title: Style guide

paragraphs: A style guide (also known as style manual) is a set of rules for language usage and design of documents (records). Some style guides are about things related to graphic design, such as arranging words and white space on a page. Website style guides often help with visual or technical things. Literary style guides help with choosing the best words, common errors in grammar, punctuation and spelling; and help for how to express ideas in a precise, fair and forceful way.

paragraphs: Some modern style guides are for use by all people. These are usually more about language than about how it should look.

paragraphs: Style guides do not stop a writer from using his own unique style, but some writers believe style guides are too restrictive.

paragraphs: Like language itself, many style guides change as time passes. For example, the Associated Press stylebook is updated every year.


title: Parque del Buen Retiro

paragraphs: The Retiro Park is the best known park in Madrid. It was planned in 1632 as palace gardens by King Felipe IV. 'Retiro' means retreat or a place to rest.

paragraphs: When it was first built, it was a little way from the city. Now, the city has become so big that it is in the city center. It was opened to the public in 1868.

paragraphs: Places in the park include a famous rose garden, a museum, a boating lake and the Crystal Palace. Many shows and street theaters can be seen at the park on weekends.


title: Crystal Palace (Madrid)

paragraphs: The Palacio de Cristal or Crystal Palace is a large glass building in Madrid, Spain. It is located in the Retiro Park on the Paseo Duque de Fernán Nuñez. The palace was built in 1887 to keep exotic plants from the Philippines. It is made of glass and steel. Later in 1924 plastic and rubber were added to it.


title: Las Ventas

paragraphs: The Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas is a building in Madrid, Spain used mainly for bullfighting. Sometimes it is just called Las Ventas. It is made of red brick and ceramic tiles. It was built in 1929 by José Espelious and Muñoz Monasterio. The first bullfight was June 17, 1931. It is also used for concerts.

paragraphs: Most fights start at 7 p.m. when the sun is not too hot. Tickets are sold for 'sol' or 'sombra'. The 'sombra' tickets for seats not in the sunlight cost more.


title: Yellow spot

paragraphs: The yellow spot or macula is an oval yellow spot near the centre of the retina of the human eye. It has a size of 1.5 millimeters.

paragraphs: It is specialized for seeing things with highest clearness or visual acuity.

paragraphs: It is the area of best vision where maximum amount of cone cells are present.It is also known as fovea centralis and Macula Lutea.

paragraphs: Most of the sensory cells are present at this spot. It is another name for the macula. It is subdivided into the umbo, foveola, foveal avascular zone, fovea, parafovea and perifovea areas. It has a diameter of 5.5mm in humans. They contain the pigment Iodopsin and respond to bright light and colour, because of which we can see stuff clearly around us. It lies at the back of the eye almost center of the horizontal axis of the eye ball.

paragraphs: It is responsible for the central, high-resolution, colour vision that is possible in good light; and this kind of vision is impaired if it is damaged. It is about 6mm in diameter. The yellow spot is the most sensitive spot on the retina, the sharpest image of the object forms only here.


title: Retina

paragraphs: The retina is the thin layer of cells that lines the back of the eyeball in humans and in many animals. It is made mainly of neurons and its role is to sense the light which gets into the eye and send information about it to the brain.

paragraphs: Most information about light that leaves the retina travels through the optic nerve, and is used by the brain to recognize what you're seeing. Information about light which travels through the "retino-hypothamalic tract" is for adjusting circadian rhythms to the 24-hour day.

paragraphs: The center of the human retina, called the "fovea centralis", or just "fovea", has the most rod cells and cone cells for receiving light. Even though the fovea takes up only 1.5 square millimeters, it plays the most important roles in vision. It is only around 1% of the human retina, but the fovea sends about as much information to the visual cortex as the rest of the retina combined.


title: The Exploited

paragraphs: The Exploited is a Scottish punk metal band. The band was formed in 1979 in Edinburgh, Scotland.


title: 4Kids

paragraphs: 4Kids Entertainment (commonly known as 4Kids) was an American movie and television production company. They specialized in the creation and distribution of children's entertainment around the world. The company is most well known for the large number of Anime and animated television series it has provided to television stations. These series included "Yu-Gi-Oh!" and "Sonic the Hedgehog". 4Kids Entertainment dubbed "Pokémon" until 2006. The company was first created in 1970 as "Leisure Concepts, Inc".

paragraphs: 4Kids Entertainment has provided a number of series for the Fox television network. These series have been shown on the network using the name 4Kids TV.

paragraphs: 4Kids Entertainment filed for bankruptcy twice. They first filed for bankruptcy in 2011, and again in 2016.

paragraphs: In 1970, the company was originally called "Leisure Concepts, Inc". It was created by Mike Germakian and Stan Weston.

paragraphs: 4Kids Entertainment gets most of its Anime series from Japan. Before showing the series in the United States and United Kingdom, the series are edited. This editing includes changing the words from Japanese to English. It may also include changing other things which could be thought to be bad. For example, cigarette smoking is often removed before being shown in the United States. Changing the names of items from Japanese items to American items is also often done. This is done so the person watching can understand the show more easily.

paragraphs: Many times the story of an episode is changed completely to make it better for children. Some people believe all the changes to the Anime is a bad thing. They say that the series should be shown exactly the same as it was originally created. They feel 4Kids made "Americanized kiddy version" of the original series and that it is not right to do this.


title: Cubism

paragraphs: Cubism was one of the most significant art movements of the 20th century. It began in France about 1907, and flourished from 1910 through the 1920s. It was pioneered by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso.

paragraphs: Pablo Picasso's 1907 painting "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" was an early Cubist work. Georges Braque's 1908 "Houses at L’Estaque" (and related works) prompted the critic Louis Vauxcelles to refer to "bizarreries cubiques" (cubic oddities).

paragraphs: The first organized group exhibition by Cubists took place at the "Salon des Indépendants" in Paris in the spring of 1911. It included works by Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Fernand Léger, Robert Delaunay and Henri Le Fauconnier, but no works by Picasso and Braque were exhibited.

paragraphs: According to one art historian, there were three phases of Cubism. There was "Early Cubism", (from 1906 to 1908) when the movement was initially developed by Picasso and Braque. In the second phase, "High Cubism", (from 1909 to 1914), Juan Gris emerged as an important exponent after 1911. Finally "Late Cubism" (from 1914 to 1921) was the last phase of Cubism as a radical avant-garde movement. Douglas Cooper's emphasis on the work of Braque, Picasso, Gris (from 1911) and Léger (to a lesser extent) was an intentional value judgement.

paragraphs: Cubism is a style of art which aims to show all of the possible viewpoints of a person or an object all at once. It is called Cubism because the items represented in the artworks look like they are made out of cubes and other geometrical shapes. Cubism was first started by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. Analytical Cubism is the first type of cubism. Most analytical Cubists painted and drew in monochrome (only one colour) so that the person who was looking at the painting did not pay attention to colour, but only to the shapes and the forms that were being shown.

paragraphs: This was changed in 1912 when Picasso first started painting with colours and using collages. Collage is when you glue together different cut-up pieces of paper to make an artwork. This new form of Cubism was called Synthetic Cubism. Picasso invented collage because he was tired of the way he was making his art, and wanted to try out something new.

paragraphs: Pablo Picasso created over 20,000 pictures. From 1912 to 1919 was Picasso's Synthetic Cubism Period.


title: Sham 69

paragraphs: Sham 69 is a punk rock band from England. The band was formed in Hersham in 1975.


title: Visual acuity

paragraphs: Visual acuity (VA) is acuteness or clearness of vision, especially form vision, which depends on the sharpness of the retinal focus within the eye, the sensitivity of the nervous elements, and the interpretative faculty of the brain.

paragraphs: VA is a quantitative measure of the ability to identify black symbols on a white background at a standardized distance when the size of the symbols is varied. The VA represents the smallest size that can be reliably identified. VA is the most common clinical measurement of visual function.

paragraphs: Some people may suffer from other visual problems, such as color blindness, reduced contrast, or inability to track fast-moving objects and still have normal visual acuity. Thus, normal visual acuity does not mean normal vision. The reason visual acuity is very widely used is that it is a test that corresponds very well with the normal daily activities a person can handle, and evaluate their impairment to do them.


title: Robert Baker

paragraphs: Bob Baker (October 26 1926 - April 23 2002) was an American boxer who fought professionally from 1949 to 1960. He was one of the world's leading bulky heavyweight boxers in the 1950s. Bob "The Grinder, Big Bob, The Behemoth" Baker was born in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. After serving 3 years in the navy, he fought out of Pittsburgh. His most notable accomplishments include the 1949 Pennsylvania Intercity Golden Gloves championship in the heavyweight division. In 1947, he won Pittsburgh Golden Gloves Championship. His amateur record is respectable 33-2. In 1948, Coley Wallace won an unpopular split decision vs. Marciano in the semifinal of the New York Golden Gloves Tournament of Champions and then he won the final of that tournament by an unpopular very close split decision vs 'Big' Bob Baker.

paragraphs: In 1948, Wallace & Baker met again in the final match. This time Baker won & became 1948 Golden Gloves champion again.

paragraphs: Baker started his professional career with 26 undefeated fights before drawing against bulky Kid Riviera but only 10 days later lost to another top boxer, Clarence Henry.

paragraphs: From April 1955 until February of 1956, Bob Baker was ranked as the leading challenger to Rocky Marciano's heavyweight title by IBC-International Boxing Club, however Ring Magazine still rated him as #2. On Wednesday, December 7th 1955, Baker beat Nino Valdez in a rematch, again by unanimous decision. The winner of that fight was scheduled to fight Marciano.

paragraphs: After 13 straight wins (Baker's dozen), Baker lost to Tommy Hurricane Jackson on February 3 1956, in New York's Madison Square Garden. It was a conytorversial split decision win for Jackson. In May 1956, Baker easily defeated John Holman. Baker also lost another controversial split decision rematch with Jackson on September 26 1956. Both fights should have been draws.Opinions on both Baker-Jackson fights were divided in many publications with most of them giving the fight to Baker. United Press scored the fight 7-5 for Baker. A poll of all 13 ringside writers favored Baker 9-4.

paragraphs: After 1956, Baker's success was limited. His most notable victory was a sound unanimous decision defeat of solid Canadian George Chuvalo, the future Canadian heavyweight champion, by unanimous decision on September 9 1957. Chuvalo was also a multiple time championship contender in the 1960s and 1970s.

paragraphs: Baker died on April 23 2002, from acute heart failure, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is survived by his son Bob Baker jr.


title: Michaëlle Jean

paragraphs: Her Excellency the Rt. Hon. Michaëlle Jean (born September 6, 1957, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti) is a Haitian-born Canadian politician and journalist. She was the Governor General of Canada, replacing Adrienne Clarkson on 27 September 2005, until 1 October 2010 when David Lloyd Johnston took over. She is the Secretary General of "Organisation internationale de la Francophonie" since 2015 and multilingual who speaks English, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Haitian Creole.

paragraphs: Jean was formally appointed Special Envoy for Haiti for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization on November 8, 2010, for a four-year term.


title: Pascal Duquenne

paragraphs: Pascal Duquenne is a Belgian actor. He was born in Vilvoorde, Flanders, Belgium on 8 August 1970. He was diagnosed with Down syndrome.

paragraphs: It was Jaco van Dormael who noticed him (as Ducquenne was playing theatre). Dormael offered him his first roles in movies.

paragraphs: In 1996 Pascal Duquenne and Daniel Auteuil were awarded a prize (for best male interpretation) at the Cannes Film Festival. Duquenne received the prize for the role of a boy who has Down syndrome. The movie was called "Le Huitième Jour" ("The Eighth Day").

paragraphs: He also has acted in other movies. Currently he lives in Brussels.


title: Catherine Emmerich

paragraphs: Sister Anne Catherine Emmerich (September 8, 1774 - February 9, 1824) was a German Augustinian nun. She is remembered for her mystical visions of Jesus' and Mary's lives. What she saw was written in books, for example, "The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord, Jesus Christ". The book later had an important part as a main source of information for Mel Gibson's movie "The Passion of the Christ".

paragraphs: She was stuck in bed when marks of stigmata showed up she had doctors and physicians examine her markings, and it was found to be a genuine stigmatic case.


title: New Year

paragraphs: The New Year is an event that happens when a culture celebrates the end of one year and the beginning of the next year. Cultures that measure yearly calendars all have New Year celebrations. On January 1, 1600 Scotland, was the first country to adopt January 1 as the first day of the New Year. Now, many countries celebrate the New Year on 1st of January.


title: Polyethylene

paragraphs: Polyethylene (also called polyethene, usually shortened to PE) is a thermoplastic. It is used in consumer goods, typical examples are transport wraps, and garbage bags. Other uses include pre-fabricated plastic parts, plastic tubes, and insulation of electric cables. Plastic wrap is usually less adhesive than PVC, but this can be remedied by adding linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE), which also increases the film's tensile strength. The world makes over 80 million tonnes of polyethylene per year.


title: Polyvinyl chloride

paragraphs: Polyvinyl chloride, also called Polychloroethene or PVC, is a thermoplastic. It turns soft when heated and hard when cooled. Polyvinyl chloride is made by polymerization of the monomer vinyl chloride (chloroethene) CH=CHCl. PVC can be made softer and more flexible by adding plasticizers. Phthalates are often used to soften PVC in this way.

paragraphs: Vinyl polymers are the most common type of plastic. "Vinyl" is actually Ethylene, a gas that is used to make those plastics including PVC. In popular usage, "vinyl" is often short for PVC, but there are two other vinyl polymers which are more common. The most common is polyethylene, the second-most common is polypropylene. Another, less used, is polystyrene.

paragraphs: Softened PVC is used in clothing, upholstery, electrical cable insulation, and other products instead of rubber. In the 1950s PVC became the usual material of phonograph records. Some audiophiles use the word "vinyl" to mean records made of PVC.

paragraphs: About half of the polyvinyl chloride resin manufactured each year is used to make pipes. PVC pipes are 66% of the newer water pipes in the US. PVC pipes are 75% of new sewer pipes. PVC is useful because of its light weight, high strength, and low reactivity. Also, PVC pipes can be glued together, or they can be connected by heating (similar to joining HDPE pipe). Both kinds of connections make permanent joints that do not leak.

paragraphs: PVC plastics can be recycled. Their recycling code is "3".


title: Polyamide

paragraphs: A polyamide is a polymer made of amides which are joined by peptide bonds. Examples for polyamides that occur naturally are proteins, such as wool and silk. It is also possible to artificially produce polyamides, one growth-step at a time. Examples for artificially-made polyamides are nylons, aramids and Sodium poly(aspartate).


title: Clarence Henry

paragraphs: Clarence Henry (b. March 27, 1926, d. February 28 1999) was an American heavyweight boxer. Contender for Rocky Marciano's title.

paragraphs: He was a leading boxer in the heavyweight division in the early to mid-1950s. Henry was 1948 "Los Angeles Times" Golden Gloves Heavyweight Champion.

paragraphs: He was elected into the World Boxing Hall of Fame in 1998.


title: Supreme Leader of Iran

paragraphs: The Supreme Leader of Iran is the head of state of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

paragraphs: The Supreme Leader is also the highest ranking Islamic cleric in the country.

paragraphs: The position of "Supreme Leader" was created after the Islamic Revolution of 1979 in Iran.

paragraphs: The Supreme Leader is more powerful than the President of Iran and chooses the heads of many powerful posts in the military, the government, and the judiciary.

paragraphs: Ayatollah Khomeini (died 1989) and Imam Khamenei have become Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic so far.


title: President of Iran

paragraphs: The President of Iran is the head of government of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The president is chosen by direct popular vote, that is the voters choose the president, they do not vote for other people to choose as in the USA. Unlike other countries, in Iran, the President is not the leader of the country. The President does many of the things that are normally done by a head of state but the Supreme Leader is the person who is actually in control of the country. The current President of Iran is Hassan Rouhani.


title: Ayatollah Khomeini

paragraphs: Ayatollah Khomeini was born Sayyed Ruhollah Mustafavi Khomeini, 24 September 1902 in Khomein, Central Iran (then Persia), and died 3 June 1989) (Persian: روح الله موسوی خمینی). He was also known as 'Imam Khomeini'. Khomein was the political leader of the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

paragraphs: Khomeini was also a poet. His poems are collected together in an "Imam Divan". Khomeini died of intestinal cancer and a heart attack on June 3, 1989, in Tehran at the age of 86.

paragraphs: On June 5, 1964, Khomeini was arrested and sent into exile. He was exiled to Iraq, Turkey and then to France. Khomeini gave many speeches in France against Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran. On January 16, 1979, Pahlavi left Iran. Two weeks later, on February 1, Khomeini returned to Iran.

paragraphs: He received a traditional religious education in Qom (city in Iran). When he lived in Najaf (a holy city in Iraq) for some years, he spoke about Islam ideas about Government. During that time, he refined his theory of "velayat-e faqih" ("government of the jurist").

paragraphs: On February 11, 1979, Khomeini appointed his first own prime minister, Medhi Bazargan. On March 30, 1979 a referendum took place in Iran and as a result, the monarchy was replaced with an Islamic Republic. After the Islamic Revolution, Khomeini became Supreme Leader of Iran.

paragraphs: In early 1989 Khomeini issued a fatwā calling for muslims to kill Salman Rushdie and "all those involved in the publication" of his book called "The Satanic Verses". Rushdie has never been killed. However the Japanese translator of the book was stabbed to death in 1991.


title: Theocracy

paragraphs: In Theocracy, a form of government, the institutions and people that govern the state are very close to the leaders of the main religion. If the religious leaders do not directly run some bodies of the state, they influence them very much. The word theocracy comes from two Greek words literally meaning God-government, and meaning the government is run by "The Church".

paragraphs: The Roman Catholic bishop of Urgell is one of the princes of the country. His role is mostly ceremonial.

paragraphs: Iran is a theocratic republic. In Iran, two bodies, the Supreme Leader and Guardian Council consist of members who are not elected by the people. These two bodies are staffed by Shia clerics. The highest elected official is the President of Iran.

paragraphs: Mohammad Khatami, the former president, said that this model is an alternative to democracy, as it brings in religious elements. He called it a religious democracy.

paragraphs: The Vatican City is a true theocracy, with no separation of church and state. The head of the Catholic Church is the leader of the country. The pope is elected by the Papal Conclave. Most popes have stayed for the rest of their lives, but some have resigned. One who resigned was Pope Benedict XVI.

paragraphs: Many states have a state religion. Israel, for example mixes some aspects of rabbinical law and civil law. Also, the state hires rabbis. In some such states, religious leaders also have civil duties, not only religious ones.

paragraphs: Some (now extinguished) states throughout history had characteristics of a Theocracy, as for example:


title: Ahmad Jannati

paragraphs: Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati (born 1926) has been the secretary of the Guardian Council of the Islamic Republic of Iran since 1988.


title: Guardian Council

paragraphs: The Guardian Council is part of the government of Iran. It ensures the laws passed by Iran's legislature conform to Islam. It was created in 1979.


title: Incumbent

paragraphs: An incumbent is someone who currently holds a political office. This word is usually used when talking about elections, which are often between the incumbent and one other person or several other people. For example, Donald Trump is the incumbent President of the United States since he is still president. It can also be used in sports to let people know if a sportsman still holds the position or award in question.


title: Assembly of Experts

paragraphs: The Assembly of Experts was created after the Islamic Revolution in Iran. It is an assembly of Islamic clerics who have the power to choose the successor of the Supreme Leader of Iran.


title: Ali Meshkini

paragraphs: Ayatollah Ali Meshkini (1922-30 July 2007) was the chairman of the Assembly of Experts of the Islamic Republic of Iran from 1984 to 2007.


title: Judiciary

paragraphs: In the law, the judiciary or judicial system is the system of courts that administers justice in the name of the sovereign or state. A judicial system is used to resolve disputes.

paragraphs: The term is also used to refer collectively to the judges and magistrates who form the basis of the judiciary, as well as the other people who help keep the system running properly.

paragraphs: Separation of powers causes separate branches of government that each have a different purpose. The judiciary is the branch of government that interprets the law. Such systems may have three branches: Legislature, Executive and Judiciary. Often the judiciary branch has courts of first resort, appellate courts, and a supreme court or constitutional court. Decisions of the lower courts may be appealed to the higher courts.

paragraphs: In the United States the Judicial Branch is an integrated system of courts headed by the Supreme Court of the United States.


title: Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi

paragraphs: Ayatollah Seyyed Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi (15 August 1948 – 24 December 2018) was an Iranian politician. He was the Chief Justice of Iran from 1999 to 2009. He was born in Najaf, Iraq.

paragraphs: Ayatollah Shahroudi was best known for ordering a moratorium on stoning as a form of the death penalty. However, later it was shown that executions by stoning are still being carried out, in spite of his claims that they have stopped. Stoning is still happening inside prisons, where the public cannot see it.

paragraphs: From August 2017 to December 2018, Shahroudi was Chairman of Expediency Discernment Council.

paragraphs: He died on 24 December 2018 from cancer in Tehran at the age of 70.


title: Expediency Discernment Council

paragraphs: The Expediency Discernment Council is a governmental body for resolving disputes between the Guardian Council and the legislature in the Islamic Republic of Iran.


title: Mata Hari

paragraphs: Mata Hari was the stage name of Margaretha Geertruida (Grietje) Zelle (7 August 1876, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands – 15 October 1917, Vincennes, France).

paragraphs: She was a Dutch-Frisian exotic dancer and spy. She was executed by a firing squad of the French Army. French authorities thought she was a spy during World War I. Because she had relationships with both German and French officers, they thought she was a double agent (working for both sides). Her dossier (file) was released in 2017, a hundred years after her death.

paragraphs: German documents unsealed in the 1970s proved that Mata Hari was truly a German agent. In the autumn of 1915, she entered German service.

paragraphs: On the orders of section III B-Chief Walter Nicolai, she was instructed about her duties by Major Roepell during a stay in Cologne. Her direct handler was Captain Hoffmann, who gave her the code name H-21.


title: Father Damien

paragraphs: Father Damien, also Saint Damien of Molokai, born as Joseph de Veuster in Belgium on January 3, 1840 and died on April 15, 1889, was a Roman Catholic Priest and missionary. He was known for helping people with leprosy in the colony of Kalaupapa on the island of Molokai in Hawaii. Father Damien came to Hawaii in 1864. During this time, many Native Hawaiians were dying from many of the diseases they caught from the white settlers. The King of Hawaii, made the people who had leprosy live in a colony away from other people. Father Damien went to help the sick people and gave them hope. Father Damien also died from leprosy, but what he did helped many people.

paragraphs: In 1995, he was beatified (made an important person) by the Pope, and he is recognized by both the Catholic and Anglican churches. Father Damien was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday October 11, 2009.

paragraphs: His is Patron Saint of the Diocese of Honolulu, as well as all of Hawaii, of people with leprosy, and of outcasts, as well as people suffering from HIV and AIDS as well.


title: Jack Dempsey

paragraphs: William Harrison "Jack" Dempsey (June 24, 1895 – May 31, 1983) was an American boxer who held the world heavyweight title between 1919 and 1926 Known as "The Manassa Mauler", Dempsey was a tremendous puncher famous for his exciting fights, many of which set financial and attendance records.

paragraphs: He won the title by beating Jess Willard on July 4, 1919. He defended the title six times before losing it to Gene Tunney in 1926. They had a rematch in 1927 and Tunney again beat Dempsey. It was during this fight where the "Long Count" took place. Dempsey knocked Tunney down in the seventh round. The referee would not start counting until Dempsey went to a neutral corner, so it is estimated that Tunney had as many as fourteen seconds to rise (instead of the usual ten).

paragraphs: Dempsey retired in 1928. He fought exhibitions after his retirement, served as a commander in the Coast Guard during World War II, and opened a restaurant in New York City.


title: Jess Willard

paragraphs: Jess Willard (December 29, 1881–December 15, 1968) was an American boxer. He was the heavyweight best puncher in the world from 1915 to 1919. When Jack Johnson was the Black world champion, Willard was one of the many "White Hopes" who wanted to take the title. He succeeded when he beat Johnson by a 26th round out-cold punch in Cuba in 1915. He fought to keep the title and won once before losing it to Jack Dempsey in 1919.


title: Nicholas II of Russia

paragraphs: Nicholas II of Russia, (May 18, 1868 – July 17, 1918) was the last Tsar (Emperor) of the Russian Empire. He became Tsar in 1894 after his father, Tsar Alexander III died. His reign lasted until the 1917 Russian Revolution.

paragraphs: He married Princess Alix of Hesse, who was the granddaughter of Queen Victoria, and they had five children, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia, and Alexi. Alexi suffered from a disease called haemophilia, which caused his parents great sadness. After 1905, the royal family became friends with Grigori Rasputin, a priest whom they believed could treat Alexi.

paragraphs: In the first 20 years of his reign, Nicholas tried to make Russia more modern, but these plans were held back by the nobles and the Tsar's weak leadership. He and his chief ministers Sergei Witte and Pyotr Stolypin encouraged railways, land reform, education, the borrowing of money and ties with France. In 1905, after Russia's disastrous defeat in the war with Japan and the massacre of protestors on Bloody Sunday, he faced widespread protests and calls for a parliament. He created one (the Duma), but he would not allow it to have many powers. His reign also saw the Khodynka Tragedy, attacks on the Russian Jews, anger over the power Rasputin seemed to have, and the imprisonments and executions of people who opposed the government.

paragraphs: In 1914, he led Russia into World War I, but the war went badly for Russia and caused great hardship. It led to the fall of the monarchy in the 1917 Russian Revolution. He abdicated (gave up being Tsar) in March of that year. He and his family were held as prisoners under house arrest. On July 17, 1918, Nicholas, his wife and their children were killed by a firing squad, on the orders of the new Bolshevik government. In 1981, the Tsar and his family were made Saints by the Russian Orthodox Church. In 1990, the bones of the Tsar and his family were found in the woods and given a proper burial in St Petersburg in 1998.


title: William Tell

paragraphs: William Tell was a folk hero from Switzerland. In the story, William Tell is a man who refused to bow down to pole that was set up by an army who had taken over the place where he lived. He was arrested and forced to shoot an apple off his son's head with a crossbow. If he did not, both he and his son would be killed. So he shot the apple off the son's head and did not harm his son. He is considered a legend and his actions helped form Switzerland as a nation.


title: Antioch

paragraphs: Antioch on the Orontes was an ancient city on the eastern side (left bank) of the Orontes River on the site of the modern city of Antakya, Turkey.

paragraphs: It was founded near the end of the 4th century BC by Seleucus I Nicator, one of Alexander the Great's generals. Antioch became a rival of Alexandria as the chief city of the nearer East and the cradle of gentile Christianity. It was one of the four cities of the Syrian tetrapolis.

paragraphs: The geographical character of the district north and north-east of the elbow of Orontes makes it the perfect natural centre of Syria, so long as that country is held by a western power; and only Asiatic, and especially Arab, dynasties have neglected it for the oasis of Damascus. During the Crusades, the Christian crusaders laid siege to Antioch. One Wijerd Jelckamas ancestors from his father's side of the family had died at the Siege of Antioch.

paragraphs: The siege of Antioch (lost by the Crusaders, initially), was a turning point in the Crusades.

paragraphs: Alexander the Great is said to have camped on the site of Antioch, and dedicated an altar to Zeus Bottiaeus

paragraphs: After Alexander's death in 323 BC, his generals divided up the territory he had conquered. Seleucus I Nicator won the territory of Syria, and he founded four "sister cities" in northwestern Syria - Antioch, Seleucia Pieria, Apamea and Laodicea-on-the-Sea. Although Seleucia Pieria was at first the Seleucid capital city in northwestern Syria, Antioch soon rose above it to become the Syrian capital.

paragraphs: The original city of Seleucus was laid out in imitation of the plan of Alexandria by the architect Xenarius.

paragraphs: The new city was populated by a mix of local settlers, Athenians brought from the nearby city of Antigonia, Macedonians, and Jews (who were given full status from the beginning). The total free population of Antioch at its foundation has been estimated at between 17,000 and 25,000, not including slaves and native settlers. During the late Hellenistic period and Early Roman period, the population reached its peak of over 500,000 inhabitants (estimates vary from 400,000 to 600,000) and it was the third largest city in the world after Rome and Alexandria. By the 4th century, Antioch's declining population was about 200,000 according to Chrysostom, a figure which again does not include slaves.

paragraphs: Antioch became the capital and court-city of the western Seleucid empire under Antiochus I, its counterpart in the east being Seleucia on the Tigris.

paragraphs: The Romans both felt and expressed boundless contempt for the hybrid Antiochenes; but their emperors favoured the city from the first, seeing in it a more suitable capital for the eastern part of the empire than Alexandria could ever be, because of the isolated position of Egypt. To a certain extent they tried to make it an eastern Rome.

paragraphs: The chief interest of Antioch under the empire lies in its relation to Christianity.

paragraphs: In 638, during the reign of the Byzantine emperor Heraclius, Antioch was conquered by the Muslim Arabs during the Battle of Iron Bridge, and became known in Arabic as أنطاكيّة Antākiyyah.

paragraphs: In recent years, what remains of the Roman and late antique city have suffered severe damage as a result of construction related to the expansion of Antakya. In the 1960s, the last surviving Roman bridge was demolished to make way for a modern two-lane bridge. The northern edge of Antakya has been growing rapidly over recent years, and this construction has begun to expose large portions of the ancient city, which are frequently bulldozed and rarely protected by the local museum.


title: Pitman arm

paragraphs: The Pitman arm is a part used in automobiles, trucks, SUVs and other vehicles to steer the wheels. When the steering wheel is turned right or left the pitman transmits the motion it receives from the steering gearbox to the tie rod. A "drop pitman arm" is used to correct the steering when a vehicle has a suspension lift.


title: F1

paragraphs: F1 is a function key on the keyboard. It is mainly used to open help pages about an application or a part of it.


title: Solvent

paragraphs: A solvent is a substance that becomes a solution by dissolving a solid, liquid, or gaseous solute. A solvent is usually a liquid, but can also be a solid or gas. The most common solvent in everyday life is water.

paragraphs: Most other commonly-used solvents are organic (carbon-containing) chemicals. These are called organic solvents. Solvents usually have a low boiling point and evaporate easily or can be removed by distillation, thereby leaving the dissolved substance behind. Solvents should therefore not react chemically with the dissolved compounds - they have to be inert. Solvents can also be used to extract soluble compounds from a mixture, the most common example is the brewing of coffee or tea with hot water. Solvents are usually clear and colorless liquids and many have a characteristic smell. The concentration of a solution is the amount of compound that is dissolved in a certain volume of solvent. The solubility is the maximal amount of compound that is soluble in a certain volume of solvent at a specified temperature.

paragraphs: Common uses for organic solvents are in dry cleaning (e.g. tetrachloroethylene), as paint thinners (e.g. toluene, turpentine), as nail polish removers and glue solvents (acetone, methyl acetate, ethyl acetate), in spot removers (e.g. hexane, petrol ether), in detergents (citrus terpenes), in perfumes (ethanol), and in chemical syntheses. Inorganic solvents are used in research chemistry and in a few technological processes.

paragraphs: Some solvents including chloroform and benzene (an ingredient of gasoline) are carcinogenic. Many others can damage internal organs like the liver, the kidneys, or the brain. Many also can catch fire easily. Ways to work safely include:

paragraphs: The solvents are grouped into non-polar, polar aprotic, and polar protic solvents and ordered by increasing polarity. The polarity is given as the Dielectric constant. The density of nonpolar solvents that are heavier than water is bolded.


title: Chemically inert

paragraphs: In chemistry, the term inert is used to describe something that is not chemically active. The noble gases were described as being inert because they did not react with the other elements or themselves.

paragraphs: Inert gases are completely inert to basic chemical reactions (such as combustion, for example) because their outer valence shell is completely filled with electrons. With a filled outer valence shell, an inert atom is not able to acquire or lose an electron, and is therefore not able to participate in any chemical reactions. For inert atoms or molecules, a lot of energy is involved before it can combine with other elements to form compounds. A high temperature and pressure is necessary, and sometimes requires the presence of a catalyst.

paragraphs: For example, elemental nitrogen is inert under standard room conditions and exists as a diatomic molecule, N. The inertness of nitrogen is due to the presence of the very strong triple covalent bond in the N molecule.

paragraphs: Inert atmospheres of gases such as dinitrogen and argon are routinely used in chemical reactions where air sensitive and water sensitive compounds are handled.


title: Electron shell

paragraphs: An electron shell is the outside part of an atom around the atomic nucleus. It is where the electrons are, and is a group of atomic orbitals with the same value of the principal quantum number "n".

paragraphs: Electron shells have one or more electron sub-shells, or sub-levels. These sub-levels have two or more orbitals with the same angular momentum quantum number. Electron shells make up the electron configuration of an atom. The number of electrons that can be in a shell is equal to formula_1.

paragraphs: The name for electron shells comes from the Bohr model, in which groups of electrons were believed to go around the nucleus at certain distances, so that their orbits formed "shells". This term was presented by Niels Henrik David Bohr.

paragraphs: The valence shell is the outermost shell of an atom in its normal state, which contains the electrons most likely to be used in reactions.

paragraphs: In a noble gas, an atom tends to have 8 electrons in its outer shell (except helium, which is only able to fill its shell with 2 electrons). This serves as the model for the octet rule which is mostly applicable to main-group elements of the second and third periods. In terms of atomic orbitals, the electrons in the valence shell are distributed 2 in the single "s" orbital and 2 in each of the three "p" orbitals.

paragraphs: For coordination complexes containing transition metals, the valence shell consists of electrons in these "s" and "p" orbitals, as well as up to 10 additional electrons, distributed 2 each into 5 "d" orbitals, to make a total of 18 electrons in a complete valence shell for such a compound. This is referred to as the "eighteen electron rule".

paragraphs: Electron sub-shells are identified by the letters s, p, d, f, g, h, i, etc., corresponding to the ("l"-values) 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc. Each shell can hold up to 2, 6, 10, 14, and 18 electrons respectively, or 4"l" + 2 electrons in each sub-shell. The notation 's', 'p', 'd', and 'f' originate from a past system of talking about spectral lines as "sharp", "principal", "diffuse", or "fundamental", based on their observed fine structure. When the first four types of orbitals were described, they were associated with these spectral line types, but there were no other names. The letters 'g', 'h', and so on, were used because they followed the alphabet.


title: Wheelchair

paragraphs: A wheelchair is a type of chair usually used by disabled people.

paragraphs: A wheelchair is moved either manually (by pushing the wheels with the hands, or pushed from behind with handles by somebody who is not sitting in the wheelchair) or by automated systems such as electric motors which can be controlled by the wheelchair user (the person sitting in the chair) or by somebody walking behind or beside the wheelchair if the wheelchair user needs help to move their wheelchair.

paragraphs: Wheelchairs are used by people for whom walking is difficult or impossible due to illness, injury, or disability. Wheelchairs can have extra cushions and other parts added to improve support if the wheelchair user cannot keep their body in a good sitting position, or to make the wheelchair more comfortable to sit in. The earliest record of the wheelchair in England dates from the 1670s [Oxford English Dictionary, (2nd Ed.), 1989, Vol. XX., p. 203.], and in continental Europe this technology dates back to the German Renaissance.


title: Fuel oil

paragraphs: Fuel oil is a fraction obtained from petroleum distillation, either as a distillate or a residue at the oil refinery.

paragraphs: Broadly speaking, fuel oil is any liquid petroleum product that is burned in a furnace or boiler for the generation of heat or used in an engine for the generation of power, except oils having a flash point of approximately +40 °C and oils burned in cotton or wool-wick burners. In this sense, diesel is a type of fuel oil. Fuel oil is made of long hydrocarbon chains, particularly alkanes, cycloalkanes and aromatics. The term "fuel oil" is also used in a stricter sense to refer only to the heaviest commercial fuel that can be obtained from crude oil, heavier than gasoline and naphtha.

paragraphs: Fuel oil in the United States is classified into six classes, according to its boiling temperature, composition and purpose. The boiling point, ranging from 175 to 600 °C, and carbon chain length, 20 to 70 atoms, of the fuel increases with number. Viscosity also increases with fuel oil number and the heaviest oil has to be heated to get it to flow. Price usually decreases as the fuel number increases.

paragraphs: No. 1 fuel oil, No. 2 fuel oil (heating oil), and No. 3 fuel oil are referred to as distillate fuel oils, diesel fuel oils, light fuel oils, gasoil or just distillate. For example, No. 2 fuel oil, No. 2 distillate and No. 2 diesel fuel oil are almost the same thing. Diesel is different in that it also has a cetane number limit which describes the ignition quality of the fuel. Distillate fuel oils are distilled from crude oil.


title: Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center

paragraphs: Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center is a large wind farm with 735.5 megawatt (MW) capacity. It consists of 291 GE 1.5 MW wind turbines and 130 Siemens 2.3 MW wind turbines spread over nearly 47,000 acres (190 km²) of land in Taylor and Nolan County, Texas.

paragraphs: The first phase of the Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center consisted of 213 MW and was completed in late 2005; phase two consisted of 223.5 MW and was completed in the second quarter of 2006; phase three which consisted of 299 MW, was completed by the end of 2006.


title: Andasol Solar Power Station

paragraphs: Andasol Solar Power Station is a large solar thermal power plant, near Guadix in Andalusia, in the province of Granada, one of the sunniest regions in Spain. The plant will cost 310 million euros and is currently under construction.

paragraphs: Andasol will have a generating capacity of 50 megawatts and liquid salt heat storage will allow for electricity to be generated for seven hours after the sun has gone down. Annual electricity production will be 179 gigawatt hours which will cover the electricity demands of 50,000 households or 200,000 people.

paragraphs: Andasol should be completed in mid-2008 and a second plant, Andasol 2, is planned.


title: Atlantic slave trade

paragraphs: The Atlantic slave trade was the selling of African slaves by Europeans that happened in and around the Atlantic Ocean. It lasted from the 15th century to the 19th century. Most slaves were shipped from West Africa and brought over to the New World on a slave ship. The slaves were transported on a ship on which slaves lived in bad conditions. The journey by ship was known as the Middle Passage.

paragraphs: Some slaves were captured in battles or through raids and kidnapping. Some were sold into slavery as punishment or to pay a debt, usually by other Africans. Then they were shackled together and marched to the coast on journeys lasting weeks or months. When they arrived they were imprisoned in forts where they were purchased by Europeans. Most historians today think that between 12 million and 13 million Africans arrived in the New World.

paragraphs: The Dahomian army was involved and traded slaves for weapons to protect themselves. King Gezo of Dahomey said in the 1840s:

paragraphs: The slave-trade is sometimes called the "Maafa" by African and African-American scholars. It means catastrophe in the Swahili language. Some slave ships worked a three-part economic cycle often called the triangular trade. It tied the economies of several regions and continents together. The main triangular trading countries were England, The Netherlands, France, Spain and Portugal. Other ships just worked the slave trade.

paragraphs: Christopher Columbus first came to the Americas in 1492 while seeking the West Indies. This led to an economic reason for the transatlantic slave trade. Slaves were first imported in large numbers for mining and later to grow sugarcane in plantations. Slavery is much more ancient than the transatlantic trade. Slaves were used in many ancient societies.

paragraphs: In the 18th century, a small opposition developed against the slave trade in Britain, America, and some parts of Europe. In Britain and America, opposition to the trade was led by the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and establishment Evangelicals such as William Wilberforce. People who protested against the trade were opposed by the owners of land in the Americas. After 1772, slaves became free upon entering the British isles. Abolitionism became stronger in the 19th century.

paragraphs: Denmark was the first country to ban the slave trade, in 1792, which took effect in 1803. On 22 February 1807, the work of William Wilberforce was rewarded with victory. By an overwhelming 283 votes for to 16 against, the motion for the Slave Trade Act to abolish the Atlantic slave trade was carried in the House of Commons. The United States abolished it later that year. The Royal Navy set up a Blockade of Africa to stop the trade, and treaties with other nations allowed the blockade ships to stop their slave trade. Slaves continued to be sent to Spanish colonies of Puerto Rico and Cuba until much later in the 19th century.


title: African slave trade

paragraphs: The African slave trade was a trade in slaves and, like most of the world, has carried on for thousands of years in Africa. The first main route passed through the Sahara. After the Age of Exploration, African slaves became part of the Atlantic slave trade, from which comes the modern, Western type of slavery. Despite being against the law, slavery continues in all parts of the world, including Africa. In Mauritania, slavery was not made illegal until August 2007.


title: Pocking Solar Park in Germany

paragraphs: The Pocking Solar Park is a 10-megawatt (MWp) solar photovoltaic plant which is among the largest in the world. Construction of the power plant started in August 2005 and was completed in March 2006. On the former military training area in the Lower-Bavarian town of Pocking, sheep are now grazing under and around the 57,912 photovoltaic modules.


title: Fractional distillation

paragraphs: Fractional distillation is a process of separating a mixture of chemical compounds. This means that each part (called a "fraction") of the mixture can be kept apart from the other chemicals. Different chemicals have different boiling points. Fractional distillation is done by heating the mixture so that each fraction evaporates and then condenses in its own compartment.

paragraphs: It is a special type of distillation. Generally, the component parts boil at less than 25°kelvin from each other under a pressure of one atmosphere (atm). If the difference in boiling points is greater than 25°kelvin, a simple distillation is used.

paragraphs: Fractionation is done by boiling a mixture in a fractionating column. The mixture evaporates at different times and is caught in a container as a pure compound.

paragraphs: Fractional distillation is the main activity of oil refineries, and is done in a large fractionating column known as a "fractionation tower".

paragraphs: Industrially, crude oil is heated and sent up along the fractionating column that has decreasing temperatures with height and several platforms at different levels to collect the condensate. Different components of crude oil have different boiling points. High molecular weight components have higher boiling points and condense at lower portions of the column while fractions with lower boiling points rise to the top of the column to condense.

paragraphs: The main fractions include refinery gases, gasoline (petrol), naphtha, kerosene, diesel oil, fuel oil, and a residue that contains bitumen. These fractions are mainly used as fuels, although they do have other uses too. Hydrocarbons with small molecules make better fuels than those with large molecules because they are volatile, flow easily and are easily ignited.


title: Monte Alto solar power plant

paragraphs: The Monte Alto photovoltaic power plant in Spain has a generating capacity of 9.55 megawatts peak (MWp) and will generate 14 million kilowatt-hours of electricity per year. It cost 65 million Euros [US$87 million].

paragraphs: The plant covers an area of 51 hectares on agricultural land near the locality of Milagro (Navarre) and contains 889 solar structures, of which 864 have automated solar tracking. The rest are fixed structures adapted to the terrain.


title: Odor

paragraphs: An odor or odour is a volatilized chemical compound, usually at a very low concentration, which humans and other animals perceive by the sense of olfaction.

paragraphs: Odors are also called smells, which can be used to describe both pleasant and unpleasant odors. The words fragrance, scent, or aroma are used mostly by the food and cosmetic industry to describe a pleasant odor, and is sometimes used to refer to perfumes. On the other hand, the words stench, reek, and stink are used specifically to describe unpleasant odors.

paragraphs: Odor is a sensation caused by molecules dissolved in air.

paragraphs: The widest range of odors are made up of organic compounds although some inorganic substances, such as hydrogen sulfide and ammonia, are also odorants.

paragraphs: The perception of an odor effect is a two step process.

paragraphs: First, there is the physiological part; the sense of the stimulus by receptors in the nose.

paragraphs: After that the psychological part follows. The stimuli are processed by the region of the human brain which is responsible for smelling.

paragraphs: Because of this, an objective and analytical measure of odor is impossible.

paragraphs: While odor feelings are very personal perceptions, individual reactions are related to gender, age, state of health and private affectations. Common odors that people are used to, such as their own body odor, are less noticeable to individuals than external or uncommon odors.

paragraphs: For most people, the process of smelling gives little information concerning the ingredients of a substance. It only offers information related to the emotional impact. However, experienced people, such as flavorists and perfumers can pick out individual chemicals in complex mixes through smell alone.

paragraphs: The concentrations of odorant in Germany are defined by the “Olfaktometrie” since the 1870s. In this connection it’s about the standard method to define the sense barrier of odors on basis the thinner of concentrated odor loaded assays. Following parameters are defined: odor substance concentration, intensity of odor and hedonism assessment.

paragraphs: Pheromones are odors that are deliberately used for communication. A female moth may release a pheromone that can entice a male moth that is several kilometers away. Honeybee queens constantly release pheromones that regulate the activity of the hive. Workers can release such smells to call other bees into an appropriate cavity when a swarm moves in or to "sound" an alarm when the hive is threatened.

paragraphs: In mammals, some pathway of pheromones identification are in the vomeronasal organ and some in olfactory receptors.


title: European ash

paragraphs: The European ash is "Fraxinus excelsior", a kind of ash tree. It is found throughout Europe and not just Scandinavia. It is a deciduous tree that grows to a height of 20–35 metres.

paragraphs: Ash wood is very easy to bend. It is therefore the material of choice to make bows. Tennis rackets, and the long poles used for snooker are sometimes made from it.

paragraphs: In Norse mythology, the tree Yggdrasil was a European ash. The tree linked all the nine world, Niflheim and Asgard, amongst others. Below the tree resides Hel as well as the Well of Urd.


title: Solar power in Spain

paragraphs: Spain is the fourth largest manufacturer in the world of solar power technology and exports 80 percent of this output to Germany. Spain is one of the most attractive countries with regard to the development of solar energy, as it has the greatest amount of available sunshine of any country in Europe.

paragraphs: The Spanish government wants to produce 12 percent of primary energy from renewable energy by 2010. That would mean a solar generating capacity of 400 megawatts.

paragraphs: Through a ministerial ruling in March 2004, the Spanish government removed economic barriers to grid-connection of renewable energy. The widely applauded Royal Decree 436/2004 equalises conditions for large-scale thermal and photovoltaic plants and guarantees feed-in tariffs.

paragraphs: In March 2007, Europe's first commercial concentrating solar power tower plant was opened near the sunny southern Spanish city of Seville. The 11 megawatt plant, known as the PS10 solar power tower, produces electricity with 624 large heliostats. Each of these mirrors has a surface measuring 120 square meters (1,290 square feet) that concentrates the Sun's rays to the top of a 115-meter (377 foot) high tower where a solar receiver and a steam turbine are located. The turbine drives a generator, producing electricity. PS10 is the first of a set of solar electric power generation plants to be constructed in the same area that will total more than 300MW by 2013. This power generation will be accomplished using a variety of technologies.

paragraphs: Solar thermal power plants designed for solar-only generation are ideally matched to summer noon peak loads in prosperous areas with significant cooling demands, such as Spain. Using thermal energy storage systems, solar thermal operating periods can even be extended to meet base-load needs. For example, the 50-MWe AndaSol solar trough power plants are designed with six to twelve hours of thermal storage, which increases annual availability by some 1,000 to 2,500 hours.

paragraphs: Construction has started on a 20MW solar photovoltaics power system in Trujillo, Cáceres, in Spain. Costing €150m, the new plant will have double the output of the 10MW Bavaria Solar Park in Germany, the previous largest ever photovoltaic (PV) system. The project will use 200 100 kW units (120,000 PV modules in total), gaining the top feed-in tariff for this type of plant.

paragraphs: BP Solar has begun constructing a new solar photovoltaic (PV) solar cell manufacturing plant at its European headquarters in Tres Cantos, Madrid.

paragraphs: For phase one of the Madrid expansion, BP Solar is aiming to expand its annual cell capacity from 55 megawatts (MW) to around 300 MW. Construction of this facility is underway, with the first manufacturing line expected to be fully operational this year.

paragraphs: The new cell lines use innovative screen-printing technology. By fully automating wafer handling, the manufacturing lines will be able to handle the very thinnest of wafers available and ensure the highest quality.

paragraphs: Since the beginning of 2007, Aleo Solar AG has also been manufacturing high-quality solar modules for the Spanish market at its own factory in Santa Maria de Palautordera near Barcelona.

paragraphs: New building code laws in Spain are now mandating solar hot water for new and remodeled private residences, and photovoltaic to offset some power requirements for all new and remodeled commercial buildings. The new laws also reflect inceased awareness of the importance of better building insulation and the use of daylighting.

paragraphs: The Plataforma Solar de Almería (PSA) in Spain, part of the Center for Energy, Environment and Technological Research (CIEMAT), is the largest center for research, development, and testing of concentrating solar technologies in Europe.


title: Sensation

paragraphs: A sensation is something that produces excitement. A new song or a new play might be termed a "sensation" or producing "sensation". A thrilling ride on a roller coaster might be described as "sensational".

paragraphs: In psychology, sensation is the first stage in the biochemical and neurologic events:

paragraphs: It begins with a stimulus upon the receptor cells of a sensory organ, which then leads to perception, the mental state that is reflected in statements like "I see a uniformly blue wall."

paragraphs: A sensation that might lead to that statement could include the excitation of cone cells in the retina.

paragraphs: In the West, the human body's senses are divided into eight: visual, auditory, gustatory, olfactory, cutaneous, kinesthetic, vestibular, organic. The ways in which these senses are divided from one another in concept, and combined in varying ratios in perceiving the world, differs based on individual physiology, social and cultural context, and physical surroundings. The whole sensory system, including both physical sensation and interpretation (or cognition) of information from the senses, is referred to as a sensorium.

paragraphs: The sensory system provides many ways to be aware of the world.


title: Instant soup

paragraphs: Instant soups are a kind of soup. They are produced on an industrial scale. Later they are treated in different ways to preserve them. Usually they are dried, canned, or treated by freezing.

paragraphs: Packaged instant soups come in two varieties:


title: Perception

paragraphs: In psychology and the cognitive sciences, perception is the process of getting, interpreting, selecting, and organizing sensory information. It includes the collection of data from sense organs through to the interpretation made by the brain. Consider this: Light rays enter our eyes, and the brain works on this information to build up our mental picture of what is going on "out there". Perception is a lot more than just "information coming in". It is an "active" process.

paragraphs: There are many ways to study perception. There are biological or physiological approaches, psychological approaches through the philosophy of mind and experiments. There are studies by philosophers such as David Hume, John Locke, George Berkeley.

paragraphs: Perception is one of the oldest fields of scientific psychology, and there are many theories about how it works. The Weber-Fechner law quantifies the relationship between the intensity of physical stimuli and their perceptual effects. It was the study of perception that gave rise to the Gestalt school of psychology, with its emphasis on holistic approach.


title: Soba

paragraphs: Because noodles made out of pure buckwheat can easily fall apart when boiled, the buckwheat flour is usually mixed with binders - often wheat flour. Under the Japan Agricultural Standards regulations, the noodles must contain at least 30% buckwheat in order to be called "soba" but noodles with a high buckwheat content are seen as more desirable. The raw noodles are made by making a dough out of buckwheat flour and binder. The dough is then spread out flat. After that, strands of noodles are sliced off with a special knife. The quality of noodles is highly dependent on the skill of the maker, especially for soba noodles with high buckwheat content. The raw noodles are boiled before being served hot or cold.

paragraphs: In Japan, soba noodles are served in a variety of situations. They are a popular inexpensive fast food at train stations throughout Japan, they are served by exclusive and expensive specialty restaurants, and they are also made at home. Markets sell dried noodles and "men-tsuyu", or instant noodle broth, to make home preparation easy.

paragraphs: Some establishments, especially cheaper and more casual ones, may serve both soba and udon (thick wheat noodles) as they are often served in a similar manner. However, soba is traditionally the noodle of choice for Tokyoites. This tradition originates from the Edo period. At that time, the population of Edo (Tokyo) was much richer than the rural poor, were more susceptible to beriberi because of their high consumption of white rice which is low in thiamine. They are thought to have made up for this by regularly eating thiamine-rich soba. Every neighbourhood had one or two soba establishments, many also serving sake, which functioned much like modern cafes where locals would drop by casually.

paragraphs: Soba is almost always eaten with chopsticks, and in Japan, it is traditionally considered polite to slurp the noodles noisily. This is especially common with hot noodles, as drawing up the noodles quickly into the mouth acts to cool them down.

paragraphs: Like many Japanese noodles, soba noodles are often served drained and chilled in the summer, and hot in the winter with a soy-based dashi broth. Extra toppings can be added onto both hot and cold soba. Toppings are chosen to reflect the seasons and to balance with other ingredients. Most toppings are added without much cooking, although some are deep-fried. Most of these dishes may also be prepared with udon. Soba noodles often have a witdh of around 1.5 mm.

paragraphs: Chilled soba is often served on a sieve-like bamboo tray called a zaru, sometimes garnished with bits of dried "nori" seaweed, with a dipping sauce known as "soba tsuyu" on the side. The "tsuyu" is made of a strong mixture of dashi, sweetened soy sauce and mirin. Using chopsticks, the diner picks up a small amount of soba from the tray and swirls it in the cold "tsuyu" before eating it. Wasabi, scallions, and grated ginger are often mixed into the "tsuyu".

paragraphs: Soba is also often served as a noodle soup in a bowl of hot "tsuyu". The hot "tsuyu" in this instance is thinner than that used as a dipping sauce for chilled soba. Popular garnishes are sliced scallion and shichimi toragashi (mixed chili powder).

paragraphs: Soba is traditionally eaten on New Years Eve in most areas of Japan, a tradition which survives to this day. In the Tokyo area, there is also a tradition of giving out soba to new neighbours after a house move, although this practice is now rare.

paragraphs: The most famous Japanese soba noodles come from Nagano. Soba from Nagano is called "Shinano Soba" or "Shinshu soba". Ni-hachi ("two-eight") soba, consists of two parts of wheat and eight of buckwheat.

paragraphs: "Soba" is also the Japanese word for buckwheat. Roasted buckwheat kernels may be made into a grain tea called "sobacha", which may be served hot or cold. Buckwheat hulls, or "sobakawa", are used to fill pillows.

paragraphs: "Soba" is occasionally used to refer to noodles in general. In Japan, ramen is sometimes called "chūka soba" or "shina soba" (both mean "Chinese noodles"). Parboiled chūka soba is stir-fried to make yakisoba. Note that these noodles do not contain buckwheat.

paragraphs: In Okinawa, "soba" usually refers to Okinawa soba, a completely different dish of noodles made out of flour, not buckwheat. Okinawa soba is also quite popular in the city of Campo Grande (Brazil), due to influence of Japanese (Okinawan) immigrants. It is eaten at street markets or in special restaurants called "sobarias".


title: Carmen Basilio

paragraphs: Carmen Basilio (born April 2, 1927 – November 7, 2012) was an American boxer who held the welterweight and middleweight world championship. He won the welterweight title from Tony DeMarco in 1955. He then fought Sugar Ray Robinson for the middleweight title. He won the belt from Robinson in 1957, but lost it when they fought again.

paragraphs: He is the uncle of former welterweight boxing champion Billy Backus.


title: Johnny Saxton

paragraphs: Johnny Saxton (b. July 4, 1930 in Newark, NJ, d. October 4 2008) was an American boxer who won the welterweight championship.

paragraphs: Saxton beat Kid Gavilan in 1954 to become the welterweight champion. The lost the title the following year to Tony DeMarco. In 1956 he won the title again by beating Carmen Basilio, but lost the title in a rematch with Basilio later in the year. He retired in 1958.


title: Weber-Fechner law

paragraphs: The Weber–Fechner law is a proposed relationship between the magnitude of a physical stimulus and the intensity or strength that people feel.

paragraphs: In one of his classic experiments, Weber gradually increased the weight that a blindfolded man was holding and asked him to respond when he first felt the increase. Weber found that the response was proportional to a relative increase in the weight. That is to say, if the weight is 1 kg, an increase of a few grams will not be noticed. Rather, when the mass is increased by a certain factor, an increase in weight is perceived. If the mass is doubled, the threshold is also doubled.

paragraphs: The relationship between stimulus and perception is logarithmic. This logarithmic relationship means that if a stimulus varies as a geometric progression (i.e. multiplied by a fixed factor), the corresponding perception is altered in an arithmetic progression (i.e. in additive constant amounts). For example, if a stimulus is tripled in strength (i.e., 3 x 1), the corresponding perception may be two times as strong as its original value (i.e., 1 + 1). If the stimulus is again tripled in strength (i.e., 3 x 3 x 1), the corresponding perception will be three times as strong as its original value (i.e., 1 + 1 + 1). Hence, for multiplications in stimulus strength, the strength of perception only adds.

paragraphs: This logarithmic relationship is valid, not just for the sensation of weight, but for other stimuli and our sensory perceptions as well.


title: Logarithmic scale

paragraphs: A logarithmic scale is a scale used when there is a large range of quantities. Common uses include earthquake strength, sound loudness, light intensity, and pH of solutions.

paragraphs: It is based on orders of magnitude, rather than a standard linear scale. The value of each mark on the scale is the value at the previous mark multiplied by a constant.

paragraphs: Logarithmic scales are also used in slide rules for multiplying or dividing numbers by adding or subtracting lengths on the scales.

paragraphs: The logarithmic scale can be helpful when the data cover a large range of values – the logarithm reduces this to a more manageable range.

paragraphs: Some of our senses operate in a logarithmic fashion (multiplying the actual input strength adds a constant to the perceived signal strength, see: Stevens' power law). That makes logarithmic scales for these input quantities especially appropriate. In particular, our sense of hearing perceives equal "multiples" of frequencies as equal "differences" in pitch.

paragraphs: On most logarithmic scales, "small" multiples (or ratios) of the underlying quantity correspond to "small" (possibly negative) values of the logarithmic measure.

paragraphs: Some logarithmic scales were designed such that "large" values (or ratios) of the underlying quantity correspond to "small" values of the logarithmic measure. Examples of such scales are:

paragraphs: A logarithmic scale is also a graphical scale on one or both sides of a graph where a number "x" is printed at a distance "c"·log("x") from the point marked with the number 1. A slide rule has logarithmic scales, and nomograms often employ logarithmic scales. On a logarithmic scale an equal difference in order of magnitude is represented by an equal distance. The geometric mean of two numbers is midway between the numbers.

paragraphs: Logarithmic graph paper, before the advent of computer graphics, was a basic scientific tool. Plots on paper with one log scale can show up exponential laws, and on log-log paper power laws, as straight lines (see semilog graph, log-log graph).


title: Noodle soup

paragraphs: Noodle soup is a kind of soup. It contains the normal soup stock, together with noodles, and sometimes other ingredients. This kind of soup is very popular in Asia, where it originally came from. There are also many instant soups of this kind.


title: Scale (ratio)

paragraphs: The scale of a map shows the ratio between the distances on the map and the corresponding distances in reality. For example, a map of scale 1:50,000 shows a distance of 50,000 cm (or 500 m) as 1 cm on a map. A 1:25 scale model of a building with a height of 30 m has a model height of 1.20 m.

paragraphs: When a drawing or model or photograph of an object is larger or smaller than the original, the scale represents how much the object has been "grown" or "shrunk".

paragraphs: Scale bars for microscopic or unusual objects are necessary. They help readers to understand the diagram.


Scale


title: Scale (map)

paragraphs: A map scale is the size of an object compared to the size of the object's smaller representative on a map. This can be shown by a scale bar and a ratio 1:"n". The reader can measure a distance on the map to know what is the distance on the ground.

paragraphs: People sometimes speak of a map as one with a "large scale" or "small scale". A "large scale" map makes things look large, and a "small scale" map makes things look small. For example, an island displayed on a 1:10,000 map will appear larger than if it were displayed on a 1:25,000 map. Thus, the former is "large scale". What can be confusing is that for a map of a given physical size, say 11 by 17 inches, a "large scale" map will have a smaller geographic extent than a "small scale" map centred on the same point.

paragraphs: Maps with a ratio of 1:50 000 or larger (for example, 1:40 000 would be larger) are considered large scale. Maps with a ratio of 1:50 000 to 1:250 000 are considered intermediate scale. Any maps with a smaller scale (for example 1:300 000) are considered small scale.


title: Midnight sun

paragraphs: Midnight sun is a phenomenon that exists north of the Arctic Circle and south of the Antarctic Circle. It means that the sun, on parts of the year, is visible the whole night long. The sun above the horizon at midnight in the arctic or Antarctic summer.

paragraphs: There are no people living permanently south of the Antarctic Circle, but in Alaska, Canada, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, and some other countries it is possible to watch the Midnight sun in the summer.

paragraphs: The opposite of the Midnight sun is the Polar night.


title: Eight Below

paragraphs: Eight Below is a 2006 Walt Disney Pictures movie. It was directed by Frank Marshall and written by David DiGilio. The movie was released on February 17, 2006 in the United States.


title: Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono

paragraphs: General Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (born 9 September 1949), is an Indonesian retired military general and politician. He was the sixth President of Indonesia from 2004 to 2014. Yudhoyono is the first president to be elected directly by voters. Yudhoyono won the presidency on 20 September 2004. He defeated President Megawati Sukarnoputri.


title: Order of the Garter

paragraphs: The Most Noble Order of the Garter is an English order of chivalry. It was started in 1348, by King Edward III of England. The Order is the highest level of knighthood that can be given by the English monarch. It is the world's oldest national order of knighthood. Membership in the Order is limited to those people who have done many great things for the United Kingdom.

paragraphs: The Order of the Garter is made up of a very small number of people. This group includes the Sovereign (the King or Queen of Britain) and no more than 25 full members. These members are called "Companions". Male companions are called "Knight Companions". Female members are called "Lady Companions". There are also a number of extra members known as "Supernumerary" Knights and Ladies. These members are usually members of the British royal family, and monarchs of other countries.

paragraphs: The monarch alone can grant membership to the order. He or she is known as the "Sovereign of the Garter", and the Prince of Wales is known as a "Knight Companion of the Garter".

paragraphs: Knights of the Order use the post-nominal letters (KG) and Ladies of the Order (LG). Knights Companion can use the title "Sir" before their first name, and their wives can use the title "Lady" before their surnames. Ladies Companion can use the title "Lady" before their first name, but their husbands cannot use any title.


title: HD DVD

paragraphs: HD DVD, also known as High-Definition DVD, is an optical disc that is able to store large amounts of data, such as high-definition videos. It was considered to be the successor of the DVD. It used to compete against the Blu-ray Disc, a similar version of an optical disc that is designed to hold large amounts of media, but all of the companies that backed it decided to only use Blu-ray discs, so the HD DVD format is now considered dead.


title: Bruges

paragraphs: Bruges (Dutch: "Brugge") is a city in the northwest of Belgium.

paragraphs: It is the capital and largest city of West Flanders. In 2007, 116,982 people lived there.

paragraphs: It is a centre of tourism because of its historic medieval city centre. The centre was named a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. It is a center of commerce because of its port, Zeebrugge. The movie "In Bruges" with Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes was made there in 2008.


title: Immortality

paragraphs: Immortality or eternal life is the idea of something which is alive that will stay alive forever. The opposite of immortality is mortality, which means a living thing can die. Right now, only a small number of living things are known to be immortal. These are mainly simple, lower forms of life like bacteria. Stories about immortal people or animals are popular in fiction and mythology, but not yet actually possible. Many religions say people have an immortal soul with an afterlife.

paragraphs: Some people have long used magic and science to look for a way to live forever. Others feel that death is what defines all living things, and as a natural part of life, should not be taken away.

paragraphs: Insurance actuaries have calculated that even if everyone were physically immortal, the average life span would still be only be 400 years because of the "accident rate"; eventually, everyone would die of a fatal accident and it would be very unusual to encounter anyone more than 800 years old. Therefore, it would seem that the only practical way to achieve actual immortality is to upload one's mind into a supercomputer to live in virtual reality. Futurists such as Ray Kurzweil believe this will become possible about the year 2045 in the technological singularity.

paragraphs: The color amaranth represents immortality in Western civilization, while the color peach represents immortality in Chinese civilization.


title: European Union budget

paragraphs: The European Union (EU) has an independent parliament and civil service which is distinct from those of the 27 member states. It has to pay for expenditure on common policies throughout the EU. Therefore, the EU has an agreed budget of €862 billion for the period 2007-2013. By comparison, the UK expenditure for 2004 alone was estimated at about €759 billion.

paragraphs: The EU has three elements to its government: the Council of Ministers, the European Commission and the European Parliament. All three take a part in setting the annual budget.

paragraphs: The EU obtains most of its revenue indirectly by payments from treasuries of member states. Revenue is divided into three categories.

paragraphs: Traditional own resources are taxes raised on behalf of the EU as a whole, principally import duties on goods brought into the EU. These are collected by the state where import occurs and passed on to the EU. States are allowed to keep a proportion of the revenue to cover administration.

paragraphs: VAT based own resources are taxes on EU citizens as a proportion of Value added tax in each member country. VAT rates and exemptions vary in different countries, so a formula is used to create the 'harmonised tax base'. The starting point for calculations is the total VAT raised in a country.

paragraphs: GNI based own resources currently forms the largest contribution to EU funding. A simple multiplier is applied to the calculated GNI for the country concerned. Revenue is currently capped at 1.24% of GNI for the EU as a whole.

paragraphs: The largest single expenditure item is the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) at around 45% of the total budget. The second largest element is the regional policy, at 30%. Foreign policy consumes 8%, administration 6%, research 5%.


title: Wittingen

paragraphs: Wittingen is a small town in the north of the district of Gifhorn, Lower Saxony, Germany. It has 12.268 inhabitants (2005). Wittingen is located at 52° 43′ N, 10° 44′ E and its postal codes are 29378 and 29379.

paragraphs: Around Wittingen, there are 26 villages:

paragraphs: Wittingen was first mentioned in a document of 781


title: Golden Gloves

paragraphs: The Golden Gloves is the name given to competitions held every year for amateur boxing in the United States. The Golden Gloves is often the term used to refer to the National Golden Gloves competition, but it can also mean a few other amateur tournaments, including regional golden gloves tournaments and other notable tournaments such as the Intercity Golden Gloves, the Chicago Golden Gloves, and the New York Golden Gloves.

paragraphs: The Golden Gloves are open to all non-professional boxers age 16 and over. There is also a Silver Gloves amateur tournament, which is for young amateur male boxers age 8 to 15 years old.


title: Sonny Liston

paragraphs: Charles L. "Sonny" Liston (May 8, 1932 – December 30, 1970) was an American boxer. He held the world heavyweight championship from 1962 to 1964. He was a boxer who was disliked by much of the public because of his criminal history and rumored association with organized crime characters. Liston served prison sentences for armed robbery and assaulting a police officer. However, he was a skilled boxer and gained a shot at the heavyweight title held by Floyd Patterson. He knocked Patterson out in the first round to gain the title in 1962. He defeated Patterson by another first round knockout in their rematch in 1963.

paragraphs: He lost the championship to Muhammad Ali (then known as Cassius Clay) when he quit in his corner before the start of the seventh round in their 1964 fight. He was then knocked out in the first round during their second fight, which happened in 1965.

paragraphs: Liston continued to box, but died from a drug overdose in 1970 in Las Vegas, Nevada.


title: Buckwheat

paragraphs: Buckwheat (or common buckwheat) is a plant whose seeds may be used as a cereal. Buckwheat is not a true grass. It is not related to wheat, because wheat "is" a true grass, and buckwheat is not.

paragraphs: Buckwheat seeds look like small beech tree seeds. Both seeds have three sides. "Beech" is also called "buck", which is how buckwheat got its name.

paragraphs: Instead, buckwheat is related to sorrel, knotweed, and rhubarb. Buckwheat is referred to as a "pseudocereal" because its seeds are used in cooking the same as cereals, because they have complex carbohydrates.

paragraphs: The cultivation of buckwheat grain declined sharply in the 20th century with the adoption of nitrogen fertilizer which increased the productivity of other staples.


title: Kinston Indians

paragraphs: The Kinston Indians were a Minor league baseball team in Kinston, North Carolina. The team played in the Carolina League from (1956–1957, 1962–1974 and 1978–2011). Professional baseball in Kinston started in 1908, and there have been many teams since then. 2007 was the twenty-first season the Kinston team had been known as the Indians. Before that they were known as the Eagles and the Blue Jays. The Indians, or K-Tribe as they were nicknamed, played their home games in Grainger Stadium. The Indians' mascot was a dog named Scout.

paragraphs: The Kinston Indians won their league championship in 1988, 1991, 1995, 2004 and 2006.

paragraphs: For the 2012 season the Indians moved to Zebulon, North Carolina to become the Carolina Mudcats. The team still plays in the Carolina League.


title: Columbia University

paragraphs: Columbia University (officially Columbia University in the City of New York) is a research university in the United States. It is an Ivy League university and often considered one of the best in the world. It is the fifth oldest college in the United States.

paragraphs: It was ranked 2nd best college in the United States by Times Higher Education in 2017. It was ranked 8th best university in the world by U.S. News & World Report.

paragraphs: The university was founded as "King's College" by royal charter from King George II of Great Britain. It was the first college in New York, and the fifth college in the Thirteen Colonies. After the American Revolution it was renamed "Columbia College" in 1784 and renamed once again to "Columbia University" in 1896 when it moved to its current location in Morningside Heights.

paragraphs: Ninety-Six Nobel Prize winners have been produced by Columbia, the second most in the United States after Harvard University. Five Founding Fathers attended Columbia: Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Robert Livingston, Gouverneur Morris and Egbert Benson. Three U.S. Presidents have attended Columbia: Barack Obama, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Theodore Roosevelt. Ten Supreme Court Justices have attended Columbia including the most recent Associate Justice, Neil Gorsuch, and the first Chief Justice, John Jay. Other famous alumni include: Warren Buffett, Madeline Albright, and Lou Gehrig.

paragraphs: Columbia is home to the Pulitzer Prize for good work in journalism, literature and music. Columbia is where FM radio was created. The school is where the foundation of modern genetics was discovered. Its Morningside Heights campus was the first North American site where the uranium atom was split.

paragraphs: Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and College of Dental Medicine are located in Washington Heights in Northern Manhattan.


title: Columbian Exchange

paragraphs: The Columbian Exchange, sometimes called the Grand Exchange was the exchange of goods and ideas from Europe, Africa, and Asia and goods and ideas from the Americas. It also spread different diseases. It started in 1492 when Christopher Columbus arrived in the West Indies (North America).

paragraphs: This exchange of plants and animals changed European, American, African, and Asian ways of life. Foods that had never been seen before by people became a major part of what they ate. For example, before 1492, no potatoes were grown outside of South America. By the 1840s, Ireland was so dependent on the potato that a diseased crop led to the devastating Irish Potato Famine. The first European import to the Americas, the horse, changed the lives of many Native American tribes on the Great Plains, letting them to change to a nomadic lifestyle based on hunting bison on horseback. Italy became famous for its Tomato sauce, made from New World tomatoes, while coffee from Africa and sugarcane from Asia became the main crops of very large Latin American plantations. Also the chili and paprika from South America was introduced in India by the Portuguese and it is today an important part of Indian cuisine.

paragraphs: Before the Columbian Exchange, there were no oranges in Florida, no bananas in Ecuador, no paprika in Hungary, no zucchini in Italy, no pineapples in Hawaii, no rubber trees in Africa, no cattle in Texas, no chili peppers in Thailand and India, no cigarettes in France and no chocolate in Switzerland. Even the dandelion was brought to America by Europeans for use as an herb.

paragraphs: Before there was regular communication between the two hemispheres, the different types of domesticated animals and diseases were more numerous in the Old World than in the New. This partly led to the horrible effects of Old World diseases on Native American tribes. Smallpox probably caused in the highest death toll for Native Americans.

paragraphs: Barely any civilization on earth stayed the same by this global ecological exchange.


title: Ragusa

paragraphs: Ragusa is the capital of the Province of Ragusa in Italy, with 72,808 inhabitants in the city and more than 310,000 in the province area.


title: Elliott Carter

paragraphs: Elliott Carter (December 11, 1908 - November 5, 2012) was an American composer. He is one of the most important composers of classical music of his time. He experimented with new ideas of composition. He lived to be 103 years old and continued composing all his life. He recently composed a piece called "Interventions for Piano and Orchestra" which was given its first performance in the Symphony Hall, Boston where it was played by the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by James Levine with the pianist Daniel Barenboim as soloist. The same players played it again a week later on 11 December 2008 in the Carnegie Hall, New York to celebrate Carter's 100th birthday.

paragraphs: Elliott Carter was born in New York. The composer Charles Ives noticed his talent and gave him encouragement, taking him to concerts. Carter studied English and music at Harvard University. He then went to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger, returning to the USA in 1935 where he directed the Ballet Caravan.

paragraphs: In 1939 he married. The couple had one son.

paragraphs: He wrote a ballet called "Pocahontas". In 1940 the suite from this ballet got him the Juilliard Publication Award. From then on his got many more important awards and prizes for his music.

paragraphs: Carter has taught music and other related subjects in a number of well-known places including the Peabody Conservatory, Columbia University, Queen’s College, New York, Yale University and the Julliard School. He has received honorary doctorates from many universities and honours from many countries.

paragraphs: He has not written a large number of compositions, but the ones he has written are important works.

paragraphs: He died at his home in New York on November 5, 2012.

paragraphs: When Carter went to study in Paris in the early 1930s Stravinsky was the most famous composer who worked there. Carter was influenced to some extent by Stravinsky’s music as well as by that of his friend Charles Ives, but he worked hard to find a style of his own. Some of his music during the Second World War is quite tonal, but his later music uses more atonality (music not in any key) and has complicated rhythms. His best known works include the "Variations for Orchestra" (1954-5); the "Double Concerto" for harpsichord, piano and two chamber orchestras (1959-61); the "Piano Concerto" (1964-65), written as an 85th birthday present for Igor Stravinsky; the "Concerto for Orchestra" (1969) and "A Symphony of Three Orchestras" (1976).


title: Dubrovnik

paragraphs: Dubrovnik is a city in Croatia on the Dalmatian coast. More than 500 years ago it was called "Ragusa". The Italian name of the city is still "Ragusa"; this sometimes leads to confusion because there is already a city named Ragusa on Sicily. It is on the Adriatic Sea. About 50,000 people lived there in 2001. Because of its age and unique buildings, the old city of Dubrovnik has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

paragraphs: The old city of "Ragusa" was started by Greeks who left Illirya after their home was invaded in the sixth century. They had been part of the Holy Roman Empire. Ragusa in Dalmatia grew to be an important country on the sea, called the "Republic of Ragusa". This republic lasted until Napoleonic times.

paragraphs: Ragusa was once the only city in Dalmatia with Roman influence not to be controlled by the Republic of Venice. After the Middle Ages more and more Croats and Serbs from inland areas of Bosnia-Herzegovina moved to the area. They had started the neighbouring town of Dubrovnik, which eventually joined Ragusa. The original population (the Dalmatian Italians) was reduced to the few people of the ruling class: in the 19th century nearly all the people living in Ragusa were Slavs (Croats and Serbs). Ragusa officially changed its name to "Dubrovnik" (a Croatian name) after 1918, when the city became part of the newly created country of Yugoslavia.

paragraphs: Today Dubrovnik is one of the main tourist sites in Croatia. Dubrovnik is famous for its Old Town - this is an ancient fortress with large stone walls, which helped Dubrovnik keep its freedom for many centuries. There was a major earthquake in 1667 that destroyed many buildings, but the people living there were able to rebuild the town.


title: Sichuan pepper

paragraphs: Sichuan pepper (or Szechuan pepper) is plant fruit which is used as a spice. The outer pods of some species in the genus "Zanthoxylum" are used to make the spice. Many people in Asia grow them for the spice. Although the plants are called "peppers", they are not related to either black pepper or Chili pepper.

paragraphs: Sichuan pepper is widely used in food from Sichuan, China, from which it takes its name, as well as Tibetan, Bhutani, and Japanese food cultures, among others.

paragraphs: Sichuan pepper has a unique aroma and taste. This taste is quite different from that of black or white pepper or chile pepper. It tastes a little like lemon. It also creates a special feeling in the mouth, a kind of numbness.

paragraphs: Recipes say that sichuan pepper should be slightly toasted, then crushed, before it is added to food. Only the hull (outer shells) are used in cooking; the seeds are ignored or thrown away. In general, Sichuan pepper is added at the last moment. Star anise and ginger are often used with it.

paragraphs: Sichuan pepper figures prominently in spicy Sichuan food. It goes with fish, duck, and chicken dishes, as well as with fried eggplant. It has an alkaline pH and a numbing effect on the lips when eaten in larger doses. "Ma la" (; literally "numb and hot"), a flavour common in Sichuan cooking, is a combination of Sichuan pepper and chili pepper.

paragraphs: It is also available as an oil (marketed as either "Sichuan pepper oil" or "Hwajiaw oil"). In this form it is best used in stir fry noodle dishes without hot spices. The preferred recipe includes ginger oil and brown sugar to be cooked with a base of noodles and vegetables, with rice vinegar and Sichuan pepper oil to be added after cooking.

paragraphs: "Hua jiao yan" is a mixture of salt and Sichuan pepper, roasted and browned in a wok and served as a condiment to accompany chicken, duck and pork dishes. The peppercorns can also be lightly fried in order to make a spicy oil with various uses.

paragraphs: Sichuan pepper is one of the few spices which are important for Tibetan and Bhutanese cookery of the Himalayas. This is because few spices can be grown there. One Himalayan specialty is the momo, a dumpling stuffed with vegetables, cottage cheese or minced yak meat, beef or pork and flavoured with Sichuan pepper, garlic, ginger and onion. The noodles are steamed and served dry, together with a fiery sauce. Tibetans believe it can sanitize meat that may not be so fresh. In reality it may only serve to mask foul flavors.

paragraphs: In Japan the dried and powdered leaves of "Zanthoxylum sancho" are used to make noodle dishes and soups mildly hot and fragrant. The whole leaves, "kinome", are used to flavour vegetables, especially bamboo shoots, and to decorate soups. The buds, seeds, flowers, and hulls are also used.

paragraphs: In Korean food, two species are used: "Z. piperitum" and "Z. schinifolium".

paragraphs: From 1968 to 2005, the United States Food and Drug Administration banned the importation of Sichuan peppercorns because they were found to be capable of carrying citrus canker (as the tree is in the same family, Rutaceae, as the genus "Citrus"). This bacterial disease, which is very difficult to control, could potentially harm the foliage and fruit of citrus crops in the U.S. It was never an issue of harm in human consumption. The import ban was only loosely enforced until 2002. In 2005, the USDA and FDA lifted the ban, provided the peppercorns are heated to around 70 degrees Celsius (160 degrees Fahrenheit) to kill the canker bacteria before importation.


title: Antiparticle

paragraphs: There is an antiparticle corresponding to most kinds of particle. It has the same mass and opposite electric charge.

paragraphs: Even electrically neutral particles, such as the neutron, are not identical to their antiparticle. In the example of the neutron, the 'ordinary' particle is made out of quarks and the antiparticle out of antiquarks.

paragraphs: Particle-antiparticle pairs can annihilate each other if they are in appropriate quantum states. They can also be produced in various processes. These processes are used in particle accelerators to create new particles and to test theories of particle physics. High energy processes in nature can create antiparticles. These are visible in cosmic rays and in certain nuclear reactions. The word antimatter properly refers to (elementary) antiparticles, composite antiparticles made with them (such as antihydrogen) and to larger assemblies of either.

paragraphs: In 1932, soon after the prediction of positrons by Paul Dirac, Carl Anderson found that cosmic-ray collisions produced these particles in a cloud chamber a particle detector in which moving electrons (or positrons) leave behind trails as they move through the gas.

paragraphs: The antiproton and antineutron were found by Emilio Segrè and Owen Chamberlain in 1955 at the University of California, Berkeley. Since then the antiparticles of many other subatomic particles have been created in particle accelerators. In recent years, complete atoms of antimatter have been assembled out of antiprotons and positrons, collected in electromagnetic traps.


title: Hamo Beknazarian

paragraphs: Hamo Beknazarian, also known as Hamo Bek Nazarov (born May 19, 1891 in Yerevan, died April 27, 1965 in Moscow) was a Armenian movie director. His career in cinema started in 1914, when a friend offered him a part in a movie. Between 1914 and 1918, he played about 70 parts, becoming a popular actor in pre-Revolutionary Russian movie. In 1920, instead of going to Armenia as he planned, he went to Tbilisi, where he developed a movie department for Georgian Commissioner's office of Public Education. Many of his movies were filmed in Tbilisi, including "The Father Murderer" and "Lost Treasures". In 1925, he filmed his first Armenian movie and moved to Armenia. In 1933, he made the first Armenian movie to have sound, "Pepo".

paragraphs: Beknazarian also made a few documentary movies.


title: Henrik Malyan

paragraphs: Henrik Malyan (Armenian language:Հենրիկ Մալյան; September 30, 1925 in Telavi, Georgia – March 14, 1988 in Yerevan, Armenia) was an Armenian movie director.

paragraphs: His 1977 movie "Life Triumphs" ("Nahapet") is considered to be one of the most important Armenian movies to deal with the Armenian Genocide. It was exhibited in the 1978 Cannes Film Festival.


title: Septuagint

paragraphs: The original Septuagint (often referred to "LXX") was a translation of the Torah, the five books of Moses from the Hebrew Bible into the Greek language. It was done between the 3rd and 1st centuries BC in Alexandria. It was the first translations of the Hebrew Bible. After 350 years, the Church translated all the books of the Old Testament, and it also has books that Catholics and Orthodox Christians call the Deuterocanon. These books are called Apocrypha by Protestants because they do not think these books are sacred.

paragraphs: An ancient tradition says that 70 Jewish scholars were in a different room when they translated the Torah from Hebrew into Greek, yet they all wrote down exactly the same text. People thought this was a miracle. The Latin language word for "70" is "septuaginta", and the word "Septuagint" comes from that. Another way to write "70" is "LXX" which is why writers sometimes use that as a short name for Septuagint.

paragraphs: The Septuagint was used as the starting point for some later translations of the Bible.


title: Katharine McPhee

paragraphs: Katharine Hope McPhee (born March 25, 1984) is an American Pop/R&B singer. She was the runner-up to Taylor Hicks on the fifth season of the television show American Idol in 2006. Her first album, named "Katharine McPhee", was released January 30, 2007.