AcharyaChanakya/simple-wikipedia huggingface dataset:
A war between peoples and groups in the same country is known as a civil war. It is generally agreed there are two things that make a war a civil war. It must be a struggle between groups in the same country or state over political control or to force a major change in the government's policy. The second criterion is that more than 1000 people have to have been killed, with a minimum of 100 from each side. The American Civil War is an example of a civil war. While the figures are mere estimates, the total casualties are thought to be about 750,000.
Only in the last 150 years or so, have states agreed on international laws to limit warfare. This has been mainly for humanitarian reasons. The Geneva conventions and the Hague Conventions are two examples of agreements that establish laws governing wars. Collectively, these are usually called International humanitarian law (IHL). Because these are established laws, they restrict those engaged in armed conflicts to follow the IHL. Also, a country must not only respect the law but they also need to make sure other countries respect it as well. They cannot turn a blind eye (meaning pretend they do not see a thing) to countries who are not following IHC. The first of these was the Geneva Convention in 1864. It became international law with the signatures of 100 countries.
The statistical analysis of war was started by Lewis Fry Richardson following World War I. More recent databases of wars have been assembled by the Correlates of War Project and Peter Brecke.
Yiddish
Yiddish is a language used by some Jews. At first, it was a dialect of German that Jews began to use in Europe about 1000 years ago. It was and still is used in the United States, especially in New York City, and other countries that now have Jews.
Most Yiddish words come from German, but many words are also from Hebrew and Slavic languages, especially Polish, and some from French, Hungarian and Latin. Yiddish is written usually by the Hebrew alphabet.
In the world, Yiddish is spoken by about 3 million people, mainly Hasidic Jews.
In the Netherlands and Sweden, Yiddish is protected by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.
One year is about 365 days long (except in a leap year). It is the time it takes the Earth to go completely around (orbit) the sun once. A year is actually 365.2422 days long, but a calendar has 365 days, except in a leap year.
The year starts on January 1 and ends on December 31 in the Gregorian calendar, but a fiscal year or a school year can start on a different day of the year.
There are several ways used to measure the length of a year.
Solar and lunar years are used by different calendars for daily life. The other measurements are used by astronomers.
Yard (disambiguation)
A yard is a unit of length in some measuring systems.
Yard can also mean:
The Chinese language is the group of languages used by Chinese people in China and elsewhere. It forms part of a language family called the Sino-Tibetan family of languages.
Chinese includes many regional language varieties, the main ones being Mandarin, Wu, Yue and Min. These are not mutually intelligible and many of the regional varieties are themselves a number of non-mutually-intelligible subvarieties. As a result, many linguists refer to these varieties as separate languages.
'Chinese' can refer to the written or the spoken languages. Although there are many spoken Chinese languages, they use the same writing system. Differences in speaking are reflected in differences in writing. Official China adopts a similar policy to the one in the Soviet Union, using one official language so people can understand each other. The Standard Chinese language is referred to as Mandarin in English, ""Pǔtōnghuà"" or "common to everybody speech" in mainland China and ""Guóyǔ"" or "language of the whole country" in Taiwan. All official documents in Pinyin are written in Mandarin and Mandarin is taught all over China. It is also a standard for language teaching in some other countries.
Chinese is used by the Han people in China and other ethnic groups in China who are declared Chinese by the Chinese government. Chinese is almost always written in Chinese characters. They are symbols that have meaning, called logograms. They also give "some" indication of pronunciation, but the same character can get very different pronunciations among the different kinds of Chinese. Since Chinese characters have been around for at least 3500 years, people in places far from each other say them differently, just as "1, 2, 3" can be read differently in different languages.
Chinese people needed to write down pronunciations in dictionaries. Chinese does not have an alphabet, so how to write down sounds was a big problem in the beginning. Nowadays the Mandarin language uses Hanyu Pinyin to represent the sounds in Roman letters.
All the Chinese languages (or dialects) use tones. This means that they use high and low pitches to help make differences in meaning clear.
The Chinese language is like a big tree. The base of the tree started thousands of years ago. It now has several main limbs. Some people call "just a branch" what other people call a main limb, so you can say there are six or seven main limbs. Each of these main limbs splits off into branches about the way there are branches of English spoken in Great Britain, the United States, Australia, India, and so forth. Just as the Romance languages all come from the area around Rome and are based on Latin, the Chinese languages all have some common source, so they keep many common things among them.
Here are the main seven main groups of languages/dialects of Chinese by size:
In 1956, the government of the People's Republic of China made public a set of simplified Chinese characters to make learning, reading and writing the Chinese language easier. In Mainland China and Singapore, people use these simpler characters. In Hong Kong, Taiwan and other places where they speak Chinese, people still use the more traditional characters. The Korean language also uses Chinese characters to represent certain words. The Japanese language uses them even more often. These characters are known in Korean as Hanja and in Japanese as Kanji.
A Chinese person with a good education today knows 6,000-7,000 characters. About 3,000 Chinese characters are needed to read a Mainland newspaper. However, people who have learned only the 400 most frequently used characters can read a newspaper—but they will have to guess some less-used words.
Here are some samples of some words and sentences in Mandarin Chinese. Simplified Characters are on the left, and Traditional characters are on the right. The pronunciation is given in the pinyin system, which may not always be as simple as it looks for those who have not studied it.
The Traditional Characters are now used in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Chinese from Mainland China uses the Simplified Characters, but may recognize Traditional Characters.
Before 1956, Chinese was written using only Traditional Characters. At that time most Chinese people could not read or write at all. The government of the People's Republic of China thought that the Traditional characters were very hard to understand. They also thought that if they made the characters simpler more people could learn how to read and write. Today, many people in China can read and write with the new Simplified Characters.
Zero (0) is a special number. If there are zero things, then there is nothing at all. For example, if a person has zero hats, that means they do not have any hats.
The symbol for the number zero is "0". It is the additive identity of common numbers. This means that if a number is added to 0, then that number would remain unchanged.
3 + 0 = 3
3 − 0 = 3
0 − 3 = −3
43 × 0 = 0
0 ÷ 43 = 0
43 ÷ 0 has an undefined answer.
0 ÷ 0 has no answer.
The following table includes all of the above examples along with other operations in a condensed, generalized form (where "x" represents any number).
The idea of zero was first thought about in Babylon, India and in Central America at different times. Some places and countries did not know about zero, which may have made it harder for those people to do mathematics. For example, the year after 1 BC is AD 1 (there is no year zero). In India, zero was theorized in the seventh century by the mathematician Brahmagupta.
Over hundreds of years, the idea of zero was passed from country to country, from India and Babylon to other places, like Greece, Persia and the Arab world. The Europeans learned about zero from the Arabs, and stopped using Roman math. This is why numbers are called "Arabic numerals".
Zero is almost never used as a place number (ordinal number). This means that it is not used like 1, 2, or 3 to indicate the order, or place, of something, like 1st, 2nd, or 3rd. An exception to this is seen in many programming languages.
Some other things about zero:
Any number divided by itself equals one, except if that number is zero. In symbols:
0 ÷ 0 = "not a number."
In time, zero means "now". For example, when a person is counting down the time to the start of something, such as a foot race or when a rocket takes off, the count is: "three, two, one, zero (or "go")". Zero is the exact time of the start of the race or when the rocket takes off into the sky.
0 is the integer that precedes the positive 1, and follows −1. In most (if not all) numerical systems, 0 was identified before the idea of 'negative integers' was accepted. It means "courageous one" in hieroglyphics.
Zero is a number which means an amount of null size; that is, if the number of brothers is zero, that means the same thing as having no brothers, and if something has a weight of zero, it has no weight. If the difference between the numbers of pieces in two piles is zero, it means the two piles have an equal number of pieces. Before counting starts, the result can be assumed to be zero; that is the number of items counted before one counts the first item, and counting the first item brings the result to one. And if there are no items to be counted, zero remains the final result.
While mathematicians all accept zero as a number, some non-mathematicians would say that zero is not a number, arguing that one cannot have zero of something. Others say that if one has a bank balance of zero, one has a specific quantity of money in that account, namely none. It is that latter view which is accepted by mathematicians and most others.
Normally speaking, there was no year zero between 1 BC and 1 AD. More specifically, almost all historians leave out the year zero from the proleptic Gregorian and Julian calendars (that is, from the normal calendar used in English-speaking countries), but astronomers include it in these same calendars. However, the phrase Year Zero may be used to describe any event considered so important, that someone might want to start counting years all over again from zero.
The modern numeral 0 is normally written as a circle or (rounded) rectangle. In old-style fonts with text figures, 0 is usually the same height as a lowercase x.
On the seven-segment displays of calculators, watches, etc., 0 is usually written with six line segments, though on some historical calculator models, it was written with four line segments. The four-segment 0 is not common.
The "number" zero (as in the "zero brothers" example above) is not the same as the "numeral" or "digit" zero, used in numeral systems using positional notation. Successive positions of digits have higher values, so the digit zero is used to skip a position and give appropriate value to the preceding and following digits. A zero digit is not always necessary in a different positional number system. Something called bijective numeration is a possible example of a system without zeroes.
0 (zero) is also used as a numerical digit used to represent that number in numerals. It is used to hold the place of that digit, because correct placing of digits affects a numeral's value.
The number 0 and the letter O are both round, though of different widths. The difference is important on a computer. For one thing, a computer will not do arithmetic with the letter O, because it does not know that it should have been a zero.
The oval-shaped zero and circular letter O came into use together on modern character displays. The zero with a dot in the centre seems to have begun as a choice on IBM 3270 controllers (this has the problem that it looks like the Greek letter theta). The slashed zero, looking like the letter O with a diagonal line drawn inside it, is used in old-style ASCII graphic sets that came from the default typewheel on the well-known ASR-33 Teletype. This format causes problems because it looks like the symbol formula_1, representing the empty set, as well as for certain Scandinavian languages which use Ø as a letter.
The rule which has the letter O with a slash and the zero without was used at IBM and a few other early mainframe makers; this is even more of a problem for Scandinavians, because it looks like two of their letters at the same time. Some Burroughs/Unisys computers display a zero with a backwards slash. And yet another convention common on early line printers left zero without any extra dots or slashes but added a tail or hook to the letter O so that it resembled an inverted Q or cursive capital letter O.
The letters used on some European number plates for cars make the two symbols look different. This is done by making the zero rather egg-shaped and the O more circular, but most of all by cutting open the zero on the upper right side, so the circle is not closed any more (as in ). The style of letters chosen is called "" (abbr.: "FE Schrift"), meaning "script which is harder to falsify". But those used in the United Kingdom do not make the letter o and the number 0 look different from each other, because there can never be any mistake if the letters are correctly spaced.
In paper writing you do not have to make the 0 (zero) and O (letter O) look different at all. Or you may add a slash across the zero in order to show the difference.
Functions are explained in the Function (mathematics) article. If the function "f"("x") = 0, then "x" is called a zero (or root) of the function "f". For example, if the function "f"("x") is "x" − 1, then the zeroes of the function are +1 and −1, because "f"(+1) = (+1) − 1 = 0, and "f"(−1) = (−1) − 1 = 0.
Zeroes of a function are used because they are another way to talk about solving an equation, which is a main goal in algebra. If we want to solve an equation like "x" = 1, then we can subtract the right-hand side of the equation from both sides, in this case 1. Whatever we get on the left-hand side, in this case "x" − 1, can be called a function "f"(x). The right-hand side has to be zero, because we subtracted it from itself. So "f"(x) = 0. Finding the zeroes of this function is the same as solving this equation. In the paragraph before, the zeroes of this function are +1 and −1, so they are the solutions of this equation. We got this equation by subtracting the same thing from both sides, so we also have solutions to the equation we started with, in this case "x" = 1. More generally, if we could find zeroes of functions, we could solve any equation.
Zoology is the science of studying animal life. It is part of biology. The word is pronounced "Zō-ölogy", not "Zoo-ology". Animal life is classified into groups called phyla, of which there are at least thirty.
Zoologists are scientists who study animals. They may work in laboratories, or do field research. The methods are many and various. At the heart, they cover the structure, function, ecology and evolution of animals. The structure is investigated by dissection, and microscopic examination. The function is investigated by observation and experiment. Palaeontology supplies information about extinct animals. Zoologists may be employed by universities, museums, or by zoos.
Some zoologists:
Zinc, sometimes called spelter, is a chemical element. It is a transition metal, a group of metals. It is sometimes considered a post-transition metal. Its symbol on the periodic table is "Zn". Zinc is the 30th element on the periodic table, and has an atomic number of 30. Zinc has a mass number of 65.38. It contains 30 protons and 30 electrons. In total, 29 isotopes of zinc are known, and five of these occur in nature. Some isotopes are radioactive. Their half-lives are between 40 milliseconds for Zn and 5x10 years for Zn.
Zinc is a metal that is mostly used for galvanizing and batteries. It is the fourth most common metal.
Zinc is a shiny bluish grey metal. When it has just been cut, zinc has a whitish-grey color. If it is exposed to air, it will not stay shiny for long. Its melting point is at (), boiling point is (), cooling point is at , and freezing point is at . This temperature is lower than most transition metals but higher than tin or lead. It can be melted on a cooking stove. It boils at a low temperature for a metal. It is not magnetic. When heated a little, it becomes very flexible. If it is heated more, it becomes very brittle. It forms alloys easily with other metals.
Zinc is a reactive metal. It is about as reactive as aluminium and more reactive than most of the more common metals, such as iron, copper, nickel, and chrome. It is less reactive than magnesium. Zinc can react with acids, bases, and nonmetals. It does not rust in air, though. A coating of zinc oxide and zinc carbonate forms on the surface of the zinc when it is in air. This coating stops corrosion. Acids can dissolve this coating and react with the zinc metal. This reaction of zinc with an acid makes a zinc(II) salt such as zinc chloride and hydrogen gas. This is a very common chemical reaction. The reaction below is the reaction with hydrochloric acid.
Zinc can burn when powdered or in small pieces to make zinc oxide, a white powder. The flame is bright blue-green.
Zinc oxide can dissolve in strong bases. This reaction happens in some batteries that have zinc in them.
Zinc is a chalcophile. This means that it would rather react with sulfur and elements below it on the periodic table than oxygen. That is why zinc sulfide is the most common zinc ore, not zinc oxide.
Zinc can make chemical compounds with other elements. These chemical compounds are only in one oxidation state: +2. A +1 compound has been found but it is hard to make. There are no other oxidation states other than +1 or +2. Most of these compounds have no color. If they have a color, it is not the zinc that is making the color.
Zinc chloride is one of the most common zinc compounds. They are quite unreactive. They are a little acidic when dissolved in water. They make a green flame when heated in a fire.
Other zinc compounds are:
Five isotopes of zinc are found in nature. Zn is the most common isotope, with 48.63% of naturally occurring Zinc. This isotope has a half-life of 4.3x10 years. This is so long, that its radioactivity can be ignored. Similarly, (0.6%), with a half life of 1.3x10 years is usually considered to not be radioactive. The other isotopes found in nature are (28%), (4%) and (19%).
Zinc is not found as a metal in the earth's crust. Zinc is only found as zinc compounds. Sphalerite, a mineral that is made of zinc sulfide, is a main ore of zinc. Very little zinc is in the ocean. Zinc ore is normally found with copper and lead ores.
There are some other zinc ores, such as smithsonite (zinc carbonate) and a zinc silicate mineral. They are less common.
The zinc sulfide is concentrated by flotation. There is a detergent that collects the zinc sulfide. The impurities sink to the bottom and are removed. Then the zinc sulfide is heated in air to make zinc oxide and sulfur dioxide.
The sulfur dioxide is oxidized to sulfur trioxide.
The sulfur trioxide reacts with the zinc oxide to make zinc sulfate. This makes a soluble form of zinc which can be processed more.
The zinc sulfate is purified and electrolyzed. This electrolysis makes oxygen, zinc, and sulfuric acid. This makes a pure zinc that is known as "SHG" or special high grade.
The sulfuric acid is reused in place of the sulfur trioxide to leach more zinc oxide.
Zinc oxide can also be reduced by carbon to zinc metal and carbon dioxide at high temperatures. This is a blast furnace process similar to how iron is made.
This form of zinc is cheaper but is not pure.
Zinc is the fourth most common metal in the world. About 10 million tons are made every year.
Zinc is used in electrical batteries. The alkaline cell and the Leclanche cell are the ones that use zinc the most. It becomes oxidized and provides electrons for the battery to run.
About 59% of zinc is used for corrosion prevention, which includes galvanizing. 47% of the world's zinc is used for galvanizing. This is used to protect another metal, usually iron, from rusting. The zinc coating corrodes instead of the iron. The zinc coating can be placed on the metal in two ways. The metal can be dipped into a pot of melted zinc. The zinc can also be electroplated on to the metal. Dipping lasts longer but has a patchy surface that some do not think looks nice. It is also used in motorboats and pipelines to slow rusting. The motor of a motorboat often has a "bullet" of zinc, that will corrode easily, but will help other metal parts of the motor to stay rust free.
Zinc is used in alloys. Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc. Brass is the most common zinc alloy. Zinc can form alloys with many other metals. Zinc aluminium is an alloy of zinc and aluminium, which makes good bearings. Commercial bronze has zinc in it. Sometimes cadmium telluride is reacted with zinc to make cadmium zinc telluride, a semiconductor. Nickel silver is another zinc alloy.
Zinc can be used in the pipes of a pipe organ. An alloy of tin and lead was used in the past. Zinc is used in the US penny, where it only has a thin layer of copper. The core is zinc. Older pennies were made completely out of bronze.
A mixture of powdered zinc and sulfur can be used to propel a model rocket. This reaction makes zinc sulfide, heat, light, and gases. Zinc sheet metal is used to make zinc bars.
About 1/4 of zinc is used to make zinc compounds. Zinc oxide can be used for sunscreen or paint pigment. Zinc oxide also is a semiconductor. Zinc chloride is used to preserve wood so it does not rot. Some fungicides have zinc in them. Zinc sulfate is used in dyes and pigments. Zinc sulfide is used in fluorescent bulbs to convert the ultraviolet light to visible light.
Humans need a little bit of zinc to help their body run well. If they do not get enough zinc in their food, they can get a mineral deficiency. Almost two billion people have a zinc deficiency. Zinc deficiency makes one more easily get infections. Some people say that when we get colds, we should take more zinc. Others say that zinc does not make a difference. There are medicines that one can use when they have a cold. People add tiny amounts of zinc compounds to vitamin pills and cereals to make sure that they get enough zinc. Most single-tablet vitamins have zinc in them. Zinc is found in at least 100 enzymes. It is the second most common transition metal other than iron. Zinc also is used by the brain. The human body contains 2 to 4 grams of zinc. A zinc enzyme helps remove carbon dioxide from blood. Wheat has much zinc in it.
Large amounts of zinc metal are toxic. It can dissolve in stomach acid. When too much zinc is eaten, copper and iron levels go down in the body. Zinc compounds can be corrosive in the stomach. Zinc compounds put in the nose can ruin the sense of smell.
Zinc ions are very toxic to fish and many things that live in water.
Zebras are mammals of the family "Equidae". Zebras are African horses. They are in the same genus as the common horse, "Equus caballus", and donkeys. Zebras are known for having many black and white stripes. There are three main species of zebra, Grevy's Zebra, the Plains Zebra, and the Mountain Zebra.
All zebras have very short fur because they live in hot areas. Their fur has black and white stripes. The main part of the body has mostly vertical stripes, and the legs have horizontal stripes. They also have a dark line directly down their spine. Each of the different zebra species has different type of stripes. Each zebra has a unique pattern.
Despite many attempts, we do not really know what the advantage is of having those characteristic stripes. There are different species and sub-species of zebra, and they all have stripes so, think scientists, it must be important.
Zebras are social animals that spend time in herds, they graze together and sometimes even groom each other. They can have babies (foals) when they are about five years old and can have one every year. Zebras mainly eat grass, but they also eat fruit, leaves and some vegetables. They always live near water and are an endangered species.
Zebras live in Africa, south of the Sahara desert.
A zoological garden, zoological park, or zoo is a place where many different species types of animals are kept so people can see and watch them.
Modern zoos try not only to be for people's entertainment, but for education, research, and the conservation and protection of animals. Many zoos are centers where rare animals are preserved when they are in danger of dying out. These modern zoos also want to give the animals a natural life, so that they are healthy and behave normal. This is done for the animals, but also that people can see the animals as if they were in nature, and not in a zoo.
Zoos cost money. They educate the public on the biological diversity that makes up the world. They help people and wildlife successfully coexist. They pursue continuing research and education for people. They preserve crucial natural resources. They work to ensure zoos can provide the most natural environment possible for wildlife in its care. Without enough money they cannot do these things.
Many zoos are not like the modern type of zoo. There the animals are held in bad conditions. They are kept in small cages, and they are bored and get sick.
There are different types of zoo all over the world. They are:
A safari park is a type of zoo where visitors can drive their own vehicles or ride in vehicles given by the park to see the animals. Sometimes, visitors can feed the animals through the car windows. The first safari park was Whipsnade Park in Bedfordshire, England. It was opened by the Zoological Society of London in 1931.
A public aquarium is a type of zoo which has lots of aquatic animals and plants for people to see. Most public aquariums have very large tanks. They may also have smaller tanks. The first public aquariums were made in the mid-19th century.
A petting zoo is a type of zoo that has domestic animals and some wild animals that are very calm so that the visitors can touch and feed them. Most petting zoos usually have very calm herbivorous domesticated animals, such as: sheep, goats, pigs, rabbits or ponies, to feed and touch them safely. Few petting zoos have wild animals (such as pythons or baby big cats) touch. These are rare and usually found outside Western countries.
An animal theme park is a combination of a theme park and a zoo. It mainly built for entertainment, amusement, and commercial reasons. Many animal theme parks combine theme park elements, like entertainment and amusement rides, with zoo elements such as live animals kept inside cages so that visitors can see them.
With copyright, a work can only be copied if the owner gives permission. If someone copies a work without permission, the owner can say they infringed their copyright. When this happens, the owner may sue for the amount that should have been paid. Most cases are handled by civil law. In more serious cases, a person who copies a work that is protected under copyright could be arrested, fined or even go to prison. Commonly, the copy-right law will protect the authors and their heirs from 50 to 100 years since the first day of the authors' deaths.
In many countries, the governments tried to modify copyright law to meet international standards. However, there are still some differences, according to the law culture each country. In some countries, someone violating copyright law will be sued only to the civil law courts but other countries they can also be charged by criminal courts.
Copyright was originally made in the 18th century for books. Before printing presses were made, books could only be copied by hand, which would take time. But when printing presses were made, books could be copied faster and easier. Because of this, some books were copied by people who did not own the book themselves. So lawmakers gave only owners the right to copy. National laws were somewhat standardized by international treaties.
Because technology got better over time, copyright began to cover other types of media such as pictures, sound, and film. Commonly, copyright violation warning would be shown at the beginning of the media to warn audiences against violating copyright law.
In most countries, authors automatically own the copyright to any work they make or create, as long as they do not give the copyright to someone else.
In most countries, there is no need to register the copyright, and some countries do not even have procedures to register copyrights. But, where registration is available, many authors register anyway, especially for works that are sold for money. That is because registration helps to prove that the copyright of a work belongs to a certain author.
If an author gets paid to make a work for someone else, the person who pays for making the work (for example, the author's employer) will often get to own the copyright instead of the author themselves. For example, if a person working for a company, Microsoft creates a new computer software program at work, the Microsoft company would own the copyright. It is very common that the company will instead register the copyright to avoid their employees from claiming their works.
Copyright laws usually protect owners of copyright beyond their lifetime. In some countries, such as Canada and New Zealand, works are protected for 50 years after the last living author dies. In other countries, like the United States and the European Union, the protection lasts for 70 years after death. When the period of copyright protection has ended, the written document, musical composition, book, picture, or other creative work is in the public domain. This means that no one owns the copyright and everyone is free to copy, use and change them without having to ask for permission or pay the owner.
There is an exception to the rules of copyright, called fair use. This means that people can copy a very small amount of a work to use in reviews or in research reports.
An example of fair use is when newspaper writers quote several sentences from a copyright-protected document to tell the story. Another example of "fair use" is when a university professor quotes several sentences from a copyright-protected book in a review of the book, or in a research report.
Different countries have different copyright laws. Most of the differences are about:
Because of these differences, a certain piece of work may be under copyright in one country, and in the public domain in another.
Some people argue that copyright laws make it easier for people to make new works and think of new ideas. After all, if authors get to make money for the time, effort and money they put in, then they will want to make more works later, and make more money.
But others believe that copyright laws make it harder to be creative. Without copyright, other people could reuse existing work, and copyright law often stops that.
If an author wants to sell a work, it's often easiest to give the copyright to a publisher. The publisher will do all the selling, and in return for that service, will keep part of the money. But the publisher has many different things to sell, and they may not want to sell the work the author made. Authors often find it very hard to find a publisher willing to sell their work.
But without a publisher, it can be even harder for an author to sell his or her work. In many markets, a few big publishers own the copyrights to almost everything available, and stores will not want to sell works published by small authors themselves. Many people say copyright law helps big publishers stay in control, and keeps smaller authors out of the market. (tragedy of the anticommons).
As a solution to these problems, groups of authors have come up with the idea of open content. With open content, authors give everyone permission to copy, change and give away or sell their works, as long as they follow certain rules. These rules are explained in an open content license. Some possible open content rules are:
The term for Open Content is sometimes called Copyleft.
Republic of China
The Republic of China (), also known as Taiwan, is a island country in East Asia. The People's Republic of China (PRC) is located to the northwest; Japan is to the northeast; the Philippines is to the south. The Chinese Nationalists lost the Chinese Civil War to the Communists in 1949 and moved the government of the Republic of China from Nanjing to Taipei. It still claims the ownership of all of China including Mainland China.
The territory the Republic of China (ROC) controls is known by most people as the island of Taiwan. Most places on Taiwan Island are called "Taiwan Province" by the government of the Republic of China for official business, except the two largest cities of Taipei and Kaohsiung. West of Taiwan Island, there are three small groups of islands that also belong to ROC. They are:
The ROC used to govern Mainland China too. Now Mainland China is governed by the Communist People's Republic of China; see History and Political problems of China. However, ROC still declares Mainland China as its territory officially. The Republic of China also used to govern Mongolia.
There are administrative divisions in different levels and types.
157 Districts (區 qū ㄑㄩ), 17 Country-controlled cities (縣轄市 xiànxiáshì ㄒㄧㄢˋㄒㄧㄚˊㄕˋ), 41 Urban Townships (鎮 zhèn ㄓㄣˋ), and 153 Rural Townships (鄉 xiāng ㄒㄧㄤ) stand the 3rd level. Districts stand under either Special municipalities or Provincial cities; Country-controlled cities, Urban Townships, and Rural Townships stand under Counties.
Villages (里 lǐ ㄌㄧˇ or 村 cūn ㄘㄨㄣ) stand the 4th level, and Neighborhoods (鄰 lín ㄌㄧㄣˊ) stand the 5th level.
The Nationalists, led by Dr. Sun Yat-sen, got rid of the Qing Dynasty ruled by the Manchus, then they established the ROC and ended Imperial Dynastic Rule in late-1911. The ROC at that time had Mainland China and all of what is now called Mongolia.
After the Japanese were defeated by the Allies during World War II, Taiwan was controlled by the ROC.
In 1949, the Chinese Communists fought a war against the Nationalists and won. They established the People's Republic of China. The Nationalists left mainland China and arrived in Taiwan.
After the ROC created a base on Taiwan, it hoped one day to capture the Mainland. But Chinese Communists grew stronger, so the Nationalists never did go back. The Communists say they replaced the ROC as the only government of China and also calls Taiwan their own.
There are those people in Taiwan who want to never be a part of the People's Republic of China. They believe in complete Taiwan independence and want to rename the ROC (Taiwan) to "Republic of Taiwan" so Taiwan can no longer have any ancestral connection to China or Chinese culture. Some other people wish to unite with the People's Republic of China; they want Chinese reunification. Some still want to attack the PRC and reunify China under the Republic of China. Most others want the "status quo", which means keeping everything the way it is now.
Most Taiwanese people speak the Standard Chinese language known as Mandarin, and others speak local dialects such as Min Nan (Taiwanese) or Hakka. The Cantonese language, spoken in parts of southern China (for example, the province of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau), is not spoken in Taiwan. A small percentage of Aboriginal Taiwanese speak aboriginal languages, but the rest of the Chinese people have treated them badly, and many of these people, and their languages, struggle to survive. Some older Taiwanese people who went to school while the country was under Japanese rule can speak Japanese.
After the Nationalist government fled the Mainland in 1949, they brought Mandarin and promoted it in Taiwan. Then everyone in the ROC had to learn Mandarin. But, unlike the people in Mainland China, the Taiwanese never changed to simplified Chinese characters and so they have always used traditional Chinese characters. In the past, students were not allowed to speak their mother tongue in school and were expected to speak only Mandarin. Taiwanese, Hakka, and native languages were considered bad until the early 1990s, when education in these languages began to be taught in some school systems. They were promoted, but by this time, many young people could speak only Mandarin.
Simple English
Simple English might mean:
A prison or jail is a building where people are forced to live if their freedom has been taken away. The main use for prisons is as a punishment for breaking the law. Those who break the law and are convicted (found guilty) in court can receive a prison sentence, which is an order to spend an amount of time in prison. Prisons are usually run by the government.
There are other reasons why someone might be held in prison. Sometimes, people can be held in prison before their trial (known as pre-trial detention or remand). In times of war, captured soldiers may become prisoners of war and civilians (non-soldiers) may be placed in an internment camp. In some countries, prisons are also used for political prisoners (people who disagree with the country's leader or government).
Other words for a prison include a gaol (pronounced like "jail"), penitentiary or correctional facility. In the US, the words "prison" and "jail" mean separate things. A US "jail" is run by a local government and holds people who have not yet had their trial or who have been convicted for a minor crime. A US "prison" or "penitentiary" is run by the state or federal government and holds people who are serving a long sentence for a serious crime. Outside of North America, "prison" and "jail" mean the same thing. There are lots of slang words for prisons.
Prisons are usually surrounded by walls and gates. There are usually many locked gates inside the prison to control the inmates.
The inmates sleep in small locked rooms called cells. Cells have a bunk bed, a toilet, and a sink. Inmates are allowed to leave their cell every day for exercise. Some inmates work in the prison during the day, either in a factory or doing cooking or cleaning. Law enforcement officers called prison guards watch the inmates. The manager of a prison is called the warden (US, Canada), superintendent (some parts of the US, India) or governor (UK, Australia).
Prisons usually also include other buildings and facilities, such as a chapel, a library, an exercise yard, a gymnasium, an infirmary (small hospital), visiting rooms (for visits from family and lawyers), kitchens, and accommodation for prison staff.
The level of security a prison has depends on the type of prison. A "maximum security prison" has even more protection than a regular prison. Some prisons in the United States have a section called "death row", where people who have been sentenced to death are kept in prison until their execution. On the other hand, an "open prison" is a prison where inmates can often travel out of the prison. These are used for prisoners who have been convicted of minor crimes, or who will soon be released.
The United Nations made the "Standard Minimum Rule" for human treatment for prisoners in 1955. Also the Article 10 of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights also affirm the treatment with humanity for them in prison. In some prisons, people imprisoned for child sexual abuse are separated from other prisoners for their own safety.
There are four main ideas about what prisons should be used for:
A person who has been charged with a crime, but has not yet been convicted for it in a court, may be sent to prison if:
In some parts of the US, a person who is arrested may be held at a county jail until they decide whether to charge or release the person. In other places, a person who is arrested will be held at a police station, not a prison.
Male and female inmates are usually kept in separate locations, and often in separate prisons.
There are special prisons for people under the age of 18 who commit crimes. These inmates are called young offenders or juvenile offenders. These places will not always have the word "prison" in their name, instead having names like "Young Offenders' Institution".
Prisons are a controversial topic that people have different views about.
As of 2006, there are currently nine million people in prison in the world. The United States currently has the most people in prison; it has more than 2 million people in prison. In 2002, both Russia and China also had over 1 million people in prison. In 2003, the United Kingdom had 73,000 people in prison; France and Germany had a similar number of people in prison.
There are many books and poems about prisons or prison life, such as "The Count of Monte Cristo" by Alexandre Dumas, père and "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" by Oscar Wilde.
There are also movies that depict prison life, including:
There have also been television programs, such as "" (1979–1986), "Prison Break" (2005–2009), Lockup (2005 - present) and (2006 - present). A current TV show about a women's prison is Orange Is the New Black.
Mexico (; official name: United Mexican States , ) is a country in North America. Mexico is south of Texas, California and other American states. Guatemala and Belize are south of Mexico. Mexico is between the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico.
People living in Mexico or who are from there are called Mexicans. Most Mexican people speak Spanish. There are also Mexicans who speak Native American languages, like Nahuatl, Mayan, and Zapotec. The capital of Mexico is Mexico City.
Before the Europeans came, many Native American cultures existed in Mexico. The earliest was the Olmec culture in the south. The Olmecs are famous for the large stone heads they made. On the Yucatán peninsula lived the Mayans. The Mayans lived in city states ruled by kings. The Mayans were most powerful between 200 and 900 A.D. Another powerful empire belonged to Teotihuacan. Teotihuacan was a very large city, one of the largest at that time. After Teotihuacan declined the Toltecs became powerful. Things made by the Toltecs have been found from the southern parts of the U.S. all the way to Costa Rica. A famous Toltec god is Quetzalcoatl. The Toltec culture declined too, and it was succeeded by the Aztecs. The Aztecs called their own empire Mexico. A famous Aztec king was Moctezuma II.
In 1519 the Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés came to Mexico. The Aztecs thought he was the returned Quetzalcoatl, so they did not want to fight against him. Cortes allied himself with the enemies of the Aztecs. In 1521 they conquered the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan. The Aztec Empire became part of Spain. It was called New Spain.
In 1810 the Mexican priest Miguel Hidalgo started the Mexican war of independence. In 1821 the Spanish finally retreated and Mexico became independent. The first leader of independent Mexico was Agustin de Iturbide. He set up the First Mexican Empire and became emperor. But the Mexicans were not happy with him, and in 1823 the country became a republic.
A man who was very important in Mexico in the early 19th century was Antonio López de Santa Anna. He was the president of Mexico 11 times. When he became a dictator, Texas declared independence (1836). The Battle of the Alamo was part of this Texas Revolution. Between 1846 and 1848 there was war between Mexico and the United States. In this war Mexico lost its large northern areas, which became the southwestern United States. After this war Santa Anna was sent away to Venezuela.
Between 1858 and 1861 there was war again, between liberals and conservatives. The liberal Benito Juárez won the war and became president afterwards. Juarez stayed president until France invaded Mexico and made Maximilian of Habsburg emperor of the Second Mexican Empire. But Maximilian was very unpopular. After more war he was executed in 1867, and Juarez became president again.
Conservatives thought Juarez had too much power. In 1876 they ousted him, and made Porfirio Díaz, a general who had won a battle against the French, president. Porfirio Díaz made the country wealthier, but the poor people became poorer. Franciso I. Madero started the Mexican Revolution in 1910.
The next 10 years the country was in chaos. There were many presidents who ruled for a short time and all kinds of people fought against each other. Famous people from this period are Emiliano Zapata, Pancho Villa and Francisco I. Madero. When Álvaro Obregón became president in 1920 the fighting calmed down.
In 1929 President Plutarco Elías Calles founded the National Mexican Party, PNM. The party was later renamed Institutional Revolutionary Party, PRI. The party would rule for a very long time. Most PRI presidents were not popular, it was said that they were only president to become richer themselves. An exception was president Lázaro Cárdenas. He was president between 1934 and 1940.
After several decades more and more people became unhappy with the PRI. In 1968 security forces shot at protesters, this caused several hundred deaths and became known as the Tlatelolco massacre. Another uprising was in 1994 when Zapatistas rebelled in the province Chiapas.
Mainly through ballot box fraud the PRI managed to stay into power until 2000, when Vicente Fox of the National Action Party, PAN, was elected president. In total the PRI had governed Mexico for 71 years.
Mexico is a constitutional federal democracy ruled by a president. The president is elected every 6 years. The current president is Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Parliament has a Senate and House of Deputies.
Mexico is in the southern part of North America. It is roughly shaped like a triangle. Mexico is more than 3000 km (1,850 miles) long from northwest to southeast. Mexico is between two large seas: the Pacific Ocean in the West and the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea in the East. Mexico has two large peninsulas. Baja California in the northwest, and Yucatán in the southeast. In central and western Mexico are the Sierra Madre mountains. In the Sierra Madre is the Pico de Orizaba, the highest mountain of Mexico. In central Mexico there are also a few volcanoes like the Popocatépetl and the Iztaccíhuatl. The Pico de Orizaba is also a volcano. In the north of Mexico are deserts. In the south are tropical rainforests. Some rivers in Mexico are the Río Bravo (known in the US as the Rio Grande), the Río Balsas, the Río Pánuco, and the Río Yaqui. Many animals are found in Mexico such as birds, jaguars and monkeys.
Mexico is home to the axolotl. Wildcats in Mexico are the ocelot, the mountain lion, the Jaguarundi, Margay, Mexican Bobcat and the jaguar.
Mexico is the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world. It is also the second most populous country in Latin America (after Brazil). 60% of Mexicans have Native American and European forefathers; these are called mestizos. Almost 30% of Mexicans are pure Native American and 10% are European. Most Mexicans (90%) speak Spanish. 10% of the Mexicans speak a Native American language, like Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, Maya or Zapotec. Non-indigenous ethnic groups in Mexico speak another foreign language such as Romani, Arabic or Japanese. Most people in Mexico are Catholic (89%) and 6% are Protestant. Other ethnic groups in Mexico are Arabs, Gypsies, Africans, Jews and Asians.
The Atlantic Ocean is the world's second largest ocean. It covers a total area of about . It covers about 20 percent of the Earth's surface. It is named after the god Atlas from Greek mythology.
The Atlantic formed when the Americas moved west from Eurasia and Africa. This began sometime in the Cretaceous period, roughly 135 million years ago. It was part of the break-up of the supercontinent Pangaea.