Friday, December 28, 2007

AIBO

(Artificial Intelligence roBOt, homonymous with "companion" in Japanese) is one of several types of robotic pets designed and manufactured by Sony; there have been several different models since their introduction in 1999. Able to walk, "see" its environment via camera, and recognize spoken commands, they are considered to be autonomous robots, since they are able to learn and mature based on external stimuli from their owner or environment, or from other AIBOs. Artist Hajime Sorayama created the initial designs for the AIBO.

On January 26, 2006 Sony announced that it would discontinue AIBO and several other products as of March, 2006. It will also stop development of the QRIO robot. AIBO will still be supported until 2013 (ERS7 model), however, and AIBO technology will continue to be developed for use in other consumer products. AIBOware (the name is a trademark of Sony corporation), is the title given to the software the AIBO runs on its pink Memory Stick. The Life AIBOware allows the robot to be raised from pup to fully grown adult while going through various stages of development as its owner interacts with it.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Computer networking

Computer networking is the engineering discipline concerned with communication between computer systems or devices. Networking, routers, routing protocols, and networking over the public Internet have their specifications defined in documents called RFCs. Computer networking is sometimes considered a sub-discipline of telecommunications, computer science, information technology and/or computer engineering. Computer networks rely heavily upon the theoretical and practical application of these scientific and engineering disciplines.

A computer network is any set of computers or devices connected to each other with the ability to exchange data.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

History of nanotechnology

The first use of the concepts in 'nano-technology' (but predating use of that name) was in "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom," a talk given by physicist Richard Feynman at an American Physical Society meeting at Caltech on December 29, 1959. Feynman described a process by which the ability to manipulate individual atoms and molecules might be developed, using one set of precise tools to build and operate another proportionally smaller set, so on down to the needed scale. In the course of this, he noted, scaling issues would arise from the changing magnitude of various physical phenomena: gravity would become less important, surface tension and Van der Waals attraction would become more important, etc.

This basic idea appears feasible, and exponential assembly enhances it with parallelism to produce a useful quantity of end products. The term "nanotechnology" was defined by Tokyo Science University Professor Norio Taniguchi in a 1974 paper (N. Taniguchi, "On the Basic Concept of 'Nano-Technology'," Proc. Intl. Conf. Prod. Eng. Tokyo, Part II, Japan Society of Precision Engineering, 1974.) as follows: "'Nano-technology' mainly consists of the processing of, separation, consolidation, and deformation of materials by one atom or by one molecule." In the 1980s the basic idea of this definition was explored in much more depth by Dr. K. Eric Drexler, who promoted the technological significance of nano-scale phenomena and devices through speeches and the books Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology (1986) and Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing, and Computation[2], and so the term acquired its current sense.

Thursday, December 06, 2007

Broadcast messages and paging

Practically every cellular system has some kind of broadcast mechanism. This can be used directly for distributing information to multiple mobiles, commonly, for example in mobile telephony systems, the most important use of broadcast information is to set up channels for one to one communication between the mobile transreceiver and the base station. This is called paging.

The details of the process of paging vary somewhat from network to network, but normally we know a limited number of cells where the phone is located (this group of cells is called a Location Area in the GSM or UMTS system, or Routing Area if a data packet session is involved). Paging takes place by sending the broadcast message to all of those cells. Paging messages can be used for information transfer. This happens in pagers, in CDMA systems for sending SMS messages, and in the UMTS system where it allows for low downlink latency in packet-based connections.

Our taxi network is a very good example here. The broadcast capability is often used to tell about road conditions and also to tell about work which is available to anybody. On the other hand, typically there is a list of taxis waiting for work. When a particular taxi comes up for work, the operator will call their number over the air. The taxi driver acknowledges that they are listening, then the operator reads out the address where the taxi driver has to go.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

What is Java bytecode?

Java bytecode is the form of instructions that the Java virtual machine executes. Every bytecode instruction is one byte in length (hence the name), therefore the number of bytecodes is limited to 256. Not all 256 probable bytecode values are used. Actually, Sun Microsystems, the inventive creators of the Java programming language, the Java virtual machine and the added components of the Java Runtime Environment, have set aside a number of values to be lastingly unimplemented.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

A short History of C Language

The C programming language was designed by the Dennis Ritchie in the near beginning 1970s at Bell Laboratories. It was first used system implementation language for the nascent or booming UNIX operating system. The most important explanation to devised C was to overcome the limitations of B. It was derivative from the type-less language BCPL ((Basic Combined Programming Language). C programming language was the advancement of B and BCPL by including type checking. It was initially intended for use in writing compilers for other languages.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

What do you mean by Superbike racing?

The Superbike racing is a category of motorcycle road racing that employs modified production motorcycles, in the same way that Touring car racing employs production cars. Numerous countries like USA, United Kingdom, Australia and Canada operate national superbike championships, and a World Superbike final has run since 1988.

The Superbike category is extremely popular with manufacturers. As the race bikes are built from production road bikes, the marketing price of a Superbike victory is important. The set of laws relating to how extensively the machine can be modified vary significantly in the various competitions. The AMA Superbike series agrees for substantial modification of the machine, together with modifying elements of the engine block. On the contrary, World Superbike is significantly stricter and since 2004 this series has as well featured a control Pirelli tire. Until then it was general for riders form domestic championships to enter their country's race as a wildcard - Makoto Tamada and Shane Byrne are amid many riders to beat the regulars in these one-off races, and both went on to greater success.

Thursday, November 01, 2007

Relay race Game

During a relay race, members of a group or team take turns swimming or running (generally with a baton) parts of a circuit or performing a certain action. The Relay races take the form of professional races and the amateur games. In the Olympic Games, there are lots of types of relay races that are part of track and field.

Based on the speed of the runners in relay, the generally accepted strategy used in setting up a 4 person relay team is: the second fastest, third fastest, slowest, then fastest (anchor). Each segment of the relay race is referred to as a leg.

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Speed limit and the Design speed for vehicle

A speed limit is the maximum speed allowable for vehicle by law on a road. The Speed limits are only peripherally connected to the intend speed of the road. In the United States, the plan speed is "a chosen speed used to determine the different geometric design features of the roadway" according to the 2001 AASHTO Green Book of the highway design manual. It has been altered from previous versions which considered it the "maximum secure speed that can be maintained over a definite section of highway when conditions are so positive that the design features of the highway govern."

The design speed has basically been discredited as an only basis for establishing a speed limit. The Current U.S. standards for design speed derive from outdated, less-capable automotive technology. In addition, the design speed of a given roadway is the theoretical maximum secure speed of the roadway's worst feature (e.g., a curve, bottleneck, hill, etc.). The design speed generally underestimates the maximum secure and safe speed for a roadway and is as a result considered only a very conservative "first guess" at a limit.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Properties and uses of glasses

Glass can be made form transparent and flat, or into added shapes and colors as made known in this ball from the Verrerie of Brehat in Brittany. One of the nearly all obvious characteristics of ordinary glass is that it is clear to visible light. The clearness is due to an absence of electronic transition states in the range of visible light, and to the truth that such glass is homogeneous on all length scales greater than about a wavelength of noticeable light. Ordinary glass does not let light at a wavelength of lower than 400 nm, also recognized as ultraviolet light or UV, to pass. This is due to the addition of compounds for instance soda ash (sodium carbonate).

Pure SiO2 glass (also called fused quartz) does not absorb UV light and is used for applications that necessitate transparency in this region, although it is more costly. This kind of glass can be made so pure that hundreds of kilometers of glass are clear at infrared wavelengths in fiber optic cables. Individual fibers are given a uniformly transparent cladding of SiO2/GeO2 glass, which has only somewhat different optical properties (the germanium causative to a lower index of refraction). Undersea cables have sections doped with Erbium, which intensify transmitted signals by laser release from within the glass itself.

Amorphous SiO2 is also used as a dielectric substance in integrated circuits, owing to the smooth and electrically unbiased interface it forms with silicon. Glasses used for making visual devices are commonly categorized by means of a letter-number code from the Schott Glass catalog. For model, BK7 is a low-dispersion borosilicate crown glass, and SF10 is a high-dispersion opaque flint glass. The glasses are placed by composition, refractive indicator, and Abe number.

Glass is sometimes created obviously from volcanic magma. This glass is called obsidian, and is generally black with impurities. Obsidian is a raw substance for flint knappers, who have used it to make particularly sharp knives since the Stone Age. Obsidian collection is prohibited by law in some places (together with the United States), but the same tool making techniques can be useful to industrially-made glass.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

The facts about Venus

Venus (Greek: Aphrodite; Babylonian: Ishtar) is the goddess of love and beauty. The planet is so named most likely because it is the brightest of the planets recognized to the ancients. Venus has been known since prehistoric times. It is the brightest object in the sky except for the Sun and the Moon. Like Mercury, it was commonly thought to be two separate bodies: Eosphorus as the morning star and Hesperus as the sunset star, but the Greek astronomers knew better.

Venus' rotary motion is somewhat unusual in that it is both very slow (243 Earth days per Venus day, somewhat longer than Venus' year) and retrograde. Additionally, the periods of Venus' rotary motion and of its orbit are synchronized such that it for all time presents the same face in the direction of Earth when the two planets are at their neighboring approach. Whether this is a resonance effect or just a coincidence is not known.

Venus is at times regarded as Earth's sister planet. In some ways they are especially similar:

* Venus is only somewhat smaller than Earth (95% of Earth's diameter, 80% of Earth's mass).
* Both have a small number of craters indicating relatively young surfaces.
* Their densities and chemical compositions are alike.

Because of these similarities, it was considered that below its dense clouds Venus might be very earthlike and might even have life. However, unfortunately, more detailed study of Venus reveals that in lots of important ways it is radically different from Earth. It may be the slightest hospitable place for life in the solar system.

The force of Venus' atmosphere at the surface is 90 atmospheres (about the same as the pressure at a deepness of 1 km in Earth's oceans). It is composed generally of carbon dioxide. There are numerous layers of clouds many kilometers thick composed of sulfuric acid. These clouds entirely obscure our view of the surface. This dense atmosphere creates a run-away greenhouse effect that raises Venus' face temperature by about 400 degrees to over 740 K (hot enough to melt lead). Venus' surface is truly hotter than Mercury's in spite of being nearly twice as far from the Sun. The oldest terrains on Venus appear to be about 800 million years old. Extensive volcanism at that time wiped out the in advance surface counting any large craters from early in Venus' history.

Thursday, September 27, 2007

A Serious Interest Penalty

In this case, a bank, The Western National Bank, is trying to offer free examination benefits to those customers with a minimum balance great sufficient to do so. The bank problem is finding the amount the minimum balance should be, as well as gathering certain criteria given in their announcement. Some details of the criteria are that they would like to be able to claim that the account balance exceeds the minimum balance required to succeed for free checking. They also wish that less than half of all accounts have a balance that exceeds the minimum balance required to be eligible for free checking. A financial manager at the bank has made a offer of $1,500.00 for the minimum balance. The bank wants to know if $1,500.00 is used as the minimum balance, then would they meet the criteria confirmed in the advertisement.

In analyze the given data, it was noted that this problem could be approach by using hypothesis testing. In viewing this case, it was resolute that the case was asking two questions which had to be answered by using both proportional hypothesis testing and mean hypothesis testing.

Monday, September 10, 2007

A Team Player

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

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

Monday, September 03, 2007

Playground slides

Playground slides are found in parks, schools, playgrounds and backyards around the earth. Slides are constructed of either plastic or metal and they have a pliable surface that is either straight or wavy/rippled. Slides are essential parts of playgrounds. The user, normally a child, climbs to the top of the slide via a steps or stairs and sits down on the top of slide and "slides" down the slide. Some slides are directly, others wind their way down. Slides come in different shapes, sizes and colors. Some slides are commercial, found in playground at parks and schools. Other slides are part of residential playgrounds.

Monday, August 27, 2007

Tourism

Tourism is traveling for the most part fun or vacation purposes. According to the World Tourism association, tourists are public who "travel to and stay in places outside their usual location for not more than one repeated year for vacation, business and other purposes not related to the use of an activity compensated from within the place visited".
Tourism has happen to a very popular, overall activity. In 2004, there were over 763 million international tourist arrivals. Major physical elements include transportation, lodging, and other components of a hospitality industry.

Tourism is very important for many countries, due to the earnings generated by the spending of supplies and services by tourists, the assessment levied on businesses in the tourism industry, and the opportunity for employment and financial development by working in the industry. For these reasons, NGOs and government agencies may sometimes sponsor a specific area as a tourist intention, and support the development of a tourism industry in that area.

Monday, August 20, 2007

A striking clock

The striking characteristic of clocks was at one time sometimes more important than their clock faces; some early clocks struck the hours, but had no civic dials to enable the time to be read. Many early clocks struck up to 24 strokes, mainly in Italy, where the 24 hour clock, keeping Italian hours, was widely used in the 14th and 15th centuries. The 12 hour clock, and accordingly 12 hour striking, became more established, mainly in Northern Europe and England, and ultimately became the standard.

Monday, August 13, 2007

Flight jacket

The flight jacket or bomber jacket is an item of clothing originally created for pilots, which ultimately became part of popular culture and clothing. In the First World War most airplanes did not have an enclosed cockpit, which necessitated an item of clothing that could keep pilots adequately warm. The classic sheepskin designed and manufactured firstly by Leslie Irvin and set up a manufacturing company in the United Kingdom in 1926 and became the major supplier of flying jackets to the Royal Air Force during most of the Second World War.
The two most historical and renowned American flight jackets are the A-2 jacket and the G-1. Not only these two jackets were useful to the serving men who wore them, but in their reputation they became symbols of honor, adventure, and style.Today flight jackets are usually connected with the MA-1, a U.S. military jacket, which is mostly found in black or sage green.

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Electric toothbrush

The initial electric toothbrush was developed in 1939 in Scotland, but did not appear on the open market until the 1960s, when it was marketed as the Broxodent in the United States by Squibb. In 1961, General Electric introduced a rechargeable cordless toothbrush that moved up and down when activated. In 1987, the first rotary action toothbrush for home use, the Interlake, appeared in shops for the general public. There are currently many different varieties of model that use this mechanism. Research shows that they tend to be somewhat more effective at removing commemorative inscription and preventing gingival bleeding than manual toothbrushes and vibrating toothbrushes.

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Ear buds/Earphones

Ear buds or earphones are headphones of a smaller size that are positioned directly outside of the ear canal, but without fully enveloping it. They are generally inexpensive and are favored for their portability and convenience. However, due to their inability to provide isolation, they are not capable of delivering the same dynamic range offered by many full-sized headphones and canal phones for a given volume level. As a result, they Are often used at higher volumes in order to drown out noise from the users surroundings, which increases the risk of hearing-loss.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

A Personal portal

A Personal portal is a site on the World Wide Web that characteristically provides personalized capabilities to its visitors, given that a pathway to other content. It is intended to use distributed applications, different numbers and types of middleware and hardware to provide services from a number of different sources. In addition, business portals are intended to share collaboration in workplaces. A further business-driven requirement of portals is that the content be able to work on multiple platforms such as personal computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and cell phones.

Friday, July 13, 2007

Malai

Malai is a South Asian term for clotted cream or Devonshire cream. It is made by heating non-homogenized whole milk to about 80ºC (180ºF) for about one hour and then allowing to cool. A thick yellowish layer of fat and coagulated proteins forms on the surface, which is skimmed off. The process is typically repeated to remove most of the fat. Malai has about 55% butterfat. Buffalo milk is thought to produce better malai because of its high fat content.Malai is used in such recipes as Malai Kofta dumplings and the sweet Malai Kulfi.

Sunday, July 08, 2007

Marketing

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

Sunday, July 01, 2007

Canonization

Canonization is the act by which a Christian Church declares some deceased person to be a saint, inscribing that person in the canon, or list, of recognized saints.In the Catholic Church, the act of canonization is now kept to the Holy See and occurs at the conclusion of a long process requiring extensive proof that the person future for canonization lived, and died, in such a way that he or she is worthy to be recognized as a saint. at first, however, individuals were recognized as saints without any formal process, as happened, for instance, in the case of Saint Peter and the Blessed Virgin Mary. Other Christian Churches still follow the older practice Canonization, whether formal or informal, does not make someone a saint: it is only a declaration that the person is a saint and was a saint even before canonization. It is generally familiar that there are many more saints in heaven than have been canonized on earth.

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Motorcycle

A motorcycle is a two-wheeled , single-track motor vehicle powered by an engine. Styles of motorcycles changes according to the task for which they are designed. Motorcycles are the most widespread the least expensive forms of motorised transport in many parts of the world. Street and off-road motorcycle are the two major type of motorcycle. Within these, there are many different types of motorcycles for many different purposes.Choppers,Cruisers,electric motorcycles,Mini bikes,Mopeds,Scooters etc are street motorcycle.Motocross,Supermotos,Dual-sports,Enduros are the off-road motorcycle.
A motorcycle is broadly defined by law in some countries for the purposes of registration, taxation or licensing riders as a two-wheel motor vehicle "fit to drive." Other countries distinguished between mopeds and other small bikes and the larger, more powerful vehicles.

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Oily fish

Oily fish are those fish which have oils throughout the fillet and in the belly cavity around the gut, rather than only in the liver like white fish. Oily fish fillets may contain up to 30 percent oil, although this figure varies both within and between species. Oily fish generally swim in mid-waters or near the surface
Oily fish are a good source of Vitamins A and D as well as being rich in Omega 3 fatty acids. For this reason the consumption of oily fish has been identified as more beneficial to humans than white fish. Amongst other benefits, studies suggest that the Omega 3 fatty acids in oily fish may help sufferers of depression, reduce the likelihood of heart disease and improve inflammatory conditions such as arthritis.

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Neem oil

Neem oil is a vegetable oil pressed from the fruits and seeds of Neem, an evergreen tree which is endemic to the Indian sub-continent and has been introduced to many other areas in the tropics. It is perhaps the most significant of the commercially available products of neem.Neem oil is typically light to dark brown, bitter and has a rather strong odour that is said to join the odours of peanut and garlic. It comprises mainly triglycerides and large amounts of triterpenoid compounds, which are in charge for the bitter taste. It is hydrophobic in nature and in order to emulisify it in water for application purposes, it must be formulated with suitable surfactants.Neem oil also contains steroids and a plethora of triterpenoids of which Azadirachtin is the most well known and studied. The Azadirachtin content of Neem Oil varies from 300ppm to over 2000ppm depending on the quality of the neem seeds compressed.

Monday, June 11, 2007

History of Europe

Europe has a long history of cultural and economic achievement, initial as far back as the Paleolithic. Genesis of Western democratic and individualistic cultures are often laid in Ancient Greece; the Roman Empire divided the continent along the Rhine and Danube for more than a few centuries. Following the decline of the Roman Empire, Europe entered a extended period of stasis, referred to by Renaissance thinkers as the "Dark Ages" and by the Enlightenment and modern historians, as the Middle Ages. During this time remote monastic communities in Ireland and elsewhere carefully safeguarded and compiled knowledge accumulated previously. The Renaissance and the New Monarchs marked the start of a period of discovery, exploration, and increase in scientific knowledge. From the 15th century Portugal opened the age of discoveries soon followed by Spain. They were shortly joined by France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Britain, in building large colonial empires, with vast holdings in Africa, the Americas, and Asia.

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Extended Industry Standard Architecture

The Extended Industry Standard Architecture is a bus standard for IBM well-matched computers. It was announced in late 1988 by PC clone vendors as a counter to IBM's use of its proprietary Micro Channel Architecture in its PS/2 series.

EISA extends the ISA bus architecture to 32 bits and allows more than one CPU to share the bus. The bus mastering support is also improved to provide access to 4 GB of memory. Unlike MCA, EISA can accept older XT and ISA boards — the lines and slots for EISA are a superset of ISA.

Sunday, May 27, 2007

Digital Circuits

Digital systems interface well with computers and are easy to control with software. It is often possible to add new features to a digital system without changing hardware, and to do this remotely, just by uploading new software. Design errors or bugs can be worked-around with a software upgrade, after the product is in customer hands. Information storage can be much easier in digital systems than in analog ones. In particular, the great noise-immunity of digital systems makes it possible to store data and retrieve it later without degradation. In an analog system, aging and wear and tear will degrade the information in storage, but in a digital system, as long as the wear and tear is below a certain level, the information can be recovered completely.

Friday, May 18, 2007

Jitter

The colloquial or historical meaning of jitter is to shake or shudder one's body or limbs. Also:” Jittery" synonymous with "nervous" or "tense" to the extent of shaking, usually implying fear rather than excitement. May involve a neurological seizure, or withdrawal symptoms from drunkenness - Delirium tremens. Also: jitterbug - a dance that involved shaking the arms and legs.

In electronics and telecommunications, jitter is an unwanted variation of one or more signal characteristics, such as the interval between successive pulses, the amplitude of successive cycles, or the frequency or phase of successive cycles. Jitter is a significant factor in the design of almost all communications links.

Jitter can apply to a number of signal qualities, and can be quantified in the same terms as all time-varying signals. Also like other time-varying signals, jitter can be expressed in terms of spectral density. Jitter frequency is the time between the maximum and minimum effect of a jitter characteristic for a jitter that varies frequently with time. Generally, very low jitter frequency is not of interest in designing systems, and the low-frequency cutoff for jitter is typically specified at 1 Hz.

In the context of digital audio extraction from CDs "jitter" causes extracted audio samples to be doubled-up or skipped entirely. The problem occurs because the Philips CD requirement doesn't require block-accurate addressing. As a result, the extraction process will restart a few samples early or late, resulting in doubled or omitted samples. These glitches often sound like tiny repeating clicks during playback. An approach that has produced good results is to do jitter correction in software. This involves performing overlapping reads, and then sliding the data around to find overlaps at the edges. Most DAE programs will perform jitter correction.

Sunday, May 13, 2007

World Wide Web

The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked, hypertext documents that runs over the Internet. With a Web browser, a user views Web pages that may include text, images, and other multimedia and navigates between them using hyperlinks. The World Wide Web is the combination of four basic ideas: Hypertext, Resource Identifiers, The Client-server model of computing, Markup language. On the World Wide Web, a client program called a client agent retrieves information resources, such as Web pages and other computer files, from Web servers using their URLs. If the user agent is a kind of Web browser, it displays the resources on a user's computer. The user can then follow hyperlinks in each web page to other World Wide Web resources, whose position is embedded in the hyperlinks. Web pages are often set in collections of related material called Web sites. The act of following hyperlinks from one Web site to another is referred to as browsing or sometimes as surfing the Web.

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Bullet

Bullet
A bullet is a solid shell propelled by a weapon or air gun and is normally made from metal. A bullet does not contain explosives, and damages the planned target solely by imparting kinetic energy upon impact. Modern bullets for firearms are usually part of a cartridge, also known as a round. In contrast, bullets for air guns are not part of a cartridge. The word "bullet" is sometimes used to refer to the combination of bullet, case, gunpowder and primer more properly known as a cartridge or round."

Contents
1 History
1.1 The first bullets
1.2 Shaped bullets
1.3 The modern bullet
2 Designs
3 Equipments
4 Treaties
5 Bullet acronyms
6 Figurative uses
7 References
8 See also
9 External links



History

The history of bullets parallels the history of firearms. Advances in one either resulted from or precipitated advances in the additional. Originally, bullets are round metallic or stone balls placed in front of a volatile charge of gunpowder at the end of a closed tube. As firearms became more scientifically advanced, from 1500 to 1800, bullets changed very little. They remained simple round lead balls, called rounds, conflicting only in their diameter. The growth of the hand culverin and matchlock harquebus brought about the use of cast lead balls as projectiles. "Bullet" is derived from the French word "boulette" which approximately means "little ball". The original musket bullet was a globular lead ball two sizes smaller than the bore, wrapped in a loosely-fitted paper patch which served to hold the bullet in the barrel firmly upon the powder. The loading of muskets was, therefore, easy with the old smooth-bore Brown Bess and similar military muskets.

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Lens construction

The majority type of lenses are spherical lenses, which are fashioned from surfaces that have spherical curvature, that is, the front and back surfaces of the lens can be anticipated to be part of the surface of two spheres of given radii, R1 and R2, which are called the radius of curvature of each surface. The sign of R1 gives the form of the front surface of the lens: if R1 is positive, the surface is convex. If R1 is negative, the front surface is concave. If R1 is infinite, the surface is flat, or has zero curvature, and is said to be plane. The same is true for the back surface of the lens; apart from that the sign conversion is reversed: if R2 is positive, it is concave, and if R2 is negative, the back surface is convex. The line joining the centers of the spheres making up the lens surfaces is called the axis of the lens; in almost all cases the lens axis passes through the physical centre of the lens.

Lenses are divided by the bend of these two surfaces. A lens is biconvex if both surfaces are convex; similarly, a lens with two concave surfaces is biconcave. If one of the surfaces is flat, the lens is termed Plano-convex or Plano-concave depending on the curvature of the other surface. A lens with one convex and one concave side is named convex-concave, and in this case if both curvatures are equal it is a meniscus lens. If the lens is biconvex or Plano-convex, a collimated or parallel beam of light passing along the lens axis and through the lens will be converged to a spot on the axis, at a certain distance behind the lens. In this case, the lens is called a constructive or converging lens.

If the lens is biconcave or Plano-concave, a collimated beam of light passing through the lens is diverged; the lens is thus called a negative or diverging lens. The beam after passing through the lens appears to be emanating from a particular point on the axis in front of the lens; the detachment from this point to the lens is also known as the focal length, although it is negative with respect to the focal length of a converging lens.
If the lens is convex-concave, whether it is converging or diverging depends on the relative curvatures of the two surfaces. If the curvatures are equal, then the beam is neither converged nor diverged.

Friday, April 27, 2007

Music

Music is an art form that involves organized sounds and quiet. It is articulated in terms of pitch (which includes melody and harmony), rhythm (which includes tempo and meter), and the quality of sound (which includes timbre, articulation, dynamics, and texture).
Music may also absorb generative forms in time through the construction of patterns and combinations of natural stimuli principally sound. Music may be used for artistic or aesthetic, communicative, entertainment, traditional or religious purposes. The definition of what constitutes music varies according to culture and social context, with assorted interpretations of the term being established under sub-genres of the art. Within "the arts", music can be classified as a performing art, a fine art, or an auditory art form

The history of music predates the written word and is tied to the enlargement of each unique human culture. The development of music among humans occurred against the backdrop of natural sounds such as birdsong and the sounds other animals use to communicate. primeval music, once more commonly called primitive music, is the name given to all music created in preliterate cultures (prehistory), beginning somewhere in very late geological history.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Artificial intelligence (Intelligence, IQ, and g)

Intelligence, IQ, and g are unusual. Intelligence is the word used in normal discourse to refer to cognitive capability. However, it is generally regarded as too vague to be useful for a scientific treatment of the subject. The intelligence quotient is an index calculated from the scores on test items judged by experts to include the abilities enclosed by the term intelligence. IQ measures a multidimensional quantity: it is an amalgam of different kinds of abilities, the proportions of which may differ between IQ tests. The dimensionality of IQ scores can be studied by factor analysis, which reveals a single dominant factor underlying the scores on all IQ tests. This factor, which is a hypothetical construct, is called g. Variation in g corresponds closely to the innate notion of intelligence, and thus g is sometimes called general cognitive ability or common intelligence.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Electronic mixer

An elepctronic mixer is a device for addition two or more electronic signals. There are two basic types of mixer. Additive mixers add two signals together, and are used for such applications as audio mixing. Multiplying mixers multiply the signals together, and create an output containing both original signals, and new signals that have the sum and dissimilarity of the frequency of the original signals.Additive mixers are typically resistor networks, surrounded by impedance matching and amplification stages.Multiplying mixers have been done in a wide range of ways. The most popular are diode mixers, gilbert cell mixers, diode ring mixers and switching mixers.

Monday, April 09, 2007

Traffic psychology

Traffic psychology is a young escalating field in psychology. Whereas traffic psychology is first and foremost related to "the study of the behavior of road users and the psychological processes underlying that behavior" as well as to the relation between behavior and accidents, transportation psychology, sometimes referred to as mobility psychology, has its focus on mobility issues, individual and social factors in the movement of people and goods, and travel demand management.
There is no single theoretical framework in traffic psychology, but many specific models explaining, e.g., perceptual, intentional, cognitive, social, motivational and emotional determinants of mobility and traffic behavior. One of the most well-known behavioral models divides the various tasks occupied in traffic participation into three hierarchical levels, i.e. the strategic, the tactical and the operational level. The model demonstrates the diversity of decision and control tasks which have to be accomplished when driving a vehicle. However, until now, most of the psychological models have a rather heuristic nature, e.g. risk theories like the risk compensation hypothesis, Fuller's task capability model, and thus are not sufficiently precise to allow for concrete behavioral prediction and control. This is partly due to the importance of individual differences, a major topic of psychology which in traffic and transportation has not yet been adequately accounted for. On the other hand, social-psychological attitude-behavior models, such as Ajzen's theory of planned behavior, have been helpful in identifying determinants of mobility decisions.

Monday, April 02, 2007

Peafowl

The peafowl are the three variety of bird in the genera Pavo and Afropavo of the pheasant family, Phasianidae. They are most distinguished for the male's profligate tail, a result of sexual selection, which it displays as part of courtship. The male is called a peacock, the female a peahen. In common English custom, however, "peacock" is used to mean any peafowl.

Overview
The characteristic Asiatic peafowl belonging to the genus Pavo comprise the familiar Indian Peafowl, Pavo cristatus and the poorly known Dragon birds or Green Peafowl Pavo muticus. Some biologists believe that there are at least five characteristic and critically endangered species of Green Peafowl while others classify them into a single species with three species.

The Arakan Dragonbird Pavo spicifer was once inhabitant to Northern Western Myanmar, Southern Tibet and Assam. The Indo-Chinese or Siamese Dragon bird Pavo imperator was once native to South East Myanmar and Thailand. The Annametic Dragonbird Pavo annamensis occupied the broadleaf evergreen forests of Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Southern Yunnan China.

The Javanese Green Peafowl, Pavo javanensis is occupant only to the island of Java. The died out Malay or Pahang Peafowl Pavo muticus muticus was fantasy by early naturalists to least the Pliocene rules out an foreword by humans. Northern Yunnan is the home of one of the most fascinating forms of Green Peafowl. The Yunnan Dragonbird, Pavo yunnanensis is most characteristic.

When it is not in show, the long tail rests on the ground and hampers the actions of the peacock

The White Peacock is frequently incorrect for an albino, but is a color change

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Ice shelf

An ice shelf is a broad, balanced platform of ice that forms where a glacier or ice sheet flows down to a shoreline and onto the ocean surface, typically in Antarctica or Greenland. The border between floating ice shelf and the grounded ice that feeds it is called the grounding line. When the grounding line retreats inland, water is added to the ocean and sea level rises.

In contrast, sea ice is formed on water, is much thinner, and forms all through the Arctic Ocean. It also is bring into being in the Southern Ocean around the continent of Antarctica.

Ice shelves flow by gravity-driven straight distribution on the ocean surface. That flow frequently moves ice from the grounding line to seaward front of the shelf. The main mechanism of mass loss from ice shelves is iceberg calving, in which a large piece of ice breaks off from the seaward front of the shelf. Typically, a shelf front will extend forward for years or decades between major calving events. Snow buildup on the upper surface and melting from the lower surface are also imperative to the mass balance of an ice shelf.

The thinness of modern-day ice shelves ranges from about 100 to 1000 meters. The thickness similarity between solid ice and liquid water means that only about 1/9 of the floating ice is above the ocean surface. The world's main ice shelves are the Ross Ice Shelf and the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf in Antarctica.

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Poinsettia

The poinsettia, also identified as the Mexican flame leaf or Christmas star (Euphorbia pulcherrima), is a plant known for its striking red displays at Christmas time. It is often used as a floral Christmas decoration because of its festive colours.
The "flowers" are in fact large bunches of coloured leaves (modified bracts); the flowers themselves are in the center of each leaf bunch, but rather small and inconspicuous. Cultivars have been formed with orange, pale green, cream and marbled leaves. It is necessary that the plant receives no light at night between approximately October and Christmas. The slightest exposure to light during this critical period will often prevent "flowering".
Poinsettias are native to southern Mexico and Central America, where they may reach heights of sixteen feet. They are named after Joel Roberts Poinsett, the first United States ambassador to Mexico, who introduced the plant in the U.S. in 1825.

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Camera

A camera is a device used to take pictures (usually photographs), also singly or in sequence, with or without sound, such as with video cameras. The name is derived from camera obscura, Latin for "dark chamber", an early mechanism for projecting images in which an entire room functioned much as the internal workings of a modern photographic camera, except there was no way at this time to record the image short of physically tracing it. Cameras may work with the visual spectrum or other portions of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Fog

Fog is a cloud in contact with the ground. Fog differs from other clouds only in that fog touches the surface of the Earth. The similar cloud that is not fog on lower ground may be fog where it contacts higher ground such as hilltops or mountain ridges. Fog is different from mist only in its density. Fog is defined as cloud which reduces visibility to less than 1 km, whereas mist is that which reduces visibility to less than 2 km.
The foggiest place in the world is the Grand Banks off the island of Newfoundland, Canada. Fog is common here as the Grand Banks is the meeting place of the cold Labrador Current from the north and the much warmer Gulf Stream from the south. The foggiest land areas in the world are Point Reyes, California and Argentia, Newfoundland, both with over 200 foggy days a year.

Fog

Fog is a cloud in contact with the ground. Fog differs from other clouds only in that fog touches the surface of the Earth. The similar cloud that is not fog on lower ground may be fog where it contacts higher ground such as hilltops or mountain ridges. Fog is different from mist only in its density. Fog is defined as cloud which reduces visibility to less than 1 km, whereas mist is that which reduces visibility to less than 2 km.
The foggiest place in the world is the Grand Banks off the island of Newfoundland, Canada. Fog is common here as the Grand Banks is the meeting place of the cold Labrador Current from the north and the much warmer Gulf Stream from the south. The foggiest land areas in the world are Point Reyes, California and Argentia, Newfoundland, both with over 200 foggy days a year.

Friday, March 09, 2007

Natural pearls

Natural pearls were found in many parts of the world. Present day natural pearling is confined frequently to seas off Bahrain. Australia also has one of the world's most recent remaining fleets of pearl diving ships. Australian pearl divers dive for south sea pearl oysters to be used in the cultured south sea pearl industry. The catch of pearl oysters is similar to the numbers of oysters taken throughout the natural pearl days. Hence large numbers of natural pearls are still found in the Australian Indian Ocean waters from wild oysters. X-Ray examination is required to absolutely verify natural pearls found today.
Natural pearls be 100% nacre. It is thought that natural pearls form under a set of unintentional conditions when a microscopic intruder or grain of sand enters an oyster (mollusk) and settles inside the shell. The oyster, being irritated by the intruder, secretes the pearl substance called nacre to cover the irritant. This process is repetitive for many years, thus producing a pearl.

Monday, March 05, 2007

Tourism in New York City

40 million foreign and American tourists visit New York City each year.Major destinations comprise of the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Broadway productions, scores of museums from the El Museo del Barrio to the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum (closed until 2008 for repairs), Washington Square Park, the Bronx Zoo and New York Botanical Garden, luxury shopping along Fifth and Madison Avenues, and events such as the Halloween Parade in Greenwich Village, the Tribeca Film Festival, and free performances in Central Park at Summer stage. Many of the city's ethnic enclaves, such as Jackson Heights, Flushing, and Brighton Beach are major shopping destinations for first and second generation Americans up and down the East Coast.
New York City has 28,000 acres (113 km²) of parkland and 14 miles (22 km) of public beaches. Manhattan's Central Park, intended by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, is the most visited city park in the United States.Prospect Park in Brooklyn, also planned by Olmsted and Vaux, has a 90 acre (36 Hectare) meadow. Flushing Meadows Park in Queens, the city's third largest, was the setting for the 1939 World's Fair and 1964 World's Fair.
New York's food culture, influenced by the city's immigrants and large number of dining patrons, is diverse. Jewish and Italian immigrants made the city famous for bagels and New York style pizza. Some 4,000 mobile food vendors approved by the city, many immigrant-owned, have made Middle Eastern foods such as falafels and kebabs standbys of contemporary New York street food.The city is also home to many of the finest haute cuisine restaurants in the United States.

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Monkey

A monkey is a member of either of two of the three groupings of simian primates. These three groupings are the New World monkeys, the Old World monkeys, and the apes. The New World monkeys are classified within the parvorder Platyrrhini, whereas the Old World monkeys (superfamily Cercopithecoidea) form part of the parvorder Catarrhini, which also includes the apes. Thus, methodically speaking, monkeys do not form a "natural group", in that the Old World monkeys are in fact more closely related to the apes than they are to the New World species. There are 264 known extant species of monkey. Because of their similarity to monkeys, apes such as chimpanzees and gibbons are often called monkeys in informal usage, though biologists don't consider them to be monkeys. Conversely, due to its size (up to 1 metre) the Mandrill is often thought to be an ape, but it is actually an Old World monkey. Also, a few monkey species have the word "ape" in their common name. Because they are not a single coherent group, monkeys do not have any particular traits that they all share and are not shared with the remaining group of simians, the apes.

Friday, February 23, 2007

Sandwich

Sandwich is a food item it consisting of two pieces of bread between which are laid one or more layers of meat, vegetable, cheese or other fillings, together with optional or usually provided condiments, sauces, and other accompaniments. The bread is used as is, lightly buttered, or enclosed in a flavoured oil to enhance flavour and texture.
Sandwiches are usually carried to work or school in lunchboxes or brown paper bags to be eaten as the midday meal, taken on picnics, hiking trips, or other outings. They are also served in many restaurants as entrées, and are sometimes eaten at home, either as a quick meal or as part of a larger meal. As part of a full meal sandwiches are generally accompanied with such side dishes as a serving of soup, a salad, or potato chips or french fries and a pickle or coleslaw.

Monday, February 19, 2007

Elephant- Legs and feet

An elephant's legs are big straight pillars, as they must be to support its bulkiness. The elephant needs not as much of muscular power to stand because of its straight legs. For this reason an elephant can stand for very lengthy periods of time without tiring. In fact, African elephants rarely lie down unless they are sick or injured. However, Indian elephants lie down in general.
The feet of an elephant are almost round. African elephants contain three nails on each hind foot, and four on each front foot. Indian elephants contain four nails on each hind foot and five on each front foot. Beneath the bones of the foot is a rough, gelatine-like material that acts as a cushion or shock absorber. Under the elephant's weight the foot swells, but it gets slighter when the weight is removed. An elephant can go down deep into mud, but can pull its legs out readily because its feet become smaller when they are lifted.An elephant is a good swimmer and climber, but it can trot, run, jump, nor gallop. It has only one step, a sort of gliding shuffle, which it can step up to the speed of a human runner. There are few animals that can pass through farther in a day than the elephant.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Food

Many plants or plant parts are eaten as food. There are around two thousand plant varieties which are cultivated for food, and many have several distinct cultivars.Plant-based foods can be classified as follows: Seeds, the ripened ovules of some plants, carry a plant embryo inside them along with the nutrients necessary for the plant's initial growth. Because of this, seeds are often packed with energy, and are good sources of food for animals, including humans. In fact, the majority of all foods consumed by human beings are seeds. These include cereals (such as maize, wheat, and rice), legumes (such as beans, peas, and lentils), and nuts. Oilseeds are often pressed to produce rich oils, including sunflower, rape (including canola oil).Fruits are the ripened extensions of plants, together with the seeds within. Fruits are made attractive to animals so that animals will eat the fruits and excrete the seeds over long distances. Fruits, therefore, make up a significant part of the diets of most cultures. Some fruits, such as pumpkin and eggplant, are eaten as vegetables.Vegetables are other plant matter which is eaten as food. These include root vegetables (such as potatoes and carrots), leaf vegetables (such as spinach and lettuce), stem vegetables (such as bamboo shoots and asparagus), and inflorescence vegetables .Many herbs and spices are highly-flavorful vegetables.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Infrared

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

Friday, January 26, 2007

Journalism Basics

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

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Gold

Gold is a extremely sought-after valuable metal that for many centuries has been used as money, a store of value and in ornaments. The metal occurs as nugget or grains in rocks and in alluvial deposits and is one of the coinage metals. It is a soft, glossy, yellow, dense, malleable, and ductile (trivalent and univalent) change metal. Modern manufacturing uses include dentistry and electronics. Gold forms the basis for a financial typical used by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Bank for International resolution (BIS). Its ISO currency code is XAU.

Friday, January 12, 2007

Estate law

Estates may also be held jointly as joint tenants with rights of survivorship or as tenants in common. The difference in these two types of joint ownership of an estate in land is basically the inheritability of the estate. In joint tenancy (or in marriage this is sometimes called tenancy of the entirety) the surviving tenant (or tenants) become the sole owner (or owners) of the estate. Nothing passes to the heirs of the deceased tenant. In some jurisdictions the magic words "with right of survivorship" must be used or the tenancy will assumed to be tenants in common. Tenants in common will have a heritable portion of the estate in proportion to their ownership interest which is presumed to be equal amongst tenants unless otherwise stated in the transfer deed. There are other types of estates in land that are used to prevent the alienation of land (also used in the law of trusts). Generally these are called future interests, an example being the rule against perpetuities. See also the Rule in Shelley's Case.
Real property may not only be owned it may be leased in which the possession of the property is given to the tenant for a limited period of time. Such leases are also called estates such as an estate for years, a periodic tenancy or an estate at will.
Real property may also be owned jointly through the device of the condominium or cooperative.