Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Jobs left -- so did DRM

With only one new product revelation, a rather unattractive $2,799 MacBook, this year's Macworld keynote was nothing like we have been used to. It could only have been described as a disappointment until Philip Schiller, who replaced Steve Jobs, revealed DRM-free iTunes. According to Schiller iTunes will be entirely DRM-free with over 10 million songs at the end of the first quarter of 2009.

The iTunes Plus section should already feature 8 million songs DRM-free. The pricing of the songs has also gone through some changes. iTunes has now three price points for songs - 69 cents, 99 cents and $1.29. 69 cents is for older releases and $1.29 for new hit songs.

Most of the albums will still be priced at $9.99.

iTunes Plus allows users to upgrade their songs to new higher quality DRM-free versions for 30 cents per song or 30 percent of the album price for the whole album. iTunes Plus uses 256kbps AAC audio format.

source: http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/16530.cfm

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Miladi Sherif

Mohammed, the Prophet of Islam, was born on the 20th April, 571 AD. Muslims all over the world celebrate the birth of the Prophet in various ways. In Kerala the practice of large scale celebration of the Prophet's birthday is of recent origin. Reading what is commonly known as the 'Maulod' which is a short biography of the Prophet written both in verse and prose in the Arabic language has been the common ritual of the day. Of late in Kerala, there has developed another practice connected with the Miladi Sherif. Night lectures are organised during the first twelve days of the month when Muslim Ulemas through their discourses enlighten the people on the various aspects of the life of the Prophet. Thus through the celebrations connected with the Miladi Sherif, the Muslim masses get an opportunity to be enlightened on the life and teachings of the Prophet.
The celebration of the Miladi Sherif in certain parts of the State, for instance Ponnani, is marked by busy activity connected with large scale feeding of the poor. Here in the Muslim Centre, one finds that the town is active during the whole night busily engaged in the charitable work of supplying food to the poor.
Recently Miladi Sherif celebration has assumed greater importance in Kerala. On this occasion colourful processions are taken out through the towns reciting Thakbir. These processions finally converge on some central place where public meetings are held These public gatherings are addressed by well-known speakers who deals with the various aspects of the Prophet's life. Such meetings are often attended largely by non-Muslims also.

Monday, December 15, 2008

Risks of Venture capital

A limited secondary market for shares – this may make them hard to sell. To partially address this issue, some VCT managers offer a Buy Back facility, normally at a discount to the net asset value. Type of company the VCT invests in – VCTs are designed to provide capital for small companies and each VCT will invest in a number of companies. There is a risk that these companies may not perform as hoped and in some circumstances may fail completely.
  • Where the 30% non-qualifying investments are invested – typically, VCTs have invested the 30% non-qualifying investments in money market securities/gilts/cash deposits etc. Some, however, invest part of this in more risky investment vehicles which may raise the overall risk profile of the fund still further.
  • Withdrawal of tax breaks – if certain criteria are not met, for example, if the investment is not held for five years or if the VCT does not invest 70% of its funds in qualifying investments, the initial tax breaks can be withdrawn.
  • Charges – the levels of charges for VCTs may be greater than for other investments, and you may also be charged performance fees.
  • Security of capital – as with any asset-backed investment, the value of a VCT depends on the performance of the underlying assets, so you may get back less than you originally invested, even taking into account the tax breaks.

Monday, December 08, 2008

Dhuna Shri Gorakh Nath Ji

Cause of Establishment:There have been nine Siddhas in the Nath cult, the foremost of them is Shri Gorakh Nath who was an accomplished yogi. This place is said to be the site of ascetism of Shri Gorakh Nath where his fire place (Dhuna) is even today present. It is also believed that Shri Gogaji met Shri Gorakh Nathji here and became his principal disciple. Gorakh Nathji gave him spiritual education and instructions. The temple of Gogaji is only 3 Kms. Away towards the west from this place.

Brief of the Diety: The idol of Bhairuji and Devi along with Lord Shiva and his family are worshiped in this temple. The Dhuna of Gorkh Nathji is also an object of worship. In this temple there is a stone image of Goddess Kalika which is made of stone and is in standing posture having the size of 3 ft. Side by side is the black stone idol of Bhairuji of the equal size. By them is the Shiva family and other Samadhis (entombments) of the yogis.
Important Architectural Characteristics:The Dhuna Guru Gorakhnath is on a mound, hence it is called Gorakh teela.Dhuna of Gorkh Nathji is also an object of worship. In this temple there is a stone image of Goddess Kalika which is made of stone and is in standing posture having the size of 3 ft. Side by side is the black stone idol of Bhairuji of the equal size. By them is the Shiva family and other Samadhis (entombments) of the yogis.

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Amethyst

Amethyst is a stone that is highly valued in that it differs from common quartz because of its violet to purple color. The coloration is caused by the presence of iron and/or manganese. Amethyst has an absorption spectrum of 550-520 and its color can be restored or enhanced by the high energy of X-ray radiation. As a member of the quartz group, it has a hardness of 7, density of 2.65 and streaks white. It occurs in the trigonal crystal system and is composed of silicon dioxide. Amethyst are found in geodes of alluvial deposits. The most significant deposits are in Brazil, Madagascar, Zambia, Uruguay and many others including the United States (Arizona). It is a birthstone for February and is commonly used in jewelry. Ametrine or tristine is half amethyst (purple) and half citrine (yellow) and its deposits are located in Brazil and Bolivia.

Monday, November 24, 2008

Urban Family Welfare Schemes

This Scheme was introduced following the recommendation of the Krishnan Committee in 1983. The main focus was to provide services through setting up of Health Posts mainly in slum areas. The services provided are mainly outreach of RCH services, preventive services, First Aid and referral services including distribution of contraceptives.

Monday, November 17, 2008

Setting Goals for Weight Loss

There are lots of reasons for people who are overweight or obese to lose weight. To be healthier. To look better. To feel better. To have more energy. No matter what the reason, successful weight loss and healthy weight management depend on sensible goals and expectations. If you set sensible goals for yourself, chances are you'll be more likely to meet them and have a better chance of keeping the weight off. In fact, losing even five to 10 percent of your weight is the kind of goal that can help improve your health.

Most overweight people should lose weight gradually. For safe and healthy weight loss, try not to exceed a rate of two pounds per week. Sometimes, people with serious health problems associated with obesity may have legitimate reasons for losing weight rapidly. If so, a physician's supervision is required.

Monday, November 10, 2008

Kodanadu

This is a forest elephant care centre. Here you can see baby elephants rescued from the forests being cared for. Elephants are also trained here. Kodanadu is 15 km from Perumbavoor which is on the Kochi-Munnar route (via Aluva).Art Complex - Madhavan Nair Foundation, Edappally - Located at Edappally, 10 kms north of Ernakulam en route to Alwaye, the complex consists of two units: the Gallery of Paintings and Sculptures, which presents over 200 original paintings by contemporary Indian artists, some of them internationally acclaimed, and works of reputed Indian sculptures. The other unit, the Centre for Visual Arts is reserved for authentic reproductions of selected world masters from Leonardo da Vinci to those of the present century. The centre also exhibits certain larger-than-life mural reproductions of ancient Indian art.

Monday, November 03, 2008

Charminar

The city of Hyderabad, with its delightful blend of the ancient and the modern, presents to the onlooker an interesting skyline with modern buildings standing shoulder to shoulder with fascinating 400 year old edifices.

It boasts of some fine examples of Qutab Shahi architecture - the Jami Masjid, the Mecca Masjid, Toli Masjid, and of course, the impressive symbol of Hyderabad, the Charminar.

The Charminar is a massive arch built by Mohammed Quli Qutab Shah, in 1591 to commemorate the end of the plague in the city. The symbol of the city, the Charminar, is an impressive square monument with four minarets. The arch is illuminated daily in the evening, an unforgettable sight indeed. The monument is a magnificent square edifice of granite, built upon four grand arches facing North, South, East and West. These arches support two floors of rooms and gallery of archways. At each corner of the square structure is a minaret rising to a height of 24 meters, making the building nearly 54 meters tall. It is these four (char) minarets (minar) that give the building, its name ‘Charminar’. Each minar stands on a lotus-leaf base, a special recurrent motif in Qutub Shahi buildings.

The first floor was used as a madarasa (college) during the Qutub Shahi period. The second floor has a mosque on the western side, the dome of which is visible from the road, if one stands some distance away. A spectacular view of the city may be had from the roof of the Charminar, although, due to severe overcrowding of the minarets, only visitors with special permission from the Archaeological Survey of India, Hyderabad Circle are allowed to go to the top of the minarets. The clocks above each of the four archways were added in 1889.

Walking around the Charminar area, one is constantly surprised by vestiges of the past intermingling with the present. Towards the Southeast of the Charminar is located imposing edifice of the Nizamia Unani Hospital. About 50m to the West, the line of shops in Lad Bazaar is interrupted by an old, crumbling brown wall, which marks the entrance to the old Nizama’s Jilau Khana (parade ground). The grounds are now being used for the development of a large commercial complex. Further down, a road to the left leads to the Khilawat Complex (Chowmahalla Palace). The Lad Bazaar road terminates in a square called Mahaboob Chowk where a large 19th century clock-tower looms over a delicate white mosque of the same period.
The Charminar is about 7 km from Hyderabad railway station. It is 5 km from Hyderabad bus station. Excellent private transport is available from all parts of the twin-cities. Called the "Arc De Triumph of the East", Charminar symbolises Hyderabad. As old as the city itself, the four imposing towers of this edifice stand in the heart of the old city as a hallmark of the Qutub Shahi era.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Sari

The sari (saree) is the most popular outer garment of women of the Indian subcontininent. It consists of a piece of silk, cotton or synthetic cloth, five to seven yards long which is worn wrapped around the body with the end left hanging (the pallu) or used over the head as a hood. The border of a sari is usually embroidered and this is often a status symbol. Also different regions of India have specific methods of wrapping the cloth. A short tight fitting blouse called a choli is usually worn under the sari.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Problems with excessive thinness

Being too thin can occur with anorexia nervosa, other eating disorders, or loss of appetite, and is linked to menstrual irregularity and osteoporosis in women, and greater risk of early death in both women and men. Many people -- especially women -- are concerned about body weight, even when their weight is normal. Excessive concern about weight may cause or lead to such unhealthy behaviors as excessive exercise, self-induced vomiting, and the abuse of laxatives or other medications. These practices may only worsen the concern about weight. If you lose weight suddenly or for unknown reasons, see a physician. Unexplained weight loss may be an early clue to a health problem.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Heavy, Sticky Oils

Oils are characteristically viscous, sticky or tarry, and brown or black. Flushing with water will not readily remove this material from surfaces, but the oil does not readily penetrate porous surfaces. The density of oils may be near that of water and they often sink. Weathering or evaporation of volatiles may produce solid or tarry oil. Toxicity is low, but wildlife can be smothered or drowned when contaminated. This class includes residual fuel oils and medium to heavy crudes.

Monday, September 29, 2008

The Caloric Balance Equation

When it comes to maintaining a healthy weight for a lifetime, the bottom line is -calories count! Weight management is all about balance—balancing the number of calories you consume with the number of calories your body uses or "burns off."

A calorie is defined as a unit of energy supplied by food. A calorie is a calorie regardless of its source. Whether you're eating carbohydrates, fats, sugars, or proteins, all of them contain calories. Caloric balance is like a scale. To remain in balance and maintain your body weight, the calories consumed (from foods) must be balanced by the calories used (in normal body functions, daily activities, and exercise).

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Siamese Fighting Fish

This fish can safely be kept in a community tank, although not with another male of their own species, and also, not usually with a female lest they start protecting (or hating) her and causing trouble all round.

In gorgeous color sheens; pure or mixed, with red, blue, green and albino predominating; but by no means being exhaustive. Growing to a sturdy 3 in., these dominating males are short-lived, thirty months or les, and ride roughshod over their terrified females who are shorter finned, paler, smaller, and no match whatsoever for their vigorous partners.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Bean

The common bean includes the edible fresh, and processed, green snap, green-shelled, and dry beans. In 1969, about 1,872,000 acres were devoted to the many types and scores of cultivars of beans, which had a farm value of more than $243 million. Fresh snap beans are primarily produced in Florida and along the eastern seaboard; processed beans, in New York, Oregon, and California, and along the eastern seaboard. Dry beans are produced in two main areas, in the West (Idaho, Colorado, and New Mexico) and in north central U.S. (in and around Michigan).

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

What causes tornadoes?

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.

Monday, September 01, 2008

Photovoltaic (PV) Device

A solid-state electrical device that converts light directly into direct current electricity of voltage-current characteristics that are a function of the characteristics of the light source and the materials in and design of the device. Solar photovoltaic devices are made of various semiconductor materials including silicon, cadmium sulfide, cadmium telluride, and gallium arsenide, and in single crystalline, multicrystalline, or amorphous forms.

Monday, August 25, 2008

Power

The availability of coal in abundance makes Jharkhand an ideal state for setting up thermal power plants. The Government of Jharkhand has taken several initiatives for the development of this industry. It has signed Memorandum of Understanding with the Government of India as a token of its commitment to the reforms in the power sector. Rural electrification has been accorded top priority. The work on renovation and modernization of existing power generating stations has already commenced. The State is attracting private investment in the industry for its further growth.

Monday, August 18, 2008

Sociology of education

The sociology of education is the learning of how social institutions and services have an effect on educational processes and outcomes, and vice versa. By many, education is understood to be a means of overcome the handicaps, achieve greater equality and acquire wealth and status for all (Sargent 1994). Learners may be provoked by aspirations for progress and betterment. Education is perceived as a place where children can expand according to their unique needs and potentialities. The principle of education can be to build up every individual to their full potential. The understanding of the goals and means of educational socialization processes differs according to the sociological model used.

Monday, August 11, 2008

Subsoil

It is the layer of soil under the topsoil on the surface of the ground. The subsoil may include substances such as clay and has only been partly broken down by air, sunlight, water etc., to create true soil. Below the subsoil is the substratum, which can be residual bedrock, sediments, or Aeolian deposits, largely unchanged by soil-forming factors active in the subsoil? It contains partially weathered particles.

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Cost and Freight (C&F, CFR, CNF)

Cost and freight charges is payable by the importer. The exporter pays the ocean shipping/air freight costs to the particular location. Example, C&F Los Angeles (the exporter pays the ocean shipping/air freight costs to Los Angeles). A lot of shipping carriers (such as UPS, DHL, and FEDE) offer guarantees on their delivery times. These are recognized as GSR guarantees or "guaranteed service refunds". This means that if the parcels are not delivered on time, the customer is allowed to a refund on the shipping cost. UPS, DHL and FEDEX make it very hard however for customers to determine which parcels are late and request their refunds, and thereby permit approximately 90% of potential refunds to go unclaimed. That amounts to over $1 billion USD per year in unclaimed refunds.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Process of oil painting

The process of oil painting varies from artist to artist, but frequently includes certain steps. First, the artist prepares the surface. Although surfaces like linoleum, panel, paper, slate, pressed wood, and cardboard have been used, the most well-liked surface since the 16th century has been canvas, even though many artists used panel through the 17th century and beyond. Before that it was panel, which is more luxurious, heavier, less easy to transport, and prone to warp or split in poor conditions. For fine detail, however, the absolute solidity of a wooden panel gives an advantage.

The artist might sketch an outline of their subject prior to apply pigment to the surface. "Pigment" may be any number of natural substances with color, such as sulphur for yellow or cobalt for blue. The pigment is varied with oil, usually linseed oil but other oils may be used as well. The various oils dry in a different way creating assorted effects.

Traditionally, an artist assorted his or her own paints for each project. Handling and mixing the raw pigments and mediums was prohibitive to transportation. This changed in the late 1800s, when oil paint in tubes became extensively available. Artists could mix colors rapidly and easily without having to grind their own pigments. Also, the portability of tube paints allowed for plein air, or outdoor painting.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Advertising

It is a form of message that typically attempts to influence the potential customers to buy or to consume more particular brand of product or service. Many advertisements are planned to generate increased consumption of those products and services through the creation and reinforcement of "brand image" and "brand loyalty". For these purposes, advertisements sometimes implant their persuasive message with truthful information. Every major medium is used to deliver these messages, including television, cinema, radio, magazines, internet, newspapers, video games, and billboards. Advertising is often placed by an advertising organization on behalf of a company or other organization.

Monday, July 14, 2008

Seven Blunders of the World

The Seven Blunders of the World is a list that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi gave to his grandson Arun Gandhi, written on a piece of paper, on their final day together, not too long before his assassination. The seven blunders are:
Prosperity without work
Pleasure without sense of right and wrong
Knowledge without nature
Commerce without principles
Science without humankind
Worship without sacrifice
Politics without principle
This list grew from Gandhi's search for the ancestry of violence. He called these acts of inactive violence. Preventing these is the best way to prevent oneself or one's society from reaching a point of violence.

Monday, July 07, 2008

Baseball

Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The goal of baseball is to score runs by striking a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four markers called bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot square, or diamond. Players on one team (the batting team) take turns hitting while the other team (the fielding team) try to stop them from scoring runs by receiving hitters out in any number of ways. A player on the batting team can discontinue at any of the bases and hope to score on a teammate's hit. The teams switch between batting and fielding whenever the fielding team gets three outs. One turn at bat for each team constitutes an inning; nine innings make up a professional game. The team by way of getting more runs at the end of the game wins.

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Electronic Filing System

The Electronic Filing System (or EFS) is the Singapore Judiciary's electronic platform for filing and service of papers within the proceedings process. In addition, it provides to register in the Supreme Court and the Subordinate Courts with an electronic registry and workflow scheme; and an electronic case file. Recent enhancement has added a module which facilitates the conduct of inquiry using documents that have been electronically filed.

The EFS provides the legal profession with a elementary online case file from which documents can be electronically filed with the courts or served on the other parties in a case. The EFS is also the source for electronic cause book searches that are provided through the Litigation module of LawNet.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Professional Development

The recommendations

*
Teachers should be fully aware of the school's Internet access arrangements so that they know whether access to the web and to newsgroups is filtered or blocked at all.
*
Senior management should ensure that appropriate time and resources for professional development are made available so that staff can keep themselves up to date with Internet issues and use.
*
All staff should be able to engage in a professional development programme which covers at least the following basic objectives:
o using and understanding the Internet;
o appreciating the strengths and weaknesses of the Internet;
o understanding the potential role of the Internet across the curriculum;
o recognizing how Internet use and Personal Safety Programmes can reinforce each other;
o developing Internet-related policies with ethically-sound foundations; and,
o responding to queries from other professionals and from the wider community regarding the Internet arrangements and policies within their own establishment, and the underlying rationale.

· Schools are likely to benefit from having their own small group, which keeps up to date with Internet and Child Safety issues and shares new experience with colleagues.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Art Deco

Art Deco was a popular international design movement from 1925 until 1939, affecting the decorative arts such as architecture, core design, and industrial design, as well as the visual arts such as fashion, painting, the graphic arts, and film. This movement was, in a intelligence, an amalgam of many different styles and movements of the early 20th century, including Neoclassical, Constructivism, Cubism, Modernism, Bauhaus, Art Nouveau, and Futurism. Its popularity peaked in Europe during the Roaring Twenties and continued strongly in the United States through the 1930s. Although many design movements have political or philosophical roots or intentions, Art Deco was simply decorative. At the time, this style was seen as graceful, functional, and modern.

Monday, June 02, 2008

Tata Nano

The Tata Nano is a planned city car debuted by India's Tata Motors at the 9th annual Auto Expo on January 10, 2008 at Pragati Maidan in New Delhi, India.

Called the people’s car in Tata's promotional material, it was projected to be the smallest amount luxurious production car in the world. The standard version of the Nano is projected to sell for Rs.100,000 (approximately US $2500, GBP 1277, or € 1700), not including fees or delivery.

Newsweek identify the Nano as a part of a "new breed of 21st-century cars" that embodies "a contrarian philosophy of smaller, lighter, and cheaper" and portends a new era in inexpensive personal transportation - and potentially, "global gridlock". The Wall Street Journal confirms a global trend toward small cars, led by the Nano.

The prefix "Nano" derives from the Greek root 'nanos', meaning dwarf - as with nanometer. "Nano" also means "small" in Gujarati, the native verbal communication of the Tata family, founders of the Tata Group.

Monday, May 26, 2008

Hanging Gardens of Babylon

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon is also known as the Hanging Gardens of Semiramis near present-day Al Hillah in Iraq, formerly Babylon are precise one of the original Seven Wonders of the World. They were built by Nebuchadnezzar II approximately 600 BC. He is reported to have constructed the gardens to please his wife, Amytis of Media, who longed for the trees and aromatic plants of her homeland.The gardens were damaged by several earthquakes after the 2nd century BCE.

The lush Hanging Gardens are broadly documented by Greek historians such as Strabo and Diodorus Siculus. Through the ages, the location may have been confused with gardens that exist at Nineveh, since tablets from there clearly show gardens. Writings on these tablets explain the possible use of something similar to an Archimedes' screw as a process of raising the water to the necessary height.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Formal wear

Formal wear or formal dress is an ordinary fashion term used to explain clothing apt for formal procedures, with weddings, debutante cotillions, etc. Western formal dress has had a ubiquitous influence on styles in different countries. It is almost forever the normal used in countries where there is no formal edition of the national costume. Foreign dignitaries and honored visitors in Western countries frequently take on Western evening dress on formal and state occasions, even though it is not unusual for distinguished persons to wear the formal versions of their common dress if such exists; the sari and the dashiki are easily-recognizable for examples.

Unlike for the majority part of the fashion world, the styles of formal dress take their names from men's wear rather than female dress. Traditional 'rules' oversee men's formal dress; these are definitely observed at socially traditional events for example royal weddings, and give as starting points for the creative formal wear seen at high school proms, formal dances and in free time industry awards shows.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Credit rating

A credit rating assesses the credit worthiness of an individual, corporation, or even a country. Credit ratings are considered from financial history and current assets and liabilities. Typically, a credit rating tells a lender or investor the probability of the subject being capable to pay back a loan. However, in recent years, credit ratings have also been used to adjust insurance premiums, determine employment eligibility, and establish the amount of a utility or leasing deposit.

A poor credit rating indicates a high risk of non-payment on a loan, and thus leads to high interest rates or the denial of a loan by the creditor.

Sunday, May 04, 2008

Yield curve

In finance, the yield curve is the relation between the interest rate and cost of borrowing and the time to maturity of the debt for a given borrower in a given currency. For example, the current U.S. dollar interest rates paid on U.S. Treasury securities for various maturities are closely watched by many traders, and are normally plotted on a graph such as the one on the right which is informally called "the yield curve." More formal mathematical descriptions of this relation are often called the term arrangement of interest rates.

The yield of a debt instrument is the annualized percentage increase in the worth of the investment. For instance, a bank account that pays an interest rate of 4% per year has a 4% yield. In general the percentage per year that can be earned is dependent on the length of time that the money is invested. For example, a bank may offer a "savings rate" higher than the normal checking account rate if the customer is prepared to leave money unharmed for five years. Investing for a period of time t gives a yield Y (t).

This function Y is called the yield curve, and it is often, but not always, an increasing function of t. Yield curves are used by fixed income analysts, who analyze bonds and connected securities, to understand conditions in financial markets and to seek trading opportunities. Economists make use of curves to understand economic conditions.

Monday, April 28, 2008

Dieting

Dieting is the practice of ingesting food in a harmonized fashion to search out an exacting objective. In numerous cases the aim is weight loss, however some athletes look forward to gain weight and diets can as well be used to keep a stable body weight.

There are many kinds of diets:

The Weight-loss diets control the intake of exacting foods, or food in most cases, to lessen body weight. What works to drop off body weight for one person will not essentially work for another, because of the metabolic differences and lifestyle factors. In addition, for a variety of reasons, the greater part of the people discovers that it is very difficult to maintain major weight loss over time. There is some notion that losing weight promptly can actually make it harder to maintain the loss over time.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

Exchange rate

In finance, the exchange rates that are different names are also known as the foreign-exchange rate, forex rate or FX rate between two currencies specify how much one currency is value in terms of the other. For example an exchange rate of 102 Japanese yen (JPY, ¥) to the United States dollar (USD, $) means that JPY 102 is worth the same as USD 1. The foreign exchange market is one of the largest markets in the world. By some estimate, about 2 trillion USD worth of currency changes hands every day.
The spot exchange rate refers to the current exchange rate. The forward exchange rate refers to an exchange rate that is quoted and traded today but for delivery and payment on a exact future date.

Sunday, April 06, 2008

Divergence theorem in maths

In vector calculus, the divergence theorem, as well known as Gauss' theorem, Ostrogradsky's theorem, or Gauss-Ostrogradsky theorem is an answer that relates the flow (that is, flux) of a vector field through a surface to the behavior of the vector field inside the surface.

More accurately, the divergence theorem states that the outward flux of a vector field through a surface is equal to the triple integral of the divergence on the region in the surface. Intuitively, it states that the sum of every source minus the sum of all sinks gives the net flow out of a region.
The divergence theorem is the main result for the mathematics of physics, particularly in electrostatics and fluid dynamics.

Sunday, March 30, 2008

Primary storage

Primary storage, presently known as memory, is the only one directly reachable to the CPU. The CPU continuously reads commands stored there and executes them. Any data actively operate on is also stored there in uniform manner.

Historically, early computers used delay lines, Williams’s tubes, or revolving magnetic drums as primary storage. By 1954, those unreliable methods were frequently replaced by magnetic core memory, which was still rather cumbersome. Undoubtedly, a revolution was started with the invention of a transistor that soon enables then-unbelievable neatness of electronic memory via solid-state silicon chip technology.

This led to a modern random access memory (RAM). It is small-sized, light, but quite expensive at the same time. (The particular types of RAM used for primary storage are also volatile, i.e. loses the information when not powered).

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Carrot

The carrot (Daucus carota subsp. sativus) is a root vegetable, usually orange or white, or pink in color, with a crunchy texture when fresh. The suitable for eating part of a carrot is a taproot. It is a cultivated form of the wild carrot Daucus carota, national to Europe and southwestern Asia. It has been bred for its very much inflamed and more palatable, less woody-textured edible taproot, but is still the similar species.

It is a biennial plant which grows a rosette of leaves in the spring and summer, while building up the fat taproot, which stores big amounts of sugars for the plant to flower in the second year. The peak stem grows to about 1 m tall, with an umbel of white flowers.

Carrots can be eaten raw, whole, chopped, grate, or added to salads for color or texture. They are also often chopped and boiled, fried or steamed, and cooked in soups and stews, as well as fine baby foods and choose pet foods. A well recognized dish is carrots julienne. Grated carrots are used in carrot cakes, as healthy as carrot puddings, an old English dish thought to have originated in the early 1800s.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Chocolate

Chocolate comprises a number of raw and process foods that are formed from the seed of the tropical cacao tree. Native to lowland tropical South America, cacao has been sophisticated for three millennia in Central America and Mexico, with its earliest recognized use about 1100 BC. All of the Mesoamerican peoples made chocolate beverages, as well as the Maya and Aztecs, who made it into a beverage known as xocolātl, a Nahuatl word meaning "bitter water". The seeds of the cacao tree have a controlling bitter taste, and must be fermented to develop the flavor. After being roasted and ground, the ensuing products are known as chocolate or cocoa.

Much of the chocolate inspired today is made into bars that combine with cocoa solids, fats like cocoa butter, and sugar. Chocolate has twist into one of the most popular flavors in the world. A chocolate lover is also called as "chocoholics." Gifts of frustrated wrapped chocolate molded into different shapes has become traditional on certain holidays: chocolate bunnies and eggs are popular on Easter, coins on Hanukkah, Santa Claus and further holiday symbols on Christmas, and hearts on Valentine's Day. Chocolate is also used in cold and hot beverages, to make chocolate milk and cocoa.

Sunday, March 09, 2008

Corporate bond

A corporate bond is a bond issued by a company; the term is usually applied to longer-term debt instruments, usually with a maturity date falling at least a year after their issue date. The term "commercial paper" is sometimes shabby for instruments with a shorter maturity.

Sometimes, the term "corporate bonds" is used to include all bonds separately from those issued by governments in their own currency. Strictly speaking, however, it only applies to those issued by corporations.

Monday, March 03, 2008

Mercury

Mercury (pronounced /'m?kj??ri/) is the deepest and smallest planet in the solar system, orbiting the Sun once every 88 days. Mercury is bright when viewed from Earth, range from -2.0 to 5.5 in apparent magnitude, but is not easily seen as its greatest angular separation from the Sun (greatest elongation) is only 28.3°: It can only be seen in morning and evening twilight. Comparatively little is known about it; the first of two spacecraft to move toward Mercury was Mariner 10 from 1974 to 1975, which mapped only about 45% of the planet’s surface. The second was the MESSENGER spacecraft, which mapped another 30% of the planet throughout its flyby of January 14, 2008. MESSENGER will make two more passes by Mercury, follow by orbital insertion in 2011, and will survey and map the whole planet.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV)

Building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) are photovoltaic materials that are used to replace conventional building materials in parts of the building envelope such as the roof, skylights, or facades. They are increasingly being incorporated into the construction of new buildings as a principal or ancillary source of electrical power, although existing buildings may be retrofitted with BIPV modules as well. The advantage of integrated photovoltaics over more common non-integrated systems is that the initial cost can be offset by reducing the amount spent on building materials and labor that would normally be used to construct the part of the building that the BIPV modules replace.

Friday, February 22, 2008

Seismic Intelligence

(US Army Field Manual 2-0) defines seismic intelligence as "The passive collection and measurement of seismic waves or vibrations in the earth surface." In the context of verification, seismic intelligence makes use of the science of seismology to locate and characterize nuclear testing, especially underground testing. Seismic sensors also can characterize large conventional explosions that are used in testing the high-explosive components of nuclear weapons.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

PID control

Apart from sluggish performance to avoid oscillations, another problem with proportional-only control is that power application is always in direct proportion to the error. In the example above we assumed that the set temperature could be maintained with 50% power. What happens if the furnace is required in a different application where a higher set temperature will require 80% power to maintain it? If the gain was finally set to a 50° PB, then 80% power will not be applied unless the furnace is 15° below setpoint, so for this other application the operators will have to remember always to set the setpoint temperature 15° higher than actually needed. This 15° figure is not completely constant either: it will depend on the surrounding ambient temperature, as well as other -factors that affect heat loss from or absorption within the furnace.

PID control

Apart from sluggish performance to avoid oscillations, another problem with proportional-only control is that power application is always in direct proportion to the error. In the example above we assumed that the set temperature could be maintained with 50% power. What happens if the furnace is required in a different application where a higher set temperature will require 80% power to maintain it? If the gain was finally set to a 50° PB, then 80% power will not be applied unless the furnace is 15° below setpoint, so for this other application the operators will have to remember always to set the setpoint temperature 15° higher than actually needed. This 15° figure is not completely constant either: it will depend on the surrounding ambient temperature, as well as other -factors that affect heat loss from or absorption within the furnace.

Friday, February 08, 2008

Sociology and Sociocybernetics

Systems theory has also been developed within sociology. An important figure in the sociological systems perspective as developed from GST is Walter Buckley (who from Bertalanffy's theory). Niklas Luhmann is also predominant in the literatures for sociology and systems theory. Miller's living systems theory was particularly influential in sociology from the time of the early systems movement.

Models for equilibrium in systems analysis that contrasted classical views from Talcott Parsons and George Homas were influential in integrating concepts with the general movement. With the renewed interest in systems theory on the rise since the 1990s, Bailey (1994) notes the concept of systems in sociology dates back to Auguste Comte in the 19th century, Herbert Spencer and Vilfredo Pareto, and that sociology was readying into its centennial as the new systems theory was emerging following the World Wars.

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Autonomism

Autonomism is a term applied to a variety of social movements around the world, which the ability to organize in autonomous and horizontal networks, as opposed to hierarchical structures such as unions or parties. Autonomist Marxists, including Harry Cleaver, broaden the definition of the working-class to include salaried and unpaid labor, such as skilled professions and housework; it focuses on the working class in advanced capitalist states as the primary force of change in the construct of capital. Modern autonomist theorists such as Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt argue that network power constructs are the most effective methods of organization against the neoliberal regime of accumulation, and predict a massive shift in the dynamics of capital into a 21st Century Empire.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

DNA nanotechnology

DNA nanotechnology uses the unique molecular recognition properties of DNA and other nucleic acids to create self-assembing branched DNA complexes with useful properties. DNA is thus used as a structural material rather than as a carrier of biological information. This has led to the creation of two-dimensional periodic lattices (both tile-based as well as using the "DNA origami" method) as well as three-dimensional structures in the shapes of polyhedra. Nanomechanical devices and algorithmic self-assembly have also been demonstrated, and these DNA structures have been used to template the arrangement of other molecules such as gold nanoparticles and streptavidin proteins.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Personality psychology

Personality psychology studies enduring psychological patterns of behavior, thought and emotion, commonly called an individual's personality. Theories of personality vary between different psychological schools. Trait theories attempts to break personality down into a number of traits, by use of factor analysis. The number of traits have varied between theories. One of the first, and smallest, models was that of Hans Eysenck, which had three dimensions: extroversion—introversion, neuroticism—emotional stability, and psychoticism. Raymond Cattell proposed a theory of 16 personality factors. The theory that has most empirical evidence behind it today may be the "Big Five" theory, proposed by Lewis Goldberg, and others.

A different, but well known, approach to personality is that of Sigmund Freud, whose structural theory of personality divided personality into the ego, superego, and id. Freud's theory of personality has been criticized by many, including many mainstream psychologists.

Friday, January 04, 2008

Positivism

Positivism is a philosophy that states that the only authentic knowledge is scientific knowledge, and that such knowledge can only come from positive affirmation of theories through strict scientific method. It was developed by Auguste Comte (widely regarded as the first sociologist) in the middle of the 19th century. In the early 20th century, logical positivism-a stricter and more logical version of Comte's basic thesis-sprang up in Vienna and grew to become one of the dominant movements in American and British philosophy. The positivist view is sometimes referred to as a scientist ideology, and is often shared by technocrats who believe in the necessity of progress through scientific progress, and by naturalism, who argue that any method for gaining knowledge should be limited to natural, physical, and material approaches. As an approach to the philosophy of science deriving from Enlightenment thinkers like Pierre-Simon Laplace (and many others), positivism was first systematically theorized by Comte, who saw the scientific method as replacing metaphysics in the history of thought, and who observed the circular dependence of theory and observation in science.

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.