain by releasing gases into regional atmospheric circulation. Often deposition occurs a considerable distance downwind of the emissions, with mountainous regions tending to receive the greatest deposition (because of their higher rainfall). An example of this effect is the low pH of rain which falls in Scandinavia. The earliest report about acid rain in the United States was from the chemical evidence from Hubbard Brook Valley. In 1972, a group of scientists including Gene Likens discovered the rain that was deposited at White Mountains of New Hampshire was acidic. The pH of the sample was measured to be 4.03 at Hubbard Brook. The Hubbard Brook Ecosystem Study followed up with a series of research that analyzed the environmental effects of acid rain | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3263 | 93,841 |
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