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19,900 | International adoption The following overview of legal provisions put into place by African countries reflects a diverse but not a comprehensive view on how the question of international adoption is dealt with on the African continent. The focus is on countries for which bibliographical resources were immediately accessible. On September 25, 2013, the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo enacted a suspension of exit permits for Congolese adoptive children that prevents adoptive children from being allowed to depart the country with their adoptive parents. Although Congolese courts continue to issue new adoption decrees, these are not currently recognized by the Congolese immigration service, the "Direction Generale de Migration" (DGM), which controls the points of entry. Congolese officials have said the suspension will remain in place until the parliament enacts new legislation reforming the adoption process. Because of the suspension, the U.S Department of State announced on October 6, 2014, that it strongly recommends against adopting from the DRC at this time. According to the DRC Family Code, an adopted holds the same rights as a biological child in the adopting family. Links with original family are preserved. This regime is applied to simple adoption. As far as international adoption is concerned, the DRC Law does not provide a definition specifically; but the judicial practice authorizes the adoption of Congolese children by foreign parents. Fundamental principles for any child adoption are defined by Law No |
19,901 | Timeline of religion Religion or dharma has been a factor of the human experience throughout history, from pre-historic to modern times. The bulk of the human religious experience pre-dates written history. Written history (the age of formal writing) is only c. 5000 years old. A lack of written records results in most of the knowledge of pre-historic religion being derived from archaeological records and other indirect sources, and from suppositions. Much pre-historic religion is subject to continued debate. Despite claims by some researchers of bear worship, belief in an afterlife, and other rituals, the archaeological evidence does not support the presence of religious practices by modern humans or Neanderthals during this period. |
19,902 | Suspended animation The trials will be done on ten such severely wounded patients and compared with ten others in similar situation but who had no access to the above method. They currently refer to the procedure as Emergency Preservation and Resuscitation for Cardiac Arrest from trauma. The laboratory of Mark Roth at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and institutes such as Suspended Animation, Inc are trying to implement suspended animation as a medical procedure which involves the therapeutic induction to a complete and temporary systemic ischemia, directed to obtain a state of tolerance for the protection-preservation of the entire organism, this during a circulatory collapse "only by a limited period of one hour". The purpose to avoid a serious injury, risk of brain damage or death, until the patient reaches specialized attention. |
19,903 | Caleb Gattegno The role of teachers is not to try to transmit knowledge, but to engender acts of awareness in their students, for only awareness is educable. Gattegno created pedagogical materials designed to provoke awarenesses. The materials are intended to be used along with techniques aimed at leading students through a succession of awarenesses. As the students progress, teachers who observe their students can see when and how they can induce a new act of awareness. For example, he created Words in Colour for learning to read. Briefly, it consists of a series of word charts using a colour code in which each colour represents a phoneme of the language. The charts are used to provoke the phonological awareness in students of the sounds they are making and the order in which they are making them thus engendering all the awarenesses of how the graphemes relate to the phonemes and of how the spatial order of writing reflects the chronological order of speech. Other charts, called Fidels, list the graphemes for each phoneme. He also used this colour code in The Silent Way materials for learning foreign languages to enable students to identify and produce the sounds of the new language. Cuisenaire rods are used, particularly with beginners, to create visible and tangible situations from which the students can induce the structures of the language. The silence of the teacher both gives the students room to explore the language and frees the teacher to observe the students |
19,904 | Mystery film Based on "The Thin Man" novel by Dashiell Hammett, these were witty, sophisticated romps that combined elements of the screwball comedy film within a complex murder mystery plot. In the middle of this series, RKO hired Powell and Jean Arthur for "The Ex-Mrs. Bradford" (1936), a breezy comedy-mystery that successfully replicated MGM's "Thin Man" formula. Warner Brothers responded with a similar comedy, "Footsteps in the Dark" (1941), with Errol Flynn playing a married stockbroker who leads a double life as a mystery writer/sleuth. Many of the films of this period, including the "Thin Man" series, concluded with an explanatory detective dénouement that quickly became a cinematic (and literary) cliche. With the suspects gathered together, the detective would dramatically announce that "The killer is in this very room!" before going over the various clues that revealed the identity of the murderer. There were also a great many low-budget "old dark house" mysteries based on a standard formula (a dark and stormy night, the reading of a will, secret passageways, a series of bizarre murders, etc.) that were plot- rather than star-driven. Some typical examples are "The Cat Creeps" (1930), a remake of "The Cat and the Canary", "The Monster Walks" (1932), "Night of Terror" (1933) with Bela Lugosi, and "One Frightened Night" (1935). The 1930s was the era of the elegant gentleman detective who solved drawing-room whodunit murders using his wits rather than his fists |
19,905 | Signalling theory If you knew nothing about two race horses or two amateur golfers except their handicaps, you could infer which is most likely to win: the horse with the bigger weight handicap, and the golfer with the smaller stroke handicap. By analogy, if peacock 'tails' (large tail covert feathers) act as a handicapping system, and a peahen knew nothing about two peacocks but the sizes of their tails, she could "infer" that the peacock with the bigger tail has greater unobservable intrinsic quality. Display costs can include extrinsic social costs, in the form of testing and punishment by rivals, as well as intrinsic production costs. Another example given in textbooks is the extinct Irish elk, "Megaloceros giganteus". The male Irish elk's enormous antlers could perhaps have evolved as displays of ability to overcome handicap, though biologists point out that if the handicap is inherited, its genes ought to be selected against. The essential idea here is intuitive and probably qualifies as folk wisdom. It was articulated by Kurt Vonnegut in his 1961 short story "Harrison Bergeron". In Vonnegut's futuristic dystopia, the Handicapper General uses a variety of handicapping mechanisms to reduce inequalities in performance. A spectator at a ballet comments: "it was easy to see that she was the strongest and most graceful of all dancers, for her handicap bags were as big as those worn by two hundred pound men |
19,906 | Code of Euric The work is written in good Latin; in his writing Roman lawyers must have had a significant share. Controversial is the proportion of Germanic and Roman legal concepts; It is undisputed that the proportion of Roman law dominates. In the first place, the legal texts derive from the law of the vulgar , which was written at the turn of the 3rd to the 4th century, and shortened excerpt from the as well as excerpts from the Constitutions of Roman Emperors. Thus, the Codex Euricianus is also evidence of the advanced Romanization of the Visigoths. Parts of the Codex Euricianus can be found later, probably as a base, in the "Lex Baiuvariorum", the first Bavarian legislative codification. Also other Germanic legal codifications, those of the Burgundians ("lex Romana Burgundionum") or Franks and Alamanni ("lex Alamannorum"), also are considered influenced by the Codex Euricianus. After the death of Euric, the legislation remained in use and was even extended. The son of Euric, Alaric II added a piece of legislation known as the "Breviary of Alaric" (also known as "Liber Aniani", after the supposed writer). These two laws together remained largely in force until the Visigoths settled definitively in Spain under King Liuvigild (568-586). This king adopted a new legislation, the Codex Revisius, but it was lost. Later, more extensive legislation was introduced, the "Lex Romana Visigothorum" |
19,907 | PRO (linguistics) In generative linguistics, PRO (called "big PRO", distinct from "pro", "small pro" or "little pro") is a pronominal determiner phrase (DP) without phonological content. As such, it is part of the set of empty categories. The null pronoun PRO is postulated in the subject position of non-finite clauses. One property of PRO is that, when it occurs in a non-finite complement clause, it can be bound by the main clause subject ("subject control") or the main clause object ("object control"). The presence of PRO in non-finite clauses lacking overt subjects allows a principled solution for problems relating to Binding Theory. Within Government and Binding theory, the existence and distribution of PRO followed from the PRO Theorem, which states that PRO may not be governed. More recent analyses have abandoned the PRO Theorem. Instead, PRO is taken to be in complementary distribution with overt subjects because it is the only item that is able to carry "null case" which is checked for by non-finite Tense Markers (T), for example the English "to" in control infinitives. There are several independent pieces of linguistic theory which motivate the existence of PRO. The following four are reviewed here: The Extended Projection Principle (EPP) requires that all clauses have a subject. A consequence of the EPP is that clauses that lack an overt subject must necessarily have an "invisible" or "covert" subject; with non-finite clauses this covert subject is PRO |
19,908 | Barbarian Beckwith makes the extraordinary claim that the name "barbarian" should only be used for Greek historical contexts, and is inapplicable for all other "peoples to whom it has been applied either historically or in modern times." Beckwith notes that most specialists in East Asian history, including him, have translated Chinese exonyms as English ""barbarian"." He believes that after academics read his published explanation of the problems, except for direct quotations of "earlier scholars who use the word, it should no longer be used as a term by any writer." The first problem is that, "it is impossible to translate the word "barbarian" into Chinese because the concept does not exist in Chinese," meaning a single "completely generic" loanword from Greek "barbar-". "Until the Chinese borrow the word "barbarian" or one of its relatives, or make up a new word that explicitly includes the same basic ideas, they cannot express the idea of the 'barbarian' in Chinese.". The usual Standard Chinese translation of English "barbarian" is "yemanren" (), which Beckwith claims, "actually means 'wild man, savage'. That is very definitely not the same thing as 'barbarian'." Despite this semantic hypothesis, Chinese-English dictionaries regularly translate "yemanren" as "barbarian" or "barbarians." Beckwith concedes that the early Chinese "apparently disliked foreigners in general and looked down on them as having an inferior culture," and pejoratively wrote some exonyms |
19,909 | Steam hammer He came up with his steam hammer design, making a sketch dated 24 November 1839, but the immediate need disappeared when the practicality of screw propellers was demonstrated and the "Great Britain" was converted to that design. Nasmyth showed his design to all visitors. Bourdon came up with the idea of what he called a "Pilon" in 1839 and made detailed drawings of his design, which he also showed to all engineers who visited the works at Le Creusot owned by the brothers Adolphe and Eugène Schneider. However, the Schneiders hesitated to build Bourdon's radical new machine. Bourdon and Eugène Schneider visited the Nasmyth works in England in the middle of 1840, where they were shown Nasmyth's sketch. This confirmed the feasibility of the concept to Schneider. In 1840 Bourdon built the first steam hammer in the world at the Schneider & Cie works at Le Creusot. It weighed and lifted to . The Schneiders patented the design in 1841. Nasmyth visited Le Creusot in April 1842. By his account, Bourdon took him to the forge department so he might, as he said, "see his own child". Nasmyth said "there it was, in truth–a thumping child of my brain!" After returning from France in 1842 Nasmyth built his first steam hammer in his Patricroft foundry in Manchester, England, adjacent to the (then new) Liverpool and Manchester Railway and the Bridgewater Canal. In 1843 a dispute broke out between Nasmyth and Bourdon over priority of invention of the steam hammer |
19,910 | Philosophy of artificial intelligence K's University of Cambridge designed a robot called Adam that they believe to be the first machine to independently come up with new scientific findings. Also in 2009, researchers at Cornell developed Eureqa, a computer program that extrapolates formulas to fit the data inputted, such as finding the laws of motion from a pendulum's motion. This question (like many others in the philosophy of artificial intelligence) can be presented in two forms. "Hostility" can be defined in terms function or behavior, in which case "hostile" becomes synonymous with "dangerous". Or it can be defined in terms of intent: can a machine "deliberately" set out to do harm? The latter is the question "can a machine have conscious states?" (such as intentions) in another form. The question of whether highly intelligent and completely autonomous machines would be dangerous has been examined in detail by futurists (such as the Singularity Institute). (The obvious element of drama has also made the subject popular in science fiction, which has considered many differently possible scenarios where intelligent machines pose a threat to mankind.) One issue is that machines may acquire the autonomy and intelligence required to be dangerous very quickly. Vernor Vinge has suggested that over just a few years, computers will suddenly become thousands or millions of times more intelligent than humans. He calls this "the Singularity." He suggests that it may be somewhat or possibly very dangerous for humans |
19,911 | Hindi–Urdu controversy Along with English, it became the first official language of British India in 1850. Hindi as a standardized literary register of the Delhi dialect arose later; the Braj dialect was the dominant literary language in the Devanagari script up until and through the nineteenth century. Efforts to promote a Devanagari version of the Delhi dialect under the name of Hindi gained pace around 1880 as an effort to displace Urdu's official position. The last few decades of the nineteenth century witnessed the eruption of the in the United Provinces (present-day Uttar Pradesh, then known as "the North-Western Provinces and Oudh"). The controversy comprised "Hindi" and "Urdu" protagonists each advocating the official use of Hindustani with the Devanagari script or with the Nastaʿlīq script, respectively. Hindi movements advocating the growth of and official status for Devanagari were established in Northern India. Babu Shiva Prasad and Madan Mohan Malaviya were notable early proponents of this movement. This, consequently, led to the development of Urdu movements defending Urdu's official status; Syed Ahmed Khan was one of its noted advocates. In 1900, the government issued a decree granting symbolic equal status to both Hindi and Urdu. Hindi and Urdu started to diverge linguistically, with Hindi drawing on Sanskrit as the primary source for formal and academic vocabulary, often with a conscious attempt to purge the language of Persian-derived equivalents |
19,912 | Disposal of human corpses Elsewhere, a separate building for a tomb is usually reserved for the socially prominent and wealthy; grand, above-ground tombs are called mausoleums. The socially prominent sometimes had the privilege of having their corpses stored in church crypts. In more recent times, however, this has often been forbidden by hygiene laws. Burial was not always permanent. In some areas, burial grounds needed to be reused due to limited space. In these areas, once the dead have decomposed to skeletons, the bones are removed; after their removal they can be placed in an ossuary. A burial is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing the deceased and objects in it, and covering it over. Humans have been burying their dead since shortly after the origin of the species. Burial is often seen as indicating respect for the dead. It has been used to prevent the odor of decay, to give family members closure and prevent them from witnessing the decomposition of their loved ones. Cremation is also an old custom; it was the usual mode of disposing of a corpse in ancient Rome (along with graves covered with heaped mounds, also found in Greece, particularly at the Karameikos graveyard in Monastiraki). Vikings were occasionally cremated in their longships, and afterwards the location of the site was marked with standing stones. Since the latter part of the twentieth century, despite the objections of some religious groups, cremation has become increasingly popular |
19,913 | Twistlock A twistlock and corner casting together form a standardized rotating connector for securing shipping containers. The primary uses are for locking a container into place on a container ship, semi-trailer truck or railway container train, and for lifting of the containers by container cranes and sidelifters. The twistlock was developed in Spokane, Washington in the 1950s by transport engineer Keith Tantlinger. The relative obscurity of this invention belies its importance to a more efficient world trade and transport, as the Tantlinger lock made handling and stacking standard containers much easier. A major advantage of this approach to attachment is that containers, which may be stored or transported without being inspected for months at a time, do not require any maintenance in order to function effectively. Even with long term exposure to the weather the container remains as simple to move as ever. Only when corrosion is very extensive (to the extent of being easily visible) does the twistlock become dangerous to move the crate. The male part (which is more exposed and susceptible to damage) is placed on vehicles and equipment that are inspected very frequently, and will work with all standard containers. The female part of the connector is the corner casting, which is fitted to the container itself, and has no moving parts, only an oval hole in the bottom. The hole is an oval on the long axis with two flat sides apart. The male component is the twistlock, which is fitted to cranes and transport bases |
19,914 | Concurrent use registration " The mere fact that an applicant's use was geographically remote from a registrant or other opposer's use does not establish good faith, as "courts have generally held that the remote use defense... is unavailable where the junior user adopts a substantially identical mark in a remote geographic area with full knowledge of the senior user's prior use elsewhere." However, the TTAB has also previously held that "mere knowledge of the existence of the prior user should not, by itself, constitute bad faith." The factors under which the TTAB evaluates the likelihood of confusion were established in "In re E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co.", and are commonly referred to as the ""du Pont" factors". The thirteen "du Pont" factors are: In many instances, only a few of the categories will be applicable to the facts of the case before the TTAB. The procedures to acquire such a registration are set forth in the TBMP Chapter 1100. They are initiated when a concurrent use application is submitted to the USPTO, which will initiate a concurrent use proceeding to determine if the applicant is entitled to such registration. An existing application that has been denied registration because of a conflict with an existing mark may be converted into a concurrent use application against that existing mark. In either case, the applicant must assert that its mark was used in commerce before the owner of the existing registration, called the "senior registrant", had filed its own application for registration |
19,915 | Commissioners in Lunacy The duty of the Commission was to carry out the provisions of the Act, reporting to the Poor Law Commissioners (in the case of workhouses) and to the Lord Chancellor. The first Secretary to the Commissioners was Robert Wilfred Skeffington Lutwidge, a barrister and uncle of Lewis Carroll. He had previously been one of the Metropolitan Commissioners, and later become an Inspector of the Commission. A Master in Lunacy ranked next after a Master in Chancery in the order of precedence (UK). The following asylums were commissioned under the auspices of the (or their predecessors): "Note:" The First Surrey County Asylum at Tooting (see above) was transferred to Middlesex County Council in 1888 and became the First Middlesex County Mental Hospital in the early 20th century The Mental Deficiency Act 1913 replaced the Commission with the Board of Control for Lunacy and Mental Deficiency. Incomplete list: |
19,916 | Open energy system models Adding a ceiling price can shield consumers from extreme price shocks. Such price restrictions should not lead to an overshoot of emissions targets in the long-run. EMMA is the European Electricity Market Model. It is a techno-economic model covering the integrated Northwestern European power system. EMMA is being developed by the energy economics consultancy Neon Neue Energieökonomik, Berlin, Germany. The source code and datasets can be downloaded from the project website. A manual is available. EMMA is written in GAMS and uses the CPLEX commercial solver. EMMA models electricity dispatch and investment, minimizing the total cost with respect to investment, generation, and trades between market areas. In economic terms, EMMA classifies as a partial equilibrium model of the wholesale electricity market with a focus on the supply-side. EMMA identifies short-term or long-term optima (or equilibria) and estimates the corresponding capacity mix, hourly prices, dispatch, and cross-border trading. Technically, EMMA is a pure linear program (no integer variables) with about two million variables. , the model covers Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Poland and supports conventional generation, renewable generation, and cogeneration. EMMA has been used to study the economic effects of the increasing penetration of variable renewable energy (VRE), specifically solar power and wind power, in the Northwestern European power system |
19,917 | Greek language question Kontos asserted that Korais' compromises were no longer necessary, as the language had "advanced" since his time (by which he meant it had become more archaic, as with the gradual restoration of the dative case), and he never used the term "katharevousa". In his eyes, if it was not up to Ancient Greek standards, it was wrong. Yet he gave no analysis of why these errors might be occurring, or any programme for preventing them; he simply presented a list of the mistakes of other writers. Kontos' knowledge of Ancient Greek was unrivalled, and many of his 'observations' were factually correct. Yet the principal effect of "Linguistic Observations ..." was to create the impression that the "katharevousa" in current use was somehow second-rate, and also impossibly hard to use correctly. Two years later it received an answer, in the form of "A Censure of Pseudo-Atticism" by Dimitrios Vernardakis, another professor (and aspiring neoclassical dramatist). In this long, rambling book Vernardakis defended the current version of "katharevousa", and criticized Kontos for archaistic nit-picking when he should have been addressing the problems of Greek education. In keeping with his general defence of the "status quo", Vernardakis also attacked the language of the new demotic poets as inauthentic, and untrue to the actual rural demotic of the 'common people' |
19,918 | Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District Several days before her scheduled testimony, the Discovery Institute publicly ridiculed her on their website. As a primary witness for the defense, Behe was asked to support the idea that intelligent design was legitimate science. Behe's critics have pointed to a number of key exchanges under cross examination, where he conceded that, "There are no peer reviewed articles by anyone advocating for intelligent design supported by pertinent experiments or calculations which provide detailed rigorous accounts of how intelligent design of any biological system occurred." In response to a question about astrology he explained: "Under my definition, a scientific theory is a proposed explanation which focuses or points to physical, observable data and logical inferences. There are many things throughout the history of science which we now think to be incorrect which nonetheless ... would fit that definition. Yes, astrology is in fact one, and so is the ether theory of the propagation of light, and ... many other theories as well." His simulation modelling of evolution with David Snoke described in a 2004 paper had been listed by the Discovery Institute amongst claimed "Peer-Reviewed & Peer-Edited Scientific Publications Supporting the Theory of Intelligent Design", but under oath he accepted that it showed that the biochemical systems it described could evolve within 20,000 years, even if the parameters of the simulation were rigged to make that outcome as unlikely as possible |
19,919 | Cohesion (geology) Cohesion is the component of shear strength of a rock or soil that is independent of interparticle friction. In soils, true cohesion is caused by following: There can also be apparent cohesion. This is caused by: |
19,920 | Retman He lived in a town called Equilibrium and was a Great Sorcerer Psychotherapist, who is a person who helps you when you suffer and teaches you how to be happy. The Great Sorcerer Psychotherapist practiced “Retmagic” (a rational-emotional therapeutic magic). This gift had been given to him by the Almighty Creator of the World. All the inhabitants of the planet were happy because they had everything they wanted, but mostly because they wanted only what they knew they deserved. The secret of their happiness was therefore their minds and their way of thinking. But while fostered rational thinking on the planet, his enemy, the Sorcerer Irationalius became envious of his power and stole the minds of the inhabitants of the planet. They became mean and envious and the whole planet was overtaken by evil and despair. Then the Almighty Creator of the World, in anger, destroyed everyone, sparing just Retman, as he was the only person whose mind Irationalius could not steal. He was sent on Earth with the goal of teaching everyone here to be rational and happy, so they wouldn’t end up like the inhabitants of Rationalia...” The stories of have been published in Romanian and English. |
19,921 | ACF2 (Access Control Facility) is a commercial, discretionary access control software security system developed for the MVS (z/OS today), VSE (z/VSE today) and VM (z/VM today) IBM mainframe operating systems by SKK, Inc. Barry Schrager, Eberhard Klemens, and Scott Krueger combined to develop at London Life Insurance in London, Ontario in 1978. The "2" was added to the name by Cambridge Systems (who had the North American marketing rights for the product) to differentiate it from the prototype, which was developed by Schrager and Klemens at the University of Illinois—the prototype name was ACF. The "2" also helped to distinguish the product from IBM's ACF/VTAM. was developed in response to IBM's RACF product (developed in 1976), which was IBM's answer to the 1974 SHARE Security and Data Management project's requirement whitepaper. ACF2's design was guided by these requirements, taking a resource rule oriented approach. Unique to were the concepts of "Protection by Default" and resource pattern masking. As a result of the competitive tension between RACF and ACF2, IBM matured the SAF (Security Access Facility) interface in MVS (z/OS), which allowed any security product to process OS, third-party software and application security calls, enabling the mainframe to secure all facets of mainframe operations. SKK and were sold to UCCEL Corporation in 1986, which in turn was purchased by Computer Associates International, Inc. in 1987. Broadcom Inc. now (2019) markets as CA ACF2. |
19,922 | Industrial catalysts The first mechanism that was proposed for the LTS reaction was a redox mechanism, but later evidence showed that the reaction can proceed via associated intermediates. The different intermediates that is suggested are: HOCO, HCO and HCOO. In 2009 there are in total three mechanisms that are proposed for the water-gas shift reaction over Cu(111), given below. Intermediate mechanism (usually called associative mechanism): An intermediate is first formed and then decomposes into the final products: Associative mechanism: CO produced from the reaction of CO with OH without the formation of an intermediate: Redox mechanism: Water dissociation that yields surface oxygen atoms which react with CO to produce CO: It is not said that just one of these mechanisms is controlling the reaction, it is possible that several of them are active. Q.-L. Tang "et al." has suggested that the most favorable mechanism is the intermediate mechanism (with HOCO as intermediate) followed by the redox mechanism with the rate determining step being the water dissociation. For both HTS catalyst and LTS catalyst the redox mechanism is the oldest theory and most published articles support this theory, but as technology has developed the adsorptive mechanism has become more of interest. One of the reasons to the fact that the literature is not agreeing on one mechanism can be because of experiments are carried out under different assumptions. CO must be produced for the WGS reaction to take place |
19,923 | Mutationism In 1923, the botanist John Christopher Willis proposed that species were formed by large mutations, not gradual evolution by natural selection, and that evolution was driven by orthogenesis, which he called "differentiation", rather than by natural selection. In his 1940 book "The Material Basis of Evolution", the German geneticist Richard Goldschmidt argued for single-step speciation by macromutation, describing the organisms thus produced as "hopeful monsters". Goldschmidt's thesis was universally rejected and widely ridiculed by biologists, who favoured the neo-Darwinian explanations of Fisher, J. B. S. Haldane and Sewall Wright. However, interest in Goldschmidt's ideas has reawakened in the field of evolutionary developmental biology. Contemporary biologists accept that mutation and selection both play roles in evolution; the mainstream view is that while mutation supplies material for selection in the form of variation, all non-random outcomes are caused by natural selection. Masatoshi Nei argues instead that the production of more efficient genotypes by mutation is fundamental for evolution, and that evolution is often mutation-limited. Nei's book received thoughtful reviews; while Wright, in the conservative journal "Evolution", rejected Nei's thinking as mistaken, Galtier, Weiss, Stoltzfus, and Wagner, although not necessarily agreeing with Nei's position, treated it as a relevant alternative view. Reviewing the history of macroevolutionary theories, the American evolutionary biologist Douglas J |
19,924 | Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza It is clear what Anzaldúa is trying to portray the pain of Indigenous people, the mestiza being a crossbreed, and how one is culture-less. This chapter also speaks about the mestiza way and how we are people. She states that the dominant white culture is killing us slowly with their ignorance. This is the point in which Anzaldua starts to speak about the Indigenous people. It ends with Gloria Anzaldua writing about being back in her home, South Texas. How her valley struggles to survive, her father being dead by working himself to death as a farm labor. This ending to her stories speaks towards the land and how it was once Chicano/a, Mexican, Hispanic, and Indigenous. PBGM |
19,925 | Jeremy Geidt He was also taught acting at Harvard University in 1998. Of his students in his 2000 American Repertory Theater acting workshop, Geidt stated, "I'm hoping they come away with their imaginations touched, enlarged and having experienced something that is, hopefully, joyful...with something they found within themselves — or in the text — that they didn't know they had." Around 2000, Geidt was diagnosed with cancer. However, he refused to stop performing. On 6 August 2013, he suffered a heart attack and died at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was 83 years old and is survived by his wife Jan, their two daughters, and his daughter by Kneale. Although Geidt preferred a life on the stage, he appeared in minor roles in several television series, films, and videos including: |
19,926 | Moral rights The Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 grants authors of a "work of visual art" - e.g. photographs, paintings, sculptures, etc. - the non-transferable right to These rights are distinct from any rights of copyright and ownership of a copy of the work. Copyright holders have the right to control adaptations, or the preparation of "derivative works". This right is given under copyright law. "See" 17 U.S.C. § 106. Section 43 of the Lanham Act governs false and misleading advertising, and can apply in some instances to attribution of protected works. However, it cannot be used to create moral rights for works outside of the Act. "See" "Dastar v. Twentieth Century Fox". Authors occasionally wish to distance themselves from work they've been involved with, some to the point of not wishing to be recognized as the work's author. One way they may do this is by signing the work under a pseudonym. Alan Smithee was a traditional, collective pseudonym used between 1968 and 1999 by discontented Hollywood film directors who no longer wanted to be credited. This courtesy was not always extended, however. The director of "", Russell Mulcahy, wanted his name removed after the completion bond company took over film production, but he was contractually obliged not to impugn the film and he was told that using a pseudonym would impugn it |
19,927 | Separation of powers in the United Kingdom The executive comprises all official and public authorities (including local authorities) that govern the UK, from initiating and implementing legislation to the running of local and national services, such as rubbish collections and the police. The civil service remains non-partisan (having little in common with the Cabinet and Prime Minister in that respect). The executive also exercises a number of powers under the Royal Prerogative, including foreign relations; many other actions are taken in the sovereign's name, from whom executive power is derived. The Council and the Commission of the European Union also exercise executive power, as do devolved governments. Within the executive, there is no longer a clear elected–non-elected divide: decision-makers are of both sorts since the widening of the government's remit. The extent to which the Civil Service serves the government, rather than usurping it, is one character of the executive. The judicial function determines the outcome of disputes and performs minor legislative and administrative functions. It oversees both public and private law through civil and criminal courts and a variety of tribunals. The Human Rights Act 1998 has placed a requirement that courts take into account the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. The introduction of a tax is a legislative function; collecting tax is an executive and administrative function; settling tax disputes is a judicial function, as is judicial review of executive decisions |
19,928 | Kaunas Fortress The Grande Armée managed to cross the Nemunas near Kaunas on its drive towards Moscow without major difficulties. An increasingly unified Germany troubled the Empire during the second half of the century. A fortress in Kaunas would present an obstacle to attacks from the west, preventing further incursions towards Riga and Vilnius. In order to control the region, attackers would need to first neutralize Kaunas. Facing this possibility and evaluating the natural advantages of the city, Russian officials decided to construct a fortress there. After several delays, on July 7, 1879 Tsar Alexander II issued an edict ordering its construction. The first design was overseen by Generals Nikolay Obruchev, Konstantin Zverev, and Ivan Volberg. As originally planned, the fortress encompassed a huge site, consisting of seven forts and nine defensive batteries arranged in concentric loops. The plan included support buildings and infrastructures, such as barracks, new roads, and an ammunition depot. Construction began in 1882; about 4,000 workers were mustered for the project. The principal structures were concentrated in Freda, Panemunė, Aleksotas, and the new section of the city. The project significantly affected the daily life of Kaunas residents, and there were plans to detach the fortress into an independent administrative unit governed by a military board; its commandant wrote that "There is no city of Kaunas, there is only the Fortress of Kaunas |
19,929 | Individual psychology Classical Adlerian Psychology assumes a central personality dynamic reflecting the growth and forward movement of life, reflecting the influence on Adler of Vaihinger's concept of fictions. It is a future-oriented striving toward an ideal goal of significance, superiority, success or completion: what Adler himself called "an attempt at a planned final compensation and a (secret) life plan". The early childhood feeling of inferiority, for which one aims to compensate, leads to the creation of a fictional final goal which subjectively seems to promise total relief from the feeling of inferiority, future security, and success. The depth of the inferior feeling usually determines the height of the goal which then becomes the "final cause" of behavior patterns. The position that all of the cognitive, affective, and behavioral facets of the individual are viewed as components of an integrated whole, moving in one psychological direction, without internal contradictions or conflicts. Gerald Corey (2012) stated in his book, "Theory and Practice of Counseling and Psychotherapy", that personality can only be understood holistically/systemically. The individual is an indivisible whole, born, reared, and living in specific familial, social, and cultural contexts. In a recent interview with the Journal of Individual Psychology, Jane Griffith said, "The holistic character of thought is in Adler's choice of the term Individual Psychology. It's one word in German, Individualpsychologie: indivisible |
19,930 | Computational sustainability is a broad field that attempts to optimize societal, economic, and environmental resources using methods from mathematics and computer science fields. Sustainability in this context is the ability to produce enough energy for the world to support its biological systems. Using the power of computers to process large quantities of information, decision making algorithms allocate resources based on real-time information. Applications are widespread. Smart grids implement renewable resources and storage capabilities to control the production and expenditure of energy. Intelligent transportation system analyze road conditions and relay information to drivers so they can make smarter decisions based on real time traffic information. Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) seek to improve safety and travel times while minimizing greenhouse gas emissions for all travelers, though focusing mainly on drivers. ITS has two systems: one for data collection/relaying, and another for data processing. Data collection can be achieved with video cameras over busy areas, sensors that detect various pieces from location of certain vehicles to infrastructure that's breaking down, and even drivers who notice an accident and use a mobile app, like Waze, to report its whereabouts. Advanced Public Transportation Systems (APTS) aim to make public transportation more efficient and convenient for its riders. Electronic payment methods allow users to add money to their smart cards at stations and online |
19,931 | EXAPT 2003 EXAPTpdo is available to optimize the process chains in production planning and production execution optimally regarding the increasing requirements of changing production conditions. 2004 are diverse system extensions made in EXAPTplus, EXAPTsolid, NC editor, EXAPTpdo for the complete machining on turning/ milling centres with result reliability because of more extensive simulation based on realNC (Tecnomatix), for the use of new complex tool systems and for the compound use between ERP systems as SAP and intelligent CNC systems. In the following year EXAPTpdo is extended for the cross-order set-up optimization and provision of manufacturing re-sources especially for single and small series production with connection to purchase and physical portfolio management. 2006 the systems are available in the extended use as information platform for the production, the time management and similar requirements. EXAPTsolid is extended for the feature-oriented milling operation and machine simulation. The NC programming of complex machine tools, e.g. three-turret-turning/milling centres is supported by systems, as well as the use of multi-functional tools. 2007 a module for 3-5-axis simultaneous milling machining is presented. |
19,932 | Mysticism Sufism first came into contact with the Judeo-Christian world during the Moorish occupation of Spain. An interest in Sufism revived in non-Muslim countries during the modern era, led by such figures as Inayat Khan and Idries Shah (both in the UK), Rene Guenon (France) and Ivan Aguéli (Sweden). Sufism has also long been present in Asian countries that do not have a Muslim majority, such as India and China. In Hinduism, various sadhanas aim at overcoming ignorance ("avidhya") and transcending the limited identification with body, mind and ego to attain "moksha". Hinduism has a number of interlinked ascetic traditions and philosophical schools which aim at moksha and the acquisition of higher powers. With the onset of the British colonisation of India, those traditions came to be interpreted in western terms such as "mysticism", drawing equivalents with western terms and practices. Yoga is the physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which aim to attain a state of permanent peace. Various traditions of yoga are found in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. The "Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali" defines yoga as "the stilling of the changing states of the mind," which is attained in samadhi. Classical Vedanta gives philosophical interpretations and commentaries of the Upanishads, a vast collection of ancient hymns. At least ten schools of Vedanta are known, of which Advaita Vedanta, Vishishtadvaita, and Dvaita are the best known |
19,933 | Collective intelligence Their interaction in abstract computational space creates multi-thread inference process which we perceive as collective intelligence. Thus, a non-Turing model of computation is used. This theory allows simple formal definition of collective intelligence as the property of social structure and seems to be working well for a wide spectrum of beings, from bacterial colonies up to human social structures. considered as a specific computational process is providing a straightforward explanation of several social phenomena. For this model of collective intelligence, the formal definition of IQS (IQ Social) was proposed and was defined as "the probability function over the time and domain of N-element inferences which are reflecting inference activity of the social structure". While IQS seems to be computationally hard, modeling of social structure in terms of a computational process as described above gives a chance for approximation. Prospective applications are optimization of companies through the maximization of their IQS, and the analysis of drug resistance against collective intelligence of bacterial colonies |
19,934 | Pyrena or pyrene is the name for the stone within a drupe or drupelet. It consists of a seed surrounded by hard endocarp tissue. |
19,935 | Parbuckle salvage Eleven steel sponsons were installed on the port side of the hull: two long horizontal sponsons; two long vertical sponsons and seven short vertical sponsons. Two steel "blister" tanks were connected together at the hull's bow. They measured in length, in height each, and had a total breadth of about . The whole blister structure (the two blister tanks, the tubular frame and the three anchor pipes) weighed about . They provided a net buoyancy of to the bow section. The cable system provided a force of about to start the "Costa Concordia's" rotation. The hull of "Costa Concordia" rested on two spurs of rock, and was severely deformed from the weight of the ship pressing down on the spurs. This phase began when the strand jacks exerted force and the ship started to return to an upright position. This was "without doubt one of the most delicate phases of the entire recovery plan." This phase began when the hull lifted from the seabed. Rotation continued by tensioning the cables operated by the strand jacks, and continued until the sponson water intakes reached sea level. The hull continued to rotate, pulled down by the weight of seawater added to the sponsons. The strand jacks and cables went slack. Redundant systems were designed as a guard against failure. For example, two seawater inlet valves were provided to each sponson. |
19,936 | Negative campaigning The material must be substantive enough to attract media interest, however, and if the truth is discovered it could severely damage a campaign. Other dirty tricks include trying to feed an opponent's team false information hoping they will use it and embarrass themselves. Often a campaign will use outside organizations, such as lobby groups, to launch attacks. These can be claimed to be coming from a neutral source and if the allegations turn out not to be true the attacking candidate will not be damaged if the links cannot be proven. can be conducted by proxy. For instance, highly partisan ads were placed in the 2004 U.S. presidential election by allegedly independent bodies like MoveOn.org and Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Push polls are attacks disguised as telephone polls. They might ask a question like "How would you react if Candidate A was revealed to beat his wife?", giving the impression that Candidate A might beat his wife. Members of the media and of the opposing party are deliberately not called making these tactics all but invisible and unprovable. G. Gordon Liddy played a major role in developing these tactics during the Nixon campaign playing an important advisory of rules that led to the campaign of 1972. James Carville, campaign manager of Bill Clinton's 1992 election, is also a major proponent of negative tactics. Lee Atwater, best known for being an advisor to presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, also pioneered many negative campaign techniques seen in political campaigns today |
19,937 | Artificial intelligence systems integration The Constructionist design methodology (CDM, or 'Constructionist A.I.') is a formal methodology proposed in 2004, for use in the development of cognitive robotics, communicative humanoids and broad AI systems. The creation of such systems requires the integration of a large number of functionalities that must be carefully coordinated to achieve coherent system behavior. CDM is based on iterative design steps that lead to the creation of a network of named interacting modules, communicating via explicitly typed streams and discrete messages. The OpenAIR message protocol (see below) was inspired by the CDM and has frequently been used to aid in the development of intelligent systems using CDM. One of the first projects to use CDM was Mirage, an embodied, graphical agent visualized through augmented reality which could communicate with human users and talk about objects present in the user's physical room. Mirage was created by Kristinn R. Thórisson, the creator of CDM, and a number of students at Columbia University in 2004. The methodology is actively being developed at Reykjavik University. OpenAIR is a message routing and communication protocol that has been gaining in popularity over the past two years. The protocol is managed by Mindmakers.org, and is described on their site in the following manner: ""OpenAIR is a routing and communication protocol based on a publish-subscribe architecture. It is intended to be the "glue" that allows numerous A.I. researchers to share code more effectively — "AIR to share" |
19,938 | Management of schizophrenia A 2010 Cochrane review concluded that many of the clinical trials that studied the effectiveness of family interventions were poorly designed, and may over estimate the effectiveness of the therapy. High-quality randomized controlled trials in this area are required. Aside from therapy, the impact of schizophrenia on families and the burden on careers has been recognized, with the increasing availability of self-help books on the subject. There is also some evidence for benefits from social skills training, although there have also been significant negative findings. Some studies have explored the possible benefits of music therapy and other creative therapies. The Soteria model is alternative to inpatient hospitalization using full non professional care and a minimal medication approach. Although evidence is limited, a review found the programme equally as effective as treatment with medications but due to the limited evidence did not recommend it as a standard treatment. Training in the detection of subtle facial expressions has been used to improve facial emotional recognition. An unconventional approach is the use of omega-3 fatty acids, with one study finding some benefits from their use as a dietary supplement. A 2003 review of four randomized controlled trials of EPA (an omega-3 fatty acid) vs |
19,939 | Occam's razor " The idea of parsimony or simplicity in deciding between theories, though not the intent of the original expression of Occam's razor, has been assimilated into our culture as the widespread layman's formulation that "the simplest explanation is usually the correct one." Prior to the 20th century, it was a commonly held belief that nature itself was simple and that simpler hypotheses about nature were thus more likely to be true. This notion was deeply rooted in the aesthetic value that simplicity holds for human thought and the justifications presented for it often drew from theology. Thomas Aquinas made this argument in the 13th century, writing, "If a thing can be done adequately by means of one, it is superfluous to do it by means of several; for we observe that nature does not employ two instruments [if] one suffices." Beginning in the 20th century, epistemological justifications based on induction, logic, pragmatism, and especially probability theory have become more popular among philosophers. has gained strong empirical support in helping to converge on better theories (see "Applications" section below for some examples). In the related concept of overfitting, excessively complex models are affected by statistical noise (a problem also known as the bias-variance trade-off), whereas simpler models may capture the underlying structure better and may thus have better predictive performance. It is, however, often difficult to deduce which part of the data is noise (cf |
19,940 | Royal Academies for Science and the Arts of Belgium Each National Committee focuses on a specific scientific study. There are 24 committees. Members of these committees are doctors, professors and people working within a specific scientific field. The conditions for the foundation of a National Committee is the existence of an international scientific union which is a member of ICSU or a member of a scientific institution of ICSU (scientific committees, special committees...) in the same scientific discipline. RASAB is responsible for the financial and logistic support of the National Committees, as well for its daily activities, as for the organisation of scientific events by the National Committees in the Palace of Academies. All European Academies (ALLEA) is the European Federation of National Academies of Sciences and Humanities. Currently, there are 53 Academies from 40 European countries in this federation. ALLEA Member Academies are self-governing communities of scientists and researchers, and operate as learned societies, think-tanks, grant givers, and research performing organisations. The goals of ALLEA are: The European Academies' Science Advisory Council (EASAC) is formed by the National Academies of the European Union's Member States. EASAC provides a cooperation between the Academies with the aim of providing scientific advice to the European policy makers. In that way, EASAC makes it possible for the European scientists to be heard as one voice |
19,941 | Gratis versus libre The English adjective free is commonly used in one of two meanings: "for free" ("gratis") and "with little or no restriction" ("libre"). This ambiguity of "free" can cause issues where the distinction is important, as it often is in dealing with laws concerning the use of information, such as copyright and patents. The terms "gratis" and "libre" may be used to categorise intellectual property, particularly computer programs, according to the licenses and legal restrictions that cover them, in the free software and open source communities, as well as the broader free culture movement. For example, they are used to distinguish freeware (software "gratis") from free software (software "libre"). Richard Stallman summarised the difference in a slogan: "Think free as in free speech, not free beer." "Gratis" in English is adopted from the various Romance and Germanic languages, ultimately descending from the plural ablative and dative form of the first-declension noun "grātia" in Latin. It means "free" in the sense that some goods or service is supplied without need for payment, even though it may have value. "Libre" in English is adopted from the various Romance languages, ultimately descending from the Latin word "līber"; its origin is closely related to "liberty". It denotes "the state of being free", as in "liberty" or "having freedom". The "Oxford English Dictionary" (OED) considers "libre" to be obsolete, but the word has come back into limited use |
19,942 | Tyranny of numbers Even a single bad component or solder joint could render the entire module inoperative. Even with properly working modules, the mass of wiring connecting them together was another source of construction and reliability problems. As computers grew in complexity, and the number of modules increased, the complexity of making a machine actually work grew more and more difficult. This was the "tyranny of numbers". It was precisely this problem that Jack Kilby was thinking about while working at Texas Instruments. Theorizing that germanium could be used to make all common electronic components - resistors, capacitors, etc. - he set about building a single-slab component that combined the functionality of an entire module. Although successful in this goal, it was Robert Noyce's silicon version and the associated fabrication techniques that make the integrated circuit (IC) truly practical. Unlike modules, ICs were built using photoetching techniques on an assembly line, greatly reducing their cost. Although any given IC might have the same chance of working or not working as a module, they cost so little that if they didn't work you simply threw it away and tried another. In fact, early IC assembly lines had failure rates around 90% or greater, which kept their prices high. The U.S. Air Force and NASA were major purchasers of early ICs, where their small size and light weight overcame any cost issues |
19,943 | Mihail Kogălniceanu After 1863, relations between and his friend Vasile Alecsandri soured dramatically, as the latter declared himself disgusted with politics. Alecsandri withdrew to his estate in Mircești, where he wrote pieces critical of the political developments. "Domnitor" Cuza was ultimately ousted by a coalition of Conservatives and Liberals in February 1866; following a period of transition and maneuvers to avert international objections, a perpetually unified Principality of Romania was established under Carol of Hohenzollern, with the adoption of the 1866 Constitution. Two years later, in recognition of his scholarly contributions, Kogălniceanu became a member of the newly created Romanian Academy Historical Section. In November 1868 – January 1870, he was again Minister of the Interior under Dimitrie Ghica. In this capacity, he regulated the design of police uniforms, and investigated the murder of Cuca-Măcăi peasants by rogue Gendarmes. He was at the time involved in a new diplomatic effort: the Ghica government was aiming to receive formal recognition of the name "Romania", as opposed to "United Principalities". The bid was successful, after the Ottomans gave their approval, but marked a slump in Romania's relationship with Prussia—its Minister President, Otto von Bismarck, abstained on the matter |
19,944 | Enhanced avionics system The enhanced avionics system (or EASy) is an integrated modular avionics suite and cockpit display system used on Dassault Falcon business jets since Falcon 900EX, and later used in other newer Falcon aircraft such as Falcon 2000EX and Falcon 7X. EASy has been jointly developed by Dassault and Honeywell, and is based on Honeywell Primus Epic. Dassault Aviation started to develop the EASy flight deck concept in the mid-1990s with a goal to have a much better integration of aircraft systems such as FMS. EASy was first integrated and certificated on Falcon 900EX. The first EASy equipped 900EX was delivered in December 2003. Honeywell Primus Epic base of EASy was then integrated on other business jets and helicopters. EASy was certified on the Falcon 2000EX in June 2004 with deliveries starting shortly after. Falcon 7X was developed from the ground-up with EASy avionics. On October 2008, Dassault announced the launch of EASy phase II program at the annual NBAA meeting in Orlando. EASy phase II include several enhancements to EASy, such as: EASy Phase II was certified on Falcon 900LX on June 2011 and on Falcon 7X on May 2013 EASy architecture is based on Integrated Modular Avionics. The processing modules are called "MAU" (Modular Avionics Units). The core Operating System of EASy is provided by DDCI. |
19,945 | Economy of the Soviet Union Despite this, an estimated five million people died in the famine. Starting in 1928, the five-year plans began building a heavy industrial base at once in an underdeveloped economy without waiting years for capital to accumulate through the expansion of light industry, and without reliance on external financing. The New Economic Policy was rapidly abandoned and replaced by Stalinism. The country now became industrialized at a hitherto unprecedented pace, surpassing Germany's pace of industrialization in the 19th century and Japan's earlier in the 20th century. After the reconstruction of the economy in the wake of the destruction caused by the Russian Civil War was completed and after the initial plans of further industrialization were fulfilled, the explosive growth slowed down until the period of Brezhnev stagnation in the 1970s and 1980s. Led by the creation of NAMI and by the GAZ copy of the Ford Model A in 1929, industrialization came with the extension of medical services, which improved labor productivity. Campaigns were carried out against typhus, cholera and malaria; the number of physicians increased as rapidly as facilities and training would permit; and death and infant mortality rates steadily decreased. As weighed growth rates, economic planning performed very well during the early and mid-1930s, World War II-era mobilization, and for the first two decades of the postwar era |
19,946 | TVET (Technical and Vocational Education and Training) Regional Qualifications Frameworks such as those in Southern Africa, Europe, Asia and the Caribbean aim to significantly support the recognition of qualifications across borders. These efforts are further supported through the introduction of outcome-based learning methodologies within the broader context of multilateral recognition agreements. Skills for economic development include a mix of technical and soft skills. Empirical evidence and TVET policy reviews conducted by UNESCO suggest that TVET systems may not as yet sufficiently support the development of the so-called soft competencies. Many countries have, however, adopted competency-based approaches as measures for reforming TVET curricula. The HEART Trust National Training Agency of Jamaica adopted this approach, with a particular emphasis on competency standards and balanced job-specific and generic skills. Competency standards aimed to ensure that the training was linked to industry and was up to date, and that competences were integrated into training programmes, along with the needed knowledge, skills and attitudes. The balancing of skill types was to ensure adequate attention was given to job-specific skills as well as the conceptual and experiential knowledge necessary to enable individuals to grow and develop in the workplace, and more generally in society. Globalization of the economy and the consequent reorganization of the workplace require a more adaptable labour force, requiring countries to rethink the nature and role of TVET |
19,947 | Thom Hartmann In 1971 he was ordained as a Minister with Coptic Fellowship International. He has been a keynote speaker at many Coptic Conferences nationally. In 1973, Hartmann returned to Detroit to work as an engineer with RCA. He met his wife Louise in the late 1960s. They have been married for over 45 years and have three children. Hartmann began his business career in the early 1970s while in his 20s, co-founding The Woodley Herber Company. Woodley Herber sold herbal products, potpourris and teas, and operated until 1978. It was during this time that Hartmann obtained three degrees in herbology and homeopathic medicine. Hartmann then moved to New Hampshire to start The New England Salem Children's Village, which still operates in Rumney, New Hampshire. He was its Executive Director for five years, and on the board of directors for more than 25 years. NESCT's child-care model was based on that of the German Salem International organization, and through his affiliation with that group he helped start international relief programs in Uganda, Colombia, Russia, Israel, India, Australia, and several other countries between 1979 and today. Hartmann founded International Wholesale Travel and its retail subsidiary Sprayberry Travel in Atlanta in 1983, a business which in the intervening years has generated over a quarter of a billion dollars in revenue |
19,948 | List of cosmological computation software CosmoMC is a Fortran 2003 Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) engine for exploring cosmological parameter space. The code does brute force (but accurate) theoretical matter power spectrum and Cl calculations using CAMB. CosmoMC uses a simple local Metropolis algorithm along with an optimized fast-slow sampling method. This fast-slow sampling method provides faster convergence for the cases with many nuisance parameters like Planck. CosmoMC package also provides subroutines for post processing and plotting of the data. CosmoMC was written by Antony Lewis in 2002 and later several versions are developed to keep the code up-to date with different cosmological experiments. It is presently the most used cosmological parameter estimation code. SCoPE/Slick Cosmological Parameter Estimator is a newly developed cosmological MCMC package written by Santanu Das in C language. Apart from standard global metropolis algorithm the code uses three unique technique named as 'delayed rejection' that increases the acceptance rate of a chain, 'pre-fetching' that helps an individual chain to run on parallel CPUs and 'inter-chain covariance update' that prevents clustering of the chains allowing faster and better mixing of the chains. The code is capable of faster computation of cosmological parameters from WMAP and Planck data. Different cosmology experiments, in particular the CMB experiments like WMAP and Planck measures the temperature fluctuations in the CMB sky and then measure the CMB power spectrum from the observed skymap |
19,949 | Molecular oncology This is a method of cancer treatment that works on the cellular and molecular level. Some regulatory proteins, specifically immune checkpoint inhibitors, have been found to reduce the ability of T cells to multiply within the body. In order to optimize the efficacy of CAR-T gene therapy, these checkpoint inhibitors can be blocked to stimulate a robust anti-tumor immune response, spearheaded by the CAR-T cells. There are various known inhibitory receptors on the CAR-T cell; through manipulation of these receptors and the molecules that bind them, expression of the CAR-T cell can be amplified. CAR-T cells can also be combined with cytokines to improve the efficacy of the immunotherapy method. Cytokines are messenger molecules that can act on themselves, nearby cells, or distant cells. The signal pathways of these cytokines can be used to enhance CAR-T anti-tumor characteristics. For example, Interleukin 2 (IL2) is a cytokine that acts as a growth factor for various immune system cells, including T cells. In regards to gene therapy, IL2 can be used to increase replication and dispersing of CAR-T cells throughout the body. There is room for improvement with this gene therapy approach. Firstly, the antigens of interest expressed on the cancer cells may sometimes be expressed on regular body cells, too. This means the body's T cells will attack its own healthy cells instead of the cancer cells when the antigen is lacking specificity with just the cancer cell |
19,950 | Theodor W. Adorno At the end of his schooldays, Adorno not only benefited from the rich concert offerings of Frankfurt—where one could hear performances of works by Schoenberg, Schreker, Stravinsky, Bartók, Busoni, Delius and Hindemith—but also began studying music composition at the Hoch Conservatory while taking private lessons with well-respected composers Bernhard Sekles and Eduard Jung. At around the same time, he befriended Siegfried Kracauer, the "Frankfurter Zeitung"s literary editor, of whom he would later write: Leaving gymnasium to study philosophy, psychology and sociology at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt, Adorno continued his readings with Kracauer, turning now to Hegel and Kierkegaard, and began publishing concert reviews and pieces of music for distinguished journals like the "Zeitschrift für Musik", the "Neue Blätter für Kunst und Literatur" and later for the "Musikblätter des Anbruch". In these articles Adorno championed avant-garde music at the same time as he critiqued the failings of musical modernity, as in the case of Stravinsky's "The Soldier's Tale", which in 1923 he called a "dismal Bohemian prank". In these early writings he was unequivocal in his condemnation of performances that either sought or pretended to achieve a transcendence that Adorno, in line with many intellectuals of the time, regarded as impossible: "No cathedral", he wrote, "can be built if no community desires one |
19,951 | Peace and conflict studies Academics and students in the world's oldest universities have long been motivated by an interest in peace. American student interest in what we today think of as peace studies first appeared in the form of campus clubs at United States colleges in the years immediately following the American Civil War. Similar movements appeared in Sweden in the last years of the 19th century, as elsewhere soon after. These were student-originated discussion groups, not formal courses included in college curricula. The First World War was a turning point in Western attitudes to war. At the 1919 Peace of Paris—where the leaders of France, Britain, and the United States, led by Georges Clemenceau, David Lloyd George, and Woodrow Wilson respectively, met to decide the future of Europe—Wilson proposed his famous Fourteen Points for peacemaking. These included breaking up European empires into nation states and the establishment of the League of Nations. These moves, intended to ensure a peaceful future, were the background to a number of developments in the emergence of Peace and Conflict Studies as an academic discipline (but they also, as Keynes presciently pointed out, laid the seeds for future conflict). The founding of the first chair in International Relations at Aberystwyth University, Wales, whose remit was partly to further the cause of peace, occurred in 1919. After World War II, the founding of the UN system provided a further stimulus for more rigorous approaches to peace and conflict studies to emerge |
19,952 | HFE H63D gene mutation A homozygous mutation of HFE gene H63D is an indication of an Iron Metabolism Disorder known as Hemochromatosis (Iron Overload) and may increase the risk to develop a fatty liver, cryptic (nonspecific) liver dysfunctions, metabolic syndrome and, in patients with a cirrhotic or a liver damaged due to alcohol also the rates of liver cancer. |
19,953 | Weatherstripping This movement could allow water in the vehicle so the weatherstrip must compensate by filling the gap. Furthermore, this relative movement can cause noises such as squeaks, rattles, and creaks to be heard within the vehicle. Considering a standard four-door vehicle, the doors require 20 feet (6 meters) or more of material per door, windows require upwards of 10 feet (3 meters), and trunks require large amounts. Automotive weatherstripping can fail because of age or use. Poorly performing weatherstripping should be reported to the car dealership if the vehicle is under warranty, as fixes may be known. Automotive weatherstripping is commonly made of EPDM rubber, a thermoplastic elastomer (TPE) mix of plastic and rubber, and a thermoplastic olefin (TPO) polymer/filler blend. Sunroof weatherstripping can also be made from silicone due to the extreme heat encountered by automobile roofs. The efficacy of weatherstripping can be significantly increased by specialty coatings during manufacture. Coatings for weatherstripping must adhere to all of these weatherstrip materials. Like other paints and coatings, a large variety of weatherstrip coatings are commonly available, with a large variety of coating performances. Fiber texture, type and density can be adjusted to provide superior sealing without impacting resistance to movement, rotational friction or fit. Silicone is the most difficult to adhere to, but at least one coating is commercially available |
19,954 | Genetics and the Origin of Species Bringing samples from each population back into the laboratory, Dobzhansky showed that he could vary environmental conditions so as to produce the same changes in frequency of inversion patterns that were observed with changing seasons in the field. Dobzhansky concluded that such seasonal fluctuations were the result of natural selection at work, with temperature acting as the selecting agent. These masterful studies provided concrete support for the theory of natural selection, at the same time illustrating the fruitfulness of combining field and laboratory work in the study of evolution. Adaptive evolution occurs through the dominance and survival of competing genes within a species. This is caused by increasing the frequency of those alleles whose phenotypic effects selfishly promote their own reproduction. He also believed new species could not arise from single mutations and must be isolated from others of its species by time, geography, habitat, or breeding season. "Genetics and the Origin of Species" provided the outline for a synthesis of genetics with evolution, and was enthusiastically received by both geneticists and naturalists. Dobzhansky laid out an advanced account of the evolutionary process in genetic terms, and he backed up his work with experimental evidence supporting the theoretical arguments. This led to the stimulation of the field of evolutionary genetics, and contributions to the theory soon began to follow |
19,955 | Nutritional anthropology Much of tourism literature details marked increases in the commoditization of food subsequent to the introduction of tourism as a form of market based economic development. Dewey and Robbins also state that when food is primarily seen as a commodity by powerful interests, not only does such an ideology increase delocalization, but also land degradation and expropriation as elite land owners or transnational corporations cause massive social and ecological disruptions in the process of mono-cropping food crops over broad swaths of land in order to reap maximum profits from overseas sales. Indeed, delocalization and commoditization have significant potential to diminish food security and nutritional status in poor communities over broad areas of the world. In terms of food security and dietary diversity, which are defined as reliable access to a caloric sufficiency and access to a wide variety of macro and micro nutrients in order to maintain nutritive balance, respectively, the commoditization of food plays a key role in diminishing the control local populations have over their own subsistence production. Delocalization of food systems, which Pelto and Pelto define as taking production of food out of a local subsistence context and tying it to geographically broader market systems, can precipitate marked cultural and nutritional disruption |
19,956 | ODB++ This was a source of frustration not only for competitors but also for the Mentor user community. In 2012, Julian Coates, director of business development at Mentor's Valor division claimed that, so far, all partners, including competitors to Mentor, who have applied for assistance to build and maintain interfaces via the Solutions Alliance have been accepted without reservation or cost. In addition, the format specification is now openly available via the Solutions Alliance without the need for NDA. Membership of the Solutions Alliance is free of charge and open to anybody who registers. A no-charge Viewer and other software utilities are available to registrants. Critics of the proprietary nature of point to several more open formats as models for a future consensus format: |
19,957 | Declawing of crabs Crabs that survive the initial declawing face potential disadvantages in feeding, mating, and self-defense. The most immediate impact of declawing, however, is possible death. In an experiment using commercial techniques, 47% of Florida stone crabs that had both claws removed died after declawing, as did 28% of single-claw amputees. 76% of these casualties occurred within 24 hours of declawing. Declawing also affects the ability of a crab to feed, as crabs generally use their claws to facilitate the capture and consumption their prey. Declawed stone crabs are forced to scavenge as opposed to actively hunt and forage. Stone crabs in controlled experimental settings still consumed the same amount of food, but altered their feeding habits after declawing, eating fish instead of bivalves, normally an important part of their diet in the wild, because bivalves must be opened with the crab's muscular claw. Outside of experimental settings, where declawed crabs must actively compete for food, mortality from starvation poses a significant danger. Research on Jonah crabs by Carloni and Goldstein (2016) found that declawed individuals were much more likely to refuse food altogether. Ultimately, different species of crabs respond in different ways to limb loss, with heterochelous crabs facing particular difficulties. Additionally, declawed crabs show significantly lower activity levels than negative controls, and may have difficulties attracting mates |
19,958 | CRISPR gene editing By negative selection dead or slow growing cells are efficiently detected. It can identify survival-essential genes, which can be further serve as candidates for molecularly targeted drugs. On the other hand, positive selection gives a collection of growth-advantage acquired populations by random mutagenesis. After selection genomic DNA is collected and sequenced by NGS. Depletion or enrichment of sgRNAs is detected and compared to the original sgRNA library, annotated with the target gene that sgRNA corresponds to. Statistical analysis then identify genes that are significantly likely to be relevant to the phenotype of interest. Apart from knock-out there are also knock-down (CRISPRi) and activation (CRISPRa) libraries, which using the ability of proteolytically deactivated Cas9-fusion proteins (dCas9) to bind target DNA, which means that gene of interest is not cut but is over-expressed or repressed. It made CRISPR/Cas9 system even more interesting in gene editing. Inactive dCas9 protein modulate gene expression by targeting dCas9-repressors or activators toward promoter or transcriptional start sites of target genes. For repressing genes Cas9 can be fused to KRAB effector domain that makes complex with gRNA, whereas CRISPRa utilizes dCas9 fused to different transcriptional activation domains, which are further directed by gRNA to promoter regions to upregulate expression. Cas9 genomic modification has allowed for the quick and efficient generation of transgenic models within the field of genetics |
19,959 | The Cantos and William Carlos Williams wrote long poems that show this influence. Almost all of H.D.'s poetry from 1940 onwards takes the form of long sequences, and her "Helen in Egypt", written during the 1950s, covers much of the same Homeric ground as "The Cantos" (but from a feminist perspective), and the three sequences that make up "Hermetic Definition" (1972) include direct quotations from Pound's poem. In the case of Williams, his "Paterson" (1963) follows Pound in using incidents and documents from the early history of the United States as part of its material. As with Pound, Williams includes Alexander Hamilton as the villain of the piece. Pound was a major influence on the Objectivist poets, and the effect of "The Cantos" on Zukofsky's ""A"" has already been noted. The other major long work by an Objectivist, Charles Reznikoff's "Testimony" (1934–1978), follows Pound in the direct use of primary source documents as its raw material. In the next generation of American poets, Charles Olson also drew on Pound's example in writing his own unfinished Modernist epic, "The Maximus Poems". Pound was also an important figure for the poets of the Beat generation, especially Gary Snyder and Allen Ginsberg. Snyder's interest in things Chinese and Japanese stemmed from his early reading of Pound's writings. and his long poem "Mountains and Rivers Without End" (1965–1996) reflects his reading of "The Cantos" in many of the formal devices used |
19,960 | Marcus Aurelius than to have tasted it superficially, with the edge of the lips, as the saying is'. He disdained philosophy and philosophers, and looked down on Marcus' sessions with Apollonius of Chalcedon and others in this circle. Fronto put an uncharitable interpretation of Marcus' 'conversion to philosophy': 'In the fashion of the young, tired of boring work', Marcus had turned to philosophy to escape the constant exercises of oratorical training. Marcus kept in close touch with Fronto, but would ignore Fronto's scruples. Apollonius may have introduced Marcus to Stoic philosophy, but Quintus Junius Rusticus would have the strongest influence on the boy. He was the man Fronto recognized as having 'wooed Marcus away' from oratory. He was older than Fronto and twenty years older than Marcus. As the grandson of Arulenus Rusticus, one of the martyrs to the tyranny of Domitian ("r". 81–96), he was heir to the tradition of 'Stoic Opposition' to the 'bad emperors' of the 1st century; the true successor of Seneca (as opposed to Fronto, the false one). Marcus thanks Rusticus for teaching him 'not to be led astray into enthusiasm for rhetoric, for writing on speculative themes, for discoursing on moralizing texts... To avoid oratory, poetry, and 'fine writing". Philostratus describes how even when Marcus was an old man, in the latter part of his reign, he studied under Sextus of Chaeronea: The Emperor Marcus was an eager disciple of Sextus the Boeotian philosopher, being often in his company and frequenting his house |
19,961 | Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike Another interloper arrives, the neighbor's pretty niece Nina, an aspiring actress who provokes envy in Masha, lust in Spike, and sympathy in Vanya. Masha has returned home to attend a costume party at an influential neighbor's house and insists that her friends and family dress as characters from Disney's animated "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", choosing to dress as Snow White. When told she will be going as one of the dwarfs, Sonia rebels and dresses up as the Evil Queen, imagining her as portrayed by Maggie Smith on her way to the Oscars. As they prepare for the party, Masha tells them she intends to sell the house, leaving Vanya and Sonia devastated. Things come to a head the day after the party. As Cassandra uses a voodoo doll on Masha, trying to dissuade thoughts of selling the house, Sonia receives a phone call from a man she met at the party, requesting a date. Hesitantly, she accepts. Vanya, who is secretly writing a play inspired by Konstantin's imagined symbolist drama in "The Seagull", is convinced by Nina to let her read it in front of the others. During the reading (which stars Nina as a molecule and takes place after the destruction of the earth), Spike rudely answers a text on his phone, and dismisses Vanya's suggestion of a handwritten response. Vanya reacts by launching into an impassioned rant, criticizing America's cultural regression in communication and media, while fondly and wistfully recalling the surroundings and memories of his childhood |
19,962 | Ayyubid dynasty Al-Mansur of Hama had fought alongside the Mamluks from the start of their conquest and because of this, Hama continued to be ruled by the Ayyubid descendants of al-Muzaffar Umar. After al-Ashraf Musa's death in 1262, the new Mamluk sultan, Baibars, annexed Homs. The next year, al-Mughith Umar was tricked into surrendering Karak to Baibars and was executed soon after for having previously sided with the Mongols. The last Ayyubid ruler of Hama died in 1299 and Hama briefly passed through direct Mamluk suzerainty. However, in 1310, under the patronage of the Mamluk sultan al-Nasir Muhammad, Hama was restored to the Ayyubids under the well-known geographer and author Abu al-Fida. The latter died in 1331 and was succeeded by his son al-Afdal Muhammad, who eventually lost the favor of his Mamluk overlords. He was removed from his post in 1341 and Hama was formally placed under Mamluk rule. In southeastern Anatolia, the Ayyubids continued to rule the principality of Hisn Kayfa and managed to remain an autonomous entity, independent of the Mongol Ilkhanate, which ruled northern Mesopotamia until the 1330s. After the breakup of the Ilkhanate, their former vassals in the area, the Artuqids, waged war against the Ayyubids of Hisn Kayfa in 1334, but were decisively defeated, with the Ayyubids gaining the Artuqids' possessions on the left bank of the Tigris River. In the 14th century, the Ayyubids rebuilt the castle of Hisn Kayfa which served as their stronghold |
19,963 | Dormancy It differs from hibernation in the metabolic processes involved. Reptiles generally begin brumation in late autumn (more specific times depend on the species). They often wake up to drink water and return to "sleep". They can go for months without food. Reptiles may eat more than usual before the brumation time but eat less or refuse food as the temperature drops. However, they do need to drink water. The brumation period is anywhere from one to eight months depending on the air temperature and the size, age, and health of the reptile. During the first year of life, many small reptiles do not fully brumate, but rather slow down and eat less often. Brumation is triggered by lack of heat and the decrease in the hours of daylight in winter, similar to hibernation. In plant physiology, dormancy is a period of arrested plant growth. It is a survival strategy exhibited by many plant species, which enables them to survive in climates where part of the year is unsuitable for growth, such as winter or dry seasons. Many plant species that exhibit dormancy have a biological clock that tells them when to slow activity and to prepare soft tissues for a period of freezing temperatures or water shortage. On the other hand, dormancy can be triggered after a normal growing season by decreasing temperatures, shortened day length, and/or a reduction in rainfall |
19,964 | Atkinson–Shiffrin memory model The extension proposes a store for preexisting semantic associations; a contextual drift mechanism allowing for decontextualisation of knowledge, e.g. if you first learned a banana was a fruit because you put it in the same class as apple, you do not always have to think of apples to know bananas are fruits; a memory search mechanism that uses both episodic and semantic associations, as opposed to a unitary mechanism; and a large lexicon including both words from prior lists and unpresented words. |
19,965 | Edward Holmes Baldock (dealer) Edward Holmes Baldock (1777-1845) was a prominent London furniture dealer to the Royal Family, father of Edward Holmes Baldock. He was first listed in the London trade directories in 1805. That listing had him operating out of No.7 Hanway Street in London, where he was described as selling "china and glass". An updated listing in 1821 described his business as "an antique furniture and ornamental furniture dealer", and in 1826 as a buyer and seller of "china, cabinets, screens, bronzes etc". Between 1832 and 1837 he sold earthenware and glass products to William IV, and upon the ascendancy of Queen Victoria in 1837, sold china until his death in 1845. Baldock was one of the first antique dealers and is similar to the 18th century marchands-merciers Dominique Daguerre and Simon-Philippe Poirier. He was the father of Edward Holmes Baldock (1812-1875), a British Conservative Party politician, and of Mary Frances Baldock, wife of the philatelist W. A. S. Westoby. |
19,966 | Atticism Represented at its height by rhetoricians such as Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and grammarians such as Herodian and Phrynichus Arabius at Alexandria, this tendency prevailed from the 1st century BC onward, and with the force of an ecclesiastical dogma controlled all subsequent Greek culture, even so that the living form of the Greek language, even then being transformed into modern Greek much later, was quite obscured and only occasionally found expression, chiefly in private documents, though also in popular literature. For instance, there were literary writers such as Strabo, Plutarch, and Josephus who intentionally withdrew from this way of expression (classical Greek) in favor of the common form of Greek. In painting, the so-called "Parisian Atticism" is a particular movemement in French painting of the 17th century, spanning approximatively between 1640 and 1660, when famous painters working in Paris like Eustache Le Sueur or Jacques Stella elaborated a rigorous classicist style, characterized by a research of sobriety, luminosity and harmony and references to the Greco-Roman world. |
19,967 | Fornication The survey noted a divide between Anglicans who wanted to support sexually active unmarried couples in their churches and others who did not. A 2009 survey found that Anglicans (along with Baptists, Roman Catholics and Uniting Church members) had become a little more accepting of premarital sex compared to a 1993 survey, whereas Pentecostal Christians had become markedly more conservative. 54% of Australian church attenders felt pre-marital sex was always or almost always wrong, whereas only 3% of non-church attenders thought it was always or usually wrong. Among those who attended church on a weekly basis, the percentage of those who thought pre-marital sex was always or almost always wrong rose to 67%. A 2002 survey by the "Church Times" in England found that less than half of the 5,000 readers questioned said it was wrong for men and women to have sex before they married. Over 25% also said it was acceptable for a couple to live together without ever intending to marry. The 2003 report, "Cohabitation: A Christian Reflection", produced by the Diocese of Southwark, found that the Church's traditional teaching that sex before marriage is wrong has been inherited from a different form of society than that which exists today. However, the report then cited research that illustrates the problems that accompany cohabitation, particularly with regard to raising children |
19,968 | Otis Boykin No one can be sure how he died, because he wouuld have been saved by doctors using his improved pacemaker if he was suffering from congestive heart faliure. |
19,969 | Antibody microarray Jaeger and colleagues measured nearly 600 circulatory proteins to discover biological pathways and networks affected in Alzheimer's and explored the positive and negative relationships of the levels of those individual proteins and networks with the cognitive performance of Alzheimer's patients. Currently the largest commercially available sandwich-based antibody array detects 1000 different proteins. In addition, antibody microarray based protein profiling services are available analyzing protein abundance and protein phosphorylation or ubiquitinylation status of 1030 proteins in parallel. Antibody arrays are often used for detecting protein expression from many sample types, but also in those with various preparations. Jiang and colleagues illustrated nicely the correlation between array protein expression in two different blood preparations: serum and dried blood spots. These different blood sample preparations were analyzed using three antibody array platforms: sandwich-based, quantitative, and label-based, and a strong correlation in protein expression was found, suggesting that dried blood spots, which are a more convenient, safe, and inexpensive means of obtaining blood especially in non-hospitalized public health areas, can be used effectively with antibody array analysis for biomarker discovery, protein profiling, and disease screening, diagnosis, and treatment. Using antibody microarray in different medical diagnostic areas has attracted researchers attention |
19,970 | Average Joe Considering these statistics one can conclude that the average American resides in his or her own home, pays roughly $1,000 per month in mortgage payments for a three or less bedroom house with no more than one occupant per room. US Census Bureau data from 2002 identified a series of housing characteristics for units owner-occupied units inhabited by households with average incomes, ranging from $40,000 to $60,000. The median square footage for homes occupied by middle income households was 1,700 with 52% of such homes having two or more bathrooms. The median value of these homes was $112,000 with the median year of construction being 1970. Middle income households tended to spend roughly 18% of their monthly income on housing. Considering these statistics it is likely that many average Americans reside in homes, priced slightly above $100,000 with two or more bathrooms that were built in the late 1960s and early 1970s. However, the taken income is slightly above average. |
19,971 | Psychology There emerged a new field called "engineering psychology" which studied mental aspects of complex jobs (such as pilot and cosmonaut). Interdisciplinary studies became popular and scholars such as Georgy Shchedrovitsky developed systems theory approaches to human behavior. Twentieth-century Chinese psychology originally modeled the U.S., with translations from American authors like William James, the establishment of university psychology departments and journals, and the establishment of groups including the Chinese Association of Psychological Testing (1930) and the Chinese Psychological Society (1937). Chinese psychologists were encouraged to focus on education and language learning, with the aspiration that education would enable modernization and nationalization. John Dewey, who lectured to Chinese audiences in 1918–1920, had a significant influence on this doctrine. Chancellor T'sai Yuan-p'ei introduced him at Peking University as a greater thinker than Confucius. Kuo Zing-yang who received a PhD at the University of California, Berkeley, became President of Zhejiang University and popularized behaviorism. After the Chinese Communist Party gained control of the country, the Stalinist Soviet Union became the leading influence, with Marxism–Leninism the leading social doctrine and Pavlovian conditioning the approved concept of behavior change |
19,972 | Lean construction LPS begins with collaborative scheduling/programming engaging the main project suppliers from the start. Risk analysis ensures that float is built in where it will best protect programme integrity and predictability. Where appropriate the process can be used for "programme compression" too. In this way, one constructor took 6 weeks out of an 18-week programme for the construction of a 40 bed hotel. Benefits to the client are enormous. Figure 1: intense discussion during a programme compression workshop Before work starts, team leaders make tasks ready so that when work should be done, it can be. Why put work into production if a pre-requisite is missing? This "MakeReady" process continues throughout the project. Figure 2: part of a MakeReady form for documenting the process of making tasks ready (this one for use in design) There is a weekly work planning (WWP) meeting involving all the last planners – design team leaders and/or trade supervisors on site. It is in everyone’s interest to explore inter-dependencies between tasks and prevent colleagues from over-committing. Figure 3: part of a Weekly Work Plan form used by trade foremen on site or design team leaders to prepare for the WWP meeting. This weekly work planning processes is built around "promises". The agreed programme defines when tasks "should" be done and acts as a request to the supplier to do that task |
19,973 | Utopia (marketplace) Utopia was a darknet market similar to The Silk Road that facilitated sale of illegal items such as narcotics, firearms, stolen bank account information and forged identity documents. Utopia was based on Black Market Reloaded and has ties to it. It was launched on 3 February 2014 only to be shut down by Dutch police 8 days later. Undercover agents were able to buy large amounts of ecstasy (MDMA) and cocaine. 900 Bitcoin (then worth approximately £363,000) were seized. |
19,974 | Capitanian mass extinction event Among terrestrial vertebrates, the main victims were dinocephalian therapsids, which were one of the most common elements of tetrapod fauna of the Guadalupian; only one dinocephalian genus survived the Capitanian extinction event. The diversity of the anomodonts that lived during the late Guadalupian was cut in half by the Capitanian mass extinction. Terrestrial survivors of the Capitanian extinction event were generally to and commonly found in burrows. 'A combination of a second-order global drop of sea level and regional constraints, e.g., salinity fluctuations (Weidlich and Bernecker, in press) or collisions of micro-continents account for the destruction of many reef sites.' It is believed that the extinction was triggered by one or more eruptions of the Emeishan Traps, which released a large amount of carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres due to the equatorial location of the Emeishan Traps, leading to sudden global cooling and global warming; the eruptions also triggered ocean acidification, a depletion of seafloor oxygen and a severe disturbance of the carbon cycle. The eruptions would have released high doses of toxic mercury. Basalt piles from the Emeishan Traps currently cover an area of 250,000 to 500,000 km, but the original volume of the basalts may have been anywhere from 500,000 km to over 1,000,000 km. Acid rain, global drying, plate tectonics, marine regression and biological competition may have also played a role in the extinction |
19,975 | Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy It is thus not a correct description of existing law when the article in "Jyllands-Posten" states that it is incompatible with the right to freedom of expression to demand special consideration for religious feelings and that one has to be ready to put up with 'scorn, mockery and ridicule'." Utterances intended for public dissemination deemed hateful based on 'race, colour, national or ethnic origin, belief or sexual orientation' can be penalised under section 266 b of the criminal code. Some people have been convicted under this provision, mostly for speech directed at Muslims. While "Jyllands-Posten" has published satirical cartoons depicting Christian figures, it rejected unsolicited cartoons in 2003 which depicted Jesus on the grounds that they were offensive, opening it to accusations of a double standard. In February 2006, "Jyllands-Posten" refused to publish Holocaust cartoons, which included cartoons that mocked or denied the Holocaust, offered by an Iranian newspaper which had held a contest. Six of the less controversial images were later published by "Dagbladet Information", after the editors consulted the main rabbi in Copenhagen, and three cartoons were later reprinted in "Jyllands-Posten". After the competition had finished, "Jyllands-Posten" also reprinted the winning and runner-up cartoons. "Jyllands-Posten" has been described as conservative and it was supportive of the then-ruling party Venstre |
19,976 | Sir Degrevant is a Middle English romance from the early fifteenth century. Generally classified as a "composite romance," that is, a romance that does not fit easily into the standard classification of romances, it is praised for its realism and plot. The poem is preserved in two manuscripts along with a variety of secular and courtly texts, one of which was compiled by the fifteenth-century scribe Robert Thornton. It is notable for its blending of literary material and social reality. The title character, while a perfect knight in many respects, is initially reluctant to love. His life changes when he seeks redress from his neighbour for the killing of his men and damages done to his property. He falls in love with the neighbour's daughter, and after she initially denies him her love, she accepts him. They both convince the overbearing and initially violent father to grant Degrevant his daughter's hand in marriage. The plot of "Sir Degrevant" revolves around the title character and his neighbour, an earl, whose daughter Myldore falls in love with Sir Degrevant. While there is a "perfunctory connection" with King Arthur and his court, the romance is devoid of the usual marvels associated with Arthurian literature. is the "perfect romance hero": intent on hunting and adventures, he is young, handsome, and strong; most importantly to the plot, he is not interested in the love of a woman |
19,977 | Cave survey Depth changes are 'apparent' because depth gauges are calibrated for sea water, and the hydrolevel is filled with fresh water. Therefore, a coefficient must be determined to convert apparent depth changes to true depth changes. Adding the readings for consecutive pairs of stations gives the total depth of the cave. The accuracy, or "grade", of a cave survey is dependent on the methodology of measurement. A common survey grading system is that created by the British Cave Research Association in the 1960s, which uses a scale of six grades. The equipment used to undertake a cave survey continues to improve. The use of computers, inertia systems, and electronic distance finders has been proposed, but few practical underground applications have evolved at present. Despite these advances, faulty instruments, imprecise measurements, recording errors or other factors may still result in an inaccurate survey, and these errors are often difficult to detect. Some cave surveyors measure each station twice, recording a "back-sight" to the previous station in the opposite direction. A back-sight compass reading that is different by 180 degrees and a clinometer reading that is the same value but with the reverse direction (positive rather than negative, for example) indicates that the original measurement was accurate. When a loop within a cave is surveyed back to its starting point, the resulting line-plot should also form a closed loop. Any gap between the first and last stations is called a "loop-closure error" |
19,978 | The Cantos The goddess in her various guises appears again, as does Awoi's "hennia", the spirit of jealousy from "Aoi No Ue", a Noh play translated by Pound. The canto closes with an invocation of Dionysus ("Zagreus"). After opening with a glimpse of Mount Ida, an important locus for the history of the Trojan War, Canto LXXVIII moves through much that is familiar from the earlier cantos in the sequence: del Cossa, the economic basis of war, Pound's writer and artist friends in London, "virtuous" rulers (Lorenzo de Medici, the emperors Justinian, Titus and Antoninus, Mussolini), usury and stamp scripts culminating in the Nausicaa episode from the "Odyssey" and a reference to the Confucian classic "Annals of Spring and Autumn" in which "there are no righteous wars". The moon and clouds appear at the opening of Canto LXXIX, which then moves on through a passage in which birds on the wire fence recall musical notation and the sounds of the camp and thoughts of Wolfgang Mozart, del Cossa and Marshal Philippe Pétain meld to form musical counterpoint. After references to politics, economics, and the nobility of the world of the Noh and the ritual dance of the moon-nymph in Hagaromo that dispels mortal doubt, the canto closes with an extended fertility hymn to Dionysus in the guise of his sacred lynx |
19,979 | Liquid-crystal display Epson developed the 3LCD projection technology in the 1980s, and licensed it for use in projectors in 1988. Epson's VPJ-700, released in January 1989, was the world's first compact, full-color LCD projector. In 1990, under different titles, inventors conceived electro optical effects as alternatives to "twisted nematic field effect LCDs" (TN- and STN- LCDs). One approach was to use interdigital electrodes on one glass substrate only to produce an electric field essentially parallel to the glass substrates. To take full advantage of the properties of this "In Plane Switching (IPS) technology" further work was needed. After thorough analysis, details of advantageous embodiments are filed in Germany by Guenter Baur "et al." and patented in various countries. The Fraunhofer Institute ISE in Freiburg, where the inventors worked, assigns these patents to Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, a supplier of LC substances. In 1992, shortly thereafter, engineers at Hitachi work out various practical details of the IPS technology to interconnect the thin-film transistor array as a matrix and to avoid undesirable stray fields in between pixels. Hitachi also improved the viewing angle dependence further by optimizing the shape of the electrodes ("Super IPS"). NEC and Hitachi become early manufacturers of active-matrix addressed LCDs based on the IPS technology. This is a milestone for implementing large-screen LCDs having acceptable visual performance for flat-panel computer monitors and television screens |
19,980 | Tragedy Some later operatic composers have also shared Peri's aims: Richard Wagner's concept of "Gesamtkunstwerk" ("integrated work of art"), for example, was intended as a return to the ideal of Greek tragedy in which all the arts were blended in service of the drama. Nietzsche, in his "The Birth of Tragedy" (1872) was to support Wagner in his claims to be a successor of the ancient dramatists. For much of the 17th century, Pierre Corneille, who made his mark on the world of tragedy with plays like "Medée" (1635) and "Le Cid" (1636), was the most successful writer of French tragedies. Corneille's tragedies were strangely un-tragic (his first version of "Le Cid" was even listed as a tragicomedy), for they had happy endings. In his theoretical works on theatre, Corneille redefined both comedy and tragedy around the following suppositions: Corneille continued to write plays through 1674 (mainly tragedies, but also something he called "heroic comedies") and many continued to be successes, although the "irregularities" of his theatrical methods were increasingly criticised (notably by François Hédelin, abbé d'Aubignac) and the success of Jean Racine from the late 1660s signalled the end of his preeminence. Jean Racine's tragedies—inspired by Greek myths, Euripides, Sophocles and Seneca—condensed their plot into a tight set of passionate and duty-bound conflicts between a small group of noble characters, and concentrated on these characters' double-binds and the geometry of their unfulfilled desires and hatreds |
19,981 | Tauroctony Following several decades of increasingly convoluted theories, Mithraic scholarship is now generally disinclined to speculation. Whether as a painting or as carved monument, a depiction of the tauroctony scene belonged to the standard furniture of every mithraeum. At least one depiction would be mounted on the wall at the far end of the space where ritual activity took place, often in a niche dressed to be especially cavelike. Richly furnished mithraea, such as one in Stockstadt am Main, had multiple cult reliefs. The scenes can be roughly divided into two groups. The "simple" depictions, which include just the main bull-killing scene, and the compound depictions, in which the tauroctony is the central and largest element, but which is framed by panels that portray other scenes. The oldest known representative of the tauroctony scene is "CIMRM" 593/594 from Rome, a dedication of a certain Alcimus, slave steward/bailiff ("servus vilicus") of T. Claudius Livianus, who is identified with T. Iulius Aquilinus Castricius Saturninus Claudius Livianus, the praetorian prefect under Trajan. Like the other five earliest monuments of the Mithraic mysteries, it dates to around 100 CE. Although there are numerous minor variations, the basic features of the central tauroctony scene is highly uniform: Mithras half-straddles a bull that has been forced to the ground. The bull invariably appears in profile, facing to his left (the viewers’ right) |
19,982 | Satellite data unit Automated SATCOM transmissions suggested it flew about off its designated flight path having flown approximately south-southwest rather than the intended approximately north-northeast. |
19,983 | Sindel It is also revealed in her fight introductions (most notably with Kotal Kahn, her former bodyguard) that she was killed by Quan Chi, who made it look like she committed suicide. During production of "Mortal Kombat 3," was nicknamed "The Bride" and "Muchacha" by the developers before her official name was determined; John Tobias described her as "probably one of the coolest characters." She was played by actress Lia Montelongo (additionally Sareena in "" and the motion capture for Tanya in "Mortal Kombat 4", both released in 1997), who was nineteen years old when she auditioned for the role. The process of applying her makeup and heavy wig took three hours, while her costume was red like those of the game's other characters, but digitally tinted purple for the game. Montelongo filmed game footage in a single fourteen-hour session, and in a 2001 interview with fan site Dave's Mortal Kombat, she revealed that after "MK3's" release, she would visit arcades to watch people play as Sindel. Sindel's "that was fun" quote from her Friendship in "MK3" was used in the second film. is the first character in the "Mortal Kombat" series who used the power of levitation as both a move used in combat and as a victory pose. She uses her screams as both stun moves and for some of her Fatalities. In the 2011 reboot, sported a similar but updated look resembling her "MK3" appearance. She had no use of her hair as a weapon in "Deception" and "Armageddon", but it returned in the reboot for both basic attacks and special moves |
19,984 | Solvent extraction and electrowinning (SX/EW) is a two-stage hydrometallurgical process that first extracts and upgrades copper ions from low-grade leach solutions into a solvent containing a chemical that selectively reacts with and binds the copper in the solvent. The copper is extracted from the solvent with strong aqueous acid which then deposits pure copper onto cathodes using an electrolytic procedure (electrowinning). SX/EW processing is best known for its use by the copper industry, where it accounts for 20% of worldwide production, but the technology is also successfully applied to a wide range of other metals including cobalt, nickel, zinc and uranium. |
19,985 | In-circuit emulation (ICE) is the use of a hardware device or in-circuit emulator used to debug the software of an embedded system. It operates by using a processor with the additional ability to support debugging operations, as well as to carry out the main function of the system. Particularly for older systems, with limited processors, this usually involved replacing the processor temporarily with a hardware emulator: a more powerful although more expensive version. It was historically in the form of bond-out processor which has many internal signals brought out for the purpose of debugging. These signals provide information about the state of the processor. More recently the term also covers Joint Test Action Group (JTAG) based hardware debuggers which provide equivalent access using on-chip debugging hardware with standard production chips. Using standard chips instead of custom bond-out versions makes the technology ubiquitous and low cost, and eliminates most differences between the development and runtime environments. In this common case, the "in-circuit emulator" term is a misnomer, sometimes confusingly so, because emulation is no longer involved. Embedded systems present special problems for programmers because they usually lack keyboards, monitors, disk drives and other user interfaces that are present on computers. These shortcomings make in-circuit software debugging tools essential for many common development tasks. An in-circuit emulator (ICE) provides a window into the embedded system |
19,986 | Old age The young are "consistent in their negative attitude" toward the old. "Ageism" documents that Americans generally have "little tolerance for older persons and very few reservations about harboring negative attitudes" about them. Despite its prevalence, ageism is seldom the subject of public discourse. In 2014, a documentary film called "The Age of Love" used humor and poignant adventures of 30 seniors who attend a speed dating event for 70- to 90-year-olds, and discovered how the search for romance changes; or does not change; from a childhood sweetheart to older age. Simone de Beauvoir wrote that "there is one form of experience that belongs only to those that are old – that of old age itself." Nevertheless, simulations of old age attempt to help younger people gain some understanding. Texas A&M University offers a plan for an "Aging Simulation" workshop. The workshop is adapted from "Sensitizing People to the Processes of Aging". Some of the simulations follow: The Macklin Intergenerational Institute conducts Xtreme Aging workshops, as depicted in "The New York Times". A condensed version was presented on NBC's Today Show and is available online. One exercise was to lay out 3 sets of 5 slips of paper. On set #1, write your 5 most enjoyed activities; on set #2, write your 5 most valued possessions; on set #3, write your 5 most loved people. Then "lose" them one by one, trying to feel each loss, until you have lost them all as happens in old age |
19,987 | Trusted system For example, trusted systems include the use of "security envelopes" in national security and counterterrorism applications, "trusted computing" initiatives in technical systems security, and the use of credit or identity scoring systems in financial and anti-fraud applications; in general, they include any system (i) in which probabilistic threat or risk analysis is used to assess "trust" for decision-making before authorizing access or for allocating resources against likely threats (including their use in the design of systems constraints to control behavior within the system), or (ii) in which deviation analysis or systems surveillance is used to ensure that behavior within systems complies with expected or authorized parameters. The widespread adoption of these authorization-based security strategies (where the default state is DEFAULT=DENY) for counterterrorism, anti-fraud, and other purposes is helping accelerate the ongoing transformation of modern societies from a notional Beccarian model of criminal justice based on accountability for deviant actions after they occur – see Cesare Beccaria, On Crimes and Punishment (1764) – to a Foucauldian model based on authorization, preemption, and general social compliance through ubiquitous preventative surveillance and control through system constraints – see Michel Foucault, "Discipline and Punish" (1975, Alan Sheridan, tr., 1977, 1995) |
19,988 | Paraphrasing (computational linguistics) Paraphrase or Paraphrasing in computational linguistics is the natural language processing task of detecting and generating paraphrases. Applications of paraphrasing are varied including information retrieval, question answering, text summarization, and plagiarism detection. Paraphrasing is also useful in the evaluation of machine translation, as well as semantic parsing and generation of new samples to expand existing corpora. Barzilay and Lee proposed a method to generate paraphrases through the usage of monolingual parallel corpora, namely news articles covering the same event on the same day. Training consists of using multi-sequence alignment to generate sentence-level paraphrases from an unannotated corpus. This is done by This is achieved by first clustering similar sentences together using n-gram overlap. Recurring patterns are found within clusters by using multi-sequence alignment. Then the position of argument words are determined by finding areas of high variability within each clusters, aka between words shared by more than 50% of a cluster's sentences. Pairings between patterns are then found by comparing similar variable words between different corpora. Finally new paraphrases can be generated by choosing a matching cluster for a source sentence, then substituting the source sentence's argument into any number of patterns in the cluster. Paraphrase can also be generated through the use of phrase-based translation as proposed by Bannard and Callison-Burch |
19,989 | Cobalt bomb As a result, the concept of "overkill"—the idea that one can simply estimate the destruction and fallout created by a thermonuclear weapon of the size postulated by Leo Szilard's "cobalt bomb" thought experiment by extrapolating from the effects of thermonuclear weapons of smaller yields—is fallacious. Assume a cobalt bomb deposits intense fallout causing a dose rate of 10 sieverts (Sv) per hour. At this dose rate, any unsheltered person exposed to the fallout would receive a lethal dose in about 30 minutes (assuming a median lethal dose of 5 Sv). People in well-built shelters would be safe due to radiation shielding. In practice it is unlikely that people would simply sit and wait for nuclear decay to go to completion, as in all historical fallout cases, decontamination of valuable land has occurred. This is most commonly done with the use of simple equipment such as lead glass covered excavators and bulldozers, similar to those employed in the Lake Chagan project. By skimming off the thin layer of fallout on the topsoil surface and burying it in the likes of a deep trench along with isolating it from ground water sources, the gamma air dose is cut by orders of magnitude |
19,990 | High-speed camera Even higher speed imaging is possible using specialized electronic charge-coupled device (CCD) imaging systems, which can achieve speeds of over 25 million fps. These cameras, however, still use rotating mirrors, like their older film counterparts. Solid state cameras can achieve speeds of up to 10 million fps. All development in high-speed cameras is now focused on digital video cameras which have many operational and cost benefits over film cameras. In 2010 researchers built a camera exposing each frame for two trillionths of a second (picoseconds), for an effective frame rate of half a trillion fps (femto-photography). Modern high-speed cameras operate by converting the incident light (photons) into a stream of electrons which are then deflected onto a photoanode, back into photons, which can then be recorded onto either film or CCD. High-speed cameras are frequently used in science in order to characterize events which happen too fast for traditional film speeds. Biomechanics employs such cameras to capture high-speed animal movements, such as jumping by frogs and insects, suction feeding in fish, the strikes of mantis shrimp, and the aerodynamic study of pigeons' helicopter-like movements using motion analysis of the resulting sequences from one or more cameras to characterize the motion in either 2-D or 3-D |
19,991 | Information Doesn't Want to Be Free Information Doesn’t Want to Be Free is a 2014 non-fiction book by science fiction writer and Internet activist Cory Doctorow. In the book, he advocates for less restrictions on intellectual property on the Internet. He states that "[i]nformation doesn’t want to be free...people do.” Doctorow disagrees with claims by creators and creative industry representatives that downloading and streaming of content online (e.g., songs) is hurting creators and creative industries. Doctorow argues that a "free and open digital culture" provides a net benefit to society. Movie and music industries have tried to stop online pirated sharing of their content. Similarly, book authors have tried to prevent their texts from being made available on the Internet. Doctorow argues that an open Internet is like a musician or street performer busking on the street. If people passing by enjoy the performance, they put money in the hat. Yes, some people will listen and then leave without putting money in the hat. But enough fans will put money in the hat. Doctorow claims that this analogy will work on the Internet. He says that just because the Internet and computers make it easy to copy and post content online, this doesn't mean that users will pirate content. Doctorow says digital locks on content do not reduce piracy; he argues that digital locks provoke piracy. |
19,992 | Desi Namu Similarly when an amount is paid to or received from someone and their name is forgotten, the same in debited or credited to Shree Khate and when the name is remembered, the name of the person is inserted in the blank space. system uses months and year of Vikram Samvat which comprises the twelve-month period from Kartik to Aso. Even in this system, the dates according to English calendar are written. (According to Income Tax Law in India, all accounts must be closed annually on 31 March. Hence traders keeping books under Desi Nama also keep their accounting year from 1 April to 31 March now.) Leaves (pages) can be added or removed as required. This is appropriate for small traders. They can get the benefit of double entry system by making minor changes. Alas, this means that anybody can tamper with them. Hence the bound books with page numbers used in double entry must be used in desi nama also. There is no system of columnar book-keeping. Where various items are dealt in, it is convenient to have columnar books. e.g. if a person deals in hosiery and cutlery, it will be convenient to have two columns in Jama Nondh for recording separate purchases of these two items. Vouchers for all transactions are not systematically filed and maintained nor entered into the main ledger (Khatavahi). This makes a detailed audit trail impossible. It fails to satisfy the requirements of modern times. Particularly, it is not useful for decision-making in modern big business units. western India [Gujarat, Rajasthan etc |
19,993 | Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction The Terminator film franchise (first introduced in 1984) depicts an artificial intelligence called Skynet becoming self-aware in 1997 and trying to exterminate humanity by instigating nuclear war between the United States and Russia, which results in the death of three billion people. Many of the survivors eventually band together to destroy Skynet and its army of robots (called "terminators"). The series follows resistance leader John Connor and his mother, Sarah Connor, and their adventures before and after the nuclear strike (called "Judgment Day" in the film series). CBS produced the TV series "Jericho" in 2006–2008, which focused on the survival of the town after 23 American cities were destroyed by nuclear weapons. The Cartoon Network series "Adventure Time" (which began airing in 2010) takes place a thousand years in a future after a nuclear war (referred to as "The Great Mushroom War") where once existent but eventually forgotten magic is recreated and humans are nearly wiped out with all kinds of creatures that had taken their place. Tom Hanks' 2011 web series "Electric City" is a story based on a post-apocalyptic world. In this world, a group of matriarchs (the "Knitting Society") impose an altruistic but oppressive society to counter the aftermath of a brutal war that brings down modern civilization. However, in time, even this new "utopian" order is ultimately called into question by the inhabitants of the new society |
19,994 | Confucianism Didier and David Pankenier relate the shapes of both the ancient Chinese characters for Di and Tian to the patterns of stars in the northern skies, either drawn, in Didier's theory by connecting the constellations bracketing the north celestial pole as a square, or in Pankenier's theory by connecting some of the stars which form the constellations of the Big Dipper and broader Ursa Major, and Ursa Minor (Little Dipper). Cultures in other parts of the world have also conceived these stars or constellations as symbols of the origin of things, the supreme godhead, divinity and royal power. The supreme godhead was also identified with the dragon, symbol of unlimited power ("qi"), of the "protean" primordial power which embodies both yin and yang in unity, associated to the constellation Draco which winds around the north ecliptic pole, and slithers between the Little and Big Dipper. By the 6th century BCE the power of Tian and the symbols that represented it on earth (architecture of cities, temples, altars and ritual cauldrons, and the Zhou ritual system) became "diffuse" and claimed by different potentates in the Zhou states to legitimise economic, political, and military ambitions. Divine right no longer was an exclusive privilege of the Zhou royal house, but might be bought by anyone able to afford the elaborate ceremonies and the old and new rites required to access the authority of Tian |
19,995 | Pepper spray A study of five often-recommended treatments for skin pain (Maalox, 2% lidocaine gel, baby shampoo, milk, or water) concluded that: ...there was no significant difference in pain relief provided by five different treatment regimens. Time after exposure appeared to be the best predictor for decrease in pain... To avoid rubbing the spray into the skin, thereby prolonging the burning sensation, and, in order to not spread the compound to other parts of the body, victims should try to avoid touching affected areas. There are also wipes manufactured for the express purpose of serving to decontaminate someone having received a dose of pepper spray. Many ambulance services and emergency departments use baby shampoo to remove the spray and with generally good effect. Some of the OC and CS will remain in the respiratory system, but a recovery of vision and the coordination of the eyes can be expected within 7 to 15 minutes. Some "triple-action" pepper sprays also contain "tear gas" (CS gas), which can be neutralized with sodium metabisulfite (Campden tablets, used in homebrewing), though it is not water-soluble either and must be washed off using the same procedure as for pepper spray. antidotes exist; examples include capsazepine, ruthenium red, and other TRPV1 antagonists. typically comes in canisters, which are often small enough to be carried or concealed in a pocket or purse. can also be purchased concealed in items such as rings |
19,996 | War of the currents Ottó Bláthy also invented the first AC electricity meter. The reliability of this type of AC technology received impetus after the Ganz Works electrified Rome, a large metropolis, in 1886. In North America the inventor and entrepreneur George Westinghouse entered the electric lighting business in 1884 when he started to develop a DC system and hired William Stanley, Jr. to work on it. Westinghouse became aware of the new European transformer based AC systems in 1885 when he read about them in the UK technical journal "Engineering". He grasped that AC combined with transformers meant greater economies of scale could be achieved with large centralized power plants transmitting stepped up voltage very long distances to be used in arc lighting as well as lower voltage home and commercial incandescent lighting supplied via a "step down" transformer at the other end. Westinghouse saw a way to build a truly competitive system instead of simply building another barely competitive DC lighting system using patents just different enough to get around the Edison patents. The Edison DC system of centralized DC plants with their short transmission range also meant there was a patchwork of un-supplied customers between Edison's plants that Westinghouse could easily supply with AC power. Westinghouse purchased the US patents rights to the Gaulard-Gibbs transformer and imported several of those as well as Siemens AC generators to begin experimenting with an AC-based lighting system in Pittsburgh |
19,997 | Gupta art The Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara continued a late phase through at least most of the Gupta period, having also been a formative influence. Very important rock-cut sites outside the Gupta Empire proper, to the south, are the Ajanta Caves and Elephanta Caves, both mostly created in the Gupta period, and the Ellora Caves which were probably begun around the end of it. As it was mainly restricted to the Gangetic plain, the vast Gupta territories included relatively few rock-cut sites with much sculpture. The later Ajanta style of sculpture is somewhat heavy, but sometimes "awe-inspiring" in the large seated shrine Buddhas, but other smaller figures are often very fine, as is the ornamental carving on columns and door-frames. When combined with the painted walls, the effect can be considered over-decorated, and lacking "motifs on a larger scale to serve as focal points". The main internal carving was probably completed by 478, though votive figures to the sides of many cave entrances may be later. The Ajanta style is only seen at a few other sites nearby. After work ended there much of the skilled workforce, or their descendants, probably ended up working at Elephanta and then Ellora. Unlike the series of caves side by side at Ajanta, the main interest at Elephanta is the largest cave, a huge Shiva temple, and above all the colossal triple-bust ("trimurti") of Shiva, tall, which "because it is so amazingly skilfully placed in relation to the various external entrances .. |
19,998 | Psalm 51 The Miserere was a frequently used text in Catholic liturgical music before the Second Vatican Council. Most of the settings, which are often used at Tenebrae, are in a simple falsobordone style. During the Renaissance many composers wrote settings. The earliest known polyphonic setting, probably dating from the 1480s, is by Johannes Martini, a composer working in the Este court in Ferrara. The extended polyphonic setting by Josquin des Prez, probably written in 1503/1504 in Ferrara, was likely inspired by the prison meditation "Infelix ego" by Girolamo Savonarola, who had been burned at the stake just five years before. Later in the 16th century Orlande de Lassus wrote an elaborate setting as part of his "Penitential Psalms", and Palestrina, Andrea Gabrieli, Giovanni Gabrieli, and Carlo Gesualdo also wrote settings. Antonio Vivaldi may have written a setting or settings, but such composition(s) have been lost, with only two introductory motets remaining. One of the best-known settings of the Miserere is the 17th century version by Roman School composer Gregorio Allegri. According to a famous story, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, aged only fourteen, heard the piece performed once, on April 11, 1770, and after going back to his lodging for the night was able to write out the entire score from memory. He went back a day or two later with his draft to correct some errors. That the final chorus comprises a ten-part harmony underscores the prodigiousness of the young Mozart's musical genius |
19,999 | Women's history It coordinated efforts across the South to tell the story of the women on the Confederate home front, while the male historians spent their time with battles and generals. The women emphasized female activism, initiative, and leadership. They reported that when all the men left for war, the women took command, found ersatz and substitute foods, rediscovered their old traditional skills with the spinning wheel when factory cloth became unavailable, and ran all the farm or plantation operations. They faced danger without having menfolk in the traditional role of their protectors. Historian Jacquelyn Dowd Hall argue that the UDC was a powerful promoter of women's history: The work of women scholars was ignored by the male-dominated history profession until the 1960s, when the first breakthroughs came. Gerda Lerner in 1963 offered the first regular college course in women's history. The field of women's history exploded dramatically after 1970, along with the growth of the new social history and the acceptance of women into graduate programs in history departments. In 1972, Sarah Lawrence College began offering a Master of Arts Program in Women's History, founded by Gerda Lerner, which was the first American graduate degree in the field. Another important development was to integrate women into the history of race and slavery |
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