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Ecophysiology of plants

2008-09-09T23:04:00.001-07:00

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

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

Enterprise Architecture

2008-09-04T03:47:00.000-07:00

Enterprise Architecture is the organizing logic for business processes and IT infrastructure reflecting the integration and standardization requirements of the firm’s operating model. Practitioners are called enterprise architects.

Developed to respond to the need to align information technology investments with business strategy, the practice of enterprise architecture has evolved into a broad category of activities designed to understand, justify, optimize and, communicate the structure and relationships between various business entities and elements. Included in these practices are business architecture, performance management, organizational structure and process architecture.

Modelling the Enterprise Architecture is becoming a common practice within the U.S. Federal Government to inform the Capital Planning and Investment Control (CPIC) process. The Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) reference models serve as a framework to guide Federal Agencies in the development of their architectures. The primary purpose of creating an enterprise architecture is to ensure that business strategy and IT investments are aligned. As such, enterprise architecture allows traceability from the business strategy down to the underlying technology.

Companies such as BP,Independence Blue Cross,Intel and Volkswagen AG also have applied enterprise architecture to improve their business architectures as well as to improve business performance and productivity.

Reintroduction of the dye transfer process

2008-08-25T22:54:00.000-07:00

After its reintroduction in 1997, the dye transfer process was (somewhat unexpectedly) used in several big-budget, modern Hollywood productions. These included Bulworth, Pearl Harbor, and Toy Story. The distinct "look" this process achieves, often sought after by film makers looking to re-create the period of time at which Technicolor was at its most prominent, is difficult to obtain through conventional, high-speed printing methods and is one explanation for the enduring demand and credibility of the process.

The latest motion picture dye IB (imbibition) transfer process developed during the 1990s is greatly superior to the process used during the 1970s and of much higher quality than modern Eastmancolor stocks. The prints exhibited a higher color gamut and color satauration than modern Eastmancolor stock and could be made consistently and accurately for large numbers of prints. There were no longer visible density and contrast variations that occurred most often with earlier three color Technicolor. The new process was also about as sharp as modern Eastmancolor process with slightly higher contrast, but they appeared sharper due to the higher contrast.

Technicolor was purchased by French company Thomson in 2001 from the British company Carlton Communications, which discontinued the dye-transfer process in 2002.

The visual aesthetic of dye transfer Technicolor continues to be used in Hollywood, usually in films set in the mid-20th century. Parts of The Aviator, the 2004 biopic of Howard Hughes, were digitally manipulated to imitate color processes that were available during the periods each scene takes place. The two-color look of the film is incorrectly cited as looking like Technicolor's two-color systems, and is in fact a facsimile of Hughes' own color system, Multicolor. The "three-strip" Technicolor look begins after the newsreel footage of Hughes making the first flight around the world.

Palaeobiogeography

2008-08-20T02:37:00.000-07:00

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

Wi-Fi Uses

2008-08-13T02:06:00.000-07:00

Wi-Fi also allows connectivity in peer-to-peer (wireless ad-hoc network) mode, which enables devices to connect directly with each other. This connectivity mode can prove useful in consumer electronics and gaming applications.

When wireless networking technology first entered the market many problems ensued for consumers who could not rely on products from different vendors working together. The Wi-Fi Alliance began as a community to solve this issue — aiming to address the needs of the end-user and to allow the technology to mature. The Alliance created the branding Wi-Fi CERTIFIED to reassure consumers that products will interoperate with other products displaying the same branding.

Many consumer devices use Wi-Fi. Amongst others, personal computers can network to each other and connect to the Internet, mobile computers can connect to the Internet from any Wi-Fi hotspot, and digital cameras can transfer images wirelessly.

Routers which incorporate a DSL-modem or a cable-modem and a Wi-Fi access point, often set up in homes and other premises, provide Internet-access and internetworking to all devices connected (wirelessly or by cable) to them. One can also connect Wi-Fi devices in ad-hoc mode for client-to-client connections without a router.

As of 2007 Wi-Fi technology had spread widely within business and industrial sites. In business environments, just like other environments, increasing the number of Wi-Fi access-points provides redundancy, support for fast roaming and increased overall network-capacity by using more channels or by defining smaller cells. Wi-Fi enables wireless voice-applications (VoWLAN or WVOIP). Over the years, Wi-Fi implementations have moved toward "thin" access-points, with more of the network intelligence housed in a centralized network appliance, relegating individual access-points to the role of mere "dumb" radios. Outdoor applications may utilize true mesh topologies. As of 2007 Wi-Fi installations can provide a secure computer networking gateway, firewall, DHCP server, intrusion detection system, and other functions.

Nuclear weapon

2008-08-05T00:43:00.000-07:00

A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from the nuclear reaction of fission or from a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter; a modern thermonuclear weapon weighing little more than a ton can produce an explosion comparable to the detonation of more than a billion kilograms of conventional high explosive. Even small nuclear devices with yields equivalent to only a few thousand tons of TNT can devastate a city. Nuclear weapons are considered weapons of mass destruction.

In the history of warfare, only two nuclear weapons have been detonated offensively, both by the United States of America during the closing days of World War II. The first was detonated on the morning of 6 August 1945, when the United States dropped a (uranium) gun-type device code-named "Little Boy" on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The second was detonated three days later when the United States dropped a plutonium implosion-type device code-named "Fat Man" on the city of Nagasaki. These bombings resulted in the immediate deaths of around 120,000 people from injuries sustained from the explosion and acute radiation sickness, and even more deaths over time from long-term effects of radiation. The use of these weapons was and remains controversial. (See Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for a full discussion.)

Lived-Body

2008-07-29T06:18:00.001-07:00

The lived-body is your own body as experienced by yourself, as yourself. Your own body manifests itself to you mainly as your possibilities of acting in the world. It is what lets you reach out and grab something, for instance, but it also, and more importantly, allows for the possibility of changing your point of view. This helps you differentiate one thing from another by the experience of moving around it, seeing new aspects of it (often referred to as making the absent present and the present absent), and still retaining the notion that this is the same thing that you saw other aspects of just a moment ago (it is identical).

Anthropology

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

Anthropology is the study of humanity. Anthropology has origins in the natural sciences, the humanities, and the social sciences. Ethnography is both one of its primary methods and the text that is written as a result of the practice of anthropology and its elements.

Since the work of Franz Boas and Bronisław Malinowski in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, anthropology has been distinguished from other social science disciplines by its emphasis on in-depth examination of context, cross-cultural comparisons (socio-cultural anthropology is by nature a comparative discipline), and the importance it places on long-term, experiential immersion in the area of research, often known as participant-observation. Cultural anthropology in particular has emphasized cultural relativity and the use of findings to frame cultural critiques. This has been particularly prominent in the United States, from Boas's arguments against 19th-century racial ideology, through Margaret Mead's advocacy for gender equality and sexual liberation, to current criticisms of post-colonial oppression and promotion of multiculturalism.

Marine ecoregions

2008-07-15T23:12:00.000-07:00

Marine ecoregions are regions of the world's oceans, as defined by WWF to aid in conservation activities for marine ecosystems.

The scheme used to designate and classify marine ecoregions is analogous to that used for terrestrial ecoregions. Major habitat types are identified: polar, temperate shelves and seas, temperate upwelling, tropical upwelling, tropical coral, pelagic (trades and westerlies), abyssal, and hadal (ocean trench. These correspond to the terrestrial biomes. Major biogeographic realms, analogous to the seven terrestrial ecozones, represent large regions of the ocean basins: North Temperate Atlantic, Eastern Tropical Atlantic, Western Tropical Atlantic, South Temperate Atlantic, North Temperate Indo-Pacific, Central Indo-Pacific, Eastern Indo-Pacific, Western Indo-Pacific, South Temperate Indo-Pacific, Southern Ocean, Antarctic, Arctic, and Mediterranean.

The classification of Marine ecoregions is not developed to the same level of detail and comprehensiveness as that of the terrestrial ecoregions; only the priority conservation areas of the Global 200 are listed.

See Global 200 Marine ecoregions for a full list of marine ecoregions (World Wildlife Fund).

A similar system of identifying areas of the oceans for conservation purposes is the system of large marine ecosystems (LMEs), developed by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Marination

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

Marination, also known as marinating, is the process of soaking foods in a seasoned, often acidic, liquid before cooking. The origins of the word allude to the use of brine (aqua marina) in the pickling process, which led to the technique of adding flavor by immersion in liquid. The liquid in question, the 'marinade' can be acidic with ingredients such as vinegar, lemon juice, or wine, or savory with soy sauce, brine or other prepared sauces. Along with these liquids, a marinade often contains oils, herbs, and spices to further flavor the food items.

It is commonly used to flavor foods and to tenderize tougher cuts of meat or harder vegetables such as beetroot, eggplant (aubergine), and courgette (zucchini). The process may last seconds or days. Different marinades are used in different cuisines. For example, in Indian cuisine the marinade is usually prepared with yoghurt and spices.

Bacteria

2008-07-01T05:05:00.000-07:00

Bacteria (singular: bacterium) are unicellular microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a wide range of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods to spirals. Bacteria are ubiquitous in every habitat on Earth, growing in soil, acidic hot springs, radioactive waste, seawater, and deep in the Earth's crust. There are typically 40 million bacterial cells in a gram of soil and a million bacterial cells in a millilitre of fresh water; in all, there are approximately five nonillion (5×1030) bacteria on Earth, forming much of the world's biomass. Bacteria are vital in recycling nutrients, and many important steps in nutrient cycles depend on bacteria, such as the fixation of nitrogen from the atmosphere. However, most of these bacteria have not been characterized, and only about half of the phyla of bacteria have species that can be cultured in the laboratory. The study of bacteria is known as bacteriology, a branch of microbiology.

There are approximately ten times as many bacterial cells as human cells in the human body, with large numbers of bacteria on the skin and in the digestive tract. Although the vast majority of these bacteria are rendered harmless by the protective effects of the immune system, and a few are beneficial, some are pathogenic bacteria and cause infectious diseases, including cholera, syphilis, anthrax, leprosy and bubonic plague. The most common fatal bacterial diseases are respiratory infections, with tuberculosis alone killing about 2 million people a year, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. In developed countries, antibiotics are used to treat bacterial infections and in various agricultural processes, so antibiotic resistance is becoming common. In industry, bacteria are important in processes such as sewage treatment, the production of cheese and yoghurt, and the manufacture of antibiotics and other chemicals.

Bacteria are prokaryotes. Unlike cells of animals and other eukaryotes, bacterial cells do not contain a nucleus and rarely harbour membrane-bound organelles. Although the term bacteria traditionally included all prokaryotes, the scientific classification changed after the discovery in the 1990s that prokaryotic life consists of two very different groups of organisms that evolved independently from an ancient common ancestor. These evolutionary domains are called Bacteria and Archaea.

Hip hop music

2008-06-23T22:39:00.000-07:00

Hip hop music is a genre of music typically consisting of a rhythmic style of speaking called rap over backing beats performed on a turntable by a DJ. Hip hop music is part of hip hop culture, which began in New York City in the 1970s, predominantly among African Americans and Latinos (two other elements are breakdancing and graffiti art). The term rap is sometimes used synonymously with hip hop music, though it originally referred only to rapping itself.

Rapping, also referred to as MCing or emceeing, is a vocal style in which the performer speaks rhythmically and in rhyme, generally to a beat. Beats are traditionally sampled from portions of other songs by a DJ, though synthesizers, drum machines, and live bands are also used, especially in newer music. Rappers may perform poetry which they have written ahead of time, or improvise rhymes on the spot. Though rap is usually an integral component of hip hop music, DJs sometimes perform and record alone, and many instrumental acts are also defined as hip hop.

Hip hop arose in New York City when DJs began isolating the percussion break from funk or disco songs for audiences to dance to. The role of the MC was originally to introduce the DJ and the music, and to keep the audience excited. The MC would speak between songs, giving exhortations to dance, greetings to audience members, jokes and anecdotes. Eventually, this practice became more stylized, and came to be known as rapping. By 1979, hip hop had become a commercially recorded music genre, and began to enter the American mainstream. It also began its spread across the world. In the 1990s, a form called gangsta rap became a major part of American music, causing significant controversy over lyrics which were perceived by some as promoting violence, promiscuity, drug use and misogyny. Nevertheless, by the beginning of the 2000s, hip hop became a staple of popular music charts and is now performed in widely varying styles around the world.

Keep in Mind ...

2008-06-16T23:20:00.000-07:00

Some of your actions may limit your mover's liability. These include

Packing perishable, dangerous or hazardous materials in your household goods without your mover's knowledge.

Packing your own boxes. You may consider packing your own household goods articles to reduce your costs, but if the articles you pack are damaged, it may be more difficult to establish your claim against the mover for the boxes you pack.

Choosing Released Value coverage when your household goods are valued at more than 60 cents per pound per article.

Failing to notify your mover in writing about articles of extraordinary value.

Enterprise Architecture Framework

2008-06-11T04:18:00.000-07:00

An Enterprise Architecture Framework (or Architecture Framework for short) defines how to organize the structure and views associated with an Enterprise Architecture. Because the discipline of Enterprise Architecture is so broad, and because the enterprises it describes tend to be large and complex, the models associated with the discipline also tend to be large and complex. To manage this scale and complexity, an Architecture Framework defines complementary projections of the enterprise model called Views, where each View is meaningful to different system stakeholders.

Traffic management

2008-06-03T02:21:00.000-07:00

Use of so-called Intelligent transportation system, which guide traffic

Traffic reporting, via radio or possibly mobile phones, to advise road users
Variable message signs installed along the roadway, to advise road users
Navigation systems, possibly linked up to automatic traffic reporting
Traffic counters permanently installed, to provide real-time traffic counts
Automated highway systems, a future idea which could reduce the safe interval between cars (required for braking in emergencies) and increase highway capacity by as much as 100% while increasing travel speeds
Parking guidance and information systems providing dynamic advice to motorists about free parking

Dance Circles

2008-05-28T22:41:00.000-07:00

A variant of the 'show case' style jam circles mentioned
above is a circle where dancers within the circle swap
partners from the outside. Less "showy" than a jam
circle, these jams are to commemorate an occasion for
the person(s) in the circle. Another way to consider the
difference is that while the aforementioned Jam Circles
showcase ability, the Dance Circles here showcase
dancers. For example, this kind of jam circle may be
organized when a dancer from the local dance community
celebrates a birthday, or is moving away. Other
occasions for these jams include a welcome dance for new
members and/or visitors. Many of these circles are a
planned portion of the evening.

The dancers of honor stay in the circle the whole time
while other dancers from outside the circle cut in 'on
the fly'. Dancers "break in", or "steal", their way into
the middle by breaking the connection of the dancers and
inserting themselves such that the person of honor
continues dancing without missing a beat. Some scenes do
this in an organized fashion (such as a line), however,
many do so without rules. Such birthday jams are common
in swing dance and hustle communities in the United
States but not unusual in salsa or tango. While
nerve-wracking for beginning dancers the jams do help to
meet the local crowd.

Assessing the Level of Risk

2008-05-27T07:35:00.001-07:00

The Web

Of all Internet activities, the web is currently the most popular application, allowing access to graphics, files and online discussion that have been published for worldwide use.

Accessing information on the web

The value

Websites provide the opportunity to access information worldwide. It is possible for pupils to read newspapers, tour museums, check out libraries, visit foreign countries, play games, look at pictures, or do research.

The potential risks

Personal Safety

* Feeling uncomfortable

Some websites contain offensive material, either in their content or in advertising banners shown on them.

* Child protection

Websites sometimes ask for information. The site may ask for personal information before it will let a user in. At best, the details will end up in some database, probably to be used to try to sell something to the user. At worst, these personal details could be used to trace and harm someone.

Legal Issues

* Credit cards

Many adult websites use credit card details as a way to bar young people from inappropriate material. It would be technically possible for a young person to use those details to register with such a site, use a period of "free" access, so that nothing appears on the credit card statement, and then unregistered. Such a technique means that a range of users could use one adult's details without the card owner's knowledge. Those responsible for the sites have no way of checking identity.

The recommendations

* Schools should consider filtering software, ratings systems, child-friendly search engines, or monitored network systems, to avoid inappropriate web material being received.

* Letting pupils know that school staff supervise and monitor usage will reduce any inclination to visit dubious sites.

* All Internet users should be made aware of the potential problems of giving out information. Never divulge anyone else's personal information, and only supply minimal, untraceable details, such as a first name, to an enquiring website.

* Use of an adult's credit card details should not take place on school premises.

Making Good Use of the Materials

2008-05-22T08:03:00.001-07:00

The Click Thinking Pack includes information and resources for children and young people, their parents or careers, as well as for teachers and managers. The resources may be edited and/or photocopied or otherwise reproduced for classroom use or for distribution to parents and the wider community. Teachers and managers may find other points of interest in the sections for pupils and parents.

Consumer Product Safety Commission

2008-05-07T04:52:00.000-07:00

Night Bike Riders at Risk

CPSC Document #5003

To help reduce nighttime bicyclist fatalities, cyclists should always wear a good helmet, use front and rear lights and reflectors, and wear reflective clothing. Children should never ride at night, and cyclists should avoid riding on unlighted, narrow roadways.

Because of a sharp increase in the number of bicyclist fatalities resulting from car-bike collisions at night, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued a warning to bike riders to take necessary steps to make themselves and their bicycles more visible at night.

The number of bicyclists killed at night has increased from 304 to 372 per year. In 1975, the number of nighttime deaths accounted for 30% of the total number of bicyclists killed. By 1982 (the latest year for which complete data are available), nighttime deaths accounted for 42% of the total number of bicyclists killed. One factor contributing to fatal nighttime bicyclist accidents is that the bicycles and riders are not readily visible to motorists. Motorists involved in car/bicycle collisions report that they hit bicyclists because the bicycles and riders were not visible. Cyclists' failure to wear protective helmets may have also contributed to the severity of head injuries suffered in car-bike collisions.

Therefore, CPSC recommends the following actions to cyclists:

1. be sure your bike has reflectors required on all new bicycles by the CPSC bicycle regulation. Each bike should have front and rear reflectors, pedal reflectors, and side rim or wheel reflectors. Use front and rear lights (as required in many States) to help make your bicycle more noticeable to cars at night. Small battery-operated lamps strapped to your legs also help.

2. Wear reflective clothing to make yourself more visible to automobile drivers. Wear a reflective vest, reflective bands on arms and legs, and reflector zed tape on helmet.

3. Always wear a good helmet with a rigid (but crushable) interior material which may help absorb the force of an impact. (This is important for daytime riding, too.)

4. Never allow children to ride at night.

5. Avoid riding on dark, narrow roadways where the posted speed limit is more than 35 mph.

Law Requires Review and Labeling of Art Materials

2008-04-28T05:59:00.000-07:00

On November 18, 1988, the President signed into law the Labeling of Hazardous Art Materials Act (Public Law 100-695).This law requires that all art materials be reviewed to determine the potential for causing a chronic hazard and that appropriate warning labels be put on those art materials found to pose a chronic hazard. The term "art material" includes "any substance marketed or represented by the producer or repackage as suitable for use in any phase of the creation of any work of visual or graphic art of any medium." (15 U.S.C. 1277(b)(1). The law applies to many children's toy products such as crayons, chalk, paint sets, modeling clay, coloring books, pencils, and any other products used by children to produce a work of visual or graphic art.

The "Labeling of Hazardous Art Materials Act" (LHAMA) amended the Federal Hazardous Substances Act (FHSA) by adding Section 23 and designating the ASTM Standard Practice for Labeling Art Materials for Chronic Health Hazards (ASTM D-4236-88) as a regulation under Section 3(b) of the FHSA.The requirements of the LHAMA became effective on November 18,1990.These requirements apply to art materials that are intended for use in the household or by children, which are initially introduced into interstate commerce on and after November 18, 1990.

The Commission believes that under the broad statutory definition of "art material" three general categories can be seen:

* 1. Those products which actually become a component of the work of visual or graphic art, such as paint, canvas, inks, crayons, chalk, solder, brazing rods, flux, paper, clay, stone, thread, cloth, and photographic film.

* 2. Those products which are closely and intimately associated with the creation of the final work of art, such as brush cleaners, solvents, ceramic kilns, brushes, silk screens, molds or mold making material, and photo developing chemicals.

* 3. Those tools, implements, and furniture that are used in the process of the creation of a work of art, but do not become part of the

Work of art. Examples are drafting tables and chairs, easels, picture frames, canvas stretchers, potter's wheels, hammers, chisels, and air pumps for air brushes.

The CPSC does not believe that Congress intended products in the third category to be considered "art materials." Therefore, as an enforcement policy, the CPSC is not requiring that products falling in this third category comply with the standard for art materials. However, manufacturers still have the responsibility under the FHSA to assure that these products comply with any FHSA labeling or other requirements due to chronic toxicity or other hazards.

Parents and others buying art materials, school supplies and toys such as crayons, paint sets, or modeling clay should be alert and purchase only those products which are accompanied by the statement "Conforms to ASTM D-4236."

The LHAMA does not change the fact that products which are hazardous are banned for distribution to young children, whether the hazard is based on chronic toxicity, acute toxicity, flammability, or other hazard identified by the FHSA. There is an exception for art materials if they meet all three of the exemption criteria of Section 2(q) of the FHSA in that they: (1) require the inclusion of the hazardous substances for their functional purpose, (2) bear labeling giving adequate directions and warnings for safe use, and (3) are intended for use by children who have attained sufficient maturity, and may reasonably be expected, to read and heed such directions and warnings.

Sandbags/Counterweights (Anchor Types)

2008-04-21T06:29:00.000-07:00

Sandbags or other counterweights could be an effective alternative on hard surfaces, such as artificial turf, where the surface can not be penetrated by a conventional anchor (i.e., an indoor practice facility). The number of bags or weights needed will vary and must be adequate for the size and total weight of the goal being supported.

Auger style (Anchor Types)

2008-04-14T05:02:00.001-07:00

This style anchor is "helical" shaped and is screwed into the ground. A flange is positioned over the ground shoes (bar) and rear ground shoe (bar) to secure them to the ground. A minimum of two auger-style anchors (one on each side of the goal) are recommended. More may be required, depending on the manufacturer s specifications, the weight of the goal, and soil conditions.

Skaters should observe the following safety tips:

2008-04-07T06:43:00.001-07:00

* Get instruction. Learn to stop safely by using the brake pads at the heel of most in-line skates. With one foot somewhat in front of the other, raise the toes of the front foot and push down on the heel brake.

* Skate on smooth, paved surfaces without any traffic. Avoid skating on streets, driveways, or surfaces with water, sand, gravel, or dirt.

* Do not skate at night -- others can't see you and you can't see obstacles or other skaters.

Canadian Paralympic Committee celebrates at B.C.-Canada Place

2008-03-30T19:46:00.000-07:00

The Canadian Paralympic Committee hosted a reception at B.C.-Canada Place today to thank family, friends and sponsors for their support. Guests were entertained by Jim Byrnes, renowned raconteur and musician from British Columbia.

Close to 10,000 people visited B.C.-Canada Place over the weekend to learn about B.C.’s tourism and business opportunities and to hear more about the 2010 Paralympic Winter Games to be hosted in Whistler.

Kash 'N Gold Racer X20TM Scooters

2008-03-24T06:02:00.001-07:00

Kash 'N Gold is recalling about 7,500 scooters because the plastic "T" joint between the handlebars can break, causing the rider to lose control, fall and possibly suffer injuries.
Kash 'N Gold have received two reports of the joint breaking, resulting in two injuries including a bump on the head and a chest bruise.
These are Racer X20TM model scooters. The scooters' platforms measure 20 inches long. The scooters are made from lightweight aluminum, and have translucent in-line style wheels. They have swivel handlebars with foam grips, which adjust to various heights. The nonslip surface on the deck of the scooter reads, "RACER." "X20" is written on the lower part of the steering column. The scooters are mostly silver, and have blue, green, red, orange or clear wheels. The scooters were made in China.
Discovery and Mervyn's stores sold these scooters nationwide from August 2000 through September 2000 for between $70 and $100.
Consumers should stop riding these scooters immediately, and return them to the store where purchased for a refund or a new scooter with a metal "T" joint. For more information, call Kash 'N Gold at (800) 354-8785 between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. ET Monday through Friday.

Gas Container Tips

2008-03-17T06:56:00.001-07:00

When Storing:

* Always keep containers upright.
* Never store a spare gas container under or near the grill.
* Never store or use flammable liquids, like gasoline, near the grill.
* Never use or store a gas container indoors.

When Transporting:

* Transport the container in a secure, upright position.
* Never keep a filled container in a hot car or car trunk.
* Heat will cause the gas pressure to increase which may open the relief valve and allow gas to escape.

When Refilling:

* Unless you have (the preferred) bar-coded container and are filling it at a facility that fills such containers, have the container refilled only by your LP gas dealer or by a qualified service station operator. DO NOT FILL THE CONTAINER YOURSELF.

When Connecting:

* Remove the container valve plug from the container valve.
* Thread the container connector securely into the container valve outlet (turn counterclock-wise).
* Tighten, but do not use excessive force.
* After connected, check for leaks (see above instructions).

When Disconnecting:

* Before disconnecting, turn off the gas burner and container valve.
* Disconnect the container (turn clockwise).
* Place the container valve plug securely into the container valve outlet.

CPU Socket

2008-03-10T04:18:00.000-07:00

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

Computer Printer

2008-02-19T22:11:00.001-08:00

A computer printer, or more usually a printer, produces a tough copy (permanent human-readable text and/or graphics) of documents stored in electronic form, generally on physical print media such as paper or transparencies. Many printers are mostly used as local computer peripherals, and are attached by a printer cable to a computer which serves as a text source. Some printers, commonly known as network printers, have built-in network interfaces (typically wireless or Ethernet), and can offer as a hardcopy device for any customer on the network. Individual printers are often planned to support both local and network linked users at the same time.

In addition, many modern printers can straight interface to electronic media such as memory sticks or memory cards, or to image capture devices such as digital cameras, scanners; some printers are combined with a scanners and/or fax machines in a single unit. Printers that contain non-printing features are sometimes called Multi-Function Printers (MFP) or Multi-Function Devices (MFD).

British coin Triple Unite

2008-01-23T05:44:00.001-08:00

The Triple Unite, valued at sixty shillings, 60/- or three pounds, was the peak British denomination to be shaped in the era of the hammered money. It was only shaped during the Civil War, at King Charles I's mints at Oxford and, on the odd occasion, at Shrewsbury in 1642. It weighed 421 grains, or right away over seven-eighths of a troy ounce.
The gold coins are without a doubt magnificent pieces of work, and they show the king holding a sword and an olive branch on the obverse, suggestive of his wish for peace rather than war.
The extremely rare Shrewsbury-produced coin shows, on the obverse, a plume behind the kings' head bounded by the legend CAROLUS DG MAG BRIT FRAN ET HIBER REX -- Charles by the grace of God King of Great Britain France and Ireland.
The overturn shows the legend RELIG PROT LEG ANG LIBER PAR in two lines -- The religious confidence of the Protestants, the laws of England and the liberty of Parliament, with three plumes and the value numeral III above the announcement and the year 1642 below it, the whole being surrounded by the legend EXURGAT DEUS DISSIPENTUR INIMICI - Let God arise and His enemies be scattered.
The Oxford issues are extremely similar to the Shrewsbury one, except that the legend on the reverse appears in three lines rather than two, and the face legend appears as CAROLUS DG MAG BRIT FR ET HIB REX. Oxford coins come into view with slight design differences in each year of 1642, 1643, and 1644.

Vitmains and Minerals

2008-01-07T09:28:00.000-08:00

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.

Hydrogen

2007-12-19T04:03:00.001-08:00

Hydrogen is the simplest element known to man. Each atom of hydrogen has only one proton. It is also the most plentiful gas in the universe. Stars are made primarily of hydrogen.

The sun is basically a giant ball of hydrogen and helium gases. In the sun's core, hydrogen atoms combine to form helium atoms. This process—called fusion—gives off radiant energy.

This radiant energy sustains life on earth. It gives us light and makes plants grow. It makes the wind blow and rain fall. It is stored as chemical energy in fossil fuels. Most of the energy we use today came from the sun's radiant energy.

Hydrogen gas is lighter than air and, as a result, it rises in the atmosphere. This is why hydrogen as a gas (H₂) is not found by itself on earth. It is found only in compound form with other elements. Hydrogen combined with oxygen, is water (H₂O). Hydrogen combined with carbon, forms different compounds such as methane (CH₄), coal, and petroleum. Hydrogen is also found in all growing things—biomass. It is also an abundant element in the earth's crust.

Hydrogen has the highest energy content of any common fuel by weight(about three times more than gasoline), but the lowest energy content by volume (about four times less than gasoline). It is the lightest element, and it is a gas at normal temperature and pressure.

Uses of Ginger

2007-12-14T06:14:00.001-08:00

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.

Cricket in India

2007-12-06T05:49:00.001-08:00

without doubt the first sport that comes to mind when one thinks of Indian sports today is cricket. Brought to

India

by her British colonisers, cricket so captured the nation’s thoughts that observers are more or less agreed that today it is the one religion that unites

India

In cities like Calcutta, with everybody glued to their TV sets, life grinds to a stop the progress of the days the Indian team is playing. One-day gear and test matches stimulate equal eagerness; for together, if the match is being played on Indian earth, which by the way supports spin slightly than pace, you’ll get aptitude crowds and a emotional atmosphere seldom matched anywhere outside the subcontinent. Allegations of murky match fixing and a fixed string of matches where the team managed to “grab defeat from the jaws of victory” notwithstanding, the attractiveness of the game continues to rise. Such is the strength of participation with the game that it even affects India’s international relationships. In the result of the 1999 Kargil war, India unilaterally overhanging cricketing relations with Pakistan. The discuss on whether politics and sports should mix enlivens many a discussion, and is yet unresolved.

Abraham Lincoln

2007-11-28T06:07:00.000-08:00

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.

Adam Smith

2007-11-20T04:33:00.000-08:00

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.

The Banyan Tree

2007-11-13T07:22:00.000-08:00

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.

A Team Player

2007-10-24T08:20:00.000-07:00

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.

A Snapshot of Macro-Economics

2007-10-16T04:06:00.000-07:00

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.

A simple Girl

2007-10-09T03:32:00.000-07:00

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.

A Civil Role Model

2007-09-25T05:29:00.001-07:00

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

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

A Business Plan

2007-09-18T03:58:00.000-07:00

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.

A cold winter morning

2007-09-14T03:40:00.000-07:00

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.

Light Arrester

2007-08-28T03:54:00.000-07:00

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.

Turmeric

2007-08-21T03:23:00.000-07:00

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.

Java

2007-08-14T07:52:00.001-07:00

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.

Fashionable watches

2007-08-07T06:10:00.000-07:00

At the end of the 20th century, Swiss watch makers were seeing their sales go down as analog clocks were considered unfashionable. They joined forces with designers from many countries to reinvent the Swiss watch. The result was that they could considerably decrease the pieces and production time of an analog watch. In fact it was so cheap that if a watch broke it would be cheaper to fling it away and buy a new one than to repair it. One of these Swiss watch manufacturers in progress a new brand, Swatch, and called graphic designers to revamp a new annual collection.

Coconut cream

2007-07-31T08:06:00.000-07:00

Coconut cream is an mixture of tattered coconut and water. Coconut cream may also be complete with milk instead of water to obtain a richer product. Coconut cream is very comparable to coconut milk but contain less water. The difference is mainly reliability. It has a thicker, more paste-like uniformity, while coconut milk is normally a liquid.

Creamed coconut is disproportionate as coconut cream. Creamed coconut is a very determined coconut takes out without the water. Like coconut oil, it is tough at a low room temperature. It is basically coconut cream ponder, and can be made into coconut cream by mixing it with water, or into coconut milk by adding it with a larger amount of water. It is naturally sold as a 200ml block in a plastic bag inside a small box. In the UK it is easily available (from £0.30 to £1.00 per 200ml block) in Asian convenience stores and in the Asian sections of large supermarkets.

Coconut cream is soaring in healthy medium chain fatty acids and is very wealthy in flavor. Coconut cream is used in Bangladeshi, and its nonalcoholic variant Virgin Piña Coladas, and Piña Coladas cooks often add coconut cream to rice to give it some flavor.

Java coffee

2007-07-24T07:01:00.000-07:00

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.

Alberoni Theory of falling in Love

2007-07-17T04:21:00.000-07:00

In his socio-psychological theory Francesco Alberoni says that falling in love is a process of the matching nature as religious or political conversion. People fall in love when they are ready to change, or to begin a new life. In accordance with Alberoni, falling in love is a rapid process of destructuration-reorganization called the budding state. In the nascent state, the human being becomes capable of merging with another person and creating a new collectivity with an extremely high degree of solidarity. Hence the meaning: falling in love is the nascent state of a collective movement shaped of two people only.

To understand if someone is really in love, the individual must be put to truth tests and, in order to realize if he or she is loved in return, the beloved is also put to reciprocal tests. The glowing procedure of the nascent state through these tests gives way to sureness and produces a stable love relationship. As said by Alberoni, the phenomenology of falling in love is the alike for young people and adults, for men and women and for homosexuals and heterosexuals: this is for the reason that the structure of the nascent state is for all time the same.

Web portal

2007-07-08T23:55:00.000-07:00

A Web portal is a site that functions as a point of admittance to information on the World Wide Web. Portals present information from diverse sources in a united way. Popular portals are MSN, Yahoo, and AOL. Aside from the search engine standard, web portals offer other services such as news, stock prices, infotainment and various other features. Portals provide a way for enterprises to provide a steady look and feel with access control and procedures for multiple applications, which otherwise would have been different entities altogether.

CPU Socket

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

Applied Micro Circuits Corporation

2007-06-30T00:37:00.000-07:00

Applied Micro Circuits Corporation is a fables semiconductor company scheming network and embedded Power Architecture, optical transport and storage solutions. They bought assets, IP and engineers concerning the PowerPC 400 microprocessors from IBM in 2004 for $227 million and they now market the processors under their own name. The deal also included access to IBM's SoC design methodology and advanced CMOS process technology.

3ware is a producer of RAID controllers and storage products. Founded as an self-governing company in 1997, it was acquired by AMCC in April 2004.This division has usually been focused on SATA and PATA RAID devices. They were one of the pioneers in implementing "multi-lane" cabling for RAID systems which greatly reduced cable difficulty in systems with many hard drives.

Camera

2007-06-26T02:31:00.000-07:00

A camera is a device used to capture images, as still photographs or as sequences of moving images movies or videos. The term as well as the modern-day camera evolved from the camera obscura, Latin for "dark chamber", an early mechanism for projecting images, in which an entire room functioned as a real-time imaging system. The camera obscura was first invented by the Muslim scientiest Alhazen
Cameras may work with the light of the visible spectrum or with other portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. A camera normally consists of some kind of enclosed hollow, with an opening or aperture at one end for light to enter, and a recording or viewing surface for capturing the light at the other end. Most cameras have a lens positioned in front of the camera's opening to gather the incoming light and to focus the image, or part of the image, on the recording surface. The diameter of the aperture is often controlled by a diaphragm mechanism, but some cameras have a fixed-size aperture.

Shrimp fishery

2007-06-22T22:17:00.001-07:00

A shrimp fishery is a fishery directed toward harvesting either shrimp or prawns. Fisheries do not usually differentiate between the two taxa, and the terms are used interchangeably. This article therefore refers to the catching of either shrimp or prawns.

A number of the larger species, including the Atlantic white shrimp (Penaeus setiferus), are caught commercially and used for food. Recipes utilizing shrimp form part of the cuisine of many cultures: examples include jambalaya, okonomiyaki, poon choi, bagoong, Kerala and scampi.
Preparing shrimp for consumption usually involves removing the shell, tail, and "sand vein". As with other seafood, shrimp is high in calcium, protein and low in food energy.
Shrimp and prawns are versatile ingredients, and are often used as an accompaniment to fried rice. Common methods of preparation comprise baking, boiling and frying. As stated in the movie Forrest Gump

Mango

2007-06-18T21:50:00.001-07:00

The mango is a tropical fruit of the mango tree. Mangoes belong to the genus Mangifera which consists of about 30 species of tropical fruiting trees in the flowering plant family Anacardiaceae. The exact origins of the mango are unknown, but most believe that it is native to Southern and Southeast Asia including the Philippines, Indonesia, India, Burma, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh owing to the wide range of genetic diversity in the region and fossil records dating back 25 to 30 million years.
Mangos retain a special significance in the culture of South Asia where they have been cultured for millennia. It has been the national symbol of the Philippines. Reference to mangoes as the "food of the gods" can be found in the Hindu Vedas and the leaves are ritually used for floral decorations at Hindu marriages and religious ceremonies.

Goldfish

2007-06-15T02:59:00.001-07:00

The goldfish, Carassius auratus, was one of the earliest fish to be domesticated, and is still one of the most usually kept aquarium fish and water gardens. A comparatively small member of the carp family ,which also includes the koi carp and the crucian carp, the goldfish is a domesticated version of a dark-gray/brown carp native to East Asia that was introduced to Europe in the late 17th century. The mutation that gave rise to the goldfish is also known from other cyprinid species, such as common carp and tench. Goldfish may grow to a maximum length of 23 inches (59 cm) and a maximum weight of 9.9 pounds (4.5 kg), although this is rare; few goldfish reach even half this size. In optimal conditions, goldfish may live more than 20 years (the world record is 49 years), but most household goldfish generally live only six to eight years, due to being kept in bowls.A group of goldfish is known as a troubling.

Grafting

2007-06-10T22:25:00.001-07:00

Grafting is a method of plant propagation extensively used in horticulture, where the tissues of one plant are encouraged to fuse with those of another. It is most usually used for the propagation of trees and shrubs grown commercially.
In most cases, one plant is chosen for its roots, and this is called the stock or rootstock. The other plant is chosen for its stems, leaves, flowers, or fruits and is called the scion.
In stem grafting, a common grafting method, a shoot of a chosen, desired plant cultivar is grafted onto the stock of another type. In another common form called budding, a dormant side bud is grafted on the stem of another stock plant, and when it has fused successfully, it is encouraged to grow by cutting out the stem above the new bud.
For successful grafting to take place, the vascular cambium tissues of the stock and scion plants must be located in contact with each other. Both tissues must be kept alive till the graft has taken, typically a period of a few weeks. Successful grafting only requires that a vascular connection takes place between the two tissues. A physical weak point often still occurs at the graft, because the structural tissue of the two distinct plants, such as wood may not fuse.

Fire

2007-06-06T22:39:00.001-07:00

Fire is a rapid oxidation procedure that creates light, heat, smoke, and releases energy in varying intensities. It is commonly used to explain either a fuel in a state of combustion or a violent, destructive and uncontrolled burning (e.g., in buildings or a wildfire). The discovery of how to make fire is considered one of humankind's most important advances, allowing higher hominids to ward off wild animals, cook food, and control their own source of light and warmth.

Abstract art

2007-05-31T21:42:00.001-07:00

Abstract art is now usually understood to mean art that does not depict objects in the natural world, but instead uses colour and form in a non-representational way.In the very early 20th century, the term was more often used to describe art, such as Cubist and Futurist art, that depicts real forms in a simplified or rather reduced way—keeping only an allusion of the original natural subject. Such paintings were often claimed to capture amazing of the depicted objects' immutable intrinsic qualities rather than its external appearance. The more precise terms, "non-figurative art," "non-objective art," and "non-representational art" avoid any possible ambiguity.

Cooking

2007-05-27T21:23:00.000-07:00

The term "cooking" encompasses a vast range of methods, tools and combinations of ingredients to improve the flavour or digestibility of food. It usually requires the selection, measurement and combining of ingredients in an ordered procedure in an effort to achieve the desired result. Constraints on success comprise the variability of ingredients, ambient conditions, tools, and the skill of the individual cooking.

The diversity of cooking worldwide is a reflection of the myriad nutritional, aesthetic, agricultural, economic, cultural and religious considerations that impact upon it.
Cooking require applying heat to a food which usually, though not always, chemically transforms it, thus changing its flavor, texture, appearance, and nutritional properties.Cooking proper, as different to roasting, requires the boiling of water in a container, and was practiced at least since the 10th millennium BC with the introduction of pottery. There is archaeological evidence of roasted foodstuffs at Homo erectus campsites dating from 420,000 years ago.

Money

2007-05-21T22:45:00.001-07:00

Money is any good or token that functions as a medium of exchange that is generally and legally accepted in payment for goods and services and in settlement of debts. Money also serves as a standard of value for measuring the relative worth of different goods and services. Some authors openly require money to be a standard of deferred payment.Money is one of the most central topics studied in economics and forms its most cogent link to finance.

In common usage, money refers more specially to currency, particularly the many circulating currencies with legal tender status conferred by a national state; deposit accounts denominated in such currencies are also considered part of the money supply, although these characteristics are in the past comparatively recent. Money may also serve as a means of rationing access to scarce resources and as a quantitative measure that provides a common standard for the comparison and valuation of quality as well as quantity, such as in the valuation of real estate or artistic works.

The use of money provides an easier option to barter, which is considered in a modern, complex economy to be incompetent because it requires a coincidence of wants between traders, and an agreement that these needs are of equal value, before a transaction can occur. The efficiency gains through the use of money are thought to encourage trade and the division of labour, in turn increasing productivity and wealth.

Historical and Stylistic Clock face

2007-05-16T21:48:00.000-07:00

Before progress the late 15th century, a fixed hand indicated the hour by pointing to revolving numbers. Minute hands only came into use in the late 17th century after the creation of the pendulum allowable for amplified precision in time telling. Until the last quarter of the 17th century hour markings were imprinted into metal faces and the recesses filled with black wax. Subsequently, higher contrast and enhanced readability was achieved with white enamel plaques painted with black numbers. Initially, the numbers were printed on small, individual plaques mounted on a brass substructure. This was not a stylistic decision; rather enamel production technology had not yet achieved the ability to create large pieces of enamel. The "13 piece face" was an early attempt to create an entirely white enamel face. As the name suggests, it was composed of 13 enamel plaques: 12 numbered wedges fitted around a circle. The first single portion enamel faces, not unlike those in production today, began to appear c. 1735.

Ginger

2007-05-13T21:38:00.001-07:00

Ginger is usually used as a spice in cuisines throughout the world. Though commonly referred to as a root, it is really the rhizome of the monocotyledonous perennial plant Zingiber officinale.
Originating in southern China, cultivation of ginger spread to India, Southeast Asia, West Africa, and the Caribbean.Ginger contains up to 3% of an essential oil that causes the fragrance of the spice. The main constituents are sesquiterpenoids with (-)-zingiberene as the main component. Lesser amounts of other sesquiterpenoids and a small monoterpenoid fraction have also been identified.
The pungent taste of ginger is due to nonvolatile phenylpropanoids (particularly gingerol and zingerone) and diarylheptanoids (gingeroles and shoagoles); the latter are more pungent and form from the former when ginger is dried. With a specific procedure is used for cooking, where ginger root acquires a soda form and transforms gingerol into zingerone, which is less pungent and has a spicy-sweet aroma.

Police dog

2007-05-08T22:42:00.001-07:00

A police dog is a dog that is taught specially to assist police and similar law-enforcement personnel with their work. They are also known in the United States as police K9s
The term is occasionally used in the common parlance of several countries to refer to any German Shepherd Dog because of the long history of the use of the German Shepherd by the police and military; in some nations German Shepherds are the only dogs used by those forces. In the post-industrial era German Shepherds have often been depicted as police dogs in television, movies and police dog memorials. This breed is often still used, as are a few other breeds.

Arrestors

2007-05-04T05:01:00.001-07:00

A lightning arrestor is a mechanism that shunts or diverts the huge voltage and electrical current of a lightning hit to an earthed ground. Electrical equipment can be protected from lightning by an arrester, a device that contains one or more gas-filled spark gaps between the equipment's cables and earth. An arrester is designed to handle much higher jolts of electricity than a surge protector, which cannot handle a direct strike at all.
When lightning exceeds the arrestor's breakdown voltage, the currents arcs to the ground and prevents arcing around inside sensitive electronic equipment joined further down line. The glimmer gap may be filled with a noble gas, or with air. Other types may work by overcrowding normal irregular current, but allowing the direct current from a lightning discharge.
Lightning arrestors are normally installed on electric power broadcast lines, and on radio tower feed lines between the radio antenna and spreader. Smaller ones can also be installed on the mains electricity service coming into a building, just before the circuit breaker panel. Telephone wires also have fusible links sometimes where they enter a building, joined by carbon which will vaporize with very high current.

Speed limit

2007-04-30T21:41:00.001-07:00

A speed limit is the highest speed allowed by law for vehicles on a road.

Design speed
Speed limits are only peripherally interrelated to the design speed of the road.
In the United States, the design speed is "a selected speed used to establish the various geometric design features of the roadway" according to the 2001 AASHTO Green Book, the highway design manual. It has been changed from previous versions which considered it the "highest safe speed that can be maintained over a specific section of highway when conditions are so positive that the design facial appearance of the highway governs."

The design speed has largely been discredited as a sole basis for establishing a speed limit. Current U.S. standards for design speed derive from outdated, less-capable automotive technology. Also, the design speed of a given roadway is the theoretical maximum safe speed of the roadway's worst feature .The design speed usually underestimates the highest safe speed for a roadway and is therefore considered only a very conservative "first guess" at a limit.

85th percentile rule
An automobile dashboard viewing the speedometer with primary markings in miles per hour.Since the 1950s, United States traffic engineers have been taught the 85th Percentile Rule. The idea is that the speed limit should be set to the speed below which 85% of vehicles are traveling. The 85th percentile closely corresponds to one normal deviation above the mean of a normal distribution.
Every state in the United States statutorily or administratively picks a particular speed for a speed limit cap, meaning that no speed limit in that state may be set higher than the cap. A practical effect of this cap is that nearly every rural roadway in the U.S. has a speed limit that is well below the 85th percentile speed.

Electric chair

2007-04-24T22:40:00.003-07:00

The electric chair was a device usually used for execution of convicted criminals during the 20th century in the USA. It was first used in the late 19th century. It was used by more than 25 states throughout the 20th century, acquiring nicknames such as Sizzlin' Sally, Old Smokey, Old Sparky, Yellow Mama, and Gruesome Gertie. To be put to death in an electric chair is colloquially known as "riding the lightning." Its sustained use in the 21st century seems to be rapidly on the way out. The electric chair was also used, for a time, in the Philippines.

Electric chair

2007-04-24T22:40:00.001-07:00

Clock

2007-04-18T23:15:00.001-07:00

A clock is an instrument for measuring time.Those used for technical purposes, of extremely high accuracy, are sometimes called chronometers. A portable clock is called a watch. The clock in its most common modern form displays the hours, minutes, and sometimes seconds that pass over a twelve or twenty-four-hour period.
The world's first self-striking clock was said to be invented by Chang Yeong-Sil, a chief enginner of Korea, in Korea during the Joseon Dynasty. It was called Chagyongru, which means "self-striking clock" in Korean
The development of electronics in the twentieth century led to clocks with no clockwork parts at all. Time in these cases is measured in several ways, such as by the behaviour of quartz crystals, or the decay of radioactive elements. Even mechanical clocks contain since come to be largely powered by batteries, removing the need for winding.

Videophone

2007-04-10T22:04:00.001-07:00

A videophone is a telephone which is able of both audio and video duplex transmission.
AT&T conducted experiments and demonstrations of a "Picturephone" product and service in the early 1960s. Among the first manufacturers of commercially viable videophones was Toshiba.
Videotelephony is frequently used in large corporate setups, and are supported by systems such as Cisco CallManager. Other companies such as Tandberg, Radvision, and Polycom also offer similar solutions. Videoconferencing has usually been limited to the h.323 protocol (notably Cisco's SCCP implementation is an exception), however newly a shift towards SIP implementations is seen. In accordance with the adoption of SIP telephony for home users, videotelephony is also slowly becoming available to home users.
Another protocol using videophones is H.324; this allows videophones to work in regular phone lines, since the bandwidth is limited by the phone line. The quality is about fifteen Frames per second. This type of videophone is generally used because of the affordable price.
Today the principles, if not the precise mechanisms of a videophone are employed by thousands of users world-wide in the form of webcam conferences using cheaply available webcams and microphones employed using software over the internet.

Magnetic recording

2007-04-06T20:07:00.001-07:00

Magnetic recording was established in principle as early as 1898 by Valdemar Poulsen in his telegraphone. Magnetic wire recording, and its successor, magnetic tape recording, involve the use of a magnetizable medium which moves with a constant speed past a recording head. An electrical signal, which is analogous to the sound that is to be recorded, is fed to the recording head, inducing a pattern of magnetization like to the signal. A playback head can then pick up the changes in magnetic field from the tape and convert it into an electrical signal.

Willamette River

2007-04-02T22:38:00.001-07:00

The Willamette River is a tributary of the Columbia River, about 240 mi (386 km) long, in northwestern Oregon in the United States. Flowing northward between the Coastal Range and Cascade Range, the river and its tributaries form a basin called the Willamette Valley containing the largest population centers of Oregon, with Portland, which sits along both sides of the river near its mouth on the Columbia. Its lush valley is fed by prolific rainfall on the western side of the Cascades, forming one of the most fertile agricultural regions of North America that was the destination for many if not most of the emigrants along the Oregon Trail. The river was an important transportation route all over much of the early history of the state, furnishing a means of conveying the vast timber and agricultural resources of the state to the outside world.

Sand

2007-03-30T00:08:00.001-07:00

Sand is an example of a class of materials called granular matter. Sand is a obviously occurring, finely divided rock, comprising particles or granules ranging in size from 1/16 to 2 millimeters. An individual element in this range size is termed a sand grain. The next smaller size class in geology is silt: particles below 1/16 mm down to 1/256 mm (0.004 mm) in size. The next larger size class above sand is gravel, with particles ranging up to 64 mm The most common constituent of sand in inland continental settings and non-tropical coastal settings is silica (silicon dioxide), usually in the form of quartz which because of its chemical inertness and substantial hardness is quite resistant to weathering. However, the composition of sand varies according to local rock sources and conditions. The bright white sands found in tropical and subtropical coastal settings are ground-up limestone. Arkose is a sand or sandstone with considerable feldspar content which is derived from the weathering and erosion of a usually nearby granite. Some locations have sands that have magnetite, chlorite, glauconite, or gypsum. Sands rich in magnetite are dark to black in color, as are sands derived from volcanic basalts. The chlorite-glauconite bearing sands are typically green in color, as are sands derived from basalts (lavas) with a high olivine content. The gypsum sand dunes of the White Sands National Monument in New Mexico are famous for their bright, white color. Sand deposits in some areas contain garnets and other resistant minerals, including some small gemstones.
Sand is transported by wind or water and deposited in the form of beaches, dunes, sand spits, sand bars, and the like. In most deserts, sand is a dominant constituent of the soil.
The study of sand is called arenology.

Mainframe computer

2007-03-26T22:01:00.001-07:00

Mainframes are large and "expensive" computers used mainly by government institutions and large companies for mission critical applications, characteristically bulk data processing such as censuses, industry/consumer statistics, ERP, and financial transaction processing.
The term originated through the early 1970s with the introduction of smaller, less complex computers such as the DEC PDP-8 and PDP-11 series, which became known as minicomputers or just minis. The industry/users then coined the term "mainframe" to describe larger, earlier types (previously known simply as "computers").
Modern mainframe computers contain abilities not so much defined by their performance capabilities as by their high-quality internal engineering and resulting proven reliability, expensive but high-quality technical support, top-notch security, and strict backward compatibility for older software. These machines can and do run successfully for years with no interruption, with repairs taking place whilst they continue to run. Mainframe vendors offer such services as off-site redundancy — if a machine does break down, the vendor offers the option to run customers' applications on their own machines (often without users even noticing the change) whilst repairs go on.

Polymer

2007-03-21T22:28:00.001-07:00

A polymer is a general term used to explain a substantially long molecule. This long molecule consists of structural units and repeating units strung together throughout chemical bonds. The process of converting these units to a polymer is called polymerization. These units are called monomers, which are characteristically small molecules of low molecular weight.
The monomers can be identical, or they can have one or more substituted chemical groups. These differences between monomers can have an effect on properties such as solubility, flexibility, or strength. In proteins, these differences can give the polymer the ability to preferentially adopt one conformation over another, as opposed to adopting a random coil (see self-assembly). Although most polymers are organic (based on carbon chains), there are also inorganic polymers, mainly based on a silicon backbone.
The term polymer covers a large, diverse group of molecules, including substances from proteins to high-strength kevlar fibres. A key feature that distinguishes polymers from other large molecules is the repetition of units of atoms (monomers) in their chains. This occurs during polymerization, in which many monomer molecules link to each other.

Geography of Aruba

2007-03-16T04:16:00.000-07:00

Aruba is an island in the Caribbean Sea, just a short distance north of the Venezuelan Paraguaná Peninsula, and it forms a part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Unlike much of the Caribbean region, it has a dry climate and an arid, cactus-strewn landscape. This climate has helped tourism, however, as visitors to the island can consistently expect warm, sunny weather
Aruba is a generally flat, riverless island famous for its white sand beaches. Most of these are situated on the western and southern coasts of the island, which are comparatively sheltered from fierce ocean currents. The northern and eastern coasts, absence of this protection, are significantly more battered by the sea and have been left largely untouched by humans. The center of the island features some rolling hills, the better two of which are called Hooiberg at 165 m (541 ft) and Mount Jamanota, which is the uppermost on the island, at 188 m (617 ft) above sea level.
As a separate part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the island has no administrative subdivisions. On the east are Curaçao and Bonaire, which form the southwest part of the Netherlands Antilles; the three islands are well-known collectively as the ABC islands.
The local climate is a pleasant tropical marine clime. Little seasonal temperature difference exists, which helps Aruba to attract tourists all year round. Temperatures are almost constant at about 28 degrees Celsius (85 degrees Fahrenheit), moderated by constant trade winds from the Atlantic Ocean. Yearly precipitation barely reaches 500 mm (20 inches), the majority of it falling in late autumn.

Ice

2007-03-11T22:22:00.000-07:00

Ice is the name given to any one of the 14 known solid phases of water. However, in non-scientific contexts, it usually describes ice Ih , which is the most abundant of these phases in Earth's biosphere. This type of ice is a soft, delicate, crystalline solid, which can appear transparent or an opaque bluish-white color depending on the presence of impurities such as air. The addition of other materials such as soil may further alter appearance. The most general phase transition to ice Ih occurs when liquid water is cooled below 0 °C (273.15 K, 32 °F) at standard atmospheric pressure. However, it can also deposit from a vapor with no intervening liquid phase such as in the creation of frost. Ice appears in various forms such as hail, ice cubes, and glaciers. It plays an important role with many meteorological phenomena. The ice caps of the polar regions are of significance for the global climate and mainly the water cycle.

Amazon Rainforest

2007-03-06T21:49:00.001-08:00

From the east of the Andes, the Amazon Rainforest begins. It is the biggest rainforest in the world and is of great ecological significance, as its biomass is capable of absorbing enormous amounts of carbon dioxide. Conservation of the Amazon Rainforest has been a main issue in recent years.
The rainforest is supported by the extremely wet climate of the Amazon basin. The Amazon, and its hundreds of tributaries, flow gradually across the landscape, with an enormously shallow gradient sending them towards the sea: Manaus, 1,600 km (1,000 mi) from the Atlantic, is only 44 m (144 ft) above sea level.
The biodiversity within the rainforest is extraordinary: the region is home to at least 2.5 million insect species, tens of thousands of plants, and some 2,000 birds and mammals. One fifth of all the world's species of birds can be found in the Amazon rainforest.
The diversity of plant species in the Amazon basin is the highest on Earth. Some experts estimate that one square kilometre may contain over 75,000 types of trees and 150,000 species of higher plants. One square kilometre of Amazon rainforest can contain about 90,000 tons of living plants.

Morello Cherry

2007-03-01T21:52:00.001-08:00

The Sour Cherry or Morello Cherry, (Prunus cerasus) is a class of Prunus in the subgenus Cerasus (cherries), native to much of Europe and southwest Asia. It is closely related to the Wild Cherry (P. avium), also known as sweet cherry, but has a fruit which is more acidic, and so is useful mainly for culinary purposes.
The tree is smaller than the Wild Cherry, increasing up to 4-10 m tall, and has twiggy branches, whilst the crimson to black fruit is borne on shorter stalks.
Sour Cherries require comparable cultivation conditions to pears, that is, they prefer a rich, well-drained moist soil, although they demand more nitrogen and water than sweet cherries. Trees will do badly if waterlogged, but have larger tolerance of poor drainage than sweet varieties. As with sweet cherries, Morellos are usually cultivated by budding onto strong growing rootstocks, which produce trees too large for most gardens, although newer dwarfing rootstocks such as Colt and Gisella are now available. During spring, flowers should be sheltered, and trees weeded, mulched and sprayed with seaweed solution. This is also the time when any required pruning should be carried out (note that cherries should not be pruned during the dormant winter months). Morello cherry trees fruit on younger wood than sweet varieties, and thus can be pruned harder. They are usually grown as standards, but can be fan trained, cropping well even on cold walls, or grown as low bushes.

Industry

2007-02-25T21:38:00.001-08:00

An industry is normally any grouping of businesses that share a common method of generating profits, such as the music industry, the automobile industry, or the cattle industry. It is also used particularly to refer to an area of economic production focused on manufacturing which involves large amounts of capital investment before any profit can be realized, also called "heavy industry.As-of 2004, Financial services is the major industry or category of industries in the world in terms of earnings.
Industry in the second sense became a key sector of manufacture in European and North American countries during the Industrial Revolution, which upset previous mercantile and feudal economies through many successive rapid advances in technology, such as the growth of steam engines, power looms, and advances in large scale steel and coal production. Industrial countries then assumed a capitalist economic policy. Railroads and steam-powered ships began quickly integrating previously impossibly-distant world markets, enabling private companies to develop to then-unheard of size and wealth. Manufacturing is a wealth-producing sector of an economy. Other sectors such as the service sector tend to be wealth consuming sectors. Following the Industrial Revolution, perhaps a third of the world's financial output is derived from manufacturing industries—more than agriculture's share.

Media

2007-02-20T21:32:00.000-08:00

Commercial publicity media can include wall paintings, billboards, street furniture components, printed flyers and rack cards, radio, cinema and television ads, web banners, web popups, skywriting, bus stop benches, magazines, newspapers, town criers, sides of buses, taxicab doors, roof mounts and passenger screens, musical stage shows, subway platforms and trains, elastic bands on disposable diapers, stickers on apples in supermarkets, the opening section of streaming audio and video, posters, chicken niblets, and the backs of event tickets and supermarket receipts. Any place an "identified" sponsor pays to distribute their message through a medium is advertising.

Origins of river water

2007-02-14T22:02:00.001-08:00

A river may have its source in a spring, lake, from damp, boggy places where the mud is waterlogged, from glacial meltwater, or simply from rain flow off impermeable rock or man-made surfaces. Almost all rivers are coupled by other rivers and streams termed tributaries the highest of which are known as headwaters. Water may also be recruited to a river from ground-water sources. Right through the course of the river, the total volume transported downstream will often be a combination of the free water flow together with a substantial part flowing through sub-surface rocks and gravels that underly the river and its floodplain. For many rivers in large valleys, this unseen part of flow may greatly exceed the visible flow.From their source, all rivers flow downhill, naturally terminating in the sea or in a lake. In arid areas rivers sometimes end by losing water to disappearance. River flow may also be lost by percolation into dry, porous substance such as sand, soil, or into pervious rock.
Excessive abstraction of water for use in industry, irrigation etc can also cause a river to dry before getting a lake or the sea.The mouth, or lower end, of a river is recognized by hydrologists as its base level.The area drained by a river and its tributaries is called catchment, catchment basin, drainage basin or watershed. The term "watershed" is also used to mean a boundary between catchments, which is also called a water divide.

Jewellery

2007-02-08T21:42:00.000-08:00

Jewellery is factually any piece of fine material used to decorate oneself. Although in earlier times jewellery was created for more convenient uses, such as wealth storage and pinning clothes together, in recent times it has been used almost completely for beautification. The first pieces of jewellery were made from likely materials, such as bone and animal teeth, shell, wood and engraved stone. Jewellery was often made for people of high importance to show their status and, in many cases, they were covered with it.Jewellery is made out of almost every material recognized and has been made to garnish nearly every body part, from hairpins to toe rings and many more types of jewellery. While high-quality and artistic pieces are made with gemstones and valuable metals, less pricey costume jewellery is made from less-valuable materials and is mass-produced.Form and function Kenyan man exhausting tribal beads.Over time, jewellery has been used for a number of reasons: Currency, wealth display and storage, purposeful Symbolism Protection and Artistic display Most cultures have at some point had a practice of observance large amounts of wealth stored in the form of jewellery. Numerous cultures move wedding dowries in the form of jewelry, or create jewelry as a means to store or display coins. on the other hand, jewellery has been used as a currency or trade good; a mostly poignant example being the use of slave beads.
In creating jewellery, a variety of gemstones, coins, or other valuable items can be used, often set into precious metals. Common expensive metals used for modern jewellery include gold, platinum or silver, although alloys of nearly every metal known can be encountered in jewellery -- bronze, for example, was common in Roman times. Most gold jewellery is made of an alloy of gold, the purity of which is affirmed in karats, indicated by a number followed by the letter K. For example, ordinary gold jewellery ranges from 10K (41.7% pure gold) to 22K (91.6% pure gold), while 24K (99.9% pure gold) is considered too soft for jewellery use. Platinum alloys variety from 900 (90% pure) to 950 (95.0% pure). The silver used in jewellery is usually sterling silver, or 92.5% fine silver.Other generally used materials include glass, such as merged glass or enamel; wood, often carved or turned; shells and other natural animal substances such as bone and ivory; natural clay, polymer clay, and even plastics.
Jewellery and society
One universal issue is control over who could wear what jewellery, a point which indicate the powerful symbolism the wearing of jewellery evoked. In ancient Rome, for instance, only convinced ranks could wear rings; later, sumptuary laws dictated who could wear what type of jewellery; again based on rank. Cultural dictate have also played a important role; for example, the wearing of earrings by Western men was considered "effeminate" in the 19th and early 20th centuries. on the other hand, the jewellery industry in the early 20th century launched a crusade to popularize wedding rings for men — which caught on — as well as appointment rings for men , going so far as to make a false history and claim that the practice had Medieval roots. By the mid 1940s, 85% of weddings in the U.S. feature a double-ring ceremony, up from 15% in the 1920s.Religion has also played a role: Islam, for instance, consider the wearing of gold by men as a social taboo,and many religions have edicts against extreme display.

The Real Miracle

2007-02-04T20:38:00.000-08:00

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.

Psychology

2006-12-15T04:51:00.000-08:00

Psychology is an academic and practical field relating the scientific study of mental procedures and conduct. Psychology as well refers to the application of such knowledge to a variety of spheres of human action, with troubles of persons' daily lives and the treatment of mental illness.

Psychology varies from the other social sciences — anthropology, economics, political science, and sociology — in looking for to make clear the mental procedures and conduct of individuals. Psychology differs from biology and neuroscience in that it is mainly concerned with the communication of mental procedures and actions on an entire level, as opposed to learning the biological or neural procedures themselves. Biological psychology is the scientific learning of the biological basis of conduct and mental conditions.

Rose

2006-12-05T23:47:00.000-08:00

A rose is a flowering shrub of the genus Rosa, and the flower of this shrub. There are more than a hundred species of wild roses, all from the northern hemisphere and mostly from temperate regions. The species form a group of generally prickly shrubs or climbers, and sometimes trailing plants, reaching 2–5 m tall, rarely reaching as high as 20 m by climbing over other plants.

The name originates from Latin rosa, borrowed through Oscan from colonial Greek in southern Italy: rhodon (Aeolic form: wrodon), from Aramaic wurrdā, from Assyrian wurtinnu, from Old Iranian *warda (cf. Avestan warda, Sogdian ward, Parthian wâr).

The leaves of most species are 5–15 cm long, pinnate, with (3–) 5–9 (–13) leaflets and basal stipules; the leaflets usually have a serrated margin, and often a few small prickles on the underside of the stem. The vast majority of roses are deciduous, but a few (particularly in southeast Asia) are evergreen or nearly so.

The flowers of most species roses have ten parts (five petals and five sepals) with the exception of Rosa sericea which often has only four of each; and are usually white or pink, though in a few species yellow or red. The ovary is inferior, developing below the petals and sepals.

ISO 9000 document suite

2006-11-30T22:04:00.000-08:00

ISO 9000 is composed of the following sections:

ISO 9000:2000, Quality organization systems - Fundamentals and language. Covers the essentials of what quality organization systems are and also contains the core language of the ISO 9000 series of values. The latest version is ISO 9000:2005.

ISO 9001 Quality running systems - Requirements is planned for use in any organization which designs, develops, manufactures, installs and services any product or provides any form of examine. It provides a number of necessities which an association needs to accomplish if it is to achieve customer satisfaction through reliable products and services which meet customer prospect. This is the only execution for which third-party auditors may grant certifications. The latest version is: 2000.

ISO 9004 Quality management systems - Guidelines for presentation improvements. Covers repeated improvement. This gives you advice on what you could do to enhance a grown-up system. This standard very specially states that it is not intended as a guide to accomplishment.

Nutrition

2006-11-27T21:53:00.000-08:00

Animals are consumers that get their power from producers, who in turn derive their power from a number of sources.

Most animals grow by ultimately using the energy of daylight. Plants use this energy to change carbon dioxide into simple sugars using a procedure known as photosynthesis. Initially with the molecules and water, photosynthesis converts the power of sunlight into compound energy stored in the bonds of glucose and releases oxygen. These sugars are then used as the structure blocks which allow the plant to rise. When animals eat these plants, the sugars produced by the plant are used by the animal. They are either used straight to help the animal grow, or busted down, releasing stored solar energy, and giving the animal the energy required for movement.

Many animals that live secure to hydrothermal vents and cold seeps on the ocean floor are not needy on the energy of sunlight for their food. Instead, chemosynthetic archer and eubacteria form the bottom of the food chain. These creatures use the energy from compounds seeping from the vents to control the manufacture of sugars and other molecules, and animals live by either intake those microbes them within their tissues.

Atmosphere

2006-11-23T21:20:00.000-08:00

The Earth's atmosphere has no definite edge, slowly becoming thinner and vanishing into outer space. Three-quarters of the atmosphere's mass is contained within the first 11 km of the planet's surface. This lowest coating is called the troposphere. Further up, the atmosphere is usually separated into the stratosphere, mesosphere, and thermosphere. Away from these, the exosphere thins out into the magnetosphere. A vital part of the atmosphere for life on ground is the ozone layer.

The atmospheric stress on the surface of the Earth averages 101.325 kPa, with a scale height of about 6 km. It is 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen, with trace amounts of other gaseous molecules such as water steam. The atmosphere protects the Earth’s life forms by captivating ultraviolet solar emission, moderating temperature, transporting water vapor, and provides useful gases. The atmosphere is one of the principal mechanism in determining weather and climate.

Because hydrogen gas is light and based on Earth's signify temperature, achieves break out velocity, unfixed hydrogen leaves the Earth. For this cause, the Earth's environment is oxidizing, with consequences for the chemical nature of life which developed on the planet.

Leather in modern culture

2006-11-20T20:54:00.000-08:00

Leather, due to its exceptional abrasion and wind struggle, found a use in rough occupations. The durable image of a cowboy in leather chaps gave way to the leather-jacketed and leather-helmeted aviator. When motorcycles were invented, some riders took to exhausting heavy leather jackets to protect from road rash and wind explosion; some also wear chaps or full fur pants to shelter the lower body. Many sports still use leather to help in live the game or protecting players: due to its stretchy nature it can be formed and flexed for the occurrence.
As leather can also be a metonymical expression for things made from it, the term leathering is as reasonable as tanning in the sense of a physical penalty applied with a leather whip.
Leather fetishism is the name commonly used to describe a fetishistic magnetism to people wearing leather, or in definite cases, to the garments themselves.

Colossus of Rhodes

2006-11-15T03:37:00.000-08:00

The Colossus of Rhodes was a giant sculpture of the god Helios, erected on the Greek island of Rhodes by Chares of Lindos, a pupil of Lysippos, between 292 BC and 280 BC. It was approximately the same size as the Statue of Liberty in New York, although it stood on a lower platform. It is one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

Alexander the Great died at an early age in 323 BC without having had occasion to put into place any plans for his succession. Fighting broke out among his generals, the Diadochi, with three of them ultimately dividing up much of his empire in the Mediterranean area. During the fighting Rhodes had sided with Ptolemy, and when Ptolemy eventually took organize of Egypt, Rhodes and Ptolemaic Egypt formed an alliance which controlled much of the trade in the eastern Mediterranean.

Crop improvement

2006-11-09T21:04:00.000-08:00

In industrialized agriculture, crop "improvement" has often concentrated nutritional and other qualities of food plants to serve the interests of producers. After mechanical tomato-harvesters were developed in the early 1960s, agricultural scientists bred tomatoes that were harder and less nourishing. In fact, a most important longitudinal study of nutrient levels in several vegetables showed significant declines in the last 50 years; garden vegetables in the U.S. today contain on average 38 percent less vitamin B2 and 15 percent less vitamin C.
Very newly, genetic engineering has begun to be employed in some parts of the world to speed up the selection and breeding process. The most widely used alteration is an herbicide resistance gene that allows plants to tolerate exposure to glyphosate, which is used to control weeds in the crop. A less frequently used but more controversial modification causes the plant to produce a toxin to reduce injure from insects.

Membership and function

2006-11-06T21:53:00.000-08:00

International organizations differ in function, membership and membership criteria. Membership of some organizations is open to all the nations of the world. This category includes the United Nations and its specialized agencies and the World Trade Organization. Other organizations are only open to members from a particular region or continent of the world, like European Union, African Union. Finally, some organizations base their membership on other criteria: cultural or historical links level of economic development or type of economy Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries.
In the nineteenth century, France was the finest origin of many international organizations: This means that much of the driving force to form such bodies such as those which maintain the SI came from the French, and that their headquarters is in France, often in Paris. The motivation was that to keep France a republic and not slip back into a monarchist or Bonaparte regime, the republicans would underscore their inheritance of the crusading nature of the French Revolution against feudal cultural remnants within France, Some conclude from this example that internationalism often has national origins, at the difference of globalize.

Indians

2006-11-02T03:47:00.000-08:00

The Native American Indians who were in the southwest region lived in areas of Arizona and villages in New Mexico, mostly the southern states of USA, southern Colarado and Southern Utah. Those Pueblo people belonged to many different communities.They can also speak six different languages. They were previously named in the 1500 by Spanish explorers. The Spaniards who found them living in the villages that resembled the Spanish towns and the word Pueblo in spanish means town. Most of those people lived in New Mexico, the majority of the people lived in Rio Grande, in areas between Taos and Albuquerque. The Others were lived in deserts or high plateau areas that were called Mesas in Laguna and Acoma in west-central New Mexico. The climate of this region was cold in the winters with snow, and dry, hot summers because of the deserts.

To Choose University:

2006-10-16T04:04:00.000-07:00

College is a creepy thing on its own. Leaving away from parents and the rest of your friends to start your own life and how you’re going to live it. To choose a college can be a very tough decision there are many things that one must think about in order to decide which one is right for you and will you be accepted. For me it was an interesting process in which I decided to choose the college which is right for me and whether or not they might have the right program for me. At First, I was looking at schools in my area around Texas but I really didn’t like Texas that much so I decided I need a college that was more in an area where I feel more at home.
There are many things that can help you decide which is the correct one for you. There are chooses to be made about whether you like the fine and fun atmosphere of a large university. You have been wondered if you are a big city person or a small town type of person.
Yet may be at larger university you have more opportunities to join many different types of organizations.
There are many more benefits to each type of setting at a smaller school you are able to connect to you professors and even know them on a personal basis.
I have to have an argument about that the larger university is better because of all the new people you can meet and all the opportunities for a bigger field of intramural.

A Man of all Seasons

2006-10-12T03:35:00.000-07:00

After the pending of nine months in Mrs. Collins’s religion classes there are certain things that I have come to expect. The thing like word cards, calendars, and not an excruciatingly large amount of homework. Comparing to the last 2 months in her class and also, she assigned us a book to read in class and at home. This thing too becomes an alteration from our regular day to day religious teaching.
Through out, I thought A Man for All Seasons was an excellently written play although it lacked some important aspects I think a play or game should have in order to capture an audience of my age group. First consideration is and most prominent in my opinion is excitement or action. Second consideration is the characters in the play were not ones I believed the majority of the congregation could connect or relate with. The final consideration is there were certain characters in the book I felt could have used more developing in the area of character.
Even though the book A Man for All Seasons had some minor setbacks (in my personal opinion), I did feel it was a play written with excellent quality for the enjoyment of the reader. Moreover is then indicted by men of the king and hanged for high treason. The think or thought which is considered hard for some people to relate to the fact of how wealthy these people really were. And also we cannot conjecture the hardship of Sir Thomas More when he resigns from his duty of office.