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55,018,451 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C29H33FO6 | {{DISPLAYTITLE:C29H33FO6}}
The molecular formula C29H33FO6 (molar mass: 496.58 g/mol, exact mass: 496.2261 u) may refer to:
Amcinafide, or triamcinolone acetophenide
Betamethasone benzoate | C29H33FO6 | [
"Chemistry"
] | 73 | [
"Isomerism",
"Set index articles on molecular formulas"
] |
55,019,804 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold%20M.%20Collins | Arnold Miller Collins (1899-1982) was a chemist at DuPont who, working under Elmer Bolton and Wallace Carothers with Ira Williams, first isolated polychloroprene and 2-chloro-1, 3-butadiene in 1930.
Personal
Born 1899. Married Helen Clark Collins. Died October 8, 1982.
Education
Collins attended Columbia College, graduating in 1921 with the AB degree.
Doctoral degree. Columbia College 1924. His dissertation was entitled "Electrolytic introduction of alkyl groups", Columbia University, New York, New York.
Career
At Dupont, Collins worked under Wallace Carothers. Carothers assigned Collins to produce a sample of divinylacetylene. In March 1930, while distilling the products of the acetylene reaction, Collins obtained a small quantity of an unknown liquid, which he put aside in stoppered test tubes. He later found that the liquid had congealed into a clear homogeneous mass. When Collins removed the mass from the test tube, it bounced. Further analysis showed that the mass was a polymer of chloroprene, formed with chlorine from the cuprous chloride catalyst. Collins had stumbled upon a new synthetic rubber.
Following this breakthrough, DuPont began to manufacture its first artificial rubber, DuPrene, in September 1931. In 1936, it was renamed neoprene a term to be used generically.
Awards and Recognitions
1973 - Charles Goodyear Medal from the ACS Rubber Division
External links
1981 Interview with Arnold Collins
References
Polymer scientists and engineers
1899 births
1982 deaths
20th-century American chemists | Arnold M. Collins | [
"Chemistry",
"Materials_science"
] | 325 | [
"Polymer scientists and engineers",
"Physical chemists",
"Polymer chemistry"
] |
55,022,274 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooke%20Owens%20Fellowship | The Brooke Owens Fellowship is a non-profit program in the United States that provides paid internships and executive mentorship for undergraduate women seeking a career in aviation or space exploration. The fellowship was created to honor the memory of Brooke Owens, a pilot and space policy expert who died of cancer at the age of 35.
Motivation and overview
The program looks to improve diversity within the aerospace industry. The program offers students paid summer internships at companies (including SpaceX, Avascent, Commercial Spaceflight Federation, Orbital ATK, Virgin Orbit, and Blue Origin), travel stipends and assigned mentors. It was created by Lori Garver, a former NASA deputy administrator, along with aerospace executives William Pomerantz (Virgin Orbit) and Cassie Kloberdanz Lee (Vulcan Inc.).
Fellows received two experienced aerospace mentors, one at their host industry, and another in an associated sector. Mentors include Lori Garver, Diana Trujillo, Charles Bolden, Pamela Melroy, Dava Newman, Danielle Wood, Emily Calandrelli, Will Pomerantz and Cassie Lee. The fellows are connected to a Fellowship class and an alumni network. The program is run with Future Space Leaders, and emphasises creativity. The annual Brooke Owens Fellowship conference happens during the Future Space Conference in Washington, D.C. Whilst the program is open to international students, some institutions can only host US citizens or green card holders.
The program's success has resulted in the creation of several spin-off fellowships, including the Matthew Isakowitz Fellowship, Patti Grace Smith Fellowship, Zed Factor Fellowship, and Zenith Canada Pathways Fellowship.
Alumni
As of 2024, the Brooke Owens Fellowship has 343 alumnae across eight cohorts. Fellows span fields from engineering and science to policy, journalism, and entrepreneurship.
Inaugural Class of 2017
Jocelyn Clancy, (University of Southern California) — The Aerospace Corporation
Katherine Carroll (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) — The Aerospace Corporation
Makiah Eustice (Texas A&M University) — The Aerospace Corporation
Maryam Gracias (Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University) — Air Line Pilots Association
Rachael McKee (Metropolitan State University of Denver) — Air Line Pilots Association
Shreya Udupa (Arizona State University) — Altius Space Machines
Morgan Irons (Duke University) — Avascent
Mady Sargent (University of Kansas) — Ball Aerospace
Taylor Zedosky (University of South Carolina) — Ball Aerospace
Golda Nguyen (Georgia Institute of Technology) — Blue Origin
Amy Comeau (Purdue University) — Bryce Space and Technology
Caroline Juang (Harvard University) — Bryce Space and Technology
Emily Sheffield (Harding University) — Commercial Spaceflight Federation
Chelsey Ballarte (Arizona State University) — GeekWire
Michaela Spaulding (Iowa State University) — Generation Orbit
Karen Rucker (Texas Tech University) — HawkEye 360
Maggie Goertzen (University of Utah) — Made In Space
Hayley Lewis (Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University) — Mojave Air and Space Port
Jasmine Q. Smith (Tuskegee University) — Mojave Air and Space Port
Kaitlin Engelbert (University of Colorado, Boulder) — The Museum of Flight
Pau Pineda Bosque (Purdue University) — Orbital ATK
Sumayya Abukhalil (University of Central Florida) — Orbital ATK
Maddie Miller (Union College) — Planet Labs
Becca Thoss (University of Southern California) — Planetary Resources
Dahlia Baker (Coe College) — Planetary Resources
Karen Kuhlman (Oregon State University) — Scaled Composites
Amanda Turk (University of Colorado, Boulder) — Sierra Nevada Corporation
Justine Walker (College of Wooster) — Sierra Nevada Corporation
Dawn Andrews (Georgia Institute of Technology) — SpaceX
Roselin Campos (University of California, Los Angeles) — Space Sciences Laboratory
Christine Reilly (University of Colorado, Boulder) — Virgin Orbit
Diana Alsindy (University of California, San Diego) — Virgin Orbit
Ninoshka Llontop Lozano (University of Illinois at Chicago) — Virgin Orbit
Piper Sigrest (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) — Virgin Orbit
Christine Chappelle (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) — Vulcan Aerospace
Sasha Warren (Durham University (UK)) — XPRIZE
References
External links
Brooke Owens Fellowship
Fellowships
Science policy
Scholarships in the United States
Space industry
Internship programs
Charities based in Washington, D.C.
Organizations established in 2017
2017 establishments in Washington, D.C. | Brooke Owens Fellowship | [
"Astronomy"
] | 907 | [
"Space industry",
"Outer space"
] |
55,022,692 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frantz%20Yvelin | Frantz Yvelin is a French businessman, pilot, and serial entrepreneur. He was the President of Aigle Azur, France's 2nd largest airline until August 26, 2019. Frantz Yvelin previously created and ran two French independent scheduled Airlines, (La Compagnie and L'Avion).
Early life and education
A commercial pilot since the age of 21, Yvelin is type-rated on Airbus A320, Boeing 737, Boeing 757, Boeing 767, Cessna Citation and McDonnell Douglas MD80.
Career
Yvelin started his career as an IT consultant (for GFI Informatique, CS Communication & Systèmes). In 2006 he founded and ran Europe's first all-Business-Class airline, L'Avion, before selling it to British Airways. (In 2009, L'Avion became OpenSkies and has since operated under that brand). Yvelin was Head of Strategy and Development for OpenSkies for a time after it was merged with L'Avion.
In 2013, along with La Compagnie, Frantz created a French holding company called Dreamjet Participations, which he ran as President and CEO until the end of 2016. Dreamjet Participations acquired 100% of French leisure airline XL Airways in 2016.
Along with Peter Luethi, La Compagnie's co-founder, he has been an air transport advisor for three years and was a lecturer in air transportation economics at the École nationale de l'aviation civile (teaching the Mastère spécialisé course). In parallel, he has helped to develop an airliners' ferry and flight testing company based in the USA.
Notes
Living people
French chief executives
French airline chief executives
École nationale de l'aviation civile
1976 births | Frantz Yvelin | [
"Engineering"
] | 366 | [
"École nationale de l'aviation civile",
"Aerospace engineering organizations"
] |
55,023,037 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyrofomes%20castanopsidis | Pyrofomes castanopsidis is a species of polypore fungus in the family Polyporaceae. It was described as new to science in 2011 by Chinese mycologists Bao-Kai Cui and Yu-Cheng Dai. The type collections of the fungus were made in Luofushan Forest Park in Huizhou (Guangdong Province, China), where the fungus was discovered growing on a live plant of Castanopsis. The specific epithet castanopsidis refers to the genus of the host plant.
References
Polyporaceae
Fungi of China
Fungi described in 2011
Taxa named by Bao-Kai Cui
Taxa named by Yu-Cheng Dai
Fungus species | Pyrofomes castanopsidis | [
"Biology"
] | 137 | [
"Fungi",
"Fungus species"
] |
55,024,475 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PicSat | PicSat was a French observatory nanosatellite, designed to measure the transit of Beta Pictoris b, an exoplanet which orbits the star Beta Pictoris.
PicSat was designed and built by a team of scientists led by Dr. Sylvestre Lacour, astrophysicist and instrumentalist at the High Angular Resolution in Astrophysics group in the LESIA laboratory with Paris Observatory, Paris Sciences et Lettres University and the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). It was launched on 12 January 2018, and operated for more than 10 weeks before falling silent on 20 March 2018. The cubesat decayed from orbit on 3 October 2023.
Background
Beta Pictoris system
With an age of about 23 million years, Beta Pictoris is a very young star. Compared to the Sun, which is 4.5 billion years old, Beta Pictoris is about twice as large in mass and size. Beta Pictoris is relatively close to the Sun: just 63.4 light-years away, making it bright and easy to observe. This makes Beta Pictoris interesting for study as it allows astronomers to learn more about the very early stages of planet formation.
In the early 1980s, a large disk of asteroids, dust, gas, and other debris were found surrounding Beta Pictoris, leftovers from the formation of the star. In 2009, a giant gas planet orbiting Beta Pictoris was discovered by a team of French astronomers led by Anne-Marie Lagrange from Grenoble, France. The planet, named Beta Pictoris b, is about seven times as massive as Jupiter. It orbits Beta Pictoris from a distance at around ten astronomical units: ten times the distance between the Earth and the Sun, and about the same distance between Saturn and the Sun.
In 2016, it was predicted that Beta Pictoris b's Hill sphere or the planet itself would be passing in front of its star as seen from the Earth. The detailed observation of such a transit would reveal detailed information about the planet, such as its exact size, the composition of its atmosphere, its density, and its chemical composition. Because Beta Pictoris b is so young, this information would reveal more about the formation of giant planets and planetary systems.
However, as Beta Pictoris b's orbit is not well known, the moment of transit could only be estimated roughly. The transit was predicted to occur between the summer of 2017 and the summer of 2018. A transit of the planet would have lasted only a few hours; a transit of the planet's Hill sphere would have lasted anywhere from days to months. Continuous monitoring would have been the only way to capture the phenomenon. Since Earth-based observatories would not be able to accurately capture the transit, as long-term continuous monitoring was unlikely to work with Earth's atmosphere, day-night cycle changes, and scheduling conflicts, only a satellite could accurately capture the transit.
The purpose of PicSat was to continually observe Beta Pictoris' brightness in order to capture the change in brightness when Beta Pictoris b transited over the star and partially blocked some light.
Project
PicSat, a contraction of "Beta Pictoris" and "satellite", was a CubeSat. PicSat was composed of three standard cubic units, called a "3U", each 10x10x10cm in size.
PicSat was the first CubeSat to be operated by the CNRS. It was different from most CubeSat projects in that it was developed by professionals, not by students. The project began in 2014 when Sylvestre Lacour, astrophysicist and instrumentalist at the French CNRS at the LESIA laboratory / Paris Observatory, thought of using a CubeSat to observe Beta Pictoris b's transit. He gathered a small team and they designed and built PicSat.
PicSat was one of the few CubeSats worldwide with an astrophysical science goal and the first CubeSat in the field of exoplanetary science. The PicSat science case was defined in collaboration with Dr. Alain Lecavelier des Etangs from the Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, who had been working on the Beta Pictoris system for many years. The PicSat project also involved a collaboration with CCERES, the "Center & Campus" space of PSL Research University, and with French Space Agency CNES experts.
Specifications
PicSat consisted of three cubic units. The top and middle cubic units held the satellite's payload, and the bottom unit contained its onboard computer.
PicSat's topmost unit contained a small telescope with a five-centimeter diameter mirror. The mirror's small size was sufficient, as Beta Pictoris is very bright.
The middle unit contained two innovative technical tools: its fine-tracking ability, and its usage of a thin optical fiber, 3 micrometers in diameter. The fiber, whose usage marks the first time an optical fiber was flown into space, receives light photons and guides them to a sensitive photodiode that accurately measures the arrival time of each individual photon. Using a thin optical fiber eliminated other light sources, like stray light from the sky and scattered light from within the optical system, from entering the photodiode, allowing for accurate measurement of Beta Pictoris' brightness. A fast-moving piezoelectric actuator was added to PicSat to keep the optical fiber tracked upon Beta Pictoris, since the natural wobble of the satellite's orbit would affect the fiber's ability to accurately track and measure the star.
The bottom cubic unit of PicSat contained the onboard computer for the satellite's operation, ground-station communication with Earth, raw pointing of the telescope, battery operation, and other important monitoring tasks.
The whole satellite was clothed in arrays of deployable solar panels, providing energy for all systems. PicSat's total weight was about 3.5 kilograms, and its power consumption was about 5 watts.
Telescope support
If PicSat ever detected the onset of Beta Pictoris b's transit, or the transit of its Hill sphere, then a European Southern Observatory telescope would have been immediately put into action. This was thanks to an accepted proposal to ESO for an opportunity to observe time in support of the PicSat project, led by Dr. Flavien Kiefer from the Institut d'astrophysique de Paris. Dr. Kiefer was known for his work on the detection and observation of exocomets in star systems such as Beta Pictoris.
The telescope was equipped with the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) instrument. Together with PicSat measurements, HARPS transit data would have allowed for more accurate determinations of the orbit and size of the planet, along with the chemical make up of its atmosphere. If a comet were to have transited, HARPS would have been able to determine the chemical composition of the comet's atmosphere, which carries key information about the chemical composition of the star system as a whole and thus its formation and evolution.
Operation
PicSat was launched into a polar, low Earth orbit with an altitude of 600 km on 12 January 2018. The launch was carried out by the Indian Space Research Organization using a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle on the PSLV-C40 mission.
The satellite was operated from the PicSat Ground Station at Paris Observatory, although it only was visible for about 30 minutes a day. Since PicSat communicated with amateur radio frequencies (achieved with cooperation with Réseau des Émetteurs Français), anyone with radio receiving capabilities was able to tune into, receive, and upload information from PicSat to a database. A large network of radio amateurs were called to collaborate to track the satellite, receive its data, and transmit it to Ground Station. Licensed radio amateurs were able to use PicSat as a transponder when it was not performing observation tasks or other communication. PicSat's official website displayed received information, as well as up-to-date light curve data of Beta Pictoris.
PicSat was predicted to operate for one year. It operated for approximately 10 weeks before contact was lost on 20 March 2018. Attempts to reestablish contact were made. On 30 March it was believed contact was restored by a team at Morehead State University, but the signal received was from the TIGRISAT satellite. The mission officially concluded on 5 April.
Supporting institutions
PicSat was financially supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program Lithium proposal 639248, the CNRS, the ESEP Laboratory Group, the PSL Research University, Foundation MERAC, CNES, CCERES, and the Paris Observatory – LESIA.
See also
Methods of detecting exoplanets
Photometry (astronomy)
References
External links
PicSat Flickr account (photos of the satellite, the team, etc.)
PicSat Beta-Pictoris Star System Info Sheet
CubeSats
Space telescopes
Spacecraft launched in 2018
Paris Observatory
Space science experiments
Satellites of France
2018 in France
Beta Pictoris | PicSat | [
"Astronomy"
] | 1,859 | [
"Space telescopes"
] |
55,026,194 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina%20Halac | Marina Halac (born November 17, 1979) is a professor of economics at Yale University. She is also an associate editor of Econometrica and a member of the editorial board of the American Economic Review. She was the 2016 recipient of the Elaine Bennett Research Prize, which is awarded biennially by the American Economic Association to recognize outstanding research by a woman. She received this award within the first seven years after completing her PhD in economics from the University of California, Berkeley. In 2017, she was named one of the "Best 40 under 40 Business School Professors" by Poets and Quants. She was a recipient of the George S. Eccles Research Award in 2017, which is awarded to the author of the best book or writings on economics that bridge theory and practice, as determined by top members of the Columbia Business School faculty and alumni.
Halac was born and raised in Buenos Aires and studied economics at the University of CEMA, Argentina from 1998 to 2001. Here, her professors encouraged her to pursue an advanced economics degree in the United States. Following her graduation in 2001, she and her husband, Guillermo Noguera, became research assistants at the World Bank in Washington, D.C., and then both earned doctoral degrees in economics at the University of California at Berkeley.
Her research focuses on theoretical models of how to optimally delegate decision making, such as optimal rules for firms that need to delegate investment decisions to managers with competing incentives, problems of how to motivate experimentation and innovation, the design of fiscal rules to constrain government spending, and the role of reputation in maintaining productivity, addressing strategic uncertainty with incentives and information, and inflation targeting under political pressure. Her work on relational contracting, which studies how best to design contracts in a principal-agent setting where the value of the relationship is not mutually known, suggests new ways to approach dynamic contracting problems with bargaining. Additionally, her work regarding fiscal rules and discretion under political shocks examines a specific fiscal policy model where the government has preferences that are time-inconsistent, with a present bias towards public spending. While she is currently employed as an economics professor at Yale University, she has taught at Columbia University, Graduate School of Business, Economics Division as well as the University of Warwick. She is a fellow of the Econometric Society.
Selected works
References
American women economists
21st-century American economists
Argentine economists
Argentine women economists
Game theorists
Microeconomists
Columbia Business School faculty
Yale University faculty
1979 births
Living people
University of California, Berkeley alumni
Fellows of the Econometric Society
21st-century American women | Marina Halac | [
"Mathematics"
] | 517 | [
"Game theorists",
"Game theory"
] |
55,030,748 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yichus | Yichus ( yḥws), a Hebrew-based Yiddish word meaning "lineage". In some past and present Jewish communities, good —meaning descent from a family of high reputation—is necessary for a person to be considered as a potential marriage partner. Colloquially, the term refers to the chain of origin for a statement, creative work or object.
Etymology
first appeared in the Hebrew Bible in the Book of Ezra. It appears in and ), where the Hebrew root (yud-chet-sin) means "relation to" or "related to." In the later rabbinic Hebrew, the last letter of the root changed from sin () to samekh (), though the pronunciation and meaning remained unchanged. The latter spelling (yud-hey-samech) appears frequently in rabbinic literature.
Although the word originated in Hebrew, the term is generally accepted as a Yiddish word that has flowed into modern English. The anglicized word has been transliterated as , , , and .
History
As far back as the Talmudic era, being son-in-law to someone widely respected was valued. Subsequently, even the of being son-in-law to the son-in-law and similar lineage links were valued. From the 14th century onwards, was an important concern for Eastern European Jews. Good could refer to Torah scholarship or wealth, while bad resulted from the suspicion of illegitimate descent. However, many rabbis disapproved of the concept of , instead insisting on judging individuals based on their personal merits. "In Lithuania some Jewish families hid their (lineage)". There was a tension between on one hand, and "meritocratic leadership based on scholarship" on the other. Judgments of became one of the mechanisms which determined social hierarchies. From the 19th century, the significance of declined as more marriages were based on romantic love, and reformers criticized for leading to inbreeding within small circles of "acceptable" families. However, nowadays is still an important qualification for marriage in charedi communities.
The family trees, or pedigree charts, of Jewish families, listing genealogy and family history records, have been identified with several names, among which are yichus book, yichus brief, and yichus record. To help a child trace lineage, some families would write a "yichus book". The focus of a yichus brief (letter of relationship) is not as extensive as a yichus book whereas a yichus book or yichus record/"sefer yuchsin"/registry is community-oriented. Some families also kept a separate "Register of Circumcisions".
Types
Being the (מְחוּתָּן, father of one's child's spouse) of a notable person is sometimes considered important enough to include in a wedding invitation and in giving other credentials. Although primarily used for same generation relatives, it can be used beyond that generation. Being a (literally son-after-son, i.e. patrilineal) descendant is sometimes considered more notable than other forms of descent.
For various reasons, surnames/family names were changed, and sometimes reverted. Thus, Jewish family names have not always been a reliable indicator of ancestry. For example: certain family names, such as Cohen, are not as strongly indicative of being a Kohen as Katz.
References
External links
Dem Ganefs Yiches (The Thief's Lineage), a 19th century song parodying the concept of yichus
Orthodox Judaism
Hebrew words and phrases
Yiddish words and phrases
Jewish marital law
Jewish life cycle
Genealogy
Family trees | Yichus | [
"Biology"
] | 727 | [
"Phylogenetics",
"Genealogy"
] |
55,031,001 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioconservatism | Bioconservatism is a philosophical and ethical stance that emphasizes caution and restraint in the use of biotechnologies, particularly those involving genetic manipulation and human enhancement. The term "bioconservatism" is a portmanteau of the words biology and conservatism.
Critics of bioconservatism, such as Steve Clarke and Rebecca Roache, argue that bioconservatives ground their views primarily in intuition, which can be subject to various cognitive biases. Bioconservatives' reluctance to acknowledge the fragility of their position is seen as a reason for stalled debate.
Bioconservatism is characterized by a belief that technological trends risk compromising human dignity, and by opposition to movements and technologies including transhumanism, human genetic modification, "strong" artificial intelligence, and the technological singularity. Many bioconservatives also oppose the use of technologies such as life extension and preimplantation genetic screening.
Bioconservatives range in political perspective from right-leaning religious and cultural conservatives to left-leaning environmentalists and technology critics. What unifies bioconservatives is skepticism about medical and other biotechnological transformations of the living world. In contrast to bioluddism, the bioconservative perspective typically presents a more focused critique of technological society. It is distinguished by its defense of the natural, framed as a moral category.
Bioconservatism advocates
Bioconservatives seek to counter the arguments made by transhumanists who support the use of human enhancement technologies despite acknowledging the risks they involve. Transhumanists believe that these technologies have the power to radically change what we currently perceive of as a human being, and that they are necessary for future human development. Transhumanist philosophers such as Nick Bostrom believe that genetic modification will be essential to improving human health in the future.
The three major elements of the bioconservative argument, as described by Bostrom, are firstly, that human augmentation is innately degrading and therefore harmful; secondly, that the existence of augmented humans poses a threat to "ordinary humans;" and thirdly, that human augmentation shows a lack of acknowledgement that "not everything in the world is open to any use we may desire or devise." The first two of these elements are secular whilst the last derives "from religious or crypto-religious sentiments."
Michael Sandel
Michael J. Sandel is an American political philosopher and a prominent bioconservative. His article and subsequent book, both titled The Case Against Perfection, concern the moral permissibility of genetic engineering or genome editing. Sandel compares genetic and non-genetic forms of enhancement pointing to the fact that much of non-genetic alteration has largely the same effect as genetic engineering. SAT tutors or study drugs such as Ritalin can have similar effects as minor tampering with natural born intelligence. Sandel uses such examples to argue that the most important moral issue with genetic engineering is not that the consequences of manipulating human nature will undermine human agency but the perfectionist aspiration behind such a drive to mastery. For Sandel, "the deepest moral objection to enhancement lies less in the perfection it seeks than in the human disposition it expresses and promotes.” For example, the parental desire for a child to be of a certain genetic quality is incompatible with the special kind of unconditional love parents should have for their children. He writes “[t]o appreciate children as gifts is to accept them as they come, not as objects of our design or products of our will or instruments of our ambition.”
Sandel insists that consequentialist arguments overlook the principle issue of whether bioenhancement should be aspired to at all. He is attributed with the view that human augmentation should be avoided as it expresses an excessive desire to change oneself and 'become masters of our nature.' For example, in the field of cognitive enhancement, he argues that moral question we should be concerned with is not the consequences of inequality of access to such technology in possibly creating two classes of humans but whether we should aspire to such enhancement at all. Similarly, he has argued that the ethical problem with genetic engineering is not that it undermines the child's autonomy, as this claim "wrongly implies that absent a designing parent, children are free to choose their characteristics for themselves." Rather, he sees enhancement as hubristic, taking nature into our own hands: pursuing the fixity of enhancement is an instance of vanity. Sandel also criticizes the argument that a genetically engineered athlete would have an unfair advantage over his unenhanced competitors, suggesting that it has always been the case that some athletes are better endowed genetically than others. In short, Sandel argues that the real ethical problems with genetic engineering concern its effects on humility, responsibility and solidarity.
Humility
Sandel argues that humility is a moral virtue that will be undermined by genetic engineering. He argues that humility encourages one to 'abide the unexpected, to live with dissonance, to rein in the impulse control,' and therefore, is worth fostering in all aspects of one's life. This includes the humility of parents regarding their own genetic endowment and that of their children. Sandel's concern is that, through genetic engineering, the relationship between parent and child is "disfigured:" The problem lies in the hubris of the designing parents, in their drive to master the mystery of genetics. Even if this disposition did not make parents tyrants to their children, it would disfigure the relation between parent and child, thus depriving the parent of the humility and enlarged human sympathies that an openness to the unbidden can cultivate.
Essentially, Sandel believes that in order to be a good parent with the virtue of humility, one needs to accept that their child may not progress exactly according to their expectations. Designing an athletic child, for example, is incompatible with the idea of parents having such open expectations. He argues that genetic enhancement deprives the parent of the humility of an 'openness to the unbidden' fosters. Sandel believes that parents must be prepared to love their child unconditionally and to see their children as gifts from nature, rather than entities to be defined according to parental and genetic expectations. Moreover, in the paper The Case Against Perfection, Sandel argues:
I do not think the main problem with enhancement and genetic engineering is that they undermine effort and erode human agency. The deeper danger is that they represent a kind of hyperagency—a Promethean aspiration to remake nature, including human nature, to serve our purposes and satisfy our desires".
In doing so, Sandel worries that an essential aspect of human nature - and the meaning of life derived from such, would be eroded in the process of expanding radically beyond our naturally endowed capacities. He calls this yearning the "Promethean project," which is necessarily constrained by appreciating our humility and place in nature. Sandel adds:
It is in part a religious sensibility. But its resonance reaches beyond religion.
Responsibility
Sandel argues that due to the increasing role of genetic enhancement, there will be an 'explosion' of responsibility on humanity.
He argues that genetic engineering will increase parental responsibility as "parents become responsible for choosing, or failing to choose, the right traits for their children." He believes that such responsibility will lead to genes become a matter of choice rather than a matter of chance. Sandel illustrates this argument through the lens of sports: in athletics, undesirable outcomes are often attributed to extrinsic values such as lack of preparation or lapse in discipline. With the introduction of genetic engineering athletes, Sandel believes that athletes will bear additional responsibility for their talents and performance; for example, for failing to acquire the intrinsic traits necessary for success. Sandel believes this can be extrapolated to society as a whole: individuals will be forced to shoulder more responsibility for deficiencies in the face of increased genetic choice.
Solidarity
Sandel points out that without genetic engineering, a child is "at the mercy of the genetic lottery." Insurance markets allow a pooling of risk for the benefit of all: those who turn out to be healthy subsidise those who are not. This could be phrased more generally as: individual success is not fully determined by that individual or their parents, as genetic traits are to some extent randomly assigned from a collective pool. Sandel argues that, because we all face the same risks, social insurance schemes that rely on a sense of solidarity are possible. However, genetic enhancement gives individuals perfect genetic knowledge and increased resistance to some diseases. Enhanced individuals would not opt into such a system or such human community, because it would involve guaranteed losses for them. They would feel no debt to their community, and social solidarity would disappear.
Sandel argues that solidarity 'arises when men and women reflect on the contingency of their talents and fortunes.'
He argues that if our genetic endowments begin to be seen as 'achievements for which we can claim credit,' society would have no obligation to share with those less fortunate. Consequently, Sandel mounts a case against the perfection of genetic knowledge because it would end the solidarity arising when people reflect on the non-necessary nature of their fortunes.
Leon Kass
In his paper “Ageless Bodies, Happy Souls," Leon Kass argues for bioconservatism. His argument was first delivered as a lecture at the Washington D.C. Ethics and Public Policy Center and later published as an article in The Atlantic. Although it was written during the time when Kass chaired the President's Council on Bioethics, the views expressed are his own, and not those of the council.
In brief, he argues that for three main reasons there is something wrong with biotechnological enhancement. Kass calls them the arguments of "the attitude of mastery," "'unnatural' means" and "dubious ends."
Before he turns to these arguments, he focuses on the distinction between "therapy" and "enhancement." While therapy has the aim of (re-)establishing the state of what could be considered as "normal" (e.g. replacement of organs), enhancement gives people an advantage over the "normal workings" of the human body (e.g. immortality). On the basis of this distinction, Kass argues, most people would support therapy, but remain sceptical towards enhancement. However, he believes this distinction is not clear, since it is hard to tell where therapy stops and enhancement begins. One reason he gives is that the "normal workings" of the human body cannot be unambiguously defined due to the variance within humans: someone may be born with perfect pitch, another deaf.
Bostrom and Roache reply to this by giving an instance where one may clearly speak of permissible enhancement. They claim that extending a life (i.e. making it longer than it would normally have been) means that one saves this particular life. Since one would believe it is morally permissible to save lives (as long as no harm is caused), they claim that there is no good reason to believe extending a life is impermissible.
The relevance of the above counterargument presented by Bostrom and Roache becomes clearer when we consider the essence of Kass's skepticism with 'enhancement.' Firstly, he labels natural human experiences like aging, death and unhappiness as preconditions of human flourishing. By extension, given that technological enhancement diminishes these preconditions and therefore hinders human flourishing, he is able to assert that enhancement is not morally permissible. That being said, Bostrom and Roache challenge Kass's inherent assumption that extending life is different from saving it. In other words, they argue that by alleviating ageing and death, someone's life is being extended, which is no different from saving their life. By this argument, the concept of human flourishing becomes entirely irrelevant since it is morally permissible to save someone's life, regardless of whether they are leading a flourishing life or not.
The problematic attitude of biotechnological enhancement
One of Leon Kass' main arguments on this matter concern the attitude of 'mastery'. Kass implies that although the means are present to modify human nature (both body and mind), the ends remain unknown, filled with unintended consequences:
Due to the unawareness of the goodness of potential ends, Kass claims this not to be mastery at all. Instead, we are acting on the momentary whims that nature exposes us to, effectively making it impossible for humanity to escape from the "grip of our own nature."
Kass builds on Sandel's argument that transhumanists fail to properly recognise the 'giftedness' of the world. He agrees that this idea is useful in that it should teach us an attitude of modesty, restraint and humility. However, he believes it will not by itself sufficiently indicate which things can be manipulated and which should be left untouched. Therefore, Kass additionally proposes that we must also respect the 'givenness' of species-specified natures – 'given' in the sense of something fixed and specified.
'Unnatural' means of biotechnological enhancement
Kass refers to biotechnological enhancement as cheating or ‘cheap,’ because it undermines the feeling of having worked hard to achieve a certain aim. He writes, “The naturalness of means matters. It lies not in the fact that the assisting drugs and devices are artifacts, but in the danger of violating or deforming the deep structure of the natural human activity.” By nature, there is "an experiential and intelligible connection between means and ends."
Kass suggests that the struggles one has to go through to achieve excellence "is not only the source of our deeds, but also their product." Therefore, they build character. He maintains that biotechnology as a shortcut does not build character but instead erodes self-control. This can be seen in how confronting fearful things might eventually enable us to cope with our fears, unlike a pill which merely prevents people from experiencing fear and thereby doesn't help us overcome it. As Kass notes, "people who take pills to block out from memory the painful or hateful aspects of new experience will not learn how to deal with suffering or sorrow. A drug to induce fearlessness does not produce courage." He contends that there is a necessity in having limited biotechnological enhancement for humans as it recognises giftedness and forges humility.
Kass notes that while there are biological interventions that may assist in the pursuit of excellence without cheapening its attainment, "partly because many of life's excellences have nothing to do with competition or adversity," (e.g. "drugs to decrease drowsiness or increase alertness... may actually help people in their natural pursuits of learning or painting or performing their civic duty,") "the point is less the exertions of good character against hardship, but the manifestation of an alert and self-experiencing agent making his deeds flow intentionally from his willing, knowing, and embodied soul." Kass argues that we need to have an "intelligible connection" between means and ends in order to call one's bodies, minds, and transformations genuinely their own.
'Dubious' ends of biotechnological enhancement
The case for ageless bodies is that the prevention of decay, decline, and disability, the avoidance of blindness, deafness, and debility, the elimination of feebleness, frailty, and fatigue, are conducive to living fully as a human being at the top of one's powers, and a "good quality of life" from beginning to end.
However, Kass argues that human limitation is what gives the opportunity for happiness. Firstly, he argues that "a concern with one's own improving agelessness is finally incompatible with accepting the need for procreation and human renewal." This creates a world "hostile to children," and arguably "increasingly dominated by anxiety over health and the fear of death." This is because the existence of decline and decay is precisely what allows us to accept mortality. The hostility towards children is resultant of the redundancy of new generations to the progression of the human species, given infinite lifespan; progression and evolution of the human race would no longer arise from procreation and succession, but from the engineered enhancement of existing generations. Secondly, He explains that one needs to grieve in order to love, and that one must feel a lack to be capable of aspiration:
[...] human fulfillment depends on our being creatures of need and finitude and hence of longings and attachment.
Finally, Kass warns, "the engaged and energetic being-at-work of what uniquely gave to us is what we need to treasure and defend. All other perfection is at best a passing illusion, at worst a Faustian bargain that will cost us our full and flourishing humanity."
Jürgen Habermas
Jürgen Habermas has also written against genetic human enhancement. In his book “The Future of Human Nature,” Habermas rejects the use of prenatal genetic technologies to enhance offspring. Habermas rejects genetic human enhancement on two main grounds: the violation of ethical freedom, and the production of asymmetrical relationships. He broadens this discussion by then discussing the tensions between the evolution of science with religion and moral principles.
Violation of ethical freedom
Habermas points out that a genetic modification produces an external imposition on a person's life that is qualitatively different from any social influence. This prenatal genetic modification will most likely be chosen by one's parents, therefore threatening the ethical freedom and equality that one is entitled to as a birthright. For Habermas, the difference relies in that while socialisation processes can always be contested, genetic designs cannot therefore possess a level of unpredictability. This argument builds on Habermas' magnum opus discourse ethics. For Habermas:
Eugenic interventions aiming at enhancement reduce ethical freedom insofar as they tie down the person concerned to rejected, but irreversible intentions of third parties, barring him from the spontaneous self-perception of being the undivided author of his own life.
Asymmetrical relationships
Habermas suggested that genetic human enhancements would create asymmetric relationships that endanger democracy, which is premised on the idea of moral equality. He claims that regardless of the scope of the modifications, the very knowledge of enhancement obstructs symmetrical relationships between parents and their children. The child's genome was interfered with nonconsensually, making predecessors responsible for the traits in question. Unlike for thinkers like Fukuyama, Habermas' point is not that these traits might produce different ‘types of humans’. Rather, he placed the emphasis on how others are responsible in choosing these traits. This is the fundamental difference between natural traits and human enhancement, and it is what bears decisive weight for Habermas: the child's autonomy as self-determination is violated. However, Habermas does acknowledge that, for example, making one's son very tall in the hope that they will become a basketball player does not automatically determine that he will choose this path.
However, although the opportunity can be turned down, this does not make it any less of a violation from being forced into an irreversible situation. Genetic modification has two large-scale consequences. Firstly, no action the child undertakes can be ascribed to her own negotiation with the natural lottery, since a ‘third party’ has negotiated on the child's behalf. This imperils the sense of responsibility for one's own life that comes along with freedom. As such, individuals’ self-understanding as ethical beings is endangered, opening the door to ethical nihilism. This is so because the genetic modification creates a type of dependence in which one of the parts does not even have the hypothetical possibility of changing social places with the other. Secondly, it becomes impossible to collectively and democratically establish moral rules through communication, since a condition for their establishment is the possibility to question assertions. Genetically modified individuals, however, never realise if their very questioning might have been informed by enhancement, nor can they question it. That being said, Habermas acknowledges that our societies are full of asymmetric relationships, such as oppression of minorities or exploitation. However, these conditions could be different. On the contrary, genetic modification cannot be reverted once it is performed.
Criticism
The transhumanist Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies criticizes bioconservatism as a form of "human racism" (more commonly known as speciesism), and as being motivated by a "yuck factor" that ignores individual freedoms.
Nick Bostrom on posthuman dignity
Nick Bostrom argues that bioconservative concerns regarding the threat of transhumanism to posthuman dignity are unsubstantiated. Bostrom himself identifies with forms of posthuman dignity, and in his article In Defence of Posthuman Dignity, argues that such does not run in contradiction with the ideals of transhumanism.
Bostrom argues in the article that Fukuyama's concerns about the threats transhumanism pose to dignity as moral status - that transhumanism might strip away humanity's inalienable right of respect- lacks empirical evidence. He states that the proportion of people given full moral respect in Western societies has actually increased through history. This increase includes such populations as non-whites, women and non-property owners. Following this logic, it will similarly be feasible to incorporate future posthumans without compensating the dignities of the rest of the population.
Bostrom then goes on to discuss dignity in the sense of moral worthiness, which varies among individuals. He suggests that posthumans can similarly possess dignity in this sense. Further, he suggests, it is possible that posthumans, being genetically enhanced, may come to possess even higher levels of moral excellence than contemporary human beings. While he considers that certain posthumans may live more degraded lives as a result of self-enhancement, he also notes that even at this time many people are not living worthy lives either. He finds this regrettable and suggests that countermeasures as education and cultural reforms can be helpful in curtailing such practices. Bostrom supports the morphological and reproductive freedoms of human beings, suggesting that ultimately, leading whatever life one aspires should be an unalienable right.
Reproductive freedom means that parents should be free to choose the technological enhancements they want when having a child. According to Bostrom, there is no reason to prefer the random processes of nature over human design. He dismisses claims that describe this kind of operations as "tyranny" of the parents over their future chrildren. In his opinion, the tyranny of nature is no different. In fact, he claims that "Had Mother Nature been a real parent, she would have been in jail for child abuse and murder."
Earlier in the paper, Bostrom also replies to Leon Kass with the claim that, in his words, "nature's gifts are sometimes poisoned and should not always be accepted." He makes the point that nature cannot be relied upon for normative standards. Instead, he suggests that transhumanism can, over time, allow for the technical improvement of "human nature," consistent with our widely held societal morals.
According to Bostrom, the way that bioconservatives justify banning certain human enhancements while not others, reveal the double standard that is present in this line of thought. For him, a misleading conception of human dignity is to blame for this. We mistakenly take for granted that human nature is an intrinsic, unmodifiable set of properties. This problem, he argues, is overcome when human nature is conceived as 'dynamic, partially human-made, and improvable.' If we acknowledge that social and technological factors influence our nature, then dignity 'consists in what we are and what we have the potential to become, not in our pedigree or social origin'. It can be seen, then, than improved capabilities does not affect moral status, and that we should sustain an inclusive view that recognize our enhanced descendants as possessors of dignity. Transhumanists reject the notion that there is a significant moral difference between enhancing human lives through technological means compared to other methods.
Distinguishing between types of enhancement
Bostrom discusses a criticism levelled against transhumanists by bioconservatives, that children who are biologically enhanced by certain kinds of technologies will face psychological anguish because of the enhancement.
Prenatal enhancements may create expectations for the individual's future traits or behaviour.
If the individual learns of these enhancements, this is likely to cause them psychological anguish stemming from pressure to fulfil such expectations.
Actions which are likely to cause individuals psychological anguish are undesirable to the point of being morally reprehensible.
Therefore, prenatal enhancements are morally reprehensible.
Bostrom finds that bioconservatives rely on a false dichotomy between technological enhancements that are harmful and those that are not, thus challenging premise two. Bostrom argues that children whose mothers played Mozart to them in the womb would not face psychological anguish upon discovering that their musical talents had been “prenatally programmed by her parents.” However, he finds that bioconservative writers often employ analogous arguments to the contrary demonstrating that technological enhancements, rather than playing Mozart in the womb, could potentially disturb children.
Hans Jonas on reproductive freedom
Hans Jonas contends the criticisms about bio-enhanced children by questioning their freedom without the presence of enhancement. He argues that enhancement would increase their freedom. This is because enhanced physical and mental capabilities would allow for greater opportunities; the children would no longer be constrained by physical or mental deficiencies. Jonas further weakens the arguments about reproductive freedom by referencing Habermas. Habermas argues that freedom for offspring is restricted by the knowledge of their enhancement. To challenge this, Jonas elaborates on his notion about reproductive freedom.
Notable bioconservatives
George Annas
Dale Carrico
Francis Fukuyama (as attributed by observers)
Leon Kass
Bill McKibben
Oliver O'Donovan
Jeremy Rifkin
Wesley Smith
Michael Sandel
Edmund Pellegrino
See also
Bioluddism
Posthumanization
Techno-progressivism
Appeal to nature
References
Further reading
Gregg, Benjamin (2021). "Regulating genetic engineering guided by human dignity, not genetic essentialism", Politics and the Life Sciences, 10.1017/pls.2021.29, 41, 1, (60–75),
Savulescu, Julian (2019). "Rational Freedom and Six Mistakes of a Bioconservative", The American Journal of Bioethics, 19(7), 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1080/15265161.2019.1626642
External links
Nick Bostrom, "In defense of posthuman dignity", full text
Climate change
How Climate Change Makes Bioconservatism the Most Relevant Ideology, Chet Bowers, Truthout, 2016.
Bioengineer humans to tackle climate change, say philosophers, The Guardian, 2012, featuring Rebecca Roache
Political ideologies
Transhumanism | Bioconservatism | [
"Technology",
"Engineering",
"Biology"
] | 5,662 | [
"Genetic engineering",
"Transhumanism",
"Ethics of science and technology"
] |
55,032,537 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis%20P.%20Baldwin | Francis Paul Baldwin (November 23, 1915 — August 17, 1993) was a former Exxon Chief Scientist noted for his work on chemical modifications of low functionality elastomers.
Personal
Baldwin was born on November 23, 1915, in Brooklyn, Kings County, New York, United States. He married Helen Koelbl on Nov. 27, 1943. They lived in Summit, New Jersey, for many years. He died August 17, 1993, in Coupeville, Island County, Washington, US. He went by the nickname 'Baldy'.
Education
Baldwin received his Bachelor of Science degree in physics from Wagner Memorial Lutheran College in 1941. He received a doctorate from the University of Notre Dame in 1953.
Career
Baldwin joined Exxon in 1937. Seeking to compatibilize butyl rubber with natural rubber, together with Robert M. Thomas, he found that gaseous chlorination of butyl leads to degradation. This result caused them to switch to a solution-based chlorination process. This process was commercialized in 1960.
He supervised the work of 2010 Goodyear medalist Edward Kresge.
In 1975 he retired from Exxon as Chief Scientist, the highest title in the chemical technology department. At his retirement, he held 60 U.S. patents in the field of limited functionality rubbers: chlorobutyl, butyl rubber, and Ethylene propylene rubber.
Awards and recognitions
1979: Charles Goodyear Medal from the ACS Rubber Division
References
1915 births
1993 deaths
People from Summit, New Jersey
Polymer scientists and engineers
Scientists from Brooklyn
ExxonMobil people | Francis P. Baldwin | [
"Chemistry",
"Materials_science"
] | 324 | [
"Polymer scientists and engineers",
"Physical chemists",
"Polymer chemistry"
] |
55,033,124 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC%204464 | NGC 4464 is an elliptical galaxy located about 70 million light-years away in the constellation of Virgo. NGC 4464 was discovered by astronomer William Herschel on December 28, 1785. NGC 4464 is a member of the Virgo Cluster.
See also
List of NGC objects (4001–5000)
References
External links
Elliptical galaxies
Virgo (constellation)
4464
41148
7619
Astronomical objects discovered in 1785
Virgo Cluster | NGC 4464 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 88 | [
"Virgo (constellation)",
"Constellations"
] |
55,033,847 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal%20fallacy | The formal fallacy or the modal fallacy is a special type of fallacy that occurs in modal logic. It is the fallacy of placing a proposition in the wrong modal scope, most commonly confusing the scope of what is necessarily true. A statement is considered necessarily true if and only if it is impossible for the statement to be untrue and that there is no situation that would cause the statement to be false. Some philosophers further argue that a necessarily true statement must be true in all possible worlds.
In modal logic, a proposition can be necessarily true or false (denoted and , respectively), meaning that it is necessary that it is true or false; or it could be possibly true or false (denoted and ), meaning that it is true or false, but it is not logically necessary that it is so: its truth or falseness is contingent. The modal fallacy occurs when there is a confusion of the distinction between the two.
Description
In modal logic, there is an important distinction between what is logically necessary to be true and what is true but not logically necessary to be so. One common form is replacing with . In the first statement, is true given but is not logically necessary to be so.
A common example in everyday life might be the following:
Mickey Mouse is the President of the United States.
The President is at least 35 years old.
Thus, Mickey Mouse is necessarily 35 years or older.
Why is this false?
The conclusion is false, since, even though Mickey Mouse is over 35 years old, there is no logical necessity for him to be. Even though it is certainly true in this world, a possible world can exist in which Mickey Mouse is not yet 35 years old. If instead of adding a stipulation of necessity, the argument just concluded that Mickey Mouse is 35 or older, it would be valid.
Norman Swartz gave the following example of how the modal fallacy can lead one to conclude that the future is already set, regardless of one's decisions; this is based on the "sea battle" example used by Aristotle to discuss the problem of future contingents in his On Interpretation:Two admirals, A and B, are preparing their navies for a sea battle tomorrow. The battle will be fought until one side is victorious. But the 'laws' of the excluded middle (no third truth-value) and of non-contradiction (not both truth-values), mandate that one of the propositions, 'A wins' and 'B wins', is true (always has been and ever will be) and the other is false (always has been and ever will be). Suppose 'A wins' is today true. Then whatever A does (or fails to do) today will make no difference; similarly, whatever B does (or fails to do) today will make no difference: the outcome is already settled. Or again, suppose 'A wins' is today false. Then no matter what A does today (or fails to do), it will make no difference; similarly, no matter what B does (or fails to do), it will make no difference: the outcome is already settled. Thus, if propositions bear their truth-values timelessly (or unchangingly and eternally), then planning, or as Aristotle put it 'taking care', is illusory in its efficacy. The future will be what it will be, irrespective of our planning, intentions, etc.Suppose that the statement "A wins" is given by and "B wins" is given by . It is true here that only one of the statements "A wins" or "B wins" must be true. In other words, only one of or is true. In logic syntax, this is equivalent to
(either or is true)
(it is not possible that and are both true at the same time)
The fallacy here occurs because one assumes that and implies and . Thus, one believes that, since one of both events is logically necessarily true, no action by either can change the outcome.
Swartz also argued that the argument from free will suffers from the modal fallacy.
References
Fallacy
Non-classical logic
Philosophical logic
Informal fallacies | Modal fallacy | [
"Mathematics"
] | 868 | [
"Mathematical logic",
"Modal logic"
] |
55,034,900 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas%20personality | The Atlas personality, named after the story of the Titan Atlas from Greek mythology who is forced to hold up the sky, is someone obliged to take on adult responsibilities prematurely. They are as a result liable to develop a pattern of compulsive caregiving in later life.
Origins and nature
The Atlas personality is typically found in a person who felt obliged during childhood to take on responsibilities such as providing psychological support to parents, often in a chaotic family situation. This experience often involves parentification.
The result in adult life can be a personality devoid of fun, and feeling the weight of the world on their shoulders. Depression and anxiety, as well as oversensitivity to others and an inability to assert their own needs, are further identifiable characteristics. In addition, there may also be an underlying rage against the parents for not having provided love, and for exploiting the child for their own needs.<ref>Alice Miller, 'The Drama of Being a Child (London 1990) p. 38</ref>
While Atlas personalities may appear to function adequately as adults, they may be pervaded with a sense of emptiness and be lacking in vitality.
Treatment
Persons suffering from Atlas personality may benefit from psychotherapy. In such cases, a therapist talks with the patient about the patient's childhood and helps identify behavioral patterns that may have arisen from being given too many responsibilities too early in life.
See also
References
Further reading
L. J. Cozolino, The Making of a Therapist'' (New York 2004)
Behavioural syndromes associated with physiological disturbances and physical factors
Interpersonal relationships
Narcissism
Borderline personality disorder
Atlas (mythology) | Atlas personality | [
"Biology"
] | 334 | [
"Behavior",
"Interpersonal relationships",
"Human behavior"
] |
73,562,868 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillermo%20Rojas%20Bazan | Guillermo Rojas Bazan is an aviation model maker and researcher from Argentina. He is internationally renowned and considered unique and innovative in the field of museum quality airplane modeling in metal. His work has had a significant impact in the development of highly detailed model aircraft. Rojas Bazan has developed his own modeling techniques and is one of the only aircraft model builders to use aluminum. He is a true scratch builder, working completely by hand, foregoing electrical machines, except for a small compressor used for his airbrush.
During the first forty-five years of his career, while living and working in four different countries, he made more than 200 custom models for museums, art galleries, scale model companies, and collectors. He has been called the greatest aircraft model maker in the world by various sources.
Life and work
Guillermo Rojas Bazan was born in 1949 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Rojas Bazan received his education in both a technical engineering school and an art school. From 1981 to 1988, Rojas Bazan worked for the Instituto Aeronaval (Naval Air Institute) and the Argentine Air Force. During that time, he worked as a technical draftsman, aircraft illustrator, and designer. Additionally, he was commissioned to build all of the aircraft used in Argentina's Naval history, resulting in ninety-nine aircraft models built that are still currently on display.
In 1988, he left Argentina for Spain, where he built models for an aviation art gallery in London and produced replicas for collectors in the United States and Europe. While working for the London gallery, Rojas Bazan was able to choose which models he built, and made several of what he describes as non-commercial models, that all sold despite not being ordered. In 1994, he moved to the U.S. and was hired by Fine Art Models, a company located in Royal Oak, Michigan. During his years working for Fine Art Models, he made models in 1/15 scale that were copied in Eastern Europe and sold in limited editions. In recent years, he has worked as a freelance artist for collectors and museums.
Rojas Bazan's models are known for their high detail and weathering, giving the aircraft models their realism. Ann Cooper, a writer for Private Pilot magazine, explained that Rojas Bazan "doesn't just assemble parts and finish the exterior surfaces of his models, he loads them, inside and out, with rich, realistic detail work." Furthermore, there is a precision to details that are microscopic. Kelly Shaw of the magazine Fine Scale Modeler stated that "His all-metal scratch-builds are memorable for their undulating surfaces, variation in riveting, overlapping panels, and stressed skin. In photos, it's easy to mistake his models for real aircraft." Also noting that despite his success as a model maker, he has continued to strive for perfection. Moreover, Rojas Bazan’s models were lauded in letters by the University of Notre Dame, Christie's, and the U.S. Air Force and were referred to as the "Tiffany of Models," further explaining that his work is taking scale modeling around the world into a new dimension.
To make sure his models are accurate, Rojas Bazan relies on extensive research before beginning work on a model. This process takes a longer period of time when an aircraft has a greater complexity. Rojas Bazan’s research has involved construction plans, material samples, test samples, and talking to former pilots. His Junkers G 24 model was built despite the fact that none of those aircraft still exist, using photos and original publications. Rojas Bazan has explained how "a lot of kits get it wrong." He primarily specializes in models of aircraft built between 1925-1945. In 1995, Mike Knepper, a writer for Cigar Aficionado magazine named Rojas Bazan the "Mozart of Modeling."
Models
Rojas Bazan built eighty-seven models for Argentina’s National Museum of the Nation as a result of being commissioned to build every aircraft used in Argentina’s Naval history. He built an additional twelve models that were displayed in different locations in Argentina. At Fine Art Models, he built numerous models including the F-4UD Corsair, which was recognized as a masterpiece by the German magazine IQ. When discussing Rojas Bazan’s P-51 Mustang model, a former World War II pilot of that aircraft, said that the details in the model are the best that he has ever seen. When asked about which are his favorite models, Rojas Bazan said, 'I do not have only one favorite model, I have several. Many of them are planes from the period between 1920 and 1939, before WWII (golden age of aviation). These include the Northrop Gamma, Boeing B-15, Boeing YB-17 (prototypes on the great B-17), Martin B-10, Vought Vindicator, Curtiss Hawk III, Junkers G-38, Junkers G-24, Heinkel He70, Fairey Battle, etc. Many of these aircraft were not good machines, or have not been very popular, but I like them aesthetically.' One model that was built in Rojas Bazan's most recent freelancer era is a Mitsubishi A6M Zero that now resides in Japan and was promoted there as the best Zero replica ever built. Another model completed in recent years is a Ju 87 B-1 Stuka, which is featured in one of his YouTube videos. In that video, he explains the archeological labor that he undergoes to complete his models in the most realistic way possible. His last completed model is a Consolidated B-24H Liberator. It was commissioned by the 467th Bombardment Group (H) Association and will be displayed at the historic Wendover airfield.
Recognition
At the North American Model Engineering Expo, Rojas Bazan accepted the Joe Martin Foundation Award for Craftsman of the Year (2013).
The University of Notre Dame, the U.S. Airforce, and Christie's have given Rojas Bazan letters of recognition.
References
External links
YouTube Video of the B-24H Liberator - Model Engineering -Aluminum Construction- Total Scratch Built. 1:20 Scale
YouTube Video of the Ju 87 B-1 Stuka- Model Engineering- Metal Construction- Truly Scratch Built- Part 1
YouTube Video of the A6M2 Zero -Model Engineering- Metal Construction- Truly Scratch Built- Part One
Model makers
People in aviation
21st-century Argentine people
20th-century Argentine people
1949 births
Living people | Guillermo Rojas Bazan | [
"Physics"
] | 1,332 | [
"Model makers"
] |
73,563,587 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veratric%20acid | Veratric acid, also known as 3,4-dimethoxybenzoic acid, is a benzoic acid. It is a plant metabolite found in species such as Hypericum laricifolium, Artemisia sacrorum, and Zeyheria montana.
Uses
Medical research
A 2023 study at SRM Institute of Science and Technology suggests that veratric acid has apoptotic and antiproliferative effects against triple negative breast cancer cells. These effects were substantially increased when polydopamine nanoparticles were used as a sustained release drug carrier.
References
Benzoic acids
Plant metabolism
Botany
Phytochemicals | Veratric acid | [
"Chemistry",
"Biology"
] | 134 | [
"Plant metabolism",
"Metabolism",
"Plants",
"Botany"
] |
73,566,449 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinealon | Pinealon is a synthetic tripeptide of sequence (Glu-Asp-Arg) and purported geroprotector documented in the Russian scientific literature.
Research
Pinealon has been shown to protect rat offspring from prenatal hyperhomocysteinemia and correspondingly improve post natal cognitive function.
Pinealon likewise maintains learning retention rats with experimentally-induced diabetes. As well as old humans and young wrestlers.
Pinealon has been tested in large scale Human trials such as the Gasprom study, where it showed profound Geroprotective effects. This included longer telomeres and improvements in various health markers.
Chemistry
Pinealon is a tripeptide composed of L-glutamic acid, L-aspartic acid, and L-arginine and is notated as Glu-Asp-Arg or EDR.
References
Tripeptides
Neuroprotective agents
Peptide therapeutics
Russian drugs | Pinealon | [
"Chemistry"
] | 197 | [
"Biochemistry stubs",
"Medicinal chemistry stubs",
"Medicinal chemistry"
] |
73,567,395 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tijana%20Rajh | Tijana Rajh (; born 1957) is an American materials scientist who is a professor and director of the Arizona State University School of Molecular Sciences. Her research considers the development of nanomaterials and materials for quantum technologies. She was awarded the Association for Women in Science Innovator Award in 2009, and named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2014.
Early life and education
Rajh was born in 1957, Belgrade, former Yugoslavia in a Serbo - Jewish family. Her father Zdenko Rajh (Reich, 1905–1990) was a publicist and lawyer, and her mother Gordana Nikolić Rajh was a linguist. Despite being interested in Aristotle, Rajh became fascinated by better understanding the natural world. She completed her undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of Belgrade, where she specialized in physical chemistry. After earning her doctorate, Rajh worked in solar energy research between National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the Boris Kidrič Institute in Belgrade, where she worked on photo-electrochemistry and semiconductors.
Research and career
Rajh worked at the Argonne National Laboratory, where she was eventually made an Argonne Distinguished Fellow. She worked on semiconducting nanocrystals for water splitting and electrochemistry. In particular, Rajh worked on the synthesis of the nanocrystals, and developed strategies to assemble them. She developed electron paramagnetic spectroscopy and other electron resonance techniques to understand spin effects during electron transfer. In 2009, she was awarded the Association for Women in Science Innovator Award, and she was named an American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow in 2014.
Alongside her work on nanomaterials, Rajh developed quantum-enabled strategies for sensing. She showed that the high surface areas of metal–organic frameworks could be used to maximize sensitivity, permitting quantitive analysis using electron paramagnetic resonance. She has proposed that carbon nanotubes with highly confined electron spins could be used as qubits with record long coherence times.
In 2021, Rajh was named Director of the Arizona State University School of Molecular Sciences.
Selected publications
References
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
University of Belgrade alumni
Arizona State University alumni
Materials scientists and engineers
Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
Women materials scientists and engineers | Tijana Rajh | [
"Materials_science",
"Technology",
"Engineering"
] | 474 | [
"Women materials scientists and engineers",
"Materials scientists and engineers",
"Women in science and technology",
"Materials science"
] |
73,568,748 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibility-with-childcare%20theory | The compatibility-with-childcare theory is an idea in anthropology and gender studies. Scholars use it to explain why some cultures assign some forms of work to women and other forms of work to men (or some other gender role recognized by that culture). In cultures that assign the care of young children to women, other roles given to women must not involve traveling long distances away from those children for extended or unpredictable periods. For example, hunter-gatherer and horticultural societies assign the hunting of large game almost exclusively to men. Anthropologist Ernestine Friedl hypothesized that this could be because women take primary responsibility for the care of young children, and the long and unpredictable absences and long distances involved in this type of hunting would make that prohibitively difficult.
See also
Male expendability
Division of labor
Economy-of-effort theory
Strength theory
References
Anthropology
Gender | Compatibility-with-childcare theory | [
"Biology"
] | 177 | [
"Behavior",
"Gender",
"Human behavior"
] |
73,568,819 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intravesical%20drug%20delivery | Intravesical drug delivery is the delivery of medications directly into the bladder by urinary catheter. This method of drug delivery is used to directly target diseases of the bladder such as interstitial cystitis and bladder cancer, but currently faces obstacles such as low drug retention time due to washing out with urine and issues with the low permeability of the bladder wall itself. Due to the advantages of directly targeting the bladder, as well as the effectiveness of permeability enhancers, advances in intravesical drug carriers, and mucoadhesive, intravesical drug delivery is becoming more effective and of increased interest in the medical community.
Advantages
Delivering drugs directly to the target bladder site allows for maximizing drug delivery while minimizing systemic effects.
Delivering the treatment directly to the site allows for more effective dosages to be given since high concentrations of drug in the bladder can be reached. This becomes especially important when patients have a urinary bladder disease that is drug resistant. The delivery of drugs directly to the bladder is a large improvement over systemic delivery which only allows a small fraction of the drug to reach the bladder, causing lower concentrations of drug leading to systemic treatments being ineffective. The smaller fraction of drug reaching its target with systemic delivery means more drugs must be administered which can lead to problems with systemic toxicity. This is not the case when drug is administered directly to the bladder.
The layer of the bladder which comes into contact with urine, the urothelium (the transitional epithelium of the bladder, is a mostly impermeable barrier which stops molecules in the urine from being reabsorbed and prevents molecules from being secreted directly into the bladder as well. The bladder’s impermeability means that any drug delivered intravesical will not absorb into the bloodstream well through the bladder wall, causing fewer systemic effects. This impermeability also causes treatment of bladder diseases to be more difficult to treat as drugs do not absorb well into the bladder wall. Intravesical drug delivery has been identified as an ideal way to treat most urinary disorders, including bladder tumors and bladder cancers, interstitial cystitis, and urinary incontinence.
There is currently a lack of interest in treating urinary tract infections using intravesical delivery.
Disadvantages of Intravesical Drug Delivery
While intravesical delivery shows distinct advantages over systemic drug delivery it has several problems to overcome. When giving a drug intravesically it is diluted by urine and washed out when urine is voided. Additionally, the low permeability of the urothelium which lines the bladder creates a hurdle that must be overcome if the bladder wall needs to be treated. These issues create the need for more frequent dosing, which causes urinary catheter site irritation and compliance issues with treatments.
Intravesical drug dilution occurs as urine accumulates in the bladder, lowering the concentration of drug in the bladder as overall volume increases. The voiding of drug with urine when using traditional drug formulations in the bladder has become a hurdle to overcome as well, since residence time of the drug inside the bladder is directly tied to the treatment’s efficacy. Creating formulations which adhere to the bladder wall has been targeted as one way to improve intravesical dug efficacy,. The low adherence of drugs to the bladder wall and low permeability into the bladder wall contributes to low drug retention in the bladder. When modifying drug formulations for intravesical delivery gels or viscosity increasing formulations are sometimes used to increase retention, though this can cause issues with urethra obstruction, an additional hurdle in intravesical drug delivery.
Permeability issues with the bladder wall can be attributed to the urothelium, the lining of the bladder wall made up of umbrella cells, intermediate cells, and basal cells.,. The impermeability can be attributed to the umbrella cells which form tight junctions with each other to make up the innermost layer of the urothelium and have the ability to change shape to adapt to the bladder’s varying size. The umbrella cells are covered in a dense layer of plaques which further prevents the absorption of particles through the urothelium and a layer of mucin composed of glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) which prevents both hydrophobic and negatively charged molecules from adhering to the bladder wall. Overcoming the impermeability of the mucin layer and the urothelium is a large focus of many intravesical drug formulations, and is key to an efficacious intravesical treatment
Improvements
The main ways researchers are currently overcoming the problems in intravesical drug delivery are through developing formulations using mucoadhesives, nanoparticles, liposomes, polymeric hydrogel, expandable delivery devices, and electromotive drug administration. These methods each serve to improve retention time, drug permeability through the urothelium, or some combination of the two.
Enhancing drug retention
Enhancing Drug retention can be achieved through changing formulation and delivery device. Often drug retention and permeability enhancement are tied, as drugs which permeate the urothelium will suffer fewer effects from urine dilution and voiding. Two of the most common methods to improve drug retention are by using a mucoadhesive formulation or using polymeric hydrogels that form in the bladder, or in situ gelling hydrogels.
Mucoadhesive formulations
Mucoadhesive formulations can be made with both biopolymers and synthetic polymers, and usually contain polymers that are hydrophilic and can form many hydrogen bonds with the GAG-mucin. Positively charged molecules typically make far better mucoadhesive as the mucin layer is negatively charged. By forming these bonds, the mucoadhesive, and the drug it carries, can maintain sustained contact with the bladder wall, enhancing retention of the drug in the bladder. Among mucoadhesive materials Chitosan often stands out due to its biocompatibility, biodegradability, and permeability enhancing factors. In experiments with chitosan, it has been shown that the mucoadhesive properties of a molecule likely increase as the molecular weight is increased. Studies have also found that the modification of chitosan formulations with thiomers, which can form covalent bonds with mucus, can significantly improve the mucoadhesion of the chitosan formulations
In situ gelling polymeric hydrogels
Polymeric hydrogels for intravesical drug delivery take advantage of characteristics of the bladder or urine to gel, or may use external manipulation to cause the hydrogel to form. These gels can take advantage of pH or temperature differences, or external input like UV lasers, to form gels inside the bladder after instillation of the formulation in liquid form. If these gels are made to be mucoadhesive they stick to the bladder wall and do not wash out or cause urethral obstruction. Polymeric hydrogels have also been formulated to float on top of the urine to avoid wash out and obstruction without having to adhere to the bladder wall. Drawbacks of using polymeric hydrogel formulations include the concern of urethral obstruction, the varying conditions of the urine which make pH or ionic controlled gelling formulations less controlled, and the bladder wall inflammation which can occur with mucoadhesive polymeric hydrogels.
Enhancing drug permeability
Enhancing drug permeability can be done through physical or chemical methods, and is also achieved through nanoparticle and liposome drug carriers. Physical methods include electromotive drug administration, radiofrequency-induced chemotherapeutic effect, and conductive hyperthermic chemotherapy, but electromotive drug administration seems to be the most prevalent in recent research and clinical trial focus. Chemical methods revolve around adding a chemical agent to enhance drug uptake and increase permeability. To enhance drug permeability through physical or chemical methods both the mucin layer and the umbrella cells of the urothelium must undergo a structural or chemical change.
Electromotive Drug Administration (EMDA)
Electromotive drug administration utilizes a small electric current flowing across the bladder wall between two electrodes, one on the skin and one placed inside the bladder via catheterization, to enhance permeability of aqueous solutions. Electromotive drug administration best enhances ionized formulations, which diffuse poorly using standard passive diffusion. This allows it to potentially assist in the delivery of many drugs that usually perform poorly in the bladder without having to change their formulations heavily. Across multiple studies and clinical trials electromotive drug administration has been shown to increase the uptake of many drugs, showing potential use in bladder cancer, urinary incontinence, urinary cystitis and pain management. Cost of local anesthesia for bladder distention using electromotive drug administration in combination with lidocaine has been shown to be cheaper and more practical than general anesthesia or spinal anesthesia.
Chemically enhancing permeability
To enhance the permeability of the bladder wall, specifically the urothelium, to drugs administered locally to the bladder four chemical agents are most commonly used: DMSO, protamine sulphate, Hyaluronidase, and chitosan. DMSO is already widely used to directly treat urinary cystitis due to its anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties. DMSO can penetrate tissues without causing any damage to them. This property of DMSO made it of particular interest as a chemical enhancer and it has been shown to increase the uptake of several chemotherapeutics used intravesically. Protamine sulphate causes disruption to the mucus layer of the urothelium and can cause large disruption of bladder permeability which can be modified by adding defibrotide. Hyaluronidase breaks down Hyaluronic acid, a GAG molecule important to the mucin layer, causing enhanced permeability of the mucin layer to drugs administered concurrently with hyaluronidase. Conversely, hyaluronic acid can be used to treat interstitial cystitis as it helps to repair damaged mucin layers. Chitosan is thought to function as a permeability enhancer by binding to the mucin layer and negatively affecting tight junctions between umbrella cells in the urothelium. It has been shown that chitosan increases bladder wall permeability but its effectiveness as a permeability enhancer decreases as calcium ion concentration increases. Chemically enhancing bladder permeability can lead to negative side effects such as incontinence, pain, and uncontrolled leakage of molecules other than intended drug from the urine into the bladder wall.
Nanoparticle and liposome drug carriers
Nanoparticle and liposome drug carrier formulations allow for increased drug uptake, especially in the case of liposomes which allow for greater uptake via endocytosis. Liposomes generally must be shielded via modification with a Polyethylene glycol molecule to overcome issues with instability and aggregation in urine. Nanoparticle and Liposome drug carriers can be loaded into a in situ forming hydrogel to gain the advantages of mucoadhesive properties Empty liposomes by themselves have been noted to improve interstitial cystitis, most likely due to formation of a lipid film on damaged urothelium. The variety of types of nanoparticles which can be made to carry drugs in intravesical formulations, combined with the tunability of many of these particles in regards to drug loading and release rates makes nanoparticles and liposomes a highly versatile and useful tool in intravesical drug delivery.
References
Drug delivery devices
Urology | Intravesical drug delivery | [
"Chemistry"
] | 2,428 | [
"Pharmacology",
"Drug delivery devices"
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73,569,052 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainwater%20harvesting%20in%20the%20Sahel | Rainwater harvesting in the Sahel is a combination of "indigenous and innovative" agricultural strategies that "plant the rain" and reduce evaporation, so that crops have access to soil moisture for the longest possible period of time. In the resource-poor drylands of the Sahel region of Africa, irrigation systems and chemical fertilizers are often prohibitively expensive and thus uncommon: so increasing or maintaining crop yields in the face of climate change depends on augmenting the region's extant rainfed agriculture systems to "increase water storage within the soil and replenish soil nutrients." Rainwater harvesting is a form of agricultural water management. Rainwater harvesting is most effective when combined with systems for soil regeneration and organic-matter management.
Background
The Sahel is an ecologically (rather than geopolitically) defined region of Africa. The noun Sahel comes from the Arabic sāḥil () describing a border, shore or edge, which aptly describes the transitional areas of Africa where savanna becomes the hyper-arid Sahara Desert. (According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Place Names, "The Arabs considered the Sahara to be a huge ocean with the Sahel as its shore.") The Sahel crosses Senegal, The Gambia, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Central African Republic, South Sudan, Sudan, and Eritrea in a belt up to wide that spans from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Red Sea in the east. The Sahel is marked by decreasing levels of precipitation from south to north, but what defines a dryland ecosystem is not necessarily low rainfall. In some cases the dryness is due to persistent high levels of evaporation (due to heat or desiccating winds). Unpredictable rainfall is often also a factor.
Population estimates of the Sahel vary depending on which political subdivisions are included, but the count is in the vicinity of 100 million people, including nearly a million refugees and internally displaced people. The countries of the Sahel region are mainly poor. For example, the Volta River basin is occupied by about 20 million people who live in the countries of Burkina Faso and Ghana; 61 percent of Burkinabe and 45 percent of Ghanaians live on less than per day. About 12 million farmers in the region (including people in Niger, Chad, Mauritania, Mali, and probably Burkina Faso and Senegal), are occasionally or "chronically vulnerable to food and nutrition insecurity." The Brookings Institution has described Sahelians as among the "most underprivileged, marginalized, and poorest people" on Earth.
Subsistence food production
Agriculture contributes between 10 and 70 percent of GDP to the economies of most sub-Saharan countries. The major agricultural systems of the Sahel are oasis, pastoral, and mixed production of cereals and root crops. The root crops are predominantly sweet potato and cassava; cereals are predominantly millet and sorghum, with some maize; the "north-south rainfall gradient defines...a successive north-south dominance of millet, sorghum and maize." Climate changes over the next 25 years are predicted to decrease Sahelian cereal production by double-digit percentages, largely due to increased heat. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change also predicts double-digit decreases due to increased rainfall variability.
Homegrown staple crops account for an estimated 90 percent of food consumption in the Sahel, and 90 percent of these crops are grown using exclusively rain-fed agriculture. A general African transition to first-world-style irrigation systems is considered unlikely, and the Sahel region has an "especially limited irrigation potential." According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, no more than 10 percent of African food production is likely to be grown under irrigation over the next 20 years. Mechanized irrigation, where it exists, is typically limited to more lucrative cash crops, rather than subsistence. Therefore, in order to increase or even maintain the Sahel's dryland agriculture production capacity the "most logical strategy...will be improving rainfed productivity for most staples."
Rainfall and fertility
Precipitation patterns and soil quality are "key constraint[s]" in Sahelian food production. Rainfall levels are both generally low to start with and "highly variable" to complicate matters. This variability is a common cause of crop failure due to unpredictable "onset and distribution" of rainfall; cereal yields are impacted by the start date and duration of the rain as much as by the absolute quantity. The majority of the year is the dry season, which ends with harmattan winds blowing dust south from the Sahara; rain usually falls between one and four months of the year, from June through September.
Soils in the Sahel are typically degraded, often "crusty, abandoned agricultural lands" and "particularly poor in organic carbon." In Burkina Faso, one-third of all land is degraded. The human-induced structural damage to soils wrought by intensive 20th-century agriculture methods "is especially evident during droughts when the land is stripped bare of vegetation and erosive winds and water take their toll." In addition to the toll of soil and wind erosion on old fields, the practices of burning or removing crop residues, and a shift to fewer or no fallowing periods due to increased population density (and commensurate increased need to cultivate all accessible land) have contributed to further decreases in natural fertility.
The Sahel is dappled with "unproductive crusty patches" found on "old dunes, sandy plains, colluvial slopes, and alluvial terraces." These "glazed" patches are regionally known as glacis and are found, for example, on approximately 60 percent of all degraded land in Niger. "Glacis" describes a slope made particularly slippery, for whatever reason, and is related to the Old French glacier. Glacis patches in the Sahel are more or less impermeable; rainwater runs off or evaporates, further immiserating the soil biome, and thus the plants and the people.
Climate change
Even before the full impact of climate change is felt in the Sahel, the region struggles with challenges including "unsustainable management strategies, weak economies, weak infrastructure, 'inappropriate resource tenure', inappropriate interventions (such as eucalyptus plantations), [and] ineffective institutions." The future of the Sahel is insecure. Climate change impacts will be variable but there is a "likelihood of negative impacts in most locations from increased temperatures, greater rainfall variability, and more extreme weather events."
Rainwater harvesting techniques of the Sahel
The purpose of rainwater harvesting in the Sahel and other dryland eco-agricultural regions is to extend the usability of irregular water inputs. Banking rainwater (through techniques often summarized by the epigram "slow it, spread it, sink it") is possible with site-appropriate techniques and as more water becomes "available for ecosystems...their capacity to perform their functions is improved." Furthermore, soil restoration is possible and would potentially open up more than of land in Africa for additional cultivation, which could in turn reduce deforestation for agricultural uses. Niger has implemented several of these techniques on a wide scale beginning in the 1980s and has recovered approximately of degraded land.
Benefits of rainwater harvesting (especially on a community scale) include additional drinking water for animals, land reclamation opportunities, higher soil fertility, accelerated growth of timber for firewood, and reinforcement of a virtuous cycle pattern leading toward additional rainfall (trees make rain). Any or all of the following techniques reduce water runoff and thus increase soil water storage, generally yielding about two to three times more growth than crops grown in the same regions/conditions under a more conventional system. One study found that appropriately managed Sahelian rainwater-harvesting techniques increased runoff retention up to 87 percent, doubled water infiltration rates, and extended the crop-growing season up to 20 days.
Bouli
A is a small-scale artificial pond dug "where there is convergence of runoff" at the midpoint or bottom of a slope. This water tends to last for two or even three months into the dry period after the monsoon. In addition to supplying additional water for livestock and vegetable gardens the bouli "can recreate an ecosystem favourable to the life of the fauna and the local flora, boosting recharge of water tables during droughts and allowing vegetation to grow even during the dry period." Bouli may be the most poorly studied of the rainwater harvesting techniques appropriate for the Sahel, as there are relatively few studies about the mechanics and benefits of this system.
Bunds
Mauritian farmers build weirs to trap windblown sand during the dry season and during the "infrequent rains" these weirs serve to minimize water runoff and maximize groundwater recharge; the stone rows of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger function by similar principles. Stone rows, typically called bunds, are a traditional and widely used means of land improvement in the Sahel. Laid out on contour, stone rows minimize soil erosion but also minimize rainwater runoff and offer favorable microclimates. Bunds not laid out in parallel with the natural contours of the land may result in "some gully formation during rainy periods." Bunds can also be made of earth, which was the original practice that preceded the use of stone. Bunds may be laid out up to 30 meters apart and may themselves be planted with indigenous vegetation such as Andropogon gayanus or Piliostigma reticulatum.
Both earth and stone bunds are prone to material deterioration over time and demand periodic maintenance; as a general rule, the more stones used the more stable the row. Projet d’aménagement des terroirs et conservation des eaux (PATECORE) popularized the three-stone system for building more durable, animal-disturbance-resistant stone rows, in which one large stone is placed atop three smaller stones.
Demi-lunes, or half-moons
Half-moons, which are known as through much of the Sahel because of the French colonial influence on regional languages, are a widely used traditional form of semi-circular planting pit. Half-moons are formed by digging a hole up to four meters across but somewhat shallower in depth, and "placing the removed earth on the downhill side." Half-moons are particularly useful for remediating the more or less impermeable glacis soils. These edged planting pits capture and hold organic matter and moisture. The accumulated detritus in turn attracts termites and other invertebrates whose actions create passages and pores in the organic matter, building humus, and permitting better water infiltration. Half-moons have been shown to reduce the risk of crop failure and increase agricultural productivity, especially with the use of "complementary inputs" such as animal manures.
Half-moons, however, are extremely labor-intensive: "constructing just one takes several hours" and the preparation of the planting areas must be done during the dry season when the ground is very hard and the heat may be severe. According to one account based on interviews with Sahelian farm families, "preparation of [one hectare of demi-lunes] amounts to two to four person-months of work, and yearly maintenance of approximately one-person month is required."
Zaï, or tassa
A zaï is a "water pocket" and is another indigenous planting method, developed in the Yatenga. The word comes from the Moré language, and means something like "getting up early and hurrying out to prepare the soil" or even "breaking and fragmenting the soil crust before sowing." Tassa is the Hausa language word for this concept. A similar practice in the Yako region is called guendo. Similar to half-moons, but smaller, zaï are usually 24 to 40 cm wide, 10 to 25 cm deep, spaced about 40 cm apart in a grid across the field. Zaï are usually established with "two handfuls" of organic matter in the form of animal manure, crop residues, or a composted combination of the two. These pits were traditionally used on a small scale to remediate degraded zipélé lands but are now being used on much larger plots. Zaï are best-suited for use in areas that see "isohyets of 300 and 800 mm rainfall." Zaï have been shows to increase yields between 2.5 and 20 times normal, "depending on the crop."
As with half-moons, the major drawback of zaï is in the hundreds of man-hours that are necessary to build them. Families must either have a large number of fit and able-bodied workers, or "pay for the services of the young people's association."
Other techniques
Other beneficial and successful practices in the Sahel include:
Living hedgerows
Straw mulching
Coppicing/pollarding rather than cutting down trees wholesale, ideally leaving two or three shoots for regrowth
Paddock systems for grazing animals
Tied ridges, a planting system that looks a Belgian waffle
Obstacles to implementation
Widespread adoption of rainwater harvesting techniques in the Sahel is so far limited by a number of factors including a high upfront cost for labor. The massive quantity and weight of stones needed to establish bunds is often prohibitive. It is estimated that of rock are needed to establish stone rows for just one hectare of arable land. Other limits include lack of knowledge about these techniques and the absence of training programs.
In the words of one development analyst, "agricultural water management strategies have been over-studied, over-promoted, and over-funded. However, despite the efforts of numerous projects, water scarcity still limits agricultural production of most of the smallholder crop-livestock farmers of the basin and cereal yields are still lying far below their potential." One study found that village training programs, "a low-cost policy intervention," were highly effective in increasing uptake of rainwater harvesting techniques.
Additional images
See also
Effects of climate change on agriculture
Farmer-managed natural regeneration
Contour trenching
Spreading ground
Anthrosol
Terra preta
Oasification
Afforestation
Water scarcity in Africa
Water conflict in the Middle East and North Africa
Environmental issues in Africa
Sources
Bibliography
Further reading
&
Agriculture in Africa
Climate change adaptation
Climate change in Africa
Environment of Africa
Environmental education
Food security
Irrigation
Permaculture concepts
Sahel
Sahel
Sustainable agriculture
Water conservation
Water in Africa
Water supply | Rainwater harvesting in the Sahel | [
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73,570,383 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant-based%20leather | Plant-based leather, also known as vegan leather or eco-leather, is a type of material made from plant-based sources as an alternative to traditional leather, which is typically made from animal hides. Plant-based leather can be made from a variety of sources, including pineapple leaves, mushrooms, corn, apple peels, and recycled plastic. The growing interest in sustainable and environmentally friendly products has led to increased demand for plant-based leather in recent years.
Apple leather
Apple leather, also known as AppleSkin, is a plant-based leather invented by Alberto Volcan from Bolzano, Italy. Working with waste recycling company, Frumat, and manufacturer, Mabel, Volcan's research on turning waste from the apple industry into usable material began in 2004. The first products made with apple leather were manufactured in 2019, and is most commonly used for small accessories like wallets. One of the leading production companies in Apple leather is OLIVER CO, based in Bermondsey, South London; The company creates sustainable accessory such as wallets, cardholders, phone cases, etc...
Production
There are two processes that can turn apple waste into leather. The first process turns the apple waste into a pureé, which is then spread flat on a sheet and dehydrated; next the sheet is combined with polyurethane to add durability. The second process turns the apple waste into a powder, which is then combined with polyurethane and coated onto a cotton and polyester backing.
Sustainability
AppleSkin apple leather is PETA approved Vegan, USDA Biopreferred approved, and OEKO-TEX certified. Despite the name, apple leather is not entirely biodegradable. After being combined with polyurethane, the leather is only 50% plant-based. However apple leather production emits less carbon dioxide (CO2) than PU leather; for every of apple waste used as a substitute for PU, of CO2 is saved. The majority of the sustainability that comes from apple leather is in its consumption of waste; by repurposing part of the 4 million metric tones per year³ of waste that comes from apple peels and stalks, the process keeps the surplus from decomposing and producing methane, which contributes to climate change.
Cactus leather
Cactus leather is a plant-based leather produced from the mature leaves of the nopal (prickly-pear) cactus native to Mexico. Founded by entrepreneurs Adrián López Velarde and Marte Cázarez, Desserto was the first company to manufacture cactus leather. Their goal was to create a sustainable material that fit the specifications required by the industries that utilize animal and/or synthetic leather. Following two years of research and development, the leather was completed in July 2019 and was first showcased in Milan, Italy in October 2019, and is now used in a variety of fashion and automotive products, marking a significant step towards sustainable alternatives in these industries.
Production
Cactus only needs 200 liters of water to have a growth of one kilogram of biomass; those 200 liters are absorbed by the plant from the humidity of the environment without having to irrigate the plant. The hygroscopic mechanism of the cactus absorbs CO2 during night because only the environment is fresh. The plant opens its stoma capturing CO2, generating oxygen and absorbing water present in the atmosphere which normally comes from the morning dew. The process of cultivating cactus leather has several steps. First, the mature pads of the cactus are harvested, cleaned, and ground down. Next, the pads are dried under the sun for three to five days. Then, fibers are separated from the dried pads and mixed with chemicals to form a bio-resin, which is then poured over a carrier such as cotton or polyester. Winner Nippon leatherette Pvt. Ltd. manufactures cactus leather in India.
Sustainability
Desserto cactus leather is mostly biodegradable, consisting of 92% organic carbon content and has a tested durability of ten years. Most steps in the cactus leather production process are also sustainable in practice; the Desserto farm generates only of carbon dioxide annually while absorbing over per year. When harvesting the mature leaves, the cactus is not harmed, so it continues to grow. The cacti do not require herbicides or pesticides. Of the of water required to grow of cactus biomass, the majority is absorbed naturally from atmospheric humidity.
Cork leather
Cork leather is a plant-based leather made from bark harvested from cork oak trees native to many parts of Europe. There is little information regarding which company originally created the idea for cork leather, but current companies that produce it include Mahi Leather in Kanpur, Northern India, and HZcork located in Dongguan, China which produces both cork leather and cork fabrics.
Production
The process for harvesting and manufacturing cork leather is much simpler than apple and cactus leather. First, the cork tree bark is stripped into planks, these planks are then air-dried for six months; next the boards are boiled in water and pressed into thinner sheets. After this, the sheet of cork is adhered onto a fabric backing, usually cotton or polyester, with suberin, an adhesive naturally produced by the cork. When extra durability is needed, the cork is bonded to the backing with polyurethane, which decreases the fabric's biodegradability.
Sustainability
Both Mahi brand cork leather and HZcork brand leather have a sustainable production process. When done correctly, the oak is not harmed when the bark is harvested; additionally, a single cork tree will produce usable bark for over 200 years. The process of turning bark into leather does not involve toxic chemicals nor does it emit pollution; cork trees also do not release harmful chemicals when burned. The downside to the use of cork leather are that it is not as durable as animal leather, and despite being one of the most environmentally friendly plant-based leathers, it is underutilized by fashion companies due to its unique texture.
Mushroom leather
Mushroom leather is a plant-based leather made from mycelium, the vegetative filaments that make up the branches of fungi. Mushroom leather was first developed in 2013 by Philip Ross and Jonas Edvard and called MYX, which was made from the waste of the oyster mushroom industry. About of mushroom leather is produced per year, at an average of $50.00 per square foot ($540.00 per square meter). Current mushroom leather producers include Mylo by Bolt Threads, MycoWorks, which patented their product in 2015, and MuSkin. Mushroom leather is primarily produced in Indonesia.
Production
Mushroom leather has one of the most complicated production processes of the plant-based leathers. First the substrate, the materials used as food for the mushroom, such as corn or any agriculture waste, is put into a bag, dampened, and pasteurized; this causes the mycelium to grow and colonize the substrate for two to three weeks, at which point it is harvested. The harvested mycelium is then compressed; during the compression, dyes or textures can be added to create the desired color and texture.
Sustainability
The main bonuses of sustainability in the production of mushroom leather come from the fact that the production is closed-loop, which means that the materials needed to make the substrate can come from consumer or industry waste, and that the end product can also be repurposed as fertilizer. Mylo brand mushroom leather is 80% bio based without synthetic backings or adhesives. In most cases, mushroom leathers are completely biodegradable; however, similar to cork leathers, when extra durability is needed, the mushroom leather is reinforced with polyurethane, which decreases its biodegradability.
Pineapple leather
Pineapple leather is a plant-based leather made from the cellulose fibers of pineapple leaves. The pineapple leather, Piñatex, was developed by Carmen Hijosa and is produced by textile company Ananas Anam.
Production
To create the pineapple leather, the fibers are extracted from the leaves and felted together to produce a non-woven mat; the mat is then washed, pressed, and dyed; this is considered the raw Piñafelt. The felt is then combined with non-biodegradable polyurethane resin for durability.
Sustainability
Piñatex is a certified Benefit Corporation, B-Corp, meaning that the company is high in transparency, sustainability, and standards of performance. Production of pineapple leather emits less carbon dioxide than the production of traditional vegan leather, as each meter (3.28 feet) of Piñatex prevents of CO2 emissions. Despite the Piñafelt consisting of 100% plant-based materials, the combination with polyurethane in the final stage means that Piñatex will not naturally biodegrade.
Additional leathers
Additional plant-based leathers, for which there is limited production information available, include agave, coffee, grape, and olive leathers.
See also
Artificial leather
References
Artificial leather | Plant-based leather | [
"Chemistry"
] | 1,848 | [
"Artificial leather",
"Synthetic materials"
] |
73,571,448 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pengcheng%20Dai | Pengcheng Dai is a Chinese American experimental physicist and academic. He is the Sam and Helen Worden Professor of Physics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Rice University.
Dai is most known for his research in the field of unconventional superconductivity and has contributed to comprehending the role of magnetic excitations in unconventional super conductors including copper, iron, and heavy fermion unconventional superconductors. He co-edited the book, Iron-based Superconductors: Materials, Properties and Mechanisms, and is the recipient of Heike Kamerlingh, Onnes Prize. He also made contributions to topological spin excitations in honeycomb/kogome lattice magnets and studied spin dynamics in colossal magnetoresistance manganites.
Dai is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS), American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and Neutron Scattering Society of America (NSSA) and holds an appointment as a Divisional Associate Editor at Physical Review Letters.
Education
Dai received his baccalaureate degree in physics from Zhengzhou University in China. He then studied at the University of Missouri in Columbia, where he obtained his Ph.D. in Experimental Condensed Matter Physics. Later, he completed his post-doc at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) working with Herbert A. Mook and became the Staff Scientist there.
Career
After serving in the Center for Neutron Scattering at ORNL as a Staff Scientist, he resumed his academic career in 2001 and was appointed as an associate professor of physics at the University of Tennessee and ORNL as a Joint Faculty. He obtained his tenure in 2003 and was then promoted to Professor in 2006. He became The Joint Institute for Advanced Materials Chair of Excellent at The University of Tennessee in 2008 and remained in that position until 2013 when he moved to Rice University. Having initially joined Rice University as a professor of physics, he now holds an appointment as the Sam and Helen Worden Professor of Physics there.
Research
Dai's research primarily focuses on experimental condensed matter physics, using neutrons as a probe to study correlated electron materials. His works include direct evidence for magnetism and superconductivity coupling in unconventional superconductors, topological spin excitations in different classes of quantum materials and discoveries in the magnetic properties of cuprate and iron-based superconductors.
Dai established 'Pengcheng Dai's group' at Rice University's Physics Department, which conducts research on condensed matter physics and also founded a materials growth laboratory that produces high-quality single crystals of correlated electron materials.
Cuprate superconductors
In 1998, he demonstrated the incommensurate spin fluctuations in the YBa2Cu3O6+x (YBCO) system, observed the resonance in underdoped YBCO and studied the effects of magnetic field on the resonance, and characterized the overall energy/wave vector dependence of the magnetic excitations in YBCO. Later, in 2000, he discovered one-dimensional nature of spin fluctuations. He has also worked on electron-doped cuprates. He clarified the microscopic origin of the annealing process, studied the electron-magnetic excitation coupling and discovered resonance in the electron-doped high-transition-temperature superconductor Pr0.88LaCe0.12CuO4−δ.
Iron-based superconductors
Over the past 15 years, along with his research group, Dai has made contributions to describe the interplay between magnetism and superconductivity and has published more than 150 papers in the field. In 2008, they determined the antiferromagnetic structure in the parent compound of one class of iron-based superconductors. Afterwards, he mapped out the electronic phase diagram of these materials and carried out the first spin wave measurements to determine the effective Heisenberg Hamiltonian for the parent compounds of three families of iron-based superconductors. His research in 2014 led to the discovery of the first evidence for a spin nematic phase, accomplished by analyzing the evolution of overall spin excitations across the nematic phase transition temperature determined by transport measurements. His group also developed a cleaver detwinned device that allowed systematic measurements of magnetism in iron-based superconductors in the intrinsically detwinned state.
Fermion superconductors
In addition to cuprate and iron-based superconductors, Dai has worked on comprehending the interplay between magnetism and superconductivity in heavy fermion superconductors. This includes the discovery of upward dispersion in neutron resonance of CeCoIn5, mapping of overall spin excitations in CeCu2Si2, and antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations are coupled with superconductivity of spin-triplet candidate UTe2. His discovery of an antiferromagnetic neutron spin resonance in spin-triplet superconductor candidate UTe2 is particularly important because it suggests that superconductivity in spin-triplet superconductors may also be driven by antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations instead of ferromagnetic spin fluctuations
Awards and honors
2008 – Chair of Excellence, Joint Institute of Advanced Materials (JIAM)
2016 – Sustained Research Prize, Neutron Scattering Society of America (NSSA)
2022 – Onnes Prize, Heike Kamerlingh
Bibliography
Books
Iron-based Superconductors: Materials, Properties and Mechanisms (2012)
Selected articles
Dai, P., Mook, H. A., Hayden, S. M., Aeppli, G., Perring, T. G., Hunt, R. D., & Doğan, F. (1999). The magnetic excitation spectrum and thermodynamics of high-T c superconductors. Science, 284(5418), 1344–1347.
Dai, P., Mook, H. A., Aeppli, G., Hayden, S. M., & Doğan, F. (2000). Resonance as a measure of pairing correlations in the high-T c superconductor YBa2Cu3O6. 6. Nature, 406(6799), 965–968.
Dai, P. (2015). Antiferromagnetic order and spin dynamics in iron-based superconductors. Reviews of Modern Physics, 87(3), 855.
Chen, T., Chen, Y., Kreisel, A., Lu, X., Schneidewind, A., Qiu, Y., ... & Dai, P. (2019). Anisotropic spin fluctuations in detwinned FeSe. Nature materials, 18(7), 709–716.
Duan, C., Baumbach, R. E., Podlesnyak, A., Deng, Y., Moir, C., Breindel, A. J., ... & Dai, P. (2021). Resonance from antiferromagnetic spin fluctuations for superconductivity in UTe2. Nature, 600(7890), 636–640.
Teng, X., Chen, L., Ye, F., Rosenberg, E., Liu, Z., Yin, J. X., ... & Dai, P. (2022). Discovery of charge density wave in a kagome lattice antiferromagnet. Nature, 609(7927), 490–495.
References
Experimental physicists
Zhengzhou University alumni
University of Missouri alumni
Rice University faculty
Year of birth missing (living people)
Living people | Pengcheng Dai | [
"Physics"
] | 1,588 | [
"Experimental physics",
"Experimental physicists"
] |
73,571,839 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara%20Galland | Barbara Carolyn Galland is a New Zealand academic in the field of paediatric sleep health. She is a professor in the department of women's and children's health at the University of Otago.
Academic career
Galland completed her PhD thesis in the department of pharmacology at the University of Otago Medical School in 1989. The thesis was titled Bronchial Hyperreactivity in the Guinea-pig.
Galland heads the Paediatric Sleep Research Group at the University of Otago. Her research focus is the effect of sleep and breathing disorders in children and adolescents on behaviour, cognition, and academic performance. She is also interested in the role of sleep in overweight and obesity, sleep disturbances in children with type 1 diabetes, and the biological mechanisms of Sudden Unexpected Death in Infancy.
Galland is the co-chair of the Paediatric Council of the Australasian Sleep Association and is also on the editorial boards of Sleep Medicine Reviews and Behavioral Sleep Medicine.
Selected works
Galland, B. C., Taylor, B. J., Elder, D. E., & Herbison, P. (2012). Normal sleep patterns in infants and children: a systematic review of observational studies. Sleep Medicine Reviews, 16 (3), 213–222. doi.org/10.1016/j.smrv.2011.06.001
Matricciani L. Paquet C. Galland B. Short M. & Olds T. (2019). Children's sleep and health: A meta-review. Sleep Medicine Reviews 46 136–150. doi.org/10.1016/j.smrv.2019.04.011
Tan, E., Healey, D., Gray, A.R., & Galland B. (2012) Sleep hygiene intervention for youth aged 10 to 18 years with problematic sleep: a before-after pilot study. BMC Pediatrics 12, 189. doi:10.1186/1471-2431-12-189
References
External links
University profile
New Zealand academics
New Zealand women academics
University of Otago alumni
Academic staff of the University of Otago
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
New Zealand medical researchers
Sleep researchers | Barbara Galland | [
"Biology"
] | 457 | [
"Sleep researchers",
"Behavior",
"Sleep"
] |
73,572,159 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platinum%28II%29%20iodide | Platinum(II) iodide is a binary inorganic compound of platinum and iodine with the chemical formula .
Synthesis
Production of platinum(II) iodide can be by heating of platinum(II) chloride with potassium iodide:
Chemical properties
Platinum(II) iodide decomposes when heated:
Physical properties
Platinum(II) iodide forms black crystals of several modifications. It is insoluble in water, ethanol, acetone, or ether, but is soluble in ethylamine and hydrogen iodide.
Related compounds
Potassium tetraiodoplatinate () is a soluble derivative of PtI2.
References
Iodides
Platinum(II) compounds
Iodine compounds | Platinum(II) iodide | [
"Chemistry"
] | 144 | [
"Inorganic compounds",
"Inorganic compound stubs"
] |
73,572,979 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakalloy | Stakalloy is a ternary alloy of uranium composed of vanadium, niobium, and depleted uranium. The alloy was developed in 2002 by Michael R. Staker of Loyola University Maryland under grant from the United States Army.
Composition
The niobium content of stakalloy is between 0.01 and 0.95 percent by weight and the balance being uranium. The vanadium content of the alloy is between the gamma eutectoid and the eutectic compositions, 1.0 percent and 4.5 percent by weight respectively.
Properties
Stakalloy has improved metallurgical properties over other depleted uranium alloys, such as staballoy, being more viable as a structural alloy where a combination between high strength and high density is required. Changes include that of density, hardness, ballistic properties, and machinability.
Production
Staker's invention of stakalloy involved reducing excessive carbon levels while adding together uranium with trace amounts of niobium and vanadium. The three constituent parts may be combined through melting, however, the niobium and vanadium must be charged into the melt or introduced to additional melt stock before heat-up.
Arc melting is also a melting technique noted by Staker, in which niobium is added to an alloy of vanadium and uranium from a crucible.
After casting an ingot of stakalloy, the ingot can be used in the as-cast condition or be worked—either hot or cold—to change both properties and shape. Stakalloy can also be heat-treated after manipulation of shape.
Uses
Stakalloy may be a viable replacement for the United States Army's Advanced Kinetic Energy round. In 2007, Army Solicitation Notice W911QX-07-T-0053 entitled "Processing U-V-X Alloy Ingots" outlined work at Aerojet producing promising alloys with interesting material properties for future testing at the Army Research Laboratories.
References
Alloys | Stakalloy | [
"Chemistry"
] | 408 | [
"Chemical mixtures",
"Alloys"
] |
73,578,209 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scytalidium%20hyalinum | Scytalidium hyalinum is an ascomycete fungus currently in the genus Scytalidium. It causes dermatomycosis and systemic infections in humans and it is widespread throughout the world.
Taxonomy
Scytalidium hyalinum was first isolated in 1977 in England by C.K. Campbell. It was isolated from 8 immigrants from Jamaica, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone who had shown signs of tinea pedis and skin infections.
It is unclear whether S. hyalinum and Neoscytalidium dimidiatum are very closely related or if S. hyalinum is a same species mutation of N. dimidiatum. Comparisons of several N. dimidiatum and S. hyalinum strains have found that all S. hyalinum strains differed from the N. dimidiatum strains by a single A-G polymorphism at position 144 and by the absence of an IE intron group that is present in N. dimidatum, which suggests they are different species.
Description
Colonies on malt agar grow rapidly at and produce white fluffy superficial mycelia as well as immersed mycelia. Hyphae are up to 4 μm in width, pale or colorless, septate, and smooth. Stromata are absent. Conidiophores are unusually small (micronematous), can be branched or unbranched, pale or colorless, straight, smooth, and irregular. Conidia are arthrosporic, simple, cylindrical to ellipsoid or rounded, sometimes rough, catenulate, separating, hyaline or pale, with thin cell walls.
Colonies are visible after only a few days of growth on Sabouraud’s dextrose agar. Fungal growth is robust at , the temperature of the human body. Growth is poor above , but colonies can survive at for two weeks.
Scytalidium hyalinum is able to hydrolyse gelatin, casein, tyrosine, olive oil, and urea.
Ecology
It is most likely endemic to West Africa, the West Indies, and the Pacific. It is also present in the UK, Spain, Italy, Australia, and France via travel and immigration. Until 2007, when it was recovered from soil in Indian rat burrows in India, S. hyalinum had never been isolated from the environment.
Pathogenicity
Infection resembles N. dimidiatum infections. Lesions are confined to hands, feet, and toenails. The fungus is found in the toewebs and nails. Nail changes involve thickening, yellow-brown discoloration, and subungual keratosis. It can cause distinctive thickening, lichenification, and discoloration of the knuckles and sides of fingers, but it is not consistent. More than half of patients reported itching at site of infection. Infections are usually chronic, which suggests that the immune response is ineffective or deficient.
Scytalidium hyalinum can present a mixed infection with N. dimidiatum. The infections of both S. hyalinum and N. dimidiatum are virtually clinically indistinguishable from the chronic, non-inflammatory dry type of Trichophyton rubrum infection.
Both S. hyalinum and N. dimidiatum are resistant to treatment by griseofulvin and susceptible to cycloheximide. It is sensitive to clotrimazole and miconazole in vitro. Cases have also been treated with oral itraconazole. An in vitro study suggested that voriconazole could be effective for refractory infections. S. hyalinum is more susceptible to voriconazole than N. dimidiatum, perhaps because of its lack of protective melanin.
Scytalidium hyalinum and N. dimidiatum share a very similar antigenic structure distinct from other pathogenic fungi. The two species also demonstrate cross-reactivity with each other’s antigens and anti-sera derived from patients. Cross-reactivity between N. dimidiatum and S. hyalinum exoantigens has been demonstrated in both immunodiffusion tests and fused rocket immunoelectrophoresis tests.
In 2018, the first case of ocular infection by S. hyalinum was documented in France. Infection causes pain, red, dry eyes as well as abscesses on the cornea. Prognosis for ocular infections is poor, however it may be that the fungus was only able to cause infection because of reduced immune response in the patient. Treatment with antibiotics and fortified eye drops can be successful. The only other recorded ocular infection by a Scytalidium is N. dimidiatum.
References
Fungi described in 1977
Helotiales
Fungus species | Scytalidium hyalinum | [
"Biology"
] | 1,001 | [
"Fungi",
"Fungus species"
] |
73,578,750 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy%20Regulation%20Centre%20of%20Excellence | The Energy Regulation Centre of Excellence (ERCE) is a specialised Eastern African regional institution for Energy research and training in Energy regulation, Electricity market, Petroleum studies,Transmission network, Market clearing, Energy law, Energy transition and Energy economics.
History
The Centre of Excellence was established in 2022 by the Energy Regulators Association of East Africa (EREA) to provide sustainable capacity building. The centre currently offers short term courses at the association's secretariat office but, has now officially been allocated land to build the institution in Arusha Tanzania.
Description
The East African Community energy sector has been lagging behind in meeting its energy adequacy, security and efficient supply. The constraints are occasioned by poor infrastructure and robust policies to attract investment in the sector. Also, inadequate skilled workforce is vital in boosting productivity in the Electric power industry and Petroleum industry.
The Centre of Excellence has therefore been established to address these challenges related to Tariff (regulation), reliability, crossborder energy trade and quality of electricity. It provides trainings to policymakers, Eastern Africa Power Pool, Public utility, energy traders, regulators, utility staff, ministries' staff and other stakeholders.
Strategic objective
The centre is established as a research powerhouse to create collaborative initiatives that provide enhanced student educational experiences and practical knowledge necessary to progress the realisation of a robust East African energy union.
Notable staff
Staff included:
Geoffrey Aori Mabea, interim director general
Ziria Tibalwa Waako, board member
Ngalula Mubenga, board member
Ernest Rubondo, board member
Daniel Kiptoo Bargoria, board member
References
External links
EREA website
EREA Magazine website
Energy Regulation Centre of Excellence
Organizations established in 2022
Energy markets
International energy organizations
East African Community
Energy regulatory authorities
Electricity markets | Energy Regulation Centre of Excellence | [
"Engineering"
] | 356 | [
"International energy organizations",
"Energy organizations"
] |
73,579,295 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf%201130 | Wolf 1130 is a nearby pre-cataclysmic triple star system consisting of a cold subdwarf of spectral type sdM3 (A), an ultramassive white dwarf (B) and a cold brown dwarf of spectral type sdT8 (C). Wolf 1130 is 54.1 light-years (16.6 parsecs) distant from earth.
The system is older than 10 billion years based on UVW velocities and the low metallicity of Wolf 1130A. This makes Wolf 1130C one of the oldest brown dwarfs known to science, together with LSPM J0055+5948B, which has a similar age. There might be older brown dwarfs, such as WISE 1534–1043, which have less well determined ages.
The central binary
Wolf 1130A is a subdwarf of spectral type sdM3 with a mass of about 0.26 and a radius of 0.33 . Wolf 1130A and B are tidally locked, deforming Wolf 1130A into an ellipsoid shape. The radius of Wolf 1130A is inflated up to 20% due to rapid rotation in the tidally locked system. Wolf 1130A has a low metallicity of about [Fe/H]=−0.7 dex.
Wolf 1130B is an ultramassive white dwarf with a mass of about 1.24 and it remains invisible to telescopic observations. The progenitor of the white dwarf had a mass of about 6 to 8 . This progenitor probably spent between 50 and 100 million years in the main-sequence before it became a giant star and engulfed Wolf 1130A in a common envelope. Because of its high mass, the white dwarf Wolf 1130B is suspected to consist of oxygen, magnesium and neon (an ONe white dwarf).
Wolf 1130AB is a periodic variable star with a period of 0.497 days and also a flare star, with the variable star designation V1513 Cygni. The flares occur due to material being occasionally accreted onto the surface of the white dwarf. Three components cause the variability of Wolf 1130A:
In the future the system will lose orbital energy due to effects such as magnetic braking and by emitting gravitational waves. Wolf 1130A will get close to the Roche radius of Wolf 1130B in about 6.2 billion years. At this point the system will transfer mass from the M-type subdwarf to the surface of the white dwarf, becoming a cataclysmic variable. Once the mass transfer starts, magnetic braking will gain strength, and after less than 500 million years the Wolf 1130AB pair will merge. This merger could produce a type Ia supernova. The resulting merger would be near or above the Chandrasekhar limit.
The outer companion
The outer companion Wolf 1130C (WISE J200520.38+542433.9) was discovered in 2013. It has a temperature of 647 K (374 °C, 705 °F), a radius of 0.82 and a mass of 44.9 . The brown dwarf has a low metallicity which causes an unusually low luminosity compared to other stars of the same mass, and it is therefore classified as a subdwarf. It is suspected that it orbited Wolf 1130AB in a closer orbit when Wolf 1130B was still a main-sequence star. When Wolf 1130AB became a common-envelope binary and Wolf 1130B later a white dwarf, the entire system lost 80% of its mass and forced Wolf 1130C into a more distant orbit of 3150 astronomical units. New classification of T-type subdwarfs found a metallicity of [M/H]= dex, using SAND-models. This is consistent with the metallicity of the host star. The researchers classify this object as an (e)sdT6:, meaning it is between normal subdwarfs and extreme subdwarfs and the colon indicates an uncertain spectral classification. At the 245th meeting of the AAS it was announced that researchers detected phosphine in the atmosphere of this brown dwarf, which was detected in a JWST spectrum.
References
White dwarfs
M-type subdwarfs
Brown dwarfs
Triple star systems
098906
Gliese and GJ objects
Cygni, V1513
Flare stars
Cygnus (constellation) | Wolf 1130 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 913 | [
"Cygnus (constellation)",
"Constellations"
] |
73,580,491 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peatland%20restoration | Peatland restoration is a term describing measures to restore the original form and function of peatlands, or wet peat-rich areas. This landscape globally occupies 400 million hectares or 3% of land surface on Earth. Historically, peatlands have been drained for several main reasons; peat extraction, creation of agricultural land, and forestry usage. However, this activity has caused degradation affecting this landscape's structure through damage to habitats, hydrology, nutrients cycle, carbon balance and more.
Due to peat formation, peatlands are carbon-rich and noted as carbon sinks. It has been projected that climate change, such as increased temperature and alterations of precipitation, affecting these landscapes under current status could increase releases of greenhouse gases (GHGs). Climate projections indicate increased probability and intensity of weather events, which can increase risk of fires and additional GHG release. Peatlands home a variety of native flora and fauna put at risk by projected degradation from climatic or anthropogenic alternation, placing emphasis and need for restoration efforts. Policy for restoration is in action. In June 2002, the United Nations Development Programme launched its Wetland and Ecosystem and Tropical Peat Swamp Forest Rehabilitation Project and in November the International Peatland Society formed, which promotes restoration and balance of demands on peatlands.
Peatland restoration emphasises the reduction of GHG emissions to slow the effects of climate change. With discussion circulating on human impacts of damage from draining and clearing the landscape. As a result, restoration would involve balancing usage of peatlands for human needs and needs of the natural ecosystems. Presently, main methods of restoration circulate on re-wetting, restoring forestry, localised paludiculture and adaption of anthropogenic usage of peatlands.
Targets of restoration
Climate change mitigation and adaptation
Peatlands store carbon from dead plants and hence help mitigate climate change. However, draining and degrading peatlands release large amounts of greenhouse gases. Rewetting and restoring peatlands can significantly reduce these emissions by raising water tables which slower down the plant decomposition. The resulting anaerobic decomposition produces the greenhouse gas methane, but since methane does not remain in the atmosphere as long as other GHGs, the net effect on the climate is likely cooling if a long time frame is considered (decades). The strength of this effect varies between different kinds of peatland, but it is generally most significant in tropical and agricultural peatlands. A raised water table also results in a local direct cooling effect, moist vegetation and soil has a higher thermal conductivity and therefore solar radiation is rather used for evapotranspiration than warming the surface.
Water
The goals of peatland restoration in hydrological terms are primarily to improve the quality and regulate the quantity of water. A peatland as an intact ecosystem is a natural water purifier, it filters and stores organic substances, metals or other toxic matter and retains nutrients. These pollutants are stored in the peat for long periods of time, improving the quality of drinking water. The concept of peatlands regulating water quantity has often been compared to the way of a "sponge" works, in times of high availability of water (periods of rainfall) it is sucked up and stored and afterwards, in times of less precipitation, slowly released to the environment. Furthermore, as the water level rises, the risk of peat fire decreases.
Biodiversity
In some instances, peatlands may exhibit a comparatively lower number of species. However, in the same biogeographic zone as dryland ecosystems, peatlands contain a greater percentage of specialized and distinctive species. Due to the isolation and heterogeneity of their habitats, peatlands harbor significant populations of endangered and rare species, many of which are unique to peatland environments, and play a role for the conservation of genetic diversity. Restoration seeks to counteract the process of habitat deterioration, which represents the most significant risk to biodiversity. In drained sites there is a tendency for plant diversity to decrease, with mosses (including Sphagnum) facing difficulties in recolonizing such areas. This could be attributed to the hydrological alterations, as well as the loss of the initial soil characteristics.
Restoration effects on the natural environment
Carbon balance
Due to the formation of peat developing from partial decomposition of vegetation material, there is a high quantity of carbon within this landscape. As a result, peatlands can be seen as a carbon storage. Carbon fluctuations are dominantly impacted by local hydrology within a peatland.
However, these processes are interrupted by anthropogenic usage of peatlands. Peat extractions cause destabilisation of local ecosystems through physical landscape damage of digging, draining and isolation through habitat fragmentation. As a result of drainage and temperature increase, peatlands are becoming drier, which increases the likelihood of severe fires and the risk of larger carbon dioxide emissions.
Climate regulation
Climatic regulation is key to monitored for peatland restoration. Due to the water-logged nature of this environment, consistent seasonality and fluctuations, are essential to restoring stability and protecting pristine peatlands. Climatic change of variables, such as precipitation and temperature, threaten significant factors mostly namely that of hydrology (due to its immediate effects on microbial decomposition within the soil).
Beyond climatic events on peatlands, their restoration offers climatic benefits also. Peatland restoration is noted for significantly reducing air temperature compared to neighbouring agricultural land. This finding offers peatland restoration as a positive step to combat climate change.
Nutrients
Peat in general is poor in nutrients and due to its constantly condition of being waterlogged, it has a limited nutrient cycle. Peatlands that have been degraded and used for agriculture, typically have high nutrient levels. Restoring these areas with surface water, which is also relatively nutrient-rich, leads to nutrient overload. To properly restore these peatlands, excess nutrients must be removed. One expensive but effective way is to remove the top layer before restoration and another option is to use paludiculture to remove nutrients over time. Due to peatlands special Flora and Fauna a failure to remove excess nutrients can result in low biodiversity in affected peatlands. However, a study showed that after the restoration of peatlands, the original concentrations of mineral elements such as Kalium and Calcium was restored.
Hydrology
Recent initiatives on peatland restoration showed, that they help preventing and mitigating floodings in specific areas and under specific conditions. This happens within two particular effects. First by sucking up water and second through temporary surface-storage. When peat sucks up water, the groundwater level elevates and captures the rainwater, this is then only released by evapotranspiration, as the water does not flow down the rivers into the sea, but stays in the peatland, it too reduces the propability of droughts. In the temporary surface-storage effect the vegetation acts as a barrier to the water runoff and thus delays it although the netflow of water stays the same, but the time expands and hence the flow rate is reduced. This is a crucial point in flood prevention.
Soil regulation
Peatland as an ecosystem is important for regulating soil quality. When the peat covering Sphagnum layer is degraded, the remaining bare peat soil releases sediment to water streams, which pollutes and reduces biodiversity of rivers and water reservoirs. Additionally trough wind and water erosion carbon can be released if the peat is blank. Hence a dense Sphagnum covering is important for soil regulation, as it can improve the physical, chemical, and biological flows and properties that allow soils to buffer, filter, and transform chemical substances.
Biological diversity
Plant life
Restoration efforts can cause alterations in the hydrology of the system, resulting in hydrological conditions that are more advantageous for the recolonization of Sphagnum mosses. Restoration can also lead to the successful succession of plant communities towards a targeted peatland vegetation by decreasing the abundance of species benefiting from drainage. However, the restoration process may not always result in the full re-introduction of pristine peatland species.
The rewetting of drained fen peatlands can lead to the growth of tall graminoid wetland plants, such as Common reed (Phragmites australis) and Broadleaf cattail (Typha latifolia), which can become the dominant vegetation for many years to decades. This can cause lasting changes to the biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, and land cover characteristics of the area, particularly in terms of geochemistry and hydrology.
Animal life
In restored areas, the recovery of animal species is more likely to be affected by the resulting variation in environmental conditions, compared to plant species. Animal species have different requirements, and many of them need specific combinations of conditions, making them more sensitive to environmental changes. The ability of species to disperse and the proximity of source populations in undamaged peatlands are crucial factors that contribute to the recolonization of animal species in restored areas.
Of insects, Odonata species are negatively impacted by drainage. However, according to a study in Finland, after the peatland restoration they tend to benefit and can colonize new water pools in just three years. Compared to the pristine sites, the drained sites had fewer Odonata species and lower abundance.
A study in Finland revealed that the composition of bird communities in restored areas is different from those in pristine areas and many bird species found in the restored peatlands are generalist in nature. To assess the recovery of specialized bird species in peatlands and bird communities in general, long-term monitoring is necessary.
A major peatland restoration project took place in Snowdonia (Eryri), Wales, where an upland farm witnessed the return of rare bird species after two decades of absence. During the summer of 2021, European golden plover (Pluvialis apricaria) and Eurasian Curlew (Numenius arquata) successfully bred in the rewetted habitats, and chicks sightings were recorded for both species. This is the first case of successful breeding at this site since the 1990s.
Fungi and others
The impact of disturbance and restoration on microbial communities is not completely clear. However, it has been observed that after disturbance in a bog, certain microbial communities were replaced by more broadly distributed species. After restoring the moisture levels of peat soil, non-mycorrhizal species increased while obligatory mycorrhizal species decreased. However, the proportion of non-mycorrhizal species found in undisturbed natural peatland was not achieved. The microbiome can recover from the negative effects of drainage through the process of rewetting. But even with this considerable improvement, the microbial community could only attain a similarity to undrained areas when the soil organic matter content was over 70%, indicating a soil that is not highly degraded.
Studies conducted at Forsinard Flows, a natural reserve now undergoing large-scale peatland restoration, show that between 1998 and 2016:
The abundance of fungal families that contain ericoid mycorrhizal species increased over time.
A reduction in the presence of Tylospora (and other Atheliaceae species), which are ectomycorrhizal fungi, suggesting a recovery of the microbial community structure towards that of natural peatlands.
The abundance and species richness of Auchenorrhyncha, (leafhoppers, and others) was considerably greater in peatland samples than in forest floor samples. The response in areas undergoing restoration was intermediate between the two.
Moth abundance was highest in forest but species richness was highest in restoration areas.
Restoration effects on society
Economy
In the United Kingdom, research conducted to assess the value that society places on the benefits of peatland restoration found that restoring 20% of Scotland's peatland would result in economic benefits estimated at between £80 and £336 million per year. A subsequent study found that if peatland restoration took place by 2027, it would provide £191 million of economic benefits annually for the country, net of restoration costs. Delaying peatland restoration until 2039–2050 would lead to a significant loss of economic benefits to society.
Addressing health risks
Fires and toxic haze
Peatland degradation, through exposure and increased dryness of landscapes, increases risks of fire. Peatland fires (dominantly caused by deforestation, human error or exposure) has led to immediate and longterm effects. Primarily, immediate risks of death and loss of land. Secondly, the effect of hazes or smoke from fires can create longterm health impacts, particularly respiratory issues. Tackling effects of fires and assisting peatland stability and restoration assist human health and lives as well as reducing habitat fragmentation and assisting recovery of ecosystems and plant within these landscape.
Restoration of peatlands could address the above impacts through creation of policy and/or adjusting use of the landscape, to protect and therefore reduce event occupancy of fires. Assisting stabilisation of this landscape could offer communities reassurance from risk while strengthening peatland ecosystems.
Regulating pests and diseases
The process of converting forests into open peatlands will result in modifications to the water table, vegetation, and the communities of vertebrates that serve as hosts for ticks, particularly the Castor bean tick (Ixodes ricinus). These ticks can carry various disease-causing pathogens, including the Borrelia burgdorferi bacterium that is responsible for Lyme disease.
In a study conducted in Forsinard Flows, Scotland the restoration process resulted in a progressive decline in the number of ticks. The tick density was higher in recently felled areas than in older felled areas, declining over time. After 13 years of restoration, the tick densities were almost as low as in areas that were undamaged.
The surveys of host abundance that were conducted to determine the reason behind the low density of ticks in blanket bog revealed that deer, the main hosts for ticks in Scotland, preferred forest and felled areas instead of open blanket bog. The presence of a dense forest canopy creates a favorable environment for tick activity and survival, and thus there were likely more ticks in forestry than in felled areas.
Approaches to restoration
Methods and techniques
Peatland restoration activities are site-specific and may call for a mixture of actions, depending on the initial conditions.
Rewetting
Rewetting involves returning a degraded peatland to its original waterlogged conditions, which are critical to restoring peat-forming vegetation and suppressing the risk of forest fire, aerobic microbial metabolism, and enzyme activity. By doing so, favorable conditions can be created for renewed peat accumulation, ultimately aiding in the peatland's restoration. The purpose of rewetting is to preserve soil moisture and decrease the rate of drainage, achieved by blocking and filling canals, and digging deep wells.
Peat-dams are artificial barriers constructed from soil material, which are intended to block the flow of water in channels or gullies. The construction of these dams involves the use of unoxidized peat, which is highly stable, impermeable, and resistant to erosion. The process involves taking peat from the channel bottom, flipping it, and repositioning it slightly downstream from its original location to create a blockage. Additional peat material is used to build the dam, it can be obtained either from within the gully or from a separate borrow pit.
Plastic dams are barriers made of interlocking sheets of impermeable plastic piling that are used to block gullies. They are capable of holding large volumes of water, which can result in the formation of deep pools. Their effectiveness depends on proper spacing, as incorrect spacing can lead to the failure of one or more dams. Plastic dams are only effective when placed on top of peat rather than mineral soil.
Coir logs made from imported coconut husks and held in place by wooden stakes are also used to slow water flows and reduce erosion. Wool logs are also being trialled for the same purpose at Fleet Moss in the Yorkshire Dales and at sites in the North York Moors. This technique has the dual benefit of reducing the need to import coconut husks transported over long distances, and potentially regenerating a market for local fleeces. The method involves tightly packing wool into felt tubes and is also being used alongside tried-and-tested methods by the South West Peatland Partnership on Dartmoor.
Revegetation
Restoration efforts in peatland ecosystems involve the implementation of measures to recover the original vegetation cover, species richness, and local abundance through replanting activities on peatlands. Replanting activities in peatland ecosystems serve multiple objectives, such as introducing native and adapted plant species in open peatlands, enhancing degraded peat forest areas through enrichment planting, and using seed dispersal techniques to promote the regeneration of peatland vegetation.
Paludiculture
Paludiculture is a form of rewetting drained peatlands while it is further used for agriculture. The idea is to regenerate wet peatlands and increase the water table to get the peatland-ecosystem back to work, which stores high amounts of carbon. A main benefit is, that the land is used in two ways, as carbon sinks (peat) and for agricultural purposes. Based on different types of peatlands and regional reservation restrictions there are different forms of agriculture recommended. Among potential crops and usages are different kinds of berries, herbs, timber and biomass for biofuel.
Safeguard remaining 'pristine' peatlands
Opportunity of restoring damaged anthropogenically used peatlands is key. However, there are peatlands unmapped as well as pristine peatlands globally. Protection and policy remains centred on reduces damages and restoring peatlands currently damaged. However, there is little policy to protect currently pristine peatlands. One method of restoration is to prevent damage from furthering or beginning. Which could be initiated through policy to help support goals or protecting and restoring peatland areas.
International efforts and initiatives
Paris Agreement
Meeting the requirements of the Paris Agreement calls for carbon neutrality by 2050–2070, achieving this target entails rewetting 500,000 km2 of drained peatlands at an average rate of over one million hectares annually. The later challenge also intertwines with the purposes of "The 2021–2030 UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration".
Conference of the Parties (COP)
During the COP21 negotiations in Paris, a map highlighting global peatland hotspots was released to showcase the areas that require immediate attention to decrease greenhouse emissions.
At COP26, the Global Peatland Pavilion played a vital role in elevating discussions on the topic within the climate dialogue, served as both a physical and virtual gathering place for individuals involved in peatland management, research, policy-making, and other related areas across the globe. It provided a platform for sharing knowledge, experiences, and insights on the global protection, restoration, and sustainable management of peatlands among practitioners, researchers, policymakers, enthusiasts, and other stakeholders. On the final day of COP26 the talks for a future European Peatland Initiative where held.
The Virtual Peatland Pavilion serves as a permanent source of information and knowledge. It was developed by Richard Lindsay from the University of East London and offers an extensive collection of digitized content for users to access. Additional content and domes will be incorporated into the resource as it evolves over time.
European Peatland Initiative
The European Peatlands Initiative (EPI) takes advantage of the expertise, knowledge, and experience of existing networks such as the UNEP-led Global Peatlands Initiative, among others, to facilitate progress in peatland conservation and restoration efforts. Through the establishment of strategic partnerships among countries the EPI serves as a unifying force in promoting knowledge-sharing, mutual learning, and increased investment, to protect valuable peatlands across Europe.
International Mire Conservation Group
The International Mire Conservation Group (IMCG) was founded in 1984 in Klagenfurt, Austria, as an international network of experts from a diverse range of specialities and interests, including research scientists, consultants, government agency specialists, and peatland site managers. By promoting, encouraging, and coordinating the conservation of mires and associated ecosystems the group aims to enhance knowledge-sharing and experience regarding mires and the factors influencing them. Over 550 members across almost 60 countries conform the network of IMGC.
International Peatland Society
The International Peatland Society (IPS) is a group of members (including individuals, corporations, students, and institutions) who share a common goal of responsible management and use of peatlands and peat. Established in Quebec, Canada in 1968, but now registered as an NGO in Finland. The IPS provides a platform for experts from various fields, involved in peat and peatlands, to connect with each other. The society currently has 1,575 members from 37 countries as of 1 January 2023.
Others
Global Peatlands Initiative
Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Waterfowl Habitat
North American Waterfowl Management Plan
Wetlands International
World Wetlands Day
National efforts and initiatives
Canada
Ducks Unlimited Canada
This is an excerpt from the main page:"Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC) is a Canadian non-profit organization that works to conserve, restore and manage Canadian wetlands in order to preserve habitat for North American waterfowl, wildlife and people. They work with industry leaders, government agencies, landowners and other non-profit organizations to collaboratively protect critical habitats."
Indonesia
The Peat Restoration Agency (BRG)
The Peat Restoration Agency (BRG) is a specialized, integrated and comprehensive institution established on 6 January 2016. Its main objective is to expedite the recuperation and reinstatement of the hydrological functions of degraded peat, predominantly resulting from drying and fire, through a well-planned, systematized and targeted approach.
Katingan Mentaya Project
The Katingan Mentaya Project (KMP) is a tropical peatland forest conservation and restoration project in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, covering 149,800 ha. It protects a highly biodiverse area of tropical peat swamp forest home to over 5% of the remaining global population of the Bornean Orangutan and other High Conservation Value (HCV) species. The Katingan Mentaya Project is managed by PT Rimba Makmur Utama in partnership with Wetlands International, Yayasan Puter, and Permian Global.
Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve
This is an excerpt from the main page:
The Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve, nearly the size of Singapore, consists of 64,000 hectares of bio-diverse tropical peat swamp forest that contain as much as 1,000 plant and animal species per hectare and is one of the most highly endangered ecosystems on the planet. The project area and ongoing initiatives focus on environmental conservation, community outreach, and climate control.
The project developer, InfiniteEARTH, is an industry pioneer, delivering the world’s first REDD (forest carbon accounting) methodology in 2009.
Sumatra Merang Peatland Project
The Sumatra Merang Peatland Project (SMPP), developed by Forest Carbon, restores over 22,900 hectares of peatland rainforest in South Sumatra's Merang region, Indonesia. With an area three times the size of Manhattan, the project protects a biodiversity hotspot home to 100+ endangered, threatened, or vulnerable plants and animal species and works with local communities to improve livelihoods and promote rural economic development.
The project area and the surrounding peat zones are known for high levels of biodiversity and a multitude of critically endangered and vulnerable species including the Sun Bear (Helarctos malayanus), the Rhinoceros Hornbills (Buceros rhinoceros), and the Sumatran Tiger (Panthera tigris ssp. Sumatrae).
United Kingdom
Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust
This is an excerpt from the main page:
"The Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) is an international wildfowl and wetland conservation charity in the United Kingdom. Its patron is Charles III, and its president is Kate Humble."
IUCN UK Peatland Programme
Established in 2009, the IUCN UK Peatland Programme encourages peatland restoration efforts in the United Kingdom. Through collaborations, scientific research, policy making, and effective practices, the Programme support the numerous benefits of peatlands. The Programme has five main objectives:
Notify the development of policies and legislation to guarantee the efficient conservation, restoration, and sustainable management of peatlands.
Raise awareness of the importance of peatlands ecosystems and garner support for their protection.
Increase information about peatland function and its connection with greenhouse gas emissions and water control.
Share knowledge with everyone involved in peatland administration.
Encourage good practices within peatland's core community while searching for restoration initiatives and economic opportunities.
United States of America
Ducks Unlimited
Ducks Unlimited is the world's largest and most effective private organization dedicated to conserving, restoring, and managing wetlands and associated habitats for North America's freshwater aquatic birds. They recognize the challenges waterbirds conservation face due to the degradation and destruction of wetlands and other habitats, and aim to turn this pattern by collaborating with various stakeholders, including private individuals, landowners, agencies, and scientific communities.
Sweden
Life to ad(d)mire
Life to ad(d)mire project was initiated to address the decline of specific wetland habitats and species at Natura 2000 sites in Sweden. The project aimed to accomplish that with hydrological restoration and vegetation rehabilitation. The ultimate goal was for the hydrologically-restored bogs to become carbon sinks, to prevent the ongoing loss of CO2 into the atmosphere caused by drained peatlands. The project was able to successfully and economically restore peatlands, leading to increased interest from both national and international stakeholders. In total 2930 hectares of wetlands across 28 sites in Sweden were restored through methods such as excavation, dam-building, and ditch-filling.
Barriers to restoration
Policy and legislation role and examples
Policy creation and law building is a key to peatland restoration. One example is the Nature Restoration Law (NRL) targets specific restoration of Europe's degraded peatland ecosystems, habitats and species. With emphasis on wetland, rivers, forests, grasslands and marine ecosystems. A draft law within primarily targeted for restoring the drainage of peatlands from agricultural use. These targets advocate strongly for agricultural peatlands, however, most EU countries land use of peatlands is for peat extraction or forestry. EU countries hold an estimate of 350,000km2 of peatland of which more than 50% is degraded mainly by drainage from agricultural use, forestry and peat extraction. This demonstrate that although policy development is useful, it might be finely tuned to assist peatland restoration.
Another example is the UN's SDG (Sustainable Development Goals), focusing on positive action and recovery across a variety of global issues. Goal 15 on protection and restoration of the environment is specifically important for restoration, but does not mention peatlands. Goal 13, to "take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts" is used ti advocate for peatland restoration. These acknowledgements are key to encouraging and supporting restoration policy development.
Policies such as these, could raise awareness to the importance of peatland restoration. To be furthered, emphasis on peatlands, its differing types and protection from usage (e.g. agricultural, extraction or pristine protections) has been proposed.
Meaningful timings and scales of effects
The more damaged an area of peatland is, the longer it will take to restore its ecosystems and natural biodiversity. This can occur as a lag to restoration resulting in a need for prolonged measurement and supervision of the landscape to produce recovery in an area. Consistency in action and regularly updates to goals are essential for accurate monitoring and restoration of peatlands.
Due to this, local initiatives need consistent funding and interest. However, global strategies may have far-reaching positive implications if policy and protection is extended further into peatland recovery from groups and larger governing bodies (such as UN legislation or national governments).
Change of land use
The development of renewable energy, transport and highways, extractive industries, housing, and other built infrastructure pose a threat to peatlands, which may have a negative effect on peatland conservation, on their biodiversity, and ecosystem function. Therefore, it is essential to have effective planning, development policies, and guidance to ensure sustainable development that does not harm the peatlands and their ecosystem function.
The effects of development on biodiversity can include:
Loss or deterioration of habitats due to the introduction of materials and structures.
Disturbances to species, causing direct harm or death.
Impacts on the peatland's hydrological system.
Projects that cannot avoid peatland areas should aim to minimize their impact through mitigation measures, restoration of the development footprint, and broader peatland areas, as well as direct reinstatement efforts.
Agriculture and horticulture
Revegetation and rewetting of drained peatlands may involve the loss of agricultural production areas or a decrease in their productivity. This may have a negative impact on the income of small farmers. The selection of restoration sites must conform to local governance systems, land rights and administrations. In parallel, it is essential to ensure that alternative livelihood options are available to the communities living in the restored areas.
Sphagnum peat moss is a frequently used growth medium for the cultivation of houseplants and forest plants, is obtained by harvesting peat bogs in the circumboreal area and then distributed across the globe. Peat moss is a crucial substrate for forest plant nursery production, as it significantly enhances the quality and survival of seedlings. The selection of this substrate is based on several factors, including its organic and mineral composition, ability to retain water, cost, and availability.
Society and culture
Peatlands have historically been considered unproductive and have been drained for economic purposes for many centuries. In the Peruvian Amazonia, they are used for activities such as hunting, gathering palm fruits, and logging. But they are also associated with fear due to the risks of becoming lost, sinking into the marshy terrain, and encountering dangerous fauna, including anacondas and mythical creatures. A study conducted in Scotland demonstrated that the general public acknowledges the importance of the environmental advantages associated with peatlands; however, they also perceive a trade-off between preserving the peatlands and using their potential for productivity.
Despite the fact that many people today are unfamiliar with peatlands, some recognize them through references such as the discovery of the Tollund Man in a Danish peatland or the depiction of wetland ecosystems in The Lord of the Rings series, such as the scene where the hobbit Frodo navigates through the "Dead marshes".
See also
Wetland conservation
Peat Cutting Monday
Global Peatlands Initiative
Peat swamp forest
Sphagnum
Tropical peat
Wetland classification
Acrotelm
Pocosin
Gyttja
Groundwater-dependent ecosystems
Freshwater swamp forest
Converted wetland
References
Freshwater ecology
Pedology
Wetlands
Peatlands | Peatland restoration | [
"Environmental_science"
] | 6,223 | [
"Hydrology",
"Wetlands"
] |
58,200,319 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgine%20%28brand%29 | Georgine is a women's ready-to-wear brand founded in New York City.
History
Georgine was launched by the fashion designer Georgine Ratelband and was founded in 2014. Before completing her graduation from Istituto Europeo di Design in 2011, thesis-collection of Georgine was acquired by a boutique in Antwerp, Belgium. Georgine was presented at New York Fashion Week, and their designs have rated the pages of Women's Wear Daily, W Magazine and Vogue Italia.
Shortly following the launch of the brand Ratelband was surprised to discover that Beyoncé wore one of her pieces on the red carpet during her husband Jay-Z's Tidal X Event at Brooklyn's Barclays Center. Since then Georgine has dressed numerous celebrities including: Lady Gaga, Zendaya, Jennifer Lopez, Cardi B, Demi Moore, Alicia Keys, Bella Hadid, Lena Dunham, The Kardashians, Tracey Ellis Ross, Mariah Carey, Patina Miller, Elizabeth Gilles, Sarah Rafferty, Victoria's Secret Models; Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Romee Strijd, etc.
Collections
Georgine Ratelband debuted their first runway collection for NYFW Fall 2014.
2014: Georgine runway NYFW Fall 2014
2015 Georgine Fall 2015
2016: Georgine fall 2016 runway
2017: Georgine RTW Spring 2017
2018: Georgine Spring 2018 RTW
See also
Fashion design
Armani
Alexander McQueen
Haute couture
References
External links
Fashion design
High fashion brands
Clothing brands of the United States
Haute couture
Fashion accessory brands
Clothing companies established in 2014
Design companies established in 2014
2014 establishments in New York City
Privately held companies based in New York City | Georgine (brand) | [
"Engineering"
] | 344 | [
"Design",
"Fashion design"
] |
58,203,281 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction%20to%20Electrodynamics | Introduction to Electrodynamics is a textbook by physicist David J. Griffiths. Generally regarded as a standard undergraduate text on the subject, it began as lecture notes that have been perfected over time. Its most recent edition, the fifth, was published in 2023 by Cambridge University. This book uses SI units (the mks convention) exclusively. A table for converting between SI and Gaussian units is given in Appendix C.
Griffiths said he was able to reduce the price of his textbook on quantum mechanics simply by changing the publisher, from Pearson to Cambridge University Press. He has done the same with this one. (See the ISBN in the box to the right.)
Table of contents (5th edition)
Preface
Advertisement
Chapter 1: Vector Analysis
Chapter 2: Electrostatics
Chapter 3: Potentials
Chapter 4: Electric Fields in Matter
Chapter 5: Magnetostatics
Chapter 6: Magnetic Fields in Matter
Chapter 7: Electrodynamics
Intermission
Chapter 8: Conservation Laws
Chapter 9: Electromagnetic Waves
Chapter 10: Potentials and Fields
Chapter 11: Radiation
Chapter 12: Electrodynamics and Relativity
Appendix A: Vector Calculus in Curvilinear Coordinates
Appendix B: The Helmholtz Theorem
Appendix C: Units
Index
Reception
Paul D. Scholten, a professor at Miami University (Ohio), opined that the first edition of this book offers a streamlined, though not always in-depth, coverage of the fundamental physics of electrodynamics. Special topics such as superconductivity or plasma physics are not mentioned. Breaking with tradition, Griffiths did not give solutions to all the odd-numbered questions in the book. Another unique feature of the first edition is the informal, even emotional, tone. The author sometimes referred to the reader directly. Physics received the primary focus. Equations are derived and explained, and common misconceptions are addressed.
According to Robert W. Scharstein from the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Alabama, the mathematics used in the third edition is just enough to convey the subject and the problems are valuable teaching tools that do not involve the "plug and chug disease." Although students of electrical engineering are not expected to encounter complicated boundary-value problems in their career, this book is useful to them as well, because of its emphasis on conceptual rather than mathematical issues. He argued that with this book, it is possible to skip the more mathematically involved sections to the more conceptually interesting topics, such as antennas. Moreover, the tone is clear and entertaining. Using this book "rejuvenated" his enthusiasm for teaching the subject.Colin Inglefield, an associate professor of physics at Weber State University (Utah), commented that the third edition is notable for its informal and conversational style that may appeal to a large class of students. The ordering of its chapters and its contents are fairly standard and are similar to texts at the same level. The first chapter offers a valuable review of vector calculus, which is essential for understanding this subject. While most other authors, including those aimed at a more advanced audience, denote the distance from the source point to the field point by , Griffiths uses a script (see figure). Unlike some comparable books, the level of mathematical sophistication is not particularly high. For example, Green's functions are not anywhere mentioned. Instead, physical intuition and conceptual understanding are emphasized. In fact, care is taken to address common misconceptions and pitfalls. It contains no computer exercises. Nevertheless, it is perfectly adequate for undergraduate instruction in physics. As of June 2005, Inglefield has taught three semesters using this book.
Physicists Yoni Kahn of Princeton University and Adam Anderson of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory indicated that Griffiths' Electrodynamics offers a dependable treatment of all materials in the electromagnetism section of the Physics Graduate Record Examinations (Physics GRE) except circuit analysis.
Editions
See also
Introduction to Quantum Mechanics (textbook) by the same author
Classical Electrodynamics (textbook) by John David Jackson, a commonly used graduate-level textbook.
List of textbooks in electromagnetism
List of textbooks on classical and quantum mechanics
List of textbooks in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics
List of books on general relativity
Notes
References
Further reading
A graduate textbook.
Electromagnetism
Physics textbooks
Electrodynamics
1981 non-fiction books
Undergraduate education | Introduction to Electrodynamics | [
"Physics",
"Mathematics"
] | 884 | [
"Electromagnetism",
"Physical phenomena",
"Fundamental interactions",
"Electrodynamics",
"Dynamical systems"
] |
58,203,934 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David%20Ginzburg | David Ginzburg (Hebrew: דוד גינזבורג) is a professor of mathematics at Tel Aviv University working in number theory and automorphic forms.
Career
Ginzburg received his PhD in mathematics from Tel Aviv University in 1988 under the supervision of Stephen Gelbart. He is a professor of mathematics at Tel Aviv University.
Research
Together with Stephen Rallis and David Soudry, Ginzburg wrote a series of papers about automorphic descent culminating in their book "The descent map from automorphic representations of GL(n) to classical groups". Their automorphic descent method constructs an explicit inverse map to the (standard) Langlands functorial lift and has had major applications to the analysis of functoriality. Also, using the "Rallis tower property" from Rallis's 1984 paper on the Howe duality conjecture, they studied global exceptional correspondences and found new examples of functorial lifts.
Selected publications
References
External links
20th-century Israeli mathematicians
21st-century Israeli mathematicians
Number theorists
Year of birth missing (living people)
Tel Aviv University alumni
Academic staff of Tel Aviv University
Living people | David Ginzburg | [
"Mathematics"
] | 234 | [
"Number theorists",
"Number theory"
] |
58,204,058 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%20Louis%20and%20Artur%20Lucian%20Award%20in%20Cardiovascular%20Diseases | The Louis and Artur Lucian Award in Cardiovascular Diseases is a prize for cardiovascular medicine conferred by McGill University. Described as Canada's "top cardiovascular research prize", it has been awarded annually since 1978, except in 2007.
Previous recipients
1978 Nicolae and Maya Simionescu, Bucharest and Yale University
1980 , Johns Hopkins University
1981 Gilbert Thompson, Hammersmith Hospital
1982 , University of Copenhagen
1983 , University of California
1984 and Una Ryan, University of Miami
1985 Earl Wood, Mayo Clinic
1986 , University of Antwerp
1987 , University of California
1988 , University of South Alabama
1989 , New Jersey Medical School and , University of Florida
1990 , Vanderbilt University
1991 , State University of New York, Syracuse
1992 Judah Folkman, The Children's Hospital, Boston
1993 Arthur Brown, Baylor College of Medicine
1994 John B. Barlow, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa
1995 and , University of Virginia, Charlottesville
1996 Robert Furchgott, State University of New York and Salvador Moncada, University College, London
1997 Russell Ross, University of Washington
1998 , Johns Hopkins University
1999 Victor J. Dzau, Harvard Medical School
2000 Robert J. Lefkowitz, Duke University Medical School
2001 Mark C. Fishman, Harvard Medical School
2002 Salim Yusuf, McMaster University
2003 Eric N. Olson, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
2004 , University of Louisville
2005 , Jr., Harvard Medical School
2006 Peter Carmeliet, University of Leuven
2007 not awarded
2008 , Harvard Medical School
2009 Peter Libby, Harvard Medical School
2010 , Stanford University School of Medicine
2011 , University of California, San Francisco
2012 Garret A. FitzGerald, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania
2013 David Ginsburg, University of Michigan
2014 , University of Cincinnati College of Medicine
2015 , University of Cincinnati College of Medicine
2016 Brian K. Kobilka, Stanford University School of Medicine
2017 John McMurray, University of Glasgow
2018 Dan M. Roden, Vanderbilt School of Medicine; Nabil G. Seidah, Montreal Clinical Research Institute
2019 Joseph A. Hill, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Source: McGill University
See also
List of medicine awards
References
Medicine awards
Canadian awards
Cardiology
Awards established in 1978
1978 establishments in Canada | The Louis and Artur Lucian Award in Cardiovascular Diseases | [
"Technology"
] | 444 | [
"Science and technology awards",
"Science award stubs",
"Medicine awards"
] |
58,205,005 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular%20V2X | Cellular V2X (C-V2X) is an umbrella term that comprises all 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) V2X technologies for connected mobility and self-driving cars. It includes both direct and cellular network communications and is an alternative to 802.11p, the IEEE specified standard for V2V and other forms of V2X communications.
Cellular V2X uses 3GPP standardised 4G LTE or 5G mobile cellular connectivity to exchange messages between vehicles, pedestrians, and wayside traffic control devices such as traffic signals. It commonly uses the 5.9 GHz frequency band, which is the officially designated intelligent transportation system (ITS) frequency in most countries. C-V2X can function without network assistance and exceeds the range of DSRC by about 25%.
C-V2X was developed within the 3GPP to replace DSRC in the US and C-ITS in Europe.
History
In 2014, 3GPP Release 13 spurred studies to test the applicability of the then current standards to V2X. This resulted in the 3GPP Release 14 specifications for C-V2X communications, finalised in 2017. 3GPP Release 15 introduced 5G for V2N use-cases and 3GPP Release 16 includes work on 5G NR direct communications for V2V/V2I.
In Europe, the EU announced in July 2019 that it was adopting a technology-neutral approach to C-ITS, leaving the way forward for 4G, 5G and other advanced technologies to be part of V2X applications and services.
In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission proposed late in 2019 that 20 MHz and possibly 30 MHz of the 5.9 GHz band be allocated to C-V2X. In November 2020, this proposal was accepted, and the upper 30 MHz (5.895–5.925 GHz) were allocated to C-V2X.
After a slow start linked to the slower-than-expected roll-out of 5G cellular networks, there were more than 50 C-V2X devices on the market in the first half of 2024.
Modes
C-V2X has the following modes:
Device-to-network: communication using conventional cellular links for vehicle-to-network (V2N) applications such as cloud services in end-to-end solutions
Device-to-device: direct communication without the use of network scheduling for vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I), and vehicle-to-pedestrian (V2P) applications such as vulnerable road user protection and tolling
C-V2X mode 4 communication relies on a distributed resource allocation scheme, namely sensing-based semipersistent scheduling which schedules radio resources in a stand-alone fashion in each user equipment (UE).
Technical limitations
Although the roll-out of 5G services globally promises a dramatic reduction in latency where a signal is strong as well as an increase in security compared with previous networks, all communications systems based entirely on wireless communication, especially older and rural networks, suffer from limitations inherent to wireless communication, including:
Limited channels, This limit will affect especially metropolitan areas.
Limited data rates,
Wireless communication is susceptible to external influences, which may be hostile.
In metropolitan areas, limits of data propagation due to surroundings such as buildings, tunnels and also Doppler effects, causing propagation speed reduction by repetitive transmissions required.
Possible abuse of this technology leading to mass surveillance.
Integrating non-terrestrial network coverage in addition to cellular and direct communications is one potential way to address coverage caps and latency concerns. The 5G Automotive Association and European Space Agency have discussed the role of non-terrestrial networks in the connectivity of the car of the future and concluded that it offers many benefits, such as extending more reliable connectivity to rural areas at a comparatively low cost. This, in turn, would enable better digital services and autonomous driving applications.
Outlook
The 5G Automotive Association (5GAA), which comprises companies from the automotive, technology, and telecommunications industries, has published several "roadmaps" that highlight both the potential benefits of C-V2X technologies and the technical, regulatory and market challenges it faces. Most implementations to-date have focused on road safety and improving traffic management, which reduces congestion and pollution.
Artificial intelligence offers one potential solution for managing the large flow of data that will grow as C-V2X communications applications expand in the market. Doubts in artificial intelligence (AI) and decision making by AI exist.
Tests
C-V2X technology is being tested world-wide both at the company and industry level and in publicly funded pilots. For example, ETSI, in partnership with the 5GAA and co-funded by the European Commission, and the European Free Trade Association, has organized several annual C-V2X testing events called "Plugfests". These enable companies manufacturing on-board-C-V2X units, roadside units and public key infrastructure to run interoperability test sessions to assess the level of interoperability of their implementations of C-V2X technology and validate their understanding of the standards.
In October 2023, the 5GAA organized several live demonstrations of the potential of C-V2X technology to protect drivers, pedestrians, cyclists and other vulnerable road users at the Mcity Test Facility at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
In June 2024 the U.S. Department of Transportation announced that it is awarding $60 million in grants to advance connected and interoperable vehicle technologies under a program called "Saving Lives with Connectivity: Accelerating V2X Deployment program". It said the grants to recipients in Arizona, Texas and Utah would serve as national models to accelerate and spur new deployments of V2X technologies.
Literature
References
External links
Official website of the 5G Automotive Association (5GAA)
Advanced driver assistance systems
Driving
Vehicle telematics
Wireless networking | Cellular V2X | [
"Technology",
"Engineering"
] | 1,216 | [
"Wireless networking",
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58,206,657 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-sealing%20suction%20cup | The self-sealing suction cup is a suction cup that exerts a suction force only when it is in physical contact with an object. Unlike most other suction cups, it does not exert any suction force when it is not in contact with an object. Its grasping ability is achieved entirely through passive means without the use of sensors, valves, or actuators.
It was designed so that, when used as part of a suction cup array, the suction cups that don't come in contact with the object remain sealed. By having only the suction cups that are in direct contact of the object exhibit suction force, the researchers were able to minimize leak points where air could enter and increase the pressure that each active cup receives, maximizing the suction force. As a result, an array of self-sealing suction cups can grasp and pick up a wide range of object sizes and shapes. This comes in contrast to conventional suction cups that are typically designed for one specific object size and geometry. In addition, suction cups of various sizes have been manufactured, ranging from the palm of a hand to the point of a fingertip.
The self-sealing suction cup was first developed in 2010 by a collaboration of researchers from the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL), the Edgewood Chemical Biological Center at Aberdeen Proving Ground, and the University of Maryland.
Design
The design of the self-sealing suction cup was initially inspired by the suckers of the octopus and its ability to pick up different sized items by individually actuating its suction cups based on the item's size and physical features.
The internal geometry of the self-sealing suction cup was designed to the smallest possible size and features a minimum wall thickness of 1.02 mm, a tube diameter of 1.59 mm, and minimum part spacing of 0.13 mm. The suction cup incorporates a mix of rubber and plastic components, where the cup lip, base, tube, springs, and plug are made out of soft rubber while the cup side, collar, hinges, and flange are made out of plastic. As part of its design, a central vacuum pump can be used to maximize the suction force of the suction cup. A multi-material 3D printer was used to create the prototype of the self-sealing suction cup in about 20 minutes.
Inside the self-sealing suction cup, the plug is positioned close to the tube opening so that it can get sucked into the tube seal the hole when the central suction line is powered. A pair of springs connected to the suction cup's base helps maintain the plug's position, restoring the plug seal in the absence of object forces. If the cup makes contact with an object, a hinge action raises the plug away from the suction tube. The moment the cup's lips are pushed against the object, the passive reaction forces from the cup lips are transferred to the rubber base of the cup, which stretches over the collar and allow the structure to compress. Acting as a pivot for the hinges, the collar causes the hinges to rotate and the edges of the hinges slide along the underside of the flange and raise the plug away from the suction tube opening. As a result, the suction cup self-seals when not in contact with an object and self-opens the cup's lips makes contacts with an object.
In 2015, several improvements were made to the design of the self-sealing suction cup to improve its grasping capabilities. The previous design demonstrated the following flaws:
The design required a high overall cup height, which increased the bulk of the device.
The design was relatively fragile with respect to hyper-extension as well as torsional and shear forces.
The internal geometry made it difficult to remove the support material inside, varying the quality of the seal.
To address these flaws, researchers from ARL decreased the number of components by consolidating the functions of several parts, which reduced the uncompressed height of the suction cup by almost 50% to 0.72 cm. The cup diameter was also reduced to 1.07 cm. A lever system was added to the base of the cup, which pivots the collar to lift the plug. In addition, the tube doubles as a spring, which helps restore the levers and the plug to their closed position. A plastic restraint was added around the cup to aid with handling the hyper-extension, shear, and torsional forces.
Performance
The self-sealing suction cup has been subjected to a series of tests to determine the quality of its performance. A flexible test rig with four dime-sized suction cups and plastic ribs connected with rubber tubes was created for force-displacement and testing.
A force-displacement test that compared the performance between the self-sealing suction cup, an identical suction cup, and a commercially available suction cup found that the internal structures of the self-sealing cup allowed more force to be exerted for the same displacement compared to the other cups. However, under identical conditions, the self-sealing cup achieved a maximum force of 12.5 N while the commercially available cup achieved a maximum force of 12.9 N.
A seal quality test measured the pressure generated from each self-sealing suction cup. The results showed that an array of four cups maintained a pressure of 93.8% atmospheric. The test also demonstrated that not all the cups were equally efficient at sealing after object contact. However, this could be the result of variation in the cups’ prior usage.
During object grasping testing where the grasping range was examined, the test rig successfully grasped about 80% of the objects attempted. These items consisted of the following: TV remote, pill bottle, glue stick, eyeglasses, fork, disposable bottle, toothpaste, coffee mug, bowl, plate, book, cell phone, bar of soap, paper money, mail, keys, show, table knife, medicine box, credit card, coin, pillow, hairbrush, non-disposable bottle, wallet, magazine, soda can, newspaper, scissors, wrist watch, purse, lighter, compact disc, telephone receiver, full wine bottle, full wine glass, light bulb, lock, padded volleyball, wooden block. As a demonstration of the cups’ strength, the ARL researchers were able to pick up a full bottle of wine using only four of the dime-sized suction cups.
Use in robotics
The self-sealing suction cups have been incorporated in robots to improve their passive grasping capabilities. Due to the design of the suction cups, a central vacuum source can be used to effectively generate suction force from the cups and reduce the number of actuators and sensors for the robot.
Researchers from ARL designed and developed a three-finger hand actuator system using a 3D printer in order for the robot to properly utilize the self-sealing suction cups. Four suction cups run along the bottom of each finger, which contains a narrow vacuum channel running through the center. A central vacuum pump serves to power the suction cups and facilitate grasping. The fingers can also curl around the object to better grasp it and release any object in its hold by feeding back the output of the vacuum pump and emitting a burst of positive pressure.
The three-finger hand has been used by aerial systems and has demonstrated considerable success in grasping objects on the ground while maintaining flight. According to ARL researchers, the self-sealing suction cups may exhibit higher rates of success underwater due to the extra pressure from the sea depths surrounding and pressing against the object and grasper. However, they noted that an underwater environment would require different manufacturing materials that would allow the suction cups to perform well in salt water, such as a thermal plastic.
References
Military technology
Tools
Vacuum
Joining | Self-sealing suction cup | [
"Physics"
] | 1,597 | [
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58,207,196 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic%20table | A ballistic table or ballistic chart, also known as the data of previous engagements (DOPE) chart, is a reference data chart used in long-range shooting to predict the trajectory of a projectile and compensate for physical effects of gravity and wind drift, in order to increase the probability of the projectile successfully reaching the intended target. Ballistic tables commonly are used in target shooting, hunting, military sharpshooting and ballistic science applications.
Ballistic chart data are typically given in angular measurements with units in either milliradians (mil/mrad) or minutes of arc (MOA), arranged in a table format with the rows representing different reference distances and the columns corresponding to categories of information (e.g. angular deviations, actual drop/drift distance, "click" count, etc.) in which the shooter is interested. After ranging the intended target, the shooter can then read off the chart data to estimate the ballistic correction required (relative to a zeroed range) and calibrate the aim accordingly by turning the adjustment knobs on the scope and/or using the reference markings on the scope's reticle.
Ballistic tables are usually generated using specifically designed computer programs built on mathematical functions known as ballistic softwares, and an electronic device that runs ballistic softwares is called a ballistic calculator or ballistic computer. The number of inputs to the ballistic calculator can sometimes vary depended on the specific generator, or the user may choose to only input certain variables. For example, a very simple drop table can be made using inputs for the sight adjustment value (in mil or MOA), the zero range, intended target ranges, muzzle velocity, caliber, ballistic coefficient and bullet weight. Some of the environmental effects that play a role in calculating the trajectory are gravity, projectile spin, wind, temperature, air pressure and humidity. More advanced tables can take more factors into account to ensure a more accurate prediction of the trajectory, which becomes increasingly affected by gravity and wind drift over longer distances due to the more prolonged bullet flight. Some of these variables may have a negligible effect on shorter ranges.
See also
External ballistics
References
External links
Buckmasters.com - How to Read a Ballistics Chart
Long Range Shooting - Intro to Ballistic Tables - The Loadout Room
JBM Ballistics, a free online ballistic calculator.
Projectiles
Aerodynamics
Ballistics | Ballistic table | [
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"Applied and interdisciplinary physics",
"Aerodynamics",
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58,208,079 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline%20of%20women%20in%20science | This is a timeline of women in science, spanning from ancient history up to the 21st century. While the timeline primarily focuses on women involved with natural sciences such as astronomy, biology, chemistry and physics, it also includes women from the social sciences (e.g. sociology, psychology) and the formal sciences (e.g. mathematics, computer science), as well as notable science educators and medical scientists. The chronological events listed in the timeline relate to both scientific achievements and gender equality within the sciences.
Ancient history
1900 BCE: Aganice, also known as Athyrta, was an Egyptian princess during the Middle Kingdom (about 2000–1700 BCE) working on astronomy and natural philosophy.
: Hatshepsut, also known as the Queen Doctor, promoted a botanical expedition searching for officinal plants.
1200 BCE: The Mesopotamian perfume-maker Tapputi-Belatekallim was referenced in the text of a cuneiform tablet. She is often considered the world's first recorded chemist.
500 BCE: Theano was a Pythagorean philosopher.
: Aglaonice became the first female astronomer to be recorded in Ancient Greece.
Early post-classical history
1st century CE: Mary the Jewess was among the world's first alchemists.
1st century BCE: A woman known only as Fang became the earliest recorded Chinese female alchemist. She is credited with "the discovery of how to turn mercury into silver" – possibly the chemical process of boiling off mercury in order to extract pure silver residue from ores.
–350 CE: Greek mathematician Pandrosion develops a numerical approximation for cube roots.
c. 355–415 CE: Greek astronomer, mathematician and philosopher Hypatia became renowned as a respected academic teacher, commentator on mathematics, and head of her own science academy.
3rd century CE: Cleopatra the Alchemist, an early figure in chemistry and practical alchemy, is credited as inventing the alembic.
600 century Rufaida Al-Aslamia, Muslim nurse
Middle Ages
c. 975 CE: Chinese alchemist Keng Hsien-Seng was employed by the Royal Court. She distilled perfumes, utilized an early form of the Soxhlet process to extract camphor into alcohol, and gained recognition for her skill in using mercury to extract silver from ores.
10th century: Al-ʻIjliyyah manufactured astrolabes for the court of Sayf al-Dawla in Aleppo.
11th century: Li Shao Yun, Chinese chemist
11th century: Zhang Xiaoniang, Chinese physician
fl. 1176 Helvidis , French physician
fl. 1200 Rebecca de Guarna , Italian physician
12th century: Sun Pu-Eh, Chinese chemist
Early 12th century: Dobrodeia of Kiev (died 1131), a Rus' princess and Empress of the Eastern Roman Empire, was the first woman to write a treatise on medicine.
Early 12th century: The Italian medical practitioner Trota of Salerno compiled medical works on women's ailments and skin diseases.
12th century: Adelle of the Saracens taught at the Salerno School of Medicine.
12th century: Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) was a founder of scientific natural history in Germany.
1159: The Alsatian nun Herrad of Landsberg (1130–1195) compiled the scientific compendium Hortus deliciarum.
fl. 1249–1259 Magistra Hersend , French surgeon
fl. 1265 Stephanie de Lyon , French physician
fl. 1291 Théophanie , French barber surgeon
fl. 1292 Denice , French barber-surgeon
fl. 1292 Isabiau la Mergesse , French-Jewish physician
fl. ca. 13th century Demud , German physician
Early 14th century: Adelmota of Carrara was a physician in Padua, Italy.
1292–1319 Dame Péronelle, French herbalist
13th century Shen Yu Hsiu , Chinese chemist
fl. 1300 Gilette de Narbonne , French physician
f. 1307 Trotta da Toya , Napolitan physician
fl. 1308 Francisca di Vestis , Napolian physician
fl. 1309 Maria Gallicia , licensed surgeon
fl. 1313–1325 Ameline la Miresse , French physician
fl. 1318 Alessandra Giliani , Italian anatomist
1320 Raymunda da Taberna, licensed Napolitan surgeon
fl. 1322 Fava of Manosque , French-Jewish physician
fl. 1322 Jacobina Félicie , Italian physician
fl. 1326 Sara de Sancto Aegidio , French physician
fl. 1326 Sarah de St Giles , French-Jewish physician and medical teacher
fl. 1333 Constanza, Italian surgeon, mentioned in Pope Sixtus IV edict regarding physicians and surgeons.
fl. 1333 Francisca da Romana, Napolitan physician
fl. 1333 Isabella da Ocre, Napolitan surgeon
fl. 1333 Lauretta Ponte da Saracena Calabria, Napolitan physician
fl. 1333 Margarita da Venosa , licensed Napolitan surgeon, who studied at the University of Salerno She was considered a noteworthy practitioner and counted Ladislaus, king of Naples, as a patient.
fl. 1333 Maria Incarnata, Italian surgeon, mentioned in Pope Sixtus IV edict regarding physicians and surgeons
fl. 1333 Sibyl of Benevento, Napolitan physician specializing in the plague buboes
fl. 1333 Thomasia de Mattio, Italian physician, mentioned in Pope Sixtus IV edict regarding physicians and surgeons.
fl. 1335 Polisena da Troya , licensed Napolitan surgeon
d. 1366 Jeanne d'Ausshure , French surgeon
fl. 1374 Floreta La-Noga , Aragonese physician
fl. 1376 Virdimura of Catania , Jewish-Sicilian physician
fl. 1380 Bellayne Gallipapa , Zaragoza, Spanish-Jewish physician
fl. 1384 Dolcich Gallipapa , Leyda, Spanish-Jewish physician
fl. 1384 Juana Sarrovia , Barcelona, Spanish physician
fl. 1387 Na Pla Gallipapa , Zaragoza, Spanish-Jewish physician
late 1300- century Margherita di Napoli , Napolitan oculist active in Frankfurt-am-Main
fl. 1390 Dorotea Bucca , Italian professor of medicine
1386–1408 Maesta Antonia , Florentine physician
14th century Abella, Italian physician
14th century Mercuriade, Italian physician and surgeon
fl. 1400 Antonia Daniello , Florentine-Jewish physician
fl. 13th century Brunetta de Siena , Italian-Jewish physician
fl. 13th century Caterina of Florence , Florentine physician
fl. 1411 Peretta Peronne, also called Perretta Petone , French surgeon
fl. 1438 Jeanne de Cusey , French barber-surgeon
fl. 1460 Marguerite Saluzzi , Napolitan licensed herbalist physician
fl. 1479 Guillemette du Luys , French royal surgeon
1498 Gentile Budrioli , Italian astrologer and herbalist
15th century Clarice di Durisio , Italian physician
15th century Francesca, muller de Berenguer Satorra , Catalan physician
15th century Constance Calenda , Italian surgeon specializing in diseases of the eye
c. 1494–1526 Katherine Briçonnet French architect
16th century
1561: Italian alchemist Isabella Cortese published her popular book The Secrets of Lady Isabella Cortese. The work included recipes for medicines, distilled oils and cosmetics, and was the only book published by a female alchemist in the 16th century.
1572: Italian botanist Loredana Marcello died from the plague – but not before developing several effective palliative formulas for plague sufferers, which were used by many physicians.
1572: Danish scientist Sophia Brahe (1556–1643) assisted her brother Tycho Brahe with his astronomical observations.
1590: After her husband's death, Caterina Vitale took over his position as chief pharmacist to the Order of St John, becoming the first female chemist and pharmacist in Malta.
17th century
1609: French midwife Louise Bourgeois Boursier became the first woman to write a book on childbirth practices.
1636: Anna Maria van Schurman is the first woman ever to attend university lectures. She had to sit behind a screen so that her male fellow students would not see her.
1642: Martine Bertereau, the first recorded female mineralogist, was imprisoned in France on suspicion of witchcraft. Bertereau had published two written works on the science of mining and metallurgy before being arrested.
1650: Silesian astronomer Maria Cunitz published Urania Propitia, a work that both simplified and substantially improved Johannes Kepler's mathematical methods for locating planets. The book was published in both Latin and German, an unconventional decision that made the scientific text more accessible for non-university educated readers.
1656: French chemist and alchemist Marie Meurdrac published her book La Chymie Charitable et Facile, en Faveur des Dames (Useful and Easy Chemistry, for the Benefit of Ladies).
1667: Margaret Lucas Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle upon Tyne (1623 – 15 December 1673) was an English aristocrat, philosopher, poet, scientist, fiction-writer, and playwright during the 17th century. She was the first woman to attend a meeting at the Royal Society of London, in 1667, and she criticised and engaged with members and philosophers Thomas Hobbes, René Descartes, and Robert Boyle.
1668: After separating from her husband, French polymath Marguerite de la Sablière established a popular salon in Paris. Scientists and scholars from different countries visited the salon regularly to discuss ideas and share knowledge, and Sablière studied physics, astronomy and natural history with her guests.
1680: French astronomer Jeanne Dumée published a summary of arguments supporting the Copernican theory of heliocentrism. She wrote "between the brain of a woman and that of a man there is no difference".
1685: Frisian poet and archaeologist Titia Brongersma supervised the first excavation of a dolmen in Borger, Netherlands. The excavation produced new evidence that the stone structures were graves constructed by prehistoric humans – rather than structures built by giants, which had been the prior common belief.
1690: German-Polish astronomer Elisabetha Koopman Hevelius, widow of Johannes Hevelius, whom she had assisted with his observations (and, probably, computations) for over twenty years, published in his name Prodromus Astronomiae, the largest and most accurate star catalog to that date.
1693–1698: German astronomer and illustrator Maria Clara Eimmart created more than 350 detailed drawings of the moon phases.
1699: German entomologist Maria Sibylla Merian, the first scientist to document the life cycle of insects for the public, embarked on a scientific expedition to Suriname, South America. She subsequently published Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium, a groundbreaking illustrated work on South American plants, animals and insects.
18th century
1702: Pioneering English entomologist Eleanor Glanville captured a butterfly specimen in Lincolnshire, which was subsequently named the Glanville fritillary in her honour. Her extensive butterfly collection impressed fellow entomologist William Vernon, who called Glanville's work "the noblest collection of butterflies, all English, which has sham'd us". Her butterfly specimens became part of early collections in the Natural History Museum.
1702: German astronomer Maria Kirch became the first woman to discover a comet.
c. 1702–1744: In Montreal, Canada, French botanist Catherine Jérémie collected plant specimens and studied their properties, sending the specimens and her detailed notes back to scientists in France.
1732: At the age of 20, Italian physicist Laura Bassi became the first female member of the Bologna Academy of Sciences. One month later, she publicly defended her academic theses and received a PhD. Bassi was awarded an honorary position as professor of physics at the University of Bologna. She was the first female physics professor in the world.
1738: French polymath Émilie du Châtelet became the first woman to have a paper published by the Paris Academy, following a contest on the nature of fire.
1740: French polymath Émilie du Châtelet published Institutions de Physique (Foundations of Physics) providing a metaphysical basis for Newtonian physics.
1748: Swedish agronomist Eva Ekeblad became the first female member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Two years earlier, she had developed a new process of using potatoes to make flour and alcohol, which subsequently lessened Sweden's reliance on wheat crops and decreased the risk of famine.
1751: 19-year-old Italian physicist Cristina Roccati received her PhD from the University of Bologna.
1753: Jane Colden, an American, was the only female biologist mentioned by Carl Linnaeus in his masterwork Species Plantarum.
1754: Dorothea Erxleben was the first female to be awarded a doctor in medicine in Germany (University of Halle, then Kingdom of Prussia). She practiced medicine from 1747 to 1762 in Quedlinburg.
1755: After the death of her husband, Italian anatomist Anna Morandi Manzolini took his place at the University of Bologna, becoming a professor of anatomy and establishing an internationally known laboratory for anatomical research.
1757: French astronomer Nicole-Reine Lepaute worked with mathematicians Alexis Clairaut and Joseph Lalande to calculate the next arrival of Halley's Comet.
1760: American horticulturalist Martha Daniell Logan began corresponding with botanic specialist and collector John Bartram, regularly exchanging seeds, plants and botanical knowledge with him.
1762: French astronomer Nicole-Reine Lepaute calculated the time and percentage of a solar eclipse that had been predicted to occur in two years time. She created a map to show the phases, and published a table of her calculations in the 1763 edition of Connaissance des Temps.
1766: French chemist Geneviève Thiroux d'Arconville published her study on putrefaction. The book presented her observations from more than 300 experiments over the span of five years, during which she attempted to discover factors necessary for the preservation of beef, eggs, and other foods. Her work was recommended for royal privilege by fellow chemist Pierre-Joseph Macquer.
c. 1775: Herbalist/botanist Jeanne Baret becomes the first woman to circumnavigate the globe.
c. 1775: French chemist, scientific artist and translator, Marie-Anne Paulze Lavoisier began working with her husband chemist Antoine Lavoisier. She was instrumental in the 1789 publication of her husband’s groundbreaking Elementary Treatise on Chemistry, which presented a unified view of chemistry as a field, as she drew diagrams of all the equipment used, and kept strict records that lended validity to the findings. She also translated and critiqued Richard Kirwan's 'Essay on Phlogiston and the Constitution of Acids' which led to the discovery of oxygen gas.
1776: At the University of Bologna, Italian physicist Laura Bassi became the first woman appointed as chair of physics at a university.
1776: Christine Kirch received a respectable salary of 400 Thaler for calendar-making. See also her sister Margaretha Kirch
1782–1791: French chemist and mineralogist Claudine Picardet translated more than 800 pages of Swedish, German, English and Italian scientific papers into French, enabling French scientists to better discuss and utilize international research in chemistry, mineralogy and astronomy.
c. 1787–1797: Self-taught Chinese astronomer Wang Zhenyi published at least twelve books and multiple articles on astronomy and mathematics. Using a lamp, a mirror and a table, she once created a famous scientific exhibit designed to accurately simulate a lunar eclipse.
1786–1797: German astronomer Caroline Herschel discovered eight new comets, along with numerous other discoveries.
1789: French astronomer Louise du Pierry, the first Parisian woman to become an astronomy professor, taught the first astronomy courses specifically open to female students.
1794: British chemist Elizabeth Fulhame invented the concept of catalysis and published a book on her findings.
c. 1796–1820: During the reign of the Jiaqing Emperor, astronomer Huang Lü became the first Chinese woman to work with optics and photographic images. She developed a telescope that could take simple photographic images using photosensitive paper.
1797: English science writer and schoolmistress Margaret Bryan published A Compendious System of Astronomy, including an engraving of herself and her two daughters. She dedicated the book to her students.
Early 19th century
1808: Anna Sundström began assisting Jacob Berzelius in his laboratory, becoming one of the first Swedish women chemists.
1809: Sabina Baldoncelli earned her university degree in pharmacy but was allowed to work only in the Italian orphanage where she resided.
1815: English archaeologist Lady Hester Stanhope used a medieval Italian manuscript to locate a promising archaeological site in Ashkelon, becoming the first archaeologist to begin an excavation in the Palestinian region. It was one of the earliest examples of the use of textual sources in field archaeology.
1816: French mathematician and physicist Sophie Germain became the first woman to win a prize from the Paris Academy of Sciences for her work on elasticity theory.
1823: English palaeontologist and fossil collector Mary Anning discovered the first complete Plesiosaurus.
1831: Italian botanist Elisabetta Fiorini Mazzanti published her best-known work Specimen Bryologiae Romanae.
1830–1837: Belgian botanist Marie-Anne Libert published her four-volume Plantae cryptogamicae des Ardennes, a collection of 400 species of mosses, ferns, lichen, algae and fungi from the Ardennes region. Her contributions to systemic cryptogamic studies were formally recognized by Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm III, and Libert received a gold medal of merit.
1832: French marine biologist Jeanne Villepreux-Power invented the first glass aquarium, using it to assist in her scientific observations of Argonauta argo.
1833: English phycologists Amelia Griffiths and Mary Wyatt published two books on local British seaweeds. Griffiths had an internationally respected reputation as a skilled seaweed collector and scholar, and Swedish botanist Carl Agardh had earlier named the seaweed genus Griffithsia in her honour.
1833 Orra White Hitchcock (March 8, 1796 – May 26, 1863) was one of America's earliest women botanical and scientific illustrators and artists, best known for illustrating the scientific works of her husband, geologist Edward Hitchcock (1793–1864), but also notable for her own artistic and scientific work. The most well known appear in her husband's seminal works, the 1833 Report on the Geology, Mineralogy, Botany, and Zoology of Massachusetts and its successor, the 1841 Final Report produced when he was State Geologist. For the 1833 edition, Pendleton's Lithography (Boston) lithographed nine of Hitchcock's Connecticut River Valley drawings and printed them as plates for the work. In 1841, B. W. Thayer and Co., Lithographers (Boston) printed revised lithographs and an additional plate. The hand-colored plate "Autumnal Scenery. View in Amherst" is Hitchcock's most frequently seen work.
1835: Scottish polymath Mary Somerville and German astronomer Caroline Herschel were elected the first female members of the Royal Astronomical Society.
1836: Early English geologist and paleontologist Etheldred Benett, known for her extensive collection of several thousand fossils, was appointed a member of the Imperial Natural History Society of Moscow. The society – which only admitted men at the time – initially mistook Benett for a man due to her reputation as a scientist and her unusual first name, addressing her diploma of admission to "Dominum" (Master) Benett.
1840: Scottish fossil collector and illustrator Lady Eliza Maria Gordon-Cumming invited geologists Louis Agassiz, William Buckland and Roderick Murchison to examine her collection of fish fossils. Agassiz confirmed several of Gordon-Cumming's discoveries as new species.
1843: During a nine-month period in 1842–43, English mathematician Ada Lovelace translated Luigi Menabrea's article on Charles Babbage's newest proposed machine, the Analytical Engine. With the article, she appended a set of notes. Her notes were labelled alphabetically from A to G. In note G, she describes an algorithm for the Analytical Engine to compute Bernoulli numbers. It is considered the first published algorithm ever specifically tailored for implementation on a computer, and Ada Lovelace has often been cited as the first computer programmer for this reason. The engine was never completed, so her program was never tested.
1843: British botanist and pioneering photographer Anna Atkins self-published her book Photographs of British Algae, illustrating the work with cyanotypes. Her book was the first book on any subject to be illustrated by photographs.
1846: British zoologist Anna Thynne built the first stable, self-sustaining marine aquarium.
1848: American astronomer Maria Mitchell became the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; she had discovered a new comet the year before.
1848–1849: English scientist Mary Anne Whitby, a pioneer in western silkworm cultivation, collaborated with Charles Darwin in researching the hereditary qualities of silkworms.
1850: The American Association for the Advancement of Sciences accepted its first women members: astronomer Maria Mitchell, entomologist Margaretta Morris, and science educator Almira Hart Lincoln Phelps.
Late 19th century
1854: Mary Horner Lyell was a conchologist and geologist. She is most well known for her scientific work in 1854, where she studied her collection of land snails from the Canary Islands. She was married to the notable British geologist Charles Lyell and assisted him in his scientific work. It is believed by historians that she likely made major contributions to her husband's work.
1854–1855: Florence Nightingale organized care for wounded soldiers during the Crimean War. She was an English social reformer and statistician, and the founder of modern nursing. Her pie charts clearly showed that most deaths resulted from disease rather than battle wounds or "other causes," which led the general public to demand improved sanitation at field hospitals.
1855: Working with her father, Welsh astronomer and photographer Thereza Dillwyn Llewelyn produced some of the earliest photographs of the moon.
1856: American atmospheric scientist Eunice Newton Foote presented her paper "Circumstances affecting the heat of the sun's rays" at an annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences. She was an early researcher of the greenhouse effect.
1862: Belgian botanist Marie-Anne Libert became the first woman to join the Royal Botanical Society of Belgium. She was named an honorary member.
1863: German naturalist Amalie Dietrich arrived in Australia to collect plant, animal and anthropological specimens for the German Godeffroy Museum. She remained in Australia for the next decade, discovering a number of new plant and animal species in the process, but also became notorious in later years for her removal of Aboriginal skeletons – and the possible incitement of violence against Aboriginal people – for anthropological research purposes.
1865: English geologist Elizabeth Carne was elected the first female Fellow of the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall.
1870s
1869/1870: American beekeeper Ellen Smith Tupper became the first female editor of an entomological journal.
1870: Katharine Murray Lyell was a British botanist, author of an early book on the worldwide distribution of ferns, and editor of volumes of the correspondence of several of the era's notable scientists.
1870: Ellen Swallow Richards became the first American woman to earn a degree in chemistry.
1870: Russian chemist Anna Volkova became the first female member of the Russian Chemical Society.
1874: Julia Lermontova became the first Russian woman to receive a PhD in chemistry.
1875: Hungarian archaeologist Zsófia Torma excavated the site of Turdaș-Luncă in Hunedoara County, today in Romania. The site, which uncovered valuable prehistoric artifacts, became one of the most important archaeological discoveries in Europe.
1876–1878: American naturalist Mary Treat studied insectivorous plants in Florida. Her contributions to the scientific understanding of how these plants caught and digested prey were acknowledged by Charles Darwin and Asa Gray.
1878: English entomologist Eleanor Anne Ormerod became the first female Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society. A few years afterwards, she was appointed as Consulting Entomologist to the Royal Agricultural Society.
1880s
1880: Self-taught German chemist Agnes Pockels began investigating surface tension, becoming a pioneering figure in the field of surface science. The measurement equipment she developed provided the basic foundation for modern quantitative analyses of surface films.
1883: American ethnologist Erminnie A. Smith, the first female field ethnographer, published her collection of Iroquois legends Myths of the Iroquois.
1884: English zoologist Alice Johnson's paper on newt embryos became the first paper authored by a woman to appear in the Proceedings of the Royal Society.
1885: British naturalist Marian Farquharson became the first female Fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society.
1886: Botanist Emily Lovira Gregory became the first female member of the American Society of Naturalists.
1887: Rachel Lloyd became the first American woman to receive a PhD in chemistry, completing her research at the Swiss University of Zurich.
1888: Russian scientist Sofia Kovalevskaya discovered the Kovalevskaya top, one of a brief list of known rigid body motion examples that are tractable by manipulating equations by hand.
1888: American chemist Josephine Silone Yates was appointed head of the Department of Natural Sciences at Lincoln Institute (later Lincoln University), becoming the first black woman to head a college science department.
1889: Geologist Mary Emilie Holmes became the first female Fellow of the Geological Society of America.
1890s
1890: Austrian-born chemist Ida Freund became the first woman to work as a university chemistry lecturer in the United Kingdom. She was promoted to full lecturer at Newnham College, Cambridge.
1890: Popular science educator and author Agnes Giberne co-founded the British Astronomical Association. Subsequently, English astronomer Elizabeth Brown was appointed the Director of the association's Solar Section, well known for her studies in sunspots and other solar phenomena.
1890: Mathematician Philippa Fawcett became the first woman to obtain the highest score in the Cambridge Mathematical Tripos examinations, a score "above the Senior Wrangler". (At the time, women were ineligible to be named Senior Wrangler.)
1891: American-born astronomer Dorothea Klumpke was appointed as Head of the Bureau of Measurements at the Paris Observatory. For the next decade, in addition to completing her doctorate of science, she worked on the Carte du Ciel mapping project. She was recognized for her work with the first Prix de Dames award from the Société astronomique de France and named an Officier of the Paris Academy of Sciences.
1892: American psychologist Christine Ladd-Franklin presented her evolutionary theory on the development of colour vision to the International Congress of Psychology. Her theory was the first to emphasize colour vision as an evolutionary trait.
1893: Florence Bascom became the second woman to earn her PhD in geology in the United States, and the first woman to receive a PhD from Johns Hopkins University. Geologists consider her to be the "first woman geologist in this country (America)".
1893: American botanist Elizabeth Gertrude Britton became a charter member of the Botanical Society of America.
1894: American astronomer Margaretta Palmer becomes the first woman to earn a doctorate in astronomy.
1895: English physiologist Marion Bidder became the first woman to speak and present her own paper at a meeting of the Royal Society.
1896: Florence Bascom became the first woman to work for the United States Geological Survey.
1896: English mycologist and lichenologist Annie Lorrain Smith became a founding member of the British Mycological Society. She later served as president twice.
1897: American cytologists and zoologists Katharine Foot and Ella Church Strobell started working as research partners. Together, they pioneered the practice of photographing microscopic research samples and invented a new technique for creating thin material samples in colder temperatures.
1897: American physicist Isabelle Stone became the first woman to receive a PhD in physics in the United States. She wrote her dissertation "On the Electrical Resistance of Thin Films" at the University of Chicago.
1898: Danish physicist Kirstine Meyer was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters.
1898: Italian malacologist Marianna Paulucci donated her collection of specimens to the Royal Museum of Natural History in Florence, Italy (Museo di Storia Naturale di Firenze). Paulucci was the first scientist to compile and publish a species list of Italian malacofauna.
1899: American physicists Marcia Keith and Isabelle Stone became charter members of the American Physical Society.
1899: Irish physicist Edith Anne Stoney was appointed a physics lecturer at the London School of Medicine for Women, becoming the first female medical physicist. She later became a pioneering figure in the use of X-ray machines on the front lines of World War I.
Early 20th century
1900s
1900: American botanist Anna Murray Vail became the first librarian of the New York Botanical Garden. A key supporter of the institution's establishment, she had earlier donated her entire collection of 3000 botanical specimens to the garden.
1900: Physicists Marie Skłodowska–Curie and Isabelle Stone attended the first International Congress of Physics in Paris, France. They were the only two women out of 836 participants.
1901: American Florence Bascom became the first female geologist to present a paper before the Geological Survey of Washington.
1901: Czech botanist and zoologist Marie Zdeňka Baborová-Čiháková became the first woman in the Czech Republic to receive a PhD.
1901: American astronomer Annie Jump Cannon published her first catalog of stellar spectra, which classified stars by temperature. This method was universally and permanently adopted by other astronomers.
1903: Grace Coleridge Frankland née Toynbee was an English microbiologist. Her most notable work was Bacteria in Daily Life. She was one of the nineteen female scientists who wrote the 1904 petition to the Chemical Society to request that they should create some female fellows of the society.
1903: Polish-born physicist and chemist Marie Skłodowska–Curie became the first woman to receive a Nobel Prize when she received the Nobel Prize in Physics along with her husband, Pierre Curie, "for their joint researches on the radiation phenomena discovered by Professor Henri Becquerel", and Henri Becquerel, "for his discovery of spontaneous radioactivity".
1904: American geographer, geologist and educator Zonia Baber published her article "The Scope of Geography", in which she laid out her educational theories on the teaching of geography. She argued that students required a more interdisciplinary, experiential approach to learning geography: instead of a reliance on textbooks, students needed field-trips, lab work and map-making knowledge. Baber's educational ideas transformed the way schools taught geography.
1904: British chemists Ida Smedley, Ida Freund and Martha Whiteley organized a petition asking the Chemical Society to admit women as Fellows. A total of 19 female chemists became signatories, but their petition was denied by the society.
1904: Marie Charlotte Carmichael Stopes (15 October 1880 – 2 October 1958) was a British author, palaeobotanist and campaigner for women's rights. She made significant contributions to plant palaeontology and coal classification. She held the post of Lecturer in Palaeobotany at the University of Manchester from 1904 to 1910; in this capacity she became the first female academic of that university. In 1909 she was elected to the Linnean Society of London. She was 26 at the time of her election to Fellowship (the youngest woman admitted at that time).
1904: In a December meeting, the Linnean Society of London elected its first women Fellows. These initial women included horticulturalist Ellen Willmott, ornithologist Emma Turner, biologist Lilian Jane Gould, mycologists Gulielma Lister and Annie Lorrain Smith, and botanists Mary Anne Stebbing, Margaret Jane Benson and Ethel Sargant.
1905: American geneticist Nettie Stevens discovered sex chromosomes.
1906: Following the San Francisco earthquake, American botanist and curator Alice Eastwood rescued almost 1500 rare plant specimens from the burning California Academy of Sciences building. Her curation system of keeping type specimens separate from other collections – unconventional at the time – allowed her to quickly find and retrieve the specimens.
1906: Russian chemist Irma Goldberg published a paper on two newly discovered chemical reactions involving the presence of copper and the creation of a nitrogen-carbon bond to an aromatic halide. These reactions were subsequently named the Goldberg reaction and the Jourdan-Ullman-Goldberg reaction.
1906: English physicist, mathematician and engineer Hertha Ayrton became the first female recipient of the Hughes Medal from the Royal Society of London. She received the award for her experimental research on electric arcs and sand ripples.
1906: After her death, English lepidopterist Emma Hutchinson's collection of 20,000 butterflies and moths was donated to the London Natural History Museum. She had published little during her lifetime, and was barred from joining local scientific societies due to her gender, but was honoured for her work when a variant form of the comma butterfly was named hutchinsoni.
1909: Alice Wilson became the first female geologist hired by the Geological Survey of Canada. She is widely credited as being the first Canadian female geologist.
1909: Danish physicist Kirstine Meyer became the first Danish woman to receive a doctorate degree in natural sciences. She wrote her dissertation on the topic of "the development of the temperature concept" within the history of physics.
1910s
1911: Polish-born physicist and chemist Marie Curie became the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, which she received "[for] the discovery of the elements radium and polonium, by the isolation of radium and the study of the nature and compounds of this remarkable element". This made her the first person to win the Nobel Prize twice. As of 2022, she is the only woman to win it twice and the only person to win the Nobel Prize in two scientific fields.
1911: Norwegian biologist Kristine Bonnevie became the first woman member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.
1912: American astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt studied the bright-dim cycle periods of Cepheid stars, then found a way to calculate the distance from such stars to Earth.
1912: Canadian botanist and geneticist Carrie Derick was appointed a professor of morphological botany at McGill University. She was the first woman to become a full professor in any department at a Canadian university.
1913: Regina Fleszarowa became the first Polish woman to receive a PhD in natural sciences.
1913: Izabela Textorisová, the first Slovakian female botanist, published "Flora Data from the County of Turiec" in the journal Botanikai Közlemények. Her work uncovered more than 100 previously unknown species of plants from the Turiec area.
1913: Canadian physician and chemist Maud Menten co-authored a paper on enzyme kinetics, leading to the development of the Michaelis–Menten kinetics equation.
1914–1918: During World War I, a team of seven British women chemists conducted pioneering research on chemical antidotes and weaponized gases. The project leader, Martha Whiteley, was awarded the Order of the British Empire for her wartime contributions.
1914-1918: Dame Helen Gwynne-Vaughan, (née Fraser) was a prominent English botanist and mycologist. For her wartime service she was the first woman to be awarded a military DBE in January 1918. She served as Commandant of the Women's Royal Air Force (WRAF) from September 1918 until December 1919.
1914: British-born mycologist Ethel Doidge became the first woman in South Africa to receive a doctorate in any subject, receiving her doctorate of science degree from the University of the Good Hope. She wrote her thesis on "A bacterial disease of mango".
1916: Isabella Preston became the first female professional plant hybridist in Canada, producing the George C. Creelman trumpet lily. Her lily later received an Award of Merit from the Royal Horticultural Society.
1916: Chika Kuroda became the first Japanese woman to earn a bachelor of science degree, studying chemistry at the Tohoku Imperial University. After graduation, she was subsequently appointed an assistant professor at the university.
1917: American zoologist Mary J. Rathbun received her PhD from the George Washington University. Despite never having attended college – or any formal schooling beyond high school – Rathbun had authored more than 80 scientific publications, described over 674 new species of crustacean, and developed a system for crustacean-related records at the Smithsonian Museum.
1917: Dutch biologist and phytopathologist Johanna Westerdijk became the first female university professor in the Netherlands. She was appointed an extraordinary professor of phytopathology at the University of Utrecht.
1918: German physicist and mathematician Emmy Noether created Noether's theorem explaining the connection between symmetry and conservation laws.
1919: Dutch biologist and geneticist Jantina Tammes became the university professor in the Netherlands. She was appointed an extraordinary professor of variability and heredity at the University of Groningen. She became the first person in the Netherlands to occupy a chair in genetic. Moreover, she became the second female professor in the country, and the first one at the University of Groningen. She held this position until 1937, when she resigned at the age of sixty-six.
1919: Justicia Espada Acuña graduates from Universidad de Chile, becoming the first woman with degree in civil engineer in South America
1919: Kathleen Maisey Curtis became the first New Zealand woman to earn a Doctorate of Science degree (DSc), completing her thesis on Synchytrium endobioticum (potato wart disease) at the Imperial College of Science and Technology. Her research was cited as "the most outstanding result in mycological research that had been presented for ten years".
1920s
1920: Louisa Bolus was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa for her contributions to botany. Over the course of her lifetime, Bolus identified and named more than 1,700 new South African plant species – more species than any other botanist in South Africa.
1921: Edelmira Inés Mórtola (1894–1973), the first woman to become a geologist in Argentina was awarded her PHD at the University of Buenos Aires, the first woman to received her doctorate there. The University named the Mórtola Minerology Museum in her honor.
1923: María Teresa Ferrari, an Argentine physician, earned the first diploma awarded to a woman by the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Paris for her studies of the urinary tract.
1924: Florence Bascom became the first woman elected to the Council of the Geological Society of America.
1925: Mexican-American botanist Ynes Mexia embarked on her first botanical expedition into Mexico, collecting over 1500 plant specimens. Over the course of the next thirteen years, Mexia collected more than 145,000 specimens from Mexico, Alaska, and multiple South American countries. She discovered 500 new species.
1925: American medical scientist Florence Sabin became the first woman elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
1925: British-American astronomer and astrophysicist Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin established that hydrogen is the most common element in stars, and thus the most abundant element in the universe.
1926: American scientist Katharine Burr Blodgett became the first woman to earn a PhD in physics at the University of Cambridge, under the supervision of Sir Ernest Rutherford.
1927: Kono Yasui became the first Japanese woman to earn a doctorate in science, studying at the Tokyo Imperial University and completing her thesis on "Studies on the structure of lignite, brown coal, and bituminous coal in Japan".
1928: Alice Evans became the first woman elected president of the Society of American Bacteriologists.
1928: Helen Battle became the first woman to earn a PhD in marine biology in Canada.
1928: British biologist Kathleen Carpenter published the first English-language textbook devoted to freshwater ecology: Life in Inland Waters.
1929: American botanist Margaret Clay Ferguson became the first female president of the Botanical Society of America.
1929: Scottish-Nigerian Agnes Yewande Savage became the first West African woman to graduate from medical school, obtaining her degree at the University of Edinburgh.
1930s
1930: Concepción Mendizábal Mendoza became the first woman in Mexico to earn a civil engineering degree.
1932: Michiyo Tsujimura became the first Japanese woman to earn a doctorate in agriculture. She studied at the Tokyo Imperial University, and her doctoral thesis was entitled "On the Chemical Components of Green Tea".
1933: Hungarian scientist Elizabeth Rona received the Haitinger Prize from the Austrian Academy of Sciences for her method of extracting polonium.
1933: American bacteriologist Ruth Ella Moore became the first African-American woman to receive a PhD in the natural sciences, completing her doctorate in bacteriology at Ohio State University.
1935: French chemist Irène Joliot-Curie received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with Frédéric Joliot-Curie "for their synthesis of new radioactive elements".
1935: American plant hybridist Grace Sturtevant, the "First Lady of Iris", received the American Iris Society's gold medal for her lifetime's work.
1936: Edith Patch became the first female president of the Entomological Society of America.
1936: Mycologist Kathleen Maisey Curtis was elected the first female Fellow at the Royal Society of New Zealand.
1936: Danish seismologist and geophysicist Inge Lehmann discovered that the Earth has a solid inner core distinct from its molten outer core.
1937: Canadian forensic pathologist Frances Gertrude McGill assisted the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in establishing their first forensic detection laboratory.
1937: Suzanne Comhaire-Sylvain became the first female Haitian anthropologist and the first Haitian person to complete a PhD, receiving her doctoral degree from the University of Paris.
1937: Marietta Blau and her student Hertha Wambacher, both Austrian physicists, received the Lieben Prize of the Austrian Academy of Sciences for their work on cosmic ray observations using the technique of nuclear emulsions.
1938: Elizabeth Abimbola Awoliyi became the first woman to be licensed to practise medicine in Nigeria after graduating from Trinity College Dublin and the first West African female medical officer with a license of the Royal Surgeon (Dublin).
1938: Geologist Alice Wilson became the first woman appointed as Fellow to the Royal Society of Canada.
1938: South African naturalist Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer discovered a living coelacanth fish caught near the Chalumna river. The species had been believed to be extinct for over 60 million years. It was named latimeria chalumnae in her honour.
1938: Botanists Elzada U Clover and Lois Jotter were the first women to catalog plant life in the Grand Canyon and the first to raft the entire length of the Colorado River
1939: Austrian-Swedish physicist Lise Meitner, along with Otto Hahn, led the small group of scientists who first discovered nuclear fission of uranium when it absorbed an extra neutron; the results were published in early 1939.
1939: French physicist Marguerite Perey discovered francium.
1940s
1940: Turkish Archaeologist, Sumerologist, Assyriologist, and writer Muazzez İlmiye Çığ. Upon receiving her degree in 1940, she began a multi-decade career at Museum of the Ancient Orient, one of three such institutions comprising Istanbul Archaeology Museums, as a resident specialist in the field of cuneiform tablets, thousands of which were being stored untranslated and unclassified in the facility's archives. In the intervening years, due to her efforts in the deciphering and publication of the tablets, the Museum became a Middle Eastern languages learning center attended by ancient history researchers from every part of the world.
1941: American scientist Ruth Smith Lloyd became the first African-American woman to receive a PhD in anatomy.
1942: Austrian-American actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr and composer George Antheil developed a radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes that used spread spectrum and frequency hopping technology to defeat the threat of jamming by the Axis powers. Although the US Navy did not adopt the technology until the 1960s, the principles of their work are incorporated into Bluetooth technology and are similar to methods used in legacy versions of CDMA and Wi-Fi. This work led to their induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014.
1942: American geologist Marguerite Williams became the first African-American woman to receive a PhD in geology in the United States. She completed her doctorate, entitled A History of Erosion in the Anacostia Drainage Basin, at Catholic University.
1942: Native American aerospace engineer Mary Golda Ross became employed at Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, where she provided troubleshooting for military aircraft. She went on to work for NASA, developing operational requirements, flight plans, and a Planetary Flight Handbook for spacecraft missions such as the Apollo program.
1943: British geologist Eileen Guppy was promoted to the rank of assistant geologist, therefore becoming the first female geology graduate appointed to the scientific staff of the British Geological Survey.
1943: American geologist and crystallographer Elizabeth Armstrong Wood became the first female to be hired as a Member of the Technical Staff (MTS) at Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, NJ.
1944: Indian chemist Asima Chatterjee became the first Indian woman to receive a doctorate of science, completing her studies at the University of Calcutta. She went on to establish the Department of Chemistry at Lady Brabourne College.
1945: American physicists and mathematicians Frances Spence, Ruth Teitelbaum, Marlyn Meltzer, Betty Holberton, Jean Bartik and Kathleen Antonelli programmed the electronic general-purpose computer ENIAC, becoming some of the world's first computer programmers. (The first were uncredited operators, mostly members of the Women's Royal Naval Service, of the Colossus computer in 1943–1945, but that machine was not a stored-program computer and its existence was a state secret until the 1970s.)
1945: Marjory Stephenson and Kathleen Lonsdale were elected as the first female Fellows of the Royal Society.
1947: Austrian-American biochemist Gerty Cori became the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which she received along with Carl Ferdinand Cori "for their discovery of the course of the catalytic conversion of glycogen", and Bernardo Alberto Houssay "for his discovery of the part played by the hormone of the anterior pituitary lobe in the metabolism of sugar".
1947: American biochemist Marie Maynard Daly became the first African-American woman to complete a PhD in chemistry in the United States. She completed her dissertation, entitled "A Study of the Products Formed by the Action of Pancreatic Amylase on Corn Starch" at Columbia University.
1947: Berta Karlik, an Austrian physicist, was awarded the Haitinger Prize of the Austrian Academy of Sciences for her discovery of astatine.
1947: Susan Ofori-Atta became the first Ghanaian woman to earn a medical degree when she graduated from the University of Edinburgh.
1948: Canadian plant pathologist and mycologist Margaret Newton became the first woman to be awarded the Flavelle Medal from the Royal Society of Canada, in recognition of her extensive research in wheat rust fungal disease. Her experiments led to the development of rust-resistant strains of wheat.
1948: American limnologist Ruth Patrick of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia led a multidisciplinary team of scientists on an extensive pollution survey of the Conestoga River watershed in Pennsylvania. Patrick would become a leading authority on the ecological effects of river pollution, receiving the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement in 1975.
1949: Botanist became the first Azerbaijani woman to receive a PhD in biological studies. She went on to write the first national Azerbaijani-language textbooks on botany and biology.
Winifred Goldring (February 1, 1888 – January 30, 1971), was an American paleontologist and became the first female president of the Paleontological Society, her work included a description of stromatolites, as well as the study of Devonian crinoids. She was the first woman in the US to be appointed as a State Paleontologist.
Late 20th century
1950s
1950s: Chinese-American medical scientist Tsai-Fan Yu co-founded a clinic at Mount Sinai Medical Center for the study and treatment of gout. Working with Alexander B. Gutman, Yu established that levels of uric acid were a factor in the pain experienced by gout patients, and subsequently developed multiple effective drugs for the treatment of gout.
1950: Chinese-American particle physicist Chien-Shiung Wu proved the validity of Quantum entanglement which counters Albert Einstein's EPR Paradox and published her work on the new year of the new decade. She also proved the validity of beta decay around this time.
1950: Ghanaian, Matilda J. Clerk became the first woman in Ghana and West Africa to attend graduate school, earning a postgraduate diploma at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.
1950: Isabella Abbott became the first Native Hawaiian woman to receive a PhD in any science; hers was in botany.
1950: American microbiologist Esther Lederberg became the first to isolate lambda bacteriophage, a DNA virus, from Escherichia coli K-12.
1951: Ghana's Esther Afua Ocloo became the first person of African ancestry to obtain a cooking diploma from the Good Housekeeping Institute in London and to take the post-graduate Food Preservation Course at Long Ashton Research Station, Department of Horticulture, Bristol University.
1952: American computer scientist Grace Hopper completed what is considered to be the first compiler, a program that allows a computer user to use a human-readable high-level programming language instead of machine code. It was known as the A-0 compiler.
1952: Photograph 51, an X-ray diffraction image of crystallized DNA, was taken by Raymond Gosling in May 1952, working as a PhD student under the supervision of British chemist and biophysicist Rosalind Franklin; it was critical evidence in identifying the structure of DNA.
1952: Canadian agriculturalist Mary MacArthur became the first female Fellow of the Agricultural Institute of Canada for her contributions to the science of food dehydration and freezing.
1953: Canadian-British radiobiologist Alma Howard co-authored a paper proposing that cellular life transitions through four distinct periods. This became the first concept of the cell cycle.
1954: Lucy Cranwell was the first female recipient of the Hector Medal from the Royal Society of New Zealand. She was recognized for her pioneering work with pollen in the emerging field of palynology.
1955: Moira Dunbar became the first female glaciologist to study sea ice from a Canadian icebreaker ship.
1955: Japanese geochemist Katsuko Saruhashi published her research on measuring carbonic acid levels in seawater. The paper included "Saruhashi's Table", a tool of measurement she had developed that focused on using water temperature, pH level, and chlorinity to determine carbonic acid levels. Her work contributed to global understanding of climate change, and Saruhashi's Table was used by oceanographers for the next 30 years.
1955–1956: Soviet marine biologist Maria Klenova became the first female scientist to work in the Antarctic, conducting research and assisting in the establishment of the Mirny Antarctic station.
1956: Canadian zoologist and feminist Anne Innis Dagg began pioneering behavioural research on wild giraffes in South Africa in Kruger National Park. She researched and published on feminism and anti-nepotism laws at academic institutions in North America.
1956: Chinese-American physicist Chien-Shiung Wu conducted a nuclear physics experiment in collaboration with the Low Temperature Group of the US National Bureau of Standards. It was an important foundation for the Standard Model in particle physics and brought the first answer to the question of the universe's existence by virtue of matter's predominance over antimatter. The experiment, becoming known as the Wu experiment, showed that parity could be violated in weak interaction. The Nobel Prize was given only to her male colleagues soon after the headlines of the discovery were released.
1956: Dorothy Hill became the first Australian woman elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science.
1956: English zoologist and geneticist Margaret Bastock published the first evidence that a single gene could change behavior.
1957–1958: Chinese scientist Lanying Lin produced China's first germanium and silicon mono-crystals, subsequently pioneering new techniques in semiconductor development.
1959: Chinese astronomer Ye Shuhua led the development of the Joint Chinese Universal Time System, which became the Chinese national standard for measuring universal time.
1959: Susan Ofori-Atta, the first female Ghanaian physician, became a founding member of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences.
1960s
1960: British primatologist Jane Goodall began studying chimpanzees in Tanzania; her study of them continued for over 50 years. Her observations challenged previous ideas that only humans made tools and that chimpanzees had a basically vegetarian diet.
Early 1960s: German-Canadian metallurgist Ursula Franklin studied levels of radioactive isotope strontium-90 that were appearing in the teeth of children as a side effect of nuclear weapons testing fallout. Her research influenced the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963.
1960s: American mathematician Katherine Johnson calculated flight paths at NASA for crewed space flights.
1961: Indian chemist Asima Chatterjee became the first female recipient of a Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize. She was recognized in the Chemical Sciences category for her contributions to phytomedicine.
1962: Rachel Louise Carson was an American marine biologist, author, and conservationist whose book Silent Spring and other writings are credited with advancing the global environmental movement.
1962: South African botanist Margaret Levyns became the first female president of the Royal Society of South Africa.
1962: French physicist Marguerite Perey became the first female Fellow elected to the Académie des Sciences.
1963: Elsa G. Vilmundardóttir became the first female Icelandic geologist, completing her studies at Stockholm University.
1963: Maria Goeppert Mayer became the first American woman to receive a Nobel Prize in Physics; she shared the prize with J. Hans D. Jensen "for their discoveries concerning nuclear shell structure" and Eugene Paul Wigner "for his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application of fundamental symmetry principles".
1964: American mathematician Irene Stegun completed the work which led to the publication of Handbook of Mathematical Functions, a widely used and widely cited reference work in applied mathematics.
1964: British chemist Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for her determinations by X-ray techniques of the structures of important biochemical substances".
1964: Scottish virologist June Almeida made the first identification of a human coronavirus.
1965: Sister Mary Kenneth Keller became the first American woman to receive a Ph.D. in computer science. Her thesis was titled "Inductive Inference on Computer Generated Patterns".
1966: Japanese immunologist Teruko Ishizaka, working with Kimishige Ishizaka, discovered the antibody class Immunoglobulin E (IgE).
1967: British astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell co-discovered the first radio pulsars.
1967: Sue Arnold became the first female British Geological Survey person to go to sea on a research vessel.
1967: South African radiobiologist Tikvah Alper discovered that scrapie, an infectious brain disease affecting sheep, did not spread via DNA or RNA like a viral or bacterial disease. The discovery enabled scientists to better understand diseases caused by prions.
1967: Yvonne Brill, a Canadian-American rocket and jet propulsion engineer, invented the hydrazine resistojet propulsion system.
1968: Japanese pioneer of molecular biology Tsuneko Okazaki studied DNA replication and discovered Okazaki fragments.
1969: Beris Cox became the first female paleontologist in the British Geological Survey.
1969: Ukrainian-born astronomer Svetlana Gerasimenko co-discovered the 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko comet.
1970s
1970: Dorothy Hill became the first female president of the Australian Academy of Science.
1970: Samira Islam became the first Saudi Arabian person to earn a PhD in pharmacology.
1970: Astronomer Vera Rubin published the first evidence for dark matter.
1970: Polish geologist Franciszka Szymakowska became widely known because of her unique and detailed geological drawings that are still used today.
1973: American physicist Anna Coble became the first African-American woman to receive a PhD in biophysics, completing her dissertation at University of Illinois.
1974: Dominican marine biologist Idelisa Bonnelly founded the Dominican Republic Academy of Science.
1975: Indian chemist Asima Chatterjee was elected the General President of the Indian Science Congress Association. She simultaneously became the first female scientist ever elected a member of the congress.
1975: Indian geneticist Archana Sharma received the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, the first female recipient in the Biological Sciences category.
1975: Female officers of the British Geological Survey no longer had to resign upon getting married.
1975: Chien-Shiung Wu became the first female president of the American Physical Society.
1976: Filipino-American microbiologist Roseli Ocampo-Friedmann traveled to the Antarctic with Imre Friedmann and discovered micro-organisms living within the porous rock of the Ross Desert. These organisms – cryptoendoliths – were observed surviving extremely low temperatures and humidity, assisting scientific research into the possibility of life on Mars.
1976: Margaret Burbidge was named the first female president of the American Astronomical Society.
1977: American medical physicist Rosalyn Yalow received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for the development of radioimmunoassays of peptide hormones" along with Roger Guillemin and Andrew V. Schally who received it "for their discoveries concerning the peptide hormone production of the brain".
1977: Friederike Victoria Joy Adamson (née Gessner, 20 January 1910 – 3 January 1980) was a naturalist, artist and author. Her book, Born Free, an international bestseller, describes her experiences raising a lion cub named Elsa. It was made into an Academy Award-winning movie of the same name. In 1977, she was awarded the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art.
1977: The Association for Women Geoscientists was founded.
1977: Argentine-Canadian scientist Veronica Dahl became the first graduate at Université d'Aix-Marseille II (and one of the first women in the world) to earn a PhD in artificial intelligence.
1977: Canadian-American Elizabeth Stern published her research on the link between birth control pills – which contained high levels of estrogen at the time – and the increased risk of cervical cancer development in women. Her data helped pressure the pharmaceutical industry into providing safer contraceptive pills with lower hormone doses.
1978: Anna Jane Harrison became the first female president of the American Chemical Society.
1978: Mildred Cohn served as the first female president of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, then called the American Society of Biological Chemists.
1980s
1980: Japanese geochemist Katsuko Saruhashi became the first woman elected to the Science Council of Japan.
1980: Nigerian geophysicist Deborah Ajakaiye became the first woman in any West African country to be appointed a full professor of physics. Over the course of her scientific career, she became the first female Fellow elected to the Nigerian Academy of Science, and the first female dean of science in Nigeria.
1981: Vera Rubin was the second female astronomer elected to the National Academy of Science. Beginning her academic career as the sole undergraduate in astronomy at Vassar College, Rubin went on to graduate studies at Cornell University and Georgetown University, where she observed deviations from Hubble flow in galaxies and provided evidence for the existence of galactic superclusters.
1982: Nephrologist Leah Lowenstein became the first female dean of a co-educational medical school in the United States.
1982: Janet Vida Watson FRS FGS (1923–1985) was a British geologist. She was a professor of geology at Imperial College, London. A fellow of the Royal Society, she is well known for her contribution to the understanding of the Lewisian complex and as an author and co-author of several books. In 1982 she was elected President of the Geological Society of London, the first woman to occupy that position.
1983: American cytogeneticist Barbara McClintock received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her discovery of genetic transposition; she was the first woman to receive that prize without sharing it, and the first American woman to receive any unshared Nobel Prize.
1983: Brazilian agronomist Johanna Döbereiner became a founding Fellow of the World Academy of Sciences.
1983: Indian immunologist Indira Nath became the first female scientist to receive the Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar Award in the Medical Sciences category.
1983: Geologist Sudipta Sengupta and marine biologist Aditi Pant became the first Indian women to visit the Antarctic.
1985: After identifying HIV as the cause of AIDS, Chinese-American virologist Flossie Wong-Staal became the first scientist to clone and genetically map the HIV virus, enabling the development of the first HIV blood screening tests.
1986: Italian neurologist Rita Levi-Montalcini received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, shared with Stanley Cohen, "for their discoveries of growth factors".
1988: American biochemist and pharmacologist Gertrude B. Elion received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine along with James W. Black and George H. Hitchings "for their discoveries of important principles for drug treatment".
1988: American scientist and inventor Patricia Bath (born 1942) became the first African-American to patent a medical device, namely the Laserphaco Probe for improving the use of lasers to remove cataracts.
1990s
1991: Doris Malkin Curtis became the first female president of the Geological Society of America.
1991: Indian geologist Sudipta Sengupta became the first female scientist to receive the Shanti Swaroop Bhatnagar Award in the Earth Sciences category.
Helen Patricia Sharman, CMG, OBE, HonFRSC (born 30 May 1963) is a chemist who became the first British astronaut (and in particular, the first British cosmonaut) as well as the first woman to visit the Mir space station in May 1991.
1992: Mae Carol Jemison is an American engineer, physician, and former NASA astronaut. She became the first black woman to travel into space when she served as a mission specialist aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour. Jemison joined NASA's astronaut corps in 1987 and was selected to serve for the STS-47 mission, during which she orbited the Earth for nearly eight days on September 12–20, 1992.
1992: Edith M. Flanigen became the first woman awarded the Perkin Medal (widely considered the highest honor in American industrial chemistry) for her outstanding achievements in applied chemistry. The medal especially recognized her syntheses of aluminophosphate and silicoaluminophosphate molecular sieves as new classes of materials.
1995: German biologist Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, shared with Edward B. Lewis and Eric F. Wieschaus, "for their discoveries concerning the genetic control of early embryonic development".
1995: British geomorphologist Marjorie Sweeting published the first comprehensive Western account of China's karst, entitled Karst in China: its Geomorphology and Environment.
1995: Israeli-Canadian mathematical biologist Leah Keshet became the first female president of the international Society for Mathematical Biology.
1995: Jane Plant became the first female deputy director of the British Geological Survey.
1995: Inspectors from the United Nations Special Commission discovered that Iraqi microbiologist Rihab Taha, nicknamed "Dr. Germ", had been overseeing a secret 10-year biological warfare development program in Iraq.
1996: American planetary scientist Margaret G. Kivelson led a team that discovered the first subsurface, saltwater ocean on an alien world, on the Jovian moon Europa.
1997: Lithuanian-Canadian primatologist Birutė Galdikas received the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement for her research and rehabilitation work with orangutans. Her work with orangutans, eventually spanning over 30 years, was later recognized in 2014 as one of the longest continuous scientific studies of wild animals in history.
1997: Chilean astronomer María Teresa Ruiz discovered Kelu 1, one of the first observed brown dwarfs. In recognition of her discovery, she became the first woman to receive the Chilean National Prize for Exact Sciences.
1998: Nurse Fannie Gaston-Johansson became the first African-American woman tenured full professor at Johns Hopkins University.
Late 1990s: Ethiopian-American chemist Sossina M. Haile developed the first solid acid fuel cell.
21st century
2000s
2000: Venezuelan astrophysicist Kathy Vivas presented her discovery of approximately 100 "new and very distant" RR Lyrae stars, providing insight into the structure and history of the Milky Way galaxy.
2003: American geophysicist Claudia Alexander oversaw the final stages of Project Galileo, a space exploration mission that ended at the planet Jupiter.
2004: American biologist Linda B. Buck received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine along with Richard Axel "for their discoveries of odorant receptors and the organization of the olfactory system".
2006: Chilean biochemist Cecilia Hidalgo Tapia became the first woman to receive the Chilean National Prize for Natural Sciences.
2006: Chinese-American biochemist Yizhi Jane Tao led a team of researchers to become the first to map the atomic structure of Influenza A, contributing to antiviral research.
2006: Parasitologist Susan Lim became the first Malaysian scientist elected to the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature.
2006: Merieme Chadid became the first Moroccan person and the first female astronomer to travel to Antarctica, leading an international team of scientists in the installation of a major observatory in the South Pole.
2006: American computer scientist Frances E. Allen won the Turing Award for "pioneering contributions to the theory and practice of optimizing compiler techniques that laid the foundation for modern optimizing compilers and automatic parallel execution". She was the first woman to win the award.
2006: Canadian-American computer scientist Maria Klawe became the president of Harvey Mudd College.
2007: Using satellite imagery, Egyptian geomorphologist Eman Ghoneim discovered traces of an 11,000-year-old mega lake in the Sahara Desert. The discovery shed light on the origins of the largest modern groundwater reservoir in the world.
2007: Physicist Ibtesam Badhrees was the first Saudi Arabian woman to become a member of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN).
2008: French virologist Françoise Barré-Sinoussi received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, shared with Harald zur Hausen and Luc Montagnier, "for their discovery of HIV, human immunodeficiency virus".
2008: American-born Australian Penny Sackett became Australia's first female Chief Scientist.
2008: American computer scientist Barbara Liskov won the Turing Award for "contributions to practical and theoretical foundations of programming language and system design, especially related to data abstraction, fault tolerance, and distributed computing".
2009: American molecular biologist Carol W. Greider received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine along with Elizabeth H. Blackburn and Jack W. Szostak "for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase".
2009: Israeli crystallographer Ada E. Yonath, along with Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas A. Steitz, received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome".
2009: Chinese geneticist Zeng Fanyi and her research team published their experiment results proving that induced pluripotent stem cells can be used to generate whole mammalian bodies – in this case, live mice.
2010s
2010: Marcia McNutt became the first female director of the United States Geological Survey.
2011: Kazakhstani neuroscience student and computer hacker Alexandra Elbakyan launched Sci-Hub, a website that provides users with pirated copies of scholarly scientific papers. Within five years, Sci-Hub grew to contain 60 million papers and recorded over 42 million annual downloads by users. Elbakyan was finally sued by major academic publishing company Elsevier, and Sci-Hub was subsequently taken down, but it reappeared under different domain names.
2011: Taiwanese-American astrophysicist Chung-Pei Ma led a team of scientists in discovering two of the largest black holes ever observed.
2012: Computer scientist and cryptographer Shafi Goldwasser won the Turing award for her contributions to cryptography and complexity theory.
2013: Canadian genetic specialist Turi King identified the 500-year-old skeletal remains of King Richard III.
2013: Kenyan ichthyologist Dorothy Wanja Nyingi published the first guide to freshwater fish species of Kenya.
2014: Norwegian psychologist and neuroscientist May-Britt Moser received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, shared with Edvard Moser and John O'Keefe, "for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain".
2014: American paleoclimatologist and marine geologist Maureen Raymo became the first woman to be awarded the Wollaston Medal, the highest award of the Geological Society of London.
2014: American theoretical physicist Shirley Ann Jackson was awarded the National Medal of Science. Jackson had been the first African-American woman to receive a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) during the early 1970s, and the first woman to chair the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
2014: Iranian mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani became the first woman to receive the Fields Medal, for her work in "the dynamics and geometry of Riemann surfaces and their moduli spaces".
2015: Chinese medical scientist Tu Youyou received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, shared with William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura; she received it "for her discoveries concerning a novel therapy against Malaria".
2015: Asha de Vos became the first Sri Lankan person to receive a PhD in marine mammal research, completing her thesis on "Factors influencing blue whale aggregations off southern Sri Lanka" at the University of Western Australia.
2016: Marcia McNutt became the first female president of the American National Academy of Sciences.
2018: British astrophysicists Hiranya Peiris and Joanna Dunkley and Italian cosmologist Licia Verde were among 27 scientists awarded the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for their contributions to "detailed maps of the early universe that greatly improved our knowledge of the evolution of the cosmos and the fluctuations that seeded the formation of galaxies".
2018: British astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell received the special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for her scientific achievements and "inspiring leadership", worth $3 million. She donated the entirety of the prize money towards the creation of scholarships to assist women, underrepresented minorities and refugees who are pursuing the study of physics.
2018: Canadian physicist Donna Strickland received the Nobel Prize in Physics "for groundbreaking inventions in the field of laser physics"; she shared it with Arthur Ashkin and Gérard Mourou.
2018: Frances Arnold received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for the directed evolution of enzymes"; she shared it with George Smith and Gregory Winter, who received it "for the phage display of peptides and antibodies". This made Frances the first American woman to receive the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
2018: For the first time in history, women received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and the Nobel Prize in Physics in the same year.
2019: Mathematician Karen Uhlenbeck became the first woman to win the Abel Prize for "her pioneering achievements in geometric partial differential equations, gauge theory, and integrable systems, and for the fundamental impact of her work on analysis, geometry and mathematical physics".
2019: Imaging scientist Katie Bouman developed an algorithm that made the first visualization of a black hole possible using the Event Horizon Telescope. She was part of the team of over 200 people who implemented the project.
2020s
2020: The Nigerian Academy of Science elected epidemiologist/parasitologist Ekanem Braide as its first female president.
2020: Brazilian Scientist and Researcher Jaqueline Goes de Jesus, sequenced COVID-19 genome in 12 hours.
2020: Biochemists Jennifer Doudna (American) and Emmanuelle Charpentier (French) received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on CRISPR genome editing tool.
2020: Andrea M. Ghez received the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of a supermassive compact object.
2020: German-Turkish scientist Özlem Türeci is the co-founder and chief medical officer of BioNTech. Her team developed BNT162b2 (tozinameran (INN)), commonly known as the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
2020: British vaccinologist Sarah Gilbert leads the development and testing of a vaccine which becomes the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
2022: American chemist Carolyn R. Bertozzi received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her development of Bioorthogonal chemistry.
2023: Australian geomicrobiologist Jillian Banfield became the first female recipient of the van Leeuwenhoek Medal, which she received for her studies of complex microbial communities and their interaction with the environment.
See also
List of female scientists before the 20th century
Lists of women in science
Timeline of women in geology
Timeline of women in library science
Timeline of women in computing
Timeline of women in mathematics
Timeline of women in mathematics in the United States
Timeline of women in science in the United States
Timeline of women's education
Women in physics
References
External links
Famous female scientists: A timeline of pioneering women in science from the website of Dr Helen Klus
science
Science timelines
Women scientists | Timeline of women in science | [
"Technology"
] | 15,313 | [
"Women in science and technology",
"Women scientists"
] |
58,209,457 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QAMA%20Calculator | The QAMA Calculator is a calculator that requires users to provide a reasonable estimate of the answer before the precise answer is delivered. QAMA stands for Quick Approximate Mental Arithmetic.
Invented by Ilan Samson, it aims to get users to think first by estimating before they get the correct answer. Estimation is seen by many as an essential part of mathematics, and some believe that the presence and popularity of calculators could inhibit the use of estimation skills.
A physical version of the calculator was released for sale in 2014, with apps for smartphones and tablets developed in 2016.
References
Calculators | QAMA Calculator | [
"Mathematics",
"Technology"
] | 126 | [
"Calculators",
"Computing stubs"
] |
58,209,558 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas%20hydrate%20pingo | A gas hydrate pingo is a submarine dome structure formed by the accumulation of gas hydrates under the seafloor.
Formation and Location
Gas hydrate pingos contain reservoirs of gas hydrates, which are crystallized gas particles. The crystallized gas particles form when a gas particle is surrounded by water molecules. The water molecules create a lattice structure that encages the gas molecule when at low temperatures and high pressures (around 15 megapascals). Most gas hydrates contain methane, while other rare gas hydrates contain hydrogen sulfate or carbon dioxide. These submarine pingos are found along continental margins and in polar regions, especially in locations with methane seeps. These locations often have permafrost that is below sea level, but this permafrost is not required for gas hydrate pingo formation. An example of these different methods of pingo formation can be found on the coast of Angola, which formed from methane seeps, and off the Western Svalbard Margin, which formed from sub-sea permafrost. Other examples of gas hydrate pingos can be found along the Chilean and Brazilian margin.
Effects on Climate and Environment
Gas hydrates have been studied as a possible form of clean energy, as they could serve as additional natural gas reservoirs. However, as global temperature rises, these gas hydrates become unstable, meaning that they could release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and contribute to global warming. Gas hydrate pingos can also become unstable due to the high seismic activity in their vicinity, since these formations are often along continental margins and other areas of seismic interest.
Gas hydrate pingos and their surrounding regions are hosts to various organisms, including many types of aquatic worms, mussels, clams, marine snails, shrimp and bacteria. Most of these organisms perform methanogenesis as a form of anaerobic respiration. A study in the Norwegian Sea found that gas hydrate pingos were covered by bacterial mats and Polychaete tubeworms that are associated with methane.
References
Barents Sea
Geomorphology
Ground freezing
Norwegian Sea
Palsas
Periglacial landforms
Geologic domes
Geography of the Arctic
Marine geology | Gas hydrate pingo | [
"Biology"
] | 440 | [
"Biogeomorphology",
"Palsas"
] |
58,209,989 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reference%20ecosystem | A reference ecosystem, also known as an ecological reference, is a "community of organisms able to act as a model or benchmark for restoration." Reference ecosystems usually include remnant natural areas that have not been degraded by human activities such as agriculture, logging, development, fire suppression, or non-native species invasion. Reference ecosystems are ideally complete with natural flora, fauna, abiotic elements, ecological functions, processes, and successional states. Multiple reference ecosystems may be pieced together to form the model upon which an ecological restoration project may be based.
References
Ecological restoration
Conservation biology
Ecology terminology
Habitats
Ecosystems | Reference ecosystem | [
"Chemistry",
"Engineering",
"Biology"
] | 122 | [
"Ecology terminology",
"Symbiosis",
"Ecological restoration",
"Ecosystems",
"Environmental engineering",
"Conservation biology"
] |
58,210,527 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remnant%20natural%20area | A remnant natural area, also known as remnant habitat, is an ecological community containing native flora and fauna that has not been significantly disturbed by destructive activities such as agriculture, logging, pollution, development, fire suppression, or non-native species invasion. The more disturbed an area has been, the less characteristic it becomes of remnant habitat. Remnant areas are also described as "biologically intact" or "ecologically intact."
Remnant natural areas are often used as reference ecosystems in ecological restoration projects.
Ecology
A remnant natural area can be described in terms of its natural quality or biological integrity, which is the extent to which it has the internal biodiversity and abiotic elements to replicate itself over time. Another definition of biological integrity is "the capability of supporting and maintaining a balanced, integrated, adaptive community of organisms having a species composition, diversity, and functional organization comparable to that of the natural habitat of the region." Abiotic elements determining the quality of a natural area may include factors such as hydrologic connectivity or fire. In areas that have been dredged, drained, or dammed, the altered hydrology can destroy a remnant natural area. Similarly, too much or too little fire can degrade or destroy a remnant natural area.
Remnant natural areas are characterized by the presence of "conservative" plants and animals—organisms that are restricted to or highly characteristic of areas that have not been disturbed by humans. Tools to measure aspects of natural areas quality in remnant areas include Floristic Quality Assessment and the Macroinvertebrate Community Index.
Examples
In the upper Midwestern United States, remnant natural areas date prior to European settlement, going back to the end of the Wisconsinian Glaciation approximately 15,000 years ago. Diverse remnant plant community examples in that region include tallgrass prairie, beech-maple forest, savannas, bogs, and fens. Remnant natural areas in Illinois have largely been classified by the Illinois Natural Areas Inventory as Category I "high quality terrestrial or wetland natural communities."
In Australia, remnant habitats are sometimes called "bushland," and include communities such as forest, woodland, grasslands, mallee, coastal heathland, and rainforest.
References
Conservation biology
Ecology terminology
Habitats | Remnant natural area | [
"Biology"
] | 444 | [
"Ecology terminology",
"Conservation biology"
] |
58,210,767 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky%20Q | Sky Q is a subscription-based television and entertainment service operated by British satellite television provider Sky, as a part of its operations in Austria and Germany, Ireland, Italy and in the UK. The name also refers to the Sky Q set-top box.
Sky Q launched in 2016 replacing the previous Sky+ and Sky X services. Sky Q has been referred to as a "multimedia platform" that combines conventional television with on-demand and catch-up services, as well as third-party services. It includes a PVR set top box, a multiroom set top box, a dedicated broadband-connected "hub", and applications for mobile and desktop devices. As of April 2018, Sky Q was in 2.5 million homes in the UK, Ireland and Italy. In July 2018, Sky reported that there were 3.6 million Sky Q customers.
Launch
Sky Q was first announced by Sky UK in January 2016, and was released in the UK in March 2016.
Sky did not roll out Sky Q in Germany, Austria and Italy immediately, but released a modified version of the Sky Q set top box by Autumn 2016, named Sky+ Pro in Germany and Austria, and My Sky in Italy. Like Sky Q, the box is capable of UHD resolution and has a built-in Wi-Fi router, but it omits significant Sky Q features. Sky Italia later launched Sky Q in Italy in November 2017, and Sky Deutschland did so in Germany and Austria in May 2018. In contrast to the UK, Ireland and Italy (especially where Sky Italia launched Sky Q separately from My Sky), existing customers in Germany and Austria could receive Sky Q through a free software update on existing Sky+ Pro receivers.
Hardware
The Sky Q "Silver" set top box (called "Platinum" in Italy) has a 2 terabyte hard disk and 12 satellite tuners, allowing up to six live TV channels to be recorded while watching a seventh. The box is capable of receiving and displaying 4K resolution "ultra-high-definition" (UHD) broadcasts, which were started by Sky in the UK in August 2016.
The standard Sky Q box has 1 terabyte of storage and 8 tuners, supporting broadcasts up to 1080p ("Full HD"). A third box, Sky Q Mini, acts as a secondary device without tuners or hard drives that merely networks to the main box to allow the Sky Q service to be used in other rooms, and can also be used as a Wi-Fi "extender" to provide stable broadband connections.
The Sky Q remote control is fully redesigned compared to the earlier Sky+ and Sky+ HD versions, and has a large touchpad for scrolling and selecting within the user interface. The latest version of the remote does not feature a touch interface anymore.
Software
Using the Sky Q apps designed for the Android and iOS operating systems, Sky Q recordings at home can be watched on mobile devices on the go. Sky Q also offers access to box sets on Sky Store. In 2019, Sky teamed up with Netflix to offer that service with Sky Q for £3 per month, cheaper than a standard Netflix subscription, called "Ultimate On Demand". Disney+ is also fully integrated in Sky Q.
In August 2017, Sky added Dolby Atmos sound support on Sky Q. High-dynamic-range (HDR) broadcasts began on 27 May 2020.
Sky Group signed the deal with ViacomCBS (now Paramount Global) to launch Paramount+ in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Austria by 2022. The app is available on Sky Q, with Sky Cinema subscribers having access to Paramount+ at no charge.
Sky Q over Internet
In January 2017, Sky plc's earnings report for 2016 indicated that it would launch a dish-less version of Sky Q service delivered through broadband Internet, with UK rollout projected for 2018. No further developments on the UK rollout have emerged since then.
The Austrian version, named Sky X, was launched in March 2019, replacing a version of Now TV operated in the country as Sky Ticket. The Italian version, named Sky Q Fibra, was launched in September 2019; unlike the Austrian Sky X, the Italian Sky Q Fibra co-exists with Now TV. Both Austrian and Italian Internet television services slightly differ from Sky Q satellite service in terms of features.
On 27 September 2022, Sky announced a new streaming box called Sky Stream, which launched on 18 October 2022.
Reception
Sky Q mostly received positive critical reception in the UK. Alphr.com in April 2018 called the service "pure brilliance" and that it "keeps getting better", rating it 5 out of 5. TrustedReviews in April 2019 rated it 4.5 stars out of 5, praising the interface, on-the-go recordings, UHD resolution and Netflix integration, while criticising that it isn't cheap. Another review from 2019, by T3, also rated it 5 stars out of 5, with the verdict stating "Sky Q was already the best viewing experience money could buy and now, with Netflix seamlessly integrated into its UI, it has powered even further away from its rivals." The cons were stated to be lack of Amazon Prime Video and HDR. Stuff also rated it 5 stars out of 5 as of January 2019, commenting that it "works flawlessly and could change the way you watch TV", although adding that "Sky Q isn't for everyone (at least not yet)" and that for some people its "extra features will look like luxuries that might not be worth the extra expense". TechRadar rated it 4.5 stars out of 5, calling it the "best TV subscription service on the planet", with its main criticisms being lack of Amazon Prime Video and HDR. A What Hi-Fi? review from April 2019 gave it 5 stars out of 5, praising the content and multi-room ability, while criticising it for being expensive and the touchpad remote being "fiddly".
Awards
TrustedReviews named Sky Q the "Home Entertainment Product of the Year" in 2016, beating PlayStation 4 and Xbox One S. Sky Q was rated "Best TV platform" by T3 in its 2018 awards. Sky Q was the 2019 award winner by the What Hi-Fi? magazine.
Advertising
Actor Idris Elba is used by Sky UK for its advertising campaigns.
See also
Now
Digibox (Sky's older set-top boxes)
References
External links
Sky Group
Digital video recorders
Products introduced in 2016
Audiovisual introductions in 2016
Video storage
Broadband | Sky Q | [
"Technology"
] | 1,342 | [
"Digital video recorders",
"Recording devices"
] |
58,210,781 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-code%20development%20platform | No-code development platforms (NCDPs) allow creating application software through graphical user interfaces and configuration instead of traditional computer programming based on writing code.
As with low-code development platforms, it is meant to expedite application development, but unlike low-code, no-code development involves no code writing. This is usually done by offering prebuilt templates for building apps. In the 2010s, both of these types of platforms increased in popularity as companies dealt with a limited supply of competent software developers.
No-code development is closely related to visual programming languages.
Use
No-code tools are often designed with line of business users in mind as opposed to traditional IT.
The potential benefits of using a NCDP include:
Agility - NCDPs typically provide some degree of templated user-interface and user experience functionality for common needs such as forms, workflows, and data display allowing creators to expedite parts of the app creation process.
Richness - NCDPs which at one point were limited to more basic application functions increasingly provide a level of feature-richness and integrations that allows users to design, develop, and deploy apps that meet specific business needs.
See also
Flow-based programming
List of online database creator apps
Low-code development platforms
Rapid application development
Lean software development
Platform as a service
References
External links
Pattani, Aneri (16 November 2016) "A coding revolution in the office cube sends message of change to IT". CNBC. Retrieved 15 November 2017.
Enterprise architecture
Software development | No-code development platform | [
"Technology",
"Engineering"
] | 310 | [
"Software engineering",
"Computer occupations",
"Software development"
] |
58,210,811 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth%20Hillman | Elizabeth M. C. Hillman is a British-born academic who is Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Radiology at Columbia University. She was awarded the 2011 Adolph Lomb Medal from The Optical Society and the 2018 SPIE Biophotonics Technology Innovator Award.
Education
Hillman studied physics at University College London, and graduated with a combined B.Sc. and M.Sc. degree in 1998. She earned her PhD in Medical Physics and Bioengineering in 2002. After completing her thesis, supervised by Jeremy C. Hebden and David Delpy, she joined a biotech start-up in Boston. During her PhD, she used optical tomography to image biological tissue.
Career
Hillman joined Massachusetts General Hospital as a postdoctoral research fellow in 2003. She was appointed assistant professor at Columbia University in 2006. She set up the Laboratory for Functional Optical Imaging and developed new techniques for in vivo optical imaging. She developed an optical imaging technique that used dynamic contrast to image the anatomy of small animals. She licensed this Dynamic Contrast molecular imaging technique to CRi, now PerkinElmer. In 2008, she was awarded the Columbia Rodriguez Junior Faculty Award. She was awarded the Optical Society of America’s Adolph Lomb medal in 2011. In 2010, she was awarded a National Science Foundation CAREER Award to study in vivo Interventional Microscopy. She has explored several optical imaging techniques for biomedical research. She has received over thirty large grants to support her research.
In 2017, Hillman began to work at Columbia's Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute. With Francesco Pavone, Hillman founded The Optical Society Optics and the Brain Topical Meeting in 2015. She identified that the vascular endothelium is important in regulation of blood flow in the brain. She has written for Scientific American. She was elected to the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering in 2017. She has developed tools for high speed imaging of the activity in the whole brain. Hillman pioneered Swept, Confocally-Aligned Planar Excitation (SCAPE) microscopy, which combines light-sheet microscopy and laser scanning confocal microscopy. The technique uses a single objective lens to excite and detect fluorescence from a sample. She has also developed laminar optical tomography and advanced applications of two-photon microscopy.
Awards and honors
2007, Wallace H Coulter Foundation Early Career Award
2007, Human Frontier of Science Program Young Investigator Award
2008, Columbia Rodriguez Junior Faculty Award
2010, National Science Foundation Career award
2011, Adolph Lomb Medal from The Optical Society
2015, Fellow of The Optical Society
2018, SPIE Biophotonics Technology Innovator Award
References
American biomedical engineers
Alumni of University College London
Harvard Medical School faculty
Columbia University faculty
British women physicists
British physicists
Women in optics
Microscopists | Elizabeth Hillman | [
"Chemistry"
] | 564 | [
"Microscopists",
"Microscopy"
] |
58,211,636 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinnear%E2%80%93Perren%20reaction | In organophosphorus chemistry, the Kinnear–Perren reaction (sometimes the Clay-Kinnear-Perren reaction) is used to prepare alkylphosphonyl dichlorides (RP(O)Cl2) and alkylphosphonate esters (RP(O)(OR')2). The reactants are alkyl chloride, phosphorus trichloride, and aluminium trichloride as catalyst. The reaction proceeds via the alkyltrichlorophosphonium salt:
RCl + PCl3 + AlCl3 → [RPCl3]+AlCl4−
Reduction of this trichlorophosphonium intermediate with aluminium powder gives alkyldichlorophosphines (RPCl2).
Partial hydrolysis of the same intermediate gives the alkylphosphonyl dichloride:
[RPCl3]+AlCl4− + H2O → RP(O)Cl2 + AlCl3 + 2 HCl
The reaction was first reported by Clay and expanded upon by Kinnear and Perren, who demonstrated that the four chlorinated methanes (CH4−xClx) give the corresponding CH3-, CH2Cl-, CHCl2-, and CCl3-substituted derivatives. They also demonstrated workup with hydrogen sulfide to give the alkylthiophosphoryl dichlorides.
References
Substitution reactions
Name reactions | Kinnear–Perren reaction | [
"Chemistry"
] | 312 | [
"Name reactions"
] |
64,800,090 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacetime%20wave%20packets | A Spacetime wave packet is a spatial-temporal light structure with a one-to-one correlation between spatial and temporal frequencies. In particular, their group velocity in free space can be controlled arbitrarily from sub-luminal to super-luminal speeds without needing to control the dispersion of the medium it is propagating within. Their behavior under refraction does not follow the normal expectations given by Snell's law. Monochromatic Gaussian beam is shown to be transformed into spacetime wave packets under Lorentz transformation, thus any monochromatic Gaussian beam observed in a reference frame moving at relativistic velocity appears as spacetime wave packets.
References
Light
Photons
Refraction
Velocity | Spacetime wave packets | [
"Physics"
] | 151 | [
"Physical phenomena",
"Refraction",
"Spectrum (physical sciences)",
"Physical quantities",
"Electromagnetic spectrum",
"Optical phenomena",
"Waves",
"Motion (physics)",
"Light",
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"Velocity",
"Wikipedia categories named after physical quantities"
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64,800,354 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morindin | Morindin is an anthraquinone glycoside present in several Morinda species, especially M. tinctoria (the Indian mulberry tree) and M. citrifolia (noni). Chemical or enzymatic hydrolysis of morindin yields its bright red aglycone, morindone.
The structure and formula of morindin were first elucidated by Thomas Edward Thorpe and T. H. Greenall in 1887.
References
Anthraquinone dyes
Anthraquinone glycosides
Natural dyes
Trihydroxyanthraquinones | Morindin | [
"Chemistry"
] | 125 | [
"Organic compounds",
"Organic compound stubs",
"Organic chemistry stubs"
] |
64,800,626 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik%20V%20COVID-19%20vaccine | Sputnik V (, the brand name from the Russian Direct Investment Fund or RDIF) or Gam-COVID-Vac (, the name under which it is legally registered and produced) is an adenovirus viral vector vaccine for COVID-19 developed by the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology in Russia. It is the world's first registered combination vector vaccine for the prevention of COVID-19, having been registered on 11 August 2020 by the Russian Ministry of Health.
Gam-COVID-Vac was initially approved for distribution in Russia and then in 59 other countries (as of April 2021) on the preliminary results of Phase I–II studies eventually published on 4 September 2020. Approval in early August of Gam-COVID-Vac was met with criticism in mass media and discussions in the scientific community as to whether approval was justified in the absence of robust scientific research confirming safety and efficacy. A large-scale Brazilian study from Dec. 2020 to May 2021 confirmed its effectiveness and safety, as of Oxford–AstraZeneca's, i.e. above Sinopharm BIBP's.
Emergency mass-distribution of the vaccine began in December 2020 in countries including Russia, Argentina, Belarus, Hungary, Serbia, Pakistan (in limited quantities), the Philippines (in limited quantities), and the United Arab Emirates. The Sputnik V is currently registered and certified in 71 countries. However, as of April 2022 less than 2.5% of the people vaccinated worldwide have taken a Sputnik V dose. In early 2022, as a result of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the United States and other countries placed the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) on the list of sanctioned Russian entities and people, significantly reducing Sputnik V's future commercial prospects.
The Gam-COVID-Vac vaccine itself is available in two forms: frozen (vaccine storage: below −18 °C) and liquid (vaccine storage: from +2 to +8 °C, produced a little). In addition to the main vaccine, vaccines and its derivatives were registered: Gam-COVID-Vac-Lyo (, no data on use), Sputnik Light (, used for revaccination, as well as vaccination of foreigners in Russia), Gam-COVID-Vac-M (, for vaccination of adolescents 12–17 years old).
Medical uses
The vaccine can be formulated in two ways: as a ready-to-use solution in water that is frozen at the common home-freezer storage temperature of or lower, and as a freeze-dried (lyophilized) powder, "Gam-COVID-Vac-Lyo", which can be stored at . The freeze-dried powder must be reconstituted with sterile water before use. The lyophilized formulation of Gam-COVID-Vac is similar to the smallpox vaccine, circumventing the need for continuous "colder chain" or cold-chain storage – as required for the Pfizer–BioNTech and Moderna vaccines – and allowing transportation to remote locations with reduced risk of vaccine spoilage.
The first dose (based on Ad26) is administered on the first day, and the second dose (based on Ad5) is administered on the 21st day to boost immune response. Both doses are administered into the deltoid muscle.
Sputnik Light is a registered single-dose vaccine consisting of only the first dose of Sputnik V. It is intended for areas with acute outbreaks and it will be used as a third (booster) dose for those who have received Sputnik V at least 6 months earlier.
On August 11, 2021, the developers of the Sputnik V vaccine offered its 'Sputnik Light' (Ad26) vaccine to Pfizer for trial against the Delta variant.
Effectiveness
The effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines, or any other vaccine, is determined in a mass vaccination in a "real-world" setting (not in clinical trials). This is an assessment of how well the vaccine protects people from outcomes such as infection, symptomatic illness, hospitalization, and death. Effectiveness is evaluated outside of clinical trials, which by contrast, evaluate the efficacy of the vaccine. A vaccine is generally considered effective if the estimate is ≥50% with a >30% lower limit of the 95% confidence interval. Effectiveness is generally expected to slowly decrease over time.
On 25 August, a preliminary version of a case-control study indicated an unadjusted effectiveness of about 50% against symptomatic disease. The authors expected that adjusting for age and sex would increase the estimate, citing an increase from 66% to 81% when adjusting the data for effectiveness against hospitalization.
A large-scale study in Buenos Aires from December 29, 2020, to May 15, 2021, with 663,602 participants aged 60 and older who received Spunik V, the Oxford–AstraZeneca vaccine, or the Sinopharm BIBP vaccine observed an overall efficacy of against COVID-19-related deaths. The study noted that the three vaccines showed a similar effectiveness against death, and that the effectiveness against infection was similar to that of the Oxford-Astrazeneca vaccine and greater than that of the Sinopharm BIBP vaccine.
A large-scale study was conducted in Mexico. The study compared 793,487 adults vaccinated with different vaccines with 4,792,338 unvaccinated adults between December 24, 2020, and September 27, 2021.The results were as follows:
Efficacy
The vaccine efficacy of a COVID-19 vaccine or any other vaccine is evaluated in controlled clinical trials. It is an estimate of how many people who received the vaccine got the disease compared to how many people who got a placebo had the same outcome. On 2 February 2021, an interim analysis from the Moscow trial was published in The Lancet reporting an efficacy of after the second dose for all age groups, with no unusual side effects. For the age group of 60 years and older, the reported efficacy was 91.8%. On 12 May, a group of biostatisticians from Russia, the US, France, Italy and the Netherlands questioned the efficacy results in a correspondence in The Lancet, highlighting data discrepancies, substandard reporting, apparent errors and numerical inconsistencies and a very unlikely homogeneity in vaccine efficacy across age groups.
The authors responded by saying that they had provided the regulatory authorities with all the data necessary for obtaining approval, and that the data included with the paper were enough for readers to confirm the reported vaccine efficacy. They also addressed the protocol queries, and said numerical inconsistencies were "simple typing errors that were formally corrected".
In June 2022 a group of biostatisticians from Australia and Singapore published a paper suggesting that the almost identical efficacy for every age group from the Lancet paper is very unlikely to occur in genuine experimental data. The group called for a thorough investigation of the Lancet article, as well as the immediate release of anonymized individual patient data to an unbiased statistical expert, and suggested the article should be retracted. The Lancet Group recognized the concerns about the validity of data published in the article and invited the authors of the article to respond to these latest questions.
Adverse effects
Side effects are mostly mild and similar to other adenovirus vector vaccines such as the Oxford-AstraZeneca and the Janssen vaccines. However, unlike the Oxford-AstraZeneca and Janssen vaccines evidence does not suggest a risk of vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia. Although a report from Argentina published in the New England Journal of Medicine described fatal vaccine-induced thrombocytopenia and thrombosis in a young woman after receipt of Sputnik-V.
Pharmacology
Gam-COVID-Vac is a viral vector vaccine based on two recombinant replication-defective human adenoviruses: Ad26 (serotype 26) and Ad5 (serotype 5) replicated in HEK 293 cells. The viruses contain the gene that encodes the full-length spike protein (S) of SARS-CoV-2 to stimulate an immune response. Adenoviral vectors for expression of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein have also been used in two other COVID-19 vaccines. One is the Janssen COVID-19 vaccine, which utilizes the Ad26COV2 viral vector based on the human virus Ad26. For this vaccine, the cell line PER.C6 is used to replicate the vector. Another one, the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID‑19 vaccine, uses chimpanzee adenovirus (ChAdOx1) as the vector. For both the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 and Gam-COVID-Vac vaccines the producer cells for the production of non-replicating adenoviral vectors were obtained from the HEK 293 cell line. Each dose of Gam-COVID-Vac contains (1.0 ± 0.5) × 10 virus particles.
Both Ad26 and Ad5 were modified to remove the E1 gene to prevent replication outside the HEK 293 cells. For the production of the vaccine, to propagate adenoviral vectors in which the E1 gene was deleted, HEK 293 cells are used, which express several adenoviral genes, including E1. However, although rare, homologous recombination between the inserted cellular sequence and the vector sequence can restore the replication capacity to the vector, with less than 100 replicating adenovirus particles per dose of the vaccine.
Chemistry
The other ingredients (excipients) are the same, both quantitatively and qualitatively, in the two doses.
Tris(hydroxymethyl)aminomethane (buffer)
Sodium chloride (salt)
Sucrose (sugar)
Magnesium chloride hexahydrate
Disodium EDTA dihydrate (a chelation ligand; sequestrant)
Polysorbate 80
Ethanol 95%
Water
No adjuvants and no other components or ingredients should be included in the vaccine.
Manufacturing
Large quantities of both adenoviruses are produced by HEK 293 cells that have the E1 gene necessary for viral replication. Rarely, Ad5 can acquire the E1 gene from the HEK 293 cells, restoring its ability to replicate. Gamaleya has set an acceptable limit of 5,000 replicating virus particles per vaccine dose, and quality control documents state that tested batches contain less than 100 replicating virus particles per dose.
The production of the frozen liquid formulation was developed for large-scale use, it is cheaper and easier to manufacture. The production of the freeze-dried formulation takes much more time and resources, although it is more convenient for storage and transportation. It was developed with vaccine delivery to hard-to-reach regions of Russia in mind.
According to Russian media, the mass production of the Gam-COVID-Vac was launched by 15 August. By that moment, the Russian Federation has already received applications from 20 countries for the supply of 1billion doses of vaccine. Three facilities were able to produce about a million doses per month at each with a potential doubling of capacity by winter. By the end of 2020, Gamaleya Research Institute's production, according to an interview with the organization's spokesperson, was planned to produce 3–5million doses.
As of March 2021, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) has licensed production in India, China, South Korea and Brazil. In the EU, RDIF has signed production agreements. By the end of March 2021 RDIF anticipates 33million doses will have been manufactured in Russia, less than 5% of which will have been exported.
An agreement for the production of over 100million doses of vaccine in India was made with Dr. Reddy's Laboratories, which on 11 January 2021 submitted mid-stage trial data to the Indian regulator and recommended moving onto late-stage trials. The RDIF announced plans to sell 100million doses to India, 35million to Uzbekistan, and 32million to Mexico, as well as 25million each to Nepal and Egypt. In India, the first dose of Sputnik V vaccine was administered on 14 May 2021 at Hyderabad. Argentina became the first Latin American country to produce it. Large-scale production started in June 2021. As of 31 December 2021 277 million doses were manufactured, mostly (265 million) in Russia.
On 28 February 2022, as a result of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the United States placed RDIF and its chief executive on its list of sanctioned Russian entities and people. The European Union, Ukraine, United Kingdom and Australia followed later in February and in March. This significantly reduces vaccine's future commercial prospects.
History
The Gam-COVID-Vac vaccine was developed by a cellular microbiologists team of the government-backed Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology. The group was led by MD and RAS associate member Denis Logunov, who also worked on vaccines for the Ebolavirus and the MERS-coronavirus.
In May 2020, the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology announced that it had developed the vaccine without serious side effects. By August 2020, phases I and II of two clinical trials (involving 38 patients each) were completed. Only one of them used the formulation which later obtained marketing authorization under limited conditions. This vaccine was given the trade name "Sputnik V", after the world's first artificial satellite.
During preclinical and clinical trials, 38 participants who received one or two doses of the Gam-COVID-Vac vaccine had produced antibodies against SARS-CoV-2's spike protein, including potent neutralizing antibodies that inactivate viral particles. On 11 August 2020, the Russian minister of Health Mikhail Murashko announced at a government briefing with the participation of President Vladimir Putin regulatory approval of the vaccine for widespread use. The state registration of the vaccine was carried out "conditionally" with post-marketing measures according to the decree of the Government of the Russian Federation. The registration certificate for the vaccine stated that it could not be used widely in Russia until 1 January 2021, and before that, it may be provided to "a small number of citizens from vulnerable groups", such as medical staff and the elderly, according to a Ministry of Health spokesperson. The license under register number No. ЛП-006395 (LP-006395) was issued on 11 August by the Russian Ministry of Health. Although the announcement was made even before the vaccine candidate had been entered into Phase III trials, the practice of marketing authorization "on conditions" also exists in other countries. On 26 August, certificate No. ЛП-006423 (LP-006423) was issued for the lyophilized formulation "Gam-COVID-Vac-Lyo".
On 12 June 2021, developers announced that they had developed and tested a nasal vaccine for children aged 8 to 12, with no side effects found, and that they expected to release it on 15 September 2021.
Clinical trials
Phase I–II
A phase I safety trial began on 18 June 2020. On 4 September 2020, data on 76 participants in a phase I–II trial were published, indicating preliminary evidence of safety and an immune response. The results were challenged by international vaccine scientists as being incomplete, suspicious, and unreliable when identical data were reported for many of the trial participants, but the authors responded that there was a small sample size of nine, and the measured results of titration could only take discrete values (800, 1600, 3200, 6400). Coupled with the observation that values tended to reach a plateau after three to four weeks, they contend that it is not unlikely that several participants would show identical results for days 21 to 28.
Phase III
In early November 2020, Israel Hadassah Medical Center director-general Zeev Rotstein stated that Hadassah's branch in Moscow's Skolkovo Innovation Center was collaborating on a phase III clinical trial.
The ongoing phase III study is a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multi-centre clinical trial involving 40,000 volunteers in Moscow, and is scheduled to run until May 2021. In 2020–2021, phase III clinical studies were also being conducted in Belarus, UAE, India, Kazakhstan and Venezuela.
On April 13, 2021, India's health ministry said its drug regulator had found that safety and immunogenicity data from a local trial of Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine was comparable to that of a late-stage trial done in Russia.
Variants
In May 2021, a study by researchers of the National University of Córdoba, Argentina, found that the vaccine produced antibodies capable of neutralizing the Gamma variant.
A study in Argentina found that neutralization is maintained against Alpha and Lambda and reduced against Gamma. The degree of reduction, however, does not necessarily imply reduced protection.
A small study of 12 serum samples found that antibodies from the vaccine effectively neutralize the Alpha variant, with moderately reduced neutralization against the E484K substitution (median 2.8 fold reduction). However, neutralization of the Beta variant was markedly reduced (median 6.1 fold reduction).
Authorizations
In August 2020, British and American officials stated that the Gam-COVID-Vac vaccine would likely be rejected due to concerns that the normally rigorous process of vaccine clinical testing was not followed.
As of December 2020, Belarus and Argentina granted emergency use authorization for the vector-based vaccine. On 21 January 2021, Hungary became the first European Union country to register the shot for emergency use, as well as the United Arab Emirates in the Persian Gulf region.
On 19 January 2021, the Russian authorities applied for the registration of Sputnik V in the European Union, according to the RDIF. On 10 February, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said that they had "not received an application for a rolling review or a marketing authorisation for the vaccine". The developers have only expressed their interest that the vaccine be considered for a rolling review, but EMA's Human Medicines Committee (CHMP) and the COVID-19 EMA pandemic Task Force (COVID-ETF) need to give their agreement first before developers can submit their application for initiation of the rolling review process. On 4 March 2021, the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the EMA started a rolling review of Sputnik V. The EU applicant is R-Pharm Germany GmbH. On 16 June, Reuters reported that approval of Sputnik V will be delayed at least until September because not all the necessary clinical data has been submitted by the deadline. As of June 2021, Sputnik V is under rolling review process by EMA, but the marketing authorisation application was not submitted yet.
Emergency use has also been authorized in Algeria, Bolivia, Serbia, the Palestinian territories, and Mexico.
On 25 January 2021, Iran approved the vaccine, with Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif saying the country hopes to begin purchases and start joint production of the shot "in the near future", after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei banned the government from importing vaccines from the United States and United Kingdom.
The Czech Republic was also considering buying Sputnik V, and Prime Minister Andrej Babis dismissed the minister of health, Jan Blatný, who was a loud opponent to the use of Sputnik V.
On 4 March 2021, EMA's human medicines committee (CHMP) has started a rolling review of Sputnik V (Gam-COVID-Vac), a COVID-19 vaccine developed by Russia's Gamaleya National Centre of Epidemiology and Microbiology. When asked about the prospect of Austria giving Sputnik V the approval (as some other European countries chose to do), EMA management board chair Christa Wirthumer-Hoche pointed to the fact there was not yet sufficient safety data about those who had already been given the vaccine. "We could have Sputnik V on the market in future, when we've examined the necessary data," she said, adding that the vaccine needed to match up to European criteria on quality control and efficacy.
On 18 March 2021, German regional leaders including State Premiers and the mayor of Berlin called for the swift approval of the Russian vaccine by the European Medicines Agency to counteract the acute shortages of effective vaccines in Europe. German medical experts have recommended its approval also, and consider the Sputnik Vaccine "clever" and "highly safe".
On 19 March 2021, the Philippine Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorization for Sputnik V, the fourth COVID-19 vaccine to be given authorization. The Philippine government planned to buy 20million doses of the vaccine.
On 12 April 2021, India approved the use of Sputnik V vaccine for emergency use against COVID-19 based on strong immunogenicity data.
As of 12 April 2021, 62 countries had granted Sputnik V emergency use authorization.
On 27 April 2021, Bangladesh approved the use of Sputnik V vaccine for emergency use.
On 30 April 2021, Turkey and Albania approved the use of Sputnik V vaccine for emergency use.
Slovakia
On 1 March 2021, Slovakia bought 2million doses of the Sputnik V vaccine. Slovakia received the first batch of 200,000, and expected to receive another 800,000 doses in March and April. Another 1million doses were set to arrive in May and June.
On 8 April, Slovakia's drug regulator said that the Sputnik V vaccine it received did "not have the same characteristics and properties" as the version endorsed by The Lancet. The Slovak State Institute for Drug Control stated that Sputnik V has not yet been approved for use, as the first 200,000 doses received on 31 March were different from the product currently being reviewed by the EMA as well as from the vaccine used in studies published in The Lancet. The producers have failed to reply to requests for documentation, and approximately 80% of the data was not supplied even after repeated requests. Due to the inconsistencies, it was not possible to review the safety and efficacy of the vaccine. Russian Direct Investment Fund replied that Slovakian laboratory which tested the vaccine was not certified by the EU.
Slovak Prime Minister Igor Matovič resigned on 30 March, due to the political crisis started by the order of the Sputnik V vaccine. On 6 April 2021, the RDIF asked to return the delivered first batch of the vaccine due to "multiple contract violations".
On 29 April 2021, the Slovak Ministry of Health published the Sputnik V contract. According to the contract, the RDIF as a seller is not liable for any adverse events following administering of the vaccine, nor its effectiveness. According to the Slovak lawyers, the contract is explicitly disadvantageous for Slovakia.
On 8 May 2021, the Russian Direct Investment Fund sent a letter to the Denník N newspaper requesting the removal of the statements of the drug regulator, calling them "unsubstantiated and false" and "fake news". RDIF threatened the newspaper with legal action if they didn't comply with the demand by 9 May. The newspaper's editors refused.
After the samples were sent to the EU-certified laboratory in Hungary and it was stated that "the results were satisfactory", the Slovakian government approved the vaccine, and announced that vaccination with Sputnik V would begin in June 2021, despite the negative review by Slovakia's drug regulator. Vaccinations started on 7 June, but without significant interest in the Sputnik V vaccine. Slovakia has no plans to order new batches and plans to sell or donate unused vaccines to Balkans countries. The registrations for vaccination were closed on 30 June. In July 2021, 160,000 doses of the vaccine from the first batch of 200,000 were shipped back to Russia. Temporary government approval for Sputnik V expired on 31 August 2021. In total, 18,500 people have been vaccinated.
Purchase of Sputnik V, which led to a political crisis and contributed to a fall of Igor Matovič's Cabinet was investigated by Slovak Police Force with the investigation levered against Marek Krajčí. No violation of the law was found in October 2022.
Brazil
On 26 April 2021, the Brazilian health regulator Anvisa rejected the use of Sputnik V, alleging a lack of consistent and reliable data and the presence of replicating adenovirus in the vaccine. RDIF and Sputnik V's official Twitter account said the decision may be politically motivated, pointing to a report by the United States government stating that the Office of Global Affairs persuaded Brazil to reject the vaccine. Several Brazilian states in the North and Northeast regions had already signed contracts for the acquisition of more than 30 million doses. Anvisa attributed its decision to a number of issues with the samples provided by Gamaleya for accreditation:
the adenovirus carrier in all samples was actually able to replicate in spite of manufacturer's declaration it was incapacitated
the methodology used by Gamaleya to check immune system response was unreliable and documentation provided made its verification impossible
the procedure of registering adverse effects was insufficient
Anvisa delegation was also not allowed into the Gamaleya laboratory for inspection
all presented studies were performed on vaccine doses produced in laboratory, rather than in the manufacturing facility supplying vaccine for the mass market, which makes the results not representative
Anvisa found issues in one of the factories in Russia that could impact sterility of the doses.
On April 29, 2021, the developers of Sputnik V said that Anvisa admitted not testing Sputnik V and that they would sue Anvisa in Brazil for defamation. At a press conference, Anvisa officials said that Gamaleya's own documents indicated multiple times the presence of replication-competent adenoviruses (RCAs) in ready vaccine batches and that the specifications accepted a level of RCAs 300 times greater than any other regulatory threshold. Anvisa presented the video of a meeting with representatives from Russia and Brazil where, when asked about the presence of RCAs, a representative from Russia reported problems with the cells and said that the vaccine could have been redeveloped, but it would take too long, so the developers instead chose to continue the research imposing an acceptable level of RCAs. Virologist Angela Rasmussen described this problem as a quality control issue that is not important for healthy people because adenoviruses are not important pathogens, but added that it could produce serious adverse effects in immunocompromised individuals. Medicinal chemist Derek Lowe commented that the presence of replicating adenoviruses is unlikely to cause any major problems, but it is a "completely unnecessary risk", that it certainly will harm some people, and that providing a product different from the one described in studies undermines the credibility of all manufacturing and quality control processes, adding that some posts on the official Sputnik V Twitter account constitute "aggressive political marketing" and some make invalid claims regarding the performance of competing vaccines, such as the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Anvisa said that the import ban can be reversed if Gamaleya clarifies the issues. Adenovirus infections cause only mild colds in healthy individuals, but they can cause life-threatening illnesses in immunodeficient individuals. The director of the Public Health Institute of Chile (ISP), Heriberto Garcia, said that the ISP would not necessarily reject the vaccine, even if it had replicating adenoviruses, because the risk of getting a common cold from the vaccine must be seen in light of the risk of contracting COVID-19 when not vaccinated. He also said that real-world data from Argentina and Mexico showed no adverse effects greater than those seen in people vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine or CoronaVac.
On June 4, Anvisa approved exceptional imports of Sputnik V, restricting it mainly to healthy adults and limiting it to only 1% of the population of 6 importing states, in order to manage risks through control and supervision of side effects. Anvisa said that the concern with replicating viruses has not been fully resolved, but that additional documents received indicate a substantially reduced acceptable amount. The new parameter would be in an FDA manual, which was not found. Anvisa also said that impurity and quality controls are insufficient and that the manufacturing plants must undergo corrections to meet WHO quality standards. As of 16 June, the same import conditions were extended to a total of 13 states. On August 5, the consortium of northeastern Brazilian states, corresponding to 7 of the 13 states, suspended the import of 37 million doses due to the restrictions imposed by Anvisa. These doses will supply Mexico, Argentina and Bolivia.
Further development
Heterologous prime-boost vaccination
On 21 December 2020 the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), the Gamaleya National Center, AstraZeneca and R-Pharm signed an agreement aimed at the development and implementation of a clinical research program to assess the immunogenicity and safety of the combined use of one of the components of the Sputnik V vaccine developed by the Gamaleya Center, and one of the components of the Oxford–AstraZeneca vaccine. The study program will last 6 months in several countries, and it is planned to involve 100 volunteers in each study program. On 9 February 2021, the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Azerbaijan allowed clinical studies in the country for the combined use of the Oxford–AstraZeneca vaccine and Sputnik Light, stating that the trials would begin before the end of February 2021. On February 20, 2021, in the official Sputnik V Twitter account it was stated that clinical trials have already started.
Society and culture
Economics
In Russia
The vaccine is free of charge to users in Russia and Kazakhstan. The cost per dose would be less than US$10 (US$20 for the required two doses) on international markets, much less than the cost of mRNA vaccines from other manufacturers. Kirill Dmitriev, head of the fund, told reporters that over 1billion doses of the vaccine are expected to be produced in 2021 outside of Russia.
The head of the Gamaleya Research Institute Alexander Ginzburg estimated that it would take 9–12 months to vaccinate the vast majority of the Russian population, assuming in-country resources were adequate.
The commercial release of the Gam-COVID-Vac was first scheduled for September 2020. In October, Mikhail Murashko said that the Gam-COVID-Vac would be free for all Russian citizens after the launching of mass production. Later on, the Russian Ministry of Health registered the maximum ex-factory price equal to 1,942 rubles for two components and included it into The National List of Essential medicines. There were also suggestions to include the vaccine in the National Immunisation Calendar of Russia.
In the beginning of December 2020, Russian authorities announced the start of a large-scale free of charge vaccination with Gam-COVID-Vac for Russian citizens: the immunization program was launched on 5 December 2020 (with 70 medical centers in Moscow providing vaccinations).
Doctors and other medical workers, teachers, and social workers were given priority due to their highest risk of exposure to the disease. Initially the vaccine was only offered to people over 60 years of age, later this restriction was lifted.
Potential recipients were notified via text messaging, which said "You are working at an educational institution and have top-priority for the COVID-19 vaccine, free of charge". Patients were asked a few general health questions before receiving the vaccine. People with certain underlying health conditions, pregnant women, and those who have had a respiratory illness for the past two weeks were barred from vaccination. The vaccine vial was removed from medical centre's freezer about 15 minutes before use.
In early December 2020, the Minister of Health, Mikhail Murashko, said that Russia had already vaccinated more than 100,000 high-risk people. Forty thousand of those were volunteers in Sputnik V's Phase 3 trials, another 60,000 nurses and doctors had also taken the vaccine. The head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, Kirill Dmitriev, said in an interview with the BBC that Russian medics expected to give about 2million people coronavirus vaccinations in December 2020.
Up to the beginning of December 2020, Generium (which is supervised by Pharmstandard) and Binnopharm (which is supervised by AFK Sistema) companies produced Gam-COVID-Vac on a large scale.
On 10 December, Deputy Prime Minister Tatyana Golikova announced that approximately 6.9million doses of the Sputnik V vaccine would enter civilian circulation in Russia before the end of February 2021. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin announced that the newly opened Moscow-based "R-Pharm" will become a leading manufacturer of Russia's Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine. Working at full capacity, the factory will produce up to 10million doses a month.
In May 2021 Sergei Sobyanin complained that only 1.3 million Moscow residents out of 12 million had received the first dose (10.2%). Only 9.5% of Russians had received a vaccine. Forbes Russia established that Russia committed to export 205 millions of doses of "Sputnik V" to other countries, and as of May 16.3 millions (8%) were so far delivered. A survey found that 62% of the Russian population felt hesitant, with 55% not afraid of getting sick and some willing to wait for CoviVac.
In June 2021, with the increase in Delta variant cases, several Russian city governments introduced strict measures to overcome vaccine hesitancy, such as requiring vaccine QR codes from customers in cafes.
Outside of Russia
Russia is pursuing deals to supply its vaccine abroad.
According to the Russian Direct Investment Fund, they had received orders for more than 1.2billion doses of the vaccine as of December 2020. Over 50 countries had made requests for doses, with supplies for the global market being produced by partners in India, Brazil, China, South Korea, Hungary, and other countries. In August 2020, according to the Russian authorities, there were at least 20 countries that wanted to obtain the vaccine.
The Israeli Hadassah Medical Center signed a commercial memorandum of understanding to obtain 1.5–3million doses.
Argentina agreed to buy 25million doses of Russia's COVID-19 vaccine, subject to its clearing clinical trials; the vaccine was registered and approved in Argentina in late December 2020. The Brazilian state of Bahia signed an agreement to conduct Phase III clinical trials of the Sputnik V vaccine and planned to buy 50million doses to market in northeastern Brazil.
On 21 January 2021, Argentine president Alberto Fernández became the first Latin American leader to be inoculated with Sputnik V, shortly after it was approved for use in the country. Two months after being vaccinated he developed fever and headache, and tested positive for COVID-19. He was asymptomatic ten days later, was discharged from medical treatment subject to medical follow-up as usual for former COVID-19 patients, and resumed his normal activities.
According to The New York Times sources, in February 2021, Israel agreed to finance a supply of the Sputnik V vaccine to Syria in order to secure the release of an Israeli civilian held in Syria.
Due to the delay in shipping of doses from Italy and the European Union, San Marino imported doses of the Sputnik V vaccine (not approved by the EMA) and started a mass vaccination on 28 February of its healthcare workers.
April 14, 2021, Armenia agreed with Russia on purchase of 1 million doses of coronavirus vaccines Sputnik V. This was the decision of Armenian health minister Anahit Avanesyan. The Armenian authorities have begun negotiations with Russia on the production of the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine. Head of the Armenian Ministry of Health Anahit Avanesyan stated this at a press conference on March 12, 2021.
Public opinion polls
An opinion poll of Canadians conducted by Léger in August 2020 found that a majority (68%) would not take the Russian vaccine if offered a free dose, compared to 14% who said they would take it.
When Americans were asked the same question, 59% would not take the Russian vaccine if offered a free dose, compared to 24% who said they would take it. In June 2021, according to a poll conducted by (German Eastern Business Association), a majority (60%) of Germans would use the Russian vaccine Sputnik V if they had the opportunity to do so. With 71% approval, the values in East Germany are significantly higher, but with 58% of the respondents there is also a solid majority in West Germany. 38% of respondents, on the other hand, would not want to use Sputnik V.
In July 2020, opinion polls suggested around 90% of the Russian population had doubts about the vaccine but by September this had dropped to around half the Russian population. In May 2021, the Levada Center released a poll of 1,614 respondents from 50 regions which showed that 26% of Russians were prepared to be vaccinated with Sputnik V, while 62% were not prepared to be vaccinated. Ten percent of respondents had already been vaccinated.
Resale controversy
Under a resale arrangement, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) offered Abu Dhabi-based firm, Aurugulf Health Investments the exclusive rights to sell the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine. According to media reports, the vaccine was intended to be sold to a host of countries at huge premiums. As per documents reviewed by the Moscow Times, Emirati Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook al-Maktoum, a Dubai royal, worked as the middleman for reselling millions of Sputnik V vaccine doses to countries in dire need of COVID-19 vaccine at a higher premium.
Corporate registry data showed that one of the two entities controlling Aurugulf is Royal Group, a conglomerate headed by UAE national security advisor, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al-Nahyan. Acquired documents, interviews with officials and buyer data showed that countries like Pakistan, Guyana, which were on the receiving end of the vaccine from the UAE, were coerced to pay more than double the price advertised by Russia.
The same deal was further used for reselling 1 million Sputnik V vaccine doses by the Emirati royal Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook al-Maktoum to Kenya for huge mark-ups. However, the deal eventually failed as Nairobi learnt of the first shipment consisting of 75,000 doses not coming directly from Russia.
Scientific assessment
On 11 August 2020, a World Health Organization (WHO) spokesperson said, "... prequalification of any vaccine includes the rigorous review and assessment of all required safety and efficacy data". A WHO assistant director said, "You cannot use a vaccine or drugs or medicines without following through all of these stages, having complied with all of these stages".
Francois Balloux, a geneticist at University College London, called the Russian government's approval of Gam-COVID-Vac a "reckless and foolish decision". Professor Paul Offit, the director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, characterized the announcement as a "political stunt", and stated that the untested vaccine could be very harmful.
Stephen Griffin, Associate Professor in the School of Medicine, University of Leeds, said "that we can be cautiously optimistic that SARS-CoV2 vaccines targeting the spike protein are effective." Moreover, as the Sputnik antigen is delivered via a different modality, namely using a disabled Adenovirus rather than formulated RNA, this provides flexibility in terms of perhaps one or other method providing better responses in certain age-groups, ethnicities, etc., plus the storage of this vaccine ought to be more straightforward.
"There is a huge risk that confidence in vaccines would be damaged by a vaccine that received approval and was then shown to be harmful", said immunologist Peter Openshaw.
Ian Jones, a professor of virology at the University of Reading, and Polly Roy, professor and Chair of Virology at The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, commenting on phase III results published in the Lancet in February 2021, said "The development of the Sputnik V vaccine has been criticised for unseemly haste, corner cutting, and an absence of transparency. But the outcome reported here is clear and the scientific principle of vaccination is demonstrated, which means another vaccine can now join the fight to reduce the incidence of COVID-19."
On 12 May 2021, a group of biostatisticians published an article in The Lancet about data discrepancies and substandard reporting of interim data of the Sputnik V phase-III trial. According to the article, the lack of transparency of the trial results raises serious concerns. Data inconsistencies were found, including a very low probability of homogeneity of vaccine efficacy across age groups.
Two preliminary studies, one from Argentina and one from San Marino, found mostly mild adverse events and no vaccine-associated deaths. Another study carried out in San Marino has concluded a high tolerability profile in the population aged ≥60 years in terms of short-term adverse events following immunization.
An article published by the journal Nature on 6 July 2021 cited data released by the United Arab Emirates on some 81,000 individuals who had received Sputnik V, according to which the vaccine demonstrated an efficacy of 97.8% in preventing symptomatic COVID-19, and 100% efficacy in preventing severe complications. The figures echoed similar findings from unpublished data on 3.8 million Russians, according to which Sputnik V demonstrated an efficacy of 97.7%.
A study published by the Journal of Medical Internet Research analyzed the dataset consisted of 11,515 self-reported Sputnik V vaccine adverse events posted on Telegram. Telegram users complained mostly about pain, fever, fatigue, and headache.
See also
List of Russian drugs
References
Further reading
External links
Adenoviridae
Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology
Medical controversies in Russia
Products introduced in 2020
Russian COVID-19 vaccines
Science and technology in Russia
Vaccine controversies
Viral vector vaccines | Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine | [
"Chemistry",
"Biology"
] | 8,850 | [
"Vaccination",
"Drug safety",
"Vaccine controversies"
] |
64,801,786 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20Disney%2B%20Hotstar%20original%20films | This article is a list of streaming television films which released on Disney+ Hotstar, or just Hotstar, an Indian subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service owned by Disney Star and operated by the Disney Entertainment division of The Walt Disney Company since its launch as Hotstar in February 2015 by the formerly-named Star India.
Indian original films
Disney+ Hotstar Multiplex
Also dubbed as Hotstar Premiere Nights where the service operated only as Hotstar. The below titles are exclusively streaming on the platform forgoing their theatrical releases.
Hotstar Specials
Hotstar Specials is a brand of Disney+ Hotstar on which the platform releases their original films done exclusively for the service.
Documentary
Others
Southeast Asian original films
Disney+ Hotstar also carries Southeast Asian original films that commissioned exclusively in their respective regions. The following Indonesian and Malaysian films were premiered direct-to-streaming under the Hotstar Originals banner due to COVID-19-related cinema closures. New local films premiered every Friday in Indonesia, with the exclusion of Sabar Ini Ujian (Sabar, It's a Test) as Indonesian launch title, along with TV series premiered at the same day, in absence of latest Indonesian films release, such as Si Juki Anak Kosan. Disney+ Hotstar was originally teased with 7 new Indonesian films, but was later expanded to more than 13 local films. Malaysian release will also get their local films premiered as well. Some Indonesian and Malaysian films will be available to stream elsewhere (including global streaming platform such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Catchplay+, Viu, WeTV/iflix and iQIYI; along with regional streaming platform such as Vision+, Vidio, CubMu, Mola and KlikFilm) after their first-run releases.
Indonesian original films
Malaysian original films
Disney+ Originals
These are commissioned by Disney+ and are exclusively available on Disney+ Hotstar in India and selected Southeast Asian countries as Disney+ is fully integrated with the service.
Exclusive distributions
Exclusive international distribution
The following titles are the general films that distributed by Disney subsidiaries (known as Walt Disney Studios), including film releases from Hulu, Star, Star+, Walt Disney Pictures, 20th Century Studios, 20th Century Animation and Searchlight Pictures for streaming exclusively on the platform. Films labelled with a † symbol signifies a film that exclusively released on the platform forgoing theatrical and/or Disney+ Premier Access releases.
Documentaries
Non-English language
French
Japanese
Korean
Turkish
Exclusive third-party distribution
These titles are being bought by Disney due to distribution rights for streaming exclusively on the platform.
Upcoming exclusive distributions
Exclusive international distribution
Exclusive third-party distribution
Notes
References
Original films distributed by Hotstar
Lists of films by studio | List of Disney+ Hotstar original films | [
"Technology"
] | 551 | [
"Computing-related lists",
"Internet-related lists"
] |
64,802,670 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford%E2%80%93Liverpool%20Inventory%20of%20Feelings%20and%20Experiences | The Oxford–Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences (O-LIFE) is a questionnaire for measuring psychosis-proneness, principally schizotypy. It was introduced in 1995 and has since been used in a variety of experimental and clinical studies. The O-LIFE is a tool with 104 items in the Yes/No response format, although a shorter version (sO-LIFE) can be used as well with only 43 items. It has been used, for instance, in several studies assessing schizotypy in relation to Kamin blocking.
References
Neuroscience
Works about schizophrenia
{{Neuroscience-stub} | Oxford–Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences | [
"Biology"
] | 127 | [
"Neuroscience"
] |
64,803,611 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direction%20of%20prayer | Prayer in a certain direction is characteristic of many world religions, such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam and the Bahá'í Faith.
Judaism
Jews traditionally pray in the direction of Jerusalem, where the presence of the transcendent God () [resided] in the Holy of Holies of the Temple. Within the Holy of Holies lay the Ark of the Covenant that contained the Ten Commandments tablets given to the prophet Moses by God; this is the reason that the Temple of Solomon became the focal point for Jewish prayer. In the Bible, it is written that when the prophet Daniel was in Babylon, he "went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open to Jerusalem; and he got down upon his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously" (cf. Daniel 6:10). After the destruction of the Temple of Solomon, Jews continue to pray facing Jerusalem in hope for the coming of the Messiah whom they await.
The Talmud ( 30a) instructs Jews outside the Land of Israel to face the Holy Land while praying; Jews residing in Israel should turn towards the city of Jerusalem; those living within Jerusalem should orient themselves towards the Temple Mount, and those next to the Temple Mount should turn towards the former site of the Holy of Holies. The Shulchan Aruch (Code of Jewish Law) thus specifies that in synagogues, the Ark should be placed such that "worshipers may pray in the direction of the Holy Land and the place of the Sanctuary in Jerusalem". When synagogues are erected, they are built to face Jerusalem.
The (literally, 'East') is a plaque or other decorative wall hanging which is placed on the eastern wall of many homes of Jews in the Diaspora to the west of Israel, in order to mark the direction of Jerusalem towards which prayer is focused. A plaque is often an artistic, ornate piece, being written in calligraphy and featuring a panorama of Jerusalem. wall hangings typically feature the Hebrew word (), and may include the verse from the Torah which states, "From the rising of the sun unto its going down, the Lord's name is to be praised" (cf. Psalm 113:3).
Christianity
Since the time of the early Church, the eastward direction of Christian prayer has carried a strong significance, attested by the writings of the Church Fathers. In the 2nd century, Syrian Christians hung a Christian cross on the eastern wall of their house, symbolizing "their souls facing God, talking with him, and sharing their spirituality with the Lord." Two centuries later, Saint Basil the Great declared that one of the unwritten commandments of the Church was to pray facing east. Nearly all Christian apologetic tracts published in the 7th century AD in the Syriac and Arabic languages explicated that the reason that Christians prayed facing the east is because "the Garden of Eden was planted in the east (Genesis 2:8) and that at the end of time, at the second coming, the Messiah would approach Jerusalem from the east."
Throughout Christendom, believers have hung or painted a Christian cross, to which they prostrated in front of, on the eastern wall of their home in order to indicate the eastward direction of prayer, as an "expression of their undying belief in the coming again of Jesus was united to their conviction that the cross, 'the sign of the Son of Man,' would appear in the eastern heavens on his return (see Matthew 24:30)." Communicants in the Oriental Orthodox Churches today (such as those of the Coptic Orthodox Church and Indian Orthodox Church), and those of the Mar Thoma Syrian Church (an Oriental Protestant denomination) pray the canonical hours contained in the Agpeya and Shehimo breviaries, respectively (a practice done at seven fixed prayer times a day) facing the eastward direction.
Islam
In Islam, the direction of prayer is known as the and this direction is towards the Sacred Mosque () of Mecca. Originally the of Muhammad and his followers in Medina was towards Jerusalem, but it was changed to Mecca after the Quranic verses (Al-Baqarah 2:144, 2:145) were revealed in the second Hijri year (624 CE), about 15 or 16 months after Muhammad's migration to Medina.
If a person does not know which direction they are facing, that individual should pray in the direction that they feel is towards Mecca. All mosques are supposed to be designed to be oriented towards the . A niche known as the is built into the wall of a mosque that faces Mecca so that Muslims know in which direction to pray.
The determination of the direction of prayer has been an important problem for Muslim communities throughout history. Muslims are required to know the to perform their daily prayers, and it is also needed to determine the orientation of mosques. Originally, various traditional methods were used to determine the , and from the 8th century onwards Muslim astronomers developed methods based on mathematical astronomy, especially computations techniques based on spherical trigonometry using a location's latitudes and longitudes. In the 14th century, the astronomer Shams al-Din al-Khalili compiled a table containing the for all latitudes and longitudes. Scientific instruments, such as the astrolabe, helped Muslims orient themselves for prayer facing the city of Mecca.
Bahá'í Faith
In the Bahá'í Faith, the is the direction of prayer towards which adherents focus. It is a "fixed requirement for the recitation of obligatory prayer".
See also
Fixed prayer times
Hygiene in Christianity
Islamic hygienical jurisprudence
Nanmian
References
Jewish practices
Christian prayer
Salah
Horizontal coordinate system | Direction of prayer | [
"Astronomy"
] | 1,153 | [
"Astronomical coordinate systems",
"Horizontal coordinate system"
] |
64,804,657 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016%20%28number%29 | 2016 is the natural number following 2015 and preceding 2017.
Mathematics
2016 is the second-smallest Erdős–Nicolas number after 24. 2016 is a triangular number. 2016 has a total of 36 divisors.
References
Integers | 2016 (number) | [
"Mathematics"
] | 46 | [
"Mathematical objects",
"Number stubs",
"Elementary mathematics",
"Integers",
"Numbers"
] |
64,808,167 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citrix%20Virtual%20Desktops | Citrix Virtual Desktops (formerly XenDesktop) is a desktop virtualization product.
History
The virtualization technology that led to XenDesktop was first developed in 2000 through an open-source hypervisor research project led by Ian Pratt at the University of Cambridge called Xen Project for x86. Pratt founded a company called XenSource in 2004, which made a commercial version of the Xen hypervisor. In 2007, Citrix acquired XenSource, releasing XenDesktop version 2.0 in 2008. The company continues to release updated versions, with XenDesktop 7.6 featuring HDX technology enhancements for audio, video and graphics user experience, as well as a reduction in storage costs associated with virtual desktop deployments as a result of improvements to Citrix provisioning services.
In 2018, the software was renamed Citrix Virtual Desktops.
Product overview
The product's aim is to give employees the ability to work from anywhere while cutting information technology management costs because desktops and applications are centralized. XenDesktop also aims to provide security, because data is not stored on the devices of end users, instead being saved in a centralized datacenter or cloud infrastructure. Citrix developed the software for use by medium to large enterprise customers.
Citrix Workspace is able to manage and deliver applications and desktops using a connection broker called Desktop Delivery Controller. It supports multiple hypervisors, including Citrix Hypervisor, VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V and Nutanix Acropolis to create virtual machines to run the applications and desktops. The software allows for several types of delivery methods and is compatible with multiple architectures, including desktops and servers, datacenters, and private, public or hybrid clouds. Virtualized applications can be delivered to virtual desktops using Virtual Apps.
Release history
Version 7.5 - March 26, 2014
Version 7.6 - September 30, 2014
Version 7.6 Feature Pack 1 - March 31, 2015
Version 7.6 Feature Pack 2 - June 30, 2015
Version 7.6 Feature Pack 3 - September 30, 2015
Version 7.6 LTSR - January 11, 2016
Version 7.7 - December 29, 2015
Version 7.8 - February 24, 2016
Version 7.9 - June 1, 2016
Version 7.11 - September 4, 2016
Version 7.12 - December 7, 2016
Version 7.13 - February 23, 2017
Version 7.14 - May 23, 2017
Version 7.15 LTSR - August 15, 2017
Version 7.16 - November, 2017
Version 7.17 - February, 2018
Version 7.18 - June, 2018
See also
EmbeddedXEN, Type-1 (bare metal) hypervisor
References
Citrix Systems
Cloud computing providers
Centralized computing
Remote desktop | Citrix Virtual Desktops | [
"Technology"
] | 575 | [
"Centralized computing",
"IT infrastructure",
"Computer systems"
] |
64,808,188 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan%20Society%20for%20Industrial%20and%20Applied%20Mathematics | Japan Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (JSIAM) is a Japanese non-profit organization for the field of applied mathematics. JSIAM is not a branch but a Japanese counterpart of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) based in the United States.
Activities
As same as SIAM, JSIAM publishes academic journals in Japanese and English, hold academic conferences, and give awards to applied mathematicians with JSIAM membership.
English Journals and Publications from JSIAM
SIAM Online Magazine
JJIAM (Japan Journal of Industrial and Applied Mathematics)
JSIAM Letters
Finance
The finance of JSIAM is based on membership fee and support from their corporate sponsors. Their sponsors include Canon, Nissan, NEC, NTT, Hitachi, Fujitsu and Ricoh.
Contributions to EASIAM
EASIAM (East Asia Section of SIAM) aims to advance the studies of applied mathematics in eastern Asia. As part of the Eastern Asian community, JSIAM is partially supporting EASIAM. Within their support, EASIAM is publishing the East Asian Journal of Applied Mathematics from the Global Science Press, and hold the EASIAM conference every year.
ICIAM 2023
JSIAM has announced that they will be organizing the International Congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics in 2023 with the Mathematical Society of Japan.
Notes
See also
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
Applied mathematics
Non-profit organizations based in Japan
1990 establishments in Japan | Japan Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics | [
"Mathematics"
] | 293 | [
"Applied mathematics"
] |
64,810,837 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-entropy-alloy%20nanoparticles | High-entropy-alloy nanoparticles (HEA-NPs) are nanoparticles having five or more elements alloyed in a single-phase solid solution structure. HEA-NPs possess a wide range of compositional library, distinct alloy mixing structure, and nanoscale size effect, giving them huge potential in catalysis, energy, environmental, and biomedical applications.
Enabling synthesis
HEA-NPs are a structural analog to bulk high-entropy alloys (HEAs), but synthesized at the nanoscale. The formation of HEAs typically requires high temperature for multi-element mixing; however, high temperature acts against nano-material synthesis due to high-temperature-induced structure aggregation and surface reconstruction.
In 2018, HEA-NPs were firstly synthesized by a carbothermal shock synthesis. (The material and technology are patented.) The carbothermal shock employs a rapid high-temperature heating (e.g. 2000 K, in 55 ms) to enable the non-equilibrium synthesis of HEA-NPs with uniform size and homogeneous mixing despite containing immiscible combinations. Although rapid quenching is desired to maintain the solid-solution state, too fast cooling rate can hinder structural ordering. Therefore, the cooling rate should be chosen carefully based on the temperature-time-transformation diagram.
Another guide that can be used for the synthesis is the Ellingham diagram. Elements at the top of the diagram are easily reduced and tend to form HEA-NPs, while elements at the bottom of the diagram tend to form high-entropy oxide NPs.
Later, other similar non-equilibrium "shock" methods were also introduced to synthesize HEA-NPs and other types of high entropy nanostructures. Recently, a low temperature synthesis through simultaneous multi-cation exchange (below 900 K) has been demonstrated for high-entropy metal sulfide NPs, which may be applied to metal selenides, tellurides, phosphides, and halides as well.
In 2024 a study showed that induction plasma can be used as a one-step method that enables the continuous synthesis of HEA-NPs directly from elemental metal powders via in-flight alloying.
Structural analysis
Due to the random distribution of elements in HEA-NPs, in addition to conventional characterization methods, other methods with higher resolution are needed for their structural analysis. To analyze the random mixing of multiple elements, atomic electron tomography can be used, which provides positional precision of 21 pm and identification of atoms by periods. Furthermore, X-ray absorption spectroscopy can give information on local coordination environments, while extended X-ray absorption fine structure can be used to get coordination numbers and bond distances. Combined with hard X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy or X-ray absorption near-edge structure, these analyses can be used to explore structure–property relationships in HEA-NPs. In addition, due to the immense number of possibilities of compositions and surfaces (i.e., terrace, edge, and corner) available for HEA-NPs, simulations such as density functional theory calculations are also popularly used for their analysis.
Properties and applications
HEA-NPs have a large compositional library, which enables tunability in chemical composition, structure, and associated properties. In HEA-NPs, the same type of atoms can have different local density of states because their neighboring atom compositions can be different. Such variations in local environment lead to diverse and tunable adsorption energy levels, which can be beneficial to satisfy the Sabatier principle especially for complex reactions.
In addition, owing to the high entropy structure, HEA-NPs typically show improved structural stability. One suggested mechanism for the enhanced structural stability is through prevention of phase separation due to lattice distortions from different sized elements acting as diffusion barriers. With the above merits, HEA-NPs have been used as high-performance catalysts for both thermochemical and electrochemical reactions, such as ammonia oxidation, decomposition, and water splitting. High throughput and data mining approaches are being implemented toward accelerated materials discovery in the multi-dimensional space of HEA-NPs.
References
See also
High-entropy alloys
Thermal shock synthesis
Self-assembly of nanoparticles
Alloys
Thermodynamic entropy
Nanoparticles by physical property | High-entropy-alloy nanoparticles | [
"Physics",
"Chemistry"
] | 892 | [
"Physical quantities",
"Thermodynamic entropy",
"Entropy",
"Chemical mixtures",
"Alloys",
"Statistical mechanics"
] |
64,815,290 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British%20Hydromechanics%20Research%20Association | The British Hydromechanics Research Association is a former government research association that supplies consulting engineering over fluid dynamics.
History
It was formed on 20 September 1947 in Essex, under the Companies Act 1929
It had moved to Bedfordshire by the 1960s. In the 1970s it was known as BHRA Fluid Engineering.
Next door was the National Centre for Materials Handling, set up by the Ministry of Technology (MinTech), later known as the National Materials Handling Centre.
On 16 October 1989 it became a private consultancy.
Fluid engineering
The BHRA conducted most of the research for the aerodynamics of British power station infrastructure in the 1960s, such as cooling towers.
In 1966 it designed an early Thames flood barrier.
Computational fluid dynamics
It developed early CFD software.
Visits
On Tuesday 21 June 1966, the new Bedfordshire laboratories were opened by Duke of Edinburgh.
Structure
The organisation, Framatome BHR, is now in Cranfield in west Bedfordshire, near the M1.
See also
Bierrum, has built and designed Britain's power station cooling towers since 1965, also in Bedfordshire.
References
External links
BHR Group
1947 establishments in the United Kingdom
British research associations
Central Bedfordshire District
Computational fluid dynamics
Engineering research institutes
Hydraulic engineering organizations
Hydraulic laboratories
Research institutes established in 1947
Science and technology in Bedfordshire
Science and technology in Essex
Wind tunnels | British Hydromechanics Research Association | [
"Physics",
"Chemistry",
"Engineering"
] | 262 | [
"Computational fluid dynamics",
"Engineering research institutes",
"Civil engineering organizations",
"Computational physics",
"Hydraulic engineering organizations",
"Fluid dynamics"
] |
64,821,374 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metso%20%282020%E2%80%93present%29 | Metso Corporation (natively ) is a Finnish publicly traded company that was established in 2020 when Outotec and Metso Minerals merged. The company is focusing on providing technology and services for mining, aggregates, recycling and metal refining industries.
The European Commission accepted Metso's and Outotec's merger on 13 May 2020 and the company started operations on 1 July 2020.
The company changed its name from Metso Outotec to Metso in May 2023.
Organization
Metso's president and CEO became the company's president and CEO. Mikael Lilius, former chairman of the Board of Metso, is the chairman of the board, and Matti Alahuhta, former chairman of the board of Outotec, is the deputy chairman of the board. The company employs a total of more than 15,000 people worldwide in more than 50 countries.
In February 2023, Metso Outotec board of directors announced a proposal to shareholders on company name change from Metso Outotec Corporation to Metso Corporation. The grounds for the proposal were that the post-merger integration of the two companies had been completed and that the company strategy going forward focused on a strong unified company brand. Shareholder vote on the proposal was scheduled for annual general meeting on 3 May 2023. The name was changed on 4 May 2023.
On November 1, 2024 Sami Takaluoma became President and CEO.
References
External links
Engineering companies of Finland
Manufacturing companies based in Helsinki
Companies listed on Nasdaq Helsinki
Companies in the OMX Helsinki 25
Mining equipment companies
Manufacturing companies established in 2020
2020 establishments in Finland
Finnish brands
Pulp and paper companies of Finland
2020 mergers and acquisitions
Mining companies of Finland
Waste management companies of Finland | Metso (2020–present) | [
"Engineering"
] | 351 | [
"Mining equipment",
"Mining equipment companies"
] |
64,822,404 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954%20Bitburg%20explosion | The devastating Bitburg tank explosion took place on 23 September 1954 at the then NATO air base near the city Bitburg, in the municipality of Niederstedem, Germany. The explosion took place in an underground storage tank containing JP-4, a military jet fuel blend. The toll was 34 dead, 2 injured, 3 missing.
The explosion was caused by the deliberate activation of a novel carbon dioxide fire extinguishment system during an acceptance test as part of final commissioning. The JP-4 blend has since largely been abandoned due to safety concerns because of its low flash point.
The accident
In 1954 at the US Air Force fuel depot near Bitburg, various acceptance tests were being made on a newly constructed underground fuel storage tank. The tank was fitted with a novel carbon dioxide fire extinguishing system, the first of its kind in Germany. The US Army was not responsible for design, construction and operation of storage facilities at the time, but the fuel involved was the property of the United States.
The senior engineering staff of the French La mission des grands travaux aéronautiques en Allemagne and other French and German officials, technicians and contractors were present at the site and attending an acceptance test.
The diameter of the underground tank was about 96 feet (29 m) with a total capacity of 1,386,000 US gal (5,250 m3). The tank was about 20% full at the time of the accident. The roof of the underground tank was capped with iron reinforced concrete and covered with a layer of soil. The CO2 cylinders were located in a half-buried concrete structure about 250 feet (75 m) from the storage site. 120 gas cylinders, each with a liquid gas capacity of 30 kg, were connected together in a three battery arrangement. A buried steel pipeline connected the battery with the storage tank.
Most if not all of the victims were standing on the top of the tank during a controlled activation of the thermal sensing devices that would trigger CO2 cylinders to discharge gas into the tank's headspace. At about 16:00 hours, one minute after the CO2 discharge commenced, a massive explosion disintegrated the tank.
Although the ability of liquefied CO2 to create static electricity upon depressurization was reported as early as in 1925, it was unknown to the tank designers and not identified in the official investigation of the accident by the US Army. It was only identified later in a report
by German scientists.
Relevance
The accident has relevance today as it demonstrates the dangers of static electricity when injecting carbon dioxide into an ignitable atmosphere. As such, it is a case example of de-learning. Knowledge on hazards learned the hard way through accidents can be forgotten. This has happened in the fast-growing wood pellet industry where trouble with smoldering fires in storage silos has led to new techniques for firefighting which employ injection of inert gases such as carbon dioxide. Although the electrostatic hazard has been known for more than 50 years, many standards, guidelines, recent editions of frequently cited pellet handbooks, and other literature cover the hazard superficially or do not mention it at all. The hazard is insufficiently covered in NFPA 12 and it may constitute a hazard for seagoing general cargo vessels where fire protection for cargo holds employs pressurized storage of liquefied carbon dioxide.
See also
Inerting (gas)
References
1954 disasters in Germany
Bitburg-Prüm
Explosions in 1954
20th century in Rhineland-Palatinate
Military history of Rhineland-Palatinate
1954 in military history
History of NATO
Cold War military history of Germany
1954 in West Germany
1950s industrial disasters
Industrial fires and explosions
Explosions in Germany | 1954 Bitburg explosion | [
"Chemistry"
] | 746 | [
"Industrial fires and explosions",
"Explosions"
] |
64,829,394 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry%20of%20Energy%20and%20Water%20%28Lebanon%29 | The Ministry of Energy and Water is the government ministry responsible for energy, water, resources, mines and quarries in Lebanon.
List of Energy and Water ministers
Notes
References
External links
Official website
Energy and Water
Lebanon, Energy and Water | Ministry of Energy and Water (Lebanon) | [
"Engineering"
] | 46 | [
"Energy organizations",
"Energy ministries"
] |
64,829,924 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formation%20light | A formation light, also known as a slime light, is a type of thin film electroluminescent light that assists aircraft flying in formation in low visibility environments.
See also
Navigation light
Landing lights
References
Light sources
Lighting
Luminescence
Aircraft external lights | Formation light | [
"Chemistry"
] | 53 | [
"Luminescence",
"Molecular physics"
] |
64,831,120 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JNJ-28330835 | JNJ-28330835 is a drug which acts as a selective androgen receptor modulator (SARM). In studies on rats it was found to enhance muscle growth and sexual behavior but with minimal effects on prostate gland size. A number of related compounds are known, though JNJ-28330835 has progressed furthest through development.
See also
JNJ-26146900
JNJ-37654032
References
Selective androgen receptor modulators
Nitriles | JNJ-28330835 | [
"Chemistry"
] | 104 | [
"Pharmacology",
"Functional groups",
"Medicinal chemistry stubs",
"Pharmacology stubs",
"Nitriles"
] |
64,831,815 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC%203818 | NGC 3818 is an elliptical galaxy in the constellation Virgo. It is at a distance of about 118 million light-years away from Earth. In the center of NGC 3818 lies a supermassive black hole. NGC 3818 was discovered by William Herschel on March 5, 1785.
References
External links
Black holes
3818
Virgo (constellation)
Elliptical galaxies
036304 | NGC 3818 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 79 | [
"Virgo (constellation)",
"Constellations"
] |
64,831,833 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiaomi%20Mi%2010%20Ultra | The Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra is an Android-based high-end smartphone developed by Xiaomi Inc. announced on 11 August 2020 as a celebration of Xiaomi's 10th anniversary. Unlike the Mi 10 and Mi 10 Pro, Mi 10 Ultra is only available on the Chinese market.
Specifications
Design
The Mi 10 Ultra uses an aluminum frame, Gorilla Glass 5 on the front and Gorilla Glass 6 on the back. The display is curved and larger than the Mi 9 Pro; a circular cutout in the upper left hand corner for the front-facing camera replaces the Mi 9 Pro's notch. The camera module is rectangular and protrudes slightly, with a lower module housing three sensors and the flash, and an upper module for the periscope telephoto sensor with a silver accent. It is available in Obsidian Black, Mercury Silver, and a special Transparent Edition.
Hardware
The Mi 10 Ultra is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 processor, with the Adreno 650 GPU. Storage is non-expandable with 128, 256 or 512 GB of UFS 3.1 paired with 8, 12 or 16 GB of LPDDR5 RAM.
It has an 6.67-inch (169 mm) FHD+ OLED display manufactured by TCL with HDR10+ support, and an optical (in-screen) fingerprint scanner. However, the panel has a higher 120 Hz refresh rate compared to 90 Hz on the Mi 10 and Mi 10 Pro, and can display one billion colors. The battery is graphene-based lithium-ion with a 4500mAh capacity; charging is supported wired over USB-C at up to 120 W or wirelessly at up to 50 W (Qi), with 10 W reverse charging.
The rear features a quad camera setup, with a 48 MP wide sensor, a 48 MP 5x zoom "periscope" telephoto sensor, a 12 MP 2x zoom telephoto sensor, and a 20 MP ultrawide sensor. The front-facing camera uses a 20 MP sensor. The camera system, including processing, scored the highest results in the history of DxOMark testing and review, for both still photography and videography.
Software
The Mi 10 Ultra runs on Android 10, with Xiaomi's custom MIUI 12 skin.
See also
List of longest smartphone telephoto lenses
References
Android (operating system) devices
Phablets
Mobile phones introduced in 2020
Mobile phones with multiple rear cameras
Mobile phones with 8K video recording
Mobile phones with infrared transmitter
Discontinued flagship smartphones
Xiaomi smartphones
Periscope lenses | Xiaomi Mi 10 Ultra | [
"Technology"
] | 533 | [
"Crossover devices",
"Discontinued flagship smartphones",
"Phablets",
"Flagship smartphones"
] |
76,502,616 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC%201616 | NGC 1616 is an intermediate spiral galaxy located around 213 million light-years away in the constellation Caelum. NGC 1616 was discovered on October 24th, 1835 by the astronomer John Herschel, and its diameter is 116,000 light-years across. NGC 1616 is not known to have much star-formation, and it is not known to have an active galactic nucleus.
References
External links
Intermediate spiral galaxies
Caelum
1616
15479
251-10
15479
-07-10-013
Astronomical objects discovered in 1835
Discoveries by John Herschel | NGC 1616 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 116 | [
"Caelum",
"Constellations"
] |
76,504,290 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20Belgian%20provinces%20by%20life%20expectancy |
Statistics Belgium
Statistics by province
Average values for 3-year periods. The values are rounded, all calculations were done on raw data. The sorting of provinces by total life expectancy for both periods is the same.Data source: Statistics Belgium
Statistics by region
Data source: Statistics Belgium
Eurostat (2019—2022)
Data source: Eurostat
Global Data Lab (2019–2022)
Data source: Global Data Lab
Charts
See also
List of countries by life expectancy
List of European countries by life expectancy
Administrative divisions of Belgium
Demographics of Belgium
References
Health in Belgium
Demographics of Belgium
Belgium, life expectancy
Belgium
Provinces of Belgium
Provinces by life expectancy
Belgium | List of Belgian provinces by life expectancy | [
"Biology"
] | 132 | [
"Senescence",
"Life expectancy"
] |
76,504,351 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photoferroelectric%20imaging | Photoferroelectric imaging is the process of storing an image onto a piece of ferroelectric material by the aid of an applied electric pulse.
Stored images are nonvolatile and selectively erasable. Photoferroelectric image storage devices have the advantage of being "extremely simple and easy to fabricate".
Photoferroelectric imaging uses a ferroelectric material's photosensitivity in conjunction with its ferroelectric properties. One type of medium which has been used for photoferroelectric imaging is lead lanthanum zirconate titanate (PLZT) ceramics, which exhibit a good combination of properties for imaging: large electro-optic coefficients, high intrinsic and extrinsic photosensitivities, and nonvolatile memory.
Process
A description of a photoferroelectric imaging process (using PLZT material) is given in the McGraw-Hill Concise Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. In that process, a thin flat plate of transparent, optically polished PLZT material (around 0.25mm thick) was sputter-coated with indium tin oxide (ITO) on both sides, serving as electrodes. Then, the image was exposed onto one of the ITO surfaces, while a voltage pulse was simultaneously applied across the electrodes. The ferroelectric polarization thereby switched from one remanent state to another, and images were "stored both as spatial distributions of light-scattering centers in the bulk of the PLZT and as surface deformation strains which form a relief pattern of the image on the exposed surface." The image may then be viewed directly or indirectly.
This photoferroelectric effect is a type of electro-optic effect. In the example process, the ceramic was poled to a saturation remanent polarization state by the light (charge carriers were photoexcited across the PLZT's bandgap). The polarization was then switched by the application of the electric field - a phenomenon called photoassisted domain switching.
Applications
Photoferroelectric imaging may be useful in temporary image storage and display. It also has potential applications in data storage and holographic recording.
References
Notes
See also
Photorefractive effect
Electro–optic effect
Electrical phenomena
Imaging | Photoferroelectric imaging | [
"Physics"
] | 473 | [
"Physical phenomena",
"Electrical phenomena"
] |
76,504,474 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.%20R%C3%BCetschi | H. Rüetschi is one of the last and oldest bell foundries in Switzerland. It is located in the city of Aarau, which is why it is also called the "bell city" is mentioned. Aarau bells can be found in many church towers in Switzerland.
History
Bells have been cast in Aarau since 1367. In the beginning, the foundry was run by a Reber family. Various other genders followed later. In 1607, Hans-Jakob Stalder had a smelting works built on the “Rain”, where the foundry still stands today. At the beginning of the 19th century, Johann-Heinrich Bär sold the foundry to his two employees Sebastian Rüetschi and Jakob Rüetschi (1838–1748). In 1824 they acquired the property on the “Rain” with all accessories for 18,000 Swiss francs.
After Jakob Rüetschi's death, his son Emanuel Rüetschi took over the property and expanded it. He continued to run the company together with his brothers Daniel and Johann Jakob Rüetschi. Hermann Rüetschi, the only son of Johann Jakob Rüetschi, joined the company in 1876 after studying engineering in Lausanne and Munich; he acquired it in 1882. Since he remained childless, the “Rüetschi dynasty” died out with him in 1917. In order to preserve the name, the company was converted into a Swiss public limited company after the First World War.
With the introduction of Krupp steel guns, the last cannonballs were delivered in 1873. , of the German bell-founding family of Apolda, expanded his knowledge here.
Business areas
In addition to casting church bells and other large bells, Rüetschi is also involved in other casting applications:
Casting of small bells such as house and ship bells, souvenir, decorative, and herd bells
Casting of works of art, mainly bronze sculptures
Casting objects for landscape architect.
Technical casting in Bronze, Brass, Aluminum and special alloys for various industrial and technical applications.
In addition, the company offers know-how relating to the installation of large bells: project planning, vibration isolation in bell towers, acoustics and sound analyses, electrical installation and ringing machines, steel construction for the bell-chair (the hanging system), yokes, clapper and iron fittings. Turret clocks are often associated with church bells. By taking over the Mäder tower clock factory, repairs and maintenance of tower and facade clocks can be offered. In addition, rooms at the Rüetschi bell foundry are also made available to other service companies.
Examples of cast bells
Web links
Website of the Rüetschi bell foundry
Swiss film newsreel from September 1, 1950, The New Bells
References
Foundries
Manufacturing companies of Switzerland
Aarau
1367 establishments in Europe | H. Rüetschi | [
"Chemistry"
] | 565 | [
"Foundries",
"Metallurgical facilities"
] |
76,505,747 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC%203395 | NGC 3395 is a peculiar spiral galaxy in the constellation Leo Minor. The galaxy lies about 55 million light years away from Earth, which means, given its apparent dimensions, that NGC 3395 is approximately 35,000 light years across. It was discovered by William Herschel on December 7, 1785. NGC 3395 interacts with NGC 3396.
NGC 3395 forms an interacting pair with NGC 3396, a magellanic spiral galaxy that lies 1.5 arcminutes from the nucleus of NGC 3395. The mass ratio of the two galaxies is about 1.5 to 1. The two galaxies appear separate but a bridge of material is visible between them and tidal tails are observed. Dynamical modelling of the pair suggests that the two galaxies had a first close encounter in the past, which resulting in gas been stripped from NGC 3395 and forming a tidal tail to the south-east. A second close encounter took place about 50 million years ago, resulting to starburst activity. The two galaxies will most likely merge in the next 500 million years.
The galaxy hosts a number of HII regions that are star forming with the region of most intense star formation being in the northwest of the center, while star formation has also being in observed in the end of the spiral arm northeast of the nucleus and in three regions in the bridge between the two galaxies. Three more star forming regions are visible in a tail southwest of the galaxy. The average size of the knots in NGC 3395 is an order of magnitude smaller than those in NGC 3396. The nucleus of NGC 3395 doesn't appear to be active.
The NGC 3395/3396 pair is part of the NGC 3430 Group or LGG 218. Other members of the group include the galaxies NGC 3381, NGC 3424, NGC 3430, NGC 3442, and IC 2604. IC 2604 lies 14 arcmin to the south-west of the pair and IC 2608 14 arcmin to the south-east. The group is part of the Leo II groups, which is part of the Virgo Supercluster.
References
External links
Intermediate spiral galaxies
Interacting galaxies
Peculiar galaxies
Leo Minor
3395
IC objects
05931
270
+06-24-017
32424
Discoveries by William Herschel
Astronomical objects discovered in 1785 | NGC 3395 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 467 | [
"Leo Minor",
"Constellations"
] |
76,506,226 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neptunium%20tetrachloride | Neptunium tetrachloride is a binary inorganic compound of neptunium metal and chlorine with the chemical formula .
Synthesis
The compound can be prepared by:
the reaction of neptunium nitride with HCl:
the reaction of neptunium sulfide with HCl:
the reaction of carbon tetrachloride with neptunium(IV) oxide or . Neptunium tetrachloride is formed as a yellow sublimate.
Other reactions are also used.
Physical properties
crystallizes in tetragonal crystal system of space group I4/amd.
Chemical properties
The compound reacts with ammonia to produce neptunium trichloride:
Neptunium tetrachloride can be reduced to neptunium trichloride by hydrogen at 450 °C.
References
Neptunium compounds
Chlorides
Actinide halides | Neptunium tetrachloride | [
"Chemistry"
] | 188 | [
"Chlorides",
"Inorganic compounds",
"Salts"
] |
76,506,333 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List%20of%20Greek%20regions%20by%20life%20expectancy | The vast majority of European countries achieved best values in life expectancy in 2019, the last year before the COVID-19 pandemic. Greece is rare exception to this pattern - in it, the peak of the average life expectancy occurred in 2018.
Eurostat (2018—2022)
The division of Greece into territorial units 2 level (NUTS 2) coincides with the division of Greece into regions. By default the table is sorted by 2022.
Data source: Eurostat
Global Data Lab (2018–2022)
Data source: Global Data Lab
Charts
See also
List of countries by life expectancy
List of European countries by life expectancy
Administrative divisions of Greece
Demographics of Greece
References
Health in Greece
Demographics of Greece
Greece, life expectancy
Greece
Regions by life expectancy
Greece | List of Greek regions by life expectancy | [
"Biology"
] | 159 | [
"Senescence",
"Life expectancy"
] |
76,507,189 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC%203678 | NGC 3678 is a spiral galaxy located around 361 million light-years away in the constellation Leo. NGC 3678 was discovered on April 13th, 1831 by the astronomer John Herschel, and its diameter is 127,000 light-years across. NGC 3678 is not known to have much star-formation, and it is not known to have an active galactic nucleus.
References
External links
3678
Spiral galaxies
Leo (constellation)
35177
6443
35177
+05-27-071
Astronomical objects discovered in 1831
Discoveries by John Herschel | NGC 3678 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 117 | [
"Leo (constellation)",
"Constellations"
] |
76,507,399 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC%203396 | NGC 3396 is a peculiar barred irregular galaxy in the constellation Leo Minor. The galaxy lies about 80 million light years away from Earth, which means, given its apparent dimensions, that NGC 3396 is approximately 85,000 light years across. It was discovered by William Herschel on December 7, 1785.
Characteristics
NGC 3396 forms an interacting pair with NGC 3395, a spiral galaxy that lies 1.5 arcminutes from NGC 3396. The mass ratio of the two galaxies is about 1.5 to 1, with NGC 3395 being the more massive of the two. The two galaxies appear separate but a bridge of material is visible between them and tidal tails are observed. Dynamical modelling of the pair suggests that the two galaxies had a first close encounter in the past, which resulting in gas been stripped from NGC 3395 and forming a tidal tail to the south-east. A second close encounter took place about 50 million years ago, resulting to starburst activity. The two galaxies will most likely merge in the next 500 million years.
The galaxy hosts a number of HII regions that are star forming with the region of most intense star formation being in the center of the galaxy. The average size of the knots in NGC 3396 is an order of magnitude larger than those in NGC 3395. The central region of NGC 3396 is estimated to host 1,000 to 2,000 Wolf-Rayet stars and tens of thousands of O-type stars. The star formation rate in the circumnuclear is estimated to be 0.15 per year and in the rest of the galaxy 0.39 .
The nucleus of the galaxy has been found to be active and based on its spectrum it has been categorised as a LINER. Kinematic analysis of the gas indicates there is gas inflow to the centre of the galaxy along its bar and also there is an biconal outflow element that could be galactic wind from a supermassive black hole in the nucleus.
Nearby galaxies
The NGC 3395/3396 pair is part of the NGC 3430 Group or LGG 218. Other members of the group include the galaxies NGC 3381, NGC 3424, NGC 3430, NGC 3442, and IC 2604. IC 2604 lies 14 arcmin to the south-west of the pair and IC 2608 14 arcmin to the south-east. The group is part of the Leo II groups, which is part of the Virgo Supercluster.
References
External links
Barred irregular galaxies
Interacting galaxies
Peculiar galaxies
Leo Minor
3396
05935
270
+06-24-018
32434
Discoveries by William Herschel
Astronomical objects discovered in 1785 | NGC 3396 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 546 | [
"Leo Minor",
"Constellations"
] |
76,507,412 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC%204825 | NGC 4825 is a lenticular galaxy located around 230 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo. NGC 4825 was discovered on March 27th, 1786 by the astronomer William Herschel, and its diameter is 133,000 light-years across. NGC 4825 is not known to have much star-formation, and it does not have an active galactic nucleus.
Nearby and satellite galaxies
NGC 4825 does have one suspected satellite galaxy, J12571108-1339100, a dwarf elliptical galaxy.
Some nearby galaxies are NGC 4823, NGC 4829, and NGC 4820.
References
External links
Lenticular galaxies
044261
Virgo (constellation)
4825
044261
-02-33-070
Astronomical objects discovered in 1786
Discoveries by William Herschel | NGC 4825 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 161 | [
"Virgo (constellation)",
"Constellations"
] |
76,510,262 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAT-P-38b | HAT-P-38b, formally named Hiisi, is a transiting exoplanet orbiting the G-type star HAT-P-38 821 light-years from the Solar System in the constellation Triangulum.
Nomenclature
The planet's designation is derived from the host star's designation and the fact that it was the first planet to be discovered around the star, hence the "b" in its name. In 2019, it was selected for the second NameExoWorlds campaign for Finland as part of the IAU's 100th anniversary. The approved name for the planet is Hiisi, which represents sacred localities and later evil spirits from Finnic mythology. It shares this name with the binary companion of the trans-Neptunian object 47171 Lempo.
Discovery
The transits of HAT-P-38 were first observed between August and November 2010 by using two telescopes related to the HATNet Project: The HAT-6 telescope in Arizona and the HAT-8 telescope in Hawaii. Astronomers observed a transit curve with a period of 4.64033 days. Later observations of the star's radial velocity using the High Dispersion Spectrograph confirmed HAT-P-38b's planetary status and it also yielded its mass in the process.
Properties
HAT-P-38b is a hot Saturn that takes over 4 days to circle its host star in a relatively circular and tight orbit; it has a separation of 0.0519 astronomical units. HAT-P-38b has 26.6% the mass of Jupiter, which is similar to that of Saturn. However, tidal heating from HAT-P-38 causes the planet to bloat to 82.5% the radius of Jupiter. It has an equilibrium temperature of . The planet has a density of , which is half of that of water (the density of water is 1,000 kg/m3). The average gravitational acceleration of the planet is , which is slightly smaller compared to the gravitational acceleration at the surface of the Earth.
In 2017, the atmospheres of HAT-P-38b and WASP-67b were compared since both planets had similar properties. Giovanni Bruno and colleagues detected water vapor in both planets, with HAT-P-38b having the greater abundance in its atmosphere. This indicates that the atmosphere lacks clouds or hazes.
References
Exoplanets discovered in 2012
Exoplanets discovered by HATNet
Transiting exoplanets
Triangulum
Exoplanets with proper names | HAT-P-38b | [
"Astronomy"
] | 512 | [
"Triangulum",
"Constellations"
] |
76,510,271 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAT-P-38 | HAT-P-38, formally named Horna, is a star located in the northern constellation Triangulum. It has an apparent magnitude of 12.51, making it readily visible in amateur telescopes but not to the naked eye. The object is located relatively far at a distance of 821 light-years based on Gaia DR3 parallax measurements, but it is drifting closer with a spectroscopic radial velocity of .
HAT-P-38 has a stellar classification of G5, indicating that it is a G-type star. It has 88.6% the mass of the Sun and 101% the radius of the Sun. It radiates 67.72% the luminosity of the Sun from its photosphere at an effective temperature of , giving it a yelllowish-orange hue. HAT-P-38 is slightly metal enriched with an iron abundance 115% that of the Sun's. It is estimated to be approximately 10.1 billion years old, which is more than twice the age of the Sun. It spins modestly with a projected rotational velocity of .
Planetary system
In 2012, a hot Saturn was detected on a tight 4-day orbit via the transit method; the planet has a similar mass and radius to Saturn. A 2017 paper comparing HAT-P-38b and WASP-67b found that there was water vapor in the planet's atmosphere. HAT-P-38b had a higher water vapor abundance compared to the latter, indicating that the planet is free of clouds or hazes in its upper atmosphere.
In 2019, the system was selected for the second NameExoWorlds campaign for Finland as part of the IAU's 100th anniversary. The approved name for the star is Horna, which is hell or the underworld from Finnic mythology..
References
G-type main-sequence stars
Planetary systems with one confirmed planet
3681
00285272237
Stars with proper names
Triangulum | HAT-P-38 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 401 | [
"Triangulum",
"Constellations"
] |
76,512,012 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dexamethasone/levofloxacin | Dexamethasone/levofloxacin, sold under the brand name Levodexa, is a fixed-dose combination medication used for the prevention and treatment of inflammation, and the prevention of infection, associated with cataract surgery. It contains dexamethasone, a corticosteroid; and levofloxacin, an anti-infective.
It was approved for medical use in Canada in December 2023.
Medical uses
Dexamethasone/levofloxacin is indicated for the prevention and treatment of inflammation, and the prevention of infection, associated with cataract surgery in adults.
References
Combination drugs
Ophthalmology drugs | Dexamethasone/levofloxacin | [
"Chemistry"
] | 140 | [
"Pharmacology",
"Pharmacology stubs",
"Medicinal chemistry stubs"
] |
76,512,803 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neptunium%20tetrabromide | Neptunium tetrabromide is a binary inorganic compound of neptunium metal and bromine with the chemical formula .
Synthesis
The compound can be prepared from the reaction of bromine with metallic neptunium:
Also, a reaction of aluminum bromide with neptunium(IV) oxide:
Physical properties
Neptunium tetrabromide forms red-brown hygroscopic crystals of monoclinic crystal system, spatial group P 2/c, cell parameters a = 1.089 nm, b = 0.874 nm, c = 0.705 nm, β = 95.19°, Z = 4.
is easily purified by sublimation in a vacuum.
Chemical properties
Decomposes under strong heating to form neptunium tribromide:
With careful oxidation with antimony(III) oxide, the compound forms neptunium oxidibromide:
References
Neptunium compounds
Bromides
Actinide halides | Neptunium tetrabromide | [
"Chemistry"
] | 205 | [
"Bromides",
"Inorganic compounds",
"Inorganic compound stubs",
"Salts"
] |
76,513,033 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protactinium%20tetrafluoride | Protactinium tetrafluoride is a binary inorganic compound of protactinium metal and fluorine with the chemical formula .
Synthesis
Protactinium tetrafluoride can be obtained by fluorinating protactinium(IV) oxide with a hydrogen fluoride / hydrogen mixture at 600 °C:
The effect of hydrogen fluoride and hydrogen on protactinium(V) oxide:
Physical properties
forms dark brown, monoclinic, needlelike crystals of structure. The cell parameters are: a = 1.27 nm, b = 1.07 nm, c = 0.842 nm, β = 126.3°.
The compound is soluble in aqueous ammonium fluoride solutions.
Chemical properties
Protactinium tetrafluoride reacts with oxygen and fluorine:
The compound reacts with alkalis:
The metal is displaced from the salt by barium:
References
Protactinium compounds
Fluorine compounds
Fluorides | Protactinium tetrafluoride | [
"Chemistry"
] | 205 | [
"Fluorides",
"Salts"
] |
76,513,363 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC%202832 | NGC 2832 is an elliptical galaxy in the constellation Lynx. The galaxy lies about 290 million light years away from Earth, which means, given its apparent dimensions, that NGC 2832 is approximately 250,000 light years across. It was discovered by William Herschel on December 7, 1785.
NGC 2832 is a type-cD galaxy and is the brightest member of Abell 779 galaxy cluster. NGC 2832 appears to interact tidally with NGC 2831, which lies about 25 arcseconds away and shares the same halo with NGC 2832. The edge-on spiral galaxy NGC 2830 lies 80 arcseconds southwest of NGC 2832. The galaxy has a strong central X-ray emission and diffuse emission around it. The galaxy hosts a supermassive black hole whose mass is estimated to be .
One supernova has been observed in NGC 2832, SN 2014ai, a type Ia supernova which was discovered around maximum, having an apparent magnitude of 18.1.
References
External links
Elliptical galaxies
Lynx (constellation)
2832
04942
315
+06-21-015
26377
Discoveries by William Herschel
Astronomical objects discovered in 1785 | NGC 2832 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 238 | [
"Lynx (constellation)",
"Constellations"
] |
76,513,475 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coniophora%20olivacea | Coniophora olivacea, also known as olive duster is a species of corticoid fungus in the family Coniophoraceae, first described by Elias Magnus Fries and given its current name by Petter Adolf Karsten.
Distribution and habitat
It appears in all continents axcept Antarctic, most often in Europe. It usually grows on conipher wood (e.g. Picea abies, Pinus sylvestris), but sometimes also on hardwood.
References
External links
Coniophoraceae
Fungus species | Coniophora olivacea | [
"Biology"
] | 112 | [
"Fungi",
"Fungus species"
] |
76,513,655 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhula%20erythropus | Typhula erythropus is a species of fungus in the family Typhulaceae, first described by Christiaan Hendrik Persoon and given its current name by Elias Magnus Fries.
Morphology
Fruiting bodies are 1.5 cm high, and spores have dimensions of 9–10 × 3–4 μm.
Distribution and habitat
It appears in North America, Europe and Asia, most often in Europe. It grows on petioles, stems and twigs of species such as Alnus, Populus, Acer, Fagus and Fraxinus, rarely on grass, Urtica and Pteridium.
References
External links
Typhulaceae
Fungus species | Typhula erythropus | [
"Biology"
] | 136 | [
"Fungus stubs",
"Fungi",
"Fungus species"
] |
76,513,689 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhula%20uncialis | Typhula uncialis is a species of fungus in the family Typhulaceae, first described by Robert Kaye Greville and given its current name by .
Distribution and habitat
It appears in North America, Europe and Asia, most often in Europe. It grows on petioles of species such as Petasites, esp. Petasites kablikianus.
References
External links
Typhulaceae
Fungi described in 1976
Fungi of Europe
Fungi of Asia
Fungi of North America
Fungus species | Typhula uncialis | [
"Biology"
] | 101 | [
"Fungi",
"Fungus species"
] |
76,513,855 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pholiota%20heteroclita | Pholiota heteroclita is a species of fungus in the family Strophariaceae, first described by Elias Magnus Fries and given its current name by Lucien Quélet.
Distribution and habitat
It appears in North America and Europe. It grows on hardwood, fruiting from July to October.
References
External links
Strophariaceae
Fungi of North America
Fungi of Europe
Fungus species | Pholiota heteroclita | [
"Biology"
] | 77 | [
"Fungi",
"Fungus species"
] |
76,514,021 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC%203448 | NGC 3448 is an irregular galaxy in the constellation Ursa Major. The galaxy lies about 75 million light years away from Earth, which means, given its apparent dimensions, that NGC 3448 is approximately 125,000 light years across. It was discovered by William Herschel on April 17, 1789.
Characteristics
The galaxy is seen edge-on and is categorised as an amorphous galaxy with material ejected from nucleus in the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies. The galaxy interacts with UGC 6016, a dwarf barred spiral galaxy with low surface brightenss which appears perturbated. UGC 6016 lies 3.9 arcminutes away from NGC 3448. There is material between the two galaxies, probably tidal debris, and a tidal plume emanates from the side of NGC 3448 opposite of UGC 6016. Noreau and Kronberg in 1986 found there is non-continuous hydrogen bridge between the two galaxies though. The bridge is also visible in near ultraviolet.
The galaxy has a central dust lane that lies at an angle of 20° with respect to the rest of the galaxy. A series of radio sources lie along the dust lane that could be supernova remnants, indicating the galaxy is undergoing intense star formation fueled by the tidal interaction. The total star formation rate is estimated to be per year. A spiral arm is visible in radiowaves, with one more possibly present in the other side of the nucleus. The dynamics of NGC 3448 are perturbated due to tidal interaction and material is reintergrating to the galaxy, obscuring parts of the galaxy in visible light. The galaxy has a warped hydrogen disk that extends beyond the visual one, along with the tidal plumes.
Supernova
One supernova has been observed in NGC 3448, SN 2014G. The supernova was discovered by Kōichi Itagaki on 14 January 2014, when it had an apparent magnitude of 15.6. The spectrum of the supernova indicates it was a type II supernova, with initial spectra indicating a type IIn while during its light curve post maximum indicates it was a type II-L.
Gallery
References
External links
Irregular galaxies
Interacting galaxies
Starburst galaxies
Ursa Major
3448
06024
205
+09-18-055
32774
Discoveries by William Herschel
Astronomical objects discovered in 1789 | NGC 3448 | [
"Astronomy"
] | 476 | [
"Ursa Major",
"Constellations"
] |
76,514,362 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entoloma%20cuspidiferum | Entoloma cuspidiferum is a species of fungus in the family Entolomataceae, first described by Machiel Noordeloos.
Distribution and habitat
It appears in North America and Europe. It grows in spruce forests, on peaty ground, among Plagiothecium and Sphagnum mosses.
References
External links
Entolomataceae
Fungi of North America
Fungi of Europe
Fungi described in 1980
Fungus species | Entoloma cuspidiferum | [
"Biology"
] | 92 | [
"Fungi",
"Fungus species"
] |
76,514,470 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmetry%20in%20Science%20and%20Art | Symmetry in Science and Art is a book by A.V. Shubnikov and V.A. Koptsik published by Plenum Press in 1974. The book is a translation of Simmetrija v nauke i iskusstve (Russian: Симметрия в науке и искусстве) published by Nauka in 1972. The book was notable because it gave English-language speakers access to Russian work in the fields of dichromatic and polychromatic symmetry.
Structure and topics
The book is divided into two parts. The first part is an updated version of A.V. Shubnikov's 1940 book Symmetry: laws of symmetry and their application in science, technology and applied arts (Russian: Симметрия : законы симметрии и их применение в науке, технике и прикладном искусстве). The following types of classical (one-color) and dichromatic (two-color) symmetries are covered in the first part of the book: one-sided rosettes, figures with a singular point, one-sided bands, two-sided bands, rods, network patterns, layers and space groups.
The second part consists of three new chapters written by V.A. Koptsik covering the following subjects: group theory, crystallographic groups, antisymmetry, colored symmetry, symmetry in science and art, and conservation laws.
Audience
The book is written for crystallographers, mathematicians and physicists who are interested in the application of color symmetry to crystal structure analysis and physics experiments involving magnetic or ferroelectric materials. Werner Nowacki in his review of the book for Science stated: "This is an extraordinary book, dealing with symmetry in all its aspects and written for the nonspecialist as well as the specialist (crystallographer and physicist) in this domain of natural sciences."
Reception
The book had a mixed reception from contemporary reviewers. Marc H. Bornstein in a review for Leonardo praised the book: "Shubnikov and Koptsik, I find, should stand beside Weyl's classic treatise, Symmetry". Werner Nowacki wrote a positive review: "This clearly written, beautifully illustrated book will become a standard work for all who are interested in unifying branches of natural sciences and of art, and we must be grateful to the translator, the editor, and the publisher for having produced such a precious publication."
However, Herbert Callen in American Scientist, criticised the book:"The book remains as it was in its original edition - an exhaustive classification of symmetry groups for systems with particular types of symmetry operations, now updated by Koptsik. The larger philosophical and aesthetic extensions, however, do not meet Western standards of critical accuracy, rigour, or precision of statement; they are not pursued in any depth, and they draw on no currents of thought outside the Soviet Union."
Influence
Tony Crilly, when reviewing Jaswon and Rose's Crystal symmetry, theory of colour crystallography in The Mathematical Gazette in 1984 commented: "The beginning student would find Symmetry in Science and Art (by A. V. Shubnikov and V. A. Koptsick, 1974) a stimulating introduction to the ideas worked out in technical detail by Jaswon and Rose." István and Magdolna Hargittai in the preface to their book Symmetry through the eyes of a chemist remarked: "We would like especially to note here two classics in the literature of symmetry which have strongly influenced us: Weyl's Symmetry and Shubnikov and Koptsik's Symmetry in Science and Art".
In later reviews of the literature by R.L.E. Schwarzenberger and by Branko Grünbaum and G.C. Shephard in their book Tilings and patterns the work of the Russian color symmetry school led by A.V. Shubnikov and N.V. Belov was put into its proper historical context. Schwarzenberger, and Grünbaum and Shephard, give credit to Shubnikov and Belov for relaunching the field of color symmetry after the work of Heinrich Heesch and H.J. Woods in the 1930s was largely ignored. However, they criticise Shubnikov and Koptsik for taking a crystallographic rather than a group-theoretic approach, and for continuing to use their own confusing notation rather than adopting the international standard Hermann–Mauguin notation for crystallographic symmetry elements.
References
External links
'' at the Internet Archive
Mathematics books
1974 non-fiction books
Symmetry | Symmetry in Science and Art | [
"Physics",
"Mathematics"
] | 1,007 | [
"Geometry",
"Symmetry"
] |
76,515,535 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsaclisib | Parsaclisib is an investigational drug that it being evaluated for the treatment of B-cell malignancies. It is a PI3Kδ (phosphoinositide 3-kinase) inhibitor.
References
Pyrazolopyrimidines
Pyrrolidones
Chloroarenes
Fluoroarenes
Ethoxy compounds
Amines | Parsaclisib | [
"Chemistry"
] | 77 | [
"Pharmacology",
"Functional groups",
"Medicinal chemistry stubs",
"Amines",
"Pharmacology stubs",
"Bases (chemistry)"
] |
76,515,687 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter%20J.%20O%27Toole | Peter John O'Toole is a British biologist who is the Director of the Bioscience Technology Facility and the Head of Imaging and Cytometry at University of York. Since 2023, O'Toole has served as the president of the Royal Microscopical Society.
Education
O'Toole completed his undergraduate studies in biology at the University of Essex and earned his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Cellular Biophysics from University of Essex in 1998. During his Ph.D. studies in the laboratory of Richard Cherry, he was involved in many aspects of fluorescence imaging and flow cytometry.
Career and research
Before starting his position as Head of Imaging and Cytometry at the University of York in 2022, O'Toole underwent his postdoctoral training at University of Essex with Richard Cherry.
As head of Imaging and Cytometry and, since 2016, also as director of the Bioscience Technology Facility at University of York, O'Toole is responsible for supervising the Imaging and Cytometry laboratories, which are equipped with various confocal microscopes, flow cytometers, and electron microscopes. O'Toole's team collaborates with leading microscopy and cytometry companies, providing research assistance and consultancy services to academic and commercial organizations.
O'Toole's research is currently focused on both technology and method development of novel probes and imaging modalities.
In addition to his responsibilities in managing facilities and research, O'Toole plays important roles in several organizations, including the Royal Microscopical Society, Core Technologies for Life Sciences, and the European Light Microscopy Initiative (ELMI). He is also actively involved in teaching activities, such as the RMS Light Microscopy Summer School and the RMS Practical Flow Cytometry courses.
Since 2020, O'Toole has hosted "The Microscopists" podcast, a podcast from Bitesize Bio sponsored by ZEISS Microscopy. During the podcast, O'Toole interviews microscopists about their careers and lives outside work.
Since 2023, O'Toole has held the position of President at the Royal Microscopical Society, succeeding Professor Grace Burke, who had been serving since 2019.
External links
The Microscopists - A podcast from Bitesize Bio
References
Living people
Microscopists
Academics of the University of York
Alumni of the University of Essex
Year of birth missing (living people) | Peter J. O'Toole | [
"Chemistry"
] | 490 | [
"Microscopists",
"Microscopy"
] |
76,516,158 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexanderson%20Award | The Alexanderson Award is given annually by the American Institute of Mathematics.
The award was instituted in 2018. It honors a notable paper resulting from an AIM activity (workshop, research community, or SQuaRE).
Motivation
The award was conceived of by John Fry in order to honor Gerald L. Alexanderson, Professor at Santa Clara University and founding chair of AIM's board of trustees.
Prize
Winners of the Alexanderson Award are given a medal, a cash prize and a trip to Bock Cay in the Bahamas.
Awardees
References
Awards established in 2018
Mathematics awards | Alexanderson Award | [
"Technology"
] | 114 | [
"Science and technology awards",
"Mathematics awards"
] |
76,516,300 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness%20of%20guilt | In the law of evidence, consciousness of guilt is a type of circumstantial evidence that judges, prosecutors, and juries may consider when determining whether a defendant is guilty of a criminal offense. It is often admissible evidence, and judges are required to instruct juries on this form of evidence. Deceptive statements or evasive actions made by a defendant after the commission of a crime or other wrongdoing are seen as evidence of a guilty conscience. These are not the typical behaviors of an innocent person, and a "defendant's actions are compared unfavorably to what a normal, innocent person would have done, with the implication that the discrepancy indicates guilt".
Descriptions and definitions
Consciousness of guilt law and legal definition:
Criminal defense attorney Stephen G. Rodriguez describes it thus:
The New York State Unified Court System discusses false alibis (in the context of "consciousness of guilt") as a form of admissible evidence:
Haim Cohn explains the concept:
Suspicious actions
When a defendant acts guilty, some of their actions reveal evidence of deceit, a consciousness of guilt, and their guilty state of mind. This may imply that the defendant committed, or intended to commit, a crime. Typical psychological defenses exhibited by guilty suspects include denial, rationalisation, minimisation, and projection of blame onto the victim.
Attempts to cover up a crime
Bribery
Changing name or personal appearance
Destruction or concealment of evidence (including a body or weapon)
Discovery abuse
Failure to explain possession of the property
False alibis
False statements and lies
Feigned lack of memory or recall
Hush money payments
Lying "to protect an accomplice"
Refusal by a driver who has been [lawfully] arrested to submit to a chemical test (blood alcohol content) at the request of a peace officer who has reasonable cause to believe that the person arrested was driving under the influence
Shifting blame to an innocent person
Unexplained flight from the crime scene, jurisdiction, or authorities
Witness or prosecutor intimidation
Cautions
A defendant may introduce innocent explanations of conduct that counter accusations of consciousness of guilt, and a "jury should be advised of the limited probative
value of 'consciousness of guilt' evidence".
The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution protects the right against self-incrimination. Under the U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Miranda v. Arizona (1966) and Doyle v. Ohio (2013), a defendant's post-arrest silence may not be introduced by the government as evidence of the defendant's guilt, and the prosecution may not comment on the defendant's refusal to testify. The Supreme Court has not explicitly decided whether a defendant's pre-arrest silence may be introduced as substantive evidence of guilt (i.e., may be used in the government's case-in-chief, even if the defendant chooses not to testify). A three-justice plurality of the Court, in Salinas v. Texas (2013), held that such silence was admissible where the defendant did not expressly invoke his or her Fifth Amendment rights.
International law
Some commentators have noted that consciousness-of-guilt evidence may be used in international criminal law.
Examples
DOJ attorney Dan E. Stigall uses Raskolnikov, the fictional protagonist of Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, to discuss "consciousness of guilt" and how "such evidence can be used to demonstrate an accused's culpability":
Shakespearean scholar A. C. Bradley describes Macbeth's "consciousness of guilt" as "stronger in him than the consciousness of failure; and it keeps him in a perpetual agony of restlessness, and forbids him simply to droop and pine. His mind is 'full of scorpions.' He cannot sleep."
In Shakespeare's Hamlet, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks" describes overreactions to accusations as an expression of a consciousness of guilt.
See also
Guilt (emotion)
Guilt (law)
Measures of guilt and shame
References
Further reading
External links
Elements of crime
Evidence law
Forensic psychology
Sociology | Consciousness of guilt | [
"Biology"
] | 831 | [
"Behavioural sciences",
"Behavior",
"Sociology"
] |
76,516,689 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entoloma%20sphagnorum | Entoloma sphagnorum is a species of fungus in the family Entolomataceae.
Distribution and habitat
It appears in Europe.
References
External links
Entolomataceae
Fungi of Europe
Fungi described in 1987
Fungus species | Entoloma sphagnorum | [
"Biology"
] | 49 | [
"Fungi",
"Fungus species"
] |
76,516,731 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrocorticium%20polygonioides | Dendrocorticium polygonioides is a species of corticoid fungus in the family Punctulariaceae, first described by Petter Adolf Karsten and given the current name by Michael J. Larsen & Robert Lee Gilbertson
Distribution and habitat
It appears mostly in Europe. It grows in forests, on dead branches of Corylus and Salix.
References
External links
Punctulariaceae
Fungi of Europe
Fungi described in 1974
Taxa named by Petter Adolf Karsten
Fungus species | Dendrocorticium polygonioides | [
"Biology"
] | 99 | [
"Fungi",
"Fungus species"
] |
76,517,062 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solution-friction%20model | The solution-friction model (SF model) is a mechanistic transport model developed to describe the transport processes across porous membranes, such as reverse osmosis (RO) and nanofiltration (NF). Unlike traditional models, such as those based on Darcy’s law, which primarily describes pressure-driven solvent (water) transport in homogeneous porous mediums, the SF model also accounts for the coupled transport of both solvent (water) and solutes (salts).
Overview
The solution-friction model is derived on a pore-flow or viscous flow mechanism, but extends its applicability by incorporating the force balances on the species transporting through the membrane. This inclusion allows for a detailed understanding of the interdependent fluxes of water and salt, influenced by interactions between salt ions and water molecules. The SF model has been able to successfully describe the transport of water and salt in RO membranes, showing good agreement with experiments. The development of the SF model also corrects the misconception that RO water transport is a diffusion-based process.
Ion transport
Ion transport through the RO membrane is driven by the gradient of chemical potential within the membrane. The solution-friction model describes this transport by considering the frictions between ions, ions and water, and ions and membrane. The force balance for an ion is given by the equation:
is the chemical potential of ion,
and are the frictional coefficients between ions and water and between ions and the membrane, respectively
and are the velocities of ions and water, respectively
is the ideal gas constant
is the absolute temperature
Note that the membrane is stationary and its velocity is therefore set to zero. By considering only the coordinate perpendicular to the membrane surface, the ion flux () governed by diffusion, electromigration, and advection can be expressed as:
is the diffusion coefficient of ion inside the membrane, which is the inverse of
characterizes the contribution of ion-water friction to the total friction ()
is the ion concentration
is the ion valence
is the electrical potential
Water transport
Water transport is governed by the gradient of total pressure, counterbalanced by water-membrane and ion-water frictions. The balance is expressed as:
is the total pressure acting on a volume element of water, which is equal to the hydrostatic pressure minus the osmotic pressure
characterizes the contribution of ion-water friction to the total friction ()
is the ion concentration
is the ion valence
is the electrical potential
and are the velocities of ions and water, respectively
Substituting the expression of ion velocity into water velocity, we arrive at the following expression for the force balance on water:
When ion-membrane friction is negligible (i.e.,), this equation can be written as
The equation indicates that the water permeance is influenced by the electrical potential gradient inside the membrane, which has been verified by salt permeation through highly charged Nafion membranes. Due to the interactions between ions and water, increasing salt concentration decreases the water permeance. Nevertheless, a simplification can be made when a membrane has a low volumetric charge density (i.e., within the membrane), like in typical RO membranes. Therefore, the electrical potential gradient can be neglected as it is relatively small compared to the concentration gradient. The equation for water flux can be eventually simplified as:
is the membrane thickness
is the salt partitioning coefficient
Defining and , the water permeability velocity is obtained as:
This equation is identical in form to the Spiegler-Kedem-Katchalsky equation, a classic model in irreversible thermodynamics for water transport through semipermeable membranes. This ensures that the SF model aligns with basic thermodynamic principles.
References
Membrane technology
Water technology
Hydrology
Environmental engineering | Solution-friction model | [
"Chemistry",
"Engineering",
"Environmental_science"
] | 777 | [
"Hydrology",
"Separation processes",
"Chemical engineering",
"Membrane technology",
"Civil engineering",
"Environmental engineering",
"Water technology"
] |
76,517,743 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble%20laser | An ordinary bubble can serve as an optofluidic laser. These bubble lasers have been made of dye-doped soap solutions and smectic liquid crystal. In a bubble laser, the bubble itself serves as the optical resonator. Uniquely, bubble lasers exhibit hundreds of regularly spaced resonant frequencies called whispering gallery modes, named for the Whispering Gallery in St. Paul's Cathedral in London. Researchers have found that the emission spectrum of a bubble laser is highly dependent on the bubble's environment; changing ambient air pressure or electric fields changes the size of the bubble (the optical resonator), and therefore the wavelengths of laser emission.
Description
Bubble lasers have been made from soap solutions to which a few drops of fluorescent laser dye have been added. The fluorescent dye acts as the gain medium. When a pump laser is shone onto the bubble, the dye molecules are excited. The excited dye molecules emit photons. The light propagates along the surface of the soap bubble, leading to wave interference that generates distinct, evenly-spaced optical resonances of the bubble (called whispering gallery modes). When photons, by chance, of the right frequencies are emitted into the whispering gallery modes, it stimulates other molecules to emit more matching photons, amplifying the light.
A soap bubble's thickness is constantly changing due to freely flowing water inside the bubble. This results in an unstable lasing spectrum. More stable results were achieved when the bubbles were made of smectic liquid crystal, which is made entirely of organic liquid-crystal molecules. These bubbles do not contain water, can be very thin, and can survive almost indefinitely.
Applications
The spacing of whispering gallery modes is directly related to the bubble's circumference. This means that bubble lasers may be used as pressure sensors. Bubble lasers have measured pressure changes as high as 100 bar (10,000 kPA) and as low as 1.5 Pa, an "exceptionally large" dynamic range, far outperforming other pressure sensors of comparable size.
In the future, bubble lasers may be used to study thin films and phenomena such as Cavity optomechanics.
See also
List of laser articles
Sonoluminescence, emission of light from imploding bubbles
References
Bubbles (physics)
Optofluidics
Laser types
Laser science | Bubble laser | [
"Chemistry",
"Materials_science"
] | 476 | [
"Optofluidics",
"Bubbles (physics)",
"Foams",
"Nanotechnology",
"Fluid dynamics"
] |
59,853,604 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen-15%20labelled%20water | Oxygen-15 labelled water (also known as 15O-water, [O-15]-H2O, or H215O) is a radioactive variation of regular water, in which the oxygen atom has been replaced by oxygen-15 (15O), a positron-emitting isotope. 15O-water is used as a radioactive tracer for measuring and quantifying blood flow using positron emission tomography (PET) in the heart, brain and tumors.
Due to its free diffusibility, 15O-water is considered the non-invasive gold standard for quantitative myocardial blood flow (MBF) studies and has been used as reference standard for validations of other MBF quantification techniques, such as single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) and dynamic computed tomography (CT).
Production of oxygen-15-water
Production of oxygen-15 gas
Oxygen-15 can be produced by different nuclear reactions, including 14N(d,n)15O, 16O(p,pn)15O and 15N(p,n)15O.
The 14N(d,n)15O production route is the most frequently applied method, because it is currently the most economic method. The production requires a cyclotron that can accelerate deuterons up to a kinetic energy of approximately 7 MeV.
Alternatives methods are:
15N(p,n)15O, in which low-energy protons (≈ 5 MeV) are used to transmute nitrogen into oxygen-15, or 16O(p,pn)15O in which high-energy protons (> 16.6 MeV) are used. They all produce the radioactive isotope oxygen-15 by knocking neutrons out of the target molecule where the oxygen-15 ion combines with an oxygen atom to form the stable oxygen gas [15O]O2:
^{14}_{7}N + ^{2}_{1}D -> ^{15}_{8}O^2- +n
2^{15}_{8}O^2- + N_2 -> 2 NO
2 NO -> [^15O]O_2 + N_2
Conversion of 15O gas to 15O-water
The conversion of the oxygen gas [15O]O2 to 15O-water can happen in two ways: the in-target production and the out-of-target external conversion.
The in-target production method uses a small amount of hydrogen (about 5%) that is added to the gas, whereby 15O-water is formed and trapped in a cooled stainless steel loop. By heating the loop the 15O-water will get released and will be trapped again in a saline solution. It could also be done by directly irradiating H216O. However, this method requires high-energy protons and is therefore used less.
The external out-of-target method converts oxygen-15 and H2 using heat and is used for all three nuclear reactions. Palladium is typically used as a catalyst to lower the activation energy. The mixture of the target gas, the catalyst and H2 is then heated up, which results in a release of 15O-water vapor, which then bubbles into a saline solution and is drawn into a syringe where it can be applied to the subject.
Use in PET
Oxygen-15 decays with a half-life of about 2.04 minutes to nitrogen-15, emitting a positron. The positron quickly annihilates with an electron, producing two gamma rays of about 511 keV which are detectable using a PET scanner.
Of several available PET tracers for quantification of myocardial blood flow (MBF), 82Rb, 13NH3, and H215O are most commonly used. (see the table below).
15O-water features different properties compared to 82Rb and 13NH3.
15O-water is metabolically inert and diffuses freely across the myocyte membrane in contrast to 82Rb and 13NH3, which enter the cell via active diffusion (13NH3 diffuses both actively and passively). 13NH3 is converted to glutamine, glutamic acid and carbamoyl phosphate in the tissue and becomes metabolically bound.
15O-water has a 100% extraction rate, which makes 15O-water superior to 82Rb and 13NH3 as no flow-dependent extraction corrections are required. Its 2-minute half-life makes it possible to acquire multiple image scans in rapid sequence. However, due to the complete extraction and free diffusibility, 15O-water is not retained in the tissue of interest and post-processing is required to convert 15O-water images to quantitative blood flow images.
Limitations
A technical limitation of 15O-water is the challenge in separating the blood activity from the myocardial tissue activity. This challenge arises from the tracer's free diffusion and from the fact that the tracer is metabolically inert. However, these issues have been overcome by recent advances in both hardware and software. 15O-water has now been used in several clinical trials (pivotal studies).
Another limitation for the tracer's widespread uptake has been its historical cost. A cyclotron is necessary for the production of 15O-water, requiring large capital investment in hardware and skilled staff to operate the production. However, ongoing development aims to reduce the capital expenditure and limit the number of skilled personnel involved in the production, making 15O-water available for clinical practice.
Clinical interpretation of 15O-water PET
With 15O-water PET, the optimal cutoffs for detecting hemodynamically significant CAD measured by FFR have been determined to be < 2.3 mL/min/g for vasodilator stress MBF and < 2.5 for coronary flow reserve (CFR). 15O-water PET has an accuracy of 85% for diagnosing hemodynamically significant epicardial stenoses in patients with no history of CAD, which is higher than with both SPECT and CCTA. However, the accuracy is reduced to 75% in patients with previous myocardial infarctions and/or previous PCI.
Patients are generally considered to have a perfusion defect if stress MBF is < 2.3 mL/min/g in at least 2 adjacent segments. Patients with perfusion defects of at least 10% of the left ventricle should be referred for coronary angiography and if FFR is ≤ 0.8 they can be treated with PCI.
Besides hemodynamically significant epicardial stenoses, patients can also have coronary microvascular dysfunction (CMD). If stress MBF is reduced in the entire left ventricle, then both CMD and balanced three-vessel disease are possible diagnoses. CMD is treated pharmacologically and balanced three-vessel disease is treated surgically with CABG. It can be difficult to differentiate between CMD and balanced three-vessel disease. However, CMD is much more common than balanced three-vessel disease. Also, the calcium score from the CT scan can help in the differentiation. If the calcium score is high, then balanced three-vessel disease is more likely; and vice versa if the calcium score is low then CMD is more likely.
Pharmacopeia
The clinical use of 15O-water in routine is not widespread. Within the European Union, 15O-water is recognized as a radiopharmaceutical and regulated as a drug. A pharmacopeia monograph exists, allowing hospital facilities to produce and use 15O-water within the confines of their national legislation. In the US, 15O-water is recognized as a radiopharmaceutical and regulated as a drug, but no pharmacopeia monograph exists currently.
References
Cardiac imaging
Radiopharmaceuticals
PET radiotracers
Water | Oxygen-15 labelled water | [
"Chemistry",
"Environmental_science"
] | 1,675 | [
"Hydrology",
"Medicinal radiochemistry",
"PET radiotracers",
"Radiopharmaceuticals",
"Water",
"Chemicals in medicine"
] |
59,853,615 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferrisoma%20camini | Deferrisoma camini is a moderately thermophilic and anaerobic bacterium from the genus of Deferrisoma which has been isolated from a deep-sea hydrothermal vent from the Eastern Lau Spreading Centre in the Pacific Ocean.
Taxonomy
Deferrisoma camini is one of the two known species in the Deferrisoma genus. They are rod-shaped, have a single motile polar flagellum, and are gram negative. It has been identified as a thermophilic, anaerobic, iron (III) reducing bacterium that can be found near deep-sea hydrothermal vents. Deferrisoma camini has an optimum temperature growth of 50°C with an optimum pH range of growth at a pH of 6.5. High temperature, mild pH level, iron-rich environments, mainly deep sea hydrothermal vents, favor Deferrisoma camini.
Function and Structure
The main function of Deferrisoma camini is to reduce iron (III) in its micro-community. Deferrisoma camini can be cultured in a bicarbonate-buffered sterile liquid medium. Deferrisoma camini can use acetate, fumarate, malate, maleinate, succinate, stearate, palmitate, propanol, peptone, and yeast extract as electron donors with elemental sulfur and iron (III) as the electron acceptors for the reduction process. The cell size for Deferrisoma camini is 0.5–0.6 μm in diameter and 0.8–1.3 μm long.
References
Thermodesulfobacteriota
Bacteria described in 2012 | Deferrisoma camini | [
"Biology"
] | 346 | [
"Bacteria stubs",
"Bacteria"
] |
59,853,673 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferrisoma | Deferrisoma is a genus of bacteria from the phylum Thermodesulfobacteriota.
See also
List of bacterial orders
List of bacteria genera
References
Thermodesulfobacteriota
Bacteria genera | Deferrisoma | [
"Biology"
] | 46 | [
"Bacteria stubs",
"Bacteria"
] |
59,854,084 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIDOC | UNIDOC is an XML-based standard to support electronic data interchange (EDI) in business transactions between trading companies. Unlike other XML-based EDI formats, such as UBL, ebXML, RosettaNet or , UNIDOC relies one a single structure ("all in one"). The first idea of such a universal format was published in 2014, its first specification in 2016 in the journal of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Swabia (Bavaria, Germany). The current specification can be found in the UNIDOC XML Schema Definition.
UNIDOC message types
Electronic business documents are called message types within UNIDOC files. The respective message type ("document type")
is specified in the header. The names of the message types are based on the six-digit "qualifier" known from the EDIFACT standard.
In version 2.0 fifteen different message types are defined:
CORINV = correction invoice
DELFOR = delivery forecast
DESADV = despatch advice
IFCSUM = /forwarding and consolidation summary
IFTMIN = transport order
INVOIC = invoice and credit note
INVRPT = inventory report
ORDCHG = order change
ORDERS = purchase order
ORDRSP = order response
OSTRPT = order state report
PRICAT = price list and catalogue
RECADV = receipt advice
REMADV = remittance advice
SLSRPT = sales report
History
The UNIDOC standard was developed in 2016 on the initiative of EDICENTER, which is a member of the European EDI Network (EEDIN). This European EDI Network is establishing a pan-European EDI infrastructure based on "every-to-every-interconnect". The exchange format between the providers is UNIDOC.
UNIDOC has already been implemented as a standard interface by several ERP system providers, e.g. Comporsys, Hirschmann or Line Software.
See also
Electronic data interchange
EDIFACT
References
External links
UNECE
Schema file
Data interchange standards | UNIDOC | [
"Technology"
] | 418 | [
"Computer standards",
"Data interchange standards"
] |
59,854,436 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promiscuous%20gene%20expression | Promiscuous gene expression (PGE), formerly referred to as ectopic expression, is a process specific to the thymus that plays a pivotal role in the establishment of central tolerance. This phenomenon enables generation of self-antigens, so called tissue-restricted antigens (TRAs), which are in the body expressed only by one or few specific tissues (antigens rank among TRAs if they are expressed by less than five tissues from the sixty tested ). These antigens are represented for example by insulin from the pancreas or defensins from the gastrointestinal tract. Antigen-presenting cells (APCs) of the thymus, namely medullary thymic epithelial cells (mTECs), dendritic cells (DCs) and B cells are capable to present peptides derived from TRAs to developing T cells (thymus is the major origin of T cell development) and hereby test, whether their T cell receptors (TCRs) engage self entities and therefore their occurrence in the body can potentially lead to the development of autoimmune disease. In that case, thymic APCs either induce apoptosis in these autoreactive T cells (negative selection) or they deviate them to become T regulatory cells (Treg selection), which suppress self-reactive T cells in the body that escaped negative selection in the thymus. Thus, PGE is crucial for tissues protection against autoimmunity.
Characteristics of PGE in distinct cell types
The usual level of gene expression in the peripheral tissues (e.g. spleen, kidney, liver etc.) reaches about 60% of the mouse coding genome. Some peripheral tissues, including lungs, brain and testis, reveal the repertoire of expressed genes about 10% broader. Importantly, PGE in the thymus, which is mediated by unique subset of epithelial cells called mTECs, triggers expression of vast majority of the genes from the whole genome (~85%). Such a broad repertoire of expressed genes wasn't shown in any other tissue of the body.
mTECs
The process of PGE in the thymus was discovered in late 80's however, it took a decade to find that the cell subset that mediates PGE and therefore provides a "library" of TRAs are mTECs. These cells were shown to uniquely express a protein called autoimmune regulator (Aire), which drives the expression of approximately 40% TRAs, referred to as Aire-dependent, and is so far the only well characterized driver of PGE. Defects in the expression of Aire lead to multiorgan autoimmunity in mice and cause a severe autoimmune syndrome called APECED in human. Because Aire is not the exclusive PGE regulator, more than half of TRAs are Aire-independent and it isn't still known how their PGE is orchestrated.
mTECs are very heterogenous population and at least should be subdivided to MHCII low expressing subset (mTECsLO) and MHCII high expressing subset (mTECsHI) which is considered to be mature. Aire is expressed only by 30% from the latter.
PGE was found to act in a stochastic manner, which means that each mTEC expresses distinct set of Aire-dependent and Aire-independent TRAs. Despite its stochasticity, TRAs are co-expressed in clusters which however, rather mirror their co-localization on chromosomes than co-expression patterns from particular tissues. Even though TRAs involved in each cluster were found to be consistent, the PGE of whole cluster is transient and changes during mTEC development. Moreover, these clusters are highly variable between individuals. PGE is distinct from the expression of TRAs in the peripheral tissues also by its monoalelic or bialelic course. On the other hand, the level of TRA expression and numbers of alternative-splicing protein variants in the thymus correspond to the peripheral tissues.
PGE is highly conserved between mice and human.
B cells
Although thymic B cells were shown to induce either negative selection or Treg selection, their importance for the establishment of central tolerance remains elusive. It is assumed however, that B cells in the thymus are licensed by CD40-CD40L interaction with autoreactive T cells to activate the expression of Aire and upregulate levels of MHCII and CD80. Moreover, Aire drives the PGE of Aire-dependent TRAs in B cells and because their repertoire is non-overlapping with that of mTECs it should broaden the scope of peripheral antigens displayed in the thymus.
PGE in the periphery
Except the thymus, Aire is expressed also in the periphery, namely in the secondary lymphoid organs. However, the search for particular Aire-expressing cell type still continues due to conflicting results. What seems to be clear is that these cells express Aire-dependent TRAs, that are distinct from those in mTECs. In line with their high expression of MHCII and very limited expression of costimulatory molecules, these cells were shown to establish tolerance by inactivation of autoreactive T cells rather than inducing apoptosis in them.
Master-regulators of PGE
Aire and its partners
Aire is not classical transcription factor, because instead of recognition of specific consensus sequences, Aire seeks after genes marked by specific histone marks, such as the absence of H3K4me3 and presence of H3K27me3, which indicate transcriptionally inactive chromatin. This type of gene recognition logically explains the high numbers of genes whose expression is affected by Aire. There is available also alternative explanation, that Aire recognizes silenced chromatin thanks to interaction with molecular complex ATF7ip- MBD1 which binds methylated CpG di-nucleotides.
After the recognition of Aire dependent genes, Aire recruits topoisomerase II to perform double-strand DNA breaks at their transcriptional start sites (TSSs). These brakes attract DNA PK and other DNA damage response proteins which relax the surrounding chromatin and repair the breaks. Subsequently, Aire recruits elongation complex p-TEFb to the TSSs, which releases stalled RNA II polymerases and therefore activates transcription (PGE) of Aire-dependent genes. Interaction between Aire and p-TEFb is enabled by another partner molecule Brd4, which stabilizes this molecular complex.
Altogether, Aire requires around fifty partner molecules to properly activate PGE. Among these molecules further rank acetylase Creb-binding protein (CBP), which enhances stability of Aire, however dampens its transactivation properties and deacetylase Sirtuin 1 (Sirt1), which is essential for activation of PGE of Aire-dependent TRAs. Worth mentioning is also Hipk2, which phosphorylates Aire and CBP however, its absence affects mostly PGE of Aire-independent genes, suggesting that this kinase might cooperate with other unknown transcriptional regulator.
Recently, molecular complexes of Aire and its partners were shown to localize to specific parts of chromatin called super-enhancers.
By contrast, little is known about transcription of Aire itself. Nevertheless, several studies suggest that major role in triggering of Aire expression plays NF-κB signaling pathway, similarly as in the development of mTECs. Aire expression and PGE of Aire-dependent TRAs is also affected by sex hormones. Androgens enhance these processes, whereas impact by estrogens is completely opposite and results in less efficient PGE.
Fezf2
Fezf2 (forebrain embryonic zinc-finger-like protein 2) was recently discovered as the second regulator of PGE. Even though little is known about its operation in the thymus, Fezf2, in marked contrast with Aire, plays role in different physiological processes than central tolerance, e.g. development of the brain, and acts as a classical transcription factor. In the thymus however, Fezf2 is expressed by nearly 80% of mTECs and not other cells. The repertoire of TRAs involved in Fezf2-driven PGE is nonoverlapping with that of Aire and comprises genes previously defined as Aire-independent, e.g. Fabp9 (TRA of testis). This fact is also bolstered by different manifestations of autoimmunity in Fezf2 knockout mouse, in comparison with Aire KO mouse.
The expression of Fezf2 was found to be independent on Aire however, was found to be triggered also by the receptor of NF-κB signaling pathway, namely by LtβR.
The expression of Aire and Fezf2 was found to be upregulated after mTEC adhesion to developing T cells which points to the fact that functional PGE requires direct contact with T cells.
References
Immunology
Thymus
Epithelial cells | Promiscuous gene expression | [
"Biology"
] | 1,880 | [
"Immunology"
] |
59,854,750 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guido%20Bargellini | Guido Bargellini (1879–1963) was an Italian organic chemist. He specialized in natural product chemistry, in particular, flavonoid dyes and coumarins, and the compound santonin. He was admitted to the Accademia dei Lincei in 1946. The Bargellini reaction is named for him.
References
Eintrag bei treccani.it
1879 births
1963 deaths
Italian chemists
Organic chemists
People from Roccastrada | Guido Bargellini | [
"Chemistry"
] | 95 | [
"Organic chemists"
] |
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