Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Seed dissemination

Variations in fruit structures largely depend on the mode of dispersal of the seeds they contain. This dispersal can be achieved by animals, wind, water, or explosive dehiscence.

Some fruits have coats covered with spikes or hooked burrs, either to prevent themselves from being eaten by animals or to stick to the hairs, feathers or legs of animals, using them as dispersal agents. Examples include cocklebur and unicorn plant.

The sweet flesh of many fruits is "deliberately" appealing to animals, so that the seeds held within are eaten and "unwittingly" carried away and deposited at a distance from the parent. Likewise, the nutritious, oily kernels of nuts are appealing to rodents (such as squirrels) who hoard them in the soil in order to avoid starving during the winter, thus giving those seeds that remain uneaten the chance to germinate and grow into a new plant away from their parent.Other fruits are elongated and flattened out naturally and so become thin, like wings or helicopter blades, e.g. maple, tuliptree and elm. This is an evolutionary mechanism to increase dispersal distance away from the parent via wind. Other wind-dispersed fruit have tiny parachutes, e.g. dandelion and salsify.

Coconut fruits can float thousands of miles in the ocean to spread seeds. Some other fruits that can disperse via water are nipa palm and screw pine.Some fruits fling seeds substantial distances (up to 100 m in sandbox tree) via explosive dehiscence or other mechanisms, e.g. impatiens and squirting cucumber.

Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Obama's Victory Speech

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

It's the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen; by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the very first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different; that their voices could be that difference.

It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled - Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America.

It's the answer that led those who have been told for so long by so many to be cynical, and fearful, and doubtful of what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.

It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.

Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Aquarium

Marine aquarium
A marine aquarium is an aquarium that keeps marine plants and animals in a contained environment. Marine aquaria are further subdivided by hobbyists into fish only (FO), fish only with live rock (FOWLR), and reef aquaria. Marine fishkeeping is different from its freshwater counterpart because of the fundamental differences in the constitution of saltwater and the resulting differences in the adaptation of its inhabitants. A stable marine aquarium requires more equipment than freshwater systems, and generally requires more stringent water quality monitoring. The inhabitants of a marine aquarium are often difficult to acquire and are usually more expensive than freshwater aquarium inhabitants. However, the inhabitants of saltwater aquariums are usually much more spectacular than freshwater aquarium fish.

Types of marine aquarium

Marine aquarists typically divide saltwater aquariums into those housing fish only, fish with live rock and those primarily designed to house corals and other invertebrates (also known as reef aquariums).

Live rock
Live rock is rock that has been in the ocean, composed of limestone and decomposing coral skeleton, usually around a coral reef such as those around Fiji, and is usually covered with beneficial algae, coralline and tiny invertebrates and bacteria that are desirable in the aquarium. Some examples of the microfauna commonly found on live rock are crabs, snails, feather dusters, brittle stars, starfish, limpets, abalones, and an occasional sea urchin, sea anemone, coral, and sea sponge. Also, if the aquarist is unlucky, a mantis shrimp. Bristleworms are also common, most of which, while unattractive, are not harmful and are useful scavengers; some species can be pests, however. The addition of live rock is one of the best ways to ensure a healthy aquarium, as the rock provides a buffer to maintain high pH (8.0-8.3), alkalinity, and acid-neutralizing capacity. Alkalinity is often known by a rather confusing term, "carbonate hardness", or KH. This is usually measured in "degrees" (dKH) or meq/L.

The microfauna found on live rock are detrivores and herbivores (as they eat algae and fish waste), and provide fish with a natural, attractive shelter. Live rock usually arrives from online dealers as "uncured", and must be quarantined in a separate tank while undergoing the curing process, which involves the inevitable die-off of some of the rock's inhabitants and the subsequent production of undesirable ammonia and nitrite. Live rock that is already cured is available at most pet stores that cater to saltwater. Live sand is similar to live rock and is equally desirable.

Reef aquarium
A reef aquarium or reef tank is an aquarium containing live corals and other animals associated with coral reefs.

These aquarium setups vary from having many fish that vary from chlorinating fish and spawning fish, which attempt to recreate life specific to one region of the world like the Great Barrier Reef, to the more prevalent and often spectacularly colored mixed reef that blend hard and soft corals from around the world.

Unlike the marine aquarium, which are built to house various types of fish, the main attraction in many reef tanks are the varieties coral and other invertebrates.

Friday, October 31, 2008

Indian Transport

With the changing economic scenario, factors such as globalization of markets, international economic integration, removal of barriers to business and trade and increased competition have enhanced the need of transportation. It is one of the most important infrastructure requirement which is essential for the expansion of opportunities and plays an important role in making or breaking the competitive positioning.

The Transport Department is entrusted with the responsibility of providing an efficient public transportation system, control of vehicular pollution, registration of vehicles in Delhi, issuance of Driving licences, issuance of various permits, collection of road taxes. The department also entrusted in policy-making, co-ordination, implementation, monitoring and regulatory functions of all the Transport related aspects of the country.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

ARCTIC: Region’s temperatures climb to record high

Record-high autumn temperatures, warming permafrost, shrinking reindeer herds and the ongoing northern march of shrubs and trees into new habitat are signs that global warming is reshaping the Arctic, federal officials said yesterday.

“There continues to be widespread and, in some cases, dramatic evidence of an overall warming of the Arctic system,” warned authors in a report that draws on scientific data and analyses by nearly 50 scientists in 10 countries.

It is the third annual snapshot of the rapidly changing region, which is warming twice as fast as the global average.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

2008 Atlantic Hurricane Season Remains Active

The Atlantic hurricane season remains active with Hurricane Omar set to lash the eastern Caribbean over the next couple of days, and Tropical Depression Sixteen hugging the coast of Honduras.

Omar strengthened late on Tuesday and became the seventh hurricane of the 2008 Atlantic season, drenching islands in the south-eastern Caribbean. At 0900 GMT on Wednesday, Hurricane Omar was located some 285 miles (455 km) south-southwest of San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Omar is currently a Category 1 hurricane with winds blowing 75mph (120 km/h) and is forecast to move on a north-easterly track. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) has issued hurricane warnings for several of the eastern Caribbean islands, including the US Virgin Islands.

So far, 2008 is in joint 8th place for the most number of Atlantic tropical storms in a season. However, records may be ambiguous as prior to the satellite era there is a chance some storms may have been missed. Another storm may develop over the next 24 hours.

Tropical Depression Sixteen is currently lying just off the coast of Honduras and could intensify into a tropical storm. If so it would become the 16th storm of the season. A tropical storm warning is in effect for whole coast of Honduras, from the Nicaraguan to the Guatemala borders. While winds may not be particularly damaging, Tropical Depression Sixteen could bring as much as 380mm (15 inches) of rain.

Friday, October 03, 2008

Tsunami Survivor Story

On April 1, 1946, Sam remembers that he was with friends on the Waiākea bridge when they saw the water suddenly sucked out to sea. "Then we heard this rumbling from outside, and I'm telling you that was one of the most frightening things I've ever seen. Was these huge waves coming in. All we did was turn around and run... And all you could hear was this crackling sound behind us. You would hear crack, crack, the buildings were piling up in the back of us." Although Shinmachi and Waiākea were heavily damaged, the Bishaw home was undamaged, protected by the rubble of other buildings.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Sales of U.S. Beef Soaring

Just a few months ago, the streets of downtown Seoul were occupied by demonstrators protesting against the import U.S. beef. According to a number of polls, an absolute majority of people said they would not eat U.S. beef because they feel it is unsafe. But just three months after imports resumed on June 26 under new quarantine requirements, U.S. beef jumped to second in terms of market share in imported beef, after Australian product. Sales rose sharply just before the Chuseok or Korean Thanksgiving holiday; between Sept. 1 and 10, it even topped the imported beef market chart with a 48 percent market share.

◆ Chuseok Boost

Over 11,300 tons of U.S. beef have now passed the quarantine control and hit the shelves in Korean stores, 3,688 tons from Sep. 1 to 10. During that period, the market share of U.S. beef was 48.1 percent, jumping from 23.9 percent in July and 24.3 percent in August. From August, not only frozen beef but also refrigerated beef was imported.

◆ Young Skeptics

A considerable share of groundless rumors about mad cow disease is gone, and the website of the People’s Association for Measures Against Mad Cow Disease, which organized the protests, is virtually defunct. One online community on portal site Naver that saw more than 100 posts a day at the height of the furor, there was only one message on Monday. However, U.S. beef is still unpopular among young mothers in their 20s and 30s. A staffer in a butcher’s shop in Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi Province, said, “While there are a lot of middle-aged housewives buying U.S. beef, there isn’t much demand from young mothers.

◆ Superstores & Malls Think Again

Superstores and department stores that have not started selling U.S. beef for fear it would spark indignation among customers are now reconsidering. Some are in the process of deciding when to start sales. A staffer with a superstore said, “We get a lot of call enquires asking us when we’re going to start selling U.S. beef from housewives in their forties and fifties. We assume the fears of mad cow disease have gone and are therefore deciding on when to start selling U.S. beef.”

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Enzyme

Enzymes are biomolecules that catalyze (i.e. increase the rates of) chemical reactions. Almost all enzymes are proteins. In enzymatic reactions, the molecules at the beginning of the process are called substrates, and the enzyme converts them into different molecules, the products. Almost all processes in a biological cell need enzymes in order to occur at significant rates. Since enzymes are extremely selective for their substrates and speed up only a few reactions from among many possibilities, the set of enzymes made in a cell determines which metabolic pathways occur in that cell.

Like all catalysts, enzymes work by lowering the activation energy (Ea or ΔG‡) for a reaction, thus dramatically increasing the rate of the reaction. Most enzyme reaction rates are millions of times faster than those of comparable un-catalyzed reactions. As with all catalysts, enzymes are not consumed by the reactions they catalyze, nor do they alter the equilibrium of these reactions. However, enzymes do differ from most other catalysts by being much more specific. Enzymes are known to catalyze about 4,000 biochemical reactions. A few RNA molecules called ribozymes catalyze reactions, with an important example being some parts of the ribosome. Synthetic molecules called artificial enzymes also display enzyme-like catalysis.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Genetic testing

Genetic testing involves the direct examination of the DNA molecule itself. A scientist scans a patient’s DNA sample for mutated sequences.

There are two major types of gene tests. In the first type, a researcher may design short pieces of DNA (“probes”) whose sequences are complementary to the mutated sequences. These probes will seek their complement among the base pairs of an individual’s genome. If the mutated sequence is present in the patient’s genome, the probe will bind to it and flag the mutation. In the second type, a researcher may conduct the gene test by comparing the sequence of DNA bases in a patient’s gene to disease in healthy individuals or their progeny.
Genetic testing is now used for:

* Determining sex
* Carrier screening, or the identification of unaffected individuals who carry one copy of a gene for a disease that requires two copies for the disease to manifest
* Prenatal diagnostic screening
* Newborn screening
* Presymptomatic testing for predicting adult-onset disorders
* Presymptomatic testing for estimating the risk of developing adult-onset cancers
* Confirmational diagnosis of symptomatic individuals
* Forensic/identity testing

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Pharmacogenomics

Pharmacogenomics is the branch of pharmacology which deals with the influence of genetic variation on drug response in patients by correlating gene expression or single-nucleotide polymorphisms with a drug's efficacy or toxicity. By doing so, pharmacogenomics aims to develop rational means to optimise drug therapy, with respect to the patients' genotype, to ensure maximum efficacy with minimal adverse effects. Such approaches promise the advent of "personalized medicine", in which drugs and drug combinations are optimised for each individual's unique genetic makeup.

Pharmacogenomics is the whole genome application of pharmacogenetics, which examines the single gene interactions with drugs.

Friday, August 22, 2008

Benefits of Remote Service Software

Remote service software helps to:

* Increase uptime, improve performance and extend the life of a device
* Control service costs by deploying patches and upgrades remotely, and ensure a first-time fix when an onsite visit is required
* Streamline administration of pay-per-use models, with automated usage monitoring
* Focus highly trained service teams on preventative maintenance, by diagnosing and repairing issues before they cause system failure
* Increase customer satisfaction and loyalty

Manufacturers are using aftermarket service a competitive differentiator. Remote service software provides a platform for manufacturers to offer and meet stringent service level agreements (SLAs) without increasing the size of their service team.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Locative media

Locative Media are media of communication bound to a location. They are digital media applied to real places and thus triggering real social interactions. While mobile technologies such as the Global Positioning System (GPS), laptop computers and mobile phones enable locative media, they are not the goal for the development of projects in this field. Rather:

"Locative media is many things: A new site for old discussions about the relationship of consciousness to place and other people. A framework within which to actively engage with, critique, and shape a rapid set of technological developments. A context within which to explore new and old models of communication, community and exchange. A name for the ambiguous shape of a rapidly deploying surveillance and control infrastructure." (Russell, 2004)

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Inertial navigation systems in detail

INSs have angular and linear accelerometers (for changes in position); some include a gyroscopic element (for maintaining an absolute angular reference).

Angular accelerometers measure how the vehicle is rotating in space. Generally, there's at least one sensor for each of the three axes: pitch (nose up and down), yaw (nose left and right) and roll (clockwise or counter-clockwise from the cockpit).

Linear accelerometers measure how the vehicle is moving in space. Since it can move in three axes (up & down, left & right, forward & back), there is a linear accelerometer for each axis.

A computer continually calculates the vehicle's current position. First, for each of the six degrees of freedom (x,y,z and θ x, θ y and θ z), it integrates the sensed amount of acceleration over time to figure the current velocity. Then it integrates the velocity to figure the current position.

Inertial guidance is difficult without computers. The desire to use inertial guidance in the Minuteman missile and Project Apollo drove early attempts to miniaturize computers.

Inertial guidance systems are now usually combined with satellite navigation systems through a digital filtering system. The inertial system provides short term data, while the satellite system corrects accumulated errors of the inertial system.

An inertial guidance system that will operate near the surface of the earth must incorporate Schuler tuning so that its platform will continue pointing towards the center of the earth as a vehicle moves from place to place.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Inertial navigation systems in detail

INSs have angular and linear accelerometers (for changes in position); some include a gyroscopic element (for maintaining an absolute angular reference).

Angular accelerometers measure how the vehicle is rotating in space. Generally, there's at least one sensor for each of the three axes: pitch (nose up and down), yaw (nose left and right) and roll (clockwise or counter-clockwise from the cockpit).

Linear accelerometers measure how the vehicle is moving in space. Since it can move in three axes (up & down, left & right, forward & back), there is a linear accelerometer for each axis.

A computer continually calculates the vehicle's current position. First, for each of the six degrees of freedom (x,y,z and θ x, θ y and θ z), it integrates the sensed amount of acceleration over time to figure the current velocity. Then it integrates the velocity to figure the current position.

Inertial guidance is difficult without computers. The desire to use inertial guidance in the Minuteman missile and Project Apollo drove early attempts to miniaturize computers.

Inertial guidance systems are now usually combined with satellite navigation systems through a digital filtering system. The inertial system provides short term data, while the satellite system corrects accumulated errors of the inertial system.

An inertial guidance system that will operate near the surface of the earth must incorporate Schuler tuning so that its platform will continue pointing towards the center of the earth as a vehicle moves from place to place.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Software transactional memory

In computer science, software transactional memory (STM) is a concurrency control mechanism analogous to database transactions for controlling access to shared memory in concurrent computing. It functions as an alternative to lock-based synchronization, and is typically implemented in a lock-free way. A transaction in this context is a piece of code that executes a series of reads and writes to shared memory. These reads and writes logically occur at a single instant in time; intermediate states are not visible to other (successful) transactions. The idea of providing hardware support for transactions originated in a 1986 paper and patent by Tom Knight. The idea was popularized by Maurice Herlihy and J. Eliot B. Moss. In 1995 Nir Shavit and Dan Touitou extended this idea to software-only transactional memory (STM). STM has recently been the focus of intense research and support for practical implementations is growing.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Online transaction processing

Online transaction processing, or OLTP, refers to a class of systems that facilitate and manage transaction-oriented applications, typically for data entry and retrieval transaction processing. The term is somewhat ambiguous; some understand a "transaction" in the context of computer or database transactions, while others (such as the Transaction Processing Performance Council) define it in terms of business or commercial transactions.OLTP has also been used to refer to processing in which the system responds immediately to user requests. An automatic teller machine (ATM) for a bank is an example of a commercial transaction processing application.

The technology is used in a number of industries, including banking, airlines, mailorder, supermarkets, and manufacturing. Applications include electronic banking, order processing, employee time clock systems, e-commerce, and eTrading.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Relational model

The relational model for database management is a database model based on first-order predicate logic, first formulated and proposed in 1969 by Edgar Codd.

Its core idea is to describe a database as a collection of predicates over a finite set of predicate variables, describing constraints on the possible values and combinations of values. The content of the database at any given time is a finite model (logic) of the database, i.e. a set of relations, one per predicate variable, such that all predicates are satisfied. A request for information from the database (a database query) is also a predicate.

The purpose of the relational model is to provide a declarative method for specifying data and queries: we directly state what information the database contains and what information we want from it, and let the database management system software take care of describing data structures for storing the data and retrieval procedures for getting queries answered.

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Webmail

In addition to the fat client e-mail clients and small MUAs, there are also Web-based e-mail programs called webmail. Webmail has several advantages which include the ability to send and receive e-mail from anywhere using a single application: a web browser. This eliminates the need to configure an email client. Significant examples of e-mail services which also provide the user a webmail interface are Hotmail, Gmail, AOL and Yahoo. The main drawbacks of webmail are that user interactions are subject to network response and that there is no offline capability. For instance, while webmail generally provides the best experience over broadband, a fat client can provide a satisfactory experience over dialup, and messages can be searched and viewed without an internet connection.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Rogue software

Rogue security software is software that uses malware (malicious software) or malicious tools to advertise or install itself or to force computer users to pay for removal of nonexistent spyware. Rogue software will often install a trojan horse to download a trial version, or it will do other unwanted things. The first and still most comprehensive study of rogue and real antispyware programs was carried out by Eric L. Howes

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Virus removal

One possibility on Windows Me, Windows XP and Windows Vista is a tool known as System Restore, which restores the registry and critical system files to a previous checkpoint. Often a virus will cause a system to hang, and a subsequent hard reboot will render a system restore point from the same day corrupt. Restore points from previous days should work provided the virus is not designed to corrupt the restore files. Some viruses, however, disable system restore and other important tools such as Task Manager and Command Prompt. An example of a virus that does this is CiaDoor.

Administrators have the option to disable such tools from limited users for various reasons. The virus modifies the registry to do the same, except, when the Administrator is controlling the computer, it blocks all users from accessing the tools. When an infected tool activates it gives the message "Task Manager has been disabled by your administrator.", even if the user trying to open the program is the administrator.

Users running a Microsoft operating system can go to Microsoft's website to run a free scan, if they have their 20-digit registration number.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Psycho-Cybernetics

Psycho-Cybernetics is a classic self-help book, written by Maxwell Maltz in 1960 and published by the non-profit Psycho-Cybernetics Foundation. Motivational and self-help experts in personal development, including Zig Ziglar, Tony Robbins, Brian Tracy have based their techniques on Maxwell Maltz. Many of the psychological methods of training elite athletes are based on the concepts in Psycho-Cybernetics as well. The book combines the cognitive behavioral technique of teaching an individual how to regulate self-concept developed by Prescott Lecky with the cybernetics of Norbert Wiener and John von Neumann. The book defines the mind-body connection as the core in succeeding in attaining personal goals.

Maltz found that his plastic surgery patients often had expectations that were not satisfied by the surgery, so he pursued a means of helping them set the goal of a positive outcome through visualization of that positive outcome. Maltz became interested in why setting goals works. He learned that the power of of self-affirmation and mental visualisation techniques used the connection between the mind and the body. He specified techniques to develop a positive inner goal as a means of developing a positive outer goal. This concentration on inner attitudes is essential to his approach, as a person's outer success can never rise above the one visualized internally.

Tuesday, June 03, 2008

Systems psychology

Systems psychology is a branch of applied psychology that studies human behaviour and experience in complex systems. It is inspired by systems theory and systems thinking, and based on the theoretical work of Roger Barker, Gregory Bateson, Humberto Maturana and others. It is an approach in psychology, in which groups and individuals, are considered as systems in homeostasis. Alternative terms here are "systemic psychology", "systems behavior", and "systems-based psychology".

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Ecosystem

The term ecosystem was coined in 1930 by Roy Clapham, to denote the physical and biological components of an environment considered in relation to each other as a unit. British ecologist Arthur Tansley later refined the term, describing it as the interactive system established between biocoenosis (a group of living creatures) and their biotope (the environment in which they live).

Central to the ecosystem concept is the idea that living organisms are continually engaged in a set of relationships with every other element constituting the environment in which they exist. The human ecosystem concept is then grounded in the deconstruction of the human/nature dichotomy, and the emergent premise that all species are ecologically integrated with each other, as well as with the abiotic constituents of their biotope.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Ecological Systems Theory

Ecological Systems Theory, also called "Development in Context" or "Human Ecology" theory, specifies four types of nested environmental systems, with bi-directional influences within and between the systems. The theory was developed by Urie Bronfenbrenner, generally regarded as one of the world's leading scholars in the field of developmental psychology. Later a fifth system was added:

* Microsystem: Immediate environments (family, school, peer group, neighborhood, and childcare environments)
* Mesosystem: A system comprised of connections between immediate environments (i.e., a child’s home and school)
* Exosystem: External environmental settings which only indirectly affect development (such as parent's workplace)
* Macrosystem: The larger cultural context (Eastern vs. Western culture, national economy, political culture, subculture)
* Chronosystem: The patterning of environmental events and transitions over the course of life.

The person's own biology may be considered part of the microsystem; thus the theory has recently sometimes been called "Bio-Ecological Systems Theory." Each system contains roles, norms, and rules that can powerfully shape development.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Evolutionary robotics

Evolutionary Robotics (ER) is a methodology that uses evolutionary computation to develop controllers for autonomous robots. Algorithms in ER frequently operate on populations of candidate controllers, initially selected from some distribution. This population is then repeatedly modified according to a fitness function. In the case of genetic algorithms (or "GAs"), a common method in evolutionary computation, the population of candidate controllers is repeatedly grown according to crossover, mutation and other GA operators and then culled according to the fitness function. The candidate controllers used in ER applications may be drawn from some subset of the set of artificial neural networks, although some applications (including SAMUEL, developed at the Naval Center for Applied Research in Artificial Intelligence) use collections of "IF THEN ELSE" rules as the constituent parts of an individual controller. It is theoretically possible to use any set of symbolic formulations of a control laws (sometimes called a policies in the machine learning community) as the space of possible candidate controllers. It is worth noting that artificial neural networks can also be used for robot learning outside of the context of evolutionary robotics. In particular, other forms of reinforcement learning can be used for learning robot controllers.

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Containerization

Although having its origins in the late 1780s or earlier, the global standardisation of containers and container handling equipment was one of the important innovations in 20th century logistics.

By the 1830s, railroads on several continents were carrying containers that could be transferred to trucks or ships, but these containers were invariably small by today's standards. Originally used for shipping coal on and off barges, 'loose boxes' were used to containerize coal from the late 1780s, on places like the Bridgewater Canal. By the 1840's, iron boxes were in use as well as wooden ones. The early 1900s saw the adoption of closed container boxes designed for movement between road and rail.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Marine Cargo Types

There is a wide range of marine cargoes at seaport terminals operated. The primary types are these:

* Containers are the largest and fastest growing cargo category at most ports worldwide. Containerized cargo includes everything from auto parts and machinery components to shoes, toys, and frozen meat and seafood.

* Automobiles are handled at many ports.

* Project cargo and heavy lift cargo may include items such as manufacturing equipment, factory components, power equipment such as generators and wind turbines, military equipment or almost any other oversized or overweight cargo too big or too heavy to fit into a container.

* Break bulk cargo is typically material stacked on wooden pallets and lifted into and out of the hold of a vessel by cranes on the dock or aboard the ship itself. The volume of break bulk cargo has declined dramatically worldwide as containerization has grown.

* Bulk Cargoes, such as salt, oil, tallow, and Scrap metal, are usually defined as commodities that are neither on pallets nor in containers, and which are not handled as individual pieces, the way heavy-lift and project cargoes are. Alumina, grain, gypsum, logs and wood chips, for instance, are bulk cargoes.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Islamic Golden Age

The Islamic Golden Age, also sometimes known as the Islamic Renaissance, is traditionally dated from the 8th century to the 13th century, though some have extended it to the 15th or 16th centuries. During this period, engineers, scholars and traders in the Islamic world contributed to the arts, agriculture, economics, industry, law, literature, navigation, philosophy, sciences, and technology, both by preserving and building upon earlier traditions and by adding inventions and innovations of their own. Howard R. Turner writes: "Muslim artists and scientists, princes and laborers together created a unique culture that has directly and indirectly influenced societies on every continent."

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Object database

In an object oriented database, information is represented in the form of objects as used in object-oriented programming. When database capabilities are combined with object programming language capabilities, the result is an object database management system (ODBMS). An ODBMS makes database objects appear as programming language objects in one or more object programming languages. An ODBMS extends the programming language with transparently persistent data, concurrency control, data recovery, associative queries, and other capabilities.

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Prototyping

Prototyping is the process of quickly putting together a working model (a prototype) in order to test various aspects of a design, illustrate ideas or features and gather early user feedback. Prototyping is often treated as an integral part of the system design process, where it is believed to reduce project risk and cost. Often one or more prototypes are made in a process of iterative and incremental development where each prototype is influenced by the performance of previous designs, in this way problems or deficiencies in design can be corrected. When the prototype is sufficiently refined and meets the functionality, robustness, manufacturability and other design goals, the product is ready for production.

Friday, April 04, 2008

Database security

Database security is the system, processes, and procedures that protect a database from unintended activity. Unintended activity can be categorized as authenticated misuse, malicious attacks or inadvertent mistakes made by authorized individuals or processes. Database security is also a specialty within the broader discipline of computer security.

Traditionally databases have been protected from external connections by firewalls or routers on the network perimeter with the database environment existing on the internal network opposed to being located within a demilitarized zone. Additional network security devices that detect and alert on malicious database protocol traffic include network intrusion detection systems along with host-based intrusion detection systems.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Transparent and non-transparent proxy server

The term "transparent proxy" is most often used incorrectly to mean "intercepting proxy" (because the client does not need to configure a proxy and cannot directly detect that its requests are being proxied).

However, RFC 2616 (Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1) offers different definitions:

"A 'transparent proxy' is a proxy that does not modify the request or response beyond what is required for proxy authentication and identification".
"A 'non-transparent proxy' is a proxy that modifies the request or response in order to provide some added service to the user agent, such as group annotation services, media type transformation, protocol reduction, or anonymity filtering".

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

SQL/XML, or XML-Related Specifications

The SQL/XML, or XML-Related Specifications, extension to the SQL standard is defined by ISO/IEC 9075-14:2003. SQL/XML specifies SQL-based extensions for using XML in conjunction with SQL. The XML data type is introduced, as well as several routines, functions, and XML-to-SQL data type mappings to support manipulation and storage of XML in a SQL database.

The SQL/XML specification includes functions to construct XML data. These functions allow the user to construct new XML elements or attributes with values e.g. from relational tables. Other functions such as XMLCONCAT or XMLAGG can be used to combine small XML fragments into larger ones. The list of available construction functions includes:

* XMLELEMENT
* XMLATTRIBUTES
* XMLFOREST
* XMLCONCAT
* XMLNAMESPACES
* XMLCOMMENT
* XMLPI
* XMLDOCUMENT
* XMLAGG
* etc.

Monday, March 10, 2008

Pharmacognosy

Pharmacognosy is the study of medicines derived from natural sources. The American Society of Pharmacognosy defines pharmacognosy as "the study of the physical, chemical, biochemical and biological properties of drugs, drug substances or potential drugs or drug substances of natural origin as well as the search for new drugs from natural sources."

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Hybrid electric vehicle

A hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) is a vehicle that uses two or more distinct power sources to propel the vehicle. Common power sources include:

• On-board rechargeable energy storage system (RESS) and a fueled power source (internal combustion engine or fuel cell)
• Air and internal combustion engines
• Human powered bicycle with electric motor or gas engine assist
• Human-powered or sail boat with electric power

The term most commonly refers to Hybrid-electric vehicle (HEV) which include internal combustion engines and electric motors.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Printing Technology

Printers are regularly confidential by the underlying print technology they employ; numerous such technologies have been developed over the years.

The choice of print engine has a extensive effect on what jobs a printer is suitable for, as various technologies are capable of dissimilar levels of image/text quality, print speed, low cost, noise; in addition, some technologies are unsuitable for certain types of physical media (such as carbon paper or transparencies).

Another aspect of printer technology that is regularly forgotten is resistance to modification: liquid ink such as from an inkjet head or fabric ribbon becomes absorbed by the paper fibers, so papers printed with liquid ink are more difficult to alter than documents printed with toner or solid inks, which do not penetrate below the paper surface.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

British One Penny coin

The coin was initially minted from bronze, but since 1992 it has been minted in copper-plated steel. As this is less dense than bronze, post-1992 coins have been to some amount thicker. The British decimal Penny (1p) coin, fashioned by the Royal Mint, was issued on 15 February 1971, the day the British money was decimalised. In practice, it had been existing from banks in bags of £1 for some weeks previously. The coin weighs 3.56 grams and has a diameter of 20.32 millimetres.
The reverse of the coin, intended by Christopher Ironside, is a crowned portcullis with chains (an adaptation of the Badge of Henry VII which is now the brooch of the Palace of Westminster), with the numeral "1" written below the portcullis, and either NEW PENNY (1971–1981) or ONE PENNY (1982–present) above the portcullis.
During the times gone by of the coin, three unlike obverses have been used so far. Between 1971 and 1984 the head of Queen Elizabeth II by Arnold Machin was used, in which the Queen wears the 'Girls of Great Britain and Ireland' Tiara.

Irish pound coin

The Irish pound coin was introduced on June 20, 1990 using the plan of a red deer, by the Irish artist Tom Ryan. The 2000 Millennium was used to issue a monument coin, the design was based on the "Brighter Boat" in the National Museum of Ireland; the coins design was by Alan Ardiff and Garrett Stokes and were issued on November 29, 1999. The coin featured a milled edge - unique in Irish coinage.


The "Brighter Boat" issue for 2000.The Irish pound coin, which was introduced in 1990, residue the largest Irish coin introduced since decimalisation at 3.11 centimetres diameter and was 10 grams weight. The coin was nearly the same in dimensions to the old penny coin that circulated before 1971, and was quite similar in diameter to, but thinner, than the half-crown coin.

During the early movement of the coin, a lot of payphone and transaction machines which had been changed to accept the pound coin also accepted the old penny because of the similar size, the latter coin which was no longer legal gentle and had little value to collectors. As a result losses accrued to vending machine operators due to the replacement of the penny coin and additional costs were associated with updating the machines so they would no longer accept the penny.

Monday, January 07, 2008

Vitmains and Minerals

Vitamins and minerals are substances that are found in foods we eat. Your body needs them to work properly, so you grow and develop just like you should. When it comes to vitamins, each one has a special role to play. For example:
Vitamin D in milk helps your bones.
Vitamin A in carrots helps you see at night.
Vitamin C in oranges helps your body heal if you get a cut.
B vitamins in leafy green vegetables help your body make protein and energy.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Ozone Layer

"The ozone layer" refers to the ozone within stratosphere, where over 90% of the earth's ozone resides. Ozone is an irritating, corrosive, colorless gas with a smell something like burning electrical wiring. In fact, ozone is easily produced by any high-voltage electrical arc (spark plugs, Van de Graaff generators, Tesla coils, arc welders). Each molecule of ozone has three oxygen atoms and is produced when oxygen molecules (O2) are broken up by energetic electrons or high energy radiation.

Friday, December 14, 2007

Christmas Day

Christmas is a enjoyable religious holiday when Christians rejoice the birth of Jesus Christ. The Christmas chronicle comes from the Bible. An angel appeared to shepherd and told them that a Savior had been born to Mary and Joseph in a stable in Bethlehem. Three Judicious Men from the East (the Magi) followed a amazing star which led them to the baby Jesus to whom they paid homage and presented gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
To people all over the earth, Christmas is a flavor of giving and receiving presents. In some European countries, priest Christmas, or Saint Nicholas, comes into houses in the night and leaves gifts for the children. Saint Nicholas is represented as a kindheartedly man with a red cloak and long white beard. Another nature, the Norse God Odin, ride on a mysterious flying horse across the sky in the winter to prize people with gifts. These different myths passed across the ages to make the present day Santa Claus.
On December 24, Christmas Eve, Santa hitches his eight reindeer to a toboggan and loads it with presents. The reindeer drag him and his sleigh through the sky to deliver presents to children all around the earth, that is, if they had been good all year. Several American towns maintain the strength of Santa Claus.
Santa Claus exists only in our imagination. But he, Saint Nicholas, and father Christmas are feelings of giving. Christmas has been associated with gift giving since the Wise Men brought gifts to welcome the newborn Jesus Christ.In eagerness of Santa's visit, American children pay attention to their parents read "The Night previous to Christmas" before they go to bed on Christmas Eve

Thursday, December 06, 2007

Uses of Ginger

There are array of uses suggested for ginger. A tea brewed from the is a folk medicine for colds. Ginger ale and ginger beer have been suggested as "stomach settlers" for generation in countries where the beverages are made and ginger water was commonly used to avoid heat cramps in the US. Ginger has also been historically used to take care of inflammation which some scientific studies support, though one arthritis trial showed ginger to be no better than a placebo or ibuprofen. Research on rats suggests that ginger may be valuable for treating diabetes.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

The Banyan Tree

In India the Banyan Tree is consider as National tree. This huge tree overlooks over its neighbors and has the widest reaching roots of all known trees, easily covering several acres. It sends off new shoots from its roots, so that one tree is really a interweave of branches, roots, and trunks. The banyan tree restart and lives for an incredible length of time--thus it is thought of as the everlasting tree.

Its size and leafy shelter are valued in India as a place of relax and mirror image, not to mention defense from the hot sun! It is still the focus and gathering place for local councils and meetings. India has a long history of worship this tree; it figures importantly in many of the oldest stories of the nation.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Abraham Lincoln

The brave man of the familiar People. It had been an extended time coming. Terribly separated by the issue of slavery, thirty-one million American citizens were in 1860
Called upon to vote for 16th President of the United States. The Democratic Party meets at its National Party Convention in Charleston, South Carolina, in order to choose their candidate in favor of the presidency. Split over slavery, each section, Northern Democrats on the one hand and Southern Democrats on the other, presented its own conflicting proposal for the party platform.
In February 1860, Senator Jefferson Davis of Mississippi claimed that neither the Congress of the United States nor the territorial parliaments had the control to handle slavery.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Adam Smith

He was born in 1723 in Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland, fatherless. The accurate date of his birth is unidentified. He was baptized June 5, 1723. At the age of fifteen, he begins his school at Glasgow and Oxford. In 1751, after he finished school, he was obtained a job at Glasgow University where he became the new Professor of judgment. There he lectured on beliefs, expression, jurisprudence and the political economy.

Just eight years after his training career began; he published his work. The Theory of ethical Sentiments. This show that he could write and he recognized himself in the world. In 1776, a query into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations was published. Immediately the book was a success. It had a remarkable effect on how people attention. Although it took him ten years to write, he became a very rich man from it.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

A Team Player

The superiority of being a team player is one that everyone should enjoy. A team player is someone with good qualities who makes contributions and has the force to motivate each one around him or her. This individuality can be used in many areas such as games, family life, and in the company. You are more expected to be hired in the production if you have and demonstrate the qualities of a team player. As the business climate gets tougher before it gets improved, it is time to hike the talk if you want to develop.

Managers will require all the cooperation they can get. To land a high paying job with a major business you need to be a team player. Having good qualities is one of the most significant characters you can have. Being a team performer thinks of the team as a whole and is not selfish in their views and decisions.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

A Snapshot of Macro-Economics

Economics is the learning of making choices. High school and college students all over required to take economic courses in order to achieve a diploma. Why is economics so important because it provides a guide for students for real-world situations Economics is divided into two types microeconomics and macroeconomics. Microeconomics is the study of economics at a slim level. For example absorbed on how a detailed business functions is microeconomics.
Studying the world economy is classified as Macroeconomics; its center on a much broader level. All students must understand the concept of insufficiency. Scarcity is a condition that occurs because society has unlimited wants and needs however the amount of property is limited. Unlimited wants and needs are what encourage us to create goods and services. We are never satisfied therefore we always have a want or need. On the other hand our income is limited.

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

A simple Girl

Around and around it soared in brutal circles, tearing from side to side her animated temples. At a standstill, they did not do anything. Still, they simply laid there with faces of chalk, invalid of all human emotions. She could not look at them in hopes of relieve, for long. The cherry rivers that flowed across her eyes, streamed down her steaming cheeks, made vision impossible.
Life was simply the stack of decayed flesh that enclosed her. From his immortal lips hung the bodies of all those who died struggle for him and all those who had tampered with self luxury. For that, she dammed him for all eternity; in every form he understood she dammed him. He had been her guiding angle and now it became evident to her. No prayer would pass her conditions lips, for this had been his movement she had fought and they had lost other than just a clash.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

A Civil Role Model

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

These are thoughts that were measured during the class viewing of A Civil Action. In the events of the case, there were many concerns that were brought up about our permissible culture.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

A Business Plan

The following production plan has been formulated to obtain $200,000 in capital to launch a coffeehouse on the college grounds of Doane College named The Orange Cup. This arrangement will also serve as a formal sketch for the first five year's of operation. The financial forecasts show that this asset has significant pledge for the future.
The Orange Cup will provide for the Doane College Community a comfortable atmosphere while serve quality coffee at a reasonably priced with extraordinary service. An ample variety of coffee products including, gourmet coffees, latte, cappuccino, espresso, and iced coffee, will be offered at The Orange Cup. In addition, The Orange Cup will recommend juice, pop, and bottled water, hot cocoa, hot cider, and tea.

The marking plan for The Orange Cup is to attract students and staff to the coffeehouse to continue in a relaxed atmosphere, or for those customers with excited schedules, the expediency of our products.

Friday, September 14, 2007

A cold winter morning

I am lying on a white, sandy beach with the glowing sun beating down directly on my tanned summer body. I notice the beautiful, Puerto Rican Cabana boy heading over to replenish my newly empty Margarita glass. I look around my private beach and at the crystal clear, sparkling ocean water tempting me warmly in to its open arms. I get up from my bed on the sand, walking gradually to the water. The sand is flaming my bare feet with such passion that I speed my walk up almost into a jog. As I reach the waterfront I stop, as a falling wave is heading toward my glazing body; I step closer to be in its direct path. I move smoothly in with such grace; I prepare myself for the cool, refreshing bath. I hear an alarm bell screaming, I look around in a panic as it is hurting my ears and giving me a powerful headache. My beach is wandering away, and then it is gone. The ‘warmness my body feels is gone.
I open my eyes; I am gloomy, lifeless room. My alarm clock is going off and the sound can only be compared with exhausted your fingernails across a chalkboard.

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Sport

Sport is a movement that governs by a set of regulations or rules and frequently engaged in competition. Used by itself, sports usually refer to behavior where the physical capability of the participant are the sole or primary determiner of the outcome (winning or losing), but the term is also used to include behavior such as brainpower sports and cruise sports where mental acuity or apparatus quality are major factors. Sports are used as amusement for the player and the viewer. It has also been established by experiments that daily exercise increases mental strength and power to study.

Keeping pace with the latest sports results is a usual appliance for Semotus wireless technology. As individual sports results come in, they are tailored and sent out to users wirelessly and in real-time. Semotus provides both the technology products and the information services to supply organizations to relay sporting and other information. InfoXtra2 delivers up to the minute content from a variety of leading information sources.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Light Arrester

In telegraphy and telephony a lightning arrester is to be found where wires enter a structure, preventing harm to electronic instruments within and ensuring the protection of individuals near them. Lightning arresters, also called rush protector, are devices which are linked between each electrical conductor in a power and transportation systems and the earth. These provide a short circuit to the earth that is interrupted by a non-conductor over which lightning jumps. Its function is to limit the rise in voltage when a connections or power line is struck by lightning.

The non-conducting substance may consist of a semi-conducting material like silicon carbide or zinc oxide, or a spark gap. Primitive varieties of such flash gaps are simply open to the air, but more modern varieties are filled with dry gas and provided with a little amount of radioactive material to support the gas to ionize when the voltage across the gap reaches a particular level. Other designs of lightning arresters use a glow-discharge tube associated between the protected conductor and ground, or any one of a many of voltage-activated solid-state switches called varistors or MOV's. Lightning arresters built for substation use are consisting of a porcelain tube several feet in length and several inches in diameter, impressive devices, fill with disks of zinc oxide. A safety port is full on the side of the device to vent the occasional internal explosion without shocking the porcelain cylinder.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Java

Java (Javanese, Indonesian, and Sundanese: Jawa) is an land mass of Indonesia and the place of its capital city, Jakarta. Once the centre of controlling Hindu kingdoms and the heart of the colonial Dutch East Indies, Java now plays a governing role in the money-making and supporting life of Indonesia. With a population of 124 million, it is the most heavily populated island in the world; it is also one of the most thickly populated regions on Earth.

Java shaped mostly as the result of volcanic events, Java is the 13th leading island in the world and the fifth major island of Indonesia. A sequence of volcanic mountains forms an east-west spine along the island. It has three main languages, and most populace are bilingual, with Indonesian as their second language. While the popular of Javanese are Muslim (or at least supposedly Muslim), Java has a different mixture of religious beliefs and cultures.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Turmeric

Turmeric (Curcuma longa) is a rhizomatous herbaceous continuing plant of the ginger family, Zingiberaceae which is citizen to tropical South Asia. It wants temperatures between 20 and 30 deg. C. and a significant amount of annual rainfall to succeed. Plants are gathered yearly for their rhizomes, and re-seeded from some of those rhizomes in the following season.It is also often pronounced as tumeric. It’s name vary according to region, in some Asian countries as kunyit.
Its rhizomes are boil for several hours and then dried in hot ovens, after which they are position into a deep orange-yellow powder generally used as a flavor in curries and for dyeing, other South Asian cuisine, and to impart color to mustard condiments. Its active component is curcumin and it has an bitter, earthy, peppery flavor.Sangli, a town in the southern part of the Indian state of Maharashtra, is the largest and most important trade centre for turmeric in Asia or maybe in the entire world.

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Electromagnetic hypersensitivity syndrome

Some users of mobile handsets have reported feeling several unspecific symptoms during and after its use, such as flaming and tingling feelings in the skin of the head and extremities, fatigue, sleep disturbances, dizziness, loss of mental attention, reaction times and memory retentiveness, headaches, malaise, tachycardia and disturbances of the digestive system. Some researchers, implying a causal relationship, have named this syndrome as a new diagnostic entity, EHS or ES. The World Health Organization prefers to name it “idiopathic environmental intolerance", in order to avoid the insinuation of causation.

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Cucumber

Cucumbers are usually harvested while still green. They can be eaten unrefined or cooked, or pickled. Although a smaller amount nutritious than most fruit, the fresh cucumber seeds are still a source of vitamin K, vitamin C, and potassium, also providing nutritional fiber, vitamin A, vitamin B6, pantothenic acid, magnesium, phosphorus, copper, thiamin, folate, and manganese. Cucumbers are used in the attractive food art, graded manger.

Cucumbers can be pickled for taste and longer shelf life. As compare to eating cucumbers, pickling cucumbers tend to be shorter, thicker, less regularly-shaped, and have rough skin with tiny white- or black-dotted spines. They are not at all waxed. Color can be different from creamy yellow to pale or dark green. Pickling cucumbers are sometimes sold fresh as "Kirby" or "Liberty" cucumbers. The pickling practice removes or degrades a large amount of the nutrient content, particularly that of vitamin C. Pickled cucumbers are waterlogged in vinegar or brine or a combination, often along with a mixture of spices.

• English cucumbers can cultivate as long as 2 feet. They are nearly seedless and are sometimes marketed as "Burp less."
• Japanese cucumbers (kyūri) are mild, deep green, slenderand have a bumpy, ridged skin. They can be used for slicing, pickling, salads, etc., and are available year-round.
• Mediterranean cucumbers are smooth-skinned, small and mild. Like the English and Mediterranean cucumbers are nearly seedless.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Java coffee

Java coffee is a coffee bent on the island of Java. In the USA, the term "Java" independently is slang for coffee generally. The Indonesian phrase Kopi Jawa refers not only to the origin of the coffee, but is used to distinguish the black, very sweet coffee, strong with powdered grains in the drink, from other forms of the drink.The Dutch began farming of coffee trees on Java (part of the Dutch East Indies) in the 17th century and it has been export internationally since. The coffee farming systems found on Java have changed significantly over time.

A rust disease in the late 1880s killed off much of the plantation stocks in Sukabumi, before distribution to Central Java and parts of East Java. The Dutch respond by replacing the Arabica firstly with Liberica (a tough, but somewhat unpleasant coffee) and later with Robusta. Today Java's old royally era plantations provide just a portion of the coffee grown on the island. Logo of Java programming language is a coffee cup.

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Triangular theory of love

The triangular theory of love describes love in an interpersonal connection on three different scales: intimacy, passion, and commitment. Different stages and types of love can be explained as dissimilar combinations of these three elements; for instance, the relation emphasis of each component changes over point in time as an adult romantic relationship develops. As said by the author of the theory, psychologist Robert Sternberg, a connection or relation based on a single element is less likely to continue to exist than one based on two or more.

Sunday, July 08, 2007

Marketing

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

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

CPU Socket

The term CPU socket (or CPU slot) is commonly used to describe the connector linking the motherboard to the CPU in certain types of desktop and server computers, particularly those compatible with the Intel x86 architecture.

Most CPU sockets and processors in use today are built around the pin grid array (PGA) architecture, in which the pins on the base of the processor are inserted into the socket. To aid installation, zero insertion force (ZIF) sockets are usually used, allowing the processor to be inserted without any confrontation, while gripping the pins firmly once the processor is in place to ensure a reliable contact. In contrast to CPU sockets, slot-based processors and CPUs use a single-edged connection rather than a socket, and slot into the motherboard on their side. Slot architectures are not often used today

Friday, June 29, 2007

RISC (reduced instruction set computer)

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

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

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

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Neem cake

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

Friday, June 22, 2007

People

People are a group of humans, either with not mentioned traits, or specific characteristics (e.g. the people of Spain or the people of the Plains).
The term people is often used in English as the suppletive plural of person. However, the word persons is sometimes used in place of people, particularly when it would be ambiguous with its collective sense (e.g. missing persons instead of missing people). The term people can together refer to all humans or it can be used to identify the citizens of a nation, or members of a tribe, ethnic, or religious group. People of color is a phrase used to describe people with skin color darker than that of white people.

Monday, June 18, 2007

Kolkata

Calcutta is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. It is located in eastern India on the east bank of the River Hooghly. The city has a population of almost 11 million, with an extended metropolitan population of over 14 million, making it the third-largest urban agglomeration and the third-largest city in India.

The city was very populated and served as the capital of India during the British Raj until 1911. Once the centre of modern education, science, culture and politics in India, Kolkata witnessed economic stagnation in the years following India's independence in 1947. However, since the year 2000, an economic rejuvenation has arrested the morbid decline, leading to a spurt in the city's growth. Like other large cities, Kolkata continues to struggle with urbanisation problems like poverty, pollution and traffic congestion.

A vibrant city with a distinct socio-political culture, Kolkata is noted for its revolutionary history, ranging from the Indian struggle for independence to the leftist and trade union movements.

Friday, June 15, 2007

Krill fishery

Krill fishery is the commercial fishery of krill, small shrimp-like marine animals that live in the oceans world-wide. Estimates for how much krill there is vary wildly, depending on the methodology used. They range from 125–725 million tonnes of biomass globally. The total global harvest of krill from all fisheries amounts to 150 – 200,000 tonnes annually, mainly Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) and North Pacific krill

Krill are rich in protein (40% or more of dry weight) and lipids . Their exoskeleton amounts to some 2% of dry weight of chitin. They also contain traces of a wide array of hydrolytic enzymes such as proteases, carbohydrases, nucleases and phospholipases, which are intense in the digestive gland in the cephalothorax of the krill.

Most krill is used as aquaculture feed and fish bait; other uses comprise livestock or pet foods. Only a small percentage is prepared for human consumption. Their enzymes are interesting for medical applications, an expanding sector since the early 1990s.

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Deadheading

Deadheading is the act of removing spent flowers or flowerheads for aesthetics, to prolong bloom for up to several weeks or endorse rebloom, or to put off seeding.
Deadheading is beneficial to most herbaceous ornamental plants. It can get better overall look of a plant, give a fresh new look to an otherwise finished or even distracting item, and can promote vegetative and root increase rather than seed production and help retain the plant's healthy appearance.

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Bean

Bean is a common name for large plant seeds of several genera of Fabaceae used for food or feed. They are also known as legumes.
The term Bean at first referred to the seed of the broad bean, but was later broadened to include members of the genus Phaseolus such as the common bean or haricot and the runner bean and the related genus Vigna. The term is now applied in a general way to many other related plants such as soybeans, peas, lentils, kidney beans, vetches and lupins.

Bean can be used as a near synonym of pulse, an edible legume, though the term "pulses" is usually reserved for leguminous crops harvested for their dry grain. Pulses frequently exclude crops mainly used for oil extraction (like soybean and peanut) or those used exclusively for sowing purposes (clover and alfalfa). Leguminous crops harvested green for food, such as snap beans, green peas etc, are classified as vegetable crops.

In English usage 'beans' sometimes also refer to seeds or other organs of non leguminosae which bear a resemblance to the vegetable, for example coffee beans, castor beans and cocoa beans ,and vanilla beans .

Thursday, May 31, 2007

JAR

In computing, a JAR file (or Java ARchive) file used to distribute a set of Java classes. It is used to store compiled Java classes and linked metadata that can constitute a program.

* WAR (file format) (Web Application aRchive) files are also Java archives which store XML files, java classes, Java Server Pages and other objects for Web Applications.
* EAR (file format) (Enterprise ARchive) files are also Java archives which store XML files, java classes and other objects for Enterprise Applications.
* RAR (file format) (Resource Adapter aRchive) files are also Java archives which store XML files, java classes and other objects for J2EE Connector Architecture (JCA) applications.

JAR files can be created and extracted using the "jar" command that comes with the JDK. It can be done using zip tools, but as WinZip has a habit of renaming all-uppercase directories and files in lower case, this can raise support calls with whoever shaped the JAR or the tool authors themselves. WinRAR, on the other hand, retains the original case of filenames.

A JAR file has a manifest file located in the path META-INF/MANIFEST.MF. The entries in the manifest file determine how the JAR file will be used. JAR files which are intended to be executed as standalone programs will have one of their classes specified as the "main" class. The manifest file would have an entry such as
Main-Class: myPrograms.MyClass

Such JAR files are typically started with a command similar to

java -jar foo.jar

These files can also include a Classpath entry, which identifies other JAR files to be loaded with the JAR. This entry consists of a list of absolute or relative paths to other JAR files. Although intended to simplify JAR use, in practice, it turns out to be notoriously brittle as it depends on all the relevant JARs being in the exact locations specified when the entry-point JAR was built. To change versions or locations of libraries, a new manifest is needed.

Sunday, May 27, 2007

Nutrition

Nutrition is a science which studies the relationship between diet and states of health and disease. Dietitians are Health professionals who are particular in this area of expertise. They are also the only extremely trained health professionals able to provide safe, evidence-based and accurate dietary advice and interventions.

Between extremes of optimal health and death from starvation or malnutrition, there is an array of disease states that can be caused or alleviated by changes in diet. Deficiencies, excesses and imbalances in diet can produce negative impacts on health, which may lead to diseases such as scurvy, obesity or osteoporosis, as well as mental and behavioral problems. Moreover, excessive ingestion of elements that have no apparent role in health, (e.g. lead, mercury, PCBs, dioxins), may incur toxic and potentially lethal belongings, depending on the dose. The science of nutrition attempts to understand how and why exact dietary aspects influence health.

Monday, May 21, 2007

Columbia River

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

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Organization in sociology

In sociology "organization" is tacit as planned, synchronized and decided action of human beings to construct or compile a common tangible or intangible product. This action is usually framed by official membership and form. Sociology distinguishes the term organization into planned formal and unplanned informal organizations. Sociology analyses organizations in the first line from an institutional viewpoint. In this sense, organization is a permanent agreement of elements. These elements and their actions are resolute by rules so that a certain task can be fulfilled through a system of coordinated the division of labour.

An organization is defined by the rudiments that are part of it, its communication, its independence and its rules of action compared to outside events. By coordinated and planned cooperation of the elements, the organization is able to solve tasks that lie beyond the abilities of the single elements. The price paid by the elements is the restriction of the degrees of freedom of the elements. Advantages of organizations are enhancement, addition, and extension. Disadvantages are inertness and loss of interaction.

Sunday, May 13, 2007

Belt

A belt is a flexible band, characteristically made of leather or heavy cloth, and worn around the waist.belt supports trousers or other articles of clothing, and it serves for style and decoration.Historically, a belt was also used by educators for spanking children, and by masters for spanking servants. This use has frequently declined in the Western world, as it is viewed as too barbaric and uncontrollable a form of corporal punishment.At one end of the belt is a belt buckle that is shaped onto the other end of the belt. The other end of the belt contains several holes, into which a prong (which is part of the buckle) is inserted into it for the purpose of securing the belt. Sometimes, there is a clamp system so that no holes are wanted. In Western civilizations, men usually insert the belt through the pant loops in a counter-clockwise manner, while women tend to insert the belt through the pant loops in a clockwise direction.Since belts must be drawn firmly around the waist in order to hold up the pants, they may be less comfortable than suspenders, which allow trousers to hang loosely about the body.

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Paint

Paint is any liquid, liquifiable, or mastic composition which after application to a substrate in a thin layer is transformed to an opaque solid film.
Paint is used to protect, decorate (such as adding color), or add functionality to an object or outside by covering it with a pigmented coating. An example of protection is to retard corrosion of metal. An example of decoration is to add festive trim to a room interior. An example of added functionality is to alter light reflection or heat radiation of a surface.
As a verb, painting is the application of paint. Someone who paints creatively is usually called a painter, while someone who paints commercially is often referred to as a painter and decorator, or house painter.
Paint can be applied to almost any kind of object. It is used, among many other uses, in the production of art, in industrial coating, as a driving aid, or as a barrier to prevent corrosion or water damage. Paint is a semifinished product, as the final product is the painted article itself.

Friday, May 04, 2007

Lighting rod

A lightning rod is a metal narrow piece or rod, typically of copper or similar conductive material, used as part of lightning security to guard tall or isolated structures from lightning damage. Its formal name is lightning finial. Sometimes, the system is informally referred to as:

A lightning conductor,
A lightning arrester, or
A lightning discharger.
However, these terms really refer to lightning guard systems in general or specific mechanism within them.

Lightning rod dissipaters make a structure less nice-looking by which charges can flow to the air around it. This then reduces the voltage between the point and the storm cloud, making a strike less likely. The most common charge dissipaters appear as slightly-blunted metal spikes sticking out in all information from a metal ball. These are mounted on short metal arms at the very top of a radio antenna or tower, the area by far most likely to be struck. These devices diminish, but do not eradicate, the risk of lightning strikes.

Monday, April 30, 2007

Traffic calming

Traffic reassuring is a set of strategies used by urban planners and traffic engineers which aims to slow down traffic and improve safety for pedestrians and bicyclists, although some of these features can also be dangerous to cyclists. It is now relatively common in Europe, especially Northern Europe; less so in North America.
Traffic calming has traditionally been justified on the grounds of pedestrian security and reduction of noise and local air pollution which are side effects of the traffic. However, it has become increasingly apparent that streets have many social and recreational functions which are severely impaired by fast car traffic. For example, residents of streets with light traffic had, on average, three more friends and twice as many acquaintances as the people on streets with heavy traffic which were otherwise similar in dimensions, income, etc. For much of the twentieth century, streets were designed by engineers who were charged only with ensuring traffic flow and not with fostering the other functions of streets. The rationale for traffic calming is now broadening to include designing for these functions.
Displaced traffic is not fully pushed onto other routes, as some travelers may begin to walk or use other modes such as public transit and bicycles to get where they are going. Still, in most cases the affected motorists have few alternatives aside from either navigating the newly erected obstacles or finding a more palatable route. This happens because high traffic tends to be generated by motorists passing through the area and not by the local residents.

It should be noted the some of these measures have a tendency to irritate and annoy drivers rather than calm them and others can actually increase traffic throughput. Some drivers who slow down at calming points, however, accelerate and speed after passing them in order to "catch up for lost time". For this reason, more advanced methods integrated into the design of the street, which make slower speeds seem more natural to drivers and less of an artificial imposition, are now preferred - the goal is to slow down the driver through psychological, at least partly subconscious means instead of simply forcing him to do so.

One major side effect of traffic reassuring is the impedance to emergency services. A police car can easily navigate most traffic reassuring measures. The same cannot be said for fire trucks and ambulances, however. They often have to slow down to safely cross speed bumps or chicanes. In some locales, the law prohibits traffic calming measures along the routes used by the urgent situation services.
There are 3 "E"'s that traffic engineers refer to when discussing traffic reassuring: engineering, education, and enforcement. Because neighborhood traffic management studies have shown that often it is the residents themselves that are largely contributing to the perceived speeding problem within the neighborhood, it is strained that the most effective traffic calming plans will entail all three components, and that engineering measures alone will not produce satisfactory results.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Chair

A chair is a piece of furniture for sitting, consisting of a seat, a back, and sometimes arm rests, usually for use by one person. Chairs also often have legs to support the seat raised above the floor. Without back and arm rests it is called a stool. A chair for more than one person is a couch, sofa, settee, loveseat (two-seater without arm rest in between) or bench. A separate footrest for a chair is known as an ottoman, hassock or poof. A chair mounted in a vehicle or in a theatre is simply called a seat. Chairs as furniture are characteristically not attached to the floor and so can be moved.
The back often does not make bigger all the way to the seat to allow for ventilation. Likewise, the back and sometimes the seat are made of porous materials or have holes drilled in them for decoration and ventilation.
The back may expand above the height of the head. There may be separate headrests. Headrests for seats in vehicles are important for preventing whiplash injuries to the neck when the vehicle is concerned in a rear-end collision.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Wood

Wood is the xylem tissue of woody plants, especially trees but also shrubs. Wood from the latter is only formed in small sizes, reducing the diversity of uses. Wood is a hygroscopic, cellular and anisotropic material. Dry wood is composed of fibers of cellulose (40%–50%) and hemicellulose (20%–30%) held together by lignin (25%–30%).
Artists can use wood to make delicate sculptures.Wood has been used by man for millenia for lots of purposes, being many things to many people. One of its main uses is as fuel. It might also be used as a material, for making artworks, boats, buildings, furniture, ships, tools, weapons, etc. Wood has been an important construction material since humans began building shelters, and remains in plentiful use today. Construction wood is normally known as timber in International English, and lumber in American English. Wood can be broken down and be made into chipboard, engineered wood, hardboard, medium-density fibreboard, oriented strand board, paper or used to make other synthetic substances.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Camera phone

A camera phone is a cellphone which has a camera built in. The world's first camera phone was the J-SH04 made by Sharp Corporation and put on market from J-Phone (Vodafone) in Japan in November 2000. The cameras characteristically use CMOS image sensors. This is due mainly to reduced power consumption compared to CCD type cameras, which are also used. The lower power consumption prevents the camera from quickly depleting the phone's battery. Major manufacturers include Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, Siemens, Sony Ericsson, and LG Electronics. As of 2004, the resolution in Japan is classically in the megapixel range such as 2 megapixels, while in North America and Europe 0.3 megapixels (VGA) is most common. In 2004, 60% percent of mobile phones in Japan have built-in cameras, and this is predictable to rise in 2005. Previously, the highest resolution available was 7 megapixels on the Samsung SCH-V770. This has since been replaced as Samsung Electronics unveiled the world's first 8.0 megapixel camera phone, the WCDMA SPH-V8200.
As a network-connected device, megapixel camera phones are initial to play significant roles such as crime prevention, journalism and business applications as well as individual uses. On the other hand, they are prone to abuse such as voyeurism and invasion of privacy.

Friday, April 06, 2007

Multitrack recording

Multitrack recording is a method of sound recording that allows for the recording of multiple sound sources, whether at the same time or at different times. This is probably the most common technique of recording popular music: Musicians or singers can be recorded independently, then these performances can be edited together to create a cohesive result. It is also called 'multitracking' or just 'tracking' for short.Multitrack recording devices are available with varying capacities. When recording a segment of audio, which is also known as a track, audio engineers and musicians may select which track or tracks on the device will be used.

Monday, April 02, 2007

Irish pound coin

The Irish pound coin was introduced on June 20, 1990 using the design of a red deer, by the Irish artist Tom Ryan. The 2000 Millennium was used to subject a commemorative coin, the design was based on the "Broighter Boat" in the National Museum of Ireland; the coins design was by Alan Ardiff and Garrett Stokes and were issued on November 29, 1999. The coin featured a milled edge - unique in Irish coinage.
The "Broighter Boat" issue for 2000.The Irish pound coin, which was introduced in 1990, remains the largest Irish coin introduced since decimalisation at 3.11 centimetres diameter and was 10 grams weight. The coin was almost the same in dimensions to the old penny coin that circulated before 1971, and was quite similar in diameter to, but thinner, than the half-crown coin.
During the early circulation of the coin, many payphone and vending machines which had been changed to accept the pound coin also accepted the old penny because of the similar size, the latter coin which was no longer legal tender and had little value to collectors. As a result losses accrued to vending machine operators due to the substitution of the penny coin and further costs were associated with updating the machines so they would no longer accept the penny.

Thursday, March 29, 2007

White Sands

The White Sands National Monument is a U.S. National Monument situated about 25km (15 miles) southwest of Alamogordo in the state of New Mexico. The area is in the mountain-ringed Tularosa Basin valley area and comprises the southern part of a 710km² (275-square mile) field of white sand dunes composed of gypsum crystals.
Gypsum is rarely found in the shape of sand because it is water soluble. generally, rain would dissolve the gypsum and carry it to the sea. Since the Tularosa Basin has no outlet to the sea, rain that dissolves gypsum from the surrounding San Andres and Sacramento Mountains is trapped within the basin and either sinks into the ground or forms shallow pools that next dry out and leave gypsum in a crystalline form called selenite on the surface. During the last ice age a lake called Lake Otero enclosed much of the basin. When it dried out it left a large flat area of selenite crystals which is now the Alkali Flat. Lake Lucero, at the south-west corner of the park, is a dry lake bed at one of the lowest points of the basin that infrequently fills with water.
The ground in the Alkali Flat and along Lake Lucero's shore is covered with selenite crystals which reach lengths of up to three feet. Weather erosion ultimately breaks the crystals into sand-size grains that are carried away by the prevailing winds from the south-west, forming white dunes.

Monday, March 26, 2007

Personal computer

A personal computer or PC is usually a microcomputer intended to be used by one person at a time, and suitable for general purpose tasks such as word processing, programming, sending messages or digital documents (comprising text, images, audio or video) to other computers on the network (E-mail), multimedia editing or game play, usually used to run software not written by the user. Unlike minicomputers, a personal computer is often owned by the person using it, representing a low cost of purchase and simplicity of operation. The user of a modern personal computer may have significant knowledge of the operating environment and application programs, but is not necessarily interested in programming nor even able to write programs for the computer.
In modern usage PC nearly always refers to an IBM PC compatible and the term may even be used for machines that are in no way personal computers but still use the basic architecture of the IBM PC.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Light Pollution

In urban areas light pollution can hide the stars and get in the way with astronomy. In settings near astronomical telescopes and observatories, low pressure sodium lamps may be used. These lamps are beneficial over other lamps such as mercury and halogen lamps because low pressure sodium lamps emit lower intensity, monochromatic light. Observatories can filter the sodium wavelength out of their observations and almost eliminate the interference from nearby urban lighting.The light pollution also disrupts the natural increasing cycle of plants.

Friday, March 16, 2007

Bournemouth

Bournemouth is a seaside resort in the county of Dorset on the south coast of England. It is situated about 107 miles southwest of London, at latitude 50.43N and longitude 1.54W. The town overlooks Poole Bay.
It was initially part of Hampshire but was ceded to Dorset in a 1974 local government reform. proof of this can be found at a roundabout at the end of the Wessex Way called "County gates" where the gate marking the divide between Hampshire and Dorset once stood, and which now marks the border between Poole and Bournemouth. On April 1, 1997 Bournemouth became an independent unitary authority.
Bournemouth is one of the most popular tourist destinations on the English south coast, as of its fine long beach, the wide range of accommodation and entertainment, the mild climate, and easy access to the New Forest, Jurassic Coast, Devon, and the Dorset and Hampshire countryside. This section of the English coast enjoys some of the warmest, driest, and sunniest weather in Britain.

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Ice travel

Ice can also be an obstacle; for harbors near the poles, being ice-free is an significant advantage, ideally all-year round. Examples are Murmansk (Russia), Petsamo (Russia, formerly Finland) and Vardø (Norway). Harbors that are not ice-free are opened up using icebreakers.
Ice forming on roads is a unsafe winter hazard. Black ice is very difficult to see because it lacks the predictable glossy surface. Whenever there is freezing rain or snow that occurs at a temperature near the melting point, it is common for ice to build up on the windows of vehicles. Driving safely requires the removal of the ice build-up. Ice scrapers are tools designed to break the ice free and clear the windows, while removing the ice can be a long and labor-intensive process.
Far enough below the freezing point, a thin layer of ice crystals can form on the inside surface of windows. This frequently happens when a vehicle has been left alone after being driven for a while, but can happen while driving if the outside temperature is low enough. Moisture from the driver's breath is the source of water for the crystals. It is troublesome to take away this form of ice, so people often open their windows somewhat when the vehicle is parked in order to let the moisture dissipate, and it is now common for cars to have rear-window defrosters to combat the problem. A similar problem can happen in homes, which is one reason why many colder regions require double-pane windows for insulation.
When the outdoor temperature stays below freezing for comprehensive periods, very thick layers of ice can form on lakes and other bodies of water (although places with flowing water require much colder temperatures). The ice can become thick enough to drive onto with automobiles and trucks. Doing this safely requires a thickness of at least 30 centimeters (one foot).

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Piano

A piano or pianoforte is a musical instrument classified as a keyboard, percussion, or string instrument, depending on the system of categorization used. The piano produces sound by striking steel strings with felt hammers that at once rebound allowing the string to continue vibrating at its resonant frequency. These vibrations are transmitted through the bridges to the soundboard, which amplifies them.
The piano is generally used in western music for solo performance, chamber music, and accompaniment. It is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal. Even though not portable and often expensive, the piano's versatility and ubiquity has made it among the most familiar of musical instruments.
The word piano is a shortened form of the word pianoforte, which is seldom used except in formal language and resultant from the original Italian name for the instrument, gravicèmbalo col piano e forte (literally harpsichord with soft and loud). This refers to the capability of the piano to produce notes at different volumes depending on the amount of force used to press the keys.

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Coconut water

Coconut water is the liquid endosperm inside young coconuts. As the coconut matures this liquid mostly becomes absorbed into the flesh found in grown-up coconuts. Coconut water has long been a popular drink in the tropics. It is logically fat-free and low in food energy (16.7 calories or 70 kJ per 100 g). Due to its sterility, pH, mineral, and sugar content, coconut water had been effectively used as liquid in intravenous therapy in crisis situations.
Coconuts for drinking are packaged and sold in many places. These are typically Thai coconuts whose outer green husk has been removed, and the rest wrapped in plastic. Coconut water can also be found in regular cans or tetra paks, and is also marketed as a sports drink because of its high potassium and mineral content which helps the body recover from rigorous exercise.
It can also be used as intravenous fluid resuscitation of patients with dehydration or hypovolemia, because it is isotonic and sterile.

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Philips

Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. generally known as Philips, is one of the major electronics companies in the world. In 2004, its sales were € 30.3 billion and it employed 159,709 people in more than 60 countries. Philips is organized in a number of divisions: Philips Consumer Electronics, Philips Semiconductors, Philips Lighting, Philips Medical Systems and Philips Domestic Appliances and Personal Care.
As a chip maker, Philips Semiconductors is among the Worldwide Top 20 Semiconductor Sales Leaders.
The company was founded in 1891 by Gerard Philips in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. Its first products were light bulbs 'and other electro technical equipment'. Its first factory remains as a museum. In the 1920s, the company started to manufacture other products, and in 1939 its first electric razor, the Philishave, was introduced. Philips markets its shavers in the USA using the Norelco name. Philips introduced the compact audio cassette tape, which was wildly successful, though its attempt to set a standard for video cassette recorders, the V2000, was unsuccessful in the face of competition from the Betamax and especially VHS standards.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Child carrier

A child carrier (also called a baby carrier) is a device used to take an infant or small child. This can be on the body of an adult, or individually. On-the-body carriers are considered in various forms such as slings, backpack carriers, and soft front or hip carriers, with varying materials and degrees of rigidity, decoration, support and confinement of the child. Slings, soft front carriers, and "carrycots" are naturally used for infants who lack the ability to sit or to hold their head up. Frame backpack carriers (a change of the frame backpack) and hip carriers, as well as certain styles of slings, are used for older children.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Cooking apple

A cooking apple is an apple that is used mainly for cooking rather than eating fresh. They are normally a lot less sweet and more sour than eating varieties, and have a firm flesh that doesn't break down too much when cooked. Apples can be seared in an oven and served with custard or put into an apple pie or apple crush. In the UK apples are boiled and mashed and served as apple paste with roast pork. A baked apple is one that has been baked in an oven awaiting it has become soft. The core is generally removed and often stuffed with fruits, brown sugar, raisins, or cinnamon.

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Infrared

Infrared (IR) emission is electromagnetic emission of a wavelength longer than that of noticeable light, but shorter than that of radio waves. The name means "below red" (from the Latin infra, "below"), red being the color of detectable light of longest wavelength. Infrared radiation spans three instructions of magnitude and has wavelengths between about 750 nm and 1 mm.
These divisions are suitable by the different human response to this radiation: near infrared is the area closest in wavelength to the radiation detectable by the human eye, mid and far infrared are gradually further from the visible regime. Other definitions follow different physical mechanisms (emission peaks, vs. bands, water absorption) and the newest follow technical reasons (The common silicon detectors are sensitive to about 1,050 nm, while Inga As sensitivity starts around 950 nm and ends between 1,700 and 2,600 nm, depending on the specific configuration). Unfortunately the international standards for these specifications are not currently obtainable.
The boundary between visible and infrared light is not precisely defined. The human eye is markedly less responsive to light above 700 nm wavelength, so longer frequencies make irrelevant contributions to scenes illuminated by common light sources. But particularly strong light (e.g., from lasers, or from bright daylight with the visible light removed by colored gels [1]) can be detected up to approximately 780 nm, and will be apparent as red light. The onset of infrared is defined (according to different standards) at different values typically between 700 nm and 780 nm.

Sunday, February 04, 2007

The Real Miracle

As far as Miracles is concern, turning salty seawater in to sweet water is quite amazing. Regardless of the scientific clarification being doled out—surplus freshwater flowing from the Mahim River into the sea—the thousand mass to Mahim Creek near the beachfront in Mumbai will pretty see the ‘transubstantiation’ as the deed of the late Haji Maqdoom Baba, whose shrine is in the area. Mass hysteria, of course, is only a term to clarify the hordes of believers filling plastic bottles and drinking the water. But the real miracle would be if those glugging the ‘miraculous’ water manages to flee succumbing to serious gastric illness.
The water of Mahim Creek, sweetened or otherwise, is dirty and would scandalize not only the likes of Sunita Narain of the Centre for Science and Environment. Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh and officials of the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai have already request to people not to drink the water. Industrial waste is not the finest ingredient for a miracle. But telling this to goggle-eyed people facing even more goggle-eyed TV cameras is as worthwhile as persuasive people that a Ganesh idol sipping milk is caused by suction and not godly lactose tolerance.
Fortunately, rumors of the sweetened water turning back to its original brackish form might stop a future surge. Now we only wait for the real miracle of no one complaining of sickness.

Friday, January 26, 2007

Journalism Basics

Journalism is a concrete, professionally oriented major that involves gathering, interpreting, distilling, and other reporting information to the general audiences through a variety of media means. Journalism majors learn about every possible kind of Journalism (including magazine, newspaper, online journalism, photojournalism, broadcast journalism, and public relations).
That's not all, though. In addition to dedicated training in writing, editing, and reporting, Journalism wants a working knowledge of history, culture, and current events. You'll more than likely be required to take up a broad range of courses that runs the range from statistics to the hard sciences to economics to history. There would also be a lot of haughty talk about professional ethics and civic responsibility too - and you'll be tested on it. To top it all off, you'll perhaps work on the university newspaper or radio station, or possibly complete an internship with a magazine or a mass media conglomerate.