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Hormone Therapy might create Lung Cancer More Likely

2009-09-22T03:11:00.001-07:00

Taking a combination form of hormone replacement therapy, which includes both estrogen and progestin, increases a woman's risk for dying from lung cancer, a new study has found.

The finding stems from an analysis of data from the Women's Health Initiative trial on 16,608 postmenopausal women; aged 50 to 79, in the United States who had been randomly assigned to take either a once-daily tablet of 0.625 milligrams conjugated equine estrogen plus 2.5 mg medroxyprogesterone acetate or a placebo.

After eight years, 73 women taking the hormone therapy and 40 women in the placebo group had died of lung cancer. That meant, according to the researchers, that women who took the drug were 71 percent more likely to die from the disease.The study also found that women taking the hormone therapy were 28 percent more likely to be diagnosed with lung cancer, although the study noted that the finding was not statistically significant.

"Treatment with estrogen plus progestin in postmenopausal women ... increased the number of deaths from lung cancer, in particular deaths from non-small-cell lung cancer," concluded Rowan Chlebowski, of the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbour-UCLA Medical Center, and his colleagues.

The researchers urged that the findings "be incorporated into risk-benefit discussions with women considering combined hormone therapy, especially those with a high risk of lung cancer ... such as current smokers or long-term past smokers."

Dr. Apar Kishor Ganti, from the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, wrote in an accompanying editorial that "because the optimum safe duration of hormone-replacement therapy in terms of lung cancer survival is unclear, such therapy should probably be avoided in women at a high risk of developing lung cancer, especially those with a history of smoking."
In fact, Ganti questioned whether hormone therapy should be used at all.

"These results, along with the findings showing no protection against coronary heart disease, seriously question whether hormone-replacement therapy has any role in medicine today," he wrote. "It is difficult to presume that the benefits of routine use of such therapy for menopausal symptoms outweigh the increased risks of mortality, especially in the absence of improvement in the quality of life."

Smoking and Breast cancer are linked in women

2009-09-14T02:33:00.000-07:00

The current study provides new evidence that "a woman smoker can reduce her risk of breast cancer by stopping smoking as soon as possible," Croghan commented to Reuters Health via email.

Croghan's group compared smoking history and other breast cancer risk factors among 1,225 women who developed breast cancer and 6,872 who did not during the first year after their initial visit to the Mayo Clinic Breast Clinic.

Surveys completed during this visit indicated just over 10 percent were current smokers, almost 9 percent were former smokers, and 81 percent had never smoked, Croghan, with the Mayo Clinic Nicotine Research Program in Rochester, Minnesota, and associates report.

In addition to the link with smoking, women who had used oral contraceptives for 11 years or longer had a whopping 200 percent increase in the odds of developing breast cancer. Women who used postmenopausal hormone therapy showed 81 percent increased odds, while aging raised the odds of developing breast cancer by 2 percent per year.

On the flip side, Croghan and colleagues report that having a hysterectomy decreased women's odds by 35 percent. Also, they did not see a compounding increase in risk for breast cancer among women with more than one risk factor.

Croghan noted that prior investigations with contradictory results regarding smoking and breast cancer risk did not consistently define smoking as current, former or never. The current study defines anyone who ever smoked more than 100 cigarettes at any time as having a history of smoking. Those who smoked less were considered never-smokers.

Croghan's group suggests further investigations using similar smoking definitions to assess how pre- and post-menopausal duration of smoking, amount smoked, and exposures to second-hand smoke might alter a woman's odds of developing breast cancer.
Source: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/

Yoga can help you by reducing Back Pain

2009-09-08T22:39:00.000-07:00

Practicing yoga can help ease chronic lower back pain, a new study shows.
Researchers divided 90 people, aged 23 to 66, who had mild to moderate functional disability as a result of back pain into two groups.

One group did 90-minute sessions of Iyengar yoga twice a week for six months. The other group continued whatever medical therapy or treatments they'd been doing.

At the three-month and six-month marks, a greater proportion of those who'd done yoga reported improvements in their pain and functioning as measured by questionnaires that asked about pain levels, difficulty performing physical tasks and pain medications being taken. Yoga participants also reported fewer symptoms of depression.

10 Largest Oil Spills in history

2009-09-01T00:42:00.001-07:00

Amoco Cadiz

The Amoco Cadiz encountered stormy weather and ran aground off the coast of Brittany, France on March 16, 1978. Its entire cargo of 68.7 million gallons of oil spilled into the sea, polluting about 200 miles of Brittany's coastline.

Arabian Gulf Spills
Beginning in late January of the 1991 Gulf War, the Iraqi Army destroyed tankers, oil terminals, and oil wells in Kuwait, causing the release of about 900,000,000 barrels of oil. This was the largest oil spill in history.

Argo Merchant
On December 15, 1976, the Argo Merchant ran aground on Fishing Rip (Nantucket Shoals), 29 nautical miles southeast of Nantucket Island, Massachusetts in high winds and ten foot seas. Six days later, the vessel broke apart and spilled its entire cargo of 7.7 million gallons of No. 6 fuel oil.

Barge Bouchard 155
On August 10, 1993, three ships collided in Tampa Bay, Florida: the barge Bouchard 155, the freighter Balsa 37, and the barge Ocean 255. The Bouchard 155 spilled an estimated 336,000 gallons of No. 6 fuel oil into Tampa Bay.

Barge Cibro Savannah
On March 6, 1990, the Cibro Savannah exploded and caught fire while departing the pier at the Citgo facility in Linden, New Jersey. About 127,000 gallons of oil remained unaccounted for after the incident. No one knows how much oil burned and how much spilled into the environment.

Burmah Agate
On November 1, 1979, the Burmah Agate collided with the freighter Mimosa southeast of Galveston Entrance in the Gulf of Mexico. The collision caused an explosion and a fire on the Burmah Agate that burned until January 8, 1980. An estimated 2.6 million gallons of oil were released into the environment, and another 7.8 million gallons were consumed by the fire.

Exxon Valdez
On March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska. The tanker was traveling outside the normal shipping lanes in an attempt to avoid ice. It spilled 10.8 million gallons of oil (out of a total cargo of 53 million gallons) into the marine environment, and impacted more than 1,100 miles of non-continuous Alaskan coastline. State and Federal agencies continue to monitor the effects of this spill, which was the largest oil spill in U.S. history.

Ixtoc I
The 2-mile-deep exploratory well, Ixtoc I, blew out on June 3, 1979 in the Bay of Campeche off Ciudad del Carmen, Mexico. By the time the well was brought under control in March, 1980, an estimated 140 million gallons of oil had spilled into the bay. The Ixtoc I spill is currently #2 on the all-time list of largest oil spills of all time.

Jupiter
On September 16, 1990, the tank vessel Jupiter was offloading gasoline at a refinery on the Saginaw River near Bay City, Michigan, when a fire started on board and the vessel exploded.

Megaborg
The Megaborg released 5.1 million gallons of oil as the result of a lightering accident and subsequent fire. The incident occurred 60 nautical miles south-southeast of Galveston, Texas on June 8, 1990.

A new source of renewable energy

2009-08-26T22:39:00.000-07:00

Surplus and waste watermelons from farms harvests can be converted into energy now. 2.5 million gallons of clean, renewable ethanol fuel can be got from watermelons that are required for a year destined for your car, truck, or airplane's gas tank.

In United States, every year 360,000 tons of watermelons spoil in fields. Some local growers who are worried about this wondered whether the waste watermelons can be turned into ethanol, the clean-burning fuel derived from plant sugars. In a sequence of new experiments that was published in the journal Biotechnology for Biofuels, Fish and his team showed that they can.

Smog causes serious health problems.

2009-08-21T06:06:00.001-07:00

Poor air quality is harmful to health. The primary target is the respiratory system, but air pollution also targets the heart and the immune system. Particle pollution poses particular risks to the cardiac system.

Sources of smog include:

• Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) come almost entirely from man-made sources: combustion of fuels in cars and trucks, coal-fired power plants, industrial boilers and gas-powered engines such as lawnmowers and leaf blowers. This occurs because nitrogen gas -- which accounts for about 80% of air -- also burns (oxidizes) when other fuels are burned.

• Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are vapors that emanate from paint and print shops, gas stations, dry cleaners, lawn chemicals, and from combustion engines, such as those in cars and trucks, boats and diesel locomotives. Trees also release VOCs.

• Particle pollution, or particulate matter (PM), consists of a mixture of extremely small solids and liquid droplets that typically includes aerosols and fine solids, such as dust and soot. Sources include all types of combustion, including vehicle exhaust, power plants, wood burning, construction activity and agriculture.

Causes of tornadoes

2009-08-16T23:38:00.000-07:00

Thunderstorms develop in warm, moist air in advance of eastward-moving cold fronts. These thunderstorms often produce large hail, strong winds, and tornadoes. Tornadoes in the winter and early spring are often associated with strong, frontal systems that form in the Central States and move east. Occasionally, large outbreaks of tornadoes occur with this type of weather pattern. Several states may be affected by numerous severe thunderstorms and tornadoes.

During the spring in the Central Plains, thunderstorms frequently develop along a "dryline," which separates very warm, moist air to the east from hot, dry air to the west. Tornado-producing thunderstorms may form as the dryline moves east during the afternoon hours.

Along the front range of the Rocky Mountains, in the Texas panhandle, and in the southern High Plains, thunderstorms frequently form as air near the ground flows "upslope" toward higher terrain. If other favorable conditions exist, these thunderstorms can produce tornadoes.

Tornadoes occasionally accompany tropical storms and hurricanes that move over land. Tornadoes are most common to the right and ahead of the path of the storm center as it comes onshore.

Working of satellites

2009-08-12T03:10:00.000-07:00

A satellite works by receiving radio signals sent from the Earth and resending the radio signals back down to the Earth. In a simple system, a signal is reflected, or "bounced," off the satellite. For example, it is possible to bounce a signal off the surface of the Moon back down to Earth. Because the Moon is very far away, for this to work the signal from the Earth must be very strong and the receiver receiving the signal must be sensitive enough to detect the very weak signal receive back from the moon.

Unlike a passive satellite such as the moon or the early ECHO satellite, a modern communications satellite receives the radio signal and sends it back down to Earth stronger than it was received. This process is called "amplification" of the radio signal. In addition to amplifying the signal, a communications satellite also typically converts the radio from one frequency to another so that the signal getting sent down is not confused with the signal being sent up.

The Green Dinosaur

2009-08-07T23:09:00.000-07:00

The Green Dinosaur is one of the common names for this tree, also known as Ribbonwood and Idiot Fruit. It has its own interesting story of life, extinction and rebirth as well as an unsolved mystery!

The Ribbonwood tree (Idiospermum australiense) is a relic species and has a most unusual characteristic which sets it apart from modern plants. All modern flowering plants produce seeds which have either one seed leaf (monocots) or two seed leaves (dicots) but the seeds of the Idiospermum can have between 2 to 6 seed leaves! Normally seeds will germinate and send up a single shoot but the Ribbonwood can sprout more than one shoot per seed. The fruit is large at 80mm (just over 3 inches) and globular, splitting into four segments on the ground. The red, spirally arranged flowers are also another indication of its primitiveness.

The Green Dinosaur was located in the late 1800's by timber cutters south of Cairns who brought it to the attention of a German botanist named Diels. By the time Diels returned to the spot where this tree was found, they had been clearfelled for sugarcane (one of the principal commercial crops of north Queensland). It was believed to be gone forever. However, in 1971, the species was rediscovered - not because someone identified the tree from its unusual tree-ring pattern - but because its fruit was turning up in the stomachs of dead cattle! We now know that its fruit is toxic.

There is another intriguing aspect to the Ribbonwood tree and that is how its seeds are dispersed. The successful continuance of most rainforest species depends on their seeds being dispersed away from the parent plant. The Green Dinosaur's seeds are large, heavy, do not float and are too poisonous for most animals to eat. Gravity dispersal may be why the Ribbonwood tree is only found in very wet lowland rainforest in very few locations.

Future Climate Change

2009-08-05T22:08:00.000-07:00

Greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere will increase during the next century unless greenhouse gas emissions decrease substantially from present levels. Increased greenhouse gas concentrations are very likely to raise the Earth's average temperature, influence precipitation and some storm patterns as well as raise sea levels (IPCC, 2007). The magnitude of these changes, however, is uncertain.

The amount and speed of future climate change will ultimately depend on:

• Whether greenhouse gases and aerosol concentrations increase, stay the same or decrease.

• How strongly features of the climate (e.g. temperature, precipitation and sea level) respond to changes in greenhouse gas and aerosol concentrations.

• How much the climate varies as a result of natural influences (e.g. from volcanic activity and changes in the sun’s intensity) and its internal variability (referring to random changes in the circulation of the atmosphere and oceans).

Bioluminescence

2009-07-21T23:32:00.001-07:00

Bioluminescence is one of the most astonishing natural phenomenons as it seems to be drawn from science fiction or comic books, rather than science and natural history. Where else to you find characters with green lanterns, or shooting red beams of light, or escaping with a flash of blue light. How can a living animal make light? The technical answer is that light is produced by energy released from chemical reactions occurring inside (or ejected by) an organism.

One would think that this capability would be rare in nature, yet in the ocean most types of animals — ranging from bacteria to sharks — include bioluminescent members. In fact, it is estimated that luminescence has evolved independently at least 40 times. The functions of bioluminescence are not known for all animals, but typically it is used during ecological interactions for defense (warning or evading predators) or offense (luring or detecting prey), and at times for communication between members of the same species.

Nanotechnology and its Benefits

2009-07-19T23:48:00.001-07:00

Nanotechnology is the understanding and control of matter at dimensions between 1 and 100 nanometers, where single phenomenon enables novel applications. Surrounding nanoscale science, engineering, and technology, nanotechnology involves imaging, measuring, modeling, and manipulating matter at this length scale.

A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter. A sheet of paper is about 100,000 nanometers thick; a single gold atom is about a third or a nanometer in diameter. Dimensions between approximately 1 and 100 nanometers are known as the nanoscale. Unusual physical, chemical, and biological properties can emerge in materials at the nanoscale. These properties may differ in important ways from the properties of bulk materials and single atoms or molecules.

The power of nanotechnology is rooted in its potential to transform and revolutionize multiple technology and industry sectors, including aerospace, agriculture, biotechnology, homeland security and national defense, energy, environmental improvement, information technology, medicine, and transportation. Discovery in some of these areas has advanced to the point where it is now possible to identify applications that will impact the world we live in.

Types of medicine

2009-07-10T05:52:00.000-07:00

Ayurveda

Ayurveda is that knowledge of life, which deals elaborately and at length with conditions beneficial or otherwise to the humanity, and, to factors conducive to the happiness, or responsible for misery or sorrow besides indicating measures for healthful living for full span of life.

Yoga

Yoga is a science as well an art of healthy living physically, mentally, morally and spiritually. It’s systematic growth from his animal level to the normalcy, from there to the divinity, ultimately. It’s no way limited by race, age, sex, religion, cast or creed and can be practiced by those who seek an education on better living and those who want to have a more meaningful life.

Naturopathy

Naturopathy or Nature Cure believes that all the diseases arise due to accumulation of morbid matter in the body and if scope is given for its removal, it provides cure or relief. For treatment it primarily stresses on correcting all the factors involved and allowing the body to recover itself. The five main modalities of treatment are air, water, heat, mud and space.

Homeopathy

Homeopathy has been practiced in India for more than a century and a half. It has blended so well into the roots and traditions of the country that it has been recognised as one of the National Systems of Medicine and plays an important role in providing health care to a large number of people.

Unani

Unani postulates that the body contains a self-preservative power, which strives to restore any disturbance within the limits prescribed by the constitution or State of the individual. The physician merely aims to help and develop rather than supersede or impede the action of this power.

Siddha

Siddha is very similar to Ayurveda. In the Siddha system, chemistry had been found well developed into a science auxiliary to medicine and alchemy. It was found useful in the preparation of medicine as well as in transmutation of basic metals into gold.

Acupressure

Acupressure is the application of pressure or localized massage to specific sites on the body to control symptoms such as pain or nausea. It is derived from traditional Chinese medicine, which is a form of treatment for pain that involves pressure on particular points in the body knows as “acupressure points”. A practitioner puts pressure on specific points on the body with his or her fingers in order to relieve pain and discomfort, prevent tension-related ailments, and promote good health.

Acupuncture

Acupuncture is an ancient Chinese form of medicine, which involves the insertion of pins in certain vital points of the body. It is used for the treatment of chronic pain conditions such as arthritis, bursitis, headache, athletic injuries, and posttraumatic and post surgical pain.

Telemedicine

Telemedicine generally refers to the use of communication and information technologies for the delivery of clinical care. It may be as simple as two health professionals discussing a case over the telephone, or as complex as using satellite technology and video-conferencing equipment to conduct a real-time consultation between medical specialists in two different countries.

New watch phone

2009-07-02T05:58:00.000-07:00

Watch phone trader 3G Watches releases the latest addition to its previously popular fleet of cell phone watches, the all new Flex 110. The Flex 110 is the stylish and classy big brother to the previously trendy sporty Flex. The Flex 110 multimedia watch phone possess the same functions as the Flex, but with a design geared toward the business class.

This shiny and classy cell phone watch is sure to be a hit .Operating on 900/1800/1900 gsm, T-Mobile and AT&T customer's now have what many consider to be the most new styled watch phone to date. The Flex 110 comes ready with touch screen, Bluetooth capabilities, mp3, mp4 player, digital, FM radio tuner, and video camera.

Watch phone trader, 3G Watches specializes in selling high-tech multimedia cell phone watch devices equipped with Bluetooth, mp3, video player, digital, and video camera ready to use in the U.S. with carrier's AT&T and T-Mobile.

Japanese inventions

2009-06-16T22:13:00.000-07:00

They've got the ones that clean, and others that can pour drinks, so it was only a matter of instant by Japanese inventors came up with robots that can cook.Various prototype robo-chefs showed off their cooking skills at the International Food Machinery and Technology Expo in Tokyo this week, flipping "okonomiyaki" Japanese pancakes, serving sushi and slicing vegetables.

Japan has one of the world's fastest aging societies and experts say robots can help care for the growing number of elderly, and fill in for the lack of young people willing to take on jobs as chefs, cleaners or caretakers.

Japan is home to almost half the world's 800,000 industrial robots and expects the industry to expand to $10 billion.Tomio Sugiura, president of Sugiura Kikai Sekkei, which manufactured the vegetable-slicing robot, saw a robot in every home in the near future.

End of Dual-Sim Mobile Phones?

2009-03-26T21:28:00.000-07:00

More than two weeks after a petition was filed by Madurai resident Somasundaram Ramkumar, the Madras High Court has directed mobile manufacturers to restrain from manufacturing and selling dual sim phones in India.

Apparently, Ramkumar claims to hold Indian patent (No.214388) for plurality of SIM cards in a single mobile handset (in simpler terms, dual SIM phones) and claims the rights over the technology used to manufacture such phones.

The High Court has sought the implementation of the Intellectual Property Rights (Imported Goods) Enforcement Rules 2007 Act. This Act enables customs officials to seize imported goods that infringe patents.

The directive by the High Court has hit the sales of devices from manufacturers like Samsung, LG, MIRC Electronics and Spice Mobile who have quite a few number of dual SIM models on sale.

ForMoreInfo: http://www.techtree.com/India/News/End_of_Dual-Sim_Mobile_Phones/551-100499-547.html

Easy Water Days Are Over

2009-03-18T02:27:00.000-07:00

Gerhard Payen is an adviser on water to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and President of The International Federation of Private Water Operators - association that connects international organizations with private sector providers of water and sanitation services. He says the U.N. report is an important wake up call to the world.

"The reality today is that water scarcity is increasing in many parts of the world because of increasing usage and also partly due to climate change," Payen explained. "This is a reality. So easy water [i.e., easily accessible drinking water] is over. So in the future, we will have to manage water more carefully. There are potential conflicts. So if the governments don't care that conflicts will emerge, this is at local regional and international level. This is a collective responsibility; all of us have a role to play. We have to realize we are so numerous on this planet. Easy water is over."

Cardinal's NCAA Hopes Die In L.A.

2009-03-12T22:13:00.000-07:00

The Cardinal probably will be notified sometime Sunday which team it will play in the postseason, but Stanford's 85-73 loss to No. 13 Washington in the Pac-10 tournament quarterfinals Thursday guaranteed that the Cardinal will not be playing in the March event that matters most - the NCAA Tournament.

In all likelihood, the Cardinal (18-13) will play in a postseason tournament for the 16th straight season, but for only the second time in 15 years, it won't be the main event.

"The NCAA is every team's goal," Stanford junior Landry Fields said, "but I know our team would love to keep playing. It hurts not to play in the Big Dance, but the next best thing is to play in something else."

Something else for the Cardinal might be the National Invitation Tournament, which announces its field Sunday after the NCAA Tournament names its 65 teams.

The Cardinal had given up on earning an at-large berth to the NCAA Tournament weeks ago, but the hope of getting an automatic berth by winning the Pac-10 tournament got a boost when Stanford won three of four games heading into the matchup with regular-season champion Washington (25-7).

Thanks to the efforts of Fields, who filled every column of the stat sheet, and Anthony Goods, who had his second consecutive big offensive game, the Cardinal gave the Huskies a run.

The Cardinal tied the game 43-43 with 17:19 left on a basket by Goods, who had a season-high 26 points one day after scoring 23 in the win over Oregon State.

However, Stanford scored only one point over the next three minutes, while the Huskies stepped up the pace and scored seven straight points, systematically taking the Cardinal out of the game.

The Cardinal could not keep up with Washington's speed and never got closer than five points the rest of the way while losing to the Huskies for the third time this season.

"I thought early in the game when it was going up and down that it would be in our favor, and maybe it was," Washington coach Lorenzo Romar said.

Fields had no trouble with the frantic nature of the game, collecting 16 points, a season-high 15 rebounds, three assists, two steals and a blocked shot. He also had five turnovers to put a significant number in every statistical category.

Washington, which ranks third nationally in rebounding margin, collected 18 points on second-chance opportunities, but the Cardinal countered by getting 20 second-chance points of their own. The bigger problem was the transition baskets that helped the Huskies shoot 60.7 percent from the field in the final 20 minutes.

Jeanette Pohlen Scored High

2009-03-05T22:07:00.000-08:00

Jeanette Pohlen scored a career-high 21 points, including two free throws in the final seconds, as No. 2 Stanford held on to defeat Arizona 70-67 and clinch a share of the Pac-10 regular-season championship.

Stanford (25-4, 16-1) has either won outright or shared the Pac-10 regular-season title for nine straight seasons. The Cardinal can win the 2008-09 crown outright Saturday with a victory over No. 18 Arizona State.

Stanford, which got 16 points from Kayla Pedersen, beat Arizona (11-17, 4-13) for the 12th time and won its 28th consecutive game at Maples Pavilion.

Arizona sophomore forward Ify Ibekwe, the Wildcats' leading scorer and rebounder, returned to action after missing two games with a knee injury and finished with 17 points and 13 rebounds.

Demands More From Batsmen

2009-02-26T05:12:00.000-08:00

Mithali Raj, one of the senior batsmen in the Indian women's team, has demanded an improved batting performance during the upcoming World Cup in Australia. India have lost their previous nine completed ODIs - defeated 4-0 by England and going down 5-0 to Australia - in which the batsmen struggled to put up competitive scores.

"A score of 200-plus is a bare minimum. Gone are the days in women's cricket where a team scored 170 and defended it," Mithali was quoted as saying in the Times of India. "Our openers haven't done well and that means the middle order was exposed to the new ball almost every time. That was the problem in Australia and England."

She was pleased with the team's effort during training, when they scored in excess of 200 in both their practice games.The team, she said, had also prepared for faster pitches by batting against bowling machines at the Mumbai Cricket Association's Bandra-Kurla Complex ground.

Though India had a demoralising tour of Australia late last year, Mithali was confident of a better show next month. "It's the end of the season and the wickets won't be too bouncy. If anything they will keep low."

India were runners-up in the previous edition in South Africa in 2005, losing in the final to Australia. They are placed in Group A with Sri Lanka, Pakistan and England, and will face Pakistan in the tournament opener at the Bradman Oval in Bowral on March 7.

Researchers for HIV work

2009-02-19T04:55:00.001-08:00

Even as Connecticut considers reducing funding for AIDS programs, state public health researchers are winning accolades for their work with those living with HIV.

A program developed at the University of Connecticut's Center for Health, Intervention and Prevention is among a group of eight intervention programs commended recently by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Under the program, known as "Options," clinicians are trained to counsel HIV-positive patients during routine medical appointments to avoid risky behavior, such as unprotected sex and drug use, developing a list of behavioral prescriptions for patients to follow as they live with the virus.

"Most interventions focus on people not infected with HIV and not likely to become infected," said Jeffrey D. Fisher, a social psychology professor at UConn and director of the intervention center. "But we also need to help people who have HIV to practice safer sex and drug use."

Such precautions are necessary not just to protect the health of those living with HIV or AIDS, which make patients substantially more susceptible to infection and disease, but also to ensure that continued risky behavior doesn't spread HIV to those with whom diagnosed people share needles or have sex.

Fisher developed the program in the late 1990s with his brother, Bill Fisher, a professor at the University of Western Ontario, and three other researchers from CHIP and Yale University.

The Options program was developed from current behavioral theory and a process of collaboration with those struggling with HIV diagnosis and problems with substance abuse or risky sex, Fisher said. The intervention plan asks clinical workers to work with patients to develop strategies for reducing risk, and to evaluate each patient's willingness to change.

The program was included this year in "The 2008 Compendium of Evidence-based HIV Prevention Interventions," which is compiled annually by the CDC, and recognizes programs that have proven successful at reducing HIV infection and behavior that can increase the chance of contracting sexually transmitted diseases.

The CDC estimates that 46,000 people were infected with HIV in the U.S. in 2006, the most recent year for which data was available.

Source: theday.com/re.aspx?re=76b88ed9-71a3-4510-a675-6361d367da02

Programming languages

2009-02-09T01:11:00.000-08:00

A programming language is an extreme case of a formal language that can be used to control the behavior of a machine, particularly a computer, to perform specific tasks. Programming languages are defined using syntactic and semantic rules, to determine structure and meaning respectively.

Programming languages are used to facilitate communication about the task of organizing and manipulating information, and to express algorithms precisely. Some authors restrict the term "programming language" to those languages that can express all possible algorithms; sometimes the term "computer language" is used for artificial languages that are more limited.

CD-Text

2009-02-02T23:13:00.000-08:00

CD-Text is an extension of the Red Book specification for audio CD that allows for storage of additional text information (e.g., album name, song name, artist) on a standards-compliant audio CD. The information is stored either in the lead-in area of the CD, where there is roughly five kilobytes of space available, or in the subcode channels R to W on the disc, which can store about 31 megabytes.

Zygosity

2009-01-26T22:29:00.001-08:00

In genetics, zygosity refers to the similarity or dissimilarity of the DNA sequences in specific coding segments, or genes, on the homologous chromosomes of a zygote, or fertilized egg. The DNA sequence of any gene can vary among individuals in the population. The various forms of a gene are called alleles, and diploid organisms generally have two alleles for each gene, one on each of the two homologous chromosomes on which the gene is present. In diploid organisms, the alleles are inherited from the individual's parents, one from the male parent and one from the female. Zygosity in general is a description of whether those two alleles code for the same trait expression or different ones, but there are several specific applications of the term.

Cud

2009-01-19T22:47:00.000-08:00

Cud is a portion of food that returns from a ruminant's stomach in the mouth to be chewed for the second time. More accurately, it is a bolus of semi-degraded food regurgitated from the reticulorumen of a ruminant. Cud is produced during the physical digestive process of rumination, or "chewing the cud". The idiomatic expression chewing one's cud means meditating or pondering.

Oceanography

2009-01-12T23:05:00.000-08:00

Oceanography also called oceanology or marine science, is the branch of Earth science that studies the ocean. It covers a wide range of topics, including marine organisms and ecosystem dynamics; ocean currents, waves, and geophysical fluid dynamics; plate tectonics and the geology of the sea floor; and fluxes of various chemical substances and physical properties within the ocean and across its boundaries. These diverse topics reflect multiple disciplines that oceanographers blend to further knowledge of the world ocean and understanding of processes within it: biology, chemistry, geology, meteorology, and physics.

Denim

2009-01-07T02:58:00.000-08:00

Denim is a rugged cotton twill textile, in which the weft passes under two (twi- "double") or more warp fibers. This produces the familiar diagonal ribbing identifiable on the reverse of the fabric, which distinguishes denim from cotton duck. Denim has been in American usage since the late eighteenth century.The word comes from the name of a sturdy fabric called serge, originally made in Nîmes, France, by the Andre family. Originally called serge de Nîmes, the name was soon shortened to denim. Denim was traditionally colored blue with indigo dye to make blue "jeans," though "jean" then denoted a different, lighter cotton textile; the contemporary use of jean comes from the French word for Genoa, Italy (Gênes), where the first denim trousers were made.

A similarly woven traditional American cotton textile is the diagonal warp-striped hickory cloth that was once associated with railroadmen's overalls, in which blue or black contrasting with undyed white threads form the woven pattern. Hickory cloth was characterized as being as rugged as hickory wood—not to mention the fact that it was deemed to be worn mainly by "hicks"—although neither may be the origin of that term [from a nickname for "Richard"]. Records of a group of New Yorkers headed for the California gold fields in 1849 show that they took along four "hickory shirts" apiece. Hickory cloth would later furnish the material for some "fatigue" pantaloons and shirts in the American Civil War.

The word dungarees, to identify heavy cotton pants such as overalls, can be traced to a thick cotton country-made cloth, Dongari Kapar, which was sold in the quarter contiguous to the Dongari Killa, the fort of what was then known as Bombay (Hobson Johnson Dictionary). The word entered English with just this meaning in 1696 (OED). Dongri Fort was rebuilt in 1769 as Fort George, Bombay, where the first cotton mill was established in 1854. Dyed in indigo, the traditional cloth was used by Portuguese sailors and cut wide so that the legs could be swiftly rolled up when necessary. Thus, dungarees have a separate history.

Puchezh-Katunki crater

2009-01-01T23:35:00.001-08:00

Puchezh-Katunki is a meteor crater in the Chkalovsky District of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast in Volga Federal District, Russia. It is 80 km in diameter and is estimated to be 167 ± 3 million years old, placing it in the Middle Jurassic. The crater is not exposed to the surface, but appears as variation in the vegetation.

Programming languages

2008-12-25T23:36:00.001-08:00

Nucleolus

2008-12-15T22:24:00.000-08:00

The nucleolus (also called nucleole) is a non-membrane bound structure found within the nucleus in which ribosomal RNA is transcribed, and is composed of protein and nucleic acids. The nucleolus ultrastructure can be visualized through an electron microscope while the organization and dynamics can be studied through fluorescent protein tagging and fluorescent recovery after photobleaching (FRAP). Malfunction of nucleoli can be the cause for several human diseases.

Soy protein

2008-12-03T01:18:00.000-08:00

Soy protein is generally regarded as the storage protein held in discrete particles called protein bodies which are estimated to contain at least 60–70% of the total soybean protein. Upon germination of the soybean, the protein will be digested and the released amino acids will be transported to locations of seedling growth. Legume proteins, such as soy, and pulses belong to the globulin family of seed storage proteins called leguminins (11S) and vicilins (7S), or glycinin and beta-conglycinin in soybeans. Grains contain a third type of storage protein called gluten or "prolamines". Soybeans also contain biologically active or metabolic proteins such as enzymes, trypsin inhibitors, hemagglutinins, and cysteine proteases. The soy cotyledon storage proteins, important for human nutrition, can be extracted most efficiently by water, water plus dilute alkali (pH 7–9), or aqueous solutions of sodium chloride (0.5–2 M) from dehulled and defatted soybeans that have undergone only a minimal heat treatment so that the protein is close to being native or undenatured. Soybeans are processed into three kinds of protein-rich products; soy flour, soy concentrate, and soy isolate.

watershed

2008-11-28T03:16:00.000-08:00

A watershed is a land area from which water drains into a major body of water such as a stream, lake, wetland, bay or estuary, or percolates into groundwater. Watersheds come in different shapes and sizes. Local watersheds are parts of larger, regional basins. Our Santa Clara basin, for example, is a sub-basin of the larger San Francisco Bay Basin.

A watershed begins at the top of a hill or mountain ridge and is ultimately defined by gravity. The Santa Clara Basin is bounded by the Diablo Mountains to the east and the Santa Cruz Mountains to the south and west. Raindrops falling east of the Santa Cruz Mountains ridgeline or west of the Diablo Range hills flow into our watershed. South San Francisco Bay receives the runoff water of our watersheds.

The following six major watersheds are located in the City of San José:
* Coyote

* Guadalupe

* Lower Penintenica

* San Tomas

* Calabazas

* Baylands
A watershed is more than just a drainage area. It’s the place where we live, work, play and find inspiration for our daily lives. Watersheds also provide critical habitats for the native wildlife and plants in our environment. It’s important for us to understand how our everyday activities impact our watershed so that we can protect our Santa Clara Basin.

Cognition

2008-11-19T04:00:00.001-08:00

Cognition is a concept used in different ways by different disciplines, but is generally accepted to mean the process of awareness or thought. For example, in psychology, it refers to an information processing view of an individual's psychological functions. Other interpretations of the meaning of cognition link it to the development of concepts; individual minds, groups, organizations, and even larger coalitions of entities, can be modelled as societies which cooperate to form concepts. The autonomous elements of each 'society' would have the opportunity to demonstrate emergent behavior in the face of some crisis or opportunity. Cognition can also be interpreted as "understanding and trying to make sense of the world".

Manicouagan Reservoir

2008-11-12T04:42:00.000-08:00

Manicouagan Reservoir (also Lake Manicouagan) is an annular lake in central Quebec, Canada. The lake covers an area of 1,942 km², and its eastern shore is accessible via Route 389. The island in the centre of the lake is known as René-Levasseur Island, and its highest point is Mount Babel. The lake and island are clearly seen from space and are sometimes called the "eye of Quebec." In 2007, the Manicouagan lake was astronaut Marc Garneau's nomination for the CBC's Seven Wonders of Canada competition.

Morphology

2008-11-03T22:54:00.000-08:00

The term morphology in biology refers to the outward appearance (shape, structure, colour, pattern) of an organism or taxon and its component parts. This is in contrast to physiology, which deals primarily with function.

Also in use is the term "gross morphology", which refers to the prominent or principal aspects of an organism or taxon's morphology. A description of an organism's gross morphology would include, for example, its overall shape, overall colour, main markings etc. but not finer details.

Most taxa differ morphologically from other taxa. Typically, closely related taxa differ much less than more distantly related ones, but there are exceptions to this. Cryptic species are species which look very similar, or perhaps even outwardly identical, but are reproductively isolated. Conversely, sometimes unrelated taxa acquire similar appearance through convergent evolution or even through mimicry. A further problem with relying on morphological data is that what may appear, morphologically speaking, to be two distinct species, may in fact be shown by DNA analysis to be a single species.

Brain tumors in infants and children

2008-10-30T02:41:00.000-07:00

In 2000 approximately 2.76 children per 100,000 were affected by a CNS tumor in the United States. This rate has been increasing and by 2005 was 3.0 children per 100,000.[citation needed] This is approximately 2,500-3,000 pediatric brain tumors occurring each year in the US. The tumor incidence is increasing by about 2.7% per year. The CNS cancer survival rate in children is approximately 60%. However, this rate varies with the age of onset (younger has higher mortality) and cancer type.

In children under 2, about 70% of brain tumors are medulloblastoma, ependymoma, and low-grade glioma. Less commonly, and seen usually in infants, are teratoma and atypical teratoid rhabdoid tumor. Germ cell tumors, including teratoma, make up just 3% of pediatric primary brain tumors, but the worldwide incidence varies significantly.

Famine food

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

A famine food or poverty food is any inexpensive or readily-available foodstuff used to nourish people in times of extreme poverty or starvation, as during a war or famine. Quite often, the food is thereafter strongly associated with the hardship under which it was eaten, and is therefore socially downplayed or rejected as a food source in times of relative plenty.

Foods associated with famine need not be nutritionally deficient. A number of famine foods are quite nutritious—thus their use to nourish and ward off hunger. However, such foodstuffs usually offer limited variability, may tend toward the less savoury end of the spectrum, yet are still consumed in large amounts and for long periods of time because of the nutritional duress. As such, people often remain averse to them long after the immediate need to consume them has subsided. That remains the case even if such foodstuffs might otherwise constitute a healthy part of a more comprehensive diet.

W-CDMA

2008-10-13T00:06:00.000-07:00

W-CDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) is a type of 3G cellular network. W-CDMA is the higher speed transmission protocol used in the Japanese FOMA system and in the UMTS system, a third generation follow-on to the 2G GSM networks deployed worldwide.

More technically, W-CDMA is a wideband spread-spectrum mobile air interface that utilizes the direct-sequence spread spectrum method of asynchronous code division multiple access to achieve higher speeds and support more users compared to the implementation of time division multiplexing (TDMA) used by 2G GSM networks.

Bluetooth 3.0

2008-09-29T23:27:00.000-07:00

The next version of Bluetooth after v2.1, code-named Seattle (the version number of which is TBD) has many of the same features, but is most notable for plans to adopt ultra-wideband (UWB) radio technology. This will allow Bluetooth use over UWB radio, enabling very fast data transfers of up to 480 Mbit/s, while building on the very low-power idle modes of Bluetooth.

IP address

2008-09-23T02:41:00.000-07:00

An Internet Protocol (IP) address is a numerical identification (logical address) that is assigned to devices participating in a computer network utilizing the Internet Protocol for communication between its nodes. Although IP addresses are stored as binary numbers, they are usually displayed in human-readable notations, such as 192.168.100.1 (for IPv4), and 2001:db8:0:1234:0:567:1:1 (for IPv6). The role of the IP address has been characterized as follows: "A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A route indicates how to get there."

The original designers of TCP/IP defined an IP address as a 32-bit number and this system, now named Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4), is still in use today. However, due to the enormous growth of the Internet and the resulting depletion of the address space, a new addressing system (IPv6), using 128 bits for the address, was developed (RFC 1883).

The Internet Protocol also has the task of routing data packets between networks, and IP addresses specify the locations of the source and destination nodes in the topology of the routing system. For this purpose, some of the bits in an IP address are used to designate a subnetwork. (In CIDR notation, the number of bits used for the subnet follows the IP address. E.g. 192.168.100.1/16) An IP address can be private, for use on a LAN, or public, for use on the Internet or other WAN.

Early specifications intended IP addresses to be uniquely assigned to a particular computer or device.[citation needed] However, it was found that this was not always necessary as private networks developed and address space needed to be conserved (IPv4 address exhaustion). RFC 1918 specifies private address spaces that may be reused by anyone; today, such private networks typically access the Internet through Network Address Translation (NAT). In addition, technologies such as anycast addressing have been developed to allow multiple hosts at the same IP address but in different portions of the Internet to service requests by network clients.

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) manages the global IP address space. IANA works in cooperation with five Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) to allocate IP address blocks to Local Internet Registries (Internet service providers) and other entities.

Armour

2008-09-08T23:03:00.000-07:00

Armour (or armor) is protective covering, most commonly manufactured from metals, to prevent damage from being inflicted to an individual or a vehicle through use of direct contact weapons or projectiles, usually during combat.

While early armour tended to be worn as clothing intended to defend its wearer during combat between armed forces, armour has been used throughout recorded history, manufactured from a variety of materials, non-metallic and metallic. For much of military history the manufacture of metal armour in Europe has dominated the technology and employment of armour. Its production has been influential in the evolving industrial revolution, and influenced commercial development of metallurgy and engineering.

Armour production was a cause of the development of many important technologies of the Ancient World, including wood lamination, mining, metal refining, vehicle manufacture (chariot), leather processing, and later decorative metal working.

Armour was commonly used to protect only soldiers, foot and mounted. Starting with the rudimentary leather protection, the personal armour evolved to mail and full plated suit of armour. Armour was the single most influential factor in the development of firearms that revolutionised warfare, and has returned in the shape of armoured fighting vehicles in the attempt to enable ground troops to breach field defences unscathed. Sailors and pilots have also benefited from use of armour, with armoured warships dominating naval warfare until the building of the aircraft carriers.

War animals such as elephants and war horses, have also benefited from armour, the application for the later called barding. Armour has also been produced for hunting dogs that hunt dangerous game, such as boars.

Female Interest and Body Language

2008-09-02T05:53:00.000-07:00

Women commonly display interest in men via sexual cues. These serve to entice men to approach them. Some of the cues to signal female interest include: the parade, echoing and mirroring, room encompassing glance, pointing, leg crossing, the pointing knee, neck touching, head tilt, shoulder shrugs, rotation of the pelvis, showing wrists, skirt hike, laughing and smiling, the tap, forehead bow, eye contact, touching, and childlike playfulness and proximity to name many.

Disk access and file systems

2008-08-25T03:23:00.000-07:00

Access to files stored on disks is a central feature of all operating systems. Computers store data on disks using files, which are structured in specific ways in order to allow for faster access, higher reliability, and to make better use out of the drive's available space. The specific way files are stored on a disk is called a file system, and enables files to have names and attributes. It also allows them to be stored in a hierarchy of directories or folders arranged in a directory tree.

Early operating systems generally supported a single type of disk drive and only one kind of file system. Early file systems were limited in their capacity, speed, and in the kinds of file names and directory structures they could use. These limitations often reflected limitations in the operating systems they were designed for, making it very difficult for an operating system to support more than one file system.

While many simpler operating systems support a limited range of options for accessing storage systems, more modern operating systems like UNIX and Linux support a technology known as a virtual file system or VFS. A modern operating system like UNIX supports a wide array of storage devices, regardless of their design or file systems to be accessed through a common application programming interface (API). This makes it unnecessary for programs to have any knowledge about the device they are accessing. A VFS allows the operating system to provide programs with access to an unlimited number of devices with an infinite variety of file systems installed on them through the use of specific device drivers and file system drivers.

A connected storage device such as a hard drive will be accessed through a device driver. The device driver understands the specific language of the drive and is able to translate that language into a standard language used by the operating system to access all disk drives. On UNIX this is the language of block devices.

When the kernel has an appropriate device driver in place, it can then access the contents of the disk drive in raw format, which may contain one or more file systems. A file system driver is used to translate the commands used to access each specific file system into a standard set of commands that the operating system can use to talk to all file systems. Programs can then deal with these file systems on the basis of filenames, and directories/folders, contained within a hierarchical structure. They can create, delete, open, and close files, as well as gather various information about them, including access permissions, size, free space, and creation and modification dates.

Various differences between file systems make supporting all file systems difficult. Allowed characters in file names, case sensitivity, and the presence of various kinds of file attributes makes the implementation of a single interface for every file system a daunting task. While UNIX and Linux systems generally have support for a wide variety of file systems, proprietary operating systems such a Microsoft Windows tend to limit the user to using a single file system for each task. For example the Windows operating system can only be installed on FAT or NTFS, and CDs and DVDs can only be recorded using UDF or ISO 9660

Demographic profile

2008-08-19T03:07:00.000-07:00

A demographic or demographic profile is a term used in marketing and broadcasting, to describe a demographic grouping or a market segment. This typically involves age bands (as teenagers do not wish to purchase denture fixant), social class bands (as the rich may want different products than middle and lower classes and may be willing to pay more) and gender (partially because different physical attributes require different hygiene and clothing products, and partially because of the male/female mindsets).

A demographic profile can be used to determine when and where advertising should be placed so as to achieve maximum results. In all such cases, it is important that the advertiser get the most results for their money, and so careful research is done to match the demographic profile of the target market to the demographic profile of the advertising medium.

A good way to figure out the intended demographic of a television show, TV channel, or magazine is to study the ads that accompany it. For example, in the United States the television program The Price is Right most frequently airs from 11 a.m. to Noon. The commercials on it (besides the use of product placement in the show itself) are often for things like arthritis pain relievers and diapers. This indicates that the target demographics are senior citizens and parents with young children, both of which would be home at that time of day and see that show. Another example would be MTV, for it has many ads with digital audio players indicating that the channel is targeted to young adults and teenagers and/or fans of music.

DivX

2008-08-11T22:18:00.000-07:00

DivX is a brand name of products created by DivX, Inc. (formerly DivXNetworks, Inc.), including the DivX Codec which has become popular due to its ability to compress lengthy video segments into small sizes while maintaining relatively high visual quality. The DivX codec uses lossy MPEG-4 Part 2 compression, also known as MPEG-4 ASP, where quality is balanced against file size for utility. It is one of several codecs commonly associated with "ripping", whereby audio and video multimedia are transferred to a hard disk and transcoded. Many newer "DivX Certified" DVD players are able to play DivX encoded movies, although the Qpel and global motion compensation features are often omitted to reduce processing requirements. They are also excluded from the base DivX encoding profiles for compatibility reasons.

The "DivX" brand is distinct from "DIVX" (Digital Video Express), an unrelated attempt by the U.S. retailer Circuit City to develop a DVD rental system requiring special discs and players. The winking emoticon in the early "DivX ;-)" codec name was a tongue-in-cheek reference to the failed DIVX system. The DivX company then adopted the name of the popular DivX ;-) codec (which was not created by them), dropped the smiley and released DivX 4.0, which was actually the first DivX version (that is, DivX ;-) and DivX are two different things created by different people, the former is not an older version of the latter). The DivX name is its trademark. It is pronounced DIV-ex.

Sporophyte

2008-08-04T04:24:00.000-07:00

All land plants, and some algae, have life cycles in which a haploid gametophyte generation alternates with a diploid sporophyte, the generation of a plant or alga that has a double set of chromosomes. A multicellular sporophyte generation or phase is present in the life cycle of all land plants and in some green algae. For common flowering plants (Angiosperms), the sporophyte generation comprises almost their whole life cycle (i.e. whole green plant, roots etc), except phases of small reproductive structures (pollen and ovule).

The sporophyte produces spores (hence the name), by meiosis. These meiospores develop into a gametophyte. Both the spores and the resulting gametophyte are haploid, meaning they only have one set of homologous chromosomes. The mature gametophyte produces male or female gametes (or both) by mitosis. The fusion of male and female gametes produces a diploid zygote which develops into a new sporophyte. This cycle is known as alternation of generations or alternation of phases.

n the normal course of events, the zygote and sporophyte will have a full double set of chromosomes again. An exception is when a diploid and haploid gamete fuse, resulting in a triploid sporophyte, which will usually be sterile, as dividing three sets of chromosomes into two halves causes complications.

Bryophytes (mosses, liverworts and hornworts) have a dominant gametophyte stage on which the adult sporophyte is dependent on the gametophyte for nutrition. The embryo of the sporophyte develops from the zygote within the female sex organ or archegonium, and in its early development is therefore nurtured by the gametophyte. Because this embryo-nurturing feature of the life cycle is common to all land plants they are known collectively as the Embryophytes.
Most algae have dominant gametophyte generations, but in some species the gametophytes and sporophytes are morphologically similar (isomorphic). An independent sporophyte is the dominant form in all clubmosses, horsetails, ferns, gymnosperms, and angiosperms (flowering plants) that have survived to the present day. Early land plants had sporophytes that produced identical spores (isosporous or homosporous) but the ancestors of the gymnosperms evolved complex heterosporous life cycles in which the spores producing male and female gametophytes were of different sizes, the female megaspores tending to be larger, and fewer in number, than the male microspores.

During the Devonian period several plant groups independently evolved heterospory and subsequently the habit of endospory, in which single megaspores were retained within the sporangia of the parent sporophyte, instead of being freely liberated into the environment as in ancestral exosporous plants. These endosporic megaspores contained within them a miniature multicellular female gametophyte complete with female sex organs or archegonia containing oocytes which were fertilised by free-swimming sperm produced by windborne miniatuarised male gametophytes in the form of pre-pollen. The resulting zygote developed into the next sporophyte generation while still retained within the pre-ovule, the single large female meiospore or megaspore contained in the modified sporangium or nucellus of the parent sporophyte. The evolution of heterospory and endospory were among the earliest steps in the evolution of seeds of the kind produced by gymnosperms and angiosperms today.

The notion of freedom

2008-07-28T03:43:00.000-07:00

This new idea implied a new concept of human freedom, i.e. people independently making their own lives using their own judgment. Initially, this concept appeared rather paradoxical; thus, Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote, "People are born free, but are everywhere in chains". A big breakthrough was the French Revolution of 1789, which inspired a lot of new philosophical thought. In the philosophy of the German thinker Hegel, history radically recasts itself as the continual development of humanity towards ever-greater freedom, continually extending the limits of freedom. This philosophy is still religious and mystical however, insofar as Hegel sees history as culminating in the unity of God with the world, but at the same time, Hegel also affirmed and imputed a Logos or teleology to human history, and fully recognized that both evolutionary and revolutionary transformations took place in history. This was a hopeful philosophy, which in a rational way sees real progress occurring in history.

It was possible to detect human advances, as well as human regressions to an earlier state. In Hegel’s view, if something existed, it was rational. If it passed out of existence, that was because it had become irrational. This contained a very important idea, however poorly expressed, namely that history was not a fluke of fate (a kismet) but that it could be rationally understood ,’’ at least in principle.

Old Kingdom

2008-07-21T00:27:00.000-07:00

The Old Kingdom is the name commonly given to that period in the 3rd millennium BC when Egypt attained its first continuous peak of civilization in complexity and achievement – this was the first of three so-called "Kingdom" periods, which mark the high points of civilization in the lower Nile Valley (the others being Middle Kingdom and the New Kingdom).

The term itself was coined by nineteenth century historians and the distinction between the Old Kingdom and the Early Dynastic Period is not one which would have been recognized by Ancient Egyptians. Not only was the last king of the Early Dynastic Period related to the first two kings of the Old Kingdom, but the 'capital', the royal residence, remained at Ineb-Hedg, the Ancient Egyptian name for Memphis. The basic justification for a separation between the two periods is the revolutionary change in architecture accompanied by the effects on Egyptian society and economy of large-scale building projects.

The Old Kingdom is most commonly regarded as spanning the period of time when Egypt was ruled by the Third Dynasty through to the Sixth Dynasty (2686 BC – 2134 BC). Many Egyptologists also include the Memphite Seventh and Eighth Dynasties in the Old Kingdom as a continuation of the administration centralized at Memphis. The Old Kingdom was followed by a period of disunity and relative cultural decline referred to by Egyptologists as the First Intermediate Period.

The royal capital of Egypt during the Old Kingdom was located at Memphis, where Djoser established his court. The Old Kingdom is perhaps best known, however, for the large number of pyramids, which were constructed at this time as pharaonic burial places. For this reason, the Old Kingdom is frequently referred to as "the Age of the Pyramids."

Phenotypic variation

2008-07-15T01:00:00.000-07:00

Phenotypic variation (due to underlying heritable genetic variation) is a fundamental prerequisite for evolution by natural selection. It is the living organism as a whole that contributes (or not) to the next generation, so natural selection affects the genetic structure of a population indirectly via the contribution of phenotypes. Without phenotypic variation, there would be no evolution by natural selection.

The interaction between genotype and phenotype has often been conceptualized by the following relationship:

genotype + environment → phenotype

A slightly more nuanced version of the relationships is:

genotype + environment + random-variation → phenotype

Genotypes often have great flexibility in the modification and expression of phenotypes, in many organisms these phenotypes are very different under varying environmental conditions. The plant Hieracium umbellatum is found growing in two different habitats in Sweden. One habitat is rocky, sea-side cliffs, where the plants are bushy with broad leaves and expanded inflorescences; the other is among sand dunes where the plants grow prostrate with narrow leaves and compact inflorescences. These habitats alternate along the coast of Sweden and the habitat that the seeds of Hieracium umbellatum land in, determine the phenotype that grows.[4]

An example of random variation in Drosophila flies is the number of ommatidia, which may vary (randomly) between left and right eyes in a single individual as much as they do between different genotypes overall, or between clones raised in different environments.

A phenotype is any detectable characteristic of an organism (i.e., structural, biochemical, physiological, and behavioral) determined by an interaction between its genotype and environment (of this distinction).

According to the autopoietic notion of living systems by Humberto Maturana, the phenotype is epigenetically being constructed throughout ontogeny, and we as observers make the distinctions that define any particular trait at any particular state of the organism's life cycle.

The idea of the phenotype has been generalized by Richard Dawkins in The Extended Phenotype to mean all the effects a gene has on the outside world that may influence its chances of being replicated. These can be effects on the organism in which the gene resides, the environment, or other organisms. For instance, a beaver dam might be considered a phenotype of beaver genes, the same way beaver's powerful incisor teeth are phenotype expressions of their genes. Dawkins also cites the effect of an organism on the behaviour of another organism, such as the devoted nurturing of a cuckoo by a parent clearly of a different species as an example of the extended phenotype.

The concept of phenotype can be extended to variations below the level of the gene that affect an organism's fitness. For example, silent mutations that do not change the corresponding amino acid sequence of a gene may change the frequency of guanine-cytosine base pairs (GC content). These base pairs have a higher thermal stability (melting point, see also DNA-DNA hybridization) than adenine-thymine, a property that might convey, among organisms living in high-temperature environments, a selective advantage on variants enriched in GC content.

Oldowan

2008-07-06T23:28:00.000-07:00

Oldowan (earlier spelled Olduwan or sometimes Oldawan) is an anthropological designation for an industrial complex of stone tools used by prehistoric hominins of the Lower Paleolithic. The Oldowan is the first known industrial complex in prehistory. It takes its name from Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, where many Oldowan tools have been discovered. In the current archaeological technical chronology the Oldowan is also called "mode one" preceding "mode two," or Acheulean technology.

Sometimes Oldowan tools are called "core tools," "pebble tools," or "choppers." These terms have generally been abandoned because they are not accurate or apply to more than one tradition. Oldowan tools are not necessarily cores, pebbles, or bifaces, and comprise more than hand-axes; moreover, those terms could apply equally to Acheulean tools, whereas "Oldowan" is more specific.

Oldowan tool use is estimated to have begun about 2.5 million years ago (mya), lasting to as late as 0.5 mya. For about 1 million years exclusively Oldowan sites are found. After 1.5 mya. Acheulean sites make their appearance in the archaeological record, but this does not mean Oldowan sites are no longer found. It is thought that Oldowan tools were produced by several species of hominins ranging from Australopithecus to early Homo.

"Oldowan" therefore does not properly refer to a culture, but to a very simple tradition of tool manufacture that was in use for a long time.

Gene

2008-06-29T22:55:00.000-07:00

A gene is a locatable region of genomic sequence, corresponding to a unit of inheritance, which is associated with regulatory regions, transcribed regions and/or other functional sequence regions. The physical development and phenotype of organisms can be thought of as a product of genes interacting with each other and with the environment.A concise definition of a gene, taking into account complex patterns of regulation and transcription, genic conservation and non-coding RNA genes, has been proposed by Gerstein et al. "A gene is a union of genomic sequences encoding a coherent set of potentially overlapping functional products".
Colloquially, the term gene is often used to refer to an inheritable trait which is usually accompanied by a phenotype as in ("tall genes" or "bad genes") -- the proper scientific term for this is allele.

In cells, genes consist of a long strand of DNA that contains a promoter, which controls the activity of a gene, and coding and non-coding sequence. Coding sequence determines what the gene produces, while non-coding sequence can regulate the conditions of gene expression. When a gene is active, the coding and non-coding sequence is copied in a process called transcription, producing an RNA copy of the gene's information. This RNA can then direct the synthesis of proteins via the genetic code. But some RNAs are used directly, for example as part of the ribosome. These molecules resulting from gene expression, whether RNA or protein, are known as gene products.

Genes often contain regions that do not encode products, but regulate gene expression. The genes of eukaryotic organisms can contain regions called introns that are removed from the messenger RNA in a process called splicing. The regions encoding gene products are called exons. In eukaryotes, a single gene can encode multiple proteins, which are produced through the creation of different arrangements of exons through alternative splicing. In prokaryotes (bacteria and archaea), introns are less common and genes often contain a single uninterrupted stretch of DNA, called a cistron, that codes for a product. Prokaryotic genes are often arranged in groups called operons with promoter and operator sequences that regulate transcription of a single long RNA. This RNA contains multiple coding sequences. Each coding sequence is preceded by a Shine-Dalgarno sequence that ribosomes recognize.
The total set of genes in an organism is known as its genome. An organism's genome size is generally lower in prokaryotes, both in number of base pairs and number of genes, than even single-celled eukaryotes. However, there is no clear relationship between genome sizes and complexity in eukaryotic organisms. One of the largest known genomes belongs to the single-celled amoeba Amoeba dubia, with over 670 billion base pairs, some 200 times larger than the human genome. The estimated number of genes in the human genome has been repeatedly revised downward since the completion of the Human Genome Project; current estimates place the human genome at just under 3 billion base pairs and about 20,000–25,000 protein-coding genes, with a article from 2007 giving a number of 20,488 plus perhaps 100 more yet to be discovered. The gene density of a genome is a measure of the number of genes per million base pairs (called a megabase, Mb); prokaryotic genomes have much higher gene densities than eukaryotes. The gene density of the human genome is roughly 12–15 genes per megabase pair.

Albinism

2008-06-29T22:49:00.000-07:00

Albinism (from Latin albus, "white"; see extended etymology) is a form of hypopigmentary congenital disorder, characterized by a partial (in hypomelanism, also known as hypomelanosis) or total (amelanism or amelanosis) lack of melanin pigment in the eyes, skin and hair (or more rarely the eyes alone). Albinism results from inheritance of recessive alleles. The condition is known to affect mammals (including humans), reptiles, and amphibians. While the most common term for an organism affected by albinism is "albino" (noun and adjective), the word is sometimes used in derogatory ways towards people; more neutral terms are "albinistic" (adjective) and "person with albinism" (noun). Additional clinical adjectives sometimes used to refer to animals are "albinoid" and "albinic".

Embryophyte

2008-06-22T23:34:00.000-07:00

The embryophytes are the most familiar group of plants. They include trees, flowers, ferns, mosses, and various other green land plants. All are complex multicellular eukaryotes with specialized reproductive organs. With very few exceptions, embryophytes obtain their energy through photosynthesis (that is, by absorbing light); and they synthesize their food from carbon dioxide. Embryophyta may be distinguished from chlorophyll-using multicellular algae by having sterile tissue within the reproductive organs. Furthermore, embryophytes are primarily adapted for life on land, although some are secondarily aquatic. Accordingly, they are often called land plants or terrestrial plants.

Embryophytes developed from complex green algae (Chlorophyta) during the Paleozoic era. The Charales or stoneworts appear to be the best living illustration of that developmental step. These alga-like plants undergo an alternation between haploid and diploid generations (respectively called gametophytes and sporophytes). In the first embryophytes, however, the sporophytes became very different in structure and function, remaining small and dependent on the parent for their entire brief life. Such plants are informally called 'bryophytes'. They include three surviving groups:

Bryophyta (mosses)

Anthocerotophyta (hornworts)

Marchantiophyta (liverworts)

All of the above 'bryophytes' are relatively small and are usually confined to moist environments, relying on water to disperse their spores. Other plants, better adapted to terrestrial conditions, appeared during the Silurian period. During the Devonian period, they diversified and spread to many different land environments, becoming the vascular plants or tracheophytes. Tracheophyta have vascular tissues or tracheids, which transport water throughout the body, and an outer layer or cuticle that resists drying out. In most vascular plants, the sporophyte is the dominant individual, and develops true leaves, stems, and roots, while the gametophyte remains very small.

Many vascular plants, however, still disperse using spores. They include two extant groups:

Lycopodiophyta (clubmosses)

Pteridophyta (ferns, whisk ferns, and horsetails)

Other groups, which first appeared towards the end of the Paleozoic era, reproduce using desiccation-resistant capsules called seeds. These groups are accordingly called spermatophytes or seed plants. In these forms, the gametophyte is completely reduced, taking the form of single-celled pollen and ova, while the sporophyte begins its life enclosed within the seed. Some seed plants may even survive in extremely arid conditions, unlike their more water-bound precursors. The seed plants include the following extant groups:

Cycadophyta (cycads)

Ginkgophyta (ginkgo)

Pinophyta (conifers)

Gnetophyta (gnetae)

Magnoliophyta (flowering plants)

The first four groups are referred to as gymnosperms, since the embryonic sporophyte is not enclosed until after pollination. In contrast, among the flowering plants or angiosperms, the pollen has to grow a tube to penetrate the seed coat. Angiosperms were the last major group of plants to appear, developing from gymnosperms during the Jurassic period, and then spreading rapidly during the Cretaceous. They are the predominant group of plants in most terrestrial biomes today.

Note that the higher-level classification of plants varies considerably. Some authors have restricted the kingdom Plantae to include only embryophytes, others have given them various names and ranks. The groups listed here are often considered divisions or phyla, but have also been treated as classes, and they are occasionally compressed into as few as two divisions. Some classifications, indeed, consider the term Embryophyta at the superphylum (superdivision) level, and include Land Plants and some Charophyceae in a subkingdom named Streptophyta.

On a microscopic level, embryophyte cells remain very similar to those of green algae. They are eukaryotic, with a cell wall composed of cellulose and plastids surrounded by two membranes. These usually take the form of chloroplasts, which conduct photosynthesis and store food in the form of starch, and characteristically are pigmented with chlorophylls a and b, generally giving them a bright green color. Embryophytes also generally have an enlarged central vacuole or tonoplast, which maintains cell turgor and keeps the plant rigid. They lack flagella and centrioles except in certain gametes.

Application-specific integrated circuit

2008-06-15T23:33:00.000-07:00

An application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) is an integrated circuit (IC) customized for a particular use, rather than intended for general-purpose use. For example, a chip designed solely to run a cell phone is an ASIC.
In contrast, the 7400 series and 4000 series integrated circuits are logic building blocks that can be wired together for use in many different applications. Intermediate between ASICs and standard products are application specific standard products (ASSPs).

As feature sizes have shrunk and design tools improved over the years, the maximum complexity (and hence functionality) possible in an ASIC has grown from 5,000 gates to over 100 million. Modern ASICs often include entire 32-bit processors, memory blocks including ROM, RAM, EEPROM, Flash and other large building blocks. Such an ASIC is often termed a SoC (System-on-a-chip). Designers of digital ASICs use a hardware description language (HDL), such as Verilog or VHDL, to describe the functionality of ASICs.

Field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA) are the modern day equivalent of 7400 series logic and a breadboard, containing programmable logic blocks and programmable interconnects that allow the same FPGA to be used in many different applications. For smaller designs and/or lower production volumes, FPGAs may be more cost effective than an ASIC design. The Non-recurring engineering cost (the cost to set up the factory to produce a particular ASIC) can run into the millions of dollars.

The general term application specific integrated circuit includes FPGAs, but most designers use ASIC only for non field programmable devices (e.g. standard cell or sea of gates) and make a distinction between ASIC and FPGAs.

Breakbeat

2008-06-08T23:54:00.000-07:00

This article is about the electronic dance music genre. For the technique and the meaning of the term with hip-hop and funk music, see Break (music). For the record label, see Breakbeat Kaos

Breakbeat (sometimes breakbeats or breaks) is a term used to describe a collection of sub-genres of electronic music, usually characterized by the use of a non-straightened 4/4 drum pattern (as opposed to the steady beat of house or trance). These rhythms may be characterised by their intensive use of syncopation and polyrhythms.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, hip-hop DJs (starting with Kool DJ Herc) began using several breaks (the part of a funk or jazz song in which the music "breaks" to let the rhythm section play unaccompanied) in a row to use as the rhythmic basis for hip-hop songs. Kool DJ Herc's breakbeat style was to play the same record on two turntables and play the break repeatedly by alternating between the two records (letting one play while spinning the second record back to the beginning of the break). This style was copied and improved upon by early hip hop DJs Afrika Bambaataa and Grand Wizard Theodore.[1] This style was extremely popular in clubs and dance halls because the extended breakbeat was the perfect backdrop for breakdancers to show their skills.

Human Systemic circulation

2008-06-02T00:20:00.000-07:00

Systemic circulation is the portion of the cardiovascular system which carries oxygenated blood away from the heart, to the body, and returns deoxygenated blood back to the heart.

Arteries always take blood away from the heart, regardless of their oxygenation, and veins always bring blood back. In general, arteries bring oxygenated blood to the tissues; veins bring deoxygenated blood back to the heart. In the case of the pulmonary vessels, however, the oxygenation is reversed: the pulmonary artery takes deoxygenated blood from the heart to the lungs, and oxygenated blood is pumped back through the pulmonary vein to the heart. As blood circulates through the body, oxygen and nutrients diffuse from the blood into cells surrounding the capillaries, and carbon dioxide diffuses into the blood from the capillary cells.

The release of oxygen from red blood cells or erythrocytes is regulated in mammals. It increases with an increase of carbon dioxide in tissues, an increase in temperature, or a decrease in pH. Such characteristics are exhibited by tissues undergoing high metabolism, as they require increased levels of oxygen.

Precursors

2008-05-28T00:48:00.000-07:00

The precursor to GUIs was invented by researchers at the Stanford Research Institute, led by Douglas Engelbart. They developed the use of text-based hyperlinks manipulated with a mouse for the On-Line System. The concept of hyperlinks was further refined and extended to graphics by researchers at Xerox PARC, who went beyond text-based hyperlinks and used a GUI as the primary interface for the Xerox Alto computer. Most modern general-purpose GUIs are derived from this system. As a result, some people call this class of interface a PARC User Interface (PUI) (note that PUI is also an acronym for perceptual user interface).

Ivan Sutherland developed a pointer-based system called Sketchpad in 1963. It used a light-pen to guide the creation and manipulation of objects in engineering drawings.

Understanding the Context

2008-05-27T07:32:00.001-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

Overview of the Click Thinking Pack

2008-05-22T08:00:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

BACK TO SCHOOL SAFETY ALERT:

2008-05-07T04:50:00.001-07:00

CPSC Urges Bicyclists to Wear Helmets

CPSC Document #5002

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All-Terrain Vehicle Safety

2008-04-28T05:57:00.001-07:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

Never drive an ATV on paved roads.

Never drive while under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

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

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

J-Hook Shaped Stake style (Anchor Types)

2008-04-21T06:24:00.001-07:00

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

Anchoring/Securing/Counterweighing Guidelines

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

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

B.C.-Canada Place officially closes doors

2008-03-30T19:43:00.000-07:00

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

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

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

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

Kent Kickin' Mini-Scooters

2008-03-24T05:59:00.001-07:00

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

Trampoline Safety Alert

2008-03-17T06:51:00.001-07:00

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

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

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

Accumulator

2008-03-10T04:14:00.000-07:00

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

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

Semiconductor

2008-02-25T02:20:00.000-08:00

A semiconductor is a solid material that has electrical conductivity in between that of a conductor and that of an insulator; it can vary over that wide range either permanently or dynamically. Semiconductors are tremendously important in technology. Semiconductor devices, electronic components made of semiconductor materials, are essential in modern electrical devices. Examples range from computers to cellular phones to digital audio players. Silicon is used to create most semiconductors commercially, but dozens of other materials are used as well.

Professional engineer

2008-02-17T22:28:00.000-08:00

Engineers typically require a type of professional certification, such as satisfying certain education requirements and passing an examination to become a professional engineer. These certifications are usually nationally regulated and registered, but there are also cases of self-governing bodies, such as the Canadian Association of Professional Engineers. In many cases, carrying the title of "Professional Engineer" is legally protected.

As BME is an emerging field, professional certifications are not as standard and uniform as they are for other engineering fields. For example, the Fundamentals of Engineering exam in the U.S. does not include a biomedical engineering section, though it does cover biology. Biomedical engineers often simply possess a university degree as their qualification. However, some countries, such as Australia, do regulate biomedical engineers, however registration is typically only recommended and not required.

A general view on Mainframe computer

2007-11-14T22:24:00.001-08:00

Mainframes (often colloquially known to as big iron) are large and "expensive" computers used largely by government institutions and large companies for mission important applications, typically mass data processing such as censuses, ERP, industry/consumer statistics, and financial transaction processing.

The word originated during the near the beginning 1970s with the introduction of smaller, less difficult computers for example the DEC PDP-8 and PDP-11 series, which became recognized as minicomputers or just minis. The industry/users then coined the word "mainframe" to describe bigger, earlier types (before known simply as "computers").

Mainframes often maintain thousands of simultaneous users who gain right of entry through "dumb" terminals or terminal emulation. Early mainframes either supported this timesharing mode or operated in batch mode where users had no straight access to the computing service, it exclusively providing back office functions. At this time mainframes were so called for the reason that of their very substantial size and requirements for specialized HVAC and electrical power. Nowadays mainframes support right of entry via any user interface, including the Web. Blade servers rather than mainframes are currently increasingly requiring "exotic" cooling technologies.

Types of Boxes

2007-11-04T22:13:00.000-08:00

Permanent Boxes

Numerous types of boxes are used in eternal installations. Some types are designed to be for the time being inhabited by workers.
Permanent boxes include the following:
Equipment boxes - Fuse box
Compartments - Luxury box , Mailbox
Shelters or booths - Police box , Signal box , Telephone box

Permanent boxes
Numerous types of boxes are used in stable installations. Some types are designed to be provisionally inhabited by workers.

The real facts about Uranus

2007-10-28T21:15:00.000-07:00

Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun and the third biggest (by diameter). Uranus is bigger in diameter but smaller in mass than Neptune. Uranus is composed mainly of rock and various ices, with only about 15% hydrogen and a little helium (in compare to Jupiter and Saturn which are mostly hydrogen). Uranus (and Neptune) is in numerous ways alike to the cores of Jupiter and Saturn minus the huge liquid metallic hydrogen envelope. It appears that Uranus does not have a stony core like Jupiter and Saturn but rather that its material is more or less consistently distributed.

Like the other gas planets, Uranus has bands of clouds that carry around rapidly. But they are very faint, visible only with radical image improvement of the Voyager 2 pictures (right). Recent observations with HST (left) show bigger and more pronounced streaks. Additional HST observations show even more activity. Uranus is no longer the ordinary boring planet that Voyager saw! It now seems understandable that the differences are due to seasonal effects since the Sun is now at lesser Uranian latitude which may because more pronounced day/night weather effects. By 2007 the Sun will be unswervingly over Uranus's equator.

Like the additional gas planets, Uranus has rings. Like Jupiter's, they are extremely dark but like Saturn's they are composed of quite large particles ranging up to 10 meters in diameter additionally to fine dust. There are 11 recognized rings, all very faint; the brightest is identified as the Epsilon ring. The Uranian rings were the first after Saturn's to be discovered. This was of great importance since we now know that rings are a common feature of planets, not a peculiarity of Saturn alone. Uranus' fascinating field is odd in that it is not centered on the center of the planet and is tilted almost 60 degrees with respect to the axis of rotary motion. It is almost certainly generated by motion at relatively shallow depths within Uranus.

The real facts about Neptune

2007-10-26T02:06:00.000-07:00

Neptune is the eighth planet from the Sun and the fourth largest (by diameter) of the planet. Neptune is smaller in diameter but bigger in mass than Uranus. Neptune's composition is almost certainly alike to Uranus': various "ices" and rock with about 15% hydrogen and a little helium. Like Uranus, but unlike Jupiter and Saturn, it can not have a distinct internal layering but rather to be more or less uniform in composition. But there is most expected a small core (about the mass of the Earth) of rock-strewn material. Its atmosphere is generally hydrogen and helium with a minute amount of methane.

Neptune's blue color is mainly the result of absorption of red light by methane in the atmosphere but there is a number of additional as-yet-unidentified chromophore which gives the clouds their rich blue tint. Like Jupiter and Saturn, Neptune has an inner heat source -- it radiates more than, twice as much energy as it receives from the Sun.

Neptune also has rings. Earth-based observations showed just faint arcs rather than complete rings, but Voyager 2's images showed them to be entire rings with bright clumps. One of the rings looks to have a curious twisted structure (right). Like Uranus and Jupiter, Neptune's rings are extremely dark but their composition is unknown.

Neptune's rings have been noted names: the outermost is Adams (which contains three important arcs now named Liberty, Equality and Fraternity), next is an unnamed ring co-orbital with Galatea, then Leverrier (whose outer extensions are called Lassell and Arago), and lastly the faint but broad Galle. Neptune's magnetic field is, like Uranus', oddly oriented and most likely generated by motions of conductive material (probably water) in its middle layers.

Cookie

2007-10-16T20:37:00.000-07:00

In the United States and Canada, a cookie is a tiny, round, flat cake. In most English-speaking countries outer North America, the most common word for this is biscuit; in many regions both terms are used, while in others the two words have diverse meanings—a cookie is a bun in Scotland, while in the United States a biscuit is a kind of quick bread not unlike a scone.

Cookies can be baked until crisp or just long enough that they stay soft. Depending on the kind of cookie, some cookies are not cooked at all. Cookies are made in a broad variety of styles, using an array of ingredients including sugars, spices, chocolate, butter, peanut butter, nuts or dried fruits. The smoothness of the cookie may depend on how long it is baked.

Mainframes

2007-10-08T22:48:00.000-07:00

Mainframes (often colloquially referred to as big iron) are huge and expensive computers used mainly by government institutions and large companies for mission critical applications, usually bulk data processing such as censuses, industry/consumer statistics, ERP, and financial transaction processing.
The term originated during the early 1970s with the introduction of smaller, fewer 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 bigger, earlier types (previously known simply as "computers").

Traffic Light

2007-09-23T23:19:00.000-07:00

A traffic light or traffic signal is a signalling device positioned at a road junction or pedestrian crossing to indicate when it is safe to drive, ride or walk, using a universal color code.Traffic lights for usual vehicles or pedestrians always have two main lights, a red one that means stop and a green one that means go. Generally, the red light contains some orange in its hue, and the green light contains some blue, to provide some support for people with red-green color blindness. In most countries there is also a yellow (or amber) light, which when on and not flashing means stop if able to do so securely. In some systems, a flashing amber means that a motorist may go in advance with care if the road is clear, giving way to pedestrians and to other road vehicles that may have precedence. A flashing red effectively means the same as a regular stop sign. There may be additional lights (usually a green arrow or "filter") to allow turns (called a lead light in the U.S., because it is usually leading the main green light).

Goshawk

2007-09-13T22:35:00.001-07:00

The Goshawk is an average large bird of quarry in the family Accipitridae which also includes many other diurnal raptors such as eagles, buzzards and harriers.

It is an extensive species all through the moderate parts of the northern hemisphere. In North America it is named as the Northern Goshawk. It is typically inhabitant, but birds from colder regions of north Asia and Canada journey south for the winter.

Goshawk in flight this species nests in trees, building a new nest each year. It hunts birds and mammals in woodland, relying on revelation as it flies from a perch or hedge-hops to catch its quarry ignorant. Animals as large as hares and Pheasant are taken. Its call is a ferocious screech. Many older goshawks reject to attack hares, if it was earlier seriously kicked by a hare which it tried to catch.

This bird is a raptor with short large wings and a long tail, both adaptations to maneuvering through trees. The male is blue-grey above and banned grey below, 49-56 cm long with a 93-105 cm wingspan. The much larger female is 58-64 cm long with a 108-127 cm wingspan, slate grey above grey below. The youthful is brown above and barred brown below. The flight is a characteristic "slow flap – slow flap – straight glide".

In Eurasia, the male is confusable with a female Sparrow hawk, but is superior, much bulkier and has moderately longer wings. In spring, he has an impressive roller-coaster display, and this is the best time to see this enigmatic forest bird.

Goshawk

2007-09-13T22:35:00.000-07:00

Tumor

2007-09-05T23:43:00.001-07:00

Tumor or tumour is an irregular growth or mass of tissue. A tumor can be either malignant or benign. Almost all tumors are examples of neoplasia, although certain developmental malformations or inflammatory masses may occasionally be referred to as tumors.

Neoplastic tumors are caused by mutations in DNA of cells, which interfere with a cell's capability to regulate and limit cell division. An accumulation of mutations is needed for a tumor to emerge. Mutations that activate oncogenes or repress tumor suppressor genes can eventually lead to tumors. Cells have mechanisms that repair DNA and other mechanisms that cause the cell to destroy itself by apoptosis if DNA damage gets too severe. Mutations that repress the genes for these mechanisms can also ultimately guide to cancer. A mutation in one oncogene or one tumor repressor gene is usually not enough for a tumor to occur. A combination of a number of mutations is essential.

Microcomputer

2007-08-21T22:22:00.000-07:00

A microcomputer is mainly often taken to mean a computer with a microprocessor (µP) as its CPU. Another general characteristic of these computers is that they take up physically small amounts of space.Desktop computers, video game consoles, laptop computers, tablet PCs, and a lot of handheld devices may all be considered examples of microcomputers.Most microcomputers serve only a single user at a time, but some, in the form of PCs and workstations running e.g. a UNIX(-like) operating system, may cater to a number of users concurrently. The µP does the majority of the job of calculating on and manipulating data that all computers do.

Salad

2007-08-13T20:23:00.001-07:00

Salad is a light meal — or, as part of a larger meal, much more of an taster — consisting of mixed vegetables (usually including at least one leaf vegetable) or fruit, frequently with a dressing or sauce, occasionally nuts and sometimes with the addition of meat, fish or cheese. It is generally seen as a healthy dish, although not always low in calories, salt, sugar, or fat because of the dressing that is often added.The word "salad" comes from the French salade of the same meaning, which in twist is from the Latin salata, "salty", from sal, "salt".

Traffic Claming

2007-07-30T00:53:00.000-07:00

Traffic calming is a set of strategies used by urban planners and traffic engineers which aims to slow down traffic and get better safety for pedestrians and bicyclists, although some of these features can also be hazardous to cyclists. It is now comparatively common in Europe, especially Northern Europe; less so in North America.Traffic calming has conventionally been justified on the grounds of pedestrian safety and reduction of noise and local air pollution which are side effects of the traffic. However, it has become more and more apparent that streets have many social and recreational functions which are severely impaired by fast car traffic. For much of the twentieth century, streets were designed by engineers who were charged only with ensuring traffic flow and not with development other functions of streets. The rationale for traffic reassuring is now broadening to include designing for these functions.

Lighthouse of Alexandria

2007-07-22T23:23:00.000-07:00

The Pharos of Alexandria was a big tower built in the 3rd century BC (between 285 and 247 BC) on the island of Pharos in Alexandria, Egypt to give out as that port's landmark, and later, its lighthouse.

With a height variously estimated at between 115 and 150 meters (383 - 450 ft) it was among the tallest man-made structures on Earth for many centuries, and was recognized as one of the Seven Wonders of the World by Antipater of Sidon. It was the third tallest building after the two Great Pyramids (of Khufu and Khafra) for its whole life. Some scientists approximate a much taller height exceeding 180 metres that would make the tower the tallest building up to the 14th century.

Bay of Bengal

2007-07-15T22:14:00.001-07:00

The Bay of Bengal is a bay that forms the northeastern ingredient of the Indian Ocean. It resembles a triangle in form, and is bordered on the east by Malay Peninsula, and on the west by India. On the northern pour of the "bay" lies the Bengal region, comprising the Indian state of West Bengal and the country of Bangladesh, thus the name. The southern extremes arrive at the island country of Sri Lanka, and the Indian Union Territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

The Bay of Bengal occupies an region of 2,172,000 km². It is bounded by India and Sri Lanka to the West, Bangladesh to the North, and Myanmar and the southern part of Thailand to the East. Its southern border extends as an imaginary line from Dondra Head at the southern end of Sri Lanka to the northern tip of Sumatra. A number of huge rivers – Ganges, Brahmaputra, Irrawaddy, Godavari, Mahanadi, Krishna and Cauvery – flow into the Bay of Bengal. Among the vital ports are Yangon, Kolkata/Calcutta, Chittagong, Cuddalore, Kakinada, Machlipatnam, Madras, Paradip and Vishakapatnam.

Marketing

2007-07-09T21:41:00.000-07:00

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

CPU Socket

2007-07-05T22:23:00.001-07:00

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

Swan

2007-07-01T22:09:00.000-07:00

Swans are large water birds of the family Anatidae, which also includes geese and ducks. Swans are grouped with the intimately related geese in the subfamily Anserinae where they form the tribe Cygnini. Sometimes, they are considered a distinct subfamily, Cygninae.

Swans typically mate for life, though "divorce" does sometimes occur, mainly following nesting failure. The number of eggs in each clutch is between 3–8.
The word is derived from Old English swan, akin to German Schwan, in turn derived from Indo-European root *swen (to sound, to sing), whence Latin derives sonus (sound). Young swans are known as cygnets, from the Latin word for swan, cygnus. An adult male is a cob, from Middle English cobbe; an adult female is a pen .

RISC (reduced instruction set computer)

2007-06-27T21:50:00.001-07:00

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

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

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

Neem cake

2007-06-24T22:03:00.001-07:00

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

Tide

2007-06-19T22:10:00.001-07:00

Tides are the cyclic rising and falling of Earth's ocean surface caused by the tidal forces of the Moon and the sun acting on the oceans. Tides cause changes in the depth of the marine and estuarine water bodies and produce oscillating currents known as tidal streams, making prediction of tides important for coastal navigation. The strip of seashore that is submerged at high tide and exposed at low tide, the intertidal zone, is an important ecological product of ocean tides
The changing tide produced at a given location is the result of the changing positions of the Moon and Sun relative to the Earth coupled with the effects of Earth rotation and the local bathymetry.Sea level measured by coastal tide gauges may also be strongly affected by wind. More generally, tidal phenomena can occur in other systems besides the ocean, whenever a gravitational field that varies in time and space is present

Canoe

2007-06-15T22:29:00.001-07:00

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

Canoe

2007-06-15T22:29:00.000-07:00

Krill fishery

2007-06-11T22:41:00.001-07:00

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

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

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

Deadheading

2007-06-07T22:40:00.001-07:00

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

Fire

2007-06-01T23:29:00.000-07:00

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.

JAR

2007-05-28T23:15:00.001-07:00

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

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

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

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

Such JAR files are typically started with a command similar to

java -jar foo.jar

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

Nutrition

2007-05-24T22:28:00.000-07:00

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

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

Organization in sociology

2007-05-20T21:49:00.001-07:00

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

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

Stamp Collecting

2007-05-15T22:11:00.000-07:00

Stamp collecting is the collecting of postage stamps and related objects, such as. It is one of the world's most trendy hobbies, with estimates of the number of collectors ranging up to 20 million in the US alone.
Collecting is not the similar as philately, which is the study of stamps. A philatelist often does, but need not, collect the objects of study, nor is it required to closely study what one collects. Many informal collectors enjoy accumulating stamps without worrying about the tiny details, but the creation of a large or wide-ranging collection generally requires some philatelic knowledge.
History
The primary postage stamp, the One Penny Black, was issued by Britain in 1840. It pictured a young Queen Victoria, was formed without perforations, and accordingly had to be cut from the sheet with scissors in order to be used. While unused examples of the "Penny Black" are quite scarce, used examples are common, and may be purchased for $25 to $150, depending upon state.
Queen Victoria's outline was a staple on 19th century stamps of the British Empire; here on a half-penny of the Falkland Islands, 1891.During the late 1800s many of those collectors, now adults, began to systematically study the available postage stamps and published research works on their manufacture, plate flaws, etc.

Paint

2007-05-11T23:04:00.000-07:00

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