Diamond- Product Market Scope

The cut and polished diamonds are exported to United States of America, Japan, Belgium, Hong Kong, Switzerland and Thailand. Of these, USA, Japan and Switzerland are consumer markets and the rest of them are trading countries. It is mostly the same commission agents who supply roughs to the firms on behalf of the sight-holders, who also take the finished product for export. It is the commission agents who bargain on the commercial terms with the units. There are about 2,000 exporting concerns in India, which are registered with the Gem and Jewelry Export Promotion Council (GJEPC), Mumbai. About 95% of the exports are routed through Mumbai based exporters.

The other development has been the move by some companies to manufacture large size and fancy cut diamonds. A country that entered the international diamond industry as a manufacturer of small diamonds only, today, is producing virtually stones of every shape, size and colour. Most companies are now innovating and developing new cuts, some of them being patented internationally.

Brisbane Forest Park

Brisbane Forest Park is striking in its diversity of environments and plant communities. Take a journey through open eucalypt woodlands, scribbly gum forests and lush subtropical rainforests. More than 800 species of plants are found in these forests, some of which are rare and threatened.The cool mountain tops and forest flats of Brisbane Forest Park provide a rich and varied habitat for wildlife.

The cooler mountain climate is ideal for plant species such as ferns and mosses. Giant barred frogs (endangered) inhabit the cool mountain streams while yellow-bellied gliders are active in the open forest at night. Owls also live here and catch prey such as possums and snakes. The park provides excellent birdwatching opportunities and bell miners can often be heard throughout the forest.

Stock Funds

Although a stock fund's value can rise and fall quickly (and dramatically) over the short term, historically stocks have performed better over the long term than other types of investments — including corporate bonds, government bonds, and treasury securities.

Overall "market risk" poses the greatest potential danger for investors in stocks funds. Stock prices can fluctuate for a broad range of reasons — such as the overall strength of the economy or demand for particular products or services.Not all stock funds are the same. For example:

• Growth funds focus on stocks that may not pay a regular dividend but have the potential for large capital gains.
• Income funds invest in stocks that pay regular dividends.
• Index funds aim to achieve the same return as a particular market index, such as the S&P 500 Composite Stock Price Index, by investing in all — or perhaps a representative sample — of the companies included in an index.
• Sector funds may specialize in a particular industry segment, such as technology or consumer products stocks.

UK automotive opportunities

The world’s top automotive manufacturing brands are established in the UK, making its automotive industry one of the most prominent in the world.

The UK is home to Europe's most diverse and productive vehicle manufacturing base and the vehicle output continues to rise.Major global automotive companies are attracted to the UK by the combination of engineering excellence, workforce skills and the supportive business environment.More than 40 companies manufacture vehicles in the UK with high-profile global investors including Ford, BMW, Toyota, Nissan and Honda.The industry is supported by a strong supply chain including an array of world-class design, precision and high-performance engineering companies.

Italian Painting of the 13th-14th centuries

Early Italian artists adopted the techniques and traditions of Byzantine art: the gold backgrounds and timeless figures that give spiritual force to icons. But increasingly they began to convey a physical as well as a spiritual reality. The Renaissance celebration of freedom of self-determination had a profound effect on the visual arts. Whereas medieval art focused on otherworldly truths, Renaissance art was nurtured on the principles of humanism, which also paid tribute to visible reality. Greek and Latin learning emboldened thinkers to place the human being at the center of their world view. Interest in the classical past did not impede Christian devotion; religious art remained dominant, and secular art forms emerged also.

Tuscany was the cradle for the new humanist concerns. While Duccio's fourteenth-century Maest? altarpiece for Siena Cathedral owes much of its linear and decorative style to his Byzantine predecessors, certain elements in it derive from the painter's direct observation of nature. As religious emphasis shifted to Christ's human experience, closer identification with people's experience was required of art. Artists responded with details familiar in the lives of their viewers.

Execs Should Forego Bonuses: Obama

US corporate executives should forgo big bonuses since the economy is faltering and hundreds of thousand of workers face job cuts, President-elect Barack Obama said in an 'ABC News' interview airing on Wednesday."I think that if you are already worth tens of millions of dollars, and you are having to lay off workers, the least you can do is say, I'm willing to make some sacrifice as well," Obama said.

Executive bonuses have been strongly criticized as US taxpayers, suffering the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, question the US Treasury Department's $700 billion bailout of the financial industry, which played a large role in creating the crisis.In the wide-ranging interview, Obama was asked what he thought about the heads of the Big Three US automakers taking private planes to Washington last week to ask Congress for a bailout.

Their actions show that the CEOs were "a little tone deaf" to what is happening in America, Obama said, adding that it was a chronic problem, and not just for the auto industry."I think it's been a problem for the captains of industry generally," Obama said.

"When people are pulling down hundred-million-dollar bonuses on Wall Street, and taking enormous risks with other people's money, that indicates a sense that you don't have any perspective on what's happening to ordinary Americans."

Indian Creek/Toms Branch Falls

An easy 1.6 mile roundtrip hike will allow you to enjoy two beautiful waterfalls in the Deep Creek area. Walk Deep Creek Trail 0.7 mile to the junction with Indian Creek Trail. On your way you can view elegant Tom Branch Falls located on the far side of Deep Creek. Turn right at the junction with Indian Creek Trail and proceed approximately 200' to Indian Creek Falls. The falls are 25 feet in height.

Access trail: Deep Creek/Indian Creek (North Carolina)Trailhead: Follow the signs through downtown Bryson City to Deep Creek Campground. Continue past the campground to the trailhead at the end of Deep Creek Road.

Deep Vein Thrombosis

Also called: DVT, Phlebitis, Thrombophlebitis, Venous thrombosis
Deep vein thrombosis, or DVT, is a blood clot that forms in a vein deep in the body. Most deep vein clots occur in the lower leg or thigh. If the vein swells, the condition is called thrombophlebitis. A deep vein thrombosis can break loose and cause a serious problem in the lung, called a pulmonary embolism, or a heart attack or stroke.

Sitting still for a long time can make you more likely to get a DVT. Some medicines and disorders that increase your risk for blood clots can also lead to DVTs. Common symptoms are
* Warmth and tenderness over the vein
* Pain or swelling in the part of the body affected
* Skin redness

Treatment includes medicines to ease pain and inflammation, break up clots and keep new clots from forming. Keeping the affected area raised and applying moist heat can also help. If you are taking a long car or plane trip, take a break, walk or stretch your legs and drink plenty of liquids.

Achene

An achene (also sometimes referred to as "akene" and occasionally "achenium" or "achenocarp") is a type of simple dry fruit produced by many species of flowering plants. Achenes are "monocarpellate" (formed from one carpel) and indehiscent (they do not open at maturity). Achenes contain a single seed that nearly fills the pericarp, but does not adhere to it. In many species, what we think of as the "seed" is actually an achene, a fruit containing the seed.

Examples

Typical achenes are the fruits of buttercup, buckwheat, and dandelion.

The most familiar achenes are those of the strawberry, where the "seeds" are the achenes (technically the 'botanical' fruits), while what is eaten as the ('culinary') fruit is a so-called accessory fruit.

Fruits of sedges are sometimes considered achenes because they have a one-locule compound ovary. By the same definition, the common fruit type in the Family Asteraceae is also usually considered achene (some term the asteraceous achene cypsela, however). A sunflower "seed" in the husk is not really a seed, but an achene. The white-gray husks are the walls of the fruit.

Bin Laden Son Asylum Did Rejected

Spain has rejected a political asylum bid by one of Osama Bin Laden's sons, months after he was refused a UK visa.

Omar Osama Bin Laden, 27, made his claim at a Madrid airport during a stopover on a flight from Egypt to Morocco with his British wife, 52.Mr Bin Laden, one of the al-Qaeda leader's 19 sons, said the petition was rejected due to "insufficient evidence of danger or threat to [his] life".

The Saudi citizen, who currently lives in Egypt, said he would appeal. He and his wife remain in a transit area at Madrid's Barajas airport, where they arrived on Monday, a Spanish government official said.

"The Interior Ministry has not accepted the request for asylum because this does not meet the conditions necessary for entering Spain," the Associated Press news agency quoted the unnamed official as saying.A metals trader who has urged his father to give up violence, Omar Bin Laden argues that his pacifist beliefs put his life in the Middle East at risk.

'Not his father'

Omar Bin Laden currently lives in Cairo, with Zaina Alsabah Bin Laden, formerly named Jane Felix-Browne, whom he married in 2006.The couple said they were finding it difficult finding a country who would accept Mr Bin Laden, "only because of his family name".

"This is unfair. Omar is not his father," they said.

The couple had hoped to move to Mrs Bin Laden's home in Cheshire, north-west England.But they said in April the British government had judged Mr Bin Laden's presence in the country would not be "conducive to the public good".It is thought the authorities were referring to comments made by Mr Bin Laden that he could not prove his father was responsible for the 2001 attacks on the US or the London bombings in 2005.

Omar Bin Laden says he has not seen since his father since 2000.

Mrs Bin Laden, who is severely visually impaired, had said she needed access to medical treatment in the UK but refused to be apart from her husband.

Journalism

Journalism is the profession of writing or communicating, formally employed by publications and broadcasters, for the benefit of a particular community of people. The writer or journalist is expected to use facts to describe events, ideas, or issues that are relevant to the public.

Journalists (also known as news analysts, reporters, and correspondents) gather information, and broadcast it so we remain informed about local, state, national, and international events. They can also present their points of view on current issues and report on the actions of the government, public officials, corporate executives, interest groups, media houses, and those who hold social power or authority. Journalism is described as The Fourth Estate.

In journalism, a story refers to a single article, news item or feature. A story is usually relevant to a single event, issue, theme, or profile of a person. Stories are usually inspired through news pegs (the central premise of the story). Correspondents report on news occurring in the main, locally, from their own country, or from foreign cities where they are stationed.

Today, most reporters file information or write their stories electronically from remote locations. In many cases, breaking storie

Indian Rural Development

India is a country of villages and about 50% of the villages have very poor socio-economic conditions. Since the dawn of independence, concerted efforts have been made to ameliorate the living standard of rural masses. So, rural development as an integrated concept of growth and poverty elimination has been of paramount concern in all the consequent five year plans. Rural Development (RD) programmes comprise of following:

* Provision of basic infrastructure facilities in the rural areas e.g. schools, health facilities, roads, drinking water, electrification etc.
* Improving agricultural productivity in the rural areas.
* Provision of social services like health and education for socio-economic development.
* Implementing scheme for the promotion of rural industry increasing agriculture productivity, providing rural employment etc.
* Assistance to individual families and their Self Help Groups (SHG) living below poverty line by providing productive resources through credit and subsidy.

NASA Maps Shed Light on Carbon Dioxide's Global Nature

A NASA/university team has published the first global satellite maps of the key greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in Earth's mid-troposphere, an area about 8 kilometers, or 5 miles, above Earth. The team's study reveals new information on how carbon dioxide, which directly contributes to climate change, is distributed in Earth's atmosphere and moves around our world.

A research team led by Moustafa Chahine of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., found the distribution of carbon dioxide in the mid-troposphere is strongly influenced by major surface sources of carbon dioxide and by large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns, such as the jet streams and weather systems in Earth's mid-latitudes. Patterns of carbon dioxide distribution were also found to differ significantly between the northern hemisphere, with its many land masses, and the southern hemisphere, which is largely covered by ocean.

The findings are based on data collected from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument on NASA's Aqua spacecraft between September 2002 and July 2008. Chahine, the instrument's science team leader, said the research products will be used by scientists to refine models of the processes that transport carbon dioxide within Earth's atmosphere.

OBAMA ECONOMIC PLAN

Democratic US presidential candidate Barack Obama has unveiled an "economic rescue plan for the middle class".At its heart is a $60bn expansion of spending to help individuals, companies and states hit by the slowdown.

These benefits include:

• Temporary tax credits for firms that create jobs in the US
• A 90-day moratorium on foreclosure for homeowners who are making "good faith" efforts to keep up their payments
• Temporary elimination of tax on unemployment benefits
• A new body to lend to state and city governments who are finding it hard to get access to credit markets
• Penalty-free withdrawals of up to $10,000 from people's retirement savings plans

These proposals are additional to the $115bn in tax cuts to households earning under $250,000 that Mr Obama has already proposed.Senator Obama's plan follows the approach adopted by Congress in its earlier economic stimulus package, which gave temporary and targeted, rather than broad-brush help.The Democrats would like to call Congress back into an emergency lame-duck session immediately after the election in November to pass the new emergency stimulus package.Mr Obama also has a number of longer-term spending plans, including investing $15bn a year in renewable energy and a big programme of rebuilding US infrastructure, such as bridges and roads.

He says that these plans will create seven million new jobs over 10 years.

Indian IT Honchos Shrug Off Obama Threat To Outsourcing

Bangalore, Sep 4 (IANS) The Indian IT industry remains unfazed by the threat to outsourcing sounded by US Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama. 'Companies that ship jobs overseas will not get tax breaks,' he said in his nomination address at the Denver democratic national convention last week.

Having survived the campaign of former US Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry four years ago on jobs being 'Bangalored' because of outsourcing, head honchos of leading IT firms here say: 'Don't read much into what Obama said in a poll campaign. He didn't say either that firms creating jobs in America will get tax breaks.

'The reference may have more to do with the loss or lack of jobs in sectors like manufacturing than IT services,' Som Mittal, chairman of Indian software services' trade body Nasscom, told IANS.

Though the US market remains the best bet for the Indian IT services sector, contributing over 60 percent of the total revenue for bellwethers such as TCS, Infosys, Wipro and Satyam, Obama's passing reference against outsourcing does not rattle them as it did in the past due to changing market/industry dynamics and advent of globalisation.

Korea's IT Competitiveness Declines

Korea's IT competitiveness declined five notches from 2007. According to the Korea International Trade Association on Sunday, Korea ranked eighth among 66 countries, with 64.1 points out of 100, in the 2008 IT industry competitiveness index by the Economist Intelligence Unit, a provider of economic data and analysis. Korea ranked third after the U.S. and Japan in 2007.

This year, the U.S. topped the list for the second year running with 74.6 points, followed by Taiwan (69.2 points), the U.K. (67.2 points), Sweden (66 points), Denmark (65.2 points), Canada (64.4 points), and Australia (64.1 points).

Taiwan rose to second place from sixth last year. Sweden and Canada rose by three notches each.

By contrast, Japan fell from second to 12th place (62.2 points). Germany and France ranked 19th and 20th, respectively. China finished 50th with 27.6 points.

The EIU uses weighted categories such as overall business environment (10 percent), IT infrastructure (20 percent), human capital (20 percent), legal environment (10 percent), R&D environment (25 percent) and support for IT industry development (15 percent).

KITA said, "Korea has been well-known as an IT powerhouse, but it's noteworthy that its IT competitiveness had declined significantly." It urged the government to give a variety of support to the industry, and the industry to make its own efforts to enhance its competitiveness.

Thermodynamics

As all catalysts, enzymes do not alter the position of the chemical equilibrium of the reaction. Usually, in the presence of an enzyme, the reaction runs in the same direction as it would without the enzyme, just more quickly. However, in the absence of the enzyme, other possible uncatalyzed, "spontaneous" reactions might lead to different products, because in those conditions this different product is formed faster.

Furthermore, enzymes can couple two or more reactions, so that a thermodynamically favorable reaction can be used to "drive" a thermodynamically unfavorable one. For example, the hydrolysis of ATP is often used to drive other chemical reactions.
Enzymes catalyze the forward and backward reactions equally. They do not alter the equilibrium itself, but only the speed at which it is reached. For example, carbonic anhydrase catalyzes its reaction in either direction depending on the concentration of its reactants.

Nevertheless, if the equilibrium is greatly displaced in one direction, that is, in a very exergonic reaction, the reaction is effectively irreversible. Under these conditions the enzyme will, in fact, only catalyze the reaction in the thermodynamically allowed direction.

Cloning

Cloning involves the removal of the nucleus from one cell and its placement in an unfertilized egg cell whose nucleus has either been deactivated or removed.
There are two types of cloning:

1. Reproductive cloning. After a few divisions, the egg cell is placed into a uterus where it is allowed to develop into a fetus that is genetically identical to the donor of the original nucleus.
2. Therapeutic cloning. The egg is placed into a Petri dish where it develops into embryonic stem cells, which have shown potentials for treating several ailments.
In February 1997, cloning became the focus of media attention when Ian Wilmut and his colleagues at the Roslin Institute announced the successful cloning of a sheep, named Dolly, from the mammary glands of an adult female. The cloning of Dolly made it apparent to many that the techniques used to produce her could someday be used to clone human beings. This stirred a lot of controversy because of its ethical implications.

Pre-microbiology

The existence of microorganisms was hypothesized for many centuries before their actual discovery in the 17th century. The first theories on microorganisms was made by Roman scholar Marcus Terentius Varro in a book titled On Agriculture in which he warns against locating a homestead in the vicinity of swamps:

“...and because there are bred certain minute creatures which cannot be seen by the eyes, which float in the air and enter the body through the mouth and nose and there cause serious diseases.”

This passage seems to indicate that the ancients were aware of the possibility that diseases could be spread by yet unseen organisms.

In The Canon of Medicine (1020), Abū Alī ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) stated that bodily secretion is contaminated by foul foreign earthly bodies before being infected. He also hypothesized on the contagious nature of tuberculosis and other infectious diseases, and used quarantine as a means of limiting the spread of contagious diseases.

When the Black Death bubonic plague reached al-Andalus in the 14th century, Ibn Khatima hypothesized that infectious diseases are caused by "minute bodies" which enter the human body and cause disease.

Custom software

Custom software (also known as Bespoke software) is a type of software that is developed either for a specific organization or function that differs from or is opposite of other already available software (also called off-the-shelf or COTSsoftware). It is generally not targeted to the mass market, but usually created for companies, business entities, and organizations. Custom software is also when companies or governments pay for customized software for budget or project managing.

Examples of bespoke software include ATMs and Supermarket checkout scanners. Other examples include many web sites and web-based applications.

However, according to the US government, million and multi-million dollar projects for custom software are available to bid on. (Refer to www.ccr.gov for more information.) Multiple companies with security clearances are able to bid for these massive projects. Other companies will successfully bid on these projects and then sell the project to another company for profit.

Geography Markup Language

The Geography Markup Language (GML) is the XML grammar defined by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) to express geographical features. GML serves as a modeling language for geographic systems as well as an open interchange format for geographic transactions on the Internet. Note that the concept of feature in GML is a very general one and includes not only conventional "vector" or discrete objects, but also coverages (see also GMLJP2) and sensor data. The ability to integrate all forms of geographic information is key to the utility of GML.

Strapdown systems

Lightweight digital computers permit the system to eliminate the gimbals, creating "strapdown" systems, so called because their sensors are simply strapped to the vehicle. This reduces the cost, eliminates gimbal lock, removes the need for some calibrations, and increases the reliability by eliminating some of the moving parts. Angular rate sensors called "rate gyros" measure how the angular velocity of the vehicle changes.

A strapdown system has a dynamic measurement range several hundred times that required by a gimbaled system. That is, it must integrate the vehicle's attitude changes in pitch, roll and yaw, as well as gross movements. Gimballed systems could usually do well with update rates of 50 to 60 updates per second. However, strapdown systems normally update about 2000 times per second. The higher rate is needed to keep the maximum angular measurement within a practical range for real rate gyros: about 4 milliradians. Most rate gyros are now laser interferometers.

The data updating algorithms ("direction cosines" or "quaternions") involved are too complex to be accurately performed except by digital electronics. However, digital computers are now so inexpensive and fast that rate gyro systems can now be practically used and mass-produced. The Apollo lunar module used a strapdown system in its backup Abort Guidance System (AGS).

Strapdown systems are nowadays commonly used in commercial and tactical applications (arcraft, missiles, etc). However they are still not widespread in applications where superb accuracy is required (like submarine navigation or strategic ICBM guidance).

Aircraft

An aircraft is a vehicle which is able to fly through the Earth's atmosphere or through any other atmosphere. Most rocket vehicles are not aircraft because they are not supported by the surrounding air. All the human activity which surrounds aircraft is called aviation.

Manned aircraft are flown by a pilot. Until the 1960s, unmanned aircraft were called drones. During the 1960s, the U.S. military brought the term remotely piloted vehicle (RPV) into use. More recently the term unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has become common.

Nested transaction

With reference to a database transaction, a nested transaction occurs when a new transaction is started by an instruction that is already inside an existing transaction. The new transaction is said to be nested within the existing transaction, hence the term.

Changes made by the nested transaction are not seen by the 'host' transaction until the nested transaction is committed. This follows from the isolation property of transactions.

The capability to handle nested transactions properly is a prerequisite for true component based application architectures. In a component-based encapsulated architecture, nested transactions can occur without the programmer knowing it. A component function may or may not contain a database transaction (this is the encapsulated secret of the component. See Information hiding). If a call to such a component function is made inside a BEGIN - COMMIT bracket, nested transactions occur. Since popular databases like MySQL do not allow nesting BEGIN - COMMIT brackets, a framework or a transaction monitor is needed to handle this. When we speak about nested transactions, it should be made clear that this feature is DBMS dependent and is not available for all databases.

Non-SQL databases

Another solution would be to use an object-oriented database management system, which, as the name implies, is a database designed specifically for working with object-oriented values. Using an OODBMS would eliminate the need for converting data to and from its SQL form, as the data would be stored in its original object representation.

Databases such as Caché do not require manual ORM. SQL access to non-scalar values is already built in. Caché allows the developer to design any combination of OO and table structured storage within the database instead of resorting to external tool sets.

Object-oriented databases have yet to come into widespread use. One of their main limitations is that switching from an SQL DBMS to a purely object-oriented DBMS means you lose the capability to create SQL queries, a tried and tested method for retrieving ad-hoc combinations of data. For this reason, many programmers find themselves more at home with an object-SQL mapping system, even though most commercial object-oriented databases are able to process SQL queries to a limited extent. Caché has a built-in SQL parser so that interrogations on the object may be done in a straightforward SQL manner.

Network model

The network model is a database model conceived as a flexible way of representing objects and their relationships. Its original inventor was Charles Bachman, and it was developed into a standard specification published in 1969 by the CODASYL Consortium. Where the hierarchical model structures data as a tree of records, with each record having one parent record and many children, the network model allows each record to have multiple parent and child records, forming a lattice structure.

BlackBerry

BlackBerry uses wireless Mail User Agent devices and a BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) attached to a traditional e-mail system. The BES monitors the e-mail server, and when it sees new e-mail for a BlackBerry user, it retrieves (pulls) a copy and then pushes it to the BlackBerry handheld device over the wireless network.

BlackBerry became very popular, in part because it offers remote users "instant" e-mail experience; new e-mails appear on the device as soon as they arrive, without the need for any user intervention. The handheld becomes a mobile, dynamically updating, copy of the user's mailbox. As a result of the success of BlackBerry, other manufacturers have developed push e-mail systems for other handheld devices, such as Symbian based mobile phones.

Image spam

Image spam is a kind of E-mail spam where the message text of the spam is presented as a picture in an image file. Since most modern graphical E-mail client software will render the image file by default, presenting the message image directly to the user, it is highly effective at circumventing normal E-mail filtering software.

The basic rationale behind image spam is that it is difficult to detect using spam filtering software designed to detect patterns in text in the plain-text E-mail body. Attempts to filter text in image spam are easily defeated because optical character recognition of text in image spam can be prevented using a variety of obfuscation techniques which will not prevent the spam image from being read by human beings. This is the same phenomenon exploited by CAPTCHAs, but put to the ends of spammers, rather than to deter their activity.

E-mail spoofing

E-mail spoofing is a term used to describe fraudulent email activity in which the sender address and other parts of the email header are altered to appear as though the email originated from a different source. E-mail spoofing is a technique commonly used for spam e-mail and phishing to hide the origin of an e-mail message. By changing certain properties of the e-mail, such as the From, Return-Path and Reply-To fields (which can be found in the message header), ill-intentioned users can make the e-mail appear to be from someone other than the actual sender. It is often associated with website spoofing which mimics an actual, well-known website but are run by another party either with fraudulent intentions or as a means of criticism of the organization's activities. The result is that, although the e-mail appears to come from the email indicated in the "From" field (found in the email headers) it actually comes from another e-mail address, probably the same one indicated in the "Reply To" field; if the initial e-mail is replied to, the delivery will be sent to the "Reply To" e-mail, that is, to the spammer's email.

Systems engineering

Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary field of engineering, that focuses on the development and organization of complex artificial systems. Systems engineering is defined by INCOSE as "a branch of engineering whose responsibility is creating and executing an interdisciplinary process to ensure that customer and stakeholder's needs are satisfied in a high quality, trustworthy, cost efficient and schedule compliant manner throughout a system's entire life cycle, from development to operation to disposal. This process is usually comprised of the following seven tasks: State the problem, Investigate alternatives, Model the system, Integrate, Launch the system, Assess performance, and Re-evaluate. The systems engineering process is not sequential: the tasks are performed in a parallel and iterative manner."

Psycho-Cybernetics

Psycho-Cybernetics is a classic self-help book, written by Maxwell Maltz in 1960 and published by the non-profit Psycho-Cybernetics Foundation. Motivational and self-help experts in personal development, including Zig Ziglar, Tony Robbins, Brian Tracy have based their techniques on Maxwell Maltz. Many of the psychological methods of training elite athletes are based on the concepts in Psycho-Cybernetics as well. The book combines the cognitive behavioral technique of teaching an individual how to regulate self-concept developed by Prescott Lecky with the cybernetics of Norbert Wiener and John von Neumann. The book defines the mind-body connection as the core in succeeding in attaining personal goals.

Maltz found that his plastic surgery patients often had expectations that were not satisfied by the surgery, so he pursued a means of helping them set the goal of a positive outcome through visualization of that positive outcome. Maltz became interested in why setting goals works. He learned that the power of of self-affirmation and mental visualisation techniques used the connection between the mind and the body. He specified techniques to develop a positive inner goal as a means of developing a positive outer goal. This concentration on inner attitudes is essential to his approach, as a person's outer success can never rise above the one visualized internally.

Open source software

Open source software is computer software for which the human-readable source code is made available under a copyright license (or arrangement such as the public domain) that meets the Open Source Definition. This permits users to use, change, and improve the software, and to redistribute it in modified or unmodified form. It is often developed in a public, collaborative manner. Open source software is the most prominent example of open source development and often compared to user generated content.

Ergonomics

Ergonomics, also called "Engineering psychology" or "human factors", is the application of scientific information concerning objects, systems and environment for human use (definition adopted by the International Ergonomics Association in 2007). Ergonomics is commonly thought of as how companies design tasks and work areas to maximize the efficiency and quality of their employees’ work. However, ergonomics comes into everything which involves people. Work systems, sports and leisure, health and safety should all embody ergonomics principles if well designed.

It is the applied science of equipment design intended to maximize productivity by reducing operator fatigue and discomfort. The field is also called biotechnology, human engineering, and human factors engineering. Ergonomic research is primarily performed by ergonomists who study human capabilities in relationship to their work demands. Information derived from ergonomists contributes to the design and evaluation of tasks, jobs, products, environments and systems in order to make them compatible with the needs, abilities and limitations of people.

Robot kit

A robot kit is a special construction kit for building robots, especially autonomous mobile robots.

Toy robot kits are also supplied by several companies. They are mostly made of plastics elements like Lego Mindstorms and the Robotis Bioloid, or aluminium elements like Lynxmotion's Servo Erector Set and the qfix kit.

The kits can consist of: structural elements, mechanical elements, motors (or other actuators), sensors and a controller board to control the inputs and outputs of the robot. In some cases, the kits can be available without electronics as well, to provide the user the opportunity to use his or her own.

Public transport

Public transport, public transportation, public transit or mass transit comprise all transport systems that transport members of the general public, usually charging set fares. While the above terms are generally taken to include rail and bus services, wider definitions might include scheduled airline services, ferries, taxicab services etc. A further restriction that is sometimes applied is that transit should occur in continuously shared vehicles, which would exclude taxis that are not shared-ride taxis.

The term public transport is preferred in the British Isles and most Commonwealth countries, whereas public transportation, public transit and mass transit are used most often in North America.[citation needed] The term transit is less likely to include long-distance forms of public transportation, such as long-distance or commuter railroads, inter-city buses, or intercity railways.

Columbian Exchange

The Columbian Exchange has been one of the most significant events in the history of world ecology, agriculture, and culture. The term is used to describe the enormous widespread exchange of plants, animals, foods, human populations (including slaves), communicable diseases, and ideas between the Eastern and Western hemispheres that occurred after 1492. Many new and different goods were exchanged between the two hemispheres of the Earth, and it began a new revolution in the Americas and in Europe. In 1492, Christopher Columbus' first voyage launched an era of large-scale contact between the Old and the New World that resulted in this ecological revolution: hence the name "Columbian" Exchange.

Piri Reis map

The Piri Reis map ("Piri" pronounced /piɹi/) is a famous pre-modern world map created by 16th century Ottoman-Turkish admiral and cartographer Piri Reis. The map shows part of the western coasts of Europe and North Africa with reasonable accuracy, and the coast of Brazil is also easily recognizable. Various Atlantic islands including the Azores and Canary Islands are depicted, as is the mythical island of Antillia. The map is noteworthy for its depiction of a southern landmass that some controversially claim is evidence for early awareness of the existence of Antarctica.

Systems Development Life Cycle

Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) or sometimes just (SLC) is defined by the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) as a software development process, although it is also a distinct process independent of software or other information technology considerations. It is used by a systems analyst to develop an information system, including requirements, validation, training, and user ownership through investigation, analysis, design, implementation, and maintenance. SDLC is also known as information systems development or application development. An SDLC should result in a high quality system that meets or exceeds customer expectations, within time and cost estimates, works effectively and efficiently in the current and planned information technology infrastructure, and is cheap to maintain and cost-effective to enhance.

The principles of Application Lifecycle Management (ALM)

The principles of Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) are integral to mature development disciplines. Experienced development organizations employ these principles to ensure quality in the products they develop.

Application Lifecycle Management involves a variety of typical software project phases:

• Project management
• Project tracking
• Requirements planning
• Design and development
• Quality Assurance
• Release management

Database security

Database security is the system, processes, and procedures that protect a database from unintended activity. Unintended activity can be categorized as authenticated misuse, malicious attacks or inadvertent mistakes made by authorized individuals or processes. Database security is also a specialty within the broader discipline of computer security.

Traditionally databases have been protected from external connections by firewalls or routers on the network perimeter with the database environment existing on the internal network opposed to being located within a demilitarized zone. Additional network security devices that detect and alert on malicious database protocol traffic include network intrusion detection systems along with host-based intrusion detection systems.

Open proxy server

An open proxy is a proxy server which is accessible by any Internet user. Generally, a proxy server allows users within a network group to store and forward internet services such as DNS or web pages so that the bandwidth used by the group is reduced and controlled. With an "open" proxy, however, any user on the Internet is able to use this forwarding service.

By using some open proxies (the so-called "anonymous" open proxies), users can conceal their true IP address from the accessed service, and this is sometimes used to abuse or interrupt that service, potentially violating its terms of service or some laws; open proxies are therefore often seen as a problem. However, anonymous open proxies are also used to increase anonymity or security when browsing the web or using other internet services: a user's true IP address can be used to deduce information about that user and to hack into his or her computer.

Relational database

A relational database is a database that conforms to the relational model, and refers to a database's data and schema (the database's structure of how that data is arranged). Common usage of the term "Relational database management system" technically refers to the software used to create a relational database, but sometimes mistakenly refers to a relational database.

Ethnopharmacology

When studying the effectiveness of herbal medicines and other nature-derived remedies, the information of the traditional uses of certain extracts of even extract combinations plays a key role. The lack of studies proving the use of herbs in traditional care is especially an issue in the United States where the use of herbal medicine has fallen out of use since the Second World War and was considered suspect since the Flexner Report of 1910 led to the closing of the eclectic medical schools where botanical medicine was exclusively practiced. This is further complicated by most herbal studies in the latter part of the 20th Century having been published in languages other than English such as German, Dutch, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Farsi.

Space transport

Space transport is the use of spacecraft to transport people or cargo through outer space. In human spaceflight, the people transported are the crew who operate the spacecraft, and occasionally passengers. Some cargo carrying spacecraft, like the Progress, have no crew or passengers during their flight and operate either by telerobotic control or are fully autonomous.

Currently, spacecraft most commonly use rocket technology for propulsion. Rocket engines expel propellant to provide forward thrust.

Toner-Based Printers

Toner-based printers work using the Xerographic standard that is at work in most photocopiers: by adhering toner to a light-sensitive print drum, then using static electricity to transfer the toner to the printing medium to which it is fused with heat and pressure.

The most regular type of toner-based printer is the laser printer, which uses accuracy lasers to cause devotion. Laser printers are known for high quality prints, good print speed, and a low (Black and White) cost-per-copy; they are the most general printer for many general-purpose office applications. They are far less frequently used as consumer printers due to a high initial cost.

The Irish pound coin sketch

The Irish pound coin was introduced on June 20, 1990 using the draft of a red deer, by the Irish artist Tom Ryan. The 2000 Millennium was used to issue a monument coin, the design was based on the "Brighter Boat" in the National Museum of Ireland; the coins blueprint was by Alan Ardiff and Garrett Stokes and were issued on November 29, 1999. The coin featured a milled edge - unique in Irish coinage.

The Irish pound coin, which was introduced in 1990, vestiges the largest Irish coin introduced since decimalization at 3.11 centimetres diameter and was 10 grams weight. The coin was almost impossible to tell apart in dimensions to the old penny coin that circulated before 1971, and was quite similar in diameter to, but thinner, than the half-crown coin.
During the in the early hours movement of the coin, many payphone and vending machines which had been distorted to accept the pound coin also accepted the old penny because of the similar size, the latter coin which was no longer legal tender and had little value to collectors. As a result losses accrued to vending machine operators due to the substitution of the penny coin and extra costs were associated with updating the machines so they would no longer accept the penny.

Olympic History

In 776 B.C. the early Olympic Games began in ancient Greece. The Games were so important to the Greek people, that they used periods in between the Games as a method of dating important historical events. The prize the winners received included free food and lodging for life. Winners were mentioned in poems, their figures set in sculpture, and their achievements known throughout Greece. To put it simply, winning the Olympic games made you a hero.