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21st-century society is completely embedded within a technological context, which makes the understanding and evaluation of technological self efficacy critical. Indeed, nearly half of Americans own smartphones and this trend towards technology use is not limited to the United States; instead cell phone, computer, and internet use is becoming increasingly common around the world. Technology is particularly prevalent in the workplace and learning environments. At work, 62% of employed Americans use the internet and email, but workplace internet users either use the internet everyday (60%) or not at all (28%). Internet and email use is obviously influenced by work duties, but 96% of employed Americans use some sort of new communication technology on the job. Successful investment in technology is associated with enhanced productivity; however, full realization of technological potential commonly plagues organizations. In learning environments, college courses are more frequently being offered online. This is commonly referred to as distance education and implementation ranges from courses being supported by the web (teaching occurs predominantly through face-to-face instructor interactions with supplemental materials being offered on the web) to blended learning (significantly less face-to-face instructor interactions and more online instruction) to fully online (all instruction is conducted virtually with no face-to-face instructor interactions). A number of advantages are associated with distance learning such as increased flexibility and convenience, which allows individuals the opportunity to enroll in classes that would otherwise be off-limits due to geographical or personal reasons. Another commonly cited advantage is that instruction is self paced, which allows for personalized tailoring based on individual needs. However, these advantages are not likely to be realized if the individual is anxious about the method of instructional delivery and/or his or her expectation of success is low due to its technological component. Taken together, these two critical arenas discussed above (workplace and learning) reinforce the extent to which technology has impacted modern activities and consequently the importance of perceived beliefs in one's ability to master new technology. Success in everyday life often hinges on the utilization of technology and by definition, new technology will always be new. Therefore, this construct warrants review.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=35177195
| 1,614,897 |
924,908 |
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Facebook announced it would "remove false or debunked claims about the novel coronavirus which created a global pandemic", based on its fact-checking partners, collectively known as the International Fact-Checking Network. In 2021, Facebook reversed its ban on posts speculating the COVID-19 disease originated from Chinese labs, following developments in the investigations into the origin of COVID-19, including claims by the Biden administration, and a letter by eighteen scientists in the journal Science, saying a new investigation is needed because 'theories of accidental release from a lab and zoonotic spillover both remain viable." The policy led to an article by "The New York Post" that suggested a lab leak would be plausible to be initially labeled as "false information" on the platform. This reignited debates into the notion of scientific consensus. In an article published by the medical journal The BMJ, journalist Laurie Clarke said "The contentious nature of these decisions is partly down to how social media platforms define the slippery concepts of misinformation versus disinformation. This decision relies on the idea of a scientific consensus. But some scientists say that this smothers heterogeneous opinions, problematically reinforcing a misconception that science is a monolith." David Spiegelhalter, the Winton Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk at Cambridge University, argued that "behind closed doors, scientists spend the whole time arguing and deeply disagreeing on some fairly fundamental things". Clarke further argued that "The binary idea that scientific assertions are either correct or incorrect has fed into the divisiveness that has characterised the pandemic."
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=595273
| 924,422 |
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It is revealed that Hector actually died (while Cindy was being held in the bunker) when a neighbor attempted to summon a demon in his apartment block, resulting in him wandering the Material World and only able to manage tangibility when in combat. Cindy's colleagues Rafferty and Lola at Fact Channel News discover her secret identity and Cindy embraces this opportunity to open up to them, which helps relief some of her feelings of loneliness in the world. Rafferty reveals that they have discovered Dr. Kapoor's lab, which has been abandoned for months but has a secret benefactor continually paying the rent. The three of them travel to the labs location, which unbeknownst to them is part of a trap for Silk by a villain called Fang. Shortly after they arrive at the lab, they discover a dimensional doorway which leads they to the Negative Zone. Upon journeying to the Negative Zone, Silk, Rafferty, and Lola relish the adventurous experience and befriend a medieval dragon called David. David explains the continuing war of the Red Knight against the evil forces of the Ash King and his army. He caught the scent of their arrival, which mimicked the arrival of a previously three (from the outer world) years ago. The three aid the Red Knight. After the battle is won, with the defeat of the Ash King, the Red King is revealed to be Cindy's mother Nari Moon. Nari explains to Cindy that she and her father, who has become a prisoner of the Ash King some time previously, had originally traveled to the Negative Zone in search of a blue substance they believed could be synthesized into an antidote for the spider bite that Cindy received and which would have nullified her powers, thus removing the threat of the Inheritors. Cindy's father Albert Moon Sr. is soon liberated from his prison and soon after the five say there goodbyes to their friends in the Negative Zone and re-enter the dimensional doorway. Mockingbird gives financial help to the family in the form of an abode in which to live, and the family begin building bridges with each other which places Cindy at a crossroads on what to do with her life next. What Cindy doesn't know is that Albert Moon Sr. is in possession of the mysterious blue substance and delivers it to Fang who claims it is time to "put an end to Silk once and for all..."
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=44952377
| 241,292 |
1,598,768 |
Azurest South is considered a rare example of the International Style in Virginia and displays her interest in "avant-garde" design. Meredith also used Azurest South as her own art studio. She was active in documenting her lifestyle and accomplishments at Azurest through photographs. The archived documentation and remains of Azurest have inspired intersectional research on race, queerness, and spatial design during the Jim Crow Era. Also, she used her aesthetic and artistic talent to coordinate color schemes and draw blueprints for several campus buildings. For example, she worked with the Alumni House Committee from 1949 on in proposing the creation of an Alumni House. After her proposals were turned down, she decided to give half of Azurest South to the Alumni Association after her death, hoping it would be used as an Alumni House, as it actually is today. Meredith also worked as an advisor of interior decoration on the local better homes Committee. In 1947, Meredith started developing a 120 lot subdivision in Sag Harbor called Azurest North together with her older sister Maude. Azurest North was created as a vacation destination for middle class African Americans. In order to develop Azurest North, the two sisters and other developers formed a group, called Azurest Syndicate, which worked to create an African American leisure community. Lots were sold to investors who built cottages in Sag Harbor. Meredith designed at least two of these cottages. Terry Cottage, which belonged to her sister Maude Terry and was built in 1949 was designed with similar formal aspects to Azurest South. Edendot, which belonged to her friends Ed and Dot Spaulding was a Prairie Style building. Following her retirement, she took a post as the official secretary of the Azurest Syndicate Inc. Azurest South became the home of the Virginia State University National Alumni Association in 1986, and the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1993. Meredith's historical highway marker has been approved by the Department of Historic Resources in 2008.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=48314474
| 1,597,868 |
965,064 |
On 14 June 1957, following Eisenhower's suggestion that existing detection measures were inadequate to ensure compliance, the Soviet Union put forth a plan for a two-to-three-year testing moratorium. The moratorium would be overseen by an international commission reliant on national monitoring stations, but, importantly, would involve no on-the-ground inspections. Eisenhower initially saw the deal as favorable, but eventually came to see otherwise. In particular, Strauss and Teller, as well as Ernest Lawrence and Mark Muir Mills, protested the offer. At a meeting with Eisenhower in the White House, the group argued that testing was necessary for the US to eventually develop bombs that produced no fallout ("clean bombs"). The group repeated the oft-cited fact, which was supported by Freeman Dyson, that the Soviet Union could conduct secret nuclear tests. In 1958, at the request of Igor Kurchatov, Soviet nuclear physicist and weapons designer Andrei Sakharov published a pair of widely circulated academic papers challenging the claim of Teller and others that a clean, fallout-free nuclear bomb could be developed, due to the formation of carbon-14 when nuclear devices are detonated in the air. A one-megaton clean bomb, Sakharov estimated, would cause 6,600 deaths over 8,000 years, figures derived largely from estimates on the quantity of carbon-14 generated from atmospheric nitrogen and the contemporary risk models at the time, along with the assumption that the world population is "thirty billion persons" in a few thousand years. In 1961, Sakharov was part of the design team for a 50 megaton "clean bomb", which has become known as the Tsar Bomba, detonated over the island of Novaya Zemlya.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30592
| 964,555 |
1,858,735 |
The building is built in Indiana limestone, three stories high with an intermediate mezzanine level, low pitched green tile roof. A very careful Renaissance building that marks an early response to the Renaissance revival of the early twentieth century associated with "Ecole de Beaux Arts Classicism." A serious building with triumphal arch entrance and a grand flight of exterior stairs; the stairs are flanked by large lamps on copper tripods. Simple columns with Ionic capitols. The building is unified by a continuous cornice with a dentil course and egg and dart molding below that. Inside there is a large oval foyer and high skylighted room beyond, currently used as a display gallery. Marble has been used on the floors and some walls. Public spaces carry the classical motif throughout in moldings, panels, engaged columns and pilasters with appropriate capitols and bases. The west side of Bond Hall, opposite the main entrance, features a semi circular courtyard. On the facade, there is a sculpture of Vitruvius, over an inscription featuring a quote from his De architectura: Architects who sought to be skilled with their hands without formal education have never been able to reach a position of authority in return for their labors; while those who relied only upon Reasoning and Scholarship were clearly pursuing the shadow, not the substance. But those who have a thorough knowledge of both, like men fully armed, have more quickly attained their goals with authority (Vitruvius, Ten Books on Architecture, I.II.II).
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=51621719
| 1,857,667 |
758,190 |
In 2009, the college was given its third $5,000 grant allocation by the Hobart Center for Foodservice Sustainability which cited Bates as "having the best sustainability program among numerous entrants nationwide". In 2010, the college was named one of 15 colleges in the United States to the "Green Honor Roll", by Princeton Review. Bates mitigates 99% of emissions via electrical consumption and purchases all of its energy from Maine Renewable Resources. The college expended $1.1 million of its endowment to install lighting retrofits, occupancy sensors, motor system replacements and energy generating mechanisms. Select buildings at the college are open 24/7, thus requiring extra energy, due to this the college has implemented technology that places buildings on "stand-by" mode while minimum occupancy is attained to preserve energy. The practice is set to reduce the college's overall emissions levels by 5 to 10 percent. Overall, the academic buildings and residential halls are equipped with day-lighting techniques, motion sensors, and efficient heating systems. Bates expended $1.5 million to implement a central plant that provides steam for heating for up to 80% of all on-campus establishments. The central plant is equipped with a modernized biomass systems and a miniature back-pressure steam turbine which reduces campus electricity consumption by 5%. The college also installed a $2.7 million 900kW hyper-roterized turbine that accounts for nearly one tenth of the campus' entire energy consumption. Bates was the first food-service operation in higher education to join the Green Restaurant Association. In 2013, the environmental practices of the college's dining services were placed along with Harvard University, and Northeastern University, as the best in the United States by the Green Restaurant Association; it earned three out of three stars, the only educational institution in Maine to do so.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=319763
| 757,784 |
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The age of exploration, seen from the European point of view, introduced major economic changes. The Columbian exchange resulted in Europe adopting new crops, as well as shaking up traditional cultural ideas and practices. The commercial revolution continued, with Europeans developing mercantilism and European imports of luxury goods (notably spices and fine cloth) from eastern and southern Asia switching from crossing Islamic territory in the present-day Middle East to passing the Cape of Good Hope. Spain proved adept at plundering the gold and silver of the Americas, but incompetent at converting its new wealth into a vibrant domestic economy, and declined as an economic power. From the 1600s, the centres of commerce and manufactures shifted definitively from the Mediterranean to the centres of shipping and colonisation on the western Atlantic coastal fringe: economic activity went into a relative decline in 17th century Italy and Turkey - but to the advantage of Portugal, Spain, France, the Dutch Republic and England/Britain. In eastern Europe, Russia suppressed the Tatar slave-trade, expanded commerce in luxury furs from Siberia and rivalled the Scandinavian and German states in the Baltic. Colonial goods like sugar and tobacco from the Americas came to play a role in the European economy. Meanwhile, changes in financial practice (especially in the Netherlands and in England), the second agricultural revolution in Britain and technological innovations in France, Prussia and England not only promoted economic changes and expansion in themselves, but also fostered the beginnings of the industrial revolution.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=21992152
| 1,200,768 |
246,061 |
Medical ultrasound uses high frequency broadband sound waves in the megahertz range that are reflected by tissue to varying degrees to produce (up to 3D) images. This is commonly associated with imaging the fetus in pregnant women. Uses of ultrasound are much broader, however. Other important uses include imaging the abdominal organs, heart, breast, muscles, tendons, arteries and veins. While it may provide less anatomical detail than techniques such as CT or MRI, it has several advantages which make it ideal in numerous situations, in particular that it studies the function of moving structures in real-time, emits no ionizing radiation, and contains speckle that can be used in elastography. Ultrasound is also used as a popular research tool for capturing raw data, that can be made available through an ultrasound research interface, for the purpose of tissue characterization and implementation of new image processing techniques. The concepts of ultrasound differ from other medical imaging modalities in the fact that it is operated by the transmission and receipt of sound waves. The high frequency sound waves are sent into the tissue and depending on the composition of the different tissues; the signal will be attenuated and returned at separate intervals. A path of reflected sound waves in a multilayered structure can be defined by an input acoustic impedance (ultrasound sound wave) and the Reflection and transmission coefficients of the relative structures. It is very safe to use and does not appear to cause any adverse effects. It is also relatively inexpensive and quick to perform. Ultrasound scanners can be taken to critically ill patients in intensive care units, avoiding the danger caused while moving the patient to the radiology department. The real-time moving image obtained can be used to guide drainage and biopsy procedures. Doppler capabilities on modern scanners allow the blood flow in arteries and veins to be assessed.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=234714
| 245,934 |
1,450,183 |
The Interwar years saw the academy push to modernize to meet the demands of the emerging technologies in warfare. One of the academy's most distinguished graduates and a decorated WWI combat soldier and leader, Douglas MacArthur, became Superintendent in 1919. He instituted sweeping reforms to the academic process, introducing a greater emphasis on history and humanities. He began the process of having instructors study at civilian institutions prior to serving at West Point and he provided more liberal leave and pass opportunities to the upper classes. He made major changes to the field training regimen and the Cadet Honor Committee was formed under his watch in 1922. MacArthur was a firm supporter of athletics at the academy, as he famously said "Upon the fields of friendly strife are sown the seeds that, upon other fields, on other days, will bear the fruits of victory". West Point became an officially accredited institution with the Association of American Universities in 1925 and in 1933 officially began granting the title of Bachelor of Science to all graduates. It was also just prior to World War II that the academy expanded the reservation boundaries, growing to the nearly that it comprises today. In 1935, the United States Congress increased the Corps of Cadets to 1,960. As more cadets filled the barracks and classrooms, another building program was undertaken and completed by 1938.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20793344
| 1,449,367 |
732,550 |
A plant species beset with anachronistic features whose range had already become so restricted that it warranted classification as a glacial relict is "Torreya taxifolia". For this species, Barlow and Martin advocated for assisted migration poleward in an article published in "Wild Earth" in 2004, titled "Bring "Torreya taxifolia" North Now". In 2005 Barlow and Lee Barnes (co-founders of Torreya Guardians) began obtaining seeds from mature horticultural plantings in states northward of Florida and Georgia and distributing seeds to volunteer planters whose lands contained forested habitats potentially suitable for this native of Florida. Documentation of seed distribution and ongoing results, state by state, are publicly available on the Torreya Guardians website.) Articles published in "Scientific American" in 2009 and in "Landscape Architecture Magazine" in 2014 referred to the actions of Torreya Guardians as an example of "rewilding". Connie Barlow expressly referred to such efforts as "rewilding" in the 2020 book by Zach St. George, "The Journeys of Trees". Her earliest reference to the term "rewilding" was in her 1999 essay, "Rewilding for Evolution", in "Wild Earth". Because part of Barlow's personal seed plantings occurred on private land for which she did not expressly obtain planting permission, this form of rewilding action could be referred to as "guerrilla rewilding", which is an adaptation of the established term guerrilla gardening. One example of guerrilla rewilding was reported in 2022. "Himantoglossum robertianum" is a tall orchid native to the Mediterranean Basin, but it is documented growing wild in Great Britain. As reported in "The Guardian", "It is not believed these plants arrived naturally, but rather by someone scattering seeds about 15 years ago."
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20690782
| 732,163 |
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The school has been affiliated with some major inventions and innovations including: the Panama Canal locks; lockmaking; the Brooklyn Bridge cables; cable-lift elevators; cordless phones; ATMs; bar codes; laser; radar; penicillin; polymers; elevator brakes; lightweight, ultra durable automotive brake rotor; light beer; cardiac defibrillator; artificial cardiac pacemaker; RFID; contact lenses; zoom lens; first telephone handset; commercial television; non-stick coating as an application of Teflon; suspension system for the largest radio telescope; microwave technology; Apollo Lunar Module, the first, and to date only, crewed spacecraft to operate exclusively in the airless vacuum of space; X-ray crystallography; structure of the DNA molecule; submarine; modern refrigerator; A/C generator; electric motors; transformer; submarine communications facilities; development of the artificial sweetener aspartame; development of nontoxic processes to create food colorings and remove caffeine from coffee; the quasi-complementary (transistor) amplifier circuit; lateral transistor; the wireless microphone; as well as Eugene Kleiner’s first semiconductor (and much of the Silicon Valley), and Spencer Trask's investing and supporting of Thomas Edison's invention of the electric light bulb.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=381909
| 889,472 |
118,671 |
A good example of nonlinear electromagnetics is in high energy dense plasmas, where vortical phenomena occur which seemingly violate the second law of thermodynamics by increasing the energy gradient within the electromagnetic field and violate Maxwell's laws by creating ion currents which capture and concentrate their own and surrounding magnetic fields. In particular Lorentz force law, which elaborates Maxwell's equations is violated by these force free vortices. These apparent violations are due to the fact that the traditional conservation laws in classical and quantum electrodynamics (QED) only display linear U(1) symmetry (in particular, by the extended Noether theorem, conservation laws such as the laws of thermodynamics need not always apply to dissipative systems, which are expressed in gauges of higher symmetry). The second law of thermodynamics states that in a closed linear system entropy flow can only be positive (or exactly zero at the end of a cycle). However, negative entropy (i.e. increased order, structure or self-organisation) can spontaneously appear in an open nonlinear thermodynamic system that is far from equilibrium, so long as this emergent order accelerates the overall flow of entropy in the total system. The 1977 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to thermodynamicist Ilya Prigogine for his theory of dissipative systems that described this notion. Prigogine described the principle as "order through fluctuations" or "order out of chaos". It has been argued by some that all emergent order in the universe from galaxies, solar systems, planets, weather, complex chemistry, evolutionary biology to even consciousness, technology and civilizations are themselves examples of thermodynamic dissipative systems; nature having naturally selected these structures to accelerate entropy flow within the universe to an ever-increasing degree. For example, it has been estimated that human body is 10,000 times more effective at dissipating energy per unit of mass than the sun.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=84400
| 118,625 |
64,284 |
The titles of Galileo's work "Two New Sciences" and Johannes Kepler's "New Astronomy" underscored the atmosphere of change that took hold in the 17th century as Aristotle was dismissed in favor of novel methods of inquiry into the natural world. Bacon was instrumental in popularizing this change; he argued that people should use the arts and sciences to gain dominion over nature. To achieve this, he wrote that "human life [must] be endowed with discoveries and powers." He defined natural philosophy as "the knowledge of Causes and secret motions of things; and enlarging the bounds of Human Empire, to the effecting of all things possible." Bacon proposed that scientific inquiry be supported by the state and fed by the collaborative research of scientists, a vision that was unprecedented in its scope, ambition, and forms at the time. Natural philosophers came to view nature increasingly as a mechanism that could be taken apart and understood, much like a complex clock. Natural philosophers including Isaac Newton, Evangelista Torricelli and Francesco Redi conducted experiments focusing on the flow of water, measuring atmospheric pressure using a barometer and disproving spontaneous generation. Scientific societies and scientific journals emerged and were spread widely through the printing press, touching off the scientific revolution. Newton in 1687 published his "The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy", or "Principia Mathematica", which set the groundwork for physical laws that remained current until the 19th century.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=38890
| 64,259 |
1,980,863 |
Murnane has co-authored more than 500 articles in peer reviewed journals, with her work receiving ~35000 cites. Margaret is a founder of the field of ultrafast x-ray science, having made transformational contributions to this area of research in every decade since the 1980s. She is also currently the most-accomplished woman laboratory experimental physicist in the US, further distinguished by having independently developed her university-based laboratory effort with Prof. Kapteyn. In their lab, Murnane, Kapteyn, and their students make lasers whose beams flash like a strobe light – except that each flash is a trillion times faster. These lasers, like camera flashes, make it possible to record the motions of atoms in chemical reactions, and of atoms and electrons in materials systems. Some of her lasers can generate pulses of less than 10 femtoseconds. Using the very high peak power that it is possible to create with a femtosecond laser, it becomes possible to coherently upconvert light to much shorter wavelengths, in the extreme ultraviolet and soft x-ray region of the spectrum. This high harmonic generation process makes possible for the first time what is essentially a tabletop-scale x-ray laser light source. Prof. Murnane was the first to explore the use of femtosecond lasers for x-ray generation, and has made substantive pioneering contributions to many aspects of this area of research, including the science and fundamental understanding of the high harmonic process, the laser technology required to use this process to implement practical tabletop light sources for applications, and in applying this new source to make fundamental discoveries in areas ranging from basic atomic and chemical dynamics, to materials dynamics, to nanoimaging. She is also a founder the area now known as experimental "Attosecond Science," having performed foundational experiments that for the first time clearly demonstrated the ability to manipulate electron dynamics with attosecond precision. She is also co-founder of the laser company KMLabs, Inc., for which Intel Capital is a co-investor, and which has commercialized these technologies for research and possible industrial applications in nanometrology.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14028886
| 1,979,725 |
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However, with the security situation in South Vietnam continuing to deteriorate, the US increased its involvement to 200,000 combat troops by early 1965. Australia also committed ground forces, dispatching the 1 RAR to serve with the US 173rd Airborne Brigade in Bien Hoa province in June 1965 and it subsequently fought a number of significant actions, including Gang Toi, Operation Crimp and Suoi Bong Trang. In March 1966, the Australian government announced the deployment of a brigade-sized unit—the 1st Australian Task Force (1 ATF)—to replace 1 RAR. Included were a large number of conscripts, under the increasingly controversial National Service Scheme. Consisting of two infantry battalions as well as armour, aviation, artillery and other support arms, the task force was assigned primary responsibility for its own area and was based at Nui Dat, in Phuoc Tuy Province. Included were the Iroquois helicopters of No. 9 Squadron RAAF. At the Battle of Long Tan on 18 August 1966, D Company, 6 RAR with considerable artillery support held off and defeated a Viet Cong force that was at least six times bigger than itself. 18 Australians were killed and 24 wounded, while 245 communist dead were later recovered from the battlefield. The battle allowed the Australians to gain dominance over Phuoc Tuy Province and 1 ATF was not fundamentally challenged again. Regardless, during February 1967 the Australians suffered their heaviest casualties in the war to that point, losing 16 men killed and 55 wounded in a single week, the bulk during Operation Bribie.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1323516
| 534,907 |
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Ghiorso invented numerous techniques and machines for isolating and identifying heavy elements atom-by-atom. He is generally credited with implementing the multichannel analyzer and the technique of recoil to isolate reaction products, although both of these were significant extensions of previously understood concepts. His concept for a new type of accelerator, the Omnitron, is acknowledged to have been a brilliant advance that probably would have enabled the Berkeley lab to discover numerous additional new elements, but the machine was never built, a victim of the evolving political landscape of the 1970s in the U.S. that de-emphasized basic nuclear research and greatly expanded research on environmental, health, and safety issues. Partially as a result of the failure to build the Omnitron, Ghiorso (together with colleagues Bob Main and others) conceived the joining of the HILAC and the Bevatron, which he called the Bevalac. This combination machine, an ungainly articulation across the steep slope at the Rad Lab, provided heavy ions at GeV energies, thereby enabling development of two new fields of research: "high-energy nuclear physics," meaning that the compound nucleus is sufficiently hot to exhibit collective dynamical effects, and heavy ion therapy, in which high-energy ions are used to irradiate tumors in cancer patients. Both of these fields have expanded into activities in many laboratories and clinics worldwide.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=164644
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In January 2007 Caron, Scheltema, et al. published a vigorous reply to Butterfield's arguments – near the end they wrote, "Many of Butterfield’s misconceptions might well have been avoided had he taken the opportunity to examine all the new material that formed the basis of our study. …" They said they had found in body fossils of "Odontogriphus" visible traces of the membrane on which its tooth-rows were mounted; in their opinion this was clear evidence of a basic belt-like radula assembly with regularly spaced tooth-rows, a feature unique to molluscs. On the other hand, they wrote, eunicid polychaetes' jaws have only the vaguest similarity to radulae, and other annelids' jaws grow continuously without replacement; and they supported this with a point-by-point comparison of "Odontogriphus"’ feeding apparatus with that of the dorvilleid polychaetes which Butterfield claimed it resembled. In answer to Butterfield's claim that the respiratory organs round the foot could not be molluscan ctenidia because these mainly cellular structures would not have fossilized in the Burgess Shale conditions, they wrote that: fairly soft cellular tissue belonging to the stomach is fossilized in many "Odontogriphus" specimens; some molluscan gills are stiffened by non-cellular material, for example in polyplacophorans. They pointed out that the wrinkles that appear across the body in views from the top occur only in the mid-section, and there is no sign that the tough "shell" plate on the animal's back was segmented; hence in their opinion "Odontogriphus" could not have been an annelid. On the other hand, wrinkles are seen in the feet of dead chitons. "Wiwaxia", they argued, was clearly not segmented, as the numbers of sclerites in its three concentric groups did not match at all. They criticized Butterfield's main argument for "shoehorning" "Wiwaxia" into the polychaetes, that its sclerites were secreted by microvillae; such structures, they wrote, were also found in several groups of molluscs. Finally, in their opinion the absence of "legs" in "Wiwaxia" ruled out a close relationship with polychaetes.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=6105310
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No famines occurred for over forty years after 1949: from approximately 1950 to 1980 Malawi, like much of inter-tropical Africa, enjoyed adequate and reliable rains. Food security seemed assured: the only years when consumption exceeded production were in 1963, 1970, 1975, 1976 and 1980 and none were as serious as 1949 or later shortages. In 1961, in the approach to independence, the colonial-era marketing boards were replaced by the Farmers Marketing Board with wide powers to buy, sell and process farm products, promote price stability and subsidise seed and fertilizer prices. Before 1969, it made no profits from its purchasing monopoly, but after this the Farmers Marketing Board and its successor, the Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (ADMARC), created in 1971, profited significantly. Smallholders had to support the high operating costs of ADMARC, much of whose income came from underpaying them. ADMARC only re-invested 5% of funds in smallholder farms, but subsidised tobacco estates, so that by the mid-1980s, it diverted two-thirds of its income to estates. Until 1979, it had sound finances: when tobacco prices collapsed, its lack of liquidity threatened its main creditors, Malawi's two commercial banks. From 1980, Malawi's rainfall tended to decrease and fall for shorter periods. As its rural population grew, food production only exceeded consumption in 1993 and annual maize consumption fell from 240 kilos in the 1960s to 160 kilos in the 1990s: this deficiency was only remedied by large increases in the root crop harvest after 1995. There was a paradox: Malawi's maize exports indicated food sufficiency, but increasing malnutrition did not.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=14543243
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The group is also notable for adaptations to the structures of their ear. The structure of their inner-ear is almost avian, with bird-like semicircular canals and an extended cochlea. For birds, an extended cochlea allows them to hear across an increased range of frequencies, suggesting a similar function in the ponderous therizinosaurids and also allowing them a good hearing and balance, which indeed, are traits better associated with carnivorous theropods. Furthermore, the lengthening of the cochlea, an adaptation which has independently evolved in a number of other theropod groups, is thought to further improve auditory acumen. The forebrain of therizinosaurids was fairly enlarged and developed with elongated olfactory bulbs. The adaptations to the inner-ear and forebrain of therizinosaurids likely served a number of functions, such as well-developed senses of smell, complex social behavior, increased alertness to the vocalizations of juveniles or even communicating with conspecifics, moreover, the large pneumatic chambers on the sensorial areas in the skulls of therizinosaurids ("Erlikosaurus" or "Nothronychus mckinleyi") indicates that the tympanic systems would result in increased and optimal low frequency sound reception, possibly infrasound. Such is the case of "N. mckinleyi", which had an average hearing frequency of 1100 to 1450 Hz and possible upper limits between 3000 and 3700 Hz. Features include not only extensive basicranial pneumaticity, but also the development of a basisphenoid bulla (hollow bony structure). In addition, the orientation of the horizontal semicircular canal relative to the horizontal orientation of the occipital condyle gave therizinosaurids a horizontal head posture that enabled binocular vision with overlapping visual fields. A vast majority of these senses were also well-developed in earlier coelurosaurs and other theropods, indicating that therizinosaurids inherited many of these traits from their small, carnivorous maniraptoran ancestors and retained the ancestral, carnivorous ear configuration to be used for their different and very specialized dietary purposes.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3812410
| 521,362 |
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One obstacle to the deployment of MAARS, and armed unmanned ground vehicles in general, is the reluctance of military leaders to utilize remote-controlled weapon systems at ground level. One concern is collateral damage, as 7.62 NATO bullets fired by the machine gun can travel further than sensors mounted on the robot. The Defense Department is in agreement that any lethal force applied by an unmanned system will be decided by an individual, not by the system autonomously. Ground combat commanders prefer to perfect autonomy for UGVs for supply purposes to lighten infantrymens' loads. Autonomous ground robots that could shoot have been compared to land mines, in that they can't be directly controlled. Although remote weapon systems have been successfully used on vehicles, there is question on how far a remote-controlled platform can be stretched, from a guard tower for perimeter defense or through a mobile platform. SWORDS robots deployed to Iraq were placed in fixed locations and behind sandbags, as senior officials were not comfortable using them to seek out and shoot enemy combatants. QinetiQ North America has said that despite press reports claiming that SWORDS was only there briefly, they were deployed for six years and performed the combat role of serving the protection of a site. The Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning asked for a demonstration of MAARS in fall 2013, and the Marine Corps is continuing to investigate the possibility of employing it as well. Army officers hope to use armed ground robots as part of an infantry squad, rather than a substitute for them. They plan to have an armed system in use by 2018.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26710120
| 1,298,948 |
1,146,005 |
The advantages were in the lower maintenance and fuel costs in ensuring that most engines were not worked to their limit, the permitting of standardised maintenance and inspection intervals (since individual locomotives did not have to be regularly assessed to ascertain their suitability for the work assigned to them) and the simplicity of rostering engines for work, as Midland shed managers could be confident that every engine they had available would be capable of the duty assigned. This allowed the Midland to greatly improve its punctuality and timekeeping - which had been poor in the late 19th century and a source of bad publicity - since the timetables and train loads could be drawn to also assume the standard 'worst case' locomotive power available, while most of the engines actually in service were in better condition than that. One upshot of the new management system was that the Midland followed the practice common on Rail transportation in the United States of putting the role of Motive Power Superintendent (responsible for managing and allocating the railway's locomotive stock in service) under the authority of the Operating Department (with overall responsibility for managing the railway's services and timetables in response to demand) rather than the role being subordinate to the Chief Mechanical Engineer (responsible for providing and maintaining locomotives) as was usual in British railway companies. This had the effect of Midland locomotive policy from approximately 1910 further formalising the concept of more frequent, lighter trains hauled by relatively small locomotives - a situation which favoured the goal of the Operating Department (greater frequency, flexibility and overall volume of services) at the expense of the Motive Power Superintendent's natural preference for a smaller number of more powerful locomotives (a smaller number of more easily-managed, less labour-intensive assets performing the same work) or the ability of the Derby works (under the CME) to design such locomotives.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=564296
| 1,145,403 |
1,329,821 |
After receiving her PhD, Bascom spent the next two years as an instructor and associate professor at Ohio State University teaching geology. Bascom then went on to Bryn Mawr College and founded the department of geology in 1895 which led to it becoming one of the best departments in the country. Bascom was appointed assistant on the U.S. Geological Survey and later was assigned that section of the Piedmont which lies in Maryland, Pennsylvania and part of New Jersey. In 1899 Bascom went on to teach petrography and by 1906 Bascom became a full professor and had an associate. Bascom spent many summers mapping the schists and gneisses of that area and studied the thin sections of the rocks both during summer and winter. This area of work came with great complexity, however Bascom's work and careful study provided much clarification. Throughout her career of thirty-three years, Bascom continued to work at Bryn Mawr College and retired when the college had just expanded its science building. By 1924, Bascom became a councillor of the Geological Society of America and in 1930 she was appointed as vice-president of that society making her the only woman to have ever held those offices. Bascom's career consisted of her being an editor of the "American Geologist", a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Research Council, as well as the Geophysical Union and many other scientific societies. Bascom had also written many short papers, some which were in the field of geomorphology. Bascom also taught at Hampton Institute of Negroes and American Indians, today renamed Hampton University (1884–1885), Rockford College (1887-1889) and Ohio State University (1903–1895).
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=6925880
| 1,329,092 |
2,026,833 |
In 1966, in a book entitled Reflectance Spectroscopy, Harry Hecht had pointed out that the formulation formula_9 led to formula_10, which enabled plotting formula_1 "against the wavelength or wave-number for a particular sample" giving a curve corresponding "to the real absorption determined by transmission measurements, except for a displacement by formula_12 in the ordinate direction." However, in data presented, "the marked deviation in the remission function ... in the region of large extinction is obvious." He listed various reasons given by other authors for this "failure ... to remain valid in strongly absorbing materials", including: "incomplete diffusion in the scattering process"; failure to use "diffuse illumination; "increased proportion of regular reflection"; but concluded that "notwithstanding the above mentioned difficulties, ... the remission function should be a linear function of the concentration at a given wavelength for a constant particle size" though stating that "this discussion has been restricted entirely to the reflectance of homogeneous powder layers" though "equation systems for combination of inhomogeneous layers cannot be solved for the scattering and absorbing properties even in the simple case of a dual combination of sublayers. ... This means that the (Kubelka-Munk) theory fails to include, in an explicit manner, any dependence of reflection on particle size or shape or refractive index".
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=67525376
| 2,025,666 |
283,852 |
The first Tu-114, registration СССР-Л5611, was first shown to the West in 1958 at the Brussels World Exhibition. It later carried Nikita Khrushchev on his first trip to the United States in September 1959, the first such visit by any Soviet leader. The Tu-114 was still in the testing phase and had completed its first long range flight only four months earlier, after which postflight analysis found that hairline cracks had formed in the engines. Trusting the Soviet leadership to a still experimental aircraft was risky, but the only other option for a flight to the United States would be the short range Il-18 which would require multiple fueling stops. Although the Central Committee, Minister of Defense Malinovsky, and Khrushchev's personal pilot all considered it too risky to use the new aircraft, the Soviet premier insisted and aircraft designer Andrei Tupolev felt confident enough to put his son Alexei on the same flight. During Khrushchev's flight, a group of engineers were aboard the plane, operating diagnostic equipment to monitor the engines and verify that they were functioning correctly. Khrushchev later said, "We didn't publicize the fact that Tupolev's son was with us" for "to do so, would have meant giving explanations, and these might have been damaging to our image". When it arrived at Andrews Air Force Base, the ground crew found that the aircraft was so large and its landing gear so tall that they had no passenger steps high enough to reach the forward hatch. Khrushchev and his party were obliged to use the aircraft's own emergency escape ladder. The last flight of this particular plane was in 1968, and it is now on display at the Central Air Force Museum at Monino, outside of Moscow. Similar issues were experienced when the plane first landed at London and Paris airports, neither of which had hosted a plane of this size.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=229847
| 283,699 |
535,539 |
Quantitative PCR utilizes polymerase chain reaction chemistry to amplify viral DNA or RNA to produce high enough concentrations for detection and quantification by fluorescence. In general, quantification by qPCR relies on serial dilutions of standards of known concentration being analyzed in parallel with the unknown samples for calibration and reference. Quantitative detection can be achieved using a wide variety of fluorescence detection strategies, including sequence specific probes or non-specific fluorescent dyes such as SYBR Green. Sequence specific probes, such as TaqMan (developed by Applied Biosystems), Molecular Beacons, or Scorpion, bind only to the DNA of the appropriate sequence produced during the reaction. SYBR Green dye binds to all double-stranded DNA produced during the reaction. While SYBR Green is easy to use, its lack of specificity and lower sensitivity lead most labs to use probe-based qPCR detection schemes. There are many variations of qPCR including the comparative threshold method, which allows relative quantification through comparison of Ct values (PCR cycles that show statistically significant increases in the product) from multiple samples that include an internal standard. PCR amplifies all target nucleic acid, including ones originating from intact infectious viral particles, from defective viral particles as well as free nucleic acid in solution. Because of this, qPCR results (expressed in terms of genome copies/mL) are likely to be higher in quantity than TEM results. For viral quantification, the ratio of whole virions to copies of nucleic acid is seldom one to one. This is because during viral replication, the nucleic acid and viral proteins are not always produced in 1:1 ratio and viral assembly process results in complete virions as well as empty capsids and/or excess free viral genomes. In the example of foot-and-mouth disease virus, the ratio of whole virions to RNA copies within an actively replicating host cell is approximately 1:1000. Products for qPCR-based virus titration are available commercially through numerous companies (e.g. Invitrogen, Roche or Qiagen). Advantages of titration by qPCR include quick turnaround time (1–4 hours) and sensitivity (can detect much lower concentration of viruses than other methods).
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26069912
| 535,260 |
1,238,894 |
The Xbox 360 was set as "Oblivion"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s base platform, being the "easiest to develop for", in the words of Pete Hines; the PC was considered more like a "random amalgamation of graphics cards and RAM and processors", and poorly "defined". As they had done with previous games in the series, Bethesda threw out their old content and technology and began work anew. A new engine was envisioned, one which would take advantage of advanced lighting and shader routines, like high-dynamic-range rendering and specular mapping. The final product was shipped with an engine formed of a mixture of in-house tech and Numerical Design Limited's Gamebryo engine, "tricked out" in collaboration with Bethesda's graphics programmers and NDL. Cheng has described the game as "pixel-shader heavy", taking advantage of the feature in rendering "metal, wood, stone, blood, skin", in addition to water, which was the only use "Morrowind" made of the technology. In particular, "Oblivion" uses normal maps, diffuse maps, specular maps, and parallax maps, which Howard described as "kind of like displacement mapping". "Oblivion" makes use of Radiant AI, a new artificial intelligence system that allows non-player characters to react and interact with the world around them dynamically. General goals, such as "Eat at this city at 2pm" are given to NPCs, and NPCs are left to determine how to achieve them. The absence of individual scripting for each character allowed for the construction of a world on a much larger scale than other games had developed, and aided in the creation of what Todd Howard described as an "organic feel" for the game.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12164267
| 1,238,227 |
1,899,233 |
Existing renewable energy cooperatives have acknowledged these barriers and work to overcome them. One commonly used strategy is to create internal and external networks of RE co-ops. Since participation, conflict, and trust are relatively low hanging fruits to running a successful RE co-op, an internal alliance network can be effective in encouraging communication and engagement. This allows for members to talk to each other, offer advice, and discuss internal issues. External networks can help form partnerships to work through obstacles and provide guidance to each other. Partnerships with other RECs, NGOs, government groups, and other stakeholders can be extremely helpful in navigating the renewable energy realm. Furthermore, a strong alliance network encourages other members to join and make investors more likely to provide financial support. Different cooperatives utilize various financial structures to increase investment and returns. Some examples listed in the literature include investments in energy shares by the members in relation to the electricity used annually. These contributions go towards promoting new facilities and are promised to be returned to the members in full within 25 years with 0% interest. Others deduct whatever contributions members make from their monthly energy bills. More overarching mechanisms include Guarantee of Origin certificates (aka green certificates; renewable certificates) which allow cooperatives to sell energy consumed by its members as their own renewable energy, even if the energy was produce outside of the cooperative. Some countries are making strides to provide bank loans to cooperatives. Germany has Kreditanstalt Für Wiederaufbau (KfW), translated to German Development Banks that provide loans and capital to RECs, while also encouraging local banks to help out. The United Kingdom has a feed-in tariff system that guarantees the price per kilowatt for projects under five megawatts for 20 years and provides bank loans to cooperatives. Most strategies to overcome obstacles are therefore about uniting and educating the people while searching for financial answers.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=65691512
| 1,898,148 |
771,268 |
On January 23, 2009, Phase I clinical trials for transplantation of oligodendrocytes (a cell type of the brain and spinal cord) derived from human ESCs into spinal cord-injured individuals received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), marking it the world's first human ESC human trial. The study leading to this scientific advancement was conducted by Hans Keirstead and colleagues at the University of California, Irvine and supported by Geron Corporation of Menlo Park, CA, founded by Michael D. West, PhD. A previous experiment had shown an improvement in locomotor recovery in spinal cord-injured rats after a 7-day delayed transplantation of human ESCs that had been pushed into an oligodendrocytic lineage. The phase I clinical study was designed to enroll about eight to ten paraplegics who have had their injuries no longer than two weeks before the trial begins, since the cells must be injected before scar tissue is able to form. The researchers emphasized that the injections were not expected to fully cure the patients and restore all mobility. Based on the results of the rodent trials, researchers speculated that restoration of myelin sheathes and an increase in mobility might occur. This first trial was primarily designed to test the safety of these procedures and if everything went well, it was hoped that it would lead to future studies that involve people with more severe disabilities. The trial was put on hold in August 2009 due to FDA concerns regarding a small number of microscopic cysts found in several treated rat models but the hold was lifted on July 30, 2010.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1029022
| 770,854 |
1,029,790 |
In 1948, Postgate obtained a Research Fellowship at the Chemical Research Laboratory (CRL) in Teddington, West London, to investigate the biochemistry of the sulphate-reducing bacteria. A small microbiology group, led by K R Butlin, was researching their role in iron corrosion and other civil and industrial nuisances. The group also investigated and advised on diverse problems in economic microbiology which had been brought to the laboratory. The bacteria were known to be strict anaerobes which live by converting mineral sulphates to hydrogen sulphide. They are difficult to culture and to separate from other soil bacteria in the laboratory, but Butlin's group had isolated a few pure strains. Postgate managed to culture large populations of the organism and his experience of competition informed his first paper, in which he showed that selenates are powerful competitive inhibitors of sulphate reduction. He went on to obtain biochemical evidence on how they consume sulphates and carbon sources, but his most influential finding was cytochrome C3., a discovery that has been described as "seminal". Cytochromes are iron-containing proteins found in the cells of all air-breathing creatures from bacteria and plants to humans; they were known to be part of the aerobic respiratory apparatus and were widely understood to be absent from anaerobes. The appearance of a cytochrome, one which had an unusually large amount of iron, in a strict anaerobe conflicted with current theory. However soon it became accepted and the concept emerged of "anaerobic respiration", based on reducing nitrate, carbonate or similar oxygen-containing minerals. Postgate's research formed the basis of worldwide research on these bacteria and their cytochromes, as well as the discovery of many new genera; sulphate reducers are now known to constitute a diverse biosphere of their own.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=42616525
| 1,029,256 |
774,061 |
By analyzing genomic data of 60,000 individuals of Caucasian descent from Kaiser Permanente in Northern California, and of 150,000 people in the UK Biobank, evolutionary geneticist Joseph Pickrell and evolutionary biologist Molly Przeworski were able to identify signs of biological evolution among living human generations. For the purposes of studying evolution, one lifetime is the shortest possible time scale. An allele associated with difficulty withdrawing from tobacco smoking dropped in frequency among the British but not among the Northern Californians. This suggests that heavy smokers—who were common in Britain during the 1950s but not in Northern California—were selected against. A set of alleles linked to later menarche was more common among women who lived for longer. An allele called ApoE4, linked to Alzheimer's disease, fell in frequency as carriers tended to not live for very long. In fact, these were the only traits that reduced life expectancy Pickrell and Przeworski found, which suggests that other harmful traits probably have already been eradicated. Only among older people are the effects of Alzheimer's disease and smoking visible. Moreover, smoking is a relatively recent trend. It is not entirely clear why such traits bring evolutionary disadvantages, however, since older people have already had children. Scientists proposed that either they also bring about harmful effects in youth or that they reduce an individual's inclusive fitness, or the tendency of organisms that share the same genes to help each other. Thus, mutations that make it difficult for grandparents to help raise their grandchildren are unlikely to propagate throughout the population. Pickrell and Przeworski also investigated 42 traits determined by multiple alleles rather than just one, such as the timing of puberty. They found that later puberty and older age of first birth were correlated with higher life expectancy.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=54472601
| 773,645 |
1,792,459 |
Apart from monitoring the electrical properties of a dielectric, the CAFM can be also used to alter its properties by applying an electrical field locally. In particular, the CAFM is especially useful to determine which locations of the samples lead to premature BD, which can provide essential information about the reliability of the samples. The CAFM also helped to confirm the percolation theory of the BD by experimentally proving that this is a very local phenomenon that occurs in small areas typically below 100 nm. Lateral propagations of the BD event can also be detected by CAFM. The severity of the BD event can also be studied from the dielectric breakdown induced epitaxy, which can be observed from subsequent topographic images collected with the CAFM after the voltage ramp. Similarly, the analysis of the BD recovery (resistive switching, RS) can also be monitored by CAFM. All the capabilities of the CAFM for studying resistive switching in dielectrics have been summarized in the review article of reference. Unlike a normal AFM, the CAFM can be also used to perform local photolithography via bias-assisted local anodic oxidation (LAO). Nowadays the CAFM technique has expanded to many other fields of science, including physics, materials science, chemistry and engineering (among many others), and it has been used to study different materials and/or structures, including nanoparticles, molecules, nanowires, carbon nanotubes, two dimensional (2D) materials, coatings, photoelectricity and piezoelectricity (among others). As of June 14 of 2016, the CAFM had been used in 1325 journal research articles, and it has become a popular tool in nanosciences.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=24580913
| 1,791,452 |
1,994,197 |
On loan from MIT to NASA Headquarters as the Senior Scientist for the International Space Station since 2000; prior to that, on loan from MIT as the Senior Scientist for the Office of Life and Microgravity Sciences, NASA-HQ, 1998–2000; crew training, flight and post-flight activities 1996–1998; Lead Scientist of the Microgravity Space and Applications Division since 1985–1996. He served as Program Scientist on five different Spacelab flights. In addition, he helped organize and has served as co-chair for Microgravity Science Working Groups between NASA and space agencies from the European Union, France, Germany, Japan, and Russia. He was the founding co-chair of the International Microgravity Science Strategic Planning Group consisting of these space agencies plus Canada. He was principal investigator on an experiment that flew in the Materials Experiment Apparatus on the D-1 mission in 1985. Group leader and researcher, NASA Langley Research Center, 1962–1985. Leader of a research group investigating the effects of convection on semiconductor materials' properties. He was a principal investigator in the MSAD flight program from 1986–1997. He has done research in various techniques and types of semiconductor crystal growth, electric and optical properties of materials, electronic devices for remote sensing and flat panel displays, and heat shield protection for atmospheric reentry of space vehicles. This research resulted in the publication of over 40 technical paper and over 50 technical conference reports. He trained as the Alternate Payload Specialist for STS-42 (First International Microgravity Laboratory) which flew in January 1992.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=597331
| 1,993,054 |
337,890 |
By 1976, Steve Jobs had convinced product designer Jerry Manock (who had formerly worked at Hewlett Packard designing calculators) to create the "shell" for the Apple II—a smooth case inspired by kitchen appliances that concealed the internal mechanics. The earliest Apple II computers were assembled in Silicon Valley and later in Texas; printed circuit boards were manufactured in Ireland and Singapore. The first computers went on sale on June 10, 1977 with an MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor running at 1.022 MHz ( of the NTSC color carrier), two game paddles (bundled until 1980, when they were found to violate FCC regulations), 4 KiB of RAM, an audio cassette interface for loading programs and storing data, and the Integer BASIC programming language built into ROMs. The video controller displayed 24 lines by 40 columns of monochrome, uppercase-only text on the screen (the original character set matches ASCII characters 20 to 5F), with NTSC composite video output suitable for display on a TV monitor or on a regular TV set (by way of a separate RF modulator). The original retail price of the computer with 4 KiB of RAM was and with the maximum 48 KB of RAM. To reflect the computer's color graphics capability, the Apple logo on the casing had rainbow stripes, which remained a part of Apple's corporate logo until early 1998. Perhaps most significantly, the Apple II was a catalyst for personal computers across many industries; it opened the doors to software marketed at consumers.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2275
| 337,710 |
1,871,339 |
World War II produced a dramatic change in the world of neurological surgery. Deployed surgeons learned neurosurgery while on active duty in one of the armed services. Others experienced either abbreviated training, or had their program interrupted when called to active duty. After the war these surgeons returned to the United States with a need to add credentials. Existing neurosurgical training programs incorporated these surgeons and the number of training sites proliferated. Thus, in the late 1940s there was an explosion in the numbers of young neurosurgeons surfacing in communities and seeking recognition from organized neurosurgical societies. There was intense resistance from the established neurosurgical community, however, to this new group of neurosurgeons. The Harvey Cushing Society (now the AANS), did not immediately recognize this new group of neurosurgeons and made efforts to exclude them from their organization. The precursor to the CNS was the Interurban Neurosurgical Society organized by neurosurgeons Adrian Verbrugghen and Harold Voris meeting at the University Club of Chicago. The society was open to all neurosurgeons living no more than one travel day away from Chicago. It met for one day only (Saturday). There was a mailing list but no dues, by-laws, officers or publications. About 150 neurosurgeons attended once a year. Most attendees were from the northeast, mid-Atlantic, southeast, and mid-west. Eventually, a more organized effort was put together when twenty two neurosurgeons met in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1951, the first formal organizing and scientific meeting was convened in Memphis, Tennessee, attended by 121 neurosurgeons. The CNS was infolded into the AANS for several years until it held its own independent meeting in 2000, completing the separation of the two organizations. The CNS has expanded significantly and now has over 10,000 members worldwide.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=22922572
| 1,870,262 |
1,030,789 |
SFC with CO utilizes carbon dioxide pumps that require that the incoming CO and pump heads be kept cold in order to maintain the carbon dioxide at a temperature and pressure that keeps it in a liquid state where it can be effectively metered at some specified flow rate. The CO subsequently becomes supercritical post the injector and in the column oven when the temperature and pressure it is subjected to are raised above the critical point of the liquid and the supercritical state is achieved. SFC as a chromatographic process has been likened to a process having the combined properties of the power of a liquid to dissolve a matrix, with the chromatographic interactions and kinetics of a gas. The result is that you can get a lot of mass on column per injection, and still maintain a high chromatographic efficiency. Typically, gradient elution is employed in analytical SFC using a polar co-solvent such as methanol, possibly with a weak acid or base at low concentrations ~1%. The effective plate counts per analysis can be observed to exceed 500K plates per metre routinely with 5 um material. The operator uses software to set mobile phase flow rate, co-solvent composition, system back pressure and column oven temperature which must exceed 40 °C for supercritical conditions to be achieved with CO. In addition, SFC provides an additional control parameter - pressure - by using an automated back pressure regulator. From an operational standpoint, SFC is as simple and robust as HPLC but fraction collection is more convenient because the primary mobile phase evaporates leaving only the analyte and a small volume of polar co-solvent. If the outlet CO is captured, it can be recompressed and recycled, allowing for >90% reuse of CO.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=7702566
| 1,030,254 |
148,654 |
The initial version of the game also did not include the central star gravity well or the hyperspace feature; they were written by MIT graduate student and TMRC member Dan Edwards and Graetz respectively to add elements of a strategy to what initially was a shooter game of pure reflexes. Russell had previously wanted to add gravity, but was unable to get the program to perform the calculations fast enough; Edwards optimized the drawing functions to free up processing time to calculate the effects of gravity. The initial version of the hyperspace function was limited to three jumps, but carried no risk save possibly re-entering the game in a dangerous position; later versions removed the limit but added the increasing risk of destroying the ship instead of moving it. Additionally, in March 1962, Saunders created gamepads for the game, to counter "Space War Elbow" from sitting hunched over the mainframe toggles. The game was a multiplayer-only game because the computer had no resources left over to handle controlling the other ship. Similarly, other proposed additions to the game such as a more refined explosion display upon the destruction of a spaceship and having the torpedoes also be affected by gravity had to be abandoned as there were not enough computer resources to handle them while smoothly running the game. One feature, having the speed and direction of torpedoes differ slightly with each shot, was added and then removed by Russell after player complaints. With the added features and changes in place, Russell and the other programmers shifted focus from developing the game to preparing to show it off to others such as at the MIT Science Open House at the end of April 1962. The group added a time limit, the hyperspace function, and a larger, second screen for viewers at the demonstration, and in May Graetz presented a paper about the game, "SPACEWAR! Real-Time Capability of the PDP-1", at the first meeting of the Digital Equipment Computer Users' Society. The demonstration was a success, and the game proved very popular at MIT; the laboratory that hosted the PDP-1 soon banned play except during lunch and after working hours. Visitors such as Frederik Pohl, the editor of "Galaxy Science Fiction", enjoyed playing the "lovely game" and wrote that MIT was "borrowing from the science-fiction magazines", with players able to pretend to be "Skylark" characters.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=5482854
| 148,593 |
1,038,696 |
Many researchers have commented that the U.S. focus on high-end applications left them in an uncompetitive situation when the economic downturn in the early 1970s led to greatly increased demand for low-cost NC systems. Unlike the U.S. companies, who had focused on the highly profitable aerospace market, German and Japanese manufacturers targeted lower-profit segments from the start and were able to enter the low-cost markets much more easily. Additionally large Japanese companies established their own subsidiaries or strengthened their machine divisions to produce the machines they needed. This was seen as a national effort and largely encouraged by MITI, the Japanese Ministry for International Trade and Industry. In the early years of the development, MITI provided focused resources for the transfer of technological know-how. National efforts in the US were focused on integrated manufacturing from the historical perspective the defence sector maintained. This evolved in the later 1980s, as the so-called machine tool crisis was recognized, into a number of programs that sought to broaden transfer of know how to domestic tool makers. The Air Force sponsored Next Generation Controller Program 1989 as an example. This process continued through the 1990s to the present day from DARPA incubators and myriad research grants.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=39469106
| 1,038,155 |
172,935 |
A 1904 "British Medical Journal" paper by Karl Pearson collated data from several studies in the UK, India and South Africa of typhoid inoculation. He used a meta-analytic approach to aggregate the outcomes of multiple clinical studies. In 1972 Archie Cochrane wrote: 'It is surely a great criticism of our profession that we have not organised a critical summary, by specialty or subspecialty, adapted periodically, of all relevant randomised controlled trials'. Critical appraisal and synthesis of research findings in a systematic way emerged in 1975 under the term 'meta analysis'. Early syntheses were conducted in broad areas of public policy and social interventions, with systematic research synthesis applied to medicine and health. Inspired by his own personal experiences as a senior medical officer in prisoner of war camps, Archie Cochrane worked to improve how the scientific method was used in medical evidence, writing in 1971: 'the general scientific problem with which we are primarily concerned is that of testing a hypothesis that a certain treatment alters the natural history of a disease for the better'. His call for the increased use of randomised controlled trials and systematic reviews led to the creation of The Cochrane Collaboration, which was founded in 1993 and named after him, building on the work by Iain Chalmers and colleagues in the area of pregnancy and childbirth.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=2994579
| 172,844 |
1,560,934 |
Anurag Sharma, born on 7 May 1955, did his higher studies at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IITD) from where he gained master's degrees in science (MSc) and engineering (MTech) and joined the institute as a member of faculty in 1978, simultaneously pursuing doctoral studies there under the guidance of Ajoy Ghatak. After securing a PhD a year later, he continued his service at IITD but had two sabbaticals; at Technical University of Karlsruhe as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow during 1982–83 for his post-doctoral work and a short stint as a visiting scientist at CSELT, Turin in 1988. At IITD, has served as the dean of students (2006–2009) and dean of academics (2012–2016) and has been holding the position of a professor at the department of physics since 1995. He is known to have done pioneering research in optoelectronics and optical communications and is credited with the development of "analytical and numerical methods for dielectric optical wave guides, single-mode fibers, Graded-Index (GRIN) devices and optical imaging system". He developed a protocol for tracing GRIN media for use in imaging systems as well as for characterizing inhomogeneous media and continues his researches on electromagnetic wave propagation in dielectric media. He has documented his researches in several articles; ResearchGate, an online repository of scientific articles, has listed 58 of them. Besides, he has edited four books viz. "Guided Wave Optics: Selected Topics", "Understanding Fiber Optics on a PC", "International Conference on Fiber Optics and Photonics: Selected Papers from Photonics India '98 (Proceedings of SPIE)," "Photonics 2010: Tenth International Conference on Fiber Optics and Photonics (Proceedings of SPIE)". and "Frontiers in Optics and Photonics 2011".
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=53000311
| 1,560,048 |
1,659,007 |
By the mid-1990s, it was asserted that "Borna disease is a neurotropic negative-strand RNA virus that infects a wide range of vertebrate hosts," causing "an immune-mediated syndrome resulting in disturbances in movement and behavior." This led to several groups across the globe working to determine if there was a link between Borna disease virus (BDV) or a related agent and human neuropsychiatric disease. The group was formally called Microbiology and Immunology of Neuropsychiatric Disorders (MIND) and the multicenter, multi-national group focused on using standardized methods for clinical diagnosis and blinded laboratory assessment of BDV infection. After nearly two decades of inquiry, the first blinded case-controlled study of the link between BDV and psychiatric illness was completed by the researchers at Columbia University's Center for Infection and Immunity in a joint effort that concluded there is no association between the two. Lipkin noted that "it was concern over the potential role of BDV in mental illness and the inability to identify it using classical techniques that led us to develop molecular methods for pathogen discovery. Ultimately these new techniques enabled us to refute a role for BDV in human disease. But the fact remains that we gained strategies for the discovery of hundreds of other pathogens that have important implications for medicine, agriculture, and environmental health."
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20485252
| 1,658,074 |
383,855 |
Proponents of Chinese invention and transmission point out the acute dearth of any significant evidence of evolution or experimentation with gunpowder or gunpowder weapons leading up to the gun outside of China. Gunpowder appeared in Europe primed for military usage as an explosive and propellant, bypassing a process which took centuries of Chinese experimentation with gunpowder weaponry to reach, making a nearly instantaneous and seamless transition into firearm warfare, as its name suggests. Furthermore, early European gunpowder recipes shared identical defects with Chinese recipes such as the inclusion of the poisons sal ammoniac and arsenic, which provide no benefit to gunpowder. Bert S. Hall explains this phenomenon in his "Weapons and Warfare in Renaissance Europe: Gunpowder, Technology, and Tactics" by drawing upon the gunpowder transmission theory, explaining that "gunpowder came [to Europe], not as an ancient mystery, but as a well-developed modern technology, in a manner very much like twentieth-century 'technology-transfer' projects." In a similar vein, Peter Lorge supposes that the Europeans experienced gunpowder "free from preconceived notions of what could be done," in contrast to China, "where a wide range of formulas and a broad variety of weapons demonstrated the full range of possibilities and limitations of the technologies involved." There is also the vestige of Chinese influence on Muslim terminology of key gunpowder related items such as saltpeter, which has been described as either Chinese snow or salt, fireworks which were called Chinese flowers, and rockets which were called Chinese arrows. Moreover, Europeans in particular experienced great difficulty in obtaining saltpeter, a primary ingredient of gunpowder which was relatively scarce in Europe compared to China, and had to be obtained from "distant lands or extracted at high cost from soil rich in dung and urine." Thomas Arnold believes that the similarities between early European cannons and contemporary Chinese models suggests a direct transmission of cannon making knowledge from China rather than a home grown development.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12063194
| 383,660 |
1,824,757 |
South Africa's SANAE IV station, the successor to three former stations, was completed in 1997. Research at SANAE IV include invasion biology/ecology, geology, geomorphology and atmospheric sciences. Its facilities include a small hospital and a two-helicopter hangar. SANAE IV consists of three linked modules, each double-story, long and wide. Two smaller nearby structures contain the satellite dish used for communications and the diesel fuel bunkers. Joined end-on-end in a north–south orientation, the base modules are complemented on the northern end by a large raised helicopter landing area with a lifting section allowing vehicles to be brought up into the hangar for maintenance. C-block, the northernmost module, contains the neutron monitors of the North-West University. The modules are linked by single-story connections that also serve as entrances with stairways down to the surface 4m below the base. Each link contains an entrance hall with two sets of doors (creating a rudimentary 'air-lock' to prevent excessive cooling when entering and exiting the base) as well as a change-room, ablution facility and electronic distribution boards. The base is staffed and maintained year-round by a team of scientists and support personnel. Each overwintering team arrives during the summer expedition and take-over period aboard the research and logistics vessel "S. A. Agulhas II", stays at the base through the austral winter and returns to South Africa at the end of the next summer season - an expedition of approximately 16 months.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=42735080
| 1,823,719 |
1,055,971 |
In 2009 Hau and team laser-cooled clouds of one million rubidium atoms to just a fraction of a degree above absolute zero. They then launched this millimeter-long atomic cloud towards a suspended carbon nanotube, located some two centimeters away and charged to hundreds of volts. The results were published in 2010, heralding new interactions between cold atoms and nanoscale systems. They observed that most atoms passed by, but approximately 10 per million were inescapably attracted, causing them to dramatically accelerate both in movement and in temperature. "At this point, the speeding atoms separate into an electron and an ion rotating in parallel around the nanowire, completing each orbit in just a few trillionths of a second. The electron eventually gets sucked into the nanotube via quantum tunneling, causing its companion ion to shoot away – repelled by the strong charge of the 300-volt nanotube – at a speed of roughly 26 kilometers per second, or 59,000 miles per hour." Atoms can rapidly disintegrate, without having to collide with each other in this experiment. The team is quick to note that this effect is not produced by gravity, as calculated in blackholes that exist in space, but by the high electrical charge in the nanotube. The experiment combines nanotechnology with cold atoms to demonstrate a new type of high-resolution, single-atom, chip-integrated detector that may ultimately be able to resolve fringes from the interference of matter waves. The scientists also foresee a range of single-atom, fundamental studies made possible by their setup.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1300275
| 1,055,423 |
196,378 |
Anaerobic bioremediation can in principle be employed to treat a range of oxidized contaminants including chlorinated ethylenes (PCE, TCE, DCE, VC), chlorinated ethanes (TCA, DCA), chloromethanes (CT, CF), chlorinated cyclic hydrocarbons, various energetics (e.g., perchlorate, RDX, TNT), and nitrate. This process involves the addition of an electron donor to: 1) deplete background electron acceptors including oxygen, nitrate, oxidized iron and manganese and sulfate; and 2) stimulate the biological and/or chemical reduction of the oxidized pollutants. Hexavalent chromium (Cr[VI]) and uranium (U[VI]) can be reduced to less mobile and/or less toxic forms (e.g., Cr[III], U[IV]). Similarly, reduction of sulfate to sulfide (sulfidogenesis) can be used to precipitate certain metals (e.g., zinc, cadmium). The choice of substrate and the method of injection depend on the contaminant type and distribution in the aquifer, hydrogeology, and remediation objectives. Substrate can be added using conventional well installations, by direct-push technology, or by excavation and backfill such as permeable reactive barriers (PRB) or biowalls. Slow-release products composed of edible oils or solid substrates tend to stay in place for an extended treatment period. Soluble substrates or soluble fermentation products of slow-release substrates can potentially migrate via advection and diffusion, providing broader but shorter-lived treatment zones. The added organic substrates are first fermented to hydrogen (H) and volatile fatty acids (VFAs). The VFAs, including acetate, lactate, propionate and butyrate, provide carbon and energy for bacterial metabolism.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=434188
| 196,278 |
1,519,415 |
The PTRC posted an extensive rebuttal of the Petro-Find report, stating that the isotopic signatures of the , claimed by Mr. Lafleur to be indicative of the manmade being injected into the reservoir, were in fact, according to studies of conducted by the British Geological Survey and two other European Union geological groups prior to being injected at Weyburn, occurring naturally in several locations near the Kerr farm. Subsequent soil surveys after injection in 2002 to 2005 found levels dropped in these same regions. In addition, prior to injection occurring into the oil field, these samplings were found to be as high as 125,000 parts per million and averaging 25,000 ppm across the region, even more than the average and largest readings from the Kerr's property that were being claimed as unusually high. The report also questions, based on seismic imaging conducted over ten years, that any active faults exist or that the caprock is compromised to allow pathways for the to reach the surface. The PTRC acknowledged that they do not monitor the entire site for leaks, rather primarily above the part of the Weyburn field where is injected and key locations outside it, but the organization did monitor the Kerr's well between 2002 and 2006, finding no appreciable difference in water quality. They have also acknowledged that PTRC is a research organisation rather than a regulator, and manage the IEA GHG Weyburn-Midale Monitoring and Storage Project on behalf of the International Energy Agency's Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme, which includes some 30 international research groups.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30426861
| 1,518,557 |
1,447,203 |
He deliberately chose the `simplest' graphs and categories for his representations of Metabolism-Repair Systems in small categories of sets endowed only with the discrete "efficient" topology of sets, envisaging this choice as the most general and less restrictive. It turns out however that the efficient entailments of formula_1systems are "closed to efficient cause", or in simple terms the catalysts ("efficient causes" of metabolism, usually identified as enzymes) are themselves products of metabolism, and thus may not be considered, in a strict mathematical sense, as subcategories of the category of sequential machines or automata: in direct contradiction of the French philosopher Descartes' supposition that all animals are only elaborate machines or "mechanisms". Rosen stated: ""I argue that the only resolution to such problems" [of the subject-object boundary and what constitutes objectivity] "is in the recognition that closed loops of causation are 'objective'; i.e. legitimate objects of scientific scrutiny. These are explicitly forbidden in any machine or mechanism."" Rosen's demonstration of "efficient closure" was to present this clear paradox in mechanistic science, that on the one hand organisms are defined by such causal closures and on the other hand mechanism forbids them; thus we need to revise our understanding of nature. The mechanistic view prevails even today in most of general biology, and most of science, although some claim no longer in sociology and psychology where reductionist approaches have failed and fallen out of favour since the early 1970s. However those fields have yet to reach consensus on what the new view should be, as is also the case in most other disciplines, which struggle to retain various aspects of "the machine metaphor" for living and complex systems.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=275026
| 1,446,387 |
661,637 |
Games of chance are not merely pure applications of probability calculus and gaming situations are not just isolated events whose numerical probability is well established through mathematical methods; they are also games whose progress is influenced by human action. In gambling, the human element has a striking character. The player is not only interested in the mathematical probability of the various gaming events, but he or she has expectations from the games while a major interaction exists. To obtain favorable results from this interaction, gamblers take into account all possible information, including statistics, to build gaming strategies. The oldest and most common betting system is the martingale, or doubling-up, system on even-money bets, in which bets are doubled progressively after each loss until a win occurs. This system probably dates back to the invention of the roulette wheel. Two other well-known systems, also based on even-money bets, are the d’Alembert system (based on theorems of the French mathematician Jean Le Rond d’Alembert), in which the player increases his bets by one unit after each loss but decreases it by one unit after each win, and the Labouchere system (devised by the British politician Henry Du Pré Labouchere, although the basis for it was invented by the 18th-century French philosopher Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat, marquis de Condorcet), in which the player increases or decreases his bets according to a certain combination of numbers chosen in advance. The predicted average gain or loss is called "expectation" or expected value and is the sum of the probability of each possible outcome of the experiment multiplied by its payoff (value). Thus, it represents the average amount one expects to win per bet if bets with identical odds are repeated many times. A game or situation in which the expected value for the player is zero (no net gain nor loss) is called a "fair game. "The attribute "fair "refers not to the technical process of the game, but to the chance balance house (bank)–player.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=7804447
| 661,292 |
336,436 |
Defence Research and Development Establishment (DRDE) which works in the field of chemical weapon, biological agent detection and research is helping Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in augmenting diagnostic capability for COVID–19 outbreak. It has created special hand sanitiser formulation and diagnostic kits following WHO standards and guidelines that are supplied in large numbers to civilian and defence officials. Medical staff all over India dealing with Coronavirus contamination are using protective waterproof clothing with special sealant used in submarine applications developed by Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences (INMAS) for CBRN defense that is made up of high strength polyester coated with breathable polymer. The clothing underwent successful trials at the South India Textile Research Association and exceeds the criteria of currently available suits in the market. The suit is washable, passed all critical CBRN and ASTM standards and is now manufactured by two private players, Venus Industries from Mumbai and IMTEC from Kolkata. Defence Bioengineering and Electromedical Laboratory (DEBEL) developed causality evacuation bag for COVID-19 infected patients that can withstand Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) environments and is protected against blood and viral penetration. The bag is made up of durable water repellent nonwoven fabric. It is rigid cylindrical in shape with air and water proof zippers and ventilators. Already ordered 500 in numbers, DRDO will now transfer the technology to private sector for manufacturing.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=745675
| 336,258 |
1,040,789 |
Electrogravitics had its origins in experiments started in 1921 by Thomas Townsend Brown (who coined the name) while he was in high school. He discovered an unusual effect while experimenting with a Coolidge tube, a type of X-ray vacuum tube where, if he placed on a balance scale with the tube’s positive electrode facing up, the tube's mass seemed to decrease; when facing down, the tube's mass seemed to increase. Brown showed this effect to his college professors and even newspaper reporters and told them he was convinced that he had managed to influence gravity electronically. Brown developed this into large, high-voltage capacitors that would produce a tiny, propulsive force causing the capacitor to jump in one direction when the power was turned on. In 1929, Brown published "How I Control Gravitation" in "Science and Invention" where he claimed the capacitors were producing a mysterious force that interacted with the pull of gravity. He envisioned a future where, if his device could be scaled up, "Multi-impulse gravitators, weighing hundreds of tons, may propel the ocean liners of the future" or even "fantastic 'space cars'" to Mars. Somewhere along the way, Brown devised the name Biefeld–Brown effect, named after his former teacher, professor of astronomy Paul Alfred Biefeld at Denison University in Ohio. Brown claimed Biefeld as his mentor and co-experimenter. After World War II, Brown sought to develop the effect as a means of propulsion for aircraft and spacecraft, demonstrating a working apparatus to an audience of scientists and military officials in 1952. A Cal-Tech physicist invited to observe Brown's disk device in the early '50s noted during the demonstration that its motivation force was the well-known phenomenon of "electric wind", and not anti-gravity, saying, “I’m afraid these gentlemen played hooky from their high school physics classes….” Research into the phenomenon was popular in the mid-1950s, at one point, the Glenn L. Martin Company placed advertisements looking for scientists who were "interested in gravity", but rapidly declined in popularity thereafter.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3131342
| 1,040,246 |
1,476,215 |
Progerin (UniProt# P02545-6) is a truncated version of the lamin A protein involved in the pathology of Hutchinson–Gilford progeria syndrome. Progerin is most often generated by a sporadic single point nucleotide polymorphism c.1824 C>T (GGC -> GGT, p.Gly608Gly) in the gene that codes for matured Lamin A. This mutation activates a cryptic splice site that induces a mutation in premature Lamin A with the deletion of a 50 amino acids group near the C-terminus. The endopeptidase ZMPSTE24 cannot cleave between the missing RSY - LLG amino acid sequence (as seen in the figure) during the maturation of Lamin A, due to the deletion of the 50 amino acids which included that sequence. This leaves the intact premature Lamin A bonded to the methylated carboxyl farnesyl group creating the defective protein Progerin, rather than the desired protein matured Lamin A. Approximately 90% of all Hutchinson–Gilford progeria syndrome cases are heterozygous for this deleterious single nucleotide polymorphism within exon 11 of the LMNA gene causing the post-translational modifications to produce Progerin. Lamin A constitutes a major structural component of the lamina, a scaffold of proteins found inside the nuclear membrane of a cell; progerin does not properly integrate into the lamina, which disrupts the scaffold structure and leads to significant disfigurement of the nucleus, characterized by a globular shape. Progerin activates genes that regulate stem cell differentiation via the Notch signaling pathway. Progerin increases the frequency of unrepaired double-strand breaks in DNA following exposure to ionizing radiation. Also, overexpression of progerin is correlated with an increase in non-homologous end joining relative to homologous recombination among those DNA double-strand breaks that are repaired. Furthermore, the fraction of homologous recombination events occurring by gene conversion is increased. These findings suggest that the normal untruncated nuclear lamina has an important role in the proper repair of DNA double-strand breaks.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=18437184
| 1,475,383 |
2,108,839 |
UMD won the MIAC team title again in 1962 with an even more balanced performance than in 1961 with Jeff Peterson taking second and all five Bulldog golfers finishing in the top eight. Despite winning the MIAC title, a second straight year of poor weather had limited UMD to just two meets against Superior State and one against Hamline University, and the MIAC tournament which qualified the team for the NAIA national tournament taking place in Davenport, Iowa. Nobody gave the team much of a chance; Coach Lew Rickert was "hoping for seventh or eighth place at best." However, the team finished third out of 24 teams entered – just 12 strokes off the winning pace - joining the 1953 golf team as having the best national showing in the history of the UMD golf program. Under NAIA tournament rules, teams could enter five players of which the low four per round counted toward the team total. While first-place Western Illinois University, runner-up Texas Wesleyan, and fourth-place Whitman College all entered five-man teams, UMD played with only four golfers and did not have the advantage of being able to drop its high score. Individually, against a field of 130 participants, Tom Maas fired a four over par 292 over 72 holes (78-73-71-70) at the par 72 Emeis Golf Course layout to finish second to future PGA Tour winner Steve Spray's 290 of Eastern New Mexico University, the best individual finish in golf program history and the highest showing for any UMD sport until surpassed in 1987 by national wrestling champion Mike Hirschey. Ron Johnson – tied for fourth after regulation play – sank a 50-yard wedge shot for eagle three on the first playoff hole to take fourth place outright. Both Maas and Johnson were awarded NAIA All-American First Team honors for their performances – UMD's first All-American First Team honorees in any sport.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=50172482
| 2,107,625 |
286,918 |
Madras and Calcutta were similarly bordered by water and division of Indian in the north and British in the south. An Englishwoman noted in 1750 "the banks of the river are as one may say absolutely studded with elegant mansions called here as at Madras, garden houses." Esplanade-row is fronts the fort with lined palaces. Indian villages in these areas consisted of clay and straw houses which later transformed into the metropolis of brick and stone.The Chepauk Palace in the city, designed by Paul Benfield, is said to be the first Indo-Saracenic building in India. Since then, many of the colonial-era buildings in the city were designed in this style of architecture, which is most apparent around the Fort St George built in 1640. Most of these were designed by English architects Robert Fellowes Chisholm and Henry Irwin. The best examples of this style include the Madras High Court (built in 1892), Southern Railway headquarters, Ripon Building, Government Museum, Senate House of the University of Madras, Amir Mahal, Bharat Insurance Building, Victoria Public Hall and the College of Engineering. The Triumph of Labour, also known as the Labour statue, at the Marina Beach is an important landmark of Madras. Indo-Saracenic architecture evolved by combining Indian architectural features with European styles. Vincent Esch and George Wittet were pioneers in this style. The Victoria Memorial in Calcutta is the most effective symbolism of British Empire, built as a monument in tribute to Queen Victoria's reign. The plan of the building consists of one large central part covered with a larger dome. Colonnades separate the two chambers. Each corner holds a smaller dome and is floored with marble plinth. The memorial stands on 26 hectares of garden surrounded by reflective pools.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=276879
| 286,763 |
894,277 |
WPCs do not corrode and are highly resistant to rot, decay, and marine borer attack, though they do absorb water into the wood fibers embedded within the material. Water absorption is more pronounced in WFCs with a hydrophilic matrix such as PLA and also leads to decreased mechanical stiffness and strength. The mechanical performance in a wet environment can be enhanced by an acetylation treatment. WPCs have good workability and can be shaped using conventional woodworking tools. WPCs are often considered a sustainable material because they can be made using recycled plastics and the waste products of the wood industry. Although these materials continue the lifespan of used and discarded materials, they have their own considerable half life; the polymers and adhesives added make WPC difficult to recycle again after use. They can however be recycled easily in a new WPC, much like concrete. One advantage over wood is the ability of the material to be molded to meet almost any desired shape. A WPC member can be bent and fixed to form strong arching curves. Another major selling point of these materials is their lack of need for paint. They are manufactured in a variety of colors, but are widely available in grays and earth tones. Despite up to 70 percent cellulose content (although 50/50 is more common), the mechanical behavior of WPCs is most similar to neat polymers. Neat polymers are polymerized without added solvents. This means that WPCs have a lower strength and stiffness than wood, and they experience time and temperature-dependent behavior. The wood particles are susceptible to fungal attack, though not as much so as solid wood, and the polymer component is vulnerable to UV degradation. It is possible that the strength and stiffness may be reduced by freeze-thaw cycling, though testing is still being conducted in this area. Some WPC formulations are sensitive to staining from a variety of agents.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1301424
| 893,807 |
527,723 |
The physician will perform an onychectomy in which the nail along the edge that is growing into the skin is cut away (ablated) and the offending piece of nail is pulled out. Any infection is surgically drained. This process is referred to as a "wedge resection" or simple surgical ablation and is not permanent (i.e., the nail will re-grow from the matrix). The entire procedure may be performed in a physician's office in approximately thirty to forty-five minutes depending on the extent of the problem. The patient is allowed to go home the same day and the recovery time is anywhere from two weeks to two months barring any complications such as infection. As a follow-up, a physician may prescribe an or topical antibiotic or a special soak to be used for about a week after the surgery. Some use "lateral onychoplasty," or "wedge resection," as the method of choice for ingrown toenails. A wide wedge resection, with a total cleaning (removal) of nail matrix, has a nearly 100% success rate. Some physicians will not perform a complete nail avulsion (removal) except under extreme circumstances. In most cases, these physicians will remove both sides of a toenail (even if one side is not currently ingrown) and coat the nail matrix on both sides with a chemical or acid (usually phenol) to prevent re-growth. This leaves most of the nail intact, but ensures that the problem of ingrowth will not recur. There are possible disadvantages if the nail matrix is not coated with the applicable chemical or acid (phenol) and is allowed to re-grow; this method is prone to failure. Also, the underlying condition can still become symptomatic if the nail grows back within a year: the nail matrix could be growing a nail that is too curved, thick, wide or otherwise irregular to allow normal growth. Furthermore, the flesh can become injured by concussion, tight socks, quick twisting motions while walking, or simply because the nail is growing incorrectly (likely too wide). This hypersensitivity to continued injury can mean chronic ingrowth; the solution is nearly always edge avulsion by the more effective procedure of phenolisation.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=33171133
| 527,450 |
1,029,033 |
A year since the death of Jochen Rindt at Monza, there were still some legal problems between Team Lotus and the Italian authorities which meant that Team Lotus did not officially enter the event, although a Lotus 56 did enter under the name World Wide Racing. This car was powered by an American Pratt & Whitney turbine jet engine. McLaren was also down to just one entry as Denny Hulme was away in the United States for a USAC race in California. Matra was also running only one car as Jean-Pierre Beltoise was still suspended as a result of the sportscar accident in January in Buenos Aires which had killed Ignazio Giunti. The field was bolstered by a third Surtees, entered for Mike Hailwood, a multiple Grand Prix motorcycle champion making the transition to car racing. On the fast sweeps of Monza the V12 cars were very competitive and Chris Amon took pole in his Matra with Jacky Ickx alongside in his Ferrari. The second row featured the BRMs of Jo Siffert and Howden Ganley and the first V8 car was the Tyrrell of Francois Cevert, fifth on the grid. At the start of the race Regazzoni made a fast start from the fourth row to take the lead. On lap 16 both Stewart and Ickx retired with engine failures and two laps later Regazzoni went out as well. Eventually, a close five-car battle developed for the lead, with Peter Gethin taking his only Grand Prix victory by 0.010 secs. The first five cars were all covered by 0.61s; it was the closest finish in the history of the World Championship and the fastest ever race, with an average speed of 150.75 mph. Peterson was second with Cevert third, Hailwood fourth and Ganley fifth. Amon was sixth over half a minute behind. Chicanes were added to Monza's layout for subsequent years, lowering average speeds and effectively eliminating the slipstream battles that highlighted previous Italian Grands Prix at Monza.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1140090
| 1,028,499 |
1,932,811 |
The German Students Association exerted great influence, which was at first patriotic and later political. After Romanticism had eventually died out, Heidelberg became a center of Liberalism and the movement in favor of German national unity. The historians Friedrich Christoph Schlosser and Georg Gottfried Gervinus were the guides of the nation in political history. The modern scientific schools of medicine and natural science, particularly astronomy, were models in point of construction and equipment, and Heidelberg University was especially noted for its influential law school. The university as a whole became the role model for the transformation of American liberal arts colleges into research universities, in particular for the then-newly established Johns Hopkins University. Heidelberg's professors were important supporters of the Vormärz revolution and many of them were members of the first freely elected German parliament, the Frankfurt Parliament of 1848. During the late 19th century, the university housed a very liberal and open-minded spirit, which was deliberately fostered by Max Weber, Ernst Troeltsch and a circle of colleagues around them. In the Weimar Republic, the university was widely recognized as a center of democratic thinking, coined by professors like Karl Jaspers, Gustav Radbruch, Martin Dibelius and Alfred Weber. Unfortunately, there were also dark forces working within the university: Nazi physicist Philipp Lenard was head of the physical institute during that time. Following the assassination of Walther Rathenau, he refused to half mast the national flag on the institute, thereby provoking its storming by communist students.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29278708
| 1,931,703 |
887,385 |
The largest spark transmitters were powerful transoceanic radiotelegraphy stations with input power of 100 - 300 kW. Beginning about 1910, industrial countries built global networks of these stations to exchange commercial and diplomatic telegram traffic with other countries and communicate with their overseas colonies. During World War I, long distance radiotelegraphy became a strategic defensive technology, as it was realized a nation without radio could be isolated by an enemy cutting its submarine telegraph cables. Most of these networks were built by the two giant wireless corporations of the age: the British Marconi Company, which constructed the Imperial Wireless Chain to link the possessions of the British Empire, and the German Telefunken Co. which was dominant outside the British Empire. Marconi transmitters used the timed spark rotary discharger, while Telefunken transmitters used its quenched spark gap technology. Paper tape machines were used to transmit Morse code text at high speed. To achieve a maximum range of around 3000 – 6000 miles, transoceanic stations transmitted mainly in the very low frequency (VLF) band, from 50 kHz to as low as 15 – 20 kHz. At these wavelengths even the largest antennas were electrically short, a tiny fraction of a wavelength tall, and so had low radiation resistance (often below 1 ohm), so these transmitters required enormous wire umbrella and flattop antennas up to several miles long with large capacitive toploads, to achieve adequate efficiency. The antenna required a large loading coil at the base, 6 – 10 feet tall, to make it resonant with the transmitter.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=1105907
| 886,920 |
1,581,720 |
The work attracted large financial support from private benefactors in Australia (Kenneth and Baillieu Myer, and Sir Ian Potter) and overseas, the Australian Government and Reserve Bank, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health (US). This founded and supported the Howard Florey Laboratories in 1962, and then in 1970, the Howard Florey Institute of Experimental Physiology and Medicine, which has eventually become the largest neuroscience institute in the Southern Hemisphere (The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health – 600 personnel). He was the Founding Director and was termed by the Chancellor of Melbourne University, Professor Sir Douglas Wright AK, as the “"fons et origo"”. Election by the Royal Swedish Academy of Science (1974) as one of 18 Foreign Medical Members, joining, "inter alia", Lord Adrian, Hodgkin, A.V. Hill, Burnet, Monod, Best, Bronk, Page and Moruzzi. One of 4 OECD Examiners of Scientific Policy of the Government of Sweden in 1986. For twelve years (1978-1991) he was with Professor Sune Bergstrom, Chairman of the Nobel Foundation, one of two foreign members of the Lasker Jury in the U.S. He became a Council Member (1977-1989), and then First Vice President of the International Union of Physiological Sciences (1983-1989), working with President, Sir Andrew Huxley PRS. Australian representative on the International Human Rights Network of Academies and Learned Societies, 2000-2015.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=6869432
| 1,580,830 |
305,828 |
Beginning in the 1930s, some of the most ancient hominin remains of the time dating to 3.8–2.9 million years ago were recovered from East Africa. Because "Australopithecus africanus" fossils were commonly being discovered throughout the 1920s and '40s in South Africa, these remains were often provisionally classified as "Australopithecus" aff. "africanus". The first to identify a human fossil was German explorer Ludwig Kohl-Larsen in 1939 by the headwaters of the Gerusi River (near Laetoli, Tanzania), who encountered a maxilla. In 1948, German palaeontologist Edwin Hennig proposed classifying it into a new genus, ""Praeanthropus"", but he failed to give a species name. In 1950, German anthropologist Hans Weinert proposed classifying it as "Meganthropus africanus", but this was largely ignored. In 1955, M.S. Şenyürek proposed the combination "Praeanthropus africanus". Major collections were made in Laetoli, Tanzania, on an expedition beginning in 1974 directed by British palaeoanthropologist Mary Leakey, and in Hadar, Ethiopia, from 1972 to 1977 by the International Afar Research Expedition (IARE) formed by French geologist Maurice Taieb, American palaeoanthropologist Donald Johanson and Breton anthropologist Yves Coppens. These fossils were remarkably well preserved and many had associated skeletal aspects. In 1973, the IARE team unearthed the first knee joint, AL 129-1, and showed the earliest example at the time of bipedalism. In 1974, Johanson and graduate student Tom Gray discovered the extremely well-preserved skeleton AL 288–1, commonly referred to as "Lucy" (named after the 1967 Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" which was playing on their tape recorder that evening). In 1975, the IARE recovered 216 specimens belonging to 13 individuals, AL 333 "the First Family" (though the individuals were not necessarily related). In 1976, Leakey and colleagues discovered fossil trackways, and preliminarily classified Laetoli remains into "Homo" spp., attributing "Australopithecus"-like traits as evidence of them being transitional fossils.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=443293
| 305,665 |
1,732,197 |
Opponents of the transmission theory criticize the vagueness of Chinese records on the specific usage of gunpowder in weaponry, the existence of gunpowder or possibly lack thereof in incendiary weapons as described by Chinese documents, the weakness of Chinese firearms, the non-existent route of diffusion or evidence of guns between Europe and China before 1326, and emphasize the independent evolution of superior guns in Europe. This too becomes problematic as already discussed above. Notably there is an acute dearth of any significant evidence of evolution or experimentation with gunpowder or gunpowder weapons leading up to the gun in 1326, which can be found in China. Gunpowder appeared in Europe primed for military usage as an explosive and propellant, bypassing a process which took centuries of Chinese experimentation with gunpowder weaponry to reach, making a nearly instantaneous and seamless transition into gun warfare, as its name suggests. Furthermore, early European gunpowder recipes shared identical defects with Chinese recipes such as the inclusion of the poisons sal ammoniac and arsenic, which provide no benefit to gunpowder. Bert S. Hall explains this phenomenon in his "Weapons and Warfare in Renaissance Europe: Gunpowder, Technology, and Tactics" by drawing upon the gunpowder transmission theory, explaining that "gunpowder came [to Europe], not as an ancient mystery, but as a well-developed modern technology, in a manner very much like twentieth-century 'technology-transfer' projects." In a similar vein Peter Lorge supposes that the Europeans experienced gunpowder "free from preconceived notions of what could be done," in contrast to China, "where a wide range of formulas and a broad variety of weapons demonstrated the full range of possibilities and limitations of the technologies involved." There is also the vestige of Chinese influence, and not European, on Muslim terminology of some gunpowder related items such as saltpeter, which has been described as either Chinese snow or salt, fireworks which were called Chinese flowers, and rockets which were called Chinese arrows. Moreover, Europeans in particular experienced great difficulty in obtaining saltpeter, a primary ingredient of gunpowder which was relatively scarce in Europe compared to China, and had to be obtained from "distant lands or extracted at high cost from soil rich in dung and urine." Thomas Arnold believes that the similarities between early European cannons and contemporary Chinese models suggests a direct transmission of cannon making knowledge from China rather than a home grown development. Whatever the truth may be, the first unambiguous references to guns appeared in Europe in the 1320s.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=61793153
| 1,731,221 |
1,169,607 |
Although the use of coefficients can significantly improve the reliability of colocalization detection, it depends on the number of factors, including the conditions of how samples with fluorescence were prepared and how images with colocalization were acquired and processed. Studies should be conducted with great caution, and after careful background reading. Currently the field is dogged by confusion and a standardized approach is yet to be firmly established. Attempts to rectify this include re-examination and revision of some of the coefficients, application of a factor to correct for noise, "Replicate based noise corrected correlations for accurate measurements of colocalization". and the proposal of further protocols, which were thoroughly reviewed by Bolte and Cordelieres (2006). In addition, due to the tendency of fluorescence images to contain a certain amount of out-of-focus signal, and poisson shot and other noise, they usually require pre-processing prior to quantification. Careful image restoration by deconvolution removes noise and increases contrast in images, improving the quality of colocalization analysis results. Up to now, most frequently used methods to quantify colocalization calculate the statistical correlation of pixel intensities in two distinct microscopy channels. More recent studies have shown that this can lead to high correlation coefficients even for targets that are known to reside in different cellular compartments. A more robust quantification of colocalization can be achieved by combining digital object recognition, the calculation of the area overlap and combination with a pixel-intensity correlation value. This led to the concept of an object-corrected Pearson's correlation coefficient.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3505075
| 1,168,988 |
88,678 |
In the Gaia hypothesis, James Lovelock stated that the entire mass of living matter on Earth (or any planet with life) functions as a vast homeostatic superorganism that actively modifies its planetary environment to produce the environmental conditions necessary for its own survival. In this view, the entire planet maintains several homeostasis (the primary one being temperature homeostasis). Whether this sort of system is present on Earth is open to debate. However, some relatively simple homeostatic mechanisms are generally accepted. For example, it is sometimes claimed that when atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rise, certain plants may be able to grow better and thus act to remove more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. However, warming has exacerbated droughts, making water the actual limiting factor on land. When sunlight is plentiful and the atmospheric temperature climbs, it has been claimed that the phytoplankton of the ocean surface waters, acting as global sunshine, and therefore heat sensors, may thrive and produce more dimethyl sulfide (DMS). The DMS molecules act as cloud condensation nuclei, which produce more clouds, and thus increase the atmospheric albedo, and this feeds back to lower the temperature of the atmosphere. However, rising sea temperature has stratified the oceans, separating warm, sunlit waters from cool, nutrient-rich waters. Thus, nutrients have become the limiting factor, and plankton levels have actually fallen over the past 50 years, not risen. As scientists discover more about Earth, vast numbers of positive and negative feedback loops are being discovered, that, together, maintain a metastable condition, sometimes within a very broad range of environmental conditions.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=13980
| 88,642 |
1,092,807 |
The first DC powerhouse was in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where the water turbine at the Wolverine Chair factory was attached to a dynamo using a mechanical belt drive to illuminate sixteen street lights. This occurred in 1880, the same year Thomas Edison produced the long-lasting incandescent filament light bulb, which was a safety and convenience improvement over existing candles, whale oil lamps and kerosene lamps inside buildings. In 1881, also using DC for lighting at Niagara Falls, Jacob F. Schoellkopf diverted part of the output from his waterwheel-powered flour mills to drive one of Charles Brush's improved generators to provide nighttime illumination for the tourists. Previously the attraction had been illuminated by burning bright calcium flares but arc-lights proved a better and cheaper alternative. In 1882, the world's first commercial central DC hydroelectric power plant provided power for a paper mill in Appleton, Wisconsin; just months later the first investor-owned electric utility, Edison Illuminating Company, completed the first fossil fueled electrical power plant in New York City, to compete with hydroelectric power close to an area of high demand. By 1886, between 40 and 50 hydroelectric stations were operating in the United States and in Canada, and by 1888 about 200 electric companies relied on hydropower for at least part of their generation.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=24532465
| 1,092,247 |
2,021,088 |
"Grhl2" is involved in lower jaw formation of mammals, among other craniofacial developmental processes. It is also evolutionarily closest to "Grhl1", compared to "Grhl3", while still exhibiting the highly conserved functions that all "Grhl" genes share. It also appears that "Grhl2" is involved in the fusion of the facial bones and that disruption to the regulation of "Grhl2" can lead to cranioschisis/split face during embryonic development, often causing death. Continuing with the trend of incomplete fusion, the formation of the neural tube and abdominal wall is also regulated by "Grhl2", evident by observation of incomplete closure of these structures, leading to spina bifida and thoracoabdominoschisis, following loss of "Grhl2" function in mutant mice models for "Grhl2". Additionally, over-expression of "Grhl2" can also lead to mice developing spina bifida, showing the delicate balance in regulation required for "Grhl2". "Grhl2" is also related to breast cancer progression due to its ability to regulate epithelial cells and other processes such as epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), although it is not known if EMT is promoted or inhibited by "Grhl2". However, tumour progression is more associated with the epithelial tissue phenotype. Interestingly, within zebrafish there are two separate orthologues, "grhl2a" and "grhl2b". Comparing the homology of these two orthologues to the human and mice equivalent, "Grhl2," showed that "grhl2b" had 36 out of 47 amino acids identical (77% identical), meaning it was slightly more conserved than "grhl2a," which had 34 out of 47 (72% identical). "grhl2b" loss causes apoptosis throughout the brain and the nervous system of zebrafish. A similar result came from a mouse study and led to the belief that "grhl2b" is a key survival factor for neural cells.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=63194019
| 2,019,925 |
1,370,743 |
Burnet spoke and wrote widely on the topic of human biology after his retirement, aiming to reach all strata of society. He courted the media as well as the scientific community, often leading to sensationalist or scientifically unrigorous report of his outspoken views. This often angered colleagues, who viewed him as abusing his stature to deliberately cause a stir. In 1966 Burnet presented the Boyer Lectures, focusing on human biology. He provided a conceptual framework for sustainable development; 21 years later the definition provided by the Brundtland Commission was almost identical. In 1970 he revised an earlier book which was published as "Dominant Mammal: the Biology of Human Destiny"; it was followed by "Endurance of Life", which was published in 1978. The books discuss aspects of human biology, a topic which Burnet wrote on extensively in his later years. In "Dominant Mammal" he argued that the roots of all human behaviour can be found in the behaviour of animals; in "Endurance" he addressed issues of ageing, life, death and the future of mankind. The books strongly polarised the scientific community, and one reviewer described his ideas of sociobiology as "extreme" and giving "a dismal, unappealing view of humanity". In "Endurance of Life", he also called for society to accept euthanasia of ill older people, repeat violent criminals, and most controversially, abortion of pregnancies likely to result in disabled children, and infanticide of handicapped newborns. Knowing that there would be a strong backlash for such policies, he departed overseas for a two-month lecture series at the time of the book launch. In his absence, he was strongly assailed in newspaper letters and some correspondents compared his stance on infanticide to that of Adolf Hitler. At the same time, he also changed his stance on nuclear power and advocated its use, and the reinvestment of revenue for research into solar power. This about face angered the environmental movement.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=417493
| 1,369,987 |
106,582 |
Democritus (5th century BC) argued that all things in the universe, including light, are composed of indivisible sub-components. Euclid (4th–3rd century BC) gives treatises on light propagation, states the principle of shortest trajectory of light, including multiple reflections on mirrors, including spherical, while Plutarch (1st–2nd century AD) describes multiple reflections on spherical mirrors discussing the creation of larger or smaller images, real or imaginary, including the case of chirality of the images. At the beginning of the 11th century, the Arabic scientist Ibn al-Haytham wrote the first comprehensive "Book of Optics" describing reflection, refraction, and the operation of a pinhole lens via rays of light traveling from the point of emission to the eye. He asserted that these rays were composed of particles of light. In 1630, René Descartes popularized the opposing wave description in his treatise on light, The World, showing that the behaviour of light could be re-created by modeling wave-like disturbances in a universal medium i.e. luminiferous aether. Beginning in 1670 and progressing over three decades, Isaac Newton developed and championed his corpuscular theory, arguing that the perfectly straight lines of reflection demonstrated light's particle nature, only particles could travel in such straight lines. He explained refraction by positing that particles of light accelerated laterally upon entering a denser medium. Around the same time, Newton's contemporaries Robert Hooke and Christiaan Huygens, and later Augustin-Jean Fresnel, mathematically refined the wave viewpoint, showing that if light traveled at different speeds in different media, refraction could be easily explained as the medium-dependent propagation of light waves. The resulting Huygens–Fresnel principle was extremely successful at reproducing light's behaviour and was subsequently supported by Thomas Young's discovery of wave interference of light by his double-slit experiment in 1801. The wave view did not immediately displace the ray and particle view, but began to dominate scientific thinking about light in the mid 19th century, since it could explain polarization phenomena that the alternatives could not.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=33426
| 106,537 |
410,650 |
Despite this, there is still interest in nuclear propulsion. In November 2010 British Maritime Technology and Lloyd's Register embarked upon a two-year study with U.S.-based Hyperion Power Generation (now Gen4 Energy), and the Greek ship operator Enterprises Shipping and Trading SA to investigate the practical maritime applications for small modular reactors. The research intended to produce a concept tanker-ship design, based on a 70 MWt reactor such as Hyperion's. In response to its members' interest in nuclear propulsion, Lloyd's Register has also re-written its 'rules' for nuclear ships, which concern the integration of a reactor certified by a land-based regulator with the rest of the ship. The overall rationale of the rule-making process assumes that in contrast to the current marine industry practice where the designer/builder typically demonstrates compliance with regulatory requirements, in the future the nuclear regulators will wish to ensure that it is the operator of the nuclear plant that demonstrates safety in operation, in addition to the safety through design and construction. Nuclear ships are currently the responsibility of their own countries, but none are involved in international trade. As a result of this work in 2014 two papers on commercial nuclear marine propulsion were published by Lloyd's Register and the other members of this consortium. These publications review past and recent work in the area of marine nuclear propulsion and describe a preliminary concept design study for a Suezmax tanker that is based on a conventional hull form with alternative arrangements for accommodating a 70 MWt nuclear propulsion plant delivering up to 23.5 MW shaft power at maximum continuous rating (average: 9.75 MW). The Gen4Energy power module is considered. This is a small fast-neutron reactor using lead–bismuth eutectic cooling and able to operate for ten full-power years before refueling, and in service last for a 25-year operational life of the vessel. They conclude that the concept is feasible, but further maturity of nuclear technology and the development and harmonisation of the regulatory framework would be necessary before the concept would be viable.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=916971
| 410,448 |
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In 1960, Wichterle and Lim were the first to publish experiments on hydrogels for biomedical applications by using them in contact lens construction. Work on the field developed slowly over the next two decades, but later found traction when hydrogels were repurposed for drug delivery. In 1984, Charles Hull developed bioprinting by converting a Hewlett-Packard inkjet printer into a device capable of depositing cells in 2-D. Three dimensional (3-D) printing is a type of additive manufacturing which has since found various applications in medical engineering, due to its high precision and efficiency. With biologist James Thompson's development of first human stem cell lines in 1998 followed by transplantation of first laboratory-grown internal organs in 1999 and creation of the first bioprinter in 2003 by the University of Missouri when they printed spheroids without the need of scaffolds, 3-D bioprinting became more conventionally used in medical field than ever before. So far, scientists have been able to print mini organoids and organs-on-chips that have rendered practical insights into the functions of a human body. Pharmaceutical companies are using these models to test drugs before moving on to animal studies. However, a fully functional and structurally similar organ hasn't been printed yet. A team at University of Utah has reportedly printed ears and successfully transplanted those onto children born with defects that left their ears partially developed.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=307065
| 922,162 |
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At the season finale held in Australia, Häkkinen's car suffered a tyre failure during the event's first qualifying session on Friday, which resulted in his car becoming airborne and crashing sideways into the crash barrier on the outside of Brewery corner, the fastest corner of the Adelaide Street Circuit, at an estimated speed of 120 mph. The session was suspended with Häkkinen being critically injured due to sustaining a skull fracture, internal bleeding and a blockage of his airway. His life was saved by the efforts of the trackside medical team including the President of the FIA Institute for Motor Sport Safety, Sid Watkins and volunteer doctors Jerome Cockings and Steve Lewis from the Royal Adelaide Hospital. Cockings performed an emergency tracheotomy on the track, delivering oxygen to enable Häkkinen to breathe. Watkins later arrived in the medical car, allowing the doctors to continue, restarting Häkkinen's heart twice. Häkkinen was immediately transported by ambulance to the nearby Royal Adelaide Hospital which was luckily located only about half a kilometre from the circuit. There he remained in a critical condition under care of the Trauma Service, the Neurosurgical Unit, and the Intensive Care Unit and remained in the hospital for approximately two months. He eventually made a remarkable recovery. As an expression of thanks for the elite class medical attention he received, Häkkinen donated a substantial undisclosed sum of money to help build a much-needed helipad for The Royal Adelaide Hospital, and made a special trip to Australia for the official opening ceremony in March 1997.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=63073
| 339,086 |
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Thomas' surgical techniques included one he developed in 1946 for improving circulation in patients whose great vessels (the aorta and the pulmonary artery) were transposed. A complex operation called an atrial septectomy, the procedure was executed so flawlessly by Thomas that Blalock, upon examining the nearly undetectable suture line, was prompted to remark, "Vivien, this looks like something the Lord made." To the host of young surgeons Thomas trained during the 1940s, he became a figure of legend, the model of a dexterous and efficient cutting surgeon. "Even if you'd never seen surgery before, you could do it because Vivien made it look so simple," the renowned surgeon Denton Cooley told "Washingtonian" magazine in 1989. "There wasn't a false move, not a wasted motion, when he operated." Surgeons like Cooley, along with Alex Haller, Frank Spencer, Rowena Spencer, and others credited Thomas with teaching them the surgical technique that placed them at the forefront of medicine in the United States. Despite the deep respect Thomas was accorded by these surgeons and by the many Black lab assistants he trained at Hopkins, he was not well paid. He sometimes resorted to working as a bartender, often at Blalock's parties. This led to the peculiar circumstance of his serving drinks to people he had been teaching earlier in the day. Eventually, after negotiations on his behalf by Blalock, he became the highest paid assistant at Johns Hopkins by 1946, and by far the highest paid African-American on the institution's rolls. Although Thomas never wrote or spoke publicly about his ongoing desire to return to college and obtain a medical degree, his widow, the late Clara Flanders Thomas, revealed in a 1987 interview with "Washingtonian" writer Katie McCabe that her husband had clung to the possibility of further education throughout the blue baby period, and had only abandoned the idea with great reluctance. Mrs. Thomas stated that in 1947, Thomas had investigated the possibility of enrolling in college and pursuing his dream of becoming a doctor, but had been deterred by the inflexibility of Morgan State University, which refused to grant him credit for life experience and insisted that he fulfill the standard freshman requirements. Realizing that he would be 50 years old by the time he completed college and medical school, Thomas decided to give up the idea of further education.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=679723
| 167,921 |
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Biocompatibility is related to the behavior of biomaterials in various environments under various chemical and physical conditions. The term may refer to specific properties of a material without specifying where or how the material is to be used. For example, a material may elicit little or no immune response in a given organism, and may or may not able to integrate with a particular cell type or tissue. Immuno-informed biomaterials that direct the immune response rather than attempting to circumvent the process is one approach that shows promise. The ambiguity of the term reflects the ongoing development of insights into "how biomaterials interact with the human body" and eventually "how those interactions determine the clinical success of a medical device (such as pacemaker or hip replacement) ". Modern medical devices and prostheses are often made of more than one material, so it might not always be sufficient to talk about the biocompatibility of a specific material. Surgical implantation of a biomaterial into the body triggers an organism-inflammatory reaction with the associated healing of the damaged tissue. Depending upon the composition of the implanted material, the surface of the implant, the mechanism of fatigue, and chemical decomposition there are several other reactions possible. These can be local as well as systemic. These include immune response, foreign body reaction with the isolation of the implant with a vascular connective tissue, possible infection, and impact on the lifespan of the implant. Graft-versus-host disease is an auto- and alloimmune disorder, exhibiting a variable clinical course. It can manifest in either acute or chronic form, affecting multiple organs and tissues and causing serious complications in clinical practice, both during transplantation and implementation of biocompatible materials.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=6259941
| 892,577 |
1,560,099 |
Studies have found that physical exercise is a viable, non-pharmaceutical approach to resisting and even undoing the harmful processes that cause sudden abnormal changes in brain cell activity resulting in seizures that characterize epilepsy. One area of focus looks to the effect on brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) levels following a seizure event. Proper regulation of BDNF levels is necessary to maintain the BDNF-TrkB signaling pathway responsible for healthy synaptic plasticity. It has been observed that seizure events are consistently followed by a significant increase then drastic drop in BDNF levels which results in reduced cognition and further increases the probability of seizure events in the future. However, animal models have shown that epileptic patients undergoing physical exercise, especially if it's routine, develop more consistent BDNF levels similar to those unafflicted by the disorder. This return to normal-like BDNF fluctuations not only promotes generally healthier brain functioning but also reduced the total number of seizures experienced by the treated patients. Physical exercise increases BDNF levels via increased H3 acetylation and decreased expression of some relevant histone deacetylases. Some evidence has shown that physical exercise also has an impact on the expression of microRNAs related to neurodegeneration. The effects of microRNAs are thoroughly discussed above in the effects on cognition section. However, the mechanisms behind exercise and microRNA expression are not clear. Further study is required to understand how significant the interaction is between exercise and microRNA expression. One of the key functions of BDNF is to inhibit reactive oxygen species(ROS) which have been seen to damage cells and consequently discourage proper brain functioning. Physical exercise patients undergoing a high-intensity workout showed a notable increase in ROS that could significantly counter the benefits of moderate BDNF levels discussed prior. This finding suggests that low to moderate intensities are preferred treatment methods for those already at risk for neurological dysregulation. However, the detrimental effects of high intensity of workouts significantly diminish over time as the person naturally adapts to the oxidative stress that promotes ROS.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=42663845
| 1,559,213 |
1,387,839 |
In the same month, Rochelle Tyl, author of two studies used by FDA to assert BPA safety in August 2008, said those studies did not claim that BPA is safe, because they were not designed to cover all aspects of the chemical's effects. In May 2009, Minnesota and Chicago were the first U.S. jurisdictions to pass regulations limiting or banning BPA. In June 2009, the FDA announced its decision to reconsider the BPA safety levels. Grassroots political action led Connecticut to become the first U.S. state to ban bisphenol A not only from infant formula and baby food containers, but also from any reusable food or beverage container. In July 2009, the California Environmental Protection Agency's Developmental and Reproductive Toxicity Identification Committee in the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment unanimously voted against placing Bisphenol A on the state's list of chemicals that are believed to cause reproductive harm. The panel was concerned over the growing scientific evidence showing BPA's reproductive harm in animals, found that there was insufficient data of the effects in humans. Critics pointed out that the same panel failed to add second-hand smoke to the list until 2006, and only one chemical was added to the list in the last three years. In September, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that it was evaluating BPA for an action plan development. In October, the NIH announced $30,000,000 in stimulus grants to study the health effects of BPA. This money was supposed to result in many peer-reviewed publications.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=57552333
| 1,387,072 |
1,304,207 |
The first-year curriculum consists of four blocks covering the basic medical sciences. Each block combines daily lectures by faculty from diverse fields, and therefore provides a highly integrated curriculum. The first block, titled "Principles of Medicine", includes cellular and molecular biology, biochemistry, microbiology, pharmacology, histology, and genetics. The second, "Immunology", is focused on the human immune system at the cellular level with specific focuses on histology, microbiology, and pharmacology. The third block is "hematology", which focuses on the body's blood system, including pathological diseases of blood cells. Specific focuses on histology allows students to gain a better understanding of how the microscopic structure of a tissue affects its physiologic function. The final block, "Cardiology", is the first "tissue" block of the first year curriculum. Additionally, students begin anatomy lab with human cadavers as they explore the heart, lungs, mediastinum, and major bones, nerves, and muscles of the chest cavity. In addition to the four core blocks, students have weekly "Medicine and Society" small groups, where they discuss the role and effects of health care in our society, culture, and ethics. They also apply their fledgling medical knowledge through occasional case study small groups, called the "Clinical Applications Course" or "CAC." First-year students learn basic physical exam skills and patient interviewing skills via the weekly "Principles of Clinical medicine"or "PCC" small groups, and shadow physicians throughout North Carolina during two "Clinical Weeks." In between first and second year, many students conduct clinical or medical science research at UNC or at other institutions, or travel with UNC physicians to clinics in South America, Africa and Asia.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11446084
| 1,303,491 |
1,706,380 |
Some of the differences in approach described above are easier to understand if the macroscope is interpreted as a particular instance of the "value chain of big data" (with a particular focus on earth and/or biosphere observations), which as stated in Chen "et al." (2014) can be divided into four phases, namely data generation, data acquisition (aka data assembly), data storage, and data analysis. For some workers such as M. Dornelas "et al.", the macroscope is the sum of the data collection systems (the generation element) that will provide the content that is needed for subsequent analysis, although some mention is also made of "a series of domain-specific data registries" which would then permit the content to be discovered. For others such as OBIS, the principal effort required to construct the macroscope is the data assembly component, which then permits the integrated analysis of previously disparate datasets (OBIS data can then either be viewed by the tools supplied, or downloaded to a user's own system for additional visualization and analysis); while for facilities interested in discovering patterns in the data (and with sufficient computing power to hand), the macroscope is the suite of temporal and spatial analytical and filtering tools ("lenses" in the terminology of the Indiana University Cyberinfrastructure for Network Science Center) which can be applied once the data are assembled. Since by analogy with the microscope, the macroscope is in essence a method of visualizing subjects too large to be seen completely in a conventional field of view, probably none of these approaches are incorrect, the differences in emphasis being complementary in that each is capable of contributing to the resulting "virtual instrument" that is envisaged by this concept. One trend that is observable, however, is that of increasing base dataset size and desired sampling density, today's "macroscopes" being built upon arrays of fine scale / high resolution data that would have been discarded as undesirable detail (obscuring the "big picture") in the original concepts of Odum and de Rosnay.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=64208794
| 1,705,422 |
1,513,986 |
During the Cold War, the Canadian government began taking initiatives to secure the continent, and to assert territorial authority over northern Canada, including the Arctic, which at the time had a dominant American presence. The Canadian government demonstrated their desire for national dominance and security by requiring permission from other nations to utilize their land for military initiatives. They also supported and implemented civilian initiatives including resource development, wildlife conservation and the social and economic development of indigenous peoples. In 1950’s, ecologist Charles Elton was drawn to the Arctic to study the existence, causes and effects of cycles in animal populations, while ecologists Frank Banfield and John Kelsal studied the factors, especially human impacts, influencing hunting and game populations on animals such as caribou. The 1960s and 1970s brought a decrease in the desire to protect the Arctic as it was seen to lack a significant amount of biodiversity. This allowed for scientists to extend further research in the area. In June 1960, the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) was constructed, headed by General Duncan Hallock and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The two predecessor organizations that made up the CRREL were the Arctic Construction and Frost Effects Laboratory (ACFEL), and the Snow, Ice and Permafrost Research Establishment (SIPRE). The goal of the CREEL laboratory was to bring together the ACFEL and SIPRE to expand the size and scientific reputation of these organizations, solve problems in cold regions and explore the basic environmental characteristics of cold regions. As a result, study and management of the Arctic was taken over by consulting firms hired and controlled by the government.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11180149
| 1,513,135 |
213,688 |
Tracheids have perforated end walls, which impose a great deal of resistance on water flow, but may have had the advantage of isolating air embolisms caused by cavitation or freezing. Vessels first evolved during the dry, low periods of the Late Permian, in the horsetails, ferns and Selaginellales independently, and later appeared in the mid Cretaceous in gnetophytes and angiosperms. Vessel members are open tubes with no end walls, and are arranged end to end to operate as if they were one continuous vessel. Vessels allowed the same cross-sectional area of wood to transport much more water than tracheids. This allowed plants to fill more of their stems with structural fibres and also opened a new niche to vines, which could transport water without being as thick as the tree they grew on. Despite these advantages, tracheid-based wood is a lot lighter, thus cheaper to make, as vessels need to be much more reinforced to avoid cavitation. Once plants had evolved this level of control over water evaporation and water transport, they were truly homoiohydric, able to extract water from their environment through root-like organs rather than relying on a film of surface moisture, enabling them to grow to much greater size but as a result of their increased independence from their surroundings, most vascular plants lost their ability to survive desiccation - a costly trait to lose. In early land plants, support was mainly provided by turgor pressure, particularly of the outer layer of cells known as the sterome tracheids, and not by the xylem, which was too small, too weak and in too central a position to provide much structural support. Plants with secondary xylem that had appeared by mid-Devonian, such as the Trimerophytes and Progymnosperms had much larger vascular cross sections producing strong woody tissue.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11008314
| 213,580 |
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At room temperature, the crystal structure of SnSe is "Pnma". However, at ~750 K, it undergoes a phase transition that results in a higher symmetry "Cmcm" structure. This phase transition preserves many of the advantageous transport properties of SnSe. The dynamic structural behavior of SnSe involving the reversible phase transition helps to preserve the high power factor. The "Cmcm" phase, which is structurally related to the low temperature "Pnma" phase, exhibits a substantially reduced energy gap and enhanced carrier mobilities while maintaining the ultralow thermal conductivity thus yielding the record ZT. Because of SnSe’s layered structure, which does not conduct heat well, one end of the SnSe single crystal can get hot while the other remains cool. This idea can be paralleled with the idea of a posture-pedic mattress that does not transfer vibrations laterally. In SnSe, the ability of crystal vibrations (also known as phonons) to propagate through the material is significantly hampered. This means heat can only travel due to hot carriers (an effect that can be approximated by the Wiedemann–Franz law), a heat transport mechanism that is much less significant to the total thermal conductivity. Thus the hot end can stay hot while the cold end remains cold, maintaining the temperature gradient needed for thermoelectric device operation. The poor ability to carry heat through its lattice enables the resulting record high thermoelectric conversion efficiency. The previously reported nanostructured all-scale hierarchical PbTe-4SrTe-2Na (with a ZT of 2.2) exhibits a lattice thermal conductivity of 0.5 W m K. The unprecedentedly high ZT ~2.6 of SnSe arises primarily from an even lower lattice thermal conductivity of 0.23 W m K. However, in order to take advantage of this ultralow lattice thermal conductivity, the synthesis method must result in macroscale single crystals as p-type polycrystalline SnSe has been shown to have a significantly reduced ZT. Enhancement in the figure of merit above a relatively high value of 2.5 can have sweeping ramifications for commercial applications especially for materials using less expensive, more Earth-abundant elements that are devoid of lead and tellurium (two materials that have been prevalent in the thermoelectric materials industry for the past couple decades).
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=5302107
| 1,753,514 |
1,015,462 |
Lawrence Kohlberg was born in Bronxville, New York. He was the youngest of four children of Alfred Kohlberg, a Jewish German entrepreneur, and of his second wife, Charlotte Albrecht, a Christian German chemist. His parents separated when he was four years old and divorced finally when he was fourteen. From 1933 to 1938, Lawrence and his three other siblings rotated between their mother and father for six months at a time. In 1938, this rotating custody of the Kohlberg children was ended, allowing the children to choose the parent with whom they wanted to live. Kohlberg attended high school at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, an elite preparatory school. Kohlberg served in the Merchant Marine at the end of World War II. He worked for a time with the Haganah on a ship smuggling Jewish refugees from Romania through the British Blockade, into Palestine. Captured by the British and held at an internment camp on Cyprus, Kohlberg escaped with fellow crew members. Kohlberg was in Palestine during the fighting in 1948 to establish the state of Israel, but refused to participate and focused on nonviolent forms of activism. He also lived in an Israeli kibbutz during this time, until he was able to return to America in 1948. In the same year, he enrolled at the University of Chicago. At this time at Chicago it was possible to gain credit for courses by examination, and Kohlberg earned his bachelor's degree in one year, 1948. He then began study for his doctoral degree in psychology, which he completed at Chicago in 1958. In 1955 while beginning his dissertation, he married Lucille Stigberg, and the couple had two sons, David and Steven.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=167071
| 1,014,941 |
2,203,369 |
A polymorphism interaction analysis (PIA) algorithm was used to obtain cooperating single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that contribute to RA disease. The acquired SNP pairs were used to construct a SNP-SNP network. Sub-networks defined by hub SNPs were then extracted and turned into gene modules by mapping SNPs to genes using dbSNP database. The FESD Version II would also be a good choice in database because it also covers the dbSNP database. They ran the Haseman Elston test, then a random forest algorithm. The shared SNPs detected were then ran through a polymorphism interaction analysis (PIA) algorithm. They performed gene ontology analysis of the 5 modules that were created. It was suggested that Ets-1 may be an important transcription factor in the cytokine-mediated inflammatory pathway and destructive cascade characteristic of RA. The ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporter, ABCA1, was induced during differentiation of human monocytes into macrophages, and there was a dual regulatory function for ABCA1 in macrophage lipid metabolism and inflammation. Extracellular signals are transduced intracellularly via multiple pathways, resulting in alterations in the transcription and translation of specific proteins. Some of these signaling pathways result in the production of proteins, including cytokines and matrix metalloproteinases, which are implicated in the pathogenesis of RA. The zinc-finger protein 238 (ZNF238) is attached to zinc-finger proteins that can regulate the human immunodeficiency virus type 1. Hub gene CD160 is a potential RA association gene. The CD160 receptor represents a unique triggering surface molecule that is expressed by cytotoxic NK cells, it participates in the inflammatory response and determines the type of subsequent specific immunity.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30894898
| 2,202,115 |
1,320,831 |
This formula was used in 1999 for astrophysical applications in a paper published in "The Astrophysical Journal", published by Howard Cohl and Joel Tohline. The above-mentioned formula is also known in the engineering community. For instance, a paper written in the "Journal of Applied Physics" in volume 18, 1947 pages 562-577 shows N.G. De Bruijn and C.J. Boukamp knew of the above relationship. In fact, virtually all the mathematics found in recent papers was already done by Chester Snow. This is found in his book titled "Hypergeometric and Legendre Functions with Applications to Integral Equations of Potential Theory", National Bureau of Standards Applied Mathematics Series 19, 1952. Look specifically on pages 228-263. The article by Chester Snow, "Magnetic Fields of Cylindrical Coils and Annular Coils" (National Bureau of Standards, Applied Mathematical Series 38, December 30, 1953), clearly shows the relationship between the free-space Green's function in cylindrical coordinates and the Q-function expression. Likewise, see another one of Snow's pieces of work, titled "Formulas for Computing Capacitance and Inductance", National Bureau of Standards Circular 544, September 10, 1954, pp 13–41. Indeed, not much has been published recently on the subject of toroidal functions and their applications in engineering or physics. However, a number of engineering applications do exist. One application was published; the article was written by J.P. Selvaggi, S. Salon, O. Kwon, and M.V.K. Chari, "Calculating the External Magnetic Field From Permanent Magnets in Permanent-Magnet Motors-An Alternative Method," IEEE Transactions on Magnetics, Vol. 40, No. 5, September 2004. These authors have done extensive work with Legendre functions of the second kind and half-integral degree or toroidal functions of zeroth order. They have solved numerous problems which exhibit circular cylindrical symmetry employing the toroidal functions.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=7556093
| 1,320,105 |
1,070,237 |
He returned to Zwickau in 1527 and to Chemnitz in autumn of the same year, where he married Anna Meyner, a widow from Schneeberg. Upon his search for employment as town physician and pharmacist in the Ore Mountains, preferably a place, where he can satisfy his ardent longings for the studies on mining, he settled in the suitable little town Joachimsthal in the "Bohemian Erzgebirge", where in 1516 significant silver ore deposits were found. The 15,000 inhabitants made Joachimsthal a busy, booming centre of mining and smelting works with hundreds of shafts for Agricola to investigate. His primary post proved to be not very demanding and he lent all his spare time to his studies. Beginning in 1528 he immersed himself in comparisons and tests on what had been written about mineralogy and mining and his own observations of the local materials and the methods of their treatment. He constructed a logical system of the local conditions, rocks and sediments, the minerals and ores, explained the various terms of general and specific local territorial features. He combined this discourse on all natural aspects with a treatise on the actual mining, the methods and processes, local extraction variants, the differences and oddities he had learnt from the miners. For the first time, he tackled questions on the formation of ores and minerals, attempted to bring the underlying mechanisms to light and introduce his conclusions in a systematic framework. He laid out the whole process in a scholarly dialogue and published it under the title "Bermannus, sive de re metallica dialogus", (Bermannus, or a dialogue on metallurgy) in 1530. The work was highly praised by Erasmus for the attempt to put the knowledge, won by practical inquiry into order and further investigate in reduced form. Agricola, in his capacity of physician, also suggested, that minerals and their effects on and relationship to human medicine should be a future subject of investigation.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12475
| 1,069,683 |
78,728 |
The initial YF-16 prototype was reconfigured in December 1975 to serve as the USAF Flight Dynamics Laboratory's Control-Configured Vehicle (CCV) testbed. The CCV concept entails "decoupling" the aircraft's flight control surfaces so that they can operate independently. This approach enables unusual maneuvers such as being able to turn the airplane without banking it. The ability to maneuver in one plane without simultaneously moving in another was seen as offering novel tactical performance capabilities for a fighter. The CCV YF-16 design featured twin pivoting ventral fins mounted vertically underneath the air intake, and its triply redundant fly-by-wire (FBW) flight control system (FCS) was modified to permit use of flaperons on the wings' trailing edges which would act in combination with an all-moving stabilator. The fuel system was redesigned to enable adjustment of the aircraft's center of gravity by transferring fuel from one tank to another. The CCV aircraft achieved its first flight on 16 March 1976. The flight test program ran until 30 June 1977, and was marred only by a hard landing on 24 June 1976 that delayed testing until repairs were effected. The CCV program was judged successful and led to a more ambitious follow-on effort in the form of the "Advanced Fighter Technology Integration" (AFTI) F-16. The first effort accomplished under the AFTI program was a paper study with three separate contractors (i.e., McDonnell Douglas, Fairchild Republic, Rockwell International) to design an advanced aircraft technology demonstrator using new concepts such as direct lift control, direct side force control and drag modulation.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=18895385
| 78,695 |
1,516,795 |
Ignacio Layrisse (born in Caracas, 1952). Graduated as chemist at Simon Bolivar University. Engaged by INTEVEP in 1977 led the first investigative sketches referring to heavy oil emulsion-surfactant technology that conducted to the Orimulsion trade mark in 1983. In 1985 managed INTEVEP groups to study the feasibility of using it as fuel for boilers. In 1988 the commercialization of this product was in charge of the company Bitúmenes del Orinoco, S.A. (BITOR), subsidiary of PDVSA. Finally, that same year, the first commercial scale cargo was exported to the Chubuelectric power plant in Japan. The Orimulsion developed by Venezuelans scientist represents one of the most significant inventions of the 20th century. managing director PDVSA until 2002 when migrated to Mexico. In 2005 was chief executive officer of Monclova Pirineos Gas, S.A responsible for the technical activities from the planning phase to construction for the company that was awarded the PEMEX multi services contract of the Pirineo Block. At IHSA realized technical activities from planning phase to execution of Geology, Reservoir, Drilling, Infrastructure, Operational and Maintenance and Health, Security and Environment. For Vetra Exploration and Production Colombia, S.A. since 2013 handle Colombian and Peruvian assets with an operated production of some 200 000 bd of oil and 7 exploratory Blocks.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=29302481
| 1,515,943 |
2,062,055 |
Under the pressure of World War II the Survey redoubled efforts to find strategic mineral resources and map the territory of Canada. The exploration of western Canada received major attention with the discovery of oil at Leduc, Alberta in 1947 and Canada's world lead in atomic energy resulted in a successful search for uranium deposits in the north. The Survey's methods became more effective, as seen with the use of the helicopter which greatly accelerated the process of mapping. In 1955 the Survey launched "Operation Franklin" its largest field study up to that time. With air support and under the leadership of Y.O. Fortier the 28 member team mapped 260,000 square kilometers of the high Arctic. The Survey's reputation grew under the leadership of directors G. Hanson from 1953 to 1956 and J.M. Harrison, from 1956 to 1963. In 1966 organizational changes saw the Survey become part of the new Department of Energy, Mines and Resources and as a result new emphasis was placed on the quantitative analysis of Canada's mineral energy wealth. Land use became an important focus in the seventies with the Survey conducting studies of the environmental impact of the proposed Mackenzie Valley Pipeline corridor. During those same years, the extension of Canada's off-shore boundaries to include a new 371 kilometer economic zone increased the Survey's area of responsibility by 40 percent. To deal with the question of energy security the Survey initiated the Frontier Geoscience Program in the eighties. It also became the agent for Canada's participation in the international Ocean Drilling Program in 1984. That same year the Survey participated in the founding of Lithoprobe, the largest geoscience programme ever undertaken in Canada. This undertaking involving more than 700 scientists from, governments, universities and industry uses state-of-the-art techniques to provide a three dimensional image of the Earth's crust to an astonishing depth of 50 kilometers.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=18401364
| 2,060,865 |
276,538 |
In the aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima, Meitner found that she had become a celebrity. She had a radio interview with Eleanor Roosevelt, and a few days later another one with a radio station in New York, during which she heard her sister Frida's voice for the first time in years. "I am of Jewish descent", she told Frida, "I am not Jewish by belief, know nothing of the history of Judaism, and do not feel closer to Jews than to other people." On 25 January 1946, Meitner arrived in New York, where she was greeted by her sisters Lola and Frida, and by Frisch, who had made the two-day train trip from Los Alamos. Lola's husband Rudolf Allers arranged a visiting professorship for Meitner at the Catholic University of America. Meitner lectured at Princeton University, Harvard University and Columbia University, and discussed physics with Albert Einstein, Hermann Weyl, Tsung-Dao Lee, Yang Chen-Ning and Isidor Isaac Rabi. She went down to Durham, North Carolina and saw Hertha Sponer and Hedwig Kohn, and spent an evening in Washington, DC, with James Chadwick, who was now the head of the British Mission to the Manhattan Project. She also met the project's director, Major General Leslie Groves. She spoke at Smith College, and went to Chicago, where she met Enrico Fermi, Edward Teller, Victor Weisskopf and Leo Szilard. On 8 July, Meitner boarded the for England, where she met with Erwin Schrödinger, Wolfgang Pauli and Max Born. There were belated celebrations for the 300th birthday of Isaac Newton, but the only German invited to attend was Max Planck.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=18070
| 276,388 |
1,907,396 |
"Halobacterium noricense" has many applications that can benefit humans and industries including drug delivery, UV protection, and the unique characteristic of bacteriorhodopsin to be able to be isolated outside of its environment. "H. noricense" produces a high concentration of menaquinones (fat soluble vitamin K2) that can be used as a micelle to deliver drugs to specific places in the body. According to Nimptsch K, the presence of menaquinones can also reduce the risk of malignant cancer. Fermented foods are also found to have high levels of menaquinones due to the presence of bacteria, especially in cheeses. "H. noricense" requires high salt concentrations and is currently being explored to enhance the process of fermentation. "H. noricense" is also catalase positive, meaning it can break down reactive oxygen species (ROS), like hydrogen peroxide into harmless substances such as water. Not only does it produce enzymes to protect itself against ROS, but it contains a pigment, bacterioruberin, that allows "H. noricense" to tolerate gamma and UV radiation. Further research into bacterioruberin can lead to bioactive compounds with anticancer characteristics. Lastly, bacteriorhodopsin (also protects cells from UV light), a light proton pump, has allowed scientists to apply it to electronics and optics. Its mechanism involves capturing light and creating a proton gradient to produce chemical energy. Some practical uses include motion detection, holographic storage, and nanotechnology.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=42868405
| 1,906,300 |
577,883 |
As on the previous day's wave off, strong westerly high level winds were in excess of system verification values. As a result, "Columbia" had to fly a less desirable high "right base" turn onto final approach instead of the more usual and forgiving overhead pattern. At this stage in the test program the Orbiter had significantly less electronic energy management information available to the crew than on later missions. With the runway visible only on his side Fullerton called the turn in for his commander. Their escorting T-38s were led by astronaut Dick Covey and NASA photographer Pete Stanley. The final approach was in part flown by the shuttle's autopilot, but the autoland software was not complete so it could not include an automatic landing. Rolling out on final approach, the autopilot was reengaged, and responded by closing the speedbrakes (despite the orbiter being on profile), resulting in increased speed. The autopilot then commanded full speedbrakes, and kept oscillating like this for some time. Lousma left the autopilot activated in order to gather data on its behavior, but disconnected it again at a very late stage to touch down manually. The landing was also one of the more dramatic of the program, with the landing gear deploying at an altitude of at a speed of and locking just five seconds before touchdown. Early automatic speed brake closure had resulted in high speed on the inner glideslope and Lousma opted to touchdown fast rather than excessively long. The nose then began to lower at greater than planned airspeed and raised again right before nose-gear touchdown. Touchdown occurred at 16:04:46UTC on March 30, 1982, on runway 17 at Northrop Strip.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=181031
| 577,587 |
531,951 |
PV applications for buildings began appearing in the 1970s. Aluminum-framed photovoltaic modules were connected to, or mounted on, buildings that were usually in remote areas without access to an electric power grid. In the 1980s photovoltaic module add-ons to roofs began being demonstrated. These PV systems were usually installed on utility-grid-connected buildings in areas with centralized power stations. In the 1990s BIPV construction products specially designed to be integrated into a building envelope became commercially available. A 1998 doctoral thesis by Patrina Eiffert, entitled "An Economic Assessment of BIPV", hypothesized that one day there would an economic value for trading Renewable Energy Credits (RECs). A 2011 economic assessment and brief overview of the history of BIPV by the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory suggests that there may be significant technical challenges to overcome before the installed cost of BIPV is competitive with photovoltaic panels. However, there is a growing consensus that through their widespread commercialization, BIPV systems will become the backbone of the zero energy building (ZEB) European target for 2020. Despite technical promise, social barriers to widespread use have also been identified, such as the conservative culture of the building industry and integration with high-density urban design. These authors suggest enabling long-term use likely depends on effective public policy decisions as much as the technological development.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=9629917
| 531,677 |
187,408 |
During the late 1970s, proposals for a modified "Hamilton"-class cutter with less range or the RN Type 21 frigate with similar anti-submarine capability to a "Leander" but with a smaller crew and with less AW, AA, and AD. Both these proposals and others for full combat Dutch and USS Oliver Hazard Perry frigates were rejected by the Muldoon government and in the early 1980s, a number of retired naval officers and political scientists like Helen Clark and Robert Miles were seriously debating and writing papers and articles, suggesting options such as RN OPVs, the "Castle"-class and the USCG's WMEC "Bear"-class. The navy was interested in some of these ideas, but only for the option proposed by the 1978 Defence Review of acquiring 2 OPV vessels to patrol the expanded EEZ and free the "Leander"s for other uses and for replacement of the inadequate and worn out "Lake"-class patrol vessels. After the election of the Lange Labour government, thinking on alternatives to frigates for the RNZN had moved towards purpose-built designs rather like the Irish Navy's "Eithne" patrol corvette, a sort of 1,800-ton high endurance corvette with "Leander"-like helicopter hangar and pad or small Meko 100–140 designs rather different from those built for Argentina. After the nuclear ships crisis and other events, the acquisition of some Anzac frigates was virtually certain, because the key Labour MP Jim Anderton, either accepted the Anzac ships as a necessary increased self-defence capability with the securing of a nuclear-free policy or tacitly agreed not to oppose it like Helen Clark.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=897679
| 187,311 |
12,230 |
Later (in 1959) von Braun published a short booklet, condensed from episodes that had appeared in "This Week Magazine" before—describing his updated concept of the first crewed lunar landing. The scenario included only a single and relatively small spacecraft—a winged lander with a crew of only two experienced pilots who had already circumnavigated the Moon on an earlier mission. The brute-force direct ascent flight schedule used a rocket design with five sequential stages, loosely based on the Nova designs that were under discussion at this time. After a night launch from a Pacific island, the first three stages would bring the spacecraft (with the two remaining upper stages attached) to terrestrial escape velocity, with each burn creating an acceleration of 8–9 times standard gravity. Residual propellant in the third stage would be used for the deceleration intended to commence only a few hundred kilometers above the landing site in a crater near the lunar north pole. The fourth stage provided acceleration to lunar escape velocity, while the fifth stage would be responsible for a deceleration during return to the Earth to a residual speed that allows aerocapture of the spacecraft ending in a runway landing, much in the way of the Space Shuttle. One remarkable feature of this technical tale is that the engineer von Braun anticipated a medical phenomenon that would become apparent only years later: being a veteran astronaut with no history of serious adverse reactions to weightlessness offers no protection against becoming unexpectedly and violently spacesick.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=33783
| 12,225 |
1,222,755 |
Petroleum contamination of both terrestrial and marine environments results from prospection, extraction, refinement, transport, and storage of oil. Oil spills have been a global issue since the emergence of the oil industry in the early 1900s. The risk of unintentional and intentional spillage has increased as the energy industry and global demand expand. Petroleum is a toxic mixture of organic compounds, trace amounts of heavy metals, and hydrocarbons including many persistent volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Discharged into marine environments oil is particularly damaging due to rapid dispersal and the creation of secondary pollutants through photolysis. Petroleum bioaccumulation in terrestrial and marine food chains cause both acute and long term health effects. Exposure to oil damages critical functions within organisms including reproduction, regulation of physiological and chemical processes, and organ function. Large spills alter ecosystem dynamics leading to algae blooms and a mass die-off of marine life. It is estimated that over 1000 sea otters, along with many birds, died from the Exxon Valdez spill. Oil spill clean up efforts commonly employ multiple methods in tandem. Controlled burning and barriers were both used as manual remediation efforts following the Exxon Valdez incident. Chemical solvents and dispersants were briefly used by Exxon in water surrounding the Valdez although discontinued as they required specific conditions and contained carcinogenic compounds. Bioremediation techniques used in the Exxon Valdez spill included nitrogen and phosphorus seeding along coastline increasing available nutrients for indigenous petroleum degrading microorganisms doubling rates of decomposition. Across all remediation techniques less than ten percent of the oil released from Exxon Valdez tanker was recovered. Many genera of plant, microbes, and fungi have demonstrated oil remediating properties including "Spartina", "Haloscarcia", "Rhizophora", "Nocardioides", "Dietzia", and "Microbacterium".
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=52828993
| 1,222,096 |
2,154,893 |
At the beginning of the 15th century BC, after the last phase of the Wietenberg Culture, a sudden change in the development of the settlement appeared. The architecture, the funerary rite, the pottery and material culture in general changed. These changes resulted from the arrival of a new population from the Eurasian steppes, the so-called Noua-Sabatinovka-Coslogeni culture, in southeastern Transylvania. Houses are now characterized by massive limed floors, the fireplaces were situated outside. The cemetery of the new population lies to the south of the settlement. Inhumation graves in stone cists are now typical, the dead lie crouched on one side. Burial goods include vessels and food (animal bones). The pottery comprises much fewer shapes and is largely undecorated and coarse. The fine ware is represented exclusively by two- and one-handled drinking vessels (“Kantharoi”). A special feature of the earlier Noua building phase is a so-called “ashmound”. These round heaps formed of greyish sediments are typical for settlements of the Noua-Sabatinovka-Cologeni cultural complex. Until recently they were believed to represent the remains of houses or burned waste. New evidence shows that the “ashmounds” are not randomly formed mounds of waste, but special, collectively used places at the boundaries of settlements; they are not piled on the walking level, but in intentionally dug round basins. Chemical evidence from Rotbav and other sites proves the sediment to be constituted not of ash, but of a mixture of earth and burnt lime. Burnt lime is ethnographically known to have been used for departing hair from hides. Tools for the scraping of hides, needles, awls and a considerable amount of animal bones give further prove to an intense production of leather. Concentrations of drinking vessels and cooking utensils prove that the ‘ashmounds’ may also have played a role in feasting.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=41546643
| 2,153,662 |
730,219 |
Charles Darwin's publication of the "On the Origin of Species" in 1859 was a watershed event in all the life sciences, especially paleontology. Fossils had played a role in the development of Darwin's theory. In particular he had been impressed by fossils he had collected in South America during the voyage of the Beagle of giant armadillos, giant sloths, and what at the time he thought were giant llamas that seemed to be related to species still living on the continent in modern times. The scientific debate that started immediately after the publication of "Origin" led to a concerted effort to look for transitional fossils and other evidence of evolution in the fossil record. There were two areas where early success attracted considerable public attention, the transition between reptiles and birds, and the evolution of the modern single-toed horse. In 1861 the first specimen of "Archaeopteryx", an animal with both teeth and feathers and a mix of other reptilian and avian features, was discovered in a limestone quarry in Bavaria and described by Richard Owen. Another would be found in the late 1870s and put on display at the Natural History Museum, Berlin in 1881. Other primitive toothed birds were found by Othniel Marsh in Kansas in 1872. Marsh also discovered fossils of several primitive horses in the Western United States that helped trace the evolution of the horse from the small 5-toed "Hyracotherium" of the Eocene to the much larger single-toed modern horses of the genus "Equus". Thomas Huxley would make extensive use of both the horse and bird fossils in his advocacy of evolution. Acceptance of evolution occurred rapidly in scientific circles, but acceptance of Darwin's proposed mechanism of natural selection as the driving force behind it was much less universal. In particular some paleontologists such as Edward Drinker Cope and Henry Fairfield Osborn preferred alternatives such as neo-Lamarckism, the inheritance of characteristics acquired during life, and orthogenesis, an innate drive to change in a particular direction, to explain what they perceived as linear trends in evolution.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=7991116
| 729,834 |
465,746 |
According to 2013 autosomal IBD survey "of recent genealogical ancestry over the past 3,000 years at a continental scale", the speakers of Serbo-Croatian language share a very high number of common ancestors dating to the migration period approximately 1,500 years ago with Poland and Romania-Bulgaria cluster among others in Eastern Europe. It is concluded to be caused by the Hunnic and Slavic expansion, which was a "relatively small population that expanded over a large geographic area", particularly "the expansion of the Slavic populations into regions of low population density beginning in the sixth century" and that it is "highly coincident with the modern distribution of Slavic languages". According to Kushniarevich et al., the Hellenthal et al. 2014 IBD analysis also found "multi-directional admixture events among East Europeans (both Slavic and non-Slavic), dated to around 1,000–1,600 YBP" which coincides with "the proposed time-frame for the Slavic expansion". The 2015 IBD analysis found that the South Slavs have lower proximity to Greeks than with East and West Slavs, and that there's an "even patterns of IBD sharing among East-West Slavs–'inter-Slavic' populations (Hungarians, Romanians and Gagauz)–and South Slavs, i.e. across an area of assumed historic movements of people including Slavs". The slight peak of shared IBD segments between South and East-West Slavs suggests a shared "Slavonic-time ancestry". The 2014 IBD analysis comparison of Western Balkan and Middle Eastern populations also found negligible gene flow between 16th and 19th century during the Islamization of the Balkans. In the 2022 analysis Croatian, Bosnian and Herzegovinian, and Serbian individuals made "Northwestern Balkans" cluster which had less Southern European ("Greek") ancestry than "Northeastern Balkans" cluster formed by Romanian and Bulgarian individuals. The "NW Balkans" cluster also had "slightly longer within-cluster IBD segments than NE Balkans, which is matched with a consistently lower "Ne" and elevated ROH—suggestive of a smaller population than the northeast of the Balkans".
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=50378092
| 465,513 |
543,156 |
South Africa's economy is heavily tied to its mining industry and has been greatly affected by low metal prices. Mining companies have had to cut costs by lowering production, closing mines, selling off projects, and reducing the work force. Miners are quite often on strike asking to get the minimum salary, and mines continue to fail safety standards and face labour unrest. A research study in 2016 by eunomix showed that Rustenburg, one of the fastest-growing cities in South Africa, has an "abnormally high concentration of young men who are separated from their families due to the migrant labour system". The population is facing a lack of education, high crime levels, and health problems within the workforce. Additionally, they are facing high poverty levels, government deficits, and are still heavily dependent on the platinum mining industry which is "responsible for more than 65% of local GDP and 50% of all direct jobs" (over 70,000 jobs). The accommodations and housing are lacking and have seen little to no effort from the mining companies to improve them. However, recently (2013–2016), the platinum companies have contributed more than ZAR 370 million into the city; funding local infrastructure, water supply and treatment centres, sporting programmes, tourism, public road expansions, sewage treatment plants, cultural activities. The primary concern is the combination of high poverty rates and social injustice.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3154089
| 542,876 |
595,247 |
The eruption of the Philippines volcano - Mount Pinatubo in June 1991 ejected roughly of magma and "17,000,000 metric tons"(17 teragrams) of sulfur dioxide SO into the air, introducing ten times as much total SO as the 1991 Kuwaiti fires, mostly during the explosive Plinian/Ultra-Plinian event of June 15, 1991, creating a global stratospheric SO haze layer which persisted for years. This resulted in the global average temperature dropping by about . Since volcanic ash falls out of the atmosphere rapidly, the negative agricultural, effects of the eruption were largely immediate and localized to a relatively small area in close proximity to the eruption, caused by the resulting thick ash cover. Globally however, despite a several-month 5% drop in overall solar irradiation, and a reduction in direct sunlight by 30%, there was no negative impact on global agriculture. Surprisingly, a 3-4 year increase in global Agricultural productivity and forestry growth was observed, excepting boreal forest regions. The means of discovery was that initially, a mysterious drop in the rate at which carbon dioxide (CO) was filling the atmosphere was observed, which is charted in what is known as the "Keeling Curve". This led numerous scientists to assume that the reduction was due to the lowering of Earth's temperature, and with that, a, slowdown in plant and soil respiration, indicating a deleterious impact on global agriculture from the volcanic haze layer. However upon investigation, the reduction in the rate at which carbon dioxide filled the atmosphere did not match up with the hypothesis that plant respiration rates had declined. Instead the advantageous anomaly was relatively firmly linked to an unprecedented increase in the growth/net primary production, of global plant life, resulting in the increase of the carbon sink effect of global photosynthesis. The mechanism by which the increase in plant growth was possible, was that the 30% reduction of direct sunlight can also be expressed as an increase or "enhancement" in the amount of diffuse sunlight.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=212101
| 594,942 |
685,940 |
The revenue management process begins with data collection. Relevant data is paramount to a revenue management system's capability to provide accurate, actionable information. A system must collect and store historical data for inventory, prices, demand, and other causal factors. Any data that reflects the details of products offered, their prices, competition, and customer behavior must be collected, stored, and analyzed. In some markets, specialized data collection methods have rapidly emerged to service their relevant sector, and sometimes have even become a norm. In the European Union for example, the European Commission makes sure businesses and governments stick to EU rules on fair competition, while still leaving space for innovation, unified standards, and the development of small businesses. To support this, third-party sources are utilized to collect data and make only averages available for commercial purposes, such as is the case with the hotel sector – in Europe and the Middle East & North Africa region, where key operating indicators are monitored, such as Occupancy Rate (OR), Average Daily Rate (ADR) and Revenue per Available Room (RevPAR). Data is supplied directly by hotel chains and groups (as well as independent properties) and benchmark averages are produced by direct market (competitive set) or wider macro market. This data is also utilized for financial reporting, forecasting trends and development purposes. Information about customer behavior is a valuable asset that can reveal consumer behavioral patterns, the impact of competitors' actions, and other important market information. This information is crucial to starting the revenue management process.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=8976534
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In science, the concept of a macroscope is the antithesis of the microscope, namely a method, technique or system appropriate to the study of very large objects or very complex processes, for example the Earth and its contents, or conceptually, the Universe. Obviously, a single system or instrument does not presently exist that could fulfil this function, however its concept may be approached by some current or future combination of existing observational systems. The term "macroscope" has also been applied to a method or compendium which can view some more specific aspect of global scientific phenomena in its entirety, such as all plant life, specific ecological processes, or all life on earth. The term has also been used in the humanities, as a generic label for tools which permit an overview of various other forms of "big data". As discussed here, the concept of a "macroscope" differs in essence from that of the macroscopic scale, which simply takes over from where the microscopic scale leaves off, covering all objects large enough to be visible to the unaided eye, as well as from macro photography, which is the imaging of specimens at magnifications greater than their original size, and for which a specialised microscope-related instrument known as a "Macroscope" has previously been marketed. For some workers, one or more (planetary scale) "macroscopes" can already be constructed, to access the sum of relevant existing observations, while for others, deficiencies in current sampling regimes and/or data availability point to additional sampling effort and deployment of new methodologies being required before a true "macroscope" view of Earth can be obtained.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=64208794
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