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Rs 1-Crore Deal For Historian Ramachandra Guha

2009-03-26T21:37:00.000-07:00

In a sharp retort to the doomsayers of the publishing industry, publishing major Penguin India has reportedly offered an advance of Rs 1 crore to popular historian Ramachandra Guha for a sevenbook deal.

Penguin emerged winner in a threeway fight that involved Harper Collins and Random House India.

But the publishing house is tightlipped over the advance amount. “Lots of numbers are being bandied about, so we won’t like to comment on that,” said Hemali Sodhi, head of marketing, Penguin India. Sodhi, however, clarified that the “amount being paid was for a body of work rather than a single book”.

Equally stoic was Ramchandra Guha who said, "The figures are not important to me. In fact, what Penguin offered to me is less than what the rival publishers were giving. I chose Penguin owing to my need for a long-term commitment." If the offer of Rs 1 crore to Guha is indeed true, then this means a giant leap for Indian authors, considering Amitav Ghosh was able to pocket $110,000 (Rs 55 lakh) as advance amount (the amount one is paid up front for writ ing a book) after an unprecedented bidding war for his “Sea of Poppies” trilogy, which was also published by Penguin India.

The seven-book deal involves “a definitive two-volume biography of Mahatma Gandhi”, “The Past and Future of Indian Democracy” and “The Makers of Modern India”, which is an anthology of 12 thinkers who had a vision for a modern India.

Apart from these books, Penguin will also re-issue three titles from the Guha’s backlist. They include an acclaimed biography of Verrier Elwin, “Environmentalism: A Global History” and “The States of Indian Cricket”, a collection of Guha’s cricket writings.

But it is Guha’s magnum opus - the two-volume biography of Mahatma Gandhi, one based in South Africa and the other in India, that is creating ripples in the publishing circles.

The first volume on Gandhi is slated for release in 2012 and the second in 2015. Guha, however, said that "The Makers of Modern India" is a more important book to him.

Expressing pleasure over the deal, Ravi Singh, Publisher, Penguin India, called the books, which will be published over the next six years, as the “most significant and fascinating aspects of national life”.

ForMoreInfo: http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=Rs+1-crore+deal+for+historian+Ramachandra+Guha&artid=exB8MOAm7nM=&SectionID=Qz/kHVp9tEs=&MainSectionID=Qz/kHVp9tEs=&SEO=popular+historian+Ramachandra+Guha&SectionName=UOaHCPTTmuP3XGzZRCAUTQ==

New Species Of Bacterias Are Found In The Stratosphere

2009-03-18T02:33:00.000-07:00

hree new species of bacteria, which are not found on Earth and which are highly resistant to ultra-violet radiation, have been discovered in the upper stratosphere by Indian scientists.

One of the new species has been named as Janibacter hoylei, after the Distinguished Astrophysicist Fred Hoyle, the second as Bacillus isronensis recognising the contribution of ISRO in the balloon experiments which led to its discovery and the third as Bacillus aryabhata after India’s celebrated ancient astronomer Aryabhata and also the first satellite of ISRO.

The experiment was conducted using a 26.7 million cubic feet balloon carrying a 459 kg scientific payload soaked in 38 kg of liquid Neon, which was flown from the National Balloon Facility in Hyderabad, operated by the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR).

The payload consisted of a cryosampler containing sixteen evacuated and sterilised stainless steel probes. Throughout the flight, the probes remained immersed in liquid Neon to create a cryopump effect. These cylinders, after collecting air samples from different heights ranging from 20 km to 41 km, were parachuted down and safely retrieved. These samples were analysed by scientists at the Center for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad as well as the National Center for Cell Science (NCCS), Pune for independent examination, ensuring that both laboratories followed similar protocols to achieve homogeneity of procedure and interpretation.

While the present study does not conclusively establish the extra-terrestrial origin of microorganisms, it does provide positive encouragement to continue the work in our quest to explore the origin of life.

This was the second such experiment conducted by ISRO, the first one being in 2001. Even though the first experiment had yielded positive results, it was decided to repeat the experiment by exercising extra care to ensure that it was totally free from any terrestrial contamination.

Probable Carcinogens Found In Baby Products

2009-03-12T22:18:00.000-07:00

More than half the baby shampoo, lotion and other infant care products analyzed by a health advocacy group were found to contain trace amounts of two chemicals that are believed to cause cancer, the organization said yesterday.

Some of the biggest names on the market, including Johnson & Johnson Baby Shampoo and Baby Magic lotion, tested positive for 1,4-dioxane or formaldehyde, or both, the nonprofit Campaign for Safe Cosmetics reported.

The chemicals, which the Environmental Protection Agency has characterized as probable carcinogens, are not intentionally added to the products and are not listed among ingredients on labels. Instead, they appear to be byproducts of the manufacturing process. Formaldehyde is created when other chemicals in the product break down over time, while 1,4-dioxane is formed when foaming agents are combined with ethylene oxide or similar petrochemicals.

The organization tested 48 baby bath products such as bubble bath and shampoo. Of those, 32 contained trace amounts of 1,4-dioxane and 23 contained small amounts of formaldehyde. Seventeen tested positive for both chemicals.

"Our intention is not to alarm parents, but to inform parents that products that claim to be gentle and pure are contaminated with carcinogens, which is completely unnecessary," said Stacy Malkan, a spokeswoman for the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, which is calling for the government to more strictly regulate personal care products such as shampoo, lotion and makeup.

Companies that manufacture and sell the products tested by the group stressed that they comply with government standards.

"The FDA and other government agencies around the world consider these trace levels safe, and all our products meet or exceed the regulatory requirements in every country where they are sold," Johnson & Johnson said in a statement. "We are disappointed that the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics has inaccurately characterized the safety of our products, misrepresented the overwhelming consensus of scientists and government agencies that review the safety of ingredients, and unnecessarily alarmed parents."

The European Union has banned 1,4-dioxane as an ingredient in personal care products, but the Food and Drug Administration has not established a safe limit for the chemical in shampoo, lotion and other toiletries. It maintains that the trace amounts found in those products are not harmful.

A 1982 study by the FDA showed that 1,4-dioxane can penetrate human skin when used in lotion.

Health advocates argue, however, that federal regulators have not considered the cumulative effect of chemicals in personal care products.

"The levels we've found are relatively low, and the industry often says there's just a little bit of carcinogen in my product," Malkan said. "The problem is, we're finding a little bit of carcinogen in many products. Many of these products are used every day, so we've got repeated and frequent exposure to these low levels of chemicals. They're not the safest and purest products, and parents ought to know that."

In addition, government studies have not examined the effect of chemical exposure on the particular vulnerabilities of infants and children, whose bodies are still developing, the advocates said.

Several Democratic lawmakers said the report is evidence that the nation's chemical regulation system needs to be changed.

New Research To Defeat HIV Virus

2009-03-05T22:14:00.000-08:00

Scientists at major medical centers in the United States, the drug industry and AIDS advocates are calling for a new research effort to defeat, once and for all, the viral infections that have caused the global AIDS epidemic that kills more than two million people each year worldwide, despite the antiviral drugs that are keeping other millions alive even now.

The goal - admittedly a longshot - is to find a path that would free every infected patient in the world from both the AIDS-causing virus and from life-long dependence on the drugs that can hold the virus at bay, but are far too costly for most of the underdeveloped nations of the world.

In a sense the call for a collaborative effort to end to the viral infection that - untreated - ends in death from outright AIDS is a voice from beyond the grave of AIDS advocate Martin Delaney, founder and longtime director of San Francisco's Project Inform, who died six weeks ago of liver cancer.

Before he died, Delaney, whose organization remains a major source of information, advocacy and activism on behalf of AIDS patients around the globe, had joined the scientists in meetings to draw up plans for what they are terming a "collaboratory," the coordination of years of research in a new venture with an unpredictable payoff.

As successful as they are in combatting the AIDS virus, the drug combinations now available cannot eliminate every virus particle from the bodies of those who are infected. Those dormant particles - latent is the medical term - pose an ongoing threat of renewed infection without lifelong use of those antiviral drugs.

Researchers for HIV work

2009-02-19T05:00:00.000-08:00

Even as Connecticut considers reducing funding for AIDS programs, state public health researchers are winning accolades for their work with those living with HIV.

A program developed at the University of Connecticut's Center for Health, Intervention and Prevention is among a group of eight intervention programs commended recently by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Under the program, known as "Options," clinicians are trained to counsel HIV-positive patients during routine medical appointments to avoid risky behavior, such as unprotected sex and drug use, developing a list of behavioral prescriptions for patients to follow as they live with the virus.

"Most interventions focus on people not infected with HIV and not likely to become infected," said Jeffrey D. Fisher, a social psychology professor at UConn and director of the intervention center. "But we also need to help people who have HIV to practice safer sex and drug use."

Such precautions are necessary not just to protect the health of those living with HIV or AIDS, which make patients substantially more susceptible to infection and disease, but also to ensure that continued risky behavior doesn't spread HIV to those with whom diagnosed people share needles or have sex.

Fisher developed the program in the late 1990s with his brother, Bill Fisher, a professor at the University of Western Ontario, and three other researchers from CHIP and Yale University.

The Options program was developed from current behavioral theory and a process of collaboration with those struggling with HIV diagnosis and problems with substance abuse or risky sex, Fisher said. The intervention plan asks clinical workers to work with patients to develop strategies for reducing risk, and to evaluate each patient's willingness to change.

The program was included this year in "The 2008 Compendium of Evidence-based HIV Prevention Interventions," which is compiled annually by the CDC, and recognizes programs that have proven successful at reducing HIV infection and behavior that can increase the chance of contracting sexually transmitted diseases.

The CDC estimates that 46,000 people were infected with HIV in the U.S. in 2006, the most recent year for which data was available.

Source: theday.com/re.aspx?re=76b88ed9-71a3-4510-a675-6361d367da02

Controlled languages

2009-02-09T01:15:00.000-08:00

Controlled natural languages are subsets of natural languages whose grammars and dictionaries have been restricted in order to reduce or eliminate both ambiguity and complexity. The purpose behind the development and implementation of a controlled natural language typically is to aid non-native speakers of a natural language in understanding it, or to ease computer processing of a natural language. An example of a widely used controlled natural language is Simplified English, which was originally developed for aerospace industry maintenance manuals.

Video CD (VCD)

2009-02-02T23:18:00.001-08:00

Video CD (VCD, View CD, and Compact Disc digital video) is a standard digital format for storing video media on a CD. VCDs are playable in dedicated VCD players, most modern DVD-Video players, personal computers, and some video game consoles.

The VCD standard was created in 1993 by Sony, Philips, Matsushita, and JVC and is referred to as the White Book standard.

Overall picture quality is intended to be comparable to VHS video. Poorly compressed VCD video can sometimes be lower quality than VHS video, but VCD exhibits block artifacts rather than analog noise, and does not deteriorate further with each use, which may be preferable.

352x240 (or SIF) resolution was chosen because it is half the vertical, and half the horizontal resolution of NTSC video. 352x288 is similarly one quarter PAL/SECAM resolution. This approximates the (overall) resolution of an analog VHS tape, which, although it has double the number of (vertical) scan lines, has a much lower horizontal resolution.

Species diversity

2009-01-26T22:33:00.000-08:00

Species diversity refers to the number and distribution of species in one location. Simply the measure of the number of different species within a given area. Humans have a huge effect on species diversity; the main reasons are:

Destruction, Modification, and/or Fragmentation of Habitat

Introduction of Exotic Species

Overharvest

Global Climate Change

Lebanon Cedar

2009-01-19T22:51:00.000-08:00

Cedrus libani (Lebanon Cedar or Cedar of Lebanon), is a species of cedar native to the mountains of the Mediterranean region, in Lebanon, western Syria and south central Turkey, with varieties of it (some treated as separate species by some authors) in southwest Turkey, Cyprus, and the Atlas Mountains in Algeria and Morocco in northwest Africa. The Cedars Conservancy parks in Lebanon are candidates in the New 7 Wonders of Nature competition.

Wonderboom Nature Reserve

2009-01-12T23:11:00.000-08:00

The Wonderboom Nature Reserve is a 1 km² reserve centered on a wild willowleaf fig tree Ficus salicifolia that is more than a thousand years old, found towards the north of the Magaliesberg Mountains in the Northern portion of the Tshwane (Pretoria) Metropole, South Africa.
Wonderboom from the top of a neighbouring hill.

It is situated at the foot of the Magaliesberg and is currently protected from human traffic around its trunk and roots. As it has grown, its outlying branches have rooted themselves round the parent tree. This has repeated until there are now three circles of daughter trees encircling the mother fig, with 13 distinct trunks, covering a 50m area.
"Wonderboom" is the Afrikaans name that translates as "Wonder Tree," or more accurately "Miracle Tree."
Other features of the Wonderboom Nature preserve include a stone age site that has given up the largest single accumulation of Neolithic tools ever found in South Africa and an Iron Age site, as well as a breeding pair of Black Eagles.

Nylon

2009-01-07T03:06:00.000-08:00

Nylon is a generic designation for a family of synthetic polymers known generically as polyamides and first produced on February 28, 1935 by Wallace Carothers at DuPont. Nylon is one of the most commonly used polymers.

Properties of language

2008-12-25T23:40:00.000-08:00

A set of commonly accepted signs (indices, icons or symbols) is only one feature of language; all languages must define

the structural relationships between these signs in a system of grammar,

the context wherin the signs are used (pragmatics) and

dependent on their context the content specifity, i.e. its meaning (semantics). Rules of grammar are one of the characteristics sometimes said to distinguish language from other forms of communication. They allow a finite set of signs to be manipulated to create a potentially infinite number of grammatical utterances.

Another property of language is that its symbols are arbitrary. Any concept or grammatical rule can be mapped onto a symbol. In other words, most languages make use of sound, but the combinations of sounds used do not have any necessary and inherent meaning – they are merely an agreed-upon convention to represent a certain thing by users of that language. For instance, there is nothing about the Spanish word nada itself that forces Spanish speakers to convey the idea of "nothing". Another set of sounds (for example, the English word nothing) could equally be used to represent the same concept, but all Spanish speakers have acquired or learned to correlate this meaning for this particular sound pattern. For Slovenian, Croatian, Serbian or Bosnian speakers on the other hand, nada means something else; it means "hope".

Histone

2008-12-15T22:30:00.000-08:00

In biology, histones are the chief protein components of chromatin. They act as spools around which DNA winds, and they play a role in gene regulation. Without histones, the unwound DNA in chromosomes would be very long. For example, each human cell has about 1.8 meters of DNA, but wound on the histones it has about 90 millimeters of chromatin, which, when duplicated and condensed during mitosis, result in about 120 micrometers of chromosomes.

Cognition

2008-12-03T21:10:00.001-08:00

Cognition is a concept used in different ways by different disciplines, but is generally accepted to mean the process of thought. For example, in psychology and cognitive science it refers to an information processing view of an individual's psychological functions. Other interpretations of the meaning of cognition link it to the development of concepts; individual minds, groups, organizations, and even larger coalitions of entities, can be modelled as societies which cooperate to form concepts. The autonomous elements of each 'society' would have the opportunity to demonstrate emergent behavior in the face of some crisis or opportunity. Cognition can also be interpreted as "understanding and trying to make sense of the world".

Victoria's water environments

2008-11-28T03:29:00.000-08:00

Victoria's water environments are diverse and are among Victoria's most valuable assets. Our unique rivers, wetlands, estuaries and coasts are home to millions of creatures, from tiny plankton to fish, dolphins, birds and whales, including animals that migrate to Victoria each year from across the globe.

Healthy water is essential to sustain the many demands that we, as a community, place on our water environments. Without healthy water we would not be able to drink or grow agricultural products or undertake many of the other essential activities that support our wellbeing and economy. Water environments are also of great environmental and cultural value to all Victorians, especially aboriginal and rural communities, which often see our water environments as the lifeblood of their communities.

Essentially, we need to protect water environments as they protect and sustain us, our way of living and our future. This is not something that can be achieved by one organisation or a few individuals alone. We all impact on water environments through everyday activities so we must all work together to better manage our actions and reduce our impacts.

Sight

2008-11-13T01:06:00.001-08:00

Sight or vision is the ability of the brain and eye to detect electromagnetic waves within the visible range (light) interpreting the image as "sight." There is disagreement as to whether this constitutes one, two or three senses. Neuroanatomists generally regard it as two senses, given that different receptors are responsible for the perception of colour (the frequency of photons of light) and brightness (amplitude/intensity - number of photons of light). Some argue[citation needed] that stereopsis, the perception of depth, also constitutes a sense, but it is generally regarded as a cognitive (that is, post-sensory) function of brain to interpret sensory input and to derive new information. The inability to see is called blindness.

Rifle

2008-11-04T23:02:00.000-08:00

A rifle is a firearm designed to be fired from the shoulder, with a barrel that has a helical groove or pattern of grooves ("rifling") cut into the barrel walls. The raised areas of the rifling are called "lands," which make contact with the projectile (for small arms usage, called a bullet), imparting spin around an axis corresponding to the orientation of the weapon. When the projectile leaves the barrel, the conservation of angular momentum improves accuracy and range, in the same way that a properly thrown American football or rugby ball behaves. The word "rifle" originally referred to the grooving, and a rifle was called a "rifled gun." Rifles are used in warfare, hunting and shooting sports.

Typically, a bullet is propelled by the contained deflagration of an explosive compound (originally black powder, later cordite, and now nitrocellulose), although other means such as compressed air are used in air rifles, which are popular for vermin control, hunting small game, and casual shooting ("plinking").

In most armed forces the term "gun" is incorrect when referring to a rifle; in the military, the word "gun" means a cannon (artillery). Furthermore, in many works of fiction a rifle refers to any weapon that has a stock and is shouldered before firing, even if the weapon is not rifled or does not fire solid projectiles.

Oncotic pressure

2008-10-30T02:05:00.000-07:00

Oncotic pressure in the circulatory system is a form of osmotic pressure exerted by proteins in blood plasma that normally tends to pull water into the circulatory system. Colloid osmotic pressure is another name for oncotic pressure.

Throughout the body, dissolved compounds have an osmotic pressure. Because large plasma proteins cannot easily cross through the capillary walls, their effect on the osmotic pressure of the capillary interiors will, to some extent, balance out the tendency for fluid to leak out of the capillaries. In other words, the oncotic pressure tends to pull fluid into the capillaries. In conditions where plasma proteins are reduced, e.g. from being lost in the urine (proteinuria) or from malnutrition, the result of low oncotic pressure can be edema – excess fluid buildup in the tissues.

Polarization

2008-10-21T23:34:00.000-07:00

Polarization (Brit. polarisation) is a property of waves that describes the orientation of their oscillations. For transverse waves, it describes the orientation of the oscillations in the plane perpendicular to the wave's direction of travel. Longitudinal waves such as sound waves in liquids and gases do not exhibit polarization, because for these waves the direction of oscillation is by definition along the direction of travel. Some media can carry waves with both transverse and longitudinal oscillations. Such waves do have polarization.

Polarization is used in areas of science and technology dealing with wave propagation, such as optics, seismology, and telecommunications. For electromagnetic waves such as light, the polarization is described by specifying the direction of the wave's electric field. According to the Maxwell equations, the direction of the magnetic field is uniquely determined for a specific electric field distribution and polarization. For transverse sound waves in a solid, the polarization is associated with the direction of the shear stress in the plane perpendicular to the propagation direction.

Digital marketing

2008-10-13T22:24:00.000-07:00

Digital Marketing is the practice of promoting products and services using digital distribution channels to reach consumers in a timely, relevant, personal and cost-effective manner.

Whilst digital marketing does include many of the techniques and practices contained within the category of Internet Marketing, it extends beyond this by including other channels with which to reach people that do not require the use of The Internet. As a result of this non-reliance on the Internet, the field of digital marketing includes a whole host of elements such as mobile phones, sms/mms, display / banner ads and digital outdoor.

Previously seen as a stand-alone service in its own right, it is frequently being seen as a domain that can and does cover most, if not all, of the more traditional marketing areas such as Direct Marketing by providing the same method of communicating with an audience but in a digital fashion.

Solar cell

2008-10-02T21:56:00.000-07:00

A solar cell or photovoltaic cell is a device that converts solar energy into electricity by the photovoltaic effect. Photovoltaics is the field of technology and research related to the application of solar cells as solar energy. Sometimes the term solar cell is reserved for devices intended specifically to capture energy from sunlight, while the term photovoltaic cell is used when the source is unspecified. Assemblies of cells are used to make solar modules, which may in turn be linked in photovoltaic arrays.

Solar cells have many applications. Individual cells are used for powering small devices such as electronic calculators. Photovoltaic arrays generate a form of renewable electricity, particularly useful in situations where electrical power from the grid is unavailable such as in remote area power systems, Earth-orbiting satellites and space probes, remote radiotelephones and water pumping applications. Photovoltaic electricity is also increasingly deployed in grid-tied electrical systems. Similar devices intended to capture energy radiated from other sources include thermophotovoltaic cells, betavoltaics cells, and optoelectric nuclear batteries.

Method of IP assignment

2008-09-23T02:48:00.001-07:00

Static IP addresses get manually assigned to a computer by an administrator. The exact procedure varies according to platform. This contrasts with dynamic IP addresses, which are assigned either randomly (by the computer itself, as in Zeroconf), or assigned by a server using Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). Even though IP addresses assigned using DHCP may stay the same for long periods of time, they can generally change. In some cases, a network administrator may implement dynamically assigned static IP addresses. In this case, a DHCP server is used, but it is specifically configured to always assign the same IP address to a particular computer, and never to assign that IP address to another computer. This allows static IP addresses to be configured in one place, without having to specifically configure each computer on the network in a different way.

In the absence of both an administrator (to assign a static IP address) and a DHCP server, the operating system may assign itself an IP address using state-less autoconfiguration methods, such as Zeroconf. These IP addresses, known as link-local addresses, default to the 169.254.0.0/16 address range in IPv4.

In IPv6, every interface, whether using static or dynamic address assignments, also receives a local-link address automatically in the fe80::/64 subnet.

Bluetooth 1.0 and 1.0B

2008-09-19T00:29:00.000-07:00

Versions 1.0 and 1.0B had many problems, and manufacturers had difficulty making their products interoperable. Versions 1.0 and 1.0B also included mandatory Bluetooth hardware device address (BD_ADDR) transmission in the Connecting process (rendering anonymity impossible at the protocol level), which was a major setback for certain services planned for use in Bluetooth environments.

Pain

2008-09-16T03:40:00.001-07:00

Nociception (physiological pain) signals near-damage or damage to tissue. The three types of pain receptors are cutaneous (skin), somatic (joints and bones) and visceral (body organs). It was believed that pain was simply the overloading of pressure receptors, but research in the first half of the 20th century indicated that pain is a distinct phenomenon that intertwines with all of the other senses, including touch. Pain was once considered an entirely subjective experience, but recent studies show that pain is registered in the anterior cingulate gyrus of the brain.

Community ecology

2008-09-09T23:11:00.000-07:00

Community ecology is a subdiscipline of ecology which studies the distribution, abundance, demography, and interactions between coexisting populations. Interactions between populations, determined by specific genotypic and phenotypic characteristics, is the primary focus of community ecology.

Community ecology has its origin in European plant sociology. Modern community ecology examines patterns such as variation in species richness, equitability, productivity and food web structure; it also examines processes such as predator-prey population dynamics, succession, and community assembly. Patterns and processes in turn can be considered in terms of space and time, at different scales.

De Demography is the statistical study of all populations. It can be a very general science that can be applied to any kind of dynamic population, that is, one that changes over time or space (see population dynamics). It encompasses the study of the size, structure and distribution of populations, and spatial and/or temporal changes in them in response to birth, death, migration and aging.

Human demography is the most well known discipline of demography, and typically what people refer to when using the term demography. Demographic analysis can be applied to whole societies or to groups defined by criteria such as education, nationality, religion and ethnicity. In academia, demography is often regarded as a branch of either anthropology, economics, or sociology. Formal demography limits its object of study to the measurement of populations processes, while the more broad field of social demography population studies also analyze the relationships between economic, social, cultural and biological processes influencing a population.

The term demographics is often used erroneously for demography, but refers rather to selected population characteristics as used in government, marketing or opinion research, or the demographic profiles used in such research.mography

MODAF

2008-09-04T04:01:00.000-07:00

The UK Ministry of Defence Architectural Framework (MODAF) defines a standardised way of conducting Enterprise Architecture and provides a means to model, understand, analyze and specify Capabilities, Systems, Systems of Systems, and Business Processes. The purpose of MODAF is to provide a rigorous systems of systems definition when procuring and integrating defence systems. As of 10th April 2007, MODAF version 1.1 was released. The documentation for MODAF and its meta-model can be found at http://www.modaf.org.uk. There is also a website serving the MODAF community at http://www.modaf.com, acting as the publication hub for the MODAF news and white papers.

Bollandist

2008-08-25T23:05:00.000-07:00

The Bollandists are an association of scholars - originally all Jesuit, but now including non-Jesuits -- philologists and historians -- who since the early seventeenth century have studied hagiography and the cult of the saints in Christianity. Their most important publication has been the Acta Sanctorum (the Lives of the Saints). They are named after the Jesuit and founding hagiographer Jean Bolland or Bollandus (1596-1665).

The idea of the Acta Sanctorum was first conceived by the Dutch Jesuit Heribert Rosweyde (1569-1629), who was a lecturer at the Jesuit college of Douai. Rosweyde used his leisure time to collect information about the lives of the saints. On his death, Bolland continued his work in Antwerp.

Underestimating the magnitude of the undertaking, Bolland initially thought he could finish the work on his own, but after a few years he had to admit that the undertaking was beyond his individual strength. He was then assigned an assistant, Godfrey Henschen or Henschenius (1601-1681). The first two volumes of the Acta, by Bolland and Henschen, were published in Antwerp in 1643.

Unlike Rosweyde and Bolland, Henschen was allowed to devote himself exclusively to the writing of the Acta. He solved many problems relating to chronology, geography and the philological interpretation of the sources. By the time of his death, 24 volumes had appeared; moreover, Henschen left many notes and commentaries for the following volumes. It can therefore be said that the Acta owe their final form to Henschen.

In 1659, Bolland and Henschen were joined by Daniel van Papenbroeck or Papebrochius (1628-1714), who devoted fifty-five years of his life to the Acta. From July 1660 until December 1662, Henschen and van Papenbroeck travelled through Germany, Italy and France in order to collect copies of hagiographic manuscripts. Another Bollandist of this period was Jean Gamans.

When the Society of Jesus was suppressed by Pope Clement XIV in 1773, the Bollandists moved from Antwerp to Brussels, where they continued their work in the monastery of the Coudenberg until 1788, when the Bollandist Society was suppressed by the Austrian government of the Low Countries. Their library was acquired by the Premonstratensians of the Abbey of Tongerloo, who endeavored to carry on the work. The fifty-third volume was published by the abbot of Tongerloo in 1794. The 53 volumes of the first series covered the saints from January 1 to October 14.

After the re-establishment of the Society of Jesus in Belgium, a new Society of Bollandists was formed in the second quarter of the nineteenth century under the patronage of the Belgian government. The first volume of the new series appeared in 1845. A collection of 61 volumes was published in Paris between 1863 and 1867. By the end of the 19th century the work was re-oriented, bringing it more in line with the new philological methods. In 1882, a quarterly review on critical hagiography was established under the title of Analecta Bollandiana, which still exists today and publishes supplements to the Acta.

Mesolithic

2008-08-20T02:57:00.001-07:00

The "Mesolithic," or "Middle Stone Age" (from the Greek "mesos," "middle," and "lithos," "stone") was a period in the development of human technology between the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods of the Stone Age.

The Mesolithic period began at the end of the Pleistocene epoch, some 10,000 BP, and ended with the introduction of agriculture, the date of which varied by geographic region. In some areas, such as the Near East, agriculture was already underway by the end of the Pleistocene, and there the Mesolithic is short and poorly defined. In areas with limited glacial impact, the term "Epipaleolithic" is sometimes preferred.

Regions that experienced greater environmental effects as the last ice age ended have a much more evident Mesolithic era, lasting millennia. In Northern Europe, societies were able to live well on rich food supplies from the marshlands fostered by the warmer climate. Such conditions produced distinctive human behaviours which are preserved in the material record, such as the Maglemosian and Azilian cultures. These conditions also delayed the coming of the Neolithic until as late as 4000 BCE (6,000 BP) in northern Europe.

Remains from this period are few and far between, often limited to middens. In forested areas, the first signs of deforestation have been found, although this would only begin in earnest during the Neolithic, when more space was needed for agriculture.

The Mesolithic is characterized in most areas by small composite flint tools — microliths and microburins. Fishing tackle, stone adzes and wooden objects, e.g. canoes and bows, have been found at some sites. These technologies first occur in Africa, associated with the Azilian cultures, before spreading to Europe through the Ibero-Maurusian culture of Spain and Portugal, and the Kebaran culture of Palestine. Independent discovery is not always ruled out.

Wi-Fi Channel pollution

2008-08-13T02:16:00.000-07:00

Standardization is a process driven by market forces. Interoperability issues between non-Wi-Fi brands or proprietary deviations from the standard can still disrupt connections or lower throughput speeds on all user's devices that are within range, to include the non-Wi-Fi or proprietary product. Moreover, the usage of the ISM band in the 2.45 GHz range is also common to Bluetooth, WPAN-CSS, ZigBee and any new system will take its share.

Wi-Fi pollution, or an excessive number of access points in the area, especially on the same or neighboring channel, can prevent access and interfere with the use of other access points by others, caused by overlapping channels in the 802.11g/b spectrum, as well as with decreased signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) between access points. This can be a problem in high-density areas, such as large apartment complexes or office buildings with many Wi-Fi access points. Additionally, other devices use the 2.4 GHz band: microwave ovens, security cameras, Bluetooth devices and (in some countries) Amateur radio, video senders, cordless phones and baby monitors, all of which can cause significant additional interference. General guidance to those who suffer these forms of interference or network crowding is to migrate to a Wi-Fi 5 GHz product, (802.11a, or the newer 802.11n if it has 5 GHz support) as the 5 GHz band is relatively unused and there are many more channels available. This also requires users to set up the 5 GHz band to be the preferred network in the client and to configure each network band to a different name (SSID). It is also an issue when municipalities,[6] or other large entities such as universities, seek to provide large area coverage. This openness is also important to the success and widespread use of 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi.

Side-sword

2008-08-05T02:12:00.001-07:00

A side-sword was a type of war sword used by infantry during the Renaissance of Europe. This sword was a direct descendant of the arming sword. Quite popular between the 16th and 17th centuries, they were ideal for handling the mix of armored and unarmored opponents of that time. Early versions look very much like an arming sword with an ornate hilt and ricasso. A new technique of placing ones finger on the ricasso to improve the grip (a practice that would continue in the rapier) led to the production of hilts with a guard for the finger. The term is a recently-coined calque of the Italian spada da lato and will not be found in any actual sources from the 16th or 17th centuries.

This sword design eventually led to the development of the civilian rapier, but it was not replaced by it, and the Side-sword continued to be used during the rapier's lifetime. As it could be used for both cutting and thrusting, the term cut and thrust sword is sometimes used interchangeably with side-sword. Also of note is that as rapiers became more popular, attempts were made to hybridize the blade, sacrificing the effectiveness found in each unique weapon design. These are still considered side-swords and are sometimes labeled sword rapier or cutting rapier by modern collectors. See European dueling sword for further history.

Also of note, side-swords used in conjunction with bucklers became so popular that it caused the term swashbuckler to be coined. This word stems from the new fighting style of the side-sword and buckler which was filled with much "swashing and making a noise on the buckler".

Transcendental function

2008-07-29T06:34:00.001-07:00

A transcendental function is a function that does not satisfy a polynomial equation whose coefficients are themselves polynomials, in contrast to an algebraic function, which does satisfy such an equation. In other words a transcendental function is a function which "transcends" algebra in the sense that it cannot be expressed in terms of the algebraic operations of addition, multiplication, and root extraction. Examples of transcendental functions include the exponential function, the logarithm, and the trigonometric functions. Formally, an analytic function ƒ(z) of one real or complex variable z is transcendental if it is algebraically independent of that variable.

Dye transfer Technicolor in archival work

2008-07-21T22:48:00.000-07:00

By the late 1990s the dye transfer process still had its advantages in the film archival community. Because the dye transfer process used stable acid dyes, Technicolor prints are considered of archival quality. A Technicolor print from the dye transfer era will retain its original colors virtually unchanged for decades with proper storage, whereas prints printed on Eastman color stocks produced prior to 1983 may suffer color fading after exposure to ultraviolet light and hot, humid conditions as a result of less stable photochemical dyes. Fading on some prints is so rapid that in many cases, after as little as five to ten years, only the magenta record is perceivable on the film.

Furthermore, Technicolor's negatives before 1954 are all on silver-based black and white stock, which have stayed unaltered over the course of time with proper handling. This has become of importance in recent years with the large market for films transferred to video formats for home viewing. The best color quality control for video transfer by far is achieved by printing from Technicolor negatives onto low-contrast Color Reversal Internegatives.

In 1997, Technicolor reintroduced the dye transfer process to general film production. It was also used on the restorations of films such as The Wizard of Oz, Rear Window, Funny Girl, and Apocalypse Now Redux. An article on the restoration of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (original version, 1977) claimed that a rare dye-transfer print of the movie, made for director George Lucas at the British Technicolor lab during its initial run, had been used as a color reference for the restoration. The article claimed that conventional color prints of the movie had all degraded over the years to the extent that no two had the same color balance. However, because of the variation in color balance per print, dye-transfer prints are used in the professional restoration world as only a rough guideline.

Plate tectonics

2008-07-15T23:23:00.000-07:00

Plate tectonics (from Greek τέκτων, tektōn "builder" or "mason") is a theory of geology that has been developed to explain the observed evidence for large scale motions of the Earth's lithosphere. The theory encompassed and superseded the older theory of continental drift from the first half of the 20th century and the concept of seafloor spreading developed during the 1960s.

The outermost part of the Earth's interior is made up of two layers: above is the lithosphere, comprising the crust and the rigid uppermost part of the mantle. Below the lithosphere lies the asthenosphere. Although solid, the asthenosphere has relatively low viscosity and shear strength and can flow like a liquid on geological time scales. The deeper mantle below the asthenosphere is more rigid again. This is, however, not because of cooler temperatures but due to high pressure.

The lithosphere is broken up into what are called tectonic plates —in the case of Earth, there are seven major and many minor plates (see list below). The lithospheric plates ride on the asthenosphere. These plates move in relation to one another at one of three types of plate boundaries: convergent or collision boundaries, divergent or spreading boundaries, and transform boundaries. Earthquakes, volcanic activity, mountain-building, and oceanic trench formation occur along plate boundaries. The lateral movement of the plates is typically at speeds of 50—100 mm/a.

Immunoassay

2008-07-07T23:22:00.000-07:00

An immunoassay is a biochemical test that measures the concentration of a substance in a biological liquid, typically serum or urine, using the reaction of an antibody or antibodies to its antigen. The assay takes advantage of the specific binding of an antibody to its antigen. Monoclonal antibodies are often used as they only usually bind to one site of a particular molecule, and therefore provide a more specific and accurate test, which is less easily confused by the presence of other molecules. The antibodies picked must have a high affinity for the antigen (if there is antigen available, a very high proportion of it must bind to the antibody).

Both the presence of antigen or antibodies can be measured. For instance, when detecting infection the presence of antibody against the pathogen is measured. For measuring hormones such as insulin, the insulin acts as the antigen.

For numerical results, the response of the fluid being measured must be compared to standards of a known concentration. This is usually done though the plotting of a standard curve on a graph, the position of the curve at response of the unknown is then examined, and so the quantity of the unknown found.

Detecting the quantity of antibody or antigen can be achieved by a variety of methods. One of the most common is to label either the antigen or antibody. The label may consist of an enzyme (see enzyme immunoassay (EIA)), radioisotopes such as I-125 Radioimmunoassay (RIA), magnetic labels (magnetic immunoassay - MIA) or fluorescence. Other techniques include agglutination, nephelometry, turbidimetry and Western Blot.

Semiconservative replication

2008-07-01T05:30:00.000-07:00

Semiconservative replication describes the method by which DNA is replicated in all known cells. This method of replication was one of three proposed models of DNA replication:

Conservative replication would leave the two original template DNA strands together in a double helix and would produce a copy composed of two new strands containing all of the new DNA base pairs.

replication would produce two copies of the DNA, both containing distinct regions of DNA composed of either both original strands or both new strands.

Semiconservative replication would produce two copies that each contained one of the original strands and one entirely new strand.

The deciphering of the structure of DNA by Watson and Crick in 1953 suggested that each strand of the double helix would serve as a template for synthesis of a new strand. However, there was no way of guessing how the newly synthesized strands might combine with the template strands to form two double helical DNA molecules. The semiconservative model seemed most reasonable since it would allow each daughter strand to remain associated with its template strand. The semiconservative model was verified by the Meselson-Stahl experiment and other even more revealing experiments that allowed for autoradiographic visualization of the distribution of old and new strands within replicated chromosomes.

Break (music)

2008-06-23T22:52:00.000-07:00

In popular music a break is an instrumental or percussion section or interlude during a song derived from or related to stop-time – being a "break" from the main parts of the song or piece.

In DJ parlance, a break is where all elements of a song (e.g., pads, basslines, vocals), except for percussion, disappear for a time. This is distinguished from a breakdown, a section where the composition is deliberately deconstructed to minimal elements (usually the percussion or rhythm section with the vocal re-introduced over the minimal backing), all other parts having been gradually or suddenly cut out. (Brewster and Broughton 2003, p.79)

The distinction between breaks and breakdowns may be described as, "Breaks are for the drummer; breakdowns are for hands in the air" (ibid). Breaks are virtuoso solos, while breakdowns are created to structure the music for dancing and creating contrast and climaxes. Examples of the elements left during a breakdown include "a single string note, a German woman having an orgasm, or the voice of God telling you to take drugs" (Brewster and Broughton 2003, p.79).

In hip hop and electronica, a short break is also known as "the drop", and is sometimes accented by cutting off everything, even the percussion.

Thermal Imaging Inspection System

2008-06-16T23:31:00.000-07:00

FMCSA has launched a project to demonstrate a thermal imaging inspection system (TIIS) that leverages state-of-the-art thermal imagery technology, integrated with signature recognition software, in order to provide the capability to identify in real-time faults and impending failures in tires, brakes, and bearings mounted on large trucks and motor coaches. A two-year research grant was awarded to International Electronic Machines Corporation for $1.4 million to conduct the TIIS project, as directed by Congress under Section 5513 of the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, and Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU) Act of 2005.

The project will be conducted in a field environment along the interstate highway to further assess the system ability to identify commercial motor vehicle (CMV) component faults and failures. A predictive tool that identifies impending tire, brake, or bearing failures and provides a timeframe in which these failures may occur will be developed and integrated into the TIIS. This project will also assess technological enhancements in the capabilities of thermal imaging systems, as related to the Agency prior research of infrared technology conducted six years ago.

Trance genres

2008-06-09T00:02:00.000-07:00

Trance music is broken into a large number of genres. Chronologically, the major genres are Classic trance, Acid trance, Progressive trance, and Uplifting Trance.Uplifting Trance is also known as "Anthem trance", "Epic trance", "Stadium trance" or "Euphoric trance".Closely related to Uplifting Trance is Euro-trance, which has become a general term for a wide variety of highly commercialized European dance music. Several subgenres are crossovers with other major genres of electronic music. For instance, tech trance is a mixture of trance and techno, and Ambient trance is a mixture of ambient and trance. Balearic beat, which is associated with the laid back vacation lifestyle of Ibiza, Spain, is often called "Ibiza trance". Similarly, Dream trance is sometimes called "Dream House", and is a subgenre of relaxing trance pioneered by Robert Miles in the mid 90s.

Another important distinction is between European trance and Goa trance which originated in Goa, India around the same time trance was evolving in Europe. Goa trance was influential in the formation of Psychedelic Trance, which features spazzy, spontaneous samples and other psychedelic elements. Trance is also very popular in Israel, with psychedelic trance producers such as Infected Mushroom and Yahel Sherman achieving world wide fame. The Israeli subgenre called Nitzhonot is a mixture of psychedelic and uplifting trance.

Road infrastructure

2008-06-03T03:28:00.000-07:00

improvements
separation, using bridges (or, less often, tunnels) freeing movements from having to stop for other crossing movements
Ramp signalling, 'drip-feeding' merging traffic via traffic signals onto a congested motorway-type roadway
Reducing junctions
Local-express lanes, providing through lanes that bypass junction on-ramp and off-ramp zones
Limited-access road, roads that limit the type and amounts of driveways along their lengths
Reversible lanes, where certain sections of highway operate in the opposite direction on different times of the day/ days of the week, to match asymmetric demand. This may be controlled by Variable-message signs or by movable physical separation
Separate lanes for specific user groups (usually with the goal of higher people throughput with fewer vehicles)
Bus lanes as part of a busway system
HOV lanes, for vehicles with at least three (sometimes at least two) riders, intended to encourage carpooling
Slugging, impromptu carpooling at HOV access points, on a hitchhiking or payment basis
Market-based carpooling with pre-negotiated financial incentives for the driver

Development of lymphatic tissues

2008-06-02T00:39:00.000-07:00

Lymphatic tissues begin to develop by the end of the fifth week of embryonic life. Lymphatic vessels develop from lymph sacs that arise from developing veins, which are derived from mesoderm.

The first lymph sacs to appear are the paired jugular lymph sacs at the junction of the internal jugular and subclavian veins. From the jugular lymph sacs, lymphatic capillary plexuses spread to the thorax, upper limbs, neck and head. Some of the plexuses enlarge and form lymphatic vessels in their respective regions. Each jugular lymph sac retains at least one connection with its jugular vein, the left one developing into the superior portion of the thoracic duct.
The next lymph sac to appear is the unpaired retroperitoneal lymph sac at the root of the mesentery of the intestine. It develops from the primitive vena cava and mesonephric veins. Capillary plexuses and lymphatic vessels spread form the retroperitoneal lymph sac to the abdominal viscera and diaphragm. The sac establishes connections with the cisterna chyli but loses its connections with neighboring veins.

The last of the lymph sacs, the paired posterior lymph sacs, develop from the iliac veins. The posterior lymph sacs produce capillary plexuses and lymphatic vessels of the abdominal wall, pelvic region, and lower limbs. The posterior lymph sacs join the cisterna chyli and lose their connections with adjacent veins.

With the exception of the anterior part of the sac from which the cisterna chyli develops, all lymph sacs become invaded by mesenchymal cells and are converted into groups of lymph nodes.The spleen develops from mesenchymal cells between layers of the dorsal mesentery of the stomach. The thymus arises as an outgrowth of the third pharyngeal pouch.

Evolution of trees

2008-05-28T23:40:00.000-07:00

The early Devonian landscape was devoid of vegetation
taller than waist height. Without the evolution of a
robust vascular system, taller heights could not be
obtained. There was, however, a constant evolutionary
pressure to attain greater height. The most obvious
advantage is the harvesting of more sunlight for
photosynthesis - by overshadowing competitors - but a
further advantage is present in spore distribution, as
spores (and, later, seeds) can be blown greater
distances if they start higher. This may be demonstrated
by Prototaxites, thought to be a late Silurian fungus
reaching eight metres in height.

In order to attain arborescence, early plants needed to
develop woody tissue that would act as both support and
water transport. To understand wood, we must know a
little of vascular behaviour. The stele of plants
undergoing "secondary growth" is surrounded by the
vascular cambium, a ring of cells which produces more
xylem (on the inside) and phloem (on the outside). Since
xylem cells comprise dead, lignified tissue, subsequent
rings of xylem are added to those already present,
forming wood.

The first plants to develop this secondary growth, and a
woody habit, were apparently the ferns, and as early as
the middle Devonian one species, Wattieza, had already
reached heights of 8 m and a tree-like habit.

Publishing on the school website

2008-05-27T07:40:00.001-07:00

Schools are contributing to this rich vein of online information by publishing information on the web about their activities. These websites are available to Internet users across the world.

The value

A school website encourages communication with a wider audience including schools in other countries, parents, past pupils, business and the community, and provides up to date information about the school's activities.

The development of such a site by pupils and staff is truly cross-curricular.

The potential risks

Personal Safety

* Feeling uncomfortable

If a website includes a pupil's picture, then this could be downloaded from the web, and edited in an unpleasant or embarrassing way. This new image could be circulated via newsgroups or on another webpage.

Parents have concerns that information about their children may be made available worldwide by schools, and that their children can be identified and traced.

Schools could find themselves the centre of unwarranted media attention if the content of a school's website is not carefully overseen. For example, search engines deal with words individually rather than in context, and deliver sites to the browser based upon those individual words. A website that included the phrase "Ourtown school is a single sex education establishment", could be proffered to a web user who was looking for occurrences of "sex".

* Child protection

A pupil could be traced if their name and picture appear on the school's website. It would be possible for them to be contacted by someone wishing them harm.

The recommendations

* Education Authorities should be approached for guidelines concerning parental permission for publishing pupils' pictures on the web.

* Schools may wish to consider whether pupils are put at risk when pictures of them appear on the school website.

* References to specific pupils should only be made if they do not conflict with the school's Personal Safety Programmed and Child Protection Guidelines.

* School website developers should take special care that pupils' safety and justifies are not compromised.

* The methods that search engines use to index the contents of websites should be borne in mind when producing text for a school website.

Preparing for Safe Internet Use

2008-05-22T08:06:00.000-07:00

Although a new experience for many, the Internet is no more than another medium with associated risks, and general risk avoidance strategies are applicable. It remains true that good advice online has its roots in good advice offline.

Every aspect of life brings its own risk and schools cope by: -

* identifying the risks

* understanding the context

* assessing the level of risk

* introducing strategies to maximize the gain, whilst limiting the risk

* integrating new concepts into the curriculum

* sharing best practice

WHAT COULD HAPPEN IF YOU HAD A BIKE CRASH AND WEREN'T WEARING A HELMET?

2008-05-07T04:55:00.000-07:00

* "You could be paralyzed, killed, or you could suffer damage."

* "You could bust your head open on the sidewalk or a rock."

* "You could go into a coma."

* "You could break your neck or crack your head.

* "You could have serious brain damage and you might have to learn all you know over again."

Bicycle Fact Sheet

2008-04-28T06:03:00.001-07:00

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates that over 600,000 persons suffered bicycle-related injuries serious enough to require hospital emergency room treatment in 1994. Here are some typical cases:

"Karen applied her hand brakes and lost control of her bicycle. She went down an embankment into a creek, and fractured her shoulder."

"As Jimmy was riding his bicycle downhill, the front wheel of his bicycle suddenly became loose and twisted. Jimmy lost control, fracturing his knee."

"Bob was riding a bike without a chain guard when his foot caught between the pedal and chain. He fell, suffering a concussion and skull fracture."

"Michele was riding her bike alongside a friend's. As her friend moved his bike to the right, the two front wheels collided, causing Michele to fall. She suffered a concussion and fractured a wrist."

These case histories illustrate some major accident patterns associated with bicycles. They are:

* Collision with a car or another bicycle.

* Loss of Control -- This occurs because of a number of factors, including: difficulty in braking; riding too large a bike; riding too fast; riding double; stunting; striking a rut, bump, or obstacle; and riding on slippery surfaces.

* Mechanical and Structural Problems -- These include brake failure; wobbling or disengagement of the wheel or steering mechanism; difficulty in shifting gears; chain slippage; pedals falling off, or spoke breakage.

* Entanglement of a person's feet, hands, or clothing in the bicycle.

* Foot slippage from pedal.

To make bicycles safer, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission developed a mandatory safety standard for bicycles to help eliminate injuries due to mechanical and structural failures.

The CPSC regulations establish strict performance and construction standards for the brakes, wheels, steering system and frame. They require reflectors on the front, back, sides and pedals to make bicycles visible at night; require elimination of uncovered sharp edges and jutting parts; and require brakes on bicycles with seat height of 22 inches or more. New bicycles are required to meet the standards.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission offers the following safety tips when shopping for a new bike or taking care of an old one:

Selecting the Bicycle

* If you're buying a bicycle for a child, choose one to fit the child's size today, not one he or she will "grow into" later.

* A bicycle should suit the rider's ability and kind of riding.

* Check hand and foot brakes for fast, easy stops without instability or jamming.

* Avoid slippery plastic pedals. Look instead for rubber-treated pedals, or metal pedals with serrated rattrap edges or with firmly attached toe clips.

Using the Bicycle

* Always wear a helmet to help prevent head injuries. CPSC is setting a new mandatory standard for bike helmets.

* Observe all traffic laws and signals, just as automobiles must do. Graphic of a bicycle with safety features pointed out

* Don't ride double or attempt stunts.

* Ride near the curb in the same direction as traffic.

* Find alternate routes, rather than ride through busy intersections and heavy or high-speed traffic.

* Walk -- don't ride -- your bicycle across busy intersections and left turn corners.

* Avoid riding in wet weather. When wet, handbrakes may require a long distance to stop.

* Avoid riding in the dark. If you do, be sure the bike is equipped with a headlight, a taillight and reflectors. Apply retro-reflective trim to clothing, or wear reflective vests and jackets.

* Avoid loose clothing or long coats that can catch in pedals or wheels. Leg clips or bands keep pants legs from tangling in the chain.

* Avoid crossing raised sewer grates.

Net Pegs (Anchor Types)

2008-04-21T06:34:00.000-07:00

These tapered, metal stakes should be used to secure only the NET to the ground. Net pegs should NOT be used to anchor the movable soccer goal 6. Guidelines for Goal Storage or Securing When Goal is Not in Use The majority of the incidents investigated by CPSC did not occur during a soccer match. Most of the incidents occurred when the goals were unattended. Therefore, it is imperative that all goals are stored properly when not being used. When goals are not being used always:
a) Remove the net,
b) Take appropriate steps to secure goals such as:
1) Place the goal frames face to face and secures them at each goalpost with a lock and chain,
2) Lock and chain to a suitable fixed structure such as a permanent fence (see Figure 4.2),
3) Lock unused goals in a secure storage room after each use,
4) If applicable, fully disassemble the goals for seasonal storage, or
5) If applicable, fold the face of the goal down and lock it to its base.

Semi permanent (Anchor Types)

2008-04-14T05:09:00.001-07:00

This anchor type is usually comprised of two or more functional components. The main support requires a permanently secured base that is buried underground. One type (3.2a) of semi permanent anchor connects the underground base to the soccer goal by means of 2 tethers. Another design (3.2b) utilizes a buried anchor tube with a threaded opening at ground level. The goal is positioned over the buried tube and the bolt is passed through the goal ground shoes (bar) and rear ground shoe (bar) and screwed into the threaded hole of the buried tube.

Rules of Soccer

2008-04-07T06:57:00.001-07:00

From the Federation of International De Football Associations (FIFA) Laws of the Game, Guide for Referees, July 1993.
"Goal-posts and cross-bars must be made of wood, metal, or other approved material as decided from time to time by the International Football Association Board. They may be square, rectangular, round half round or elliptical in shape."
"Goal-posts and cross-bars made of other materials and in other shapes are not permitted. The goal-posts must be white in color."
"The width and depth of the cross-bar shall not exceed 5 inches (12 cm)."
From the National Federation of State High School Associations' (NFSHSA) 1994-95 National Federation Edition-Soccer Rules Book.
"They shall consist of 2 upright (posts) 4 inches but not more than 5 inches (0.10m by 0.12m)...the tops of the posts shall be joined by a 4 inches but not more than 5 inches (0.10m by 0.12m) horizontal crossbar..."
From the National Collegiate Athletic Associations (NCAA) Rules for Soccer.
"...and shall consist of two wooden or metal posts, ...the width or diameter of the goal-posts and crossbar shall not be less than 4 inches (10.16 cm) nor more than 5 inches (12.7 cm)."

Parade marks start of Torino 2006 Paralympic Winter Games

2008-03-30T19:49:00.000-07:00

The Paralympic flame passed by B.C.-Canada Place on via Accademia Albertina today, marking the start of the Torino 2006 Paralympic Winter Games. More than 100 people gathered on the sidewalk outside the house, waving Canadian flags and a large Vancouver 2010 sign to cheer on the athletes and the parade. The crowd was even able to enjoy the turn-over of the torch to the next runner.

Movable Soccer Goals Can Fall Over On Children

2008-03-24T06:06:00.001-07:00

Movable soccer goals can fall over and kill or injure children who climb on them or hang from the crossbar. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has reports of at least 28 deaths since 1979 resulting from soccer goals falling over. Both homemade and professionally manufactured soccer goals are involved in these incidents. To help prevent deaths and injuries associated with soccer goals, follow these safety suggestions.
* Securely anchor or counter-weight movable soccer goals at all times (see illustration).
* Never climb on the soccer net or goal framework.
* Always instruct soccer players on the safe handling of and potential dangers associated with movable soccer goals.
* Use movable soccer goals only on level (flat) fields.
* Check all connecting hardware before every use. Replace damaged or missing fasteners immediately.
* Ensure safety labels are clearly visible.
* Remove nets when goals are not in use.
* Anchor or chain goals to nearby fence posts, dugouts, or similar sturdy fixtures when not in use.
* Fully disassemble goals for seasonal storage.

Safe snowmobiling rules for recreational snowmobiling:

2008-03-17T07:01:00.001-07:00

1. Never drive your snowmobile alone or on unfamiliar ground have someone ride along with you, so you can help each other in case of breakdown or accident.

2. Drive only on established and marked trails or in specified use areas.

3. Avoid waterways Frozen lakes and rivers can be fatal. It is almost impossible to judge adequate ice coverage or depth.

4. Avoid driving in bad weather. Check warnings for snow, ice, and wind chill conditions before starting

. 5. Watch the path ahead to avoid rocks, trees, fences (particularly barbed wire), ditches, and other obstacles.

6. Slow down at the top of a hill a cliff, snow bank, or other unforeseen hazard could be on the other side.

7. Don't hurdle snow banks you have control only when your skis are on the ground.

8. Learn the snowmobile traffic laws and regulations for the area. Many states prohibit using snowmobiles on public roads some states have mini-mum age requirements for drivers.

9. be sensible about stopping at roads or railroad tracks. Signal your turns to other drivers avoid tailgating Control speed according to conditions.

10. Use extra caution if driving at night, because un-seen obstacles could be fatal do not drive faster than your headlights will allow you to see Do not open new trails after dark.

11. Never drink while driving your snowmobile. Drinking and driving can prove fatal.

12. be sure the snowmobile is properly maintained in good operating condition. Some cases report that the throttle sticks, leading to loss of control Snowmobiles manufactured before 1983 may not have a "throttle interruption device" designed to shut off the snowmobile in the event the throttle sticks.

MS-DOS

2008-03-10T04:24:00.001-07:00

MS-DOS (MicroSoft Disk Operating System) is an operating system commercialized by Microsoft. It was the commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems and was the dominant operating system for the PC compatible platform during the 1980s. It has gradually been replaced on consumer desktop computers by a variety of generations of the Windows operating system.

MS-DOS was initially released in 1981 and had eight major versions released before Microsoft stopped development in 2000. It was the key product in Microsoft's growth from a programming languages company to varied software development firm, providing the company with essential revenue and marketing resources.

Jupiter

2008-02-25T04:20:00.001-08:00

Jupiter (pronounced /'d?u?p?t?/) is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the solar system. It is two and a half times as enormous as all of the other planets in our solar system combined. Jupiter, next to Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, is classified as a gas giant. Together, these four planets are sometimes referred to as the Jovian planets; somewhere Jovian is the adjectival form of Jupiter.

The planet was known by astronomers of ancient times and was connected with the mythology and religious beliefs of many cultures. The Romans named the planet subsequent to the Roman god Jupiter. When view from Earth, Jupiter can arrive at an apparent magnitude of -2.8, creation it the third brightest object in the night sky after the Moon and Venus.

Grapefruit

2008-02-19T03:49:00.000-08:00

The grapefruit is a subtropical citrus tree grown for its fruit which was initially named the "forbidden fruit" of Barbados.
These evergreen trees are frequently found at around 5-6 m tall, even though they can reach 13-15 m. The leaves are shady green, long up to 150 mm and thin. It produces 5 cm fair four-petalled flowers. The fruit is yellow-skinned, mainly oblate and ranges in diameter from 10-15 cm. The flesh is segmented and acidic, unreliable in color depending on the cultivars, which include white, pink and red pulps of varying sweetness. The 1929 US Ruby Red (of the Red blush variety) has the first grapefruit patent.
The fruit has only become popular from the late 19th century; before that it was only grown as a decorative plant. The US quickly became a major creation of fruit, with orchards in Florida, Texas, Arizona, and California. In Spanish, the crop is known as toronja or pomelo.

A history of computer viruses

2008-02-11T20:50:00.001-08:00

In the following report, “computer viruses” will be explained in aspect. A lengthy and educational description of the evolution and history on microcomputer viruses will be given; to give you a background of their origin for some understanding of how they came to be. The next segment in the statement is on how to battle computer viruses with the development of anti-virus applications.

The current status of microcomputer viruses will also be discuss, naming the most common types of viruses and the mass harmful type at this present point of time.
Details of the most new outbreaks of computer viruses, such as the “Melissa”, “I Love You” and the most recent “Anna Kournikova” viruses will be explained, and why they are so harmful.

Plantation

2008-02-04T20:59:00.001-08:00

A plantation is a deliberate planting of a crop, on a larger scale, frequently for uses other than cereal production or pasture. The word is most frequently used for plantings of trees and shrubs. The word tends also to be used for plantings maintain on financial bases other than that of survival farming. Crops may be called plantation crops because of their relationship with an exact type of farming economy. Most of these fit into place a large landowner, raising crops with economic value rather than for survival, with a number of employees carrying out the work. Often crops recently introduced to a region. In past times it has been connected with slavery, indentured labour, and other economic models of high injustice. However, arable and dairy farming are both frequently (but not always) barred from such definitions. A comparable economic structure in ancient times was the latitudinal that produced commercial amount of olive oil or wine, for export.

Rotogravure

2008-01-28T20:32:00.001-08:00

Rotogravure (roto or gravure for short) is a type of intaglio printing process, in that it involves etching the image onto an image carrier. In gravure printing, the image is stamped onto a copper cylinder because, like offset and flexography, it uses a rotary printing press. The vast mass of gravure presses print on reels of paper, quite than sheets of paper. Sheetfed gravure is a modest, specialty market. Rotary gravure presses are the best and widest presses in operation, printing everything from narrow labels to 12-feet-wide rolls of vinyl flooring. Additional operations may be in-line with a gravure press, such as saddle stitching services for magazine/brochure work.

Planet

2008-01-21T21:14:00.001-08:00

Earth often known as the Earth, Terra, the World or Planet Earth is the third planet away from the Sun, and is the fifth largest planet in the solar system. It is also the largest of its terrestrial system's global planets, making it the largest solid body in the solar system, and it is the only position in the universe known to humans to support life. It as well the densest planet in the lunar system. The Earth was shaped around 4.57 billion years ago and its natural satellite, the Moon, was orbiting it shortly thereafter, around 4.53 billion years ago.

The outer surface is divided into several tectonic plates that gradually travel across the surface over geologic time spans. The interior of the planet remains active, with a thick layer of convicting yet solid layer and an iron core that generates a magnetic field. Its atmospheric conditions have been considerably altered by the presence of life forms, which make an ecological balance that modifies the surface situation. About 71% of the surface is covered in salt-water oceans, and the remaining consists of continents and islands.

Umpires

2008-01-16T21:33:00.001-08:00

Two on-field umpires control over a match. One umpire stands behind the bowler's wicket, and adjudicate on most decisions. The other (the "square leg umpire") stands with a side view of the batsman (usually near the fielding location called square leg), and assists in decisions for which he or she has an enhanced view. In some professional matches the capability exists for them to refer some decisions to a third umpire, who has the assistance of television replays. In international matches a match referee ensures that play is within the laws of cricket and the courage of the game. The third umpire and referee do not take the field throughout play.

Earth

2008-01-07T21:19:00.000-08:00

Earth whose Latin name is Tellus is the third planet in the solar system in terms of distance from the Sun, and the fifth largest. It is also the largest of its planetary system's terrestrial planets, making it the largest solid body in the solar system, and it is the only place in the universe known to support life. The Earth was formed around 4.57 billion years ago and its largest natural satellite, the Moon, was orbiting it shortly thereafter, around 4.533 billion years ago.

Since it formed, the Earth has changed through geological and biological processes that have hidden traces of the original conditions. The outer surface is divided into several tectonic plates that gradually migrate across the surface over geologic time spans. The interior of the planet remains active, with a thick layer of convecting yet solid Earth mantle and an iron core that generates a magnetic field. The atmospheric conditions have been significantly altered by the presence of life forms, which create an ecological balance that modifies the surface conditions. About 71% of the surface is covered in salt water oceans, and the remainder consists of continents and islands.

Generation

2008-01-03T22:14:00.001-08:00

Generation (from the Greek γενεά), also known as reproduction, is the act of producing offspring. It can also refer to the act of creating something inanimate such as electrical creation or cryptographic scheme generation. A generation can also be a stage or degree in a sequence of natural descent as a grandfather, a father, and the father's son contain three generations.

A generation can refer to stages of consecutive improvement in the development of a technology such as the interior combustion engine, or successive iterations of products with planned obsolescence, such as video game consoles or mobile phones.
In biology, the development by which populations of organisms pass on advantageous traits from generation to generation is known evolution.

Patrice Luzi

2007-12-28T03:39:00.001-08:00

Patrice Luzi Bernardi is a French goalkeeper recently with Liverpool but released by the Anfield club in June 2005. He then signed a contract with Belgian side Mouscron.
Having previously played for Monaco and Ajaccio, Luzi made his Liverpool debut in January 2004 against Chelsea in a 1-0 win. He made two wonderful saves to deny Chelsea, but was left frustrated when he later was left out from the first team. His chances where limited when Liverpool loaned in Southampton's Paul Jones to cover from Jerzy Dudek and Chris Kirkland. Patrice Luzi has been described as a good shot stopper with good handling and distribution.
The SRBs are the largest solid-propellant motors ever flown and the first of such large rockets designed for reuse. Each is 149.16 feet long and 12.17 feet in diameter.

Stock exchange

2007-12-17T22:12:00.001-08:00

A stock exchange, share market or bourse is a corporation or mutual organization which provides services for stock brokers and traders, to trade company stocks and further securities. Stock exchanges also provide facilities for the issue and redemption of securities as well as other financial instruments and capital events as well as the payment of income and dividends. The securities traded on a stock exchange consist of: shares issued by companies, unit trusts and further pooled investment products and bonds. To be able to do business in security on a certain stock exchange, it has to be listed there. Trade on an exchange is made by members only. The initial offering of stocks and bonds to investors is by definition done in the primary market and subsequent trading is completed in the secondary market. A stock exchange is frequently the most important component of a stock market. Supply and demand in stock markets are determined by various factors which, as in all free markets, affect the price of stocks (see stock valuation).

Aspect of Life

2007-12-02T20:25:00.000-08:00

Throughout life people make different decisions upon life, some of which are less significant as others. One of the main decisions I took was that in which I had determined to leave my old life in China and come to Australia. After all, I always wanted to travel around the world. Now after expenses half of my life here, I would like to offer farewell to a few of favorable memories of home.

Send-off to the little girl that played, I anticipate I will come back to home soon and see you all again. With me when I was in kinder garden who help me get through my first day gone from mum. Thank you for pleasant me to the dentist when my tooth was painful at the middle of the night. Goodbye to the teachers who carried me in her higher body when I cry in tears every morning seeing my mum go to work without me.

Genetics

2007-11-13T05:06:00.001-08:00

It is the science of genes, heredity, and the variation of organisms. The word "genetics" was first suggested to describe the study of inheritance and the science of variation by the prominent British scientist William Bateson in a personal letter to Adam Sedgwick, dated April 18, 1905. Bateson first used the term "genetics" publicly at the Third International Conference on Genetics (London, England) in 1906.

Heredity and variations form the basis of genetics. Humans applied knowledge of genetics in prehistory with the domestication and breeding of plants and animals. In modern research, genetics provides important tools for the investigation of the function of a particular gene, e.g., analysis of genetic interactions. Within organisms, genetic information generally is carried in chromosomes, where it is represented in the chemical structure of particular DNA molecules.

Genes encode the information necessary for synthesizing the amino-acid sequences in proteins, which in turn play a large role in determining the final phenotype, or physical appearance, of the organism. In diploid organisms, a dominant allele on one chromosome will mask the expression of a recessive gene on the other.

Wain

2007-11-05T23:21:00.000-08:00

A wain is a type of horse-drawn, load-carrying vehicle, used for agricultural purposes quite than transporting people, for example a haywain. It usually has four wheels but the term has now acquired slightly poetical connotation so is not always used with technological correctness. Though, a two-wheeled 'haywain' would be a hay cart, Compare with carriage.
Builders of wains were recognized as Wainwrights, just as the builders of carts were known as Cartwrights. These trades no longer are, but the terms survive as the surnames of children of those practicing these crafts.The vehicle was the subject of John Constable's 1821 painting The Hay Wain. The painting, which was part of Constable's Gold Medal exhibit to Charles X, depicts a site in Suffolk, near Flat ford on the river Stour.

There are records of early short-distance flights from the 9th to 11th centuries, such as the parachute flight of Armen Firman, the glider flight of Abbas Ibn Firnas, and maybe earlier human-carrying kites from China.

whaleboat

2007-10-29T21:41:00.001-07:00

A whaleboat is a type of open boat that is comparatively narrow and pointed at both ends, enabling it to move either forwards or backwards equally well. It was initially developed for whaling, and later became popular for work along beaches, as it does not need to be turned around for beaching or refloating.
Whaleboats are usually oar-powered, although in whaling use often had a dismountable mast and sails, too. After 1850 most were fitted with a centerboard for marine. When sailing, steering was with a rudder; when rowing, navigation was done with an oar held over the stern. Whaleboats used in whaling had a stout post mounted on the aft deck, approximately which the steersman would cinch the rope once the whale had been harpooned, and by which the whale would drag the boat awaiting it was killed.
The term "whaleboat" may be used casually of larger whalers, or of a boat used for whale watching.

Hummingbird

2007-10-23T22:12:00.000-07:00

Hummingbirds are small birds in the family Trochilidae, inhabitant only to the Americas. They are known for their aptitude to hover in mid-air by quickly flapping their wings, 15–80 times per second (depending on the species). The Giant Hummingbird's wings beat 8–10 beats per second, the wings of medium sized hummingbirds beat about 20–25 beats for each second and the smallest beat 70 beats per second. Capable of continued hovering, the hummingbird has the ability to fly intentionally backwards (this is the only group of birds able to do so or vertically, and to maintain position while drinking from flower blossoms. They are named for the feature hum made by their wings.
Hummingbirds are involved to many flowering plants—shrimp plants, Bee Balm, Helicon, Butterfly Bush, Hibiscus, bromeliads, cannas, verbenas, honeysuckles, salvias, pentas, fuchsias, many penstemons. It is frequently stated that they are especially attracted to red and yellow flowers.

Marble

2007-10-15T22:14:00.001-07:00

Marble is a metamorphic rock resulting from the metamorphism of limestone, collected from calcite (a crystalline form of calcium carbonate, CaCO3). It is broadly used for sculpture, as a building material, and in several other applications. The word 'marble' is colloquially used to refer to much other gravel that are capable of taking a high polish.
Artificial marble or faux marbling is a wall painting technique that imitates the color patterns of genuine marble. Marble dust can be shared with cement or synthetic resins to make reconstituted or refined marble.
Some places named after the stone include Marble Arch, London; the Sea of Marmora; India's Marble Rocks; and the towns of Marble, Minnesota; Marble, Colorado; and Marble Hill, Manhattan, in New York. The Elgin Marbles are marble sculptures from the Parthenon that are on shown in the British Museum. They were brought to Britain through the Earl of Elgin.

A Brave New Audience

2007-10-07T21:43:00.001-07:00

Over time, technology has become highly developed. This is adverse for mankind because the more superior, the more serious television gets, the not as good as it is for its viewers. It always feeds people information with which they take in without even significant its perils. What they think is an admirable source of information, is actually a hazardous medium through which millions of Americans reduce their intelligence. According to Neil Postman, it is simply just a damage of content because it focuses more on descriptions, rather than content.
In Postman's essay, The Huxleyan Warning, he exhorts readers that Huxley's prophecies are launch to be realized. He claims that society will enchain themselves through their love for their own oppression; the technologies that disable their abilities to think. This technology comes through the shape of a television screen. These prophecies, which were first introduced to us by Aldous Huxley, are observable in the movie The Truman Show. Truman is a normal human being, accidentally being watched by billions of viewers ever since his birth. Viewers are stuck to their television sets watching his every move.

Consumerism

2007-09-27T23:50:00.000-07:00

Consumerism is a term used to describe the effects of equating personal happiness with purchase object for possession and consumption. It is often associated with criticisms of consumption starting with Karl Marx and Torstein Veblen but can actually be traced back to the first human civilizations.

In economic consumerism can also refer to economic policies that place an importance on consumption, and in an abstract sense, the belief that the free choice of consumer should say the economic structure of society.

Although consumerism is commonly associated with capitalism and the western world, it is multi cultural and non geographical as seen in Tokyo, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc for example. Consumerism means people purchasing goods or consuming material in excess of their basic needs, is as old as the first civilizations. Since consumerism began various person and groups have consciously sought an alternative lifestyle through simple living.

Donkey jacket

2007-09-03T23:03:00.000-07:00

A Donkey jacket is a minute buttoned coat, normally made of unlined black or dark blue woolen stuff; originally worn as a work jacket in the United Kingdom. When used as a work jacket, it infrequently bears the name of the company which supplies the jacket, or the name of the company for which the wearer works. The jacket usually has two large hip pockets, and at times an inside poacher's pocket. The donkey jacket is regarded as characteristic of the British manual worker.

Tourism

2007-08-27T19:24:00.001-07:00

Tourism is traveling for the most part fun or vacation purposes. According to the World Tourism association, tourists are public who "travel to and stay in places outside their usual location for not more than one repeated year for vacation, business and other purposes not related to the use of an activity compensated from within the place visited".
Tourism has happen to a very popular, overall activity. In 2004, there were over 763 million international tourist arrivals. Major physical elements include transportation, lodging, and other components of a hospitality industry.

Tourism is very important for many countries, due to the earnings generated by the spending of supplies and services by tourists, the assessment levied on businesses in the tourism industry, and the opportunity for employment and financial development by working in the industry. For these reasons, NGOs and government agencies may sometimes sponsor a specific area as a tourist intention, and support the development of a tourism industry in that area.

Navigation

2007-08-21T00:21:00.000-07:00

Navigation by ships depends on the capability to measure latitude and longitude. Latitude is quite easy to determine through outer space navigation, but the measurement of longitude requires exact measurement of time. This need was a major motivation for the development of accurate mechanical clocks. John Harrison created the first highly exact marine chronometer in the mid-18th century. The Noon gun in Cape Town still fires an exact signal to allow ships to check their chronometers.

Eisenhower jacket

2007-08-13T22:11:00.001-07:00

An Eisenhower jacket, or "Ike" jacket, is a kind of military uniform blouse, or shortened coat, terminating in a waistband. Introduced by U.S. Army General and Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe Dwight David Eisenhower, his new design firstly appeared in 1943 as a modified edition of the U.S. Army's regulation service uniform coat, the idea based on the British Battle Dress coat which predated the American Ike Jacket by a number of years.

After World War II, jackets of this style became a suitable type of coat to wear when operating a vehicle and/or carrying a sidearm, which made variations of it trendy with civilian police agencies.

Cock ring or cock ring

2007-08-07T23:05:00.000-07:00

A cock ring or cock ring is a ring that is located around a man’s penis, usually at the base, primarily to slow the leakage of blood from the erect penile tissue, thus maintaining erection for longer. Cock rings can be worn around just the penis or penis and scrotum, or just the scrotum alone, though this is usually designated as a testicle cuff. Rings can be made of a variety of different materials; most commonly leather, rubber, or silicone, though nylon and metal are also used either as the main component or part of the closure.

Electrostatic

2007-07-31T23:55:00.000-07:00

A thin, electrostatic ally charged diaphragm, is suspended between two perforated metal plates. The electrical sound signal is applied to the electrodes creating an electrical field; depending on the polarity of this field, the membrane is drawn towards one of the plates. Air is forced through the perforations; combined with a continuously changing electrical signal oscillating the membrane, a sound wave is generated.

Water abstraction

2007-07-22T22:05:00.000-07:00

Water abstraction, or water extraction, is the procedure of taking water from any source, either temporarily or permanently. Most water is used for irrigation or treatment to produce drinking water. Depending on the environmental legislation in the relevant country, controls may be located on abstraction to limit the amount of water that can be removed. Over abstraction can lead to rivers drying up or the level of groundwater aquifers reducing inappropriately. The science of hydrogeology is used to assess safe abstraction levels.

Cookie

2007-07-13T22:47:00.001-07:00

In the United States and Canada, a cookie is a tiny, round, flat cake. In most English-speaking countries outer North America, the most common word for this is biscuit; in many regions both terms are used, while in others the two words have diverse meanings—a cookie is a bun in Scotland, while in the United States a biscuit is a kind of quick bread not unlike a scone.

Cookies can be baked until crisp or just long enough that they stay soft. Depending on the kind of cookie, some cookies are not cooked at all. Cookies are made in a broad variety of styles, using an array of ingredients including sugars, spices, chocolate, butter, peanut butter, nuts or dried fruits. The smoothness of the cookie may depend on how long it is baked.

2007-07-08T23:30:00.001-07:00

Marketing

Marketing is one of the most significant functions in business. It is the regulation required to understand customers' needs and the benefits they seek. Academia does not have one commonly agreed upon description. Even after a better part of a century the dispute continues. In a nutshell it consists of the social and managerial processes by which goods or services and value are exchanged in order to fulfill the needs and wants of individuals or groups. Although many people appear to think that "marketing" and "advertising" are synonymous, they are not. Advertising is simply one of the lots of processes that together constitute marketing.

Neem cake

2007-07-01T23:10:00.000-07:00

Neem cake natural manure is the by-product obtained in the process of cold pressing of Neem fruits and kernels, and the solvent removal process for neem oil cake. It is a potential source of organic manure under the Bureau of India Standards, Neem has established considerable potential as a fertilizer. For this purpose, neem cake and neem leaves are particularly promising. Puri , in his book on neem has given details about neem seed cake as manure and nitrification inhibitor. The author has described that after processing neem cake can be used for partial replacement of poultry and cattle feed.

ARM

2007-06-26T22:13:00.001-07:00

The ARM architecture (Advanced RISC Machine or Acorn RISC Machine) is a 32-bit RISC processor architecture developed by ARM Limited that is widely used in a number of embedded designs. Due to their power saving features, ARM CPUs are dominant in the mobile electronics market, where low power consumption is a critical design goal.

Today, the ARM family accounts for over 75% of all 32-bit embedded CPUs, making it one of the most prolific 32-bit architectures in the world. ARM CPUs are found in all corners of consumer electronics, from portable devices to computer peripherals. Important branches in this family include Marvell's XScale and the Texas Instruments OMAP series.

Dry foods

2007-06-23T02:05:00.001-07:00

Flake food is a type of proprietary or artificially manufactured fish food inspired by a wide variety of tropical and saltwater fish and invertebrates. It is ideally suited to top dwellers and mid-water fish though numerous bottom dwelling species consume flake food once it has settled on the bottom. Flake food is baked to remove moisture and create the flaking, thus allowing for a longer shelf life. Generally the more moisture a particular example of fish food contains, the more readily it will deteriorate in quality.
Dry foods is also available as pellets, sticks, tablets, granules, and wafers, manufactured to float or sink, depending on the species they are designed to feed.

Freshwater prawn farm

2007-06-17T22:42:00.000-07:00

A freshwater prawn farm is an aquaculture business designed to raise and produce freshwater prawn or shrimp1 for human consumption. Freshwater prawn farming shares many characteristics with, and many of the same problems as, marine shrimp farming. Unique problems are introduced by the developmental life cycle of the main species. The global annual production of freshwater prawns (excluding crayfish and crabs) in 2003 was about 280,000 tons, of which China produced some 180,000 tons, followed by India and Thailand with some 35,000 tons each. Additionally, China produced about 370,000 tons of Chinese river crab.

History of Europe

2007-06-11T20:06:00.001-07:00

Europe has a long history of cultural and economic achievement, initial as far back as the Paleolithic. Genesis of Western democratic and individualistic cultures are often laid in Ancient Greece; the Roman Empire divided the continent along the Rhine and Danube for more than a few centuries. Following the decline of the Roman Empire, Europe entered a extended period of stasis, referred to by Renaissance thinkers as the "Dark Ages" and by the Enlightenment and modern historians, as the Middle Ages. During this time remote monastic communities in Ireland and elsewhere carefully safeguarded and compiled knowledge accumulated previously. The Renaissance and the New Monarchs marked the start of a period of discovery, exploration, and increase in scientific knowledge. From the 15th century Portugal opened the age of discoveries soon followed by Spain. They were shortly joined by France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Britain, in building large colonial empires, with vast holdings in Africa, the Americas, and Asia.

History of Europe

2007-06-11T20:06:00.000-07:00

Hyphy

2007-06-06T22:19:00.001-07:00

Hyphy is a style of music and dance primarily associated with the Bay Area hip hop culture. Although the hyphy movement started in the early '90s, it began to emerge in the early 2000s as a response from Bay Area rappers next to commercial hip hop for not acknowledging the Bay for setting trends in the hip hop industry.Although the "hyphy movement" has just newly seen light in mainstream America, it has been a long standing and evolving culture in the Bay Area. Bay Area rapper Keak Da Sneak takes credit for coining the term when, as a young boy, his mother would often tell him he was hyperactive. He would repeat the word "hyper" as "hyphy".
Hyphy music is illustrious by gritty, pounding rhythms and in this sense can be associated with the Bay Area as crunk music is to the South; however, contrary to popular belief, the musical aspect of the Hyphy movement has very few similarities to crunk music as it is dictated by more up-tempo beats. An individual is said to "get hyphy" when they act or dance in an overstated and ridiculous manner. Those who consider themselves part of the Hyphy movement would describe this behavior as acting "stupid" or "going dumb." In contrast to much of popular American culture where these phrases would be considered negative or even insulting, Hyphy is illustrious by taking this kind of behavior as a form of pride

Introduction of Integrated circuit

2007-05-27T22:53:00.001-07:00

Integrated circuits were made possible by investigational discoveries which showed that semiconductor devices could carry out the functions of vacuum tubes, and by mid-20th-century technology advancements in semiconductor device manufacture. The integration of large numbers of tiny transistors into a small chip was an enormous development over the manual assembly of circuits using discrete electronic components. The integrated circuit's mass production capability, reliability, and building-block approach to circuit design ensured the rapid adoption of standardized ICs in place of designs using discrete transistors. There are two main advantages of Integrated Circuits over discrete circuits: cost and performance. Cost is low because the chips, with all their mechanism, are printed as a unit by photolithography and not constructed a transistor at a time. Performance is high since the components switch quickly and consume little power, because the components are small and close together.

Emerging Paradigm

2007-05-19T00:19:00.001-07:00

Network-on-Chip is an emerging paradigm for communications within large VLSI systems implemented on a single silicon chip. In a Network-on-Chip system, modules such as processor cores, memories and specialized IP blocks exchange data using a network as a "public transportation" sub-system for the information traffic. A Network-on-Chip is constructed from multiple point-to-point data links interconnected by switches, such that messages can be relayed from any source module to any destination module over several links, by making routing decisions at the switches. A Network-on-Chip is similar to a modern telecommunications network, using digital bit-packet switching over multiplexed links. Although packet-switching is sometimes claimed as necessity for a Network-on-Chip, there are several Network-on-Chip proposals utilizing circuit-switching techniques. This definition based on routers is usually interpreted so that a single shared bus, a single crossbar switch or a point-to-point network are not Network-on-Chip s but practically all other topologies are. This is somewhat confusing since all above mentioned are networks but they are not considered as network-on-chips. Note that some articles erroneously use Network-on-Chip as a synonym for mesh topology although Network-on-Chip paradigm does not dictate the topology. Likewise, the regularity of topology is sometimes considered as a requirement which is, obviously, not the case in research concentrating on "application-specific Network-on-Chip topology synthesis".

Vitamins

2007-05-14T00:33:00.000-07:00

Vitamins are nutrients required in minute amounts for essential metabolic reactions in the body. The term vitamin does not consist of other essential nutrients such as dietary minerals, essential fatty acids, or essential amino acids, nor does it include the large number of other nutrients that promote health but that are not essential for life. Vitamins are bio-molecules that act both as catalysts and substrates in chemical reactions. When acting as a catalyst, vitamins are bound to enzymes and are called cofactors. Vitamins also act as coenzymes to hold chemical groups between enzymes. Folic acid, for example, carries various forms of carbon groups–methyl, formyl or methylene in the cell. Vitamins have been created as commodity chemicals and prepared widely available as inexpensive pills for several decades allowing supplementation of the dietary intake.

Bag

2007-05-09T01:21:00.000-07:00

A bag is a container that is typically used for storing or holding something. Bags are non-rigid, usually made of paper, cloth, thin plastic or some other flexible material. A bag may have one or two handles or none at all. Sometimes a money bag or travel bag has a lock. Sachets may be fabric bags that are filled with pot pourri and tied off with ribbons. Youth giving a purse to a sitting courtesan the word probably has its origins in the Norse word baggy. Although paper had been used for purposes of wrapping and padding in ancient China since the 2nd century BC, the first use of paper bags in China came during the later Tang Dynasty.
Bags vary from small ones, like purses to large ones for use in traveling like a suitcase. Cheap disposable paper bags and plastic shopping bags are very common in the retail trade as a convenience for shoppers, and are often supplied by the shop for free or for a small fee. Customers may also take their own shopping bags to the shop. There are environmental concerns regarding use and disposal of plastic shopping and trash bags. Efforts are being taken to control and reduce their use in some European Union countries, including Ireland and the Netherlands. In some cases the cheap bags are taxed so the customer must pay a fee where they may not have done previously

History of glass

2007-05-02T00:19:00.000-07:00

Music

2007-04-27T22:52:00.000-07:00

Music is an art form that involves organized sounds and quiet. It is articulated in terms of pitch (which includes melody and harmony), rhythm (which includes tempo and meter), and the quality of sound (which includes timbre, articulation, dynamics, and texture).
Music may also absorb generative forms in time through the construction of patterns and combinations of natural stimuli principally sound. Music may be used for artistic or aesthetic, communicative, entertainment, traditional or religious purposes. The definition of what constitutes music varies according to culture and social context, with assorted interpretations of the term being established under sub-genres of the art. Within "the arts", music can be classified as a performing art, a fine art, or an auditory art form
The history of music predates the written word and is tied to the enlargement of each unique human culture. The development of music among humans occurred against the backdrop of natural sounds such as birdsong and the sounds other animals use to communicate. primeval music, once more commonly called primitive music, is the name given to all music created in preliterate cultures (prehistory), beginning somewhere in very late geological history

Artificial intelligence (Intelligence, IQ, and g)

2007-04-24T23:15:00.000-07:00

Intelligence, IQ, and g are unusual. Intelligence is the word used in normal discourse to refer to cognitive capability. However, it is generally regarded as too vague to be useful for a scientific treatment of the subject. The intelligence quotient is an index calculated from the scores on test items judged by experts to include the abilities enclosed by the term intelligence. IQ measures a multidimensional quantity: it is an amalgam of different kinds of abilities, the proportions of which may differ between IQ tests. The dimensionality of IQ scores can be studied by factor analysis, which reveals a single dominant factor underlying the scores on all IQ tests. This factor, which is a hypothetical construct, is called g. Variation in g corresponds closely to the innate notion of intelligence, and thus g is sometimes called general cognitive ability or common intelligence.

Electronic mixer

2007-04-18T23:43:00.001-07:00

An elepctronic mixer is a device for addition two or more electronic signals. There are two basic types of mixer. Additive mixers add two signals together, and are used for such applications as audio mixing. Multiplying mixers multiply the signals together, and create an output containing both original signals, and new signals that have the sum and dissimilarity of the frequency of the original signals.Additive mixers are typically resistor networks, surrounded by impedance matching and amplification stages.Multiplying mixers have been done in a wide range of ways. The most popular are diode mixers, gilbert cell mixers, diode ring mixers and switching mixers.

Columbia River

2007-04-09T00:32:00.001-07:00

100 The Columbia River is a river located in British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest of the United States. It is the biggest river in volume flowing into the Pacific Ocean from North America, and the second largest in the United States. It is the largest hydroelectric power producing river in North America. From its headwaters to the Pacific Ocean it flows 1,270 miles, and drains 258,000 square miles.

Geography

Columbia River, Revelstoke, BCColumbia Lake forms the Columbia's headwaters in the Canadian Rockies of southern British Columbia. The river then flows through Windermere Lake and the town of Invermere, then northwest to Golden and into Kinbasket Lake. The river then turns south all the way through Revelstoke Lake and the Arrow Lakes to the BC–Washington border.

The river then flows throughout the east-central portion of Washington State. The last 300 miles of the Columbia form the Washington-Oregon border line. The river goes into the Pacific Ocean at Ilwaco, Washington and Astoria, Oregon.

For its first 200 miles the Columbia flows northwest; it then bends to the south, crossing from Canada into the United States, where the river meets the Clark Fork. The Clark Fork River begins near Butte, Montana and flows through western Montana before entering Pend Oreille Lake. Water demanding from the lake forms the Pend Oreille River, which flows across the Idaho panhandle to Washington's northeastern curve where it meets the northern Canadian fork.

Columbia River Gorge, Oregon or South SideThe River then runs southsouthwest through the Columbia Plateau, changing to a southeasterly direction near the Columbia Basin, where the magnificent Gorge at George is situated. The Gorge Amphitheater, which looks out over the gorge, is a spectacular 40,000 person concert venue.

Light

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Light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength that is able to be seen to the eye or, in a technical or scientific setting, electromagnetic radiation of any wavelength. The three basic dimensions of are:

Intensity (or brilliance or amplitude, professed by humans as the glow of the light),
Frequency (or wavelength, apparent by humans as the color of the light), and
Polarization (or angle of shaking and not audible by humans under ordinary circumstances)
Due to wave-particle duality, light at the same time exhibits properties of both waves and particles. The exact nature of light is one of the key questions of modern physics.

Visible electromagnetic radiation

Visible light is the piece of the electromagnetic spectrum between the frequencies of 380 THz and 750 THz. The speed, frequency, and wavelength of a wave obey the relation:

Because the speed of light in a vacuum is fixed, able to be seen light can also be characterized by its wavelength of between 400 nanometers and 800 nm.

Speed of light
Main article: velocity of light
Even though some people express of the "velocity of light", the word velocity should be kept back for vector quantities, that is, those with both magnitude and way. The speed of light is a scalar quantity, having only magnitude and no direction, and therefore speed is the correct term.

The speed of light has been measured many times, by many physicists. The best early measurement is Ole Rømer's, in 1676. By observing the motions of Jupiter and one of its moons, Io, with a get smaller, and noting discrepancies in the apparent period of Io's orbit, Rømer calculated a speed of 227,000 kilometers per second.

Ice Age

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An ice age is a stage of long-term slump in the temperature of Earth's climate, resulting in an extension of the continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and mountain glaciers. Glaciological, ice age is often used to mean a period of ice sheets in the northern and southern hemispheres; by this description we are still in an ice. More colloquially, when speaking of the last few million years, ice age is used to pass on to colder periods with wide ice sheets over the North American and European continents: in this sense, the last ice age ended about 10,000 years ago. This article will use the term ice age in the previous, glaciological, sense; and use the term 'glacial periods' for colder periods during ice ages and 'interglacial' for the heater periods.

During the last few million years, there have been many hostile periods, going on initially at 40,000-year frequency but more freshly at 100,000-year frequencies. These are the best deliberate. There have been four main ice ages in the advance history.

Origin of ice age theory

The idea that, in the past, glaciers had been far wider was folk knowledge in some alpine regions of Europe. No single person made-up the idea. Between 1825 and 1833, Jean de Charpentier assembled verification in support of this idea. In 1836 Charpentier influenced Louis Agassiz of the theory, and Agassiz published it in his book Étude sur les glaciers of 1840.

At this near the beginning stage of knowledge, what were being deliberate were the glacial periods within the past few hundred thousand years, during the present ice age. The far previous ice ages' very survival was unsuspected.

Atomic clock

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An atomic clock is a type of clock so as to uses an atomic resonance frequency standard as its counter. Early atomic clocks were masers by means of attached equipment. Today's best atomic frequency standards (or clocks) are based on more advanced physics involving cold atoms and atomic fountains. National standards agencies maintain an accuracy of 10-9 seconds per day, and a precision equal to the frequency of the radio transmitter pumping the maser. The clocks keep up a continuous and stable time scale, International Atomic Time (TAI). For civil time, another time scale is disseminated, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). UTC is derived from TAI, but coordinated with the passing of day and night based on astronomical observations.

Atomic clock

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