best-milf

What Scientists Know About Jewel Beetle Shimmer

2009-07-24T22:50:00.000-07:00

Iridescent green beetles could provide a blueprint for light reflecting materials. That's the conclusion of scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta who recently discovered jewel beetles change color because of the light reflecting properties of the cells that make up their external skeletons. They say the finding could be important for industries such as car manufacturers that look to reflective light paints for automobiles. When light hits a surface that's difficult to see through, the surface either scatters, absorbs or reflects the light to produce colors. In the case of the jewel beetle's external skeleton, its five, six and seven sided cells spontaneously arrange themselves to reflect light at certain wavelengths that produce green, yellow and red colors.

Research suggests the cells come from spontaneous arrangement of glucose-like particles called chitin molecules that form as cones like those in a cholesteric liquid crystal. When these cones solidify, they preserve their structures and produce colors as light hits them from different angles.

The beetle's structure also forms helices similar to a cholesteric liquid crystal in that its straight cells sit on or are used to form the curved structure of its external skeleton. Research shows that when the pitch of the helix of cholesteric liquid crystals is close to the wavelength of visible light, they reflect light with specific wavelengths, leading to brilliant metallic colors.

Miniature optical devices and photonics such as those envisioned for microlasers and implantable medical sensors could benefit from the finding. Scientists already are studying ways to commercialize and apply materials that have properties similar to jewel beetles.

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion

2009-07-16T01:41:00.000-07:00

OTEC, or ocean thermal energy conversion, is an energy knowledge that changes solar radiation into electric power. OTEC systems use the ocean's natural thermal gradient—the information that the ocean's layers of water have unlike temperatures—to drive a power-producing cycle. As long as the temperature between the warm surface water and the cold deep water differs by about 20°C (36°F), an OTEC system can produce a significant amount of power. The oceans are thus an enormous renewable resource, with the potential to help us generate billions of watts of electric power. This potential is predictable to be about 1013 watts of base load power generation, according to some experts. The cold, deep seawater used in the OTEC process is also rich in nutrients, and it can be used to culture both marine organisms and plant life near the shore or on land.

The economics of energy production today have delayed the financing of a lasting, continuously operating OTEC plant. However, OTEC is very hopeful as an alternative energy resource for tropical island communities that depend heavily on imported fuel. OTEC plants in these markets could provide islanders with much-needed power, as well as desalinated water and a variety of mariculture products.

Poisonous plants to humans

2009-07-07T22:34:00.001-07:00

Many native and exotic plants are poisonous to humans when ingested or if there is skin contact with plant chemicals. However, the most common problems with poisonous plants arise from contact with the sap oil of several ever-present native plants that cause an allergic skin reaction—poison ivy, poison oak, and poison sumac.

Poison ivy, poison oak, and poison sumac release oil, urushiol, when the leaf or other plant parts are bruised, damaged, or burned. When the oil gets on the skin an allergic reaction, referred to as contact dermatitis, occurs in most exposed people as an itchy red rash with bumps or blisters. When exposed to 50 micrograms of urushiol, an amount that is less than one grain of table salt, 80 to 90 percent of adults will develop a rash. The rash, depending upon where it occurs and how broadly it is spread, may significantly impede or prevent a person from working. Although over-the-counter topical medications may relieve symptoms for most people, immediate medical attention may be required for severe reactions, particularly when exposed to the smoke from burning these poisonous plants. Burning these poisonous plants can be very dangerous because the allergens can be inhaled, causing lung irritation. Outdoor workers may be exposed to poisonous plants.

Prevention
Workers can prevent contact with poisonous plants by taking these steps:
• Wear long sleeves, long pants, boots, and gloves.
o Wash exposed clothing separately in hot water with detergent.
• Barrier skin creams, such as a lotion containing bentoquatum, may offer some protection before contact.
o Barrier creams should be washed off and reapplied twice a day.
• After use, clean tools with rubbing alcohol (isopropanol or isopropyl alcohol) or soap and lots of water. Urushiol can remain active on the surface of objects for up to 5 years.
o Wear disposable gloves during this process.

First Aid
• Immediately rinse skin with rubbing alcohol, specialized poison plant washes, degreasing soap (such as dishwashing soap) or detergent, and lots of water.
• Rinse frequently so that wash solutions do not dry on the skin and further spread the urushiol.
• Scrub under nails with a brush.
• Apply wet compresses, calamine lotion, or hydrocortisone cream to the skin to reduce itching and blistering.
• Follow the directions on any creams and lotions. Do not apply to broken skin, such as open blisters.
• Oatmeal baths may relieve itching.
An antihistamine such as diphenhydramine (Benadryl) can be taken to help relieve itching.

Benefits of Yoga

2009-07-03T03:38:00.001-07:00

Yoga is recognized to increase flexibility; yoga has position that triggers different joints of the body. Including those joints that are not acted upon with usual exercises routines.

Yoga in addition increases the lubrication of joints, muscle and tendons. The well-researched yoga positions exercise the different tendons and ligaments of the body.

Yoga also massages every organs of the body. Yoga is possibly the only exercise that can work on through your internal organs in a methodical manner.

Yoga acts in a healthy way on the various body parts. This stimulation and massage of the organs in turn benefits us by keeping away disease.

One of the far-reaching benefits of yoga is the eerie sense of awareness that it develops in the person who is practicing yoga of an impending health disorder or infection.

Yoga provides a complete detoxification of the body. It smoothly stretches the muscles and joints as we massage the various organs, yoga ensure the best blood supply to various parts of the body.

Yoga is also an excellent way to tone your muscles. Muscles which have been sagging and weak are stimulated repeatedly to shed excess fats and flaccidity.

Environmentalist

2009-06-17T21:56:00.000-07:00

An environmentalist is a person who protects the environment through changes in public policy or individual behavior.

In 1995,Chewing Norphel retired civil engineer joined the Leh Nutrition Programme and had a channel with retaining walls an a sluice gate dug to control the flow of water .The water freezes to form glacier and in summer ,melts and provides water to the farmers in the area.

Mahesh Chandra Mehta This lawyer is known for battle to protect the Taj Mahal, which was losing its sheen due to air pollution.From 1984,be began his battle at last after 10 years , succeeded in moving the coal industry to a safe place.

Valmik thapar His mission to save tigers is something he has been striving towards single-mindedly for over 30 years. He has written 14 books and set up a foundation (Ranthambore) in 1988 to try and find peace among people, tigers and forest.

Arvind Gupta The winner of many awards, including the first national award for science popularization among children, he has initialized the making of low-cost, co-friendly toys from recyclable materials.

Prof Veer Bhadra Mishra known over the world for his efforts to clean the Ganga, he dedicated his life to this cause. His Clean Ganga campaign earned him the title of One of the Heroes of this planet in TIME

CEW Beauty Awards

2009-05-02T05:39:00.000-07:00

The board of Cosmetic Executive Women has announced the winners of its fourth annual Beauty Awards, following a total of 301 product entries and votes from over 400 key figures in the beauty industry. Designed to, "take the guesswork out of beauty shopping with an...edited collection of the best products out there," according to CEW President Caroline Neville, the awards honoured several leading brands including Neal's Yard Remedies which scooped the Best British Brand gong, Clinique which received three awards in total, and Coty which picked up the Best New Celebrity Fragrance award for Kate Moss' Velvet Hour. Least surprising award of the night? The Best Iconic Beauty Product title went to Elizabeth Arden's must-have Eight Hour Cream, of course.

Source: http://www.vogue.co.uk/

Horrible Traffic Jam

2009-04-22T05:44:00.000-07:00

Barbie Dolls: Timeless Beauty

2009-04-13T02:57:00.000-07:00

Katrina Kaif had this to say about Barbie, "I am grateful to be bestowed with this honour of being the first ever Indian Celebrity for whom a doll will be made in my likeness. This is a very special moment for me personally as I have always loved Barbie ever since I was a little girl. Barbie is the ultimate fashion icon and is the most popular doll in the world, I am very excited about this association since it’s the ideal fashion statement for any Fashionista.

She is every young girl’s fashion icon, what with that blonde ponytail, sleek clothes and snappy heels. She came on the scene and took the toy world by storm. Now years later, she is still going strong. Books have been written about her, films were made with her as the star, cars and motor homes have her name on them, in fact, she even has a painting by Andy Warhol to boot, and that’s the story of the inscrutable Barbie doll.

In her five decades, Barbie and her many friends have pioneered career choices. And it’s not just kids, who love Barbie. Her audience has grown to include adults, both men and women, particularly in the past two decades.

So what is it about Barbie that has captured the hearts of girls and collectors the world over?

Source: http://www.merinews.com/

Candid Camera In The Museum

2009-04-04T01:10:00.000-07:00

Key Implications Of The New Strategy

2009-03-26T21:05:00.000-07:00

President Barack Obama plans to send thousands of troops to train Afghan security forces as part of a new war strategy that will focus U.S. efforts on destroying safe havens for al Qaeda militants and rolling back the Taliban insurgency.

Here are some key implications of the new strategy:

By stating that the main mission is to target al Qaeda, Obama is playing down more ambitious goals embraced by his predecessor, George W. Bush, and other NATO leaders.
They declared at a summit in April last year that their aim in Afghanistan was to help "build an enduring stable, secure, prosperous and democratic state, respectful of human rights and free from the threat of terrorism."
Although the administration appears to be aiming for less, its new strategy accepts it will have to devote more troops, money and resources to achieve even that goal.
Obama will send 4,000 troops by this autumn to train Afghan forces, on top of 17,000 troops whose deployments he approved in February. That will bring the total number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to about 60,000, in addition to more than 30,000 troops from U.S. allies, mainly NATO nations.
The cost of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan is expected to rise 60 percent from the current $2 billion a month.
The extra deployments will add to strains on the U.S. military, at least in the short term.
Although Obama has ordered about 100,000 troops to withdraw from Iraq by August next year, the bulk of that pullout is not expected until after Iraqi elections at the end of this year.
Many of the ideas presented in the strategy are not new. The administration says the Afghan war was neglected under Bush and is betting that an increase in resources and focus will make existing ideas more effective.
An expansion of the Afghan security forces is already under way and the administration does not appear to be increasing the target size for the Afghan army and police for the moment.
Similarly, officials have long spoken of trying to exploit fractures in the Taliban movement and peeling off "foot soldiers" motivated by money rather than ideology.
The administration's plans to engage Russia, China, Iran and India are bold but far from guaranteed to be successful. Cooperation on Afghanistan risks becoming a bargaining chip in debates with Russia over European missile defense or with Tehran over Iran's nuclear program.
If the administration stresses its focus on combating al Qaeda too much, it risks exacerbating Afghans' fears that the West is not interested in their welfare and will abandon them. That could play into the hands of the Taliban.
The administration's pledge to send "hundreds" more civilians to help build the capacity of Afghan authorities to provide essential services for their citizens will be widely welcomed but the details will be important.
Analysts say such services -- everything from running water to a functioning justice system -- are vital to get Afghans to side with their government rather than the Taliban.
But it is open to question whether an increase of only a few hundred civilians will give those efforts a major boost.
Initial descriptions of the new strategy leave many questions about Pakistan unanswered.
Many experts believe the nuclear-armed country's instability and its al Qaeda safe havens present a far greater threat to U.S. national security than Afghanistan.
U.S. officials have yet to prove they can persuade the Pakistani military to fully embrace counter-insurgency operations against militants.
Officials have not said whether attacks on suspected militants by CIA drones will be stepped up. The administration never officially acknowledges the strikes and they are unpopular in Pakistan. U.S. officials say they have played a key role in weakening al Qaeda. (Editing by Peter Cooney)

For More Info: http://www.reuters.com/article/featuredCrisis/idUSN26268096

Arrest Varun Gandhi: Congress

2009-03-18T02:14:00.000-07:00

Minutes after Varun Gandhi came out before the media to clarify his ‘communal remarks’, the Congress slammed the BJP candidate for Lok Sabha polls in Pilibhit for refusing to apologise.

Senior party leader Kapil Sibal called for Varun Gandhi’s arrest, saying he had committed a crime by targeting the minority community in his speech.

There is no place for people like Varun in politics, Sibal said, adding the BJP would be a con-conspirator if it failed to act against him.

The BJP, meanwhile, refused to react on Varun’s statement.

Oil Coming Ashore For Weeks

2009-03-12T21:52:00.000-07:00

The massive oil slick coating beaches around south-east Queensland will get worse before it gets better, the Queensland Government says.

Moreton and Bribie Island and southern parts of the Sunshine Coast have been declared disaster zones and today Queensland's Sustainability Minister Andrew McNamara warned the worst is yet to come.

"There's going to be oil floating around out there coming ashore over a period of a couple of weeks," he said.

Yesterday the Government said it believed the slick would be cleaned up within seven days, but now it is thought that up to 100,000 litres of oil may have spilled into the sea from a stricken cargo ship on Wednesday.

About 130 people are involved in the clean-up and preventing the oil from spreading further into rivers.

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh has defended the Government's response so far amid accusations that it has failed to act quickly enough.

"You don't walk in on day one and take all of the sand off the beach only to have more oil overnight coming in on the tide necessitating more sand be taken off on the second and the third day," she said.

"These are sensitive environments and you need to be systematic and clear it with almost military precision."

Vaughan Nash from Maroochy Waterwatch says oil has now reached the Maroochy Bridge, about two kilometres upstream from the mouth of the Maroochy River.

Mr Nash says it is now threatening mangroves.

"We're still seeing wildlife out on the river," he said.

"We saw a few pelicans only about 50 metres behind a few of the slicks and a fish actually jumping through the slicks as well.

"[That was] pretty amazing; we didn't expect a mullet to jump out through an oil slick like that, particularly a thick one as it was."

Up to 100,000 litres of oil leaked into Moreton Bay after the Pacific Adventurer cargo ship was holed on Wednesday morning, and the slicks are now blanketing 60 kilometres of Queensland's coastline.

Unemployment Rate Spikes

2009-03-05T21:34:00.000-08:00

The unemployment rate for the Longview area jumped to 5.8 percent in January – the highest it has been for that month in five years, according to figures released Thursday by the Texas Workforce Commission.

The three-county metropolitan statistical area of Gregg, Rusk and Upshur counties had an estimated 6,300 people reported unemployed in January. That number jumped from 4,800 unemployed residents in the three counties in December when the Longview metro area had an unemployment rate of 4.5 percent.

The rate also was up substantially from January 2008 when TWC reported 4,400 people were unemployed with a three-county unemployment rate of 4.2 percent.

Workers at Longview-area businesses like Trinity Industries, Dana Corp. and U.S. Steel were hit hard by layoff notices in January as the impact of the global and national recessions deepened.

The Longview metro area still fared better than the state and nation as a whole in the unemployment picture, according to Texas Workforce officials. Texas had a January unemployment rate of 6.8 percent in January while nationally, the rate was 8.5 percent, representing more than 13 million people qualified as being unemployed.

Longview Partnership President Kelly Hall said the news is of concern to the group's members.

"Many of our companies are feeling the slowdown, and they are positioning their companies strategically to ride out the roller coaster ride we are on," Hall said. "Unfortunately, that means running leaner from an employee standpoint and cutting back on expenses."

Hall said on the flip side, Longview and East Texas are not being hit as hard as the East and West coasts.

"Beginning the first week of January, the Partnership staff has been contacting our chamber members on a daily basis," Hall said. "We have connected with over 50 percent of our members to date in order to gain a better understanding of what challenges they are dealing with from a regulation standpoint and what is happening within their specific industry."

The Longview area also had a lower unemployment rate than nearby Tyler where 6.9 percent of the workforce was off the job in January, according to state figures.

The Longview area unemployment rate in January jumped from 4.5 percent in December, the state reported. The one-month jump in the number of unemployed workers went from 4,800 in December to 6,300 in January, an increase of 1,500 people.

John Stroud, executive director of Longview Economic Development Corp., said about 500 of those jobs were in the retail trade area and represent seasonal changes from the Christmas shopping season.

Elsewhere in Texas, the McAllen-Edinburg-Mission area had the state's highest unemployment rate in January at 10.1 percent. The Midland area, with a rate of 3.8 percent, was the lowest in Texas for January, according to the state.

"The national economic crisis is beginning to have a serious negative impact on our Texas economy," Tom Pauken, chairman of the Texas Workforce Commission, said in a prepared statement.

Investigation On Mumbai Attack

2009-02-26T04:42:00.000-08:00

The 11,000 page chargesheet into the 26/11 Mumbai attacks which was presented in a Mumbai court on Wednesday has thrown up some interesting findings.

Investigations have revealed that the VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) calls made by the 26/11 terrorists to their handlers have been traced to a serving colonel of the Pakistani army.

However, the Pakistan army downplayed its link to the Mumbai terror carnage and said that the chargesheet filed on Wednesday is very vague on the link.

Speaking to TIMES NOW, Brigadier Azmat Ali, Pak army spokesperson said, "Chargesheet does not accurately identify armyman allegedly linked to 26/11. There are many Colonel Sadatullahs in the Pakistan army. We are trying to find out if this is true or it is all a media speculation."

Though the chargesheet filed does not spell out the Pakistan army link explicitly, it does name the officer as Colonel R Sadatullah from the SCO.

The SCO, army sources say, stands for Special Communications Organization, a telecommunications agency of the Pakistani government which is run by officers from the army's signals corps.

Another name mentioned in the chargesheet is that of 'Major General sahab' whose name crops up repeatedly in the taped conversation between the terrorists and their handlers.

Standardized Charger To Power Them

2009-02-18T04:00:00.000-08:00

The aim is to make a standard charging solution for mobile phones

If the GSM Association has its way, by 2012 most phones will use a standardized charger to power them. The association has announced a plan to standardize chargers across a spectrum of manufacturers.

Major manufacturers, including Nokia, Samsung, LG, Sony Ericsson and Motorola have joined the Universal Charging Solution (UCS) consortium. The list also includes major telecom companies like Vodafone, Orange, Qualcomm and Telefonica.
The aim is to make a standard charging solution implemented, probably using micro USB chargers. While some phones already have this feature, other manufacturers too are likely to join in, so that the standardization is achieved.

Apart from various benefits, this move could bring a reduction in the number of chargers produced, as old chargers will not become useless.
The move will also bring a considerable reduction in emission of greenhouse gases during manufacturing and transportation of replacement chargers.
The chargers, while remaining standard, will also be customized for "local" versions as some countries use proprietary plug points like the three pin plug used in the UK.

Verb Object Subject

2009-02-09T00:59:00.000-08:00

In linguistic typology, Verb Object Subject or Verb Object Agent - commonly used in its abbreviated form VOS or VOA - represents the language-classification type of which the following sequence of the three constituents, in neutral expressions, is an example: "Eat oranges Sam."

Examples include Austronesian languages such as Malagasy, Old Javanese, Toba Batak and Fijian, as well as Mayan languages like Tzotzil, which are ergative languages. During the 1970s, arguments were put forward by Paul Schachter and others that many Austronesian languages (e.g. Tagalog) lack a well defined notion of subject. While this view has not been entirely rejected, work by Nikolaus Himmelmann and others suggests that the objections of the 1970s were overstated, and there are, in fact, subjects in these languages.

Professional modular digital camera systems

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

This category includes very high end professional equipment that can be assembled from modular components (winders, grips, lenses, etc.) to suit particular purposes. Common brands include Hasselblad and Mamiya. They were developed for medium or large format film sizes, as these captured greater detail and could be enlarged more than 35 mm.

Typically these cameras are used in studios for commercial production; being bulky and awkward to carry they are rarely used in action or nature photography. They can often be converted into either film or digital use by changing out the back part of the unit, hence the use of terms such as a "digital back" or "film back". These cameras are very expensive (up to $40,000) and are typically not used by consumers.

Abiotic stress In Plants

2009-01-26T22:17:00.001-08:00

A plant’s first line of defense against abiotic stress is in its roots. If the soil holding the plant is healthy and biologically diverse, the plant will have a higher chance of surviving stressful conditions.Facilitation, or the positive interactions between different species of plants, is an intricate web of association in a natural environment. It is how plants work together. In areas of high stress, the level of facilitation is especially high as well. This could possibly be because the plants need a stronger network to survive in a harsher environment, so their interactions between species, such as cross-pollination or mutualistic actions, become more common to cope with the severity of their habitat. This facilitation will not go so far as to protect an entire species, however. For example, cold weather crops like rye, oats, wheat, and apples are expected to decline by about 15% in the next fifty years and strawberries will drop as much as 32% simply because of projected climate changes of a few degrees. Plants are extremely sensitive to such changes, and do not generally adapt quickly. Plants also adapt very differently from one another, even from a plant living in the same area. When a group of different plant species was prompted by a variety of different stress signals, such as drought or cold, each plant responded uniquely. Hardly any of the responses were similar, even though the plants had become accustomed to the exact same home environment.

Dromedary

2009-01-19T22:27:00.000-08:00

The Dromedary camel (Camelus dromedarius) is a large even-toed ungulate. It is often referred to as the one-humped camel, Arabian camel, or simply as the "dromedary". Its native range is unclear, but it was probably the Arabian Peninsula. The domesticated form occurs widely in northern Africa and the Middle East; the world's only population of dromedaries exhibiting wild behaviour is an introduced feral population in Australia.

The dromedary camel is one of the better-known members of the camel family. Other members of the camel family include the llama and the alpaca in South America. The Dromedary has one hump on its back, in contrast to the Bactrian camel which has two. A good mnemonic for remembering which way around these terms apply is this: "Bactrian" begins with "B", and "Dromedary" begins with "D"; "B" on its side has two humps, while "D" on its side has only one hump.

Tylopoda

2009-01-19T22:25:00.000-08:00

Tylopoda is a suborder of the mammalian order Artiodactyla, containing the camel family. In the past, this family was much more diverse, containing the families Xiphodontidae, Oromerycidae, and the two families of oreodonts, Agriochoeridae and Merycoidodontidae. However, now it contains only the camels, llamas and alpacas.

Atlantic Ocean

2009-01-12T22:56:00.001-08:00

Adriatic Sea
Aegean Sea
Alboran Sea
Argentine Sea
Bay of Biscay
Bay of Bothnia
Bay of Campeche
Bay of Fundy
Baltic Sea
Black Sea
Bothnian Sea
Caribbean Sea
Celtic Sea
Central Baltic Sea
Chesapeake Bay
English Channel
Gulf of Bothnia
Gulf of Guinea
Gulf of Finland
Gulf of Mexico
Gulf of Sidra
Gulf of St. Lawrence
Gulf of Venezuela
Ionian Sea
Ligurian Sea
Irish Sea
Marmara Sea
Mediterranean Sea
Mirtoon Sea
North Sea
Sea of Azov
Sea of Crete
Sea of the Hebrides
Sargasso Sea
Thracian Sea
Tyrrhenian Sea

Wool

2009-01-07T00:55:00.000-08:00

Wool is the fiber derived from the specialized skin cells, called follicles, of animals in the Caprinae family, principally sheep, but the hair of certain species of other mammals such as goats, llamas, rabbits and keeshonds[citation needed] may also be called wool. Wool has several qualities that distinguish it from hair or fur: it is crimped; it has a different texture or handle; it is elastic; and it grows in staples (clusters).

Sudbury Basin

2009-01-01T23:23:00.001-08:00

The Sudbury Basin, also known as Sudbury Structure or the Sudbury Nickel Irruptive, is the second largest known impact crater or astrobleme on Earth, and a major geologic structure in Ontario, Canada.[

The basin is located on the Canadian Shield in the city of Greater Sudbury, Ontario. The former municipalities of Rayside-Balfour and Valley East lie within the Sudbury Basin, which is referred to locally as "The Valley". The urban core of the former city of Sudbury lies on the southern outskirts of the Basin.

The Sudbury Basin is located near a number of other geological structures, including the Temagami Magnetic Anomaly, the Lake Wanapitei impact crater and the western end of the Ottawa-Bonnechere Graben, although none of the structures are directly related to each other in the sense of resulting from the same geophysical processes.

Written languages

2008-12-25T23:25:00.001-08:00

In a sense, written language should be distinguished from natural language. Until recently in the developed world, it was common for many people to be fluent in spoken or signed languages and yet remain illiterate; this is still the case in poor countries today. Furthermore, natural language acquisition during childhood is largely spontaneous, while literacy must usually be intentionally acquired.

Benign tumor

2008-12-15T22:16:00.000-08:00

A benign tumor is a tumor that lacks all three of the malignant properties of a cancer. Thus, by definition, a benign tumor does not grow in an unlimited, aggressive manner, does not invade surrounding tissues, and does not metastasize. Common examples of benign tumors include moles and uterine fibroids.

The term "benign" implies a mild and nonprogressive disease, and indeed, many kinds of benign tumor are harmless to the health. However, some neoplasms which are defined as 'benign tumors' because they lack the invasive properties of a cancer, may still produce negative health effects. Examples of this include tumors which produce a "mass effect" (compression of vital organs such as blood vessels), or "functional" tumors of endocrine tissues, which may overproduce certain hormones (examples include thyroid adenomas, adrenocortical adenomas, and pituitary adenomas).

Benign tumors typically are encapsulated, which inhibits their ability to behave in a malignant manner. Nonetheless, many types of benign tumors have the potential to become malignant and some types, such as teratoma, are notorious for this.

Rice

2008-12-03T01:02:00.000-08:00

Rice is a cereal foodstuff which forms an important part of the diet of many people worldwide and as such it is a staple food for many.

Domesticated rice comprises two species of food crops in the Oryza genus of the Poaceae ("true grass") family: Asian rice, Oryza sativa is native to tropical and subtropical southern Asia; African rice, Oryza glaberrima, is native to West Africa.

The name wild rice is usually used for species of the different but related genus Zizania, both wild and domesticated, although the term may be used for primitive or uncultivated varieties of Oryza.

Rice is grown as a monocarpic annual plant, although in tropical areas it can survive as a perennial and can produce a ratoon crop and survive for up to 20 years.Rice can grow to 1–1.8 m tall, occasionally more depending on the variety and soil fertility. The grass has long, slender leaves 50–100 cm long and 2–2.5 cm broad. The small wind-pollinated flowers are produced in a branched arching to pendulous inflorescence 30–50 cm long. The edible seed is a grain (caryopsis) 5–12 mm long and 2–3 mm thick.

Rice is a staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in tropical Latin America, and East, South and Southeast Asia, making it the second-most consumed cereal grain. A traditional food plant in Africa, Rice has the potential to improve nutrition, boost food security, foster rural development and support sustainable landcare. Rice provides more than one fifth of the calories consumed worldwide by humans.In early 2008, some governments and retailers began rationing supplies of the grain due to fears of a global rice shortage.

Marine and Coastal Environment

2008-11-28T02:53:00.000-08:00

Oceans and seas cover 70 per cent of the Earth's surface. They are a major and distinct source of natural resources, offering us food from fisheries and aquaculture, and opportunities to exploit both renewable energy sources such as wind, wave and tidal power and existing supplies of minerals and fossil fuels. At the same time, the marine environment contains a unique and diverse range of species and habitats, with half of the UK's biodiversity found in our surrounding waters.

The marine and coastal waters around Scotland are vitally important to the sustainable future of the country. Our coasts and seas provide food from fisheries, energy and mineral resources, routes and harbours for shipping, tourism and recreational opportunities and sites of cultural and historical interest, which meet many of our economic and social needs particularly in remote rural areas. At the same time, they contain distinctive and important habitats and support a diverse range of species which we need to protect, conserve and enhance. The Scottish Government, therefore, is committed to ensuring the sustainable use of our coasts and seas and the resources that they contain.

Our aim is to secure a vision of clean, healthy, safe, productive and biologically diverse marine and coastal environments, managed to meet the long term needs of nature and people. Good progress has been made in approaching this vision by tackling the problems facing our oceans and seas, but we must do more nationally and internationally to tackle the threats that remain.

Blood plasma

2008-11-19T03:45:00.000-08:00

Blood plasma is the liquid component of blood, in which the blood cells are suspended. It makes up about 55% of total blood volume. It is composed of mostly water (90% by volume), and contains dissolved proteins, glucose, clotting factors, mineral ions, hormones and carbon dioxide (plasma being the main medium for excretory product transportation). Blood plasma is prepared simply by spinning a tube of fresh blood in a centrifuge until the blood cells fall to the bottom of the tube. The blood plasma is then poured or drawn off. Blood serum is blood plasma without fibrinogen or the other clotting factors.

Inner planet Mercury

2008-11-12T04:30:00.000-08:00

Mercury (0.4 AU) is the closest planet to the Sun and the smallest planet (0.055 Earth masses). Mercury has no natural satellites, and its only known geological features besides impact craters are lobed ridges or rupes, probably produced by a period of contraction early in its history. Mercury's almost negligible atmosphere consists of atoms blasted off its surface by the solar wind. Its relatively large iron core and thin mantle have not yet been adequately explained. Hypotheses include that its outer layers were stripped off by a giant impact, and that it was prevented from fully accreting by the young Sun's energy.

OpenGL 2.0

2008-11-03T22:40:00.001-08:00

OpenGL 2.0 was conceived by 3Dlabs to address concerns that OpenGL was stagnating and lacked a strong direction. 3Dlabs proposed a number of major additions to the standard. Most of these were, at the time, rejected by the ARB or otherwise never came to fruition in the form that 3Dlabs proposed. However, their proposal for a C-style shading language was eventually completed, resulting in the current formulation of GLSL (the OpenGL Shading Language, also slang). Like the assembly-like shading languages that it was replacing, it allowed the programmer to replace the fixed-function vertex and fragment pipe with shaders, though this time written in a C-like language.

The design of GLSL was notable for making relatively few concessions to the limitations of the hardware then available; this hearkened back to the earlier tradition of OpenGL setting an ambitious, forward-looking target for 3D accelerators rather than merely tracking the state of currently available hardware. The final OpenGL 2.0 specification includes support for GLSL.

Acquired brain injury

2008-10-30T02:25:00.000-07:00

A neurological condition, Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) is damage to the brain acquired after birth. It usually affects cognitive, physical, emotional, social or independent functioning and can result from traumatic brain injury (i.e. accidents, falls, assaults, etc.) and nontraumatic brain injury (i.e. stroke, brain tumours, infection, poisoning, hypoxia, ischemia or substance abuse). Most definitions of ABI exclude neurodegenerative disorders. Acquired brain injury is not to be confused with intellectual disability. People with a brain injury may have difficulty controlling, coordinating and communicating their thoughts and actions but they usually retain their intellectual abilities. Brain injury has dramatically varied effects and no two people can expect the same outcome or resulting difficulties. The brain controls every part of human life: physically, intellectually, behaviorally, socially and emotionally. When the brain is damaged, some other part of a person's life will also be adversely affected. Even a mild injury can sometimes result in a serious disability that will interfere with a person’s daily functioning and personal activities for the rest of their life. While the outcome of the injury depends largely on the nature and severity of the injury itself, appropriate treatment will play a vital role in determining the level of recovery.

Random wire antenna

2008-10-21T02:08:00.000-07:00

A random-length wire antenna is a type of radio frequency antenna typically chosen more for convenience than any particular design criteria. This antenna sometimes is called the zig-zag antenna, as it may be strung back and forth between trees just to get enough wire into the air. For example, an antenna for 3mhz might be 20m - 40m long.

Usually, it is a long (at least one quarter wavelength) wire with one end connected to the radio and the other in free space, arranged in any way most convenient for the space available. Folding (to fit in space available) will reduce effectiveness and make theoretical analysis extremely difficult. (The added length helps more than the folding typically hurts.) If used for transmitting, a random wire antenna usually will also require an antenna tuner, as it might have a random impedance that varies nonlinearly with frequency.

Typically this antenna is constructed from a number 12 or 14 AWG (1.6 to 2.0 mm diameter) wire of nearly any length. Such an antenna can be used for transmitting on practically any frequency with a properly tuned matching network.Although random wire antennas can be made from nearly any length of wire, one-quarter wavelength works best, and one half wavelength will work poorly with most tuners.

The antenna is fed directly from output of the matching network or a tuned circuit, without a feed line. Since the antenna is located very close to the transmitter, RF feedback can be an issue. RF feedback can be minimized by selecting a wire length that causes the low feed-point impedance at a current loop to occur at the transmitter. Alternately, a remote tuner can be fed with feedline, and the tuner located on the antenna.

The ground for a random wire antenna may be chosen by experimentation. Grounds could be returned to the transmitter, a nearby cold water pipe or a wire that's approximately one-quarter wavelength long.

Transaction types

2008-10-12T23:52:00.000-07:00

A number of transaction types may be performed, including the following:

Sale: where the cardholder pays for goods or service

Refund: where a merchant refunds an earlier payment made by a cardholder

Withdrawal: the cardholder withdraws funds from their account, e.g. from an ATM. The term Cash Advance may also be used, typically when the funds are advanced by a merchant rather than at an ATM

Deposit: where a cardholder deposits funds to their own account (typically at an ATM)

Cashback: where a cardholder withdraws funds from their own account at the same time as making a purchase

Inter-account transfer: transferring funds between linked accounts belonging to the same cardholder

Payment: transferring funds to a third party account

Enquiry: a transaction without financial impact, for instance balance enquiry, available funds enquiry, linked accounts enquiry, or request for a statement of recent transactions on the account

E top-up: where a cardholder can use a device (typically POS or ATM) to add funds (top-up) their pre-pay mobile phone

Mini-statement: where a cardholder uses a device (typically an ATM) to obtain details of recent transactions on their account

Administrative: this covers a variety of non-financial transactions including PIN change

Bluetooth 1.1

2008-09-29T23:16:00.000-07:00

Ratified as IEEE Standard 802.15.1-2002.

Many errors found in the 1.0B specifications were fixed.

Added support for non-encrypted channels.

Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI).

Lorenz

2008-09-23T02:32:00.001-07:00

In the 1930s German radio engineers developed a new system, called the "Ultrakurzwellen-Landefunkfeuer" (LFF), or simply "Leitstrahl" (guiding beam) but referred to outside Germany as Lorenz, the name of the company manufacturing the equipments. In Lorenz two signals were broadcast on the same frequencies from highly directional antennas with beams a few degrees wide. One was pointed slightly to the left of the other, with a small angle in the middle where they overlapped. The signals were chosen as dots and dashes, timed so that when the aircraft was in the small area in the middle the sound was continuous. Planes would fly into the beams by listening to the signal to identify which side of middle they were on, and then corrected until they were in the center.

Originally developed as a night and bad-weather landing system, in the late 1930s they also started developing long-range versions for night bombing. In this case a second set of signals were broadcast at right angles to the first, and indicated the point at which to drop the bombs. The system was highly accurate and a battle of the beams broke out when United Kingdom intelligence services attempted, and then succeeded, in rendering the system useless.

In the post-war era similar systems were widely deployed, notably in the United States where a system of long range "airways" was created spanning the country with stations about 200 miles (320km) apart. The signals were chosen as the A and N letters from morse code, dot-dash and dash-dot respectively. However, new developments soon rendered these systems obsolete.

Definition of sense

2008-09-16T03:22:00.000-07:00

There is no firm agreement among neurologists as to the number of senses because of differing definitions of what constitutes a sense. One definition states that an exteroceptive sense is a faculty by which outside stimuli are perceived.The traditional five senses are sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste: a classification attributed to Aristotle.Humans also have at least six additional senses (a total of eleven including interoceptive senses) that include: nociception (pain), equilibrioception (balance), proprioception & kinesthesia (joint motion and acceleration), sense of time, thermoception (temperature differences), and in some a weak magnetoception (direction)

One commonly recognized catagorisation for human senses is as follows: chemoreception; photoreception; mechanoreception; and thermoception. Indeed, all human senses fit into one of these four categories.

Palaeobiogeography

2008-09-08T22:41:00.001-07:00

Paleobiogeography goes one step further to include paleogeographic data and considerations of plate tectonics. Using molecular analyses and corroborated by fossils, it has been possible to demonstrate that perching birds evolved first in the region of Australia or the adjacent Antarctic (which at that time lay somewhat further north and had a temperate climate). From there, they spread to the other Gondwanan continents and Southeast Asia - the part of Laurasia then closest to their origin of dispersal - in the late Paleogene, before achieving a global distribution in the early Neogene . Not knowing the fact that at the time of dispersal, the Indian Ocean was much narrower than it is today, and that South America was closer to the Antarctic, one would be hard pressed to explain the presence of many "ancient" lineages of perching birds in Africa, as well as the mainly South American distribution of the suboscines.

Generalized anxiety disorder

2008-09-02T05:43:00.000-07:00

Generalized anxiety disorder is a common chronic disorder that affects twice as many women as men and can lead to considerable impairment (Brawman-Mintzer & Lydiard, 1996, 1997). As the name implies, generalized anxiety disorder is characterized by long-lasting anxiety that is not focused on any particular object or situation. In other words it is unspecific or free-floating. People with this disorder feel afraid of something but are unable to articulate the specific fear. They fret constantly and have a hard time controlling their worries. Because of persistent muscle tension and autonomic fear reactions, they may develop headaches, heart palpitations, dizziness, insomnia and chest pain. These physical symptoms, combined with the intense, long-term anxiety, make it difficult to cope with normal daily activities.

Interrupts

2008-08-25T03:11:00.000-07:00

Interrupts are central to operating systems as they allow the operating system to deal with the unexpected activities of running programs and the world outside the computer.

Interrupt-based programming is one of the most basic forms of time-sharing, being directly supported by most CPUs. Interrupts provide a computer with a way of automatically running specific code in response to events. Even very basic computers support hardware interrupts, and allow the programmer to specify code which may be run when that event takes place.
When an interrupt is received, the computer's hardware automatically suspends whatever program is currently running by pushing the current state on a stack, and its registers and program counter are also saved. This is analogous to placing a bookmark in a book when someone is interrupted by a phone call. This task requires no operating system as such, but only that the interrupt be configured at an earlier time.

In modern operating systems, interrupts are handled by the operating system's kernel. Interrupts may come from either the computer's hardware, or from the running program. When a hardware device triggers an interrupt, the operating system's kernel decides how to deal with this event, generally by running some processing code, or ignoring it. The processing of hardware interrupts is a task that is usually delegated to software called device drivers, which may be either part of the operating system's kernel, part of another program, or both. Device drivers may then relay information to a running program by various means.

A program may also trigger an interrupt to the operating system, which are very similar in function. If a program wishes to access hardware for example, it may interrupt the operating system's kernel, which causes control to be passed back to the kernel. The kernel may then process the request which may contain instructions to be passed onto hardware, or to a device driver. When a program wishes to allocate more memory, launch or communicate with another program, or signal that it no longer needs the CPU, it does so through interrupts.

Ecophysiology of plants

2008-08-19T02:56:00.000-07:00

Plant ecophysiology is an experimental science that seeks to describe the physiological mechanisms underlying ecological observations. In other words, ecophysiologists, or physiological ecologists, address ecological questions about the controls over the growth, reproduction, survival, abundance, and geographical distribution of plants, as these processes are affected by interactions between plants with their physical, chemical, and biotic environment. These ecophysiological patterns and mechanisms can help us understand the functional significance of specific plant traits and their evolutionary heritage. The questions addressed by ecophysiologists are derived from a higher level of integration, i.e. from “ecology” in its broadest sense, including questions originating from agriculture, horticulture, forestry, and environmental sciences. However, the ecophysiological explanations often require mechanistic understanding at a lower level of integration (physiology, biochemistry, biophysics, molecular biology). It is, therefore, quintessential for an ecophysiologist to have an appreciation of both ecological questions and biophysical, biochemical, and molecular methods and processes. In addition, many societal issues, often pertaining to agriculture, environmental change, or nature conservation, benefit from an ecophysiological perspective. A modern ecophysiologist thus requires a good understanding of both the molecular aspects of plant processes and the functioning of the intact plant in its environmental context.

In many cases, animals are able to escape unfavourable and changing environmental factors such as heat, cold, drought, or floods, while generally plants are unable to move away and therefor must endure the adverse conditions or perish. Some plants have an impressive array of genes which aid in adapting to changing conditions. It is hypothesized that this large number of genes can be partly explained by plant species' need to adapt to a wider range of conditions.

JPEG file format

2008-08-10T22:59:00.000-07:00

In computing, JPEG (pronounced JAY-peg) is a commonly used method of compression for photographic images. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and image quality. JPEG typically achieves 10 to 1 compression with little perceivable loss in image quality.

In addition to being a compression method, JPEG is often considered to be a file format. JPEG/Exif is the most common image format used by digital cameras and other photographic image capture devices; along with JPEG/JFIF, it is the most common format for storing and transmitting photographic images on the World Wide Web. These format variations are often not distinguished, and are simply called JPEG.

The compression method is usually lossy compression, meaning that some visual quality is lost in the process and cannot be restored. There are variations on the standard baseline JPEG that are lossless, however these are not yet widely supported.

Movement of proteins

2008-08-04T04:13:00.000-07:00

Each type of protein is usually sent to a particular part of the cell. An important part of cell biology is the investigation of molecular mechanisms by which proteins are moved to different places inside cells or secreted from cells.

Most proteins are synthesized by ribosomes in the cytoplasm. This process is also known as protein biosynthesis or simply protein translation. Some proteins, such as those to be incorporated in membranes (known as membrane proteins), are transported into the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) during synthesis. This process can be followed by transportation and processing in the Golgi apparatus. From the Golgi, membrane proteins can move to the plasma membrane, to other subcellular compartments, or they can be secreted from the cell. The ER and Golgi can be thought of as the "membrane protein synthesis compartment" and the "membrane protein processing compartment", respectively. There is a semi-constant flux of proteins through these compartments. ER and Golgi-resident proteins associate with other proteins but remain in their respective compartments. Other proteins "flow" through the ER and Golgi to the plasma membrane. Motor proteins transport membrane protein-containing vesicles along cytoskeletal tracks to distant parts of cells such as axon terminals.

Some proteins that are made in the cytoplasm contain structural features that target them for transport into mitochondria or the nucleus. Some mitochondrial proteins are made inside mitochondria and are coded for by mitochondrial DNA. In plants, chloroplasts also make some cell proteins.

Extracellular and cell surface proteins destined to be degraded can move back into intracellular compartments upon being incorporated into endocytosed vesicles. Some of these vesicles fuse with lysosomes where the proteins are broken down to their individual amino acids. The degradation of some membrane proteins begins while still at the cell surface when they are cleaved by secretases. Proteins that function in the cytoplasm are often degraded by proteasomes.

Theoretical implications technology

2008-07-28T02:54:00.000-07:00

The process of technological evolution culminates with the ability to achieve all the material values technologically possible and desirable by mental effort.

An economic implication of the above idea is that intellectual labour, will become increasingly more important relative to physical labour. Contracts and agreements around information will become increasingly more common at the marketplace. Expansion and creation of new kinds of institutes that works with information such as for example universities, book stores, patent-trading companies, etc. is considered an indication that a civilization is in technological evolution.

Interestingly, this highlights the importance underlining the debate over intellectual property in conjunction with decentralized distribution systems such as todays internet. Where the price of information distribution is going towards zero with ever more efficient tools to distribute information is being invented. Growing amounts of information being distributed to an increasingly larger customer base as times goes by. With growing disintermediation in said markets and growing concerns over the protection of intellectual property rights it is not clear what form markets for information will take with the evolution of the information age.

Syllabaries

2008-07-21T00:17:00.001-07:00

A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent (or approximate) syllables. A glyph in a syllabary typically represents a consonant followed by a vowel, or just a vowel alone, though in some scripts more complex syllables (such as consonant-vowel-consonant, or consonant-consonant-vowel) may have dedicated glyphs. Phonetically related syllables are not so indicated in the script. For instance, the syllable "ka" may look nothing like the syllable "ki", nor will syllables with the same vowels be similar.

Syllabaries are best suited to languages with relatively simple syllable structure, such as Japanese. Other languages that use syllabic writing include the Linear B script for Mycenaean Greek; Cherokee; Ndjuka, an English-based creole language of Surinam; and the Vai script of Liberia. Most logographic systems have a strong syllabic component. Ethiopic, though technically an alphabet, has fused consonants and vowels together to the point that it's learned as if it were a syllabary.

Selective breeding

2008-07-15T00:45:00.000-07:00

Selective breeding in domesticated animals is the process of a breeder developing a cultivated breed over time, and selecting qualities within individuals of the breed that will be best to pass on to the next generation. The term is synonymous with "Artificial selection". Breeding techniques such as inbreeding, linebreeding and outcrossing are utilized by breeders in the maintenance and improvement of their chosen breeds.

Charles Darwin discussed how selective breeding had been successful in producing change over time in his book, Origin of Species. The first chapter of the book discusses selective breeding and domestication of such animals as pigeons, dogs and cattle. Selective breeding was used by Darwin as a springboard to introduce the theory of natural selection, and to support it.

Nuclear fusion

2008-07-06T23:17:00.000-07:00

In physics and nuclear chemistry, nuclear fusion is the process by which multiple atomic particles join together to form a heavier nucleus. It is accompanied by the release or absorption of energy. Iron and nickel nuclei have the largest binding energies per nucleon of all nuclei. The fusion of two nuclei lighter than iron generally releases energy while the fusion of nuclei heavier than iron absorbs energy; vice-versa for the reverse process, nuclear fission.

Nuclear fusion occurs naturally in stars. Artificial fusion in human enterprises has also been achieved, although not yet completely controlled. Building upon the nuclear transmutation experiments of Ernest Rutherford done a few years earlier, fusion of light nuclei (hydrogen isotopes) was first observed by Mark Oliphant in 1932, and the steps of the main cycle of nuclear fusion in stars were subsequently worked out by Hans Bethe throughout the remainder of that decade. Research into fusion for military purposes began in the early 1940s, as part of the Manhattan Project, but was not successful until 1952. Research into controlled fusion for civilian purposes began in the 1950s, and continues to this day.

Body plan

2008-06-29T22:26:00.000-07:00

A body plan, or bauplan, is essentially the blueprint for the way the body of an organism is laid out. An organism's symmetry, its number of body segments and number of limbs are all aspects of its body plan. One of the key issues of developmental biology is the evolution of body plans as different as those of a starfish, a fern, or a mammal, from a common biological heritage, and in particular how radical changes in body plans have occurred over geological time. The body plan is a key feature of an organism's morphology, and since the discovery of DNA developmental biologists have been able to learn a lot about how genes control the development of structural features through a cascade of processes in which key genes produce morphogens, chemicals that diffuse through the body to produce a gradient that acts as a position indicator for cells, turning on other genes, some of which in turn produce other morphogens. A key discovery was the existence of groups of homeobox genes which are responsible for laying down the basic body plan in organisms. The homeobox genes are remarkably conserved between species as diverse as the fruitfly and man, the basic segmented pattern of the worm or fruitfly being the origin of the segmented spine in man. The field of evolutionary developmental biology, which studies the genetics of morphology in detail is now a rapidly expanding one [1], with many of the developmental genetic cascades, particularly in the fruitfly drosophila, now catalogued in considerable detail .Body plan is the basis for phylum, and there are 35 different basic animal body plans, corresponding to different phyla.

Eukaryotic cells

2008-06-22T23:20:00.000-07:00

Eukaryotic cells consist of cell membrane, organelles which represent the functional components for storage, excretion, digestion and nucleus (centre of the cell), it contains all the vital information needed by the cell or the whole organism to function, grow and reproduce.

Eukaryotic cells are found in humans, plants and animals, also algae, and protozoa. Eukaryotic cells have both a cellular membrane and a nuclear membrane. Eukaryotic genome is more complex than that of prokaryotes and distributed among multiple chromosomes.

Mitosis: The division of the parent nucleus into two daughter nuclei, separating the duplicated genome into two sets, each identical to the parent cell's genome.

Cytokinesis: The pinching and division of the cell membrane and cytoplasm, separating the recently divided nuclei, the organelles, and other cellular components.

Meiosis: The division of the nucleus in sex cells that reduces the diploid number of chromosomes to a haploid number in order to facilitate sexual reproduction.

Examples of cell division in multicellular eukariotic organisms include repair, growth, and development. An injury or wound is healed when the cells exposed by the injury divide at an excellerated rate until they come into contact with other cells. After this the cells return to a more typical division rate. Cell division causes an organism to grow as long as the rate of cell division exceeds normal cell death. As cells divide and become more numerous they are located in more diverse physical and chemical environments. These variations in local conditions influence the cells to alter gene expression causing the cells to differentiate and become more specialized allowing an organism to develop

Agere Systems

2008-06-15T23:19:00.000-07:00

Agere Systems Inc. was an integrated circuit components company based in Allentown, Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania, in the United States. Effective April 2, 2007, it was merged into LSI Corporation.

Agere was incorporated on August 1, 2000 as a subsidiary of Lucent Technologies and then spun-off on June 1, 2002. The name Agere was that of a Texas-based electronics company that Lucent had acquired in 2000, although the pronunciations of the company names are different. The Texas company was pronounced with three syllables and a hard "g": A-gear-uh. The company name was pronounced with two syllables and a hard "g": A-gear.

The company also maintained an India office in Whitefield, India, located in the city of Bangalore, which is involved in ASIC design and software development.
The company also maintained an Israel office located in Raanana. This office was based on Modem-Art a developer of advanced processor technology for 3G/UMTS mobile devices which Agere has acquired in 2005.

The China offices of Agere were located at Shanghai and Shenzhen

Trance genres

2008-06-08T23:41:00.000-07:00

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.

Phase (matter)

2008-06-01T23:52:00.000-07:00

In addition to the specific chemical properties that distinguish different chemical classifications chemicals can exist in several phases. For the most part, thechemical classifications are independent of these bulk phase classifications;however, some more exotic phases are incompatible with certain chemical properties.A phase is a set of states of a chemical system that have similar bulk structuralproperties, over a range of conditions, such as pressure or temperature. Physicalproperties, such as density and refractive index tend to fall within values characteristic of the phase. The phase of matter is defined by the phase transition,which is when energy put into or taken out of the system goes into rearranging the structure of the system, instead of changing the bulk conditions.

Sometimes the distinction between phases can be continuous instead of having a discrete boundary, in this case the matter is considered to be in a supercritical state. When three states meet based on the conditions, it is known as a triple point and since this is invariant, it is a convenient way to define a set of conditions.

The most familiar examples of phases are solids, liquids, and gases. Many substances exhibit multiple solid phases. For example, there are three phases of solid iron (alpha, gamma, and delta) that vary based on temperature and pressure. A principal difference between solid phases is the crystal structure, or arrangement, of the atoms. Less familiar phases include plasmas, Bose-Einstein condensates and fermionic condensates and the paramagnetic and ferromagnetic phases of magnetic materials. While most familiar phases deal with three-dimensional systems, it is also possible to define analogs in two-dimensional systems, which has received attention for its relevance to systems in biology.

Home computers

2008-05-28T00:21:00.000-07:00

Although most small 8-bit home computers of the 1980s, such as the Commodore 64, the Atari 8-bit, the Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum series and others could use a disk-loading operating system, such as CP/M or GEOS they could generally work without one. In fact, most if not all of these computers shipped with a built-in BASIC interpreter on ROM, which also served as a crude operating system, allowing minimal file management operations (such as deletion, copying, etc.) to be performed and sometimes disk formatting, along of course with application loading and execution, which sometimes required a non-trivial command sequence, like with the Commodore 64.

The fact that the majority of these machines were bought for entertainment and educational purposes and were seldom used for more "serious" or business/science oriented applications, partly explains why a "true" operating system was not necessary.

Understanding the Context

2008-05-27T07:29:00.001-07:00

Many different methods of communication are possible on the Internet; some use specific software and all involve text and/or graphics.

* Some activities take place in real-time while others allow for a delayed reply.

* Discussion areas may be public or exist for a particular group of people.

* Information can either be broadcast or targeted at a particular user.

As the technology develops, and users and providers become more proficient, the boundaries between the different Internet services are blurred. For example, email is used in chat rooms, web pages include discussion areas and newsgroups can have files attached.

Each Internet service has its own educational value, risks, and recommended ways of dealing with problems, and these are detailed in the following pages. They are not exhaustive and many apply across Internet services. Schools should consider the sum of the advice in these guidelines across all areas.

Overview of the Click Thinking Pack

2008-05-22T07:57:00.001-07:00

Schools and government initiatives are encouraging the educational use of the Internet right across the curriculum and young people are taking readily to this way of learning and communicating.

At the same time, the media tends to focus on the rare occasions when use of the Internet causes distress. The Scottish Executive believes that young people need to be protected and informed; and that those responsible for them, whether teachers, parents or other careers, should be aware of the issues involved.

Previous Scottish Executive Education Department (SEED) publications in this area have dealt with the need to protect pupils from misuse of computers (Information Ethics) and to understand copyright implications (Copyright and Ethics in a Digital Age).

This booklet focuses on personal safety and wellbeing. It attempts to clarify potential risks and to empower Internet users in schools so that they can keep themselves safe. Those who manage Scottish schools, and all teachers, whether responsible for a primary class or for teaching a subject, will find policy guidelines and background information which will prepare our pupils to take their safe and well-earned place in the Digital Age.

Much of the advice in these guidelines will be relevant to other Local Authority staff responsible for overseeing young people's use of the Internet (e.g. managers and staff in community education centers, residential homes for young people, libraries and other settings). These groups should take account of the messages about personal safety, and put into place the recommendations suitable for their setting.

BACK TO SCHOOL SAFETY ALERT:

2008-05-07T04:47:00.000-07:00

CPSC Urges Bicyclists to Wear Helmets

CPSC Document #5002

Each year about 800 bicyclists are killed and more than half a million are treated in hospital emergency rooms. In recent years, almost two-thirds of the deaths and one-third of the injuries involved head and face injury. About one-half the injuries to children under the age of 10 involved the head or face. Helmets may reduce the risk of head injury to bicyclists by as much as 85 percent. Yet, only about 50 percent of bicyclists wear helmets.

The purpose of a helmet is to absorb the energy of an impact to minimize or prevent a head injury. Crushable, expanded polystyrene foam generally is used for this purpose.

A bicycle helmet should have a snug but comfortable fit on the rider's head. Some helmets are available with several different thicknesses of internal padding to custom fit the helmet to the user. If a parent is buying a helmet for a child, the CPSC recommends that the child accompany the parent so that the helmet can be tested for a good fit.

For a helmet to provide protection during impact, it must have a chin strap and buckle that will stay securely fastened. No combination of twisting or pulling should remove the helmet from the head or loosen the buckle on the strap. Children should be instructed to always wear the helmet level on the forehead, not tilted back. The chin strap should be adjusted correctly and firmly buckled.

Helmets manufactured after March 1999, are required by federal law to meet the CPSC standard. When purchasing a helmet, consumers are urged to examine the helmet and accompanying instructions and safety literature carefully. Consumers should also look for a label stating conformance with the CPSC standard.

Bicyclists should avoid riding at night. If you must ride at night, install and use front and rear lights on the bicycle and wear clothing with reflective tape or markings. These precautions are in addition to the reflectors that the CPSC requires to be on the front, rear, pedals, and wheels of bicycles.

Many bicycle-car crashes can be avoided by applying the rules of the road and by increasing attentiveness of cyclists and motorists. Bicyclists have a legal right to share the road, but they are often not noticed in traffic. Drivers should always keep an eye out for bicyclists, especially when turning, merging, changing lanes, or entering intersections.

All-Terrain Vehicle Safety

2008-04-28T05:54:00.001-07:00

Too many ATV riders -- young and old -- are dying or experiencing life altering injuries from incidents involving ATVs. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) recommends that all ATV riders follow the seven safety tips below every time they ride.

An estimated 740 people died in 2003* in incidents associated with ATVs. In addition, in 2004* there were an estimated 136,100 emergency room treated injuries associated with ATVs. About a third of all deaths and injuries involved victims under 16 years old. CPSC also reported that ridership has continued to grow, with 6.2 million 4-wheeled ATVs in use in 2003*.

The major ATV manufacturers agreed in Consent Decrees in 1988 and in subsequent voluntary action plans that they would not manufacture three-wheel ATVs; they would place engine size restrictions on ATVs sold for use by children under 16; and they would offer driver-training programs.

Children and young people under the age of 16 should not ride adult ATVs.

All ATV users should take a hands-on safety training course.

Always wear a helmet and safety gear such as boots and gloves while on an ATV.

Never drive an ATV on paved roads.

Never drive while under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

Never drive a youth or single-rider adult ATV with a passenger, and never ride these vehicles as a passenger.

There are some ATVs that are designed for two riders. Passengers on tandem ATVs should be at least 12 years old.

J-Hook Shaped Stake style (Anchor Types)

2008-04-21T06:16:00.001-07:00

This style is used when holes are not pre-drilled into the ground shoes (bars) or rear ground shoe (bar) of the goal. Similar to the peg or stake style, this anchor is hammered, at an angle if possible, directly into the earth. The curved (top) portion of this anchor fits over the goal member to secure it to the ground (Figure 3.4). Typically, two to four stakes of this type are recommended (per goal), depending on stake structure, manufacturers specifications, weight of goal, and soil conditions. Stakes with larger diameters or textured surfaces have greater holding capacity.

Anchoring/Securing/Counterweighing Guidelines

2008-04-14T04:57:00.000-07:00

A properly anchored/counterweighted movable soccer goal is much less likely to tip over. Remember to secure the goal to the ground (preferably at the rear of the goal), making sure the anchors are flush with the ground and clearly visible. It is IMPERATIVE that ALL movable soccer goals are always anchored properly (see Figure 2). There are several different ways to secure your soccer goal. The number and type of anchors to be used will depend on a number of factors, such as soil type, soil moisture content, and total goal weight.

Soccer Goal Injuries and Deaths

2008-04-07T06:38:00.000-07:00

According to the 1994 National Soccer Participation Survey (Soccer Industry Council of America), over 16 million persons in the United States play soccer at least once a year. Seventy-four percent (over 12 million) of these persons are under the age of 18. Soccer ranks fourth in participation for those under 18, following basketball, volleyball, and softball and well ahead of baseball, which has an annual participation of 9.7 million.
There are approximately 225,000 to 500,000 soccer goals in the United States. Many of these soccer goals are unsafe because they are unstable and are either unanchored or not properly anchored or counter-balanced. These movable soccer goals pose an unnecessary risk of tip over to children who climb on goals (or nets) or hang from the crossbar.
The CPSC knows of four deaths in 1990 alone and at least 21 deaths during the past 16 years (1979-1994) associated with movable soccer goals. In addition, an estimated 120 injuries involving falling goals were treated each year in U.S. hospital emergency rooms during the period 1989 through 1993. Many of the serious incidents occurred when the soccer goals tipped over onto the victim. Almost all of the goals involved in these tip over appeared to be home-made by high school shop classes, custodial members, or local welders, not professionally manufactured. These home-made goals are often very heavy and unstable.
The majority of movable soccer goals are constructed of metal, typically weighing 150-500 pounds. The serious injuries and deaths are a result of blunt force trauma to the head, neck, chest, and limbs of the victims. In most cases this occurred when the goal tipped or was accidentally tipped onto the victim. In one case an 8-year-old child was fatally injured when the movable soccer goal he was climbing tipped over and struck him on the head. In another case, a 20-year-old male died from a massive head trauma when he pulled a goal down on himself while attempting to do chin-ups. In a third case, while attempting to tighten a net to its goal post, the victim’s father lifted the back base of the goal causing it to tip over striking his 3-year-old child on the head, causing a fatal injury.
High winds can also cause movable soccer goals to fall over. For example, a 9-year-old was fatally injured when a goal was tipped over by a gust of wind. In another incident, a 19-year-old goalie suffered stress fractures to both legs when the soccer goal was blown on top of her.

B.C.-Canada Place officially closes doors

2008-03-30T19:40:00.001-07:00

Monday, March 20, 2006 marks the official close of British Columbia-Canada Place, one of the most successful attractions of the 2006 Torino Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.

Over the course of the 2006 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, British Columbia-Canada Place drew more than 100,000 visitors and journalists. These visitors were able to experience first hand the province’s culture, heritage, natural beauty and bustling cities. Also, more than 80 British Columbia businesses were able to connect with an international audience and showcase some of B.C.’s best products and services.

B.C.-Canada Place will be a legacy to the people of Torino. The official transfer took place in a ceremony yesterday, with Torino Mayor Sergio Chiamparino accepting a ceremonial key to the building.

“This generous gift from British Columbia will be a constant reminder of our friends in Canada and the celebrations that took place in our city during the 2006 Winter Games,” says Mayor Chiamparino. “We are honored to have this permanent B.C. presence in our city.”

Kent Kickin' Mini-Scooters

2008-03-24T05:55:00.000-07:00

Kent is recalling about 90,000 scooters. The scooter handles can unexpectedly come out of the steering column if the clamp holding them in is not tight, causing the rider to lose control, fall and possibly suffer injuries.
Kent has received four reports of the handles coming out, resulting in four children suffering injuries, including broken arms, a broken wrist, bruises, abrasions and a cracked tooth.
These are Kickin' Mini-Scooters made of chrome-plated steel. A vertical decal on the steering column reads "KICKIN' MINI SCOOTER." The scooter's black plastic platform measures about 15 inches long, and it has 4-inch translucent in-line style wheels. "KENT" and "MADE IN CHINA" are written on the lower part of the steering column. The scooters were sold with black backpacks embroidered in white with the word "Kickin."
Toys R us stores nationwide sold the Kent scooters from May 2000 through September 2000 for about $60.
Consumers should stop riding these Kent scooters immediately, and call Kent International to receive a free replacement handlebar with pins to secure the handlebars. For more information, call Kent International at (800) 451-KENT (5368) between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. ET Monday through Friday.
Kent has sold other models to Toys R Us such as the Street Craze, the Street Racer and Scoot that are NOT part of this recall. Scooters that Kent sold to Wal Mart, Meijer's, Target and AAFES are also NOT part of this recall.

Trampoline Safety Alert

2008-03-17T06:45:00.001-07:00

The U. S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) wants you and your family to be safe when using trampolines. The CPSC estimates that in 2001 there were 91,870 hospital emergency room-treated injuries associated with trampolines. About 93 percent of the victims were under 15 years of age, and 11 percent were under 5 years of age. Since 1990, CPSC has received reports of 6 deaths of children under age 15 involving trampolines. Injuries and deaths were caused by:

* Colliding with another person on the trampoline.
* Landing improperly while jumping or doing stunts on the trampoline.
* Falling or jumping off the trampoline.
* Falling on the trampoline springs or frame.
Most of the trampolines associated with injuries were at private homes.
Here are the steps you can take to help prevent serious trampoline injuries, especially paralysis, fractures, sprains, and bruises:

* Allow only one person on the trampoline at a time.
* Do not attempt or allow somersaults because landing on the head or neck can cause paralysis.
* Do not use the trampoline without shock-absorbing pads that completely cover its springs, hooks, and frame.
* Place the trampoline away from structures, trees, and other play areas.
* No child under 6 years of age should use a full-size trampoline. Do not use a ladder with the trampoline because it provides unsupervised access by small children.
* Always supervise children who use a trampoline.
* Trampoline enclosures can help prevent injuries from falls off trampolines.

Accumulator

2008-03-10T03:59:00.000-07:00

In a computer CPU, an accumulator is a register in which intermediary arithmetic and logic results are stored. Without a register like an accumulator, it would be necessary to write the result of each calculation (addition, multiplication, shift, etc.) to main memory, possibly only to be read right back again for use in the next operation. Access to main memory is slower than access to a register like the accumulator because the technology used for the huge main memory is slower (but cheaper) than that used for a register.

The canonical example for accumulator use is adding a list of numbers. The accumulator is initially set to zero, then each number in spin is added to the value in the accumulator. Only when all numbers have been added is the result seized in the accumulator written to main memory or to another, non-accumulator, CPU register.

Planet

2008-02-25T04:43:00.000-08:00

A planet, as defined by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), is a celestial body orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is enormous enough to be rounded by its own gravity, not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has cleared its neighboring region of planetesimals.

The term planet is an antique one having ties to history, science, myth, and religion. The planets were originally seen as a divine attendance; as emissaries of the gods. Even today, many people continue to believe the movement of the planets affects their lives, although such causation is rejected by the scientific community. As scientific knowledge advanced, the human awareness of the planets changed over time, incorporating a number of disparate objects. Even now there is no recognized definition of what a planet is. In 2006, the IAU formally adopted a resolution defining planets within the Solar System. This definition has been both praised and criticize, and remains disputed by some scientists.

Under IAU definitions, there are eight planets in the Solar System (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) and 270 further solar ones. The Solar System also contains at slightest three dwarf planets (Ceres, Pluto, and Eris). Many of these planets are orbited by one or more moons, which can be superior than small planets. Planets are usually divided into two main types: large, low-density gas giants and smaller, rocky terrestrials.

Pomegranate

2008-02-19T04:01:00.000-08:00

The Pomegranate (Punica granatum) is a fruit-bearing deciduous shrub or tiny tree growing to 5–8 m tall. The pomegranate is native to the region from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran to the Himalayas in northern India and has been enlightened and naturalized over the whole Mediterranean region and the Caucasus since antique times. It is widely cultivated throughout Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, and India, the drier parts of Southeast Asia, Peninsular Malaysia, the East Indies, and tropical Africa. Introduced into Latin America and California by Spanish settlers in 1769, pomegranate is now cultivated mostly in the drier parts of California and Arizona for its fruits exploited commercially as juice products in advance in popularity since 2001. In the global functional food industry, pomegranate is included among a novel category of exotic plant sources called super fruits.

In the Northern Hemisphere, the fruit is classically in season from September to January. In the Southern hemisphere, it is in period from March to May.

Plantation

2008-02-11T21:26:00.000-08:00

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.

Climate

2008-02-04T21:22:00.000-08:00

The climate is commonly measured to be the weather averaged over a long period of time, naturally 30 years. Somewhat more precisely, the concept of "climate" also includes the statistics of the weather — such as the degree of day-to-day or year-to-year difference expected. IPCC is called as Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Climate in a narrow sense is usually defined as the “average weather”, or more meticulously, as the statistical description in terms of the mean and variability of relevant quantities over a period of time range from months to thousands or millions of years. The traditional period is 30 years, as defined by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). These quantities are the majority often surface variables such as temperature, precipitation, and wind. Climate in a wider sense is the state, including a numerical description, of the climate system.

Relief print

2008-01-28T20:52:00.001-08:00

Relief print is an image fashioned by a printmaking process, such as Stencil printing, where the areas of the matrix (plate or block) that are to show printed black (typically) are on the original surface; the part of the matrix that are to be blank (white) having been cut away, or otherwise removed. Printing the image is therefore a relatively simple matter of inking the face of the matrix and brings it in firm contact with the paper; a printing-press may not be needed as the back of the paper can be rubbed or pressed by hand with a simple tool. It's the BEST way to repeat an IMAGE several times without messing up.

Nonfood uses

2008-01-21T20:49:00.001-08:00

Because fruits have been such a major part of the human diet, different cultures have urbanized many different uses for various fruits that they do not depend on as being edible. Many dry fruits are used as streamer or in dried flower arrangements, such as unicorn plant, lotus, wheat, annual honesty and milkweed. Ornamental trees and shrubs are frequently refined for their colorful fruits, as well as holly, pyracantha, viburnum, skimmia, beautyberry and cotoneaster.

Fruits of opium poppy are the basis of the drugs opium and morphine. Osage orange fruits are used to keep away cockroaches. Bayberry fruits provide a wax frequently used to make candles. Many fruits give natural dyes, e.g. walnut, sumac, cherry and mulberry. Dried up gourds are used as streamer, water jugs, bird houses, musical instruments, cups and dishes. Pumpkins are imprinted into Jack-o'-lanterns for Halloween. The spiny fruit of burdock or cocklebur were the motivation for the invention of Velcro.

Coir is a fiber from the fruit of coconut that is used for doormats, brushes, mattresses, floortiles, sacking, lagging and as a growing medium for container plants. The shell of the coconut fruit is used to make memento heads, cups, bowls, musical instruments and bird houses.

Cricket ball

2008-01-16T20:57:00.000-08:00

Cricket balls are made from a core of cork, which is coated with tightly wound string, and covered by a leather case with a slightly raised sewn seam. The covering is constructed of four piece of leather shaped similar to the peel of a quartered orange, but one hemisphere is rotated by 90 degrees with respect to the other. The "equator" of the ball is stitch with string to form the seam, with a total of six rows of stitches. The remaining two join connecting with the leather pieces are left unstitched.For men's cricket, the ball must weigh between 5.5 and 5.75 ounces (155.9 and 163.0 g) and determine between 8 13/16 and 9 in (224 and 229 mm) in circumference. Balls used in women's and youth matches are a little smaller.

Membrane Filtration

2008-01-07T20:49:00.000-08:00

A well-arranged process conduction which infact work without the addition of chemicals. Membrane technology is a generic term for separation processes. With membrane filters, filtration mainly occurs on the filter surface. Particles, which are larger than the normal pore size, remain on the filter, smaller particles pass through it unless other interactions get retained in them.

They are used to separate colloids, Suspended particles and molecules from liquids. Thus feed flow is divided into two streams a filtrate stream, and a highly concentrate stream.

Membrane systems with its filtration can be managed in either dead-end flow or cross-flow. The purpose of the optimization of the membrane techniques is the achievement, which is of the highest possible production for a long period of time, with acceptable pollution levels.

Generation

2008-01-03T21:46:00.001-08:00

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.

Industry

2007-12-28T02:29:00.000-08:00

An industry is generally any grouping of businesses that share a common method of generating profits, such as the music industry, the automobile industry, or the cattle industry. It is also used specifically to refer to an area of economic production focused on manufacturing which involves large amounts of capital investment before any profit can be realized, also called "heavy industry.As-of 2004, Financial services is the largest industry or category of industries in the world in terms of earnings.

Industry in the second sense became a key sector of production in European and North American countries during the Industrial Revolution, which upset previous mercantile and feudal economies through many successive rapid advances in technology, such as the development of steam engines, power looms, and advances in large scale steel and coal production. Industrial countries then assumed a capitalist economic policy. Railroads and steam-powered ships began speedily integrating previously impossibly-distant world markets, enabling private companies to develop to then-unheard of size and wealth. Manufacturing is a wealth-producing sector of an economy. Other sectors such as the service sector tend to be wealth consuming sectors. Following the Industrial Revolution, perhaps a third of the world's economic output is derived from manufacturing industries—more than agriculture's share.

Capital market

2007-12-17T22:31:00.000-08:00

The capital market is the market for securities, where companies and the government can heave long-term funds. It includes the stock market and the bond market. Financial regulators, such as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, oversee the capital markets in their selected countries to make certain that investors are protected against fraud. The capital markets consist of the primary market, where new issues are spread to investors, and the secondary market, where existing securities are traded.

Automobiles in Society

2007-12-02T20:09:00.001-08:00

This paper is a revise of the impact of the growing of automobiles on the global environment, people’s lives and health, and the formation of Western culture. In addition to survey the impact of automobiles, technologies that have been developed to cope with the problems will be examine, as well as potential long-term solution to the community and ecological troubles caused by automobiles.

While the ecological collision of automobiles on society may be supposed in more material terms, the size of its social impact is more theoretical in its definition. Mark Delucchi suggests that the total social cost of automobile use is the welfare dissimilarity between the current motor vehicle system and a system which provides exactly the same services but without time, manpower, materials, or energy - in short without cost. This explanation of the social cost of automobiles alludes to several general categories of impact, such as personal non-monetary costs, bundled private sector costs, government costs, and various externalities.

Chemistry

2007-11-13T04:29:00.001-08:00

Chemistry is the science of matter at the atomic to molecular scale, production mainly with collections of atoms, such as gases, molecules, crystals, and metals. Chemistry deals with the composition and statistical properties of such structures, as well as their transformations and interactions to become materials encountered in daily life. Chemistry also deals with sympathetic the properties and interactions of individual atoms with the purpose of applying that knowledge at the macroscopic level. According to contemporary chemistry, the physical properties of materials are usually determined by their structure at the atomic scale, which is itself defined by interatomic forces.

Travois

2007-11-05T20:47:00.000-08:00

A travois (Canadian French, from French travail, a frame for restrictive horses; also obsolete travois) is a border used by Native Americans, notably the Plains Indians of North America, to drag loads over land. The basic structure consists of a platform or netting mounted on two long poles, lashed in the shape of an extended isosceles triangle; the frame was dragged with the sharply pointed end ahead. Sometimes the blunt end of the frame was stabilizing by a third pole bound crossways the two main poles.
The travois was dragged by hand, now and then fitted with a shoulder harness for more capable dragging, or dragged by dogs or horses (although horses did not exist in North America before introduce by the Spanish in the 1520s). A travois could either be loaded by support goods atop the bare frame and tieing them in place or by first stretch cloth or leather over the frame to hold the load to be dragged.
Although measured more primitive than wheel-based forms of transport, on the type of country where the travois was used (forest floors, soft soil, snow, etc.), rather than roadways, wheels would encounter difficulties which make them a less well-organized option. As such they found use in New France's fur trade by Couriers des bois, who traded notably with the Native Americans.

Wakeboard

2007-10-29T21:26:00.000-07:00

Wakeboard Boats have a device that creates a huge wake for a skier to jump the wakes from face to face doing aerial tricks. Wakeboard complete boats are Drive boats. This means they are an inboard boat among the engine place backwards in the nurture of the boat. Some wakeboard detailed boat models are direct drive boats where the engine is in the center of the boat. Most wakeboard boats will have some features that help to make large wakes. Ballast, lodge, and hull technology. Most new wakeboarding boats come usual with some sort of regular ballast. Generally, these ballast tanks are placed inside of the hull of the boat and can be crowded and empties by switches situated in the drivers area. The ballast weights the boat down, creating a larger wake when in proposition. The Wedge is a machine that helps shape the wake. It is a metal structure situated behind the propeller that helps the driver fine melody the wake for the athlete. Hull technology is the innovation and R&D that the manufacturers put into their boats to make sure the best stock wake possible. Many boarders use after market ballast and guide to further weight down their boats for very huge wakes or for sports such as wake surfing.

Technology

2007-10-24T21:58:00.000-07:00

Mobile phones and the network they operate under vary significantly from provider to provider, and nation to nation. However, all of them communicate through electromagnetic microwaves with a cell site base station, the antennas of which are usually mounted on a tower, pole, or building.

The phones have a low-power transceiver that transmits voice and data to the nearest cell sites, usually 5 to 8 miles away. When the cellular phone or data device is turned on, it registers with the mobile telephone exchange, or switch, with its unique identifiers, and will then be alerted by the mobile switch when there is an incoming telephone call. The handset constantly listens for the strongest signal being received from the surrounding base stations. As the user moves around the network, the mobile device will "handoff" to various cell sites during calls, or while waiting between calls it will reselect cell sites.

Cell sites have relatively low-power radio transmitters which broadcast their presence and relay communications between the mobile handsets and the switch. The switch in turn connects the call to another subscriber of the same wireless service provider or to the public telephone network, which includes the networks of other wireless carriers.

A book report

2007-10-15T21:53:00.000-07:00

The paranormal was a preferred theme of Boobie Ann Mason. Regrettably, In Country is completely obviously brainless in terms of Mason's common reactionary government. Below, I will show that Mason's expert writing is representative of the strong Romantic principles of the author's time. Support for this argues is present in the following: (a) Mason's reknown incorporation of symbol in the work, (b) the enormous use of coming of age in Country, and (c) Romantic overtones in the work's opening monologue.

How can I put this, these themes are most apparent in first half of the Country, for that is when Mason's often insane prose shine most brightly. To indicate that Colonel Maxwell is the work's villain, the author makes his conversation pandering. Captain Adams's famously not consideration out attitude throughout the book is often cited.

A Brief History of the Internet

2007-10-07T21:18:00.000-07:00

By default, any ultimate history of the Internet must be short, since the Internet in one form or another has only been in reality for less than 30 years. The first iteration of the Internet was launched in 1971 with a community showing in early on 1972. This new network, recognized as ARPANET. It means Advanced Research Projects Agency Network was very ancient by today's standards, but an objective in computer interactions.
ARPANET was based upon the design concepts of Larry Roberts (MIT) and was fleshed out at the first ACM colloquium, held in Gaithersburg, TN in 1966, although RFPs weren't sent out until mid 1968.
The responsibility of security in 1969 commissioned ARPANET, and the first node was created at the University of California in Los Angeles, administration on a Honeywell DDP-516 mini-computer. The second node was recognized at Standford University and launched on October first of the same year. The third node was situated at the University of California, Santa Barbara November 1, 1969 and the fourth was opened at the University of Utah in December.

Computer printer

2007-09-27T23:06:00.001-07:00

A computer printer, or more usually just a printer, is a device that produces a hard copy (permanent human-readable text and/or graphics) of documents stored in electronic form, usually on physical print media such as paper or transparencies. Many printers are primarily used as computer peripherals, and are permanently attached by a printer cable to a computer which serves as a text source. Other printers, commonly known as network printers, have built-in network interfaces (typically wireless or Ethernet), and can serve as a hardcopy device for any user on the network.

In addition, many modern printers can directly border to electronic media such as memory sticks or memory cards, or to image capture devices such as digital cameras, scanners; some printers are combined with a scanners and/or fax machines in a single unit.

A Civil Role Model

2007-09-10T02:46:00.000-07:00

The word civil carries a lot of power. The usage needs to be carefully considered when it's entered into a sentence or an expression. Civil means a wide difference of things. It can be defined as a way to be attentive of the forms required for good reproduction. It can also be a means to the needs and affairs of the common public. However, the latter of the two definitions can also be extended to include a definition of the private rights and the remedy sought by action or costume. The point is that the word civil has a greater significance that has been embraced by our American legal traditions. It is the premise that law is there to provide the people and the lawyers are nothing more than mere guardians of law. These are thoughts that were measured during the class viewing of A Civil Action. In the events of the case, there were many concerns that were brought up about our permissible culture.

Wet mount

2007-09-03T22:31:00.000-07:00

A lot of objects that are going to be viewed on a microscope slide are prepared as a damp mount using water. Other materials are used when a everlasting slide is being prepared for viewing and storage. In a wet mount, the specimen is placed at the center of the slide with one drops of water and the cover glass placed over the specimen. In some preparations, the object being prepared for viewing is contained within water. Special slides are obtainable for viewing mounts that require more than one or two drops of water.

Technology

2007-08-27T19:05:00.000-07:00

Technology is a large concept that deals with a species' procedure and information of tools and crafts, and how it affects a group' capability to control and get used to its environment. In human culture, it is an importance of science and engineering, although several technical advances predate the two concepts

Technology has affected society and its environment in a number of ways. In many societies, technology has helped increase more advanced economies and has allowed the rise of a spare time class. Yet, many technological processes create unwanted by-product, known as pollution, and reduce natural resources, to the detriment of the Earth and its environment. Various implementations of technology control the values of a society and new technology raises new moral questions. Examples include the rise of the concept of effectiveness in terms of human productivity, a term originally useful only to machines, and the challenge of traditional norms.

Analog clocks

2007-08-20T22:27:00.000-07:00

The 24 hour band moves across the static map, keeping pace with the apparent movement of the sun above ground, and a pointer fixed on London points to the current time Analog clocks usually point to time using angles. The most common clock face uses a fixed numbered dial or dials and moving hand or hands. It usually has a circular scale of 12 hours, which can also serve as a scale of 60 minutes, and often also as a scale of 60 seconds – though many other styles and designs have been used throughout the years, including dials divided into 6, 8, 10, and 24 hours. Of these substitute versions, the 24 hour analog dial is the main type in use today. The 10-hour clock was briefly popular during the French Revolution, when the metric system was applied to time measurement, and an Italian 6 hour clock was developed in the 18th century, presumably to save power.

Chef's uniform

2007-08-13T21:31:00.001-07:00

The conventional chef's uniform, including toque (traditional hat), white double breasted jacket, and checked pants are immediately recognized by most members of the Western world, especially in this day of television's celebrity chefs. The double breasted jacket can be inverted to conceal stains. Its thick cotton cloth protects from the heat of stove and oven and protects from splattering of steaming liquids. An apron is an obviously useful piece of utensils used to guard the rest of the wearer's garments from food splatters and stains.

The toque (chef's hat) dates back to the 16th century when hats were regular in many businesses. Different heights of hats point out rank within a kitchen. Some modern chefs have put their own diverse whirl on the traditional uniform. But the traditional, practical, clothing of the chef still remainders a standard in the food industry.

Boxing ring

2007-08-07T22:48:00.000-07:00

A boxing ring is the room in which a boxing match occurs. A modern ring, which is set on a raised platform, is square with a post at each corner to which four parallel rows of ropes are attached with a turnbuckle. Unlike its cousin the wrestling ring, the ropes in a boxing ring are generally secured at the midway point.

Headphones

2007-07-31T23:14:00.000-07:00

Headphones are a pair of small loudspeakers, or less commonly a single speaker, with a way of holding them close to a user's ears and a means of linking them to a stereophonic or monophonic audio-frequency signal source such as an audio amplifier, radio, etc. In the context of telecommunication, the term headset is used to describe a combination of Headphone and microphone used for two-way communication, for example with a telephone.

Time server

2007-07-22T21:07:00.001-07:00

A time server is a server computer that reads the actual time from a orientation clock and distributes this information to its clients using a computer network. The time server may be a local network time server or an internet time server. The majority important and widely-used protocol for distributing and synchronizing time is the Network Time Protocol, though other less-popular or outdated time protocols continue in use. The time reference used by a time server could be another time server on the network or the Internet, a connected radio clock or an atomic clock. The most common true time source is a GPS or GPS master clock. Time servers are sometimes multi-purpose network servers, dedicated network servers, or dedicated devices. All a dedicated time server does is provide accurate time.

Cookie

2007-07-13T22:15:00.000-07:00

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.

Prevention

2007-07-13T22:12:00.000-07:00

In medicine, prevention is any action which reduces the burden of mortality or morbidity from disease. This takes place at primary, secondary and tertiary prevention levels.Primary prevention avoids the development of a disease. Most population-based health support activities are primary preventive measures.Secondary prevention activities are aimed at early disease detection, thereby increasing opportunities for interventions to prevent progression of the disease and emergence of symptoms.Tertiary prevention reduces the negative impact of an already recognized disease by restoring function and reducing disease-related complications.

2007-07-08T22:54:00.001-07:00

Blue rose

Since roses lack a gene to create delphinidin, the primary plant pigment that produces true blue flowers, blue roses were usually created by dyeing white roses. So-called "blue roses" have been breed by conventional hybridization methods, but the results, such as "Blue Moon" are more precisely described as lilac in color. However, after 13 years of joint research by an Australian company Florigene, and Japanese company Suntory, a blue rose was formed in 2004 by genetic engineering. The delphinidin gene was cloned from the petunia and inserted into a mauve-blend rose, the Old Garden Rose 'Cardinal de Richelieu.' (a Rosa gallica) However, since the pigment cyanidin was still present, the rose was more dark burgundy than true blue. Further work on the rose using RNAi technology to depress the production of cyanidin produced a very dark mauve plant, with only trace amounts of cyanidin.

Topiary

2007-07-01T22:26:00.001-07:00

Topiary is the art of creating sculptures using clipped trees, shrubs and sub-shrubs. The word derives from the Latin word for an ornamental landscape gardener, topiarius, creator of topia or "places", a Greek word that Romans applied also to fictive indoor landscapes executed in fresco. No doubt the use of a Greek word betokens the art's origins in the Hellenistic world that was influenced by Persia, for neither Classical Greece nor Republican Rome developed any complicated tradition of artful pleasure grounds.
The plants used in topiary are evergreen, have small leaves or needles, produce dense foliage, and have compact and/or columnar growth habits. Common plants used in topiary comprise cultivars of box, arborvitae, bay laurel, holly, myrtle, yew, and privet. Shaped wire cages are sometimes working in modern topiary to guide untutored shears, but traditional topiary depends on patience and a steady hand; small-leaved ivy can be used to cover a cage and provide the look of topiary in a few months.

RISC (reduced instruction set computer)

2007-06-26T21:55:00.000-07:00

In the mid-1980s to early-1990s, a crop of new high-performance RISC microprocessors appeared, which were initially used in special purpose machines and UNIX workstations, but have since become almost universal in all roles except the Intel-standard desktop.

The first commercial design was released by MIPS Technologies, the 32-bit R2000. The R3000 made the design truly practical, and the R4000 introduced the world's first 64-bit design. Opposing projects would result in the IBM POWER and Sun SPARC systems, respectively. Soon every major vendor was releasing a RISC design, including the AT&T CRISP, AMD 29000, Intel i860 and Intel i960, Motorola 88000, DEC Alpha and the HP-PA.

Market forces have "weeded out" many of these designs, leaving the PowerPC as the main desktop RISC processor, with the SPARC being used in Sun designs only. MIPS continue to supply some SGI systems, but are first and foremost used as an embedded design, notably in Cisco routers. The rest of the original crop of designs have either disappeared, or are about to. Other companies have attacked niches in the market, notably ARM, originally intended for home computer use but since focused at the embedded processor market. Today RISC designs based on the MIPS, ARM or PowerPC core are the vast majority of computing devices.

Canoe

2007-06-23T01:49:00.001-07:00

A canoe is a small narrow boat, classically human-powered, but also commonly sailed. Canoes usually are pointed at both bow and stern and are normally open on top, but can be covered.
In its human-powered form, the canoe is propelled by the use of paddles, with the number of paddlers depending on the size of the canoe. Paddlers face in the direction of travel, either seated on supports in the hull, or kneeling directly upon the hull. In this way paddling a canoe can be contrasted with rowing, where the rowers face away from the direction of travel. Paddles may be single-bladed or double-bladed.
Sailing canoes are propelled by means of a variety of sailing rigs. Common classes of modern sailing canoes include the 5m² and the International 10m² Sailing canoes. The latter is otherwise known as the International Canoe, and is one of the fastest and oldest competitively sailed boat classes in the western world. The log canoe of the Chesapeake Bay is in the modern sense not a canoe at all, though it evolved through the enlargement of dugout canoes.

Sandwich

2007-06-17T21:43:00.000-07:00

A sandwich is a food item typically consisting of two pieces of leavened bread between which are laid one or more layers of meat, vegetable, cheese or jam, together with optional or traditionally provided condiments, sauces, and other accompaniments. The bread can be used as is, lightly buttered, or covered in a flavored oil to enhance flavor and texture. It is named after the 4th Earl of Sandwich.
Sandwiches are commonly carried to work or school in lunchboxes or brown paper bags to be eaten as the midday meal, taken on picnics, hiking trips, or other outings. In some parts of the world, they are also served in many restaurants as entrées, and are sometimes eaten at home, either as a quick meal or as part of a larger meal. When eaten as part of a full meal sandwiches are traditionally accompanied with such side dishes as a serving of soup (soup-and-sandwich), a salad (salad-and-sandwich), french fries/chips, potato chips/crisps and a pickle or coleslaw. A new trend appearing is making sandwiches into wraps, in which a tortilla is substituted for the bread. According to a recent court ruling in the United States, a sandwich must have two slices of bread and not one tortilla.

Tourism

2007-06-11T19:20:00.000-07:00

Tourism is travel for predominantly leisure or relaxation purposes, and also refers to the prerequisite of services in support of this act. Tourists are people who ,travel to and stay in places outside their common environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes not related to work out of an activity remunerated from within the place visited.
Tourism has become an enormously popular, global activity. As a service industry, tourism has frequent tangible and intangible elements. Major tangible elements include transportation, accommodation, and other apparatus of a hospitality industry. Major intangible elements relate to the purpose or inspiration for becoming a tourist, such as rest, relaxation, the opportunity to meet new people and experience other cultures, or simply to do something different and have an adventure.
Tourism is crucial for many countries, due to the income generated by the expenditure of goods and services by tourists, the taxes levied on businesses in the tourism industry, and the prospect for employment and economic advancement by working in the industry.

HyperTransport

2007-06-06T21:36:00.001-07:00

HyperTransport, formerly known as Lightning Data Transport, is a bidirectional serial/parallel high-bandwidth, low-latency point to point link that was introduced on April 2, 2001.The HyperTransport Consortium is in charge of promoting and developing HyperTransport technology. The technology is used by AMD and Transmeta in x86 processors, PMC-Sierra, Broadcom, and Raza Microelectronics in MIPS microprocessors, AMD, NVIDIA, VIA, SiS, and HP in PC chipsets, HP, Sun Microsystems, IBM, and IWill in servers, Cray, Newisys, and QLogic in high performance computing, Microsoft in its Xbox game console, and Cisco Systems in routers. Notably missing from this list is semiconductor giant Intel, which continues to use a shared bus architecture.

Dress and casual shoes

2007-05-27T21:59:00.001-07:00

Casual shoes, made of leather Dress shoes are categorized by smooth and supple leather uppers, leather soles, and narrow sleek shape. Casual shoes are characterized by sturdy leather uppers, non-leather outsoles, and wide profile. Some designs of dress shoes can be worn by either gender. The majority of dress shoes have an upper covering, commonly made of leather, enclosing most of the lower foot, but not covering the ankles. This upper part of the shoe is often made without apertures or openings, but may also be made with openings or even itself consist of a series of straps, e.g. an open toe featured in women's shoes. Shoes with uppers made high to cover the ankles are also available; a shoe with the upper rising above the ankle is usually considered a boot but certain styles may be referred to as high-topped shoes or high-tops. Usually, a high-topped shoe is secured by laces or zippers; although some styles have elastic inserts to ease slipping the shoe on.