prompt_front: Now, answer the following question based on the text below, only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: What is the maximum radius of the emitting region for the black body model?

Read the following text and answer briefly.

Context 1: \section{Introduction}

The publicly available XMM-Newton slew data covers to date around 35\%
of the sky  The soft band (0 2$-$2 keV) sensitivity limit of the slews
(6$\times10^{-13}$\,ergs cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$) is close to that of the
ROSAT All-Sky Survey (RASS; Voges et al \ 1999), and in the medium
(2$-$12 keV) band, the slew data goes significantly deeper
(4$\times10^{-12}$\,ergs cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$) than all other previous
large area surveys  Over 7700 individual sources have so far been
detected to a positional accuracy of 8\arcsec   For details on the
the construction and
characteristics of the first released XMM-Newton slew survey
catalogue, see Saxton et al  (2008)  For details of the initial
science results from the slew survey, see Read et al  (2006) 

The comparison of XMM-Newton slew data with the RASS is now giving,
for the first time, the opportunity to find exotic, extreme
high-variability X-ray bursting objects, e g  tidal disruption
candidates (Esquej et al  2007), and also Galactic novae, flare stars,
and flaring white dwarfs, plus eclipsing binaries, AGN and blazars  It
is only with such a large-area survey as the XMM-Newton Slew Survey,
that transient events as these have a chance of being caught 

One such rare event, XMMSL1~J060636 2-694933, which we here show to be
a new Classical Nova, was discovered in an XMM-Newton slew from 18th
July 2006 at a very high count rate of 23 3\,ct s$^{-1}$ (EPIC-pn:
0 2$-$2\,keV)  

Classical novae (see Bode \& Evans 2008 for a review) occur in
interacting binary systems consisting of a white dwarf primary star
and a lower-mass secondary star  The nova itself is a cataclysmic
nuclear explosion caused by the accretion of material (via Roche Lobe
overflow or wind accretion) from the secondary star onto the surface
of the white dwarf; here the pressure and temperature at the base of
the accreted material becomes sufficient to trigger a thermonuclear
runaway  A recent review of the thermonuclear processes powering
classical novae can be found in Starrfield et al \ (2008)   The
accreted material is partially expelled, obscuring the X-ray emission
from the surface of the white dwarf  At later stages, the ejected
material expands further and becomes optically thin, revealing the
nuclear burning on the surface of the white dwarf   This emission
peaks in the soft X-ray regime and it is known as the super-soft
source (SSS) state (Krautter 2008)  Models of the classical nova SSS
state can be found in Tuchman \& Truran (1998) and Sala \& Hernanz
(2005) 

Though many classical novae have been observed in X-rays in their SSS
states (Ness et al \ (2007) for example discuss several examples observed with
Swift), it is in the optical band, early in their outbursts, that
classical novae are almost always discovered  This is because they are
intrinsically optically bright and easily found in inexpensive
wide-area shallow surveys   XMMSL1~J060636 2-694933 is very unusual
therefore in that it has been discovered, as we shall see, later in
its evolution, in the SSS X-ray state 

In this paper we describe the XMM-Newton slew observations
(Section~2), and the follow-up X-ray observations by the Swift XRT
(Section~3) and XMM-Newton (Section~4)  Multiwavelength observations
with Swift-UVOT, Magellan and ASAS are described in Section~5  We then
present a discussion of the results (Section~6), and conclusions 



\begin{table*}[t]
  \caption[]
  {Details of the four XMM-Newton Slew observations and the single (Rev \,1378) 
    dedicated XMM-Newton pointed observation  XMM-Newton revolution, date and observation ID 
    are tabulated, together with the 0 2$-$2 0\,keV X-ray properties of XMMSL1~J060636 2-694933;  
    position, background-subtracted counts, exposure, count-rate, and detection likelihood  For the 
    Rev \,1378 dedicated observation, these properties are given for all the EPIC cameras combined   
    For the slew observations, only the EPIC-pn values are given  In the first two slews the source 
    was not detected, and upper limits are shown in the table }
  \centering
\begin{tabular}{lccccrrrr}
\hline
Rev  & Date & Obs \,ID & RA(J2000)   & Dec(J2000) & Counts         & Exposure & Count rate  & Lik  \\ 
     & (UT) &        &     &            &                & (s) & (s$^{-1}$)  &      \\ \hline 
 351 (slew) & 07/11/01 &  9035100003  &        &               & $<$3 6     & 8 8 & $<$0 41 & $<$$\sim$8      \\
 750 (slew) & 12/01/04 &  9075000003  &        &               & $<$3 2     & 17 3 & $<$0 18 & $<$$\sim$8      \\  
1210 (slew )& 18/07/06 &  9121000003  & 06:06:36 2 & -69:49:33 & 228 8$\pm$14 1 & 9 8 & 23 4$\pm$1 4 & 1777 1   \\ 
1246 (slew) & 28/09/06 &  9121460003  & 06:06:36 5 & -69:49:38 &  12 9$\pm$2 4  & 3 4 &  3 8$\pm$0 7 &   54 7   \\
\vspace{-3 5mm}\\
\hline 
1378 (pointed) & 19/06/07 &  0510010501  & 06:06:36 5 & -69:49:37 & 1511 0$\pm$44 8 & 8940 0 &  0 20$\pm$0 01 & 4630 4          \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\label{slewtable}
\end{table*}

\section{XMM-Newton slew observations}

XMMSL1~J060636 2-694933 was discovered in XMM-Newton slew 9121000003
from revolution 1210 on 18th July 2006  Details of the standard
XMM-Newton slew data reduction and analysis used, plus the
source-searching and catalogue cross-correlation etc , are presented
in Saxton et al   (2008) 

The source passed through the EPIC-pn detector in 14\,s, at a small
off-axis angle, such that an effective vignetting-corrected soft band
(0 2$-$2\,keV) exposure time of 9 8\,s was achieved   A total of 229
source counts lie within a radius of 20\arcsec, yielding a (EPIC-pn:
0 2$-$2\,keV) count rate of 23 4\,ct s$^{-1}$ 

The source is seen to have no cross-correlation identifications in the
RASS, and no other multiwavelength candidates within 30\arcsec\ in
Simbad\footnote{http://simbad u-strasbg fr/simbad/},
NED\footnote{http://nedwww ipac caltech edu/index html}, and
HEASARC\footnote{http://heasarc gsfc nasa gov/}  The position of the
source in the sky is such that it lies apparently at the outer eastern
edge of the LMC 

XMM-Newton has slewed over this region of sky a number of times, and
though nothing was detected in previous slews from 7th November 2001
and 12th January 2004, the source was seen again on 28th September
2006 (rev \,1246, 72 days after the rev \,1210 discovery), at the same
position, but at a reduced flux level (3 8\,ct s$^{-1}$; EPIC-pn:
0 2$-$2\,keV)   i e  it had reduced in flux by a factor of $\approx$6
in 72 days  XMM-Newton has not slewed over this area of sky since
rev \,1246  Details of the relevant XMM-Newton slews, together with
the (0 2$-$2\,keV) EPIC-pn source position, detected source counts,
count rate and detection likelihood are given in
Table~\ref{slewtable} 

The fact that XMMSL1 J060636 2-694933 is detected in the total-band
(0 2$-$12\,keV) and the soft-band (0 2$-$2\,keV), whilst effectively
zero counts are seen in the hard-band (2$-$12\,keV), is immediately
indicative of the source being very soft  

The moderately high count rate indicates that the spectrum is affected
by pile-up (the on-axis limit is 6\,ct s$^{-1}$ for EPIC-pn full-frame
mode
\footnote{http://xmm esac esa int/external/xmm\_user\_support/documentation
  /uhb\_2 5/index html})  This distorts the spectrum and makes
quantitative spectral analysis of the slew data difficult  We
minimized these effects by following the standard procedure, i e 
ignoring the central part of the Point Spread Function (PSF), and
extracted an event spectrum (containing single and double events) of
the source from within an annulus of 5\arcsec$-$30\arcsec\ radius,
centred on the source position  Unresolved problems associated with
the motion of sources across the detector still exist within slew
data, and approximations currently have to be made when calculating
the associated effective area and detector response matrix files  In
order to perform qualitative spectral analysis, an effective area file
was generated by averaging the individual core-removed effective area
files at 9 different positions along the detector track made by the
source  This accounts for the removal of the piled-up core, and takes
the vignetting and PSF variations into account to a good
approximation   Individual BACKSCAL values have been set by hand, as
have the EXPOSURE values, estimated by calculating the distance
travelled by the source in detector coordinates and finding the time
taken to do this, given a 90\,deg\,hr$^{-1}$ slew speed, then
subtracting the appropriate fractions for chip gaps and bad pixels 
For the response matrix, we used the equivalent canned detector
response matrix for the vignetting-weighted average source position,
for single plus double events and for full-frame mode:
epn\_ff20\_sdY6\_v6 9 rmf  A background spectrum was extracted from a
much larger circular region close to the source and at a similar
off-axis angle 

To fit the slew spectral data, and indeed all the high-energy spectra
in the present paper, the
XSPEC\footnote{http://heasarc gsfc nasa gov/docs/xanadu/xspec/}
spectral fitting package has been used  As $\chi^2$ minimization is
not valid when fitting spectra of low statistical quality, for the
fitting of the slew spectrum (and all the spectral fitting in the
present paper), C-statistics have been used  To take into account the
absorbing column along the line of sight, the {\em wabs} model with
the {\em wilm} cosmic abundance table (Wilms et al \ 2000) has been
used throughout the paper  All the errors quoted in the present paper
are 90\% confidence intervals, unless otherwise stated 

The rev \,1210 slew spectrum shows that the source is very soft, and
appears consistent with a 63$_{-10}^{+12}$\,eV black body, absorbed by
a hydrogen column density of
8 2$_{-4 1}^{+5 4}\times10^{20}$\,cm$^{-2}$  The fit is good, with a
P-statistic value of 0 11, obtained via the XSPEC {\em goodness}
command for this fit, based on 5000 random simulations  The best-fit
hydrogen column is equal to the full Galactic hydrogen column in the
direction of the source (8 0$\pm{1 1}\times10^{20}$\,cm$^{-2}$; Dickey
\& Lockman, 1990, calculated via the FTOOL {\em
  nh}\footnote{http://heasarc gsfc nasa gov/lheasoft/ftools/fhelp/nh txt}) 
The slew spectrum, plus the best fit simple black body model and the
deviations from the model, are shown in Fig \,\ref{slewspec}  The
observed count rate corresponds to a (0 2$-$2\,keV) flux, corrected
for the removal of the saturated PSF core, of
4 8$^{+2 7}_{-1 6}\times10^{-11}$\,ergs cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$ (an
increase in flux over the RASS upper limit, assuming the same spectral
model, by a factor of more than 500) 

Simple power-law, thermal Bremmstrahlung, and other optically thin hot
plasma models are unable to fit the spectrum adequately well   Given
that we later are able to identify the source as a nova (Section~5 2),
then the black-body model will likely be a good approximation 
Furthermore, as we have obtained here a moderate number of slew
counts, the more physically realistic, though more complex atmosphere
model for CO white dwarfs of MacDonald \& Vennes (1991), provided by
K \,Page (private communication), was attempted   This model, used
e g  to model the nova V1974 Cyg (Balman et al \ 1998), yielded a
marginal fit (and not formally a more statistically significant fit;
P-statistic = 0 03, based on 5000 random simulations), with an
effective temperature of 70$^{+8}_{-6}$\,eV, an $N_{\rm H}$ of
3 7$^{+3 2}_{-2 5}$$\times$$10^{20}$\,cm$^{-2}$, and a PSF-corrected
(0 2$-$2\,keV) flux of 4 5$^{+1 3}_{-1 8}\times10^{-11}$\,ergs
cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$  Note that a smaller $N_{\rm H}$ (though perhaps
still consistent with the full Galactic hydrogen column) is now
obtained using the white dwarf atmosphere model  (Note that the
MacDonald \& Vennes (1991) ONe white dwarf atmosphere model was also
attempted, but yielded a marginally worse fit than the CO white dwarf
atmosphere model; only the CO atmosphere model has been used in the
subsequent analysis) 

It is well known (e g  Krautter et al \ 1996) that, because of the
energy-dependent opacity in the white dwarf atmosphere, fits to super
soft source novae spectra with black body models give larger fluxes
and lower temperatures than atmosphere models fit to the same spectra,
and this is seen in the present case  Thus the black body model
requires a larger $N_{\rm H}$ to fit the same data than the atmosphere
model, as is seen  

The model normalizations, corrected for the removal
of the saturated PSF core, can be used to derive an approximate
distance to the source   If we assume a typical emitting region for
the white dwarf atmosphere to be of spherical radius 10$^{9}$\,cm,
then, for the black body model, this distance turns out to be
20$^{+31}_{-10}$\,kpc  The effects discussed above however can lead to
usage of the black body model giving rise to an underestimation of the
distance   For the white dwarf atmosphere model, a larger distance of
71$^{+27}_{-23}$\,kpc is obtained  Both estimates are consistent with
the distance to the LMC ($\sim$50\,kpc, see Section~6), and assuming a
distance of 50\,kpc, the black body derived flux corresponds to a
(pile-up corrected) 0 2$-$2\,keV X-ray luminosity of
1 4$^{+0 8}_{-0 5}\times10^{37}$\,ergs s$^{-1}$ 


\begin{figure}
\centering
\includegraphics[bb=100 20 575 700,clip,width=6 0cm,angle=270]{12082f1 ps}
\caption{XMM-Newton Slew spectrum of XMMSL1 J060636 2-694933 from
  XMM-Newton revolution 1210   The data points (crosses; adjacent data
  bins having been grouped together for the plot to have a significance of at least
  3) have been fitted with a black body model (kT=63\,eV; see text) 
  The solid line shows the best fit to the spectrum  The ratio of the
  data to the best fit model is shown in the lower panel }
\label{slewspec}
\end{figure}


\section{Swift XRT X-ray observations}

We requested and received a prompt observation with Swift of this
source before it moved out of the Swift visibility window in April
2007  We received over 14\,ksec of Swift-XRT time in 7
separate observations and the details of these observations are listed
in Table~\ref{xrttable}  All of the observations were in photon
counting mode and none of the observations showed any times of
significant high-BG flux  In none of the observations did the source
position coincide with any of the dead (micrometeorite-induced)
detector columns  The analysis has been performed using HEASOFT
v6 1 2  The individual XRT observations were astrometrically-corrected
and then stacked to ascertain a best Swift-XRT position $-$ this was
found to be 06 06 37 00 -69 49 33 9 (with a 90\% error radius of
4 0\arcsec)  Source counts were then extracted from each observation
from a circle of radius of 40\arcsec\ at this position  Background
counts were extracted from each observation from large-radius
off-source circles close to the source position  Source counts and
count rates for the individual XRT observations are given in
Table~\ref{xrttable} 


\begin{table}
  \caption[]{Details of the Swift-XRT observations (observation ID, observation date and 
    cleaned exposure time) are tabulated, together with the total (0 2$-$2 0\,keV) background-subtracted 
    counts and count rate from XMMSL1 J060636 2-694933 (see text) }
  \centering
\begin{tabular}{ccrrr}
\hline
ID          & Date     & Exp  & Counts       & Count rate       \\ 
            &   (UT)   &  (s) &              & (s$^{-1}$)        \\ \hline 
00030895001 & 28/02/07 & 1955 & 23 9$\pm$5 1 & 0 0122$\pm$0 0026  \\
00030895002 & 07/03/07 & 1796 & 15 8$\pm$4 2 & 0 0088$\pm$0 0024 \\
00030895003 & 08/03/07 & 1651 & 10 9$\pm$3 6 & 0 0066$\pm$0 0022 \\
00030895004 & 08/03/07 & 2547 & 20 6$\pm$4 8 & 0 0081$\pm$0 0019 \\
00030895005 & 10/03/07 & 2550 & 29 5$\pm$5 7 & 0 0116$\pm$0 0022 \\
00030895006 & 20/03/07 &  552 &  8 6$\pm$3 2 & 0 0156$\pm$0 0057 \\
00030895007 & 22/03/07 & 3391 & 24 4$\pm$5 4 & 0 0072$\pm$0 0016 \\
\hline
\end{tabular}
\label{xrttable}
\end{table}

The observation naturally fell into three time-separated groups, those
of obs \,1, obs \,2-5 and obs \,6-7  A similar analysis applied to
these groups (where the statistics are improved) gives rise to source
counts and count rates of 76 7$\pm$9 3\,counts and
0 0090$\pm$0 0011\,ct~s$^{-1}$ (for obs \,2-5), and
33 0$\pm$6 2\,counts and 0 0084$\pm$0 0016\,ct~s$^{-1}$ (for
obs \,6-7)  (Analysis of all the data together yields
133 6$\pm$12 3\,counts and 0 0092$\pm$0 0009\,ct~s$^{-1}$)  

A spectrum was extracted from all the Swift-XRT data from a 40\arcsec\
radius circle, using grades 0$-$12, centred on the Swift-XRT position 
A background spectrum was extracted again from all the Swift-XRT data,
from large-radius off-source circles close to the source position  An
ARF file was created using {\em xrtmkarf} and the appropriate RMF
(swxpc0to12\_20010101v008 rmf) from the Swift-XRT Calibration Database
was obtained 

Standard spectral models were again fit to the spectral data using
XSPEC  Again, C-statistics were used, as was the {\em wabs} absorption
model with the {\em wilm} cosmic abundance table  It was again 
obvious that only a very soft spectrum would be appropriate for the
data, and the only simple model that was able to fit the data
adequately was a black-body model of temperature
$kT$=$59^{+14}_{-10}$\,eV, with an absorbing hydrogen column of
9 5$^{+5 0}_{-3 9}$$\times$$10^{20}$\,cm$^{-2}$  No sufficiently constrained parameters could
be obtained using the CO white dwarf atmosphere model (MacDonald \&
Vennes 1991)  The Swift-XRT spectrum, together with the best-fit black
body model is shown in Fig \,\ref{xrtspec}  The corresponding
(0 2$-$2 0\,keV) flux is 2 7$^{+0 7}_{-1 2}\times10^{-13}$\,ergs
cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$ (i e  a reduction by more than a factor 100 from
the XMM-Newton slew discovery flux), and the X-ray luminosity, for the
assumed distance of 50\,kpc, is 8 0$^{+2 2}_{-3 5}\times10^{34}$\,ergs
s$^{-1}$ 

\begin{figure}
\centering
\includegraphics[bb=100 15 580 710,clip,width=6 0cm,angle=270]{12082f2 ps}
\caption{Swift-XRT spectrum from XMMSL1 J060636 2-694933  The data
  points (crosses; adjacent data bins having been grouped together for
  the plot to have a significance of at least 3) have been fitted with
  a black body model (kT=59\,eV; see text)  The source has faded by a
  factor of $>100$ since the XMM-Newton revolution 1210 slew
  discovery  The solid line show the best fit to the spectra   The
  ratio of the data to the best fit model is shown in the lower panel 
}
\label{xrtspec}
\end{figure}

A cautious estimate of the size of the emitting region can be obtained
from the model normalization; the assumed distance of 50\,kpc yields a
maximum radius of 4 5$\times$10$^{8}$\,cm (the fit normalization is
essentially unconstrained at the lower bound)   Though great care
should be taken in interpreting this result, as the black body model
is possibly overestimating the luminosity, this obtained radius is
still consistent with that of moderately massive ($>$1 1$M_{\odot}$)
white dwarfs (Hamada \& Salpeter 1961), i e \,the whole white dwarf
surface may still be emitting at 59\,eV 

\section{Dedicated XMM-Newton observations}

We were granted an XMM-Newton Target of Opportunity (ToO) observation,
once the source became again visible to XMM-Newton, and a 10\,ks
XMM-Newton EPIC observation was made on 19th June 2007 (see
Table~\ref{slewtable})  All the XMM-Newton EPIC data, i e   the data
from the two MOS cameras and the single pn camera, were taken in
full-frame mode with the thin filter in place   These data from the
three EPIC instruments have been reprocessed using the standard
procedures in XMM-Newton SAS (Science Analysis System) $-$ v 7 1 0 
Periods of high-background, of which there were very few, were
filtered out of each dataset by creating a high-energy 10$-$15\,keV
lightcurve of single events over the entire field of view, and
selecting times when this lightcurve peaked above 0 75\,ct s$^{-1}$
(for pn) or 0 25\,ct s$^{-1}$ (for MOS)  This resulted in
$\approx$9 4(8 0)\,ks of low-background MOS(pn) data  Details of this dedicated
XMM-Newton observation, together with source position, and
(0 2$-$2\,keV) all-EPIC combined (pn, MOS1, MOS2) detected source
counts, count rate and detection likelihood are given in
Table~\ref{slewtable} 

Source spectra, containing single and double events, were extracted
from the datasets from circles (none of the data were now piled up)
centred on the source position  An extraction radius, estimated from
where the radial surface brightness profile was seen to fall to the
surrounding background level, was set to 30\arcsec  Background spectra
were extracted from each cleaned dataset from a 40\arcsec$-$80\arcsec\
annulus centred on the source position  Point sources seen to
contaminate these larger-area background spectra were removed from the
background spectra to a radius of 60\arcsec  ARF files were created
for the source spectra, and were checked to confirm that the correct
extraction area calculations had been performed  Finally RMF response
files were generated 
 
Standard spectral models were again fit to the spectral data using
XSPEC  Once again it was obvious that only a very soft model would fit the data; the only
simple model that was able to fit the data well (a P-statistic = 0 17,
based on 5000 random simulations) was a black-body model of
temperature $kT$=70$^{+3}_{-4}$\,eV, with an absorbing hydrogen column
of 6 9$^{+1 0}_{-1 6}\times10^{20}$\,cm$^{-2}$  The spectrum, together with this best-fit
model are shown in Fig \,\ref{xmmspec}  The corresponding
(0 2$-$2 0\,keV) flux is only marginally less than the Swift-XRT value
at 2 2$^{+0 8}_{-0 9}\times10^{-13}$\,ergs cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$ and the
X-ray luminosity (for the assumed distance of 50\,kpc) is
6 7$^{+2 5}_{-2 8}\times10^{34}$\,ergs s$^{-1}$ 

\begin{figure}
\centering
\includegraphics[bb=110 15 570 705,clip,width=6 0cm,angle=270]{12082f3 ps}
\caption{XMM-Newton ToO spectrum from XMMSL1 J060636 2-694933  The
  data points (crosses; adjacent data bins having been grouped
  together for the plot to have a significance of at least 3)) have
  been fitted again with a black body model (kT=70\,eV) (see text) 
  EPIC-pn data is shown in black, with EPIC-MOS1 in red and EPIC-MOS2
  in green  The solid lines show the best fit to the spectra   The
  ratios of the data to the best fit model are shown in the lower
  panel }
\label{xmmspec}
\end{figure}

Given that, in this XMM-Newton ToO observation, we had obtained a
larger number of counts ($\raisebox{-1mm}{$\stackrel{>}{\sim}$}$1500 over the 3 EPIC cameras), the
physically more realistic CO white dwarf atmosphere model (MacDonald \&
Vennes 1991) was also attempted  This yielded a marginal fit (and formally
a no more statistically significant fit; P-statistic = 0 04, based on
5000 random simulations), with an effective temperature of
73$^{+3}_{-2}$\,eV, and an $N_{\rm H}$ of
3 4$^{+0 8}_{-0 8}$$\times$$10^{20}$\,cm$^{-2}$  Again, usage of the black body model results
in a larger fitted $N_{\rm H}$ and a lower fitted temperature than
with the atmosphere model  


As before, the model normalization can be used to obtain a cautious
estimate of the size of the emitting region  For the assumed distance
of 50\,kpc, then the black body model returns an emitting region
radius of only 1 3$\pm$0 2$\times$10$^{8}$\,cm   Again care should be
taken, as this may be an overestimation, the black body model having
perhaps overestimated the luminosity  For the white dwarf atmosphere
model, a smaller radius of 0 4$\pm$0 1$\times$10$^{8}$\,cm is
obtained  Note further that the assumption of a larger distance (see
Section~6) would result in a proportionally larger emitting radius 
The range in allowed radius therefore is quite large, and it is not
impossible for for the whole of the white dwarf surface to be emitting
at 70\,eV  If this is the case, then the white dwarf would have to be
at the high end of the mass range ($>$1 2$M_{\odot}$; Hamada \&
Salpeter 1961)  It may be the case then that we are at this point at,
or close to the end of the SSS phase, where the effective temperature
has reached a maximum (Sala \& Hernanz 2005), as is tentatively seen
in the spectral fitting results, and where the photospheric radius has
reached a minimum, close to the white dwarf radius 


\subsection{X-ray variability}

The full (XMM-Newton slew plus Swift-XRT plus XMM-Newton ToO) X-ray
lightcurve of XMMSL1 J060636 2-694933 is shown in
Fig \,\ref{lightcurve}  The calculated (0 2$-$2 0\,keV) flux values
are shown plotted against the number of days since the rev \,1210
XMM-Newton Slew discovery  The first two data points are the
rev \,1210 and the rev \,1246 XMM-Newton Slew observations  Then the
three nested Swift-XRT points are shown and finally the XMM-Newton ToO
observation  The level of RASS upper limit is shown to the bottom
left  The (0 2$-$2 0\,keV) X-ray flux is seen to have dropped by more
than two orders of magnitude in 230 days since the discovery, but is
then seen to have levelled off for the next 120 days, at a level still
$\approx$3 times that of the RASS  Finally, no evidence for any
short-term variability (using time bins down to 100\,s) is seen in the
highest statistic continuous X-ray lightcurve (the $\approx$8 0\,ksec
background-filtered EPIC-pn lightcurve) obtained from the 19/06/07
XMM-Newton observation 

\begin{figure}
\centering
\includegraphics[bb=60 60 550 454,clip,width=8 7cm]{12082f4 ps}
\caption{The full X-ray lightcurve of XMMSL1 J060636 2-694933  Plotted
  are the calculated (0 2$-$2 0\,keV) flux values versus time  The
  first point is the rev \,1210 XMM-Newton Slew observation, then the
  rev \,1246 XMM-Newton Slew observation  The three nested Swift-XRT points
  are shown next and finally the XMM-Newton ToO observation  The RASS upper
  limit is shown bottom left  }
\label{lightcurve}
\end{figure}


\section{Multi-wavelength Follow-up}

\subsection{Swift UVOT}

For the Feb/Mar 2007 Swift observations, we arranged for both the
Swift UVOT-B filter and the UVOT-UVW2 filters to be used in an
approximate exposure time ratio of 1:5, thus ensuring roughly equal
numbers of counts in the two bands (though there is a spectral type
dependency here)  Swift UVOT images in these two filters of the area
of sky around XMMSL1 J060636 2-694933 are shown in Fig \,\ref{uvot} 

Prior to the Swift UVOT observations, a `best-guess' to the possible
candidate optical/IR counterpart would have been the USNO-A2 0 source
0150-04066298 (B~mag: 17 4, R~mag: 16 1), seen 4\arcsec\ south of the
XMM-Newton slew position  The UVOT images however immediately showed
that the optically fainter source at position RA, Dec (J2000) = 06 06
36 4, -69 49 34 3 (error radius: ~0 5\arcsec) was a very strong UVW2
source and very blue, and was very likely the true counterpart to
XMMSL1~J060636 2-694933  (The UVW2 filter spans approximately
800\AA\,, centred at $\approx$1900\AA)

\begin{figure}
\centering
\includegraphics[bb=-82 210 695 585,clip,width=8 7cm]{12082f5 ps}
\caption{Swift UVOT images of the field around XMMSL1 J060636 2-694933 from observation
  00030895002  Left shows the UVOT B-filter and right shows the the
  UVOT UVW2-filter  The large circle is a 20\arcsec\ radius circle around
  the XMM-Newton Slew position  The small circle in the UVW2 image around the
  bright source is reproduced in the B image, indicating that a faint
  optical source is also visible at this position }
\label{uvot}
\end{figure}

The Swift UVOT pipeline processed data were analysed using the UVOT
photometry package {\em uvotsource} released with
FTOOLs\footnote{http://heasarc nasa gov/lheasoft/ftools/ftools\_menu html} 
This package performs aperture photometry on pre-specified source and
background regions, accounting for photometric- (via PSF fitting) and
coincidence loss- effects using the UVOT calibration files  Source
counts were extracted using a 5\arcsec\ radius aperture centred on the
source, while for the background we used a 10\arcsec\ radius aperture
located in a nearby source-free region   We used a larger background
aperture to effectively smooth over the modulo-8 fixed pattern noise
present in UVOT observations and to improve the statistics of the
background counts  Source counts were converted to UVOT UV-magnitudes
using the UVW2 zero-point calibration released with version~2 8 (Build
22) of the CALDB  The source is seen (see Fig \,\ref{uvotlc}) to be
roughly constant over the short duration of the Swift observations,
with a suggestion of a decline towards the end  This is in keeping
with the general form of the X-ray lightcurve (Fig \,\ref{lightcurve})
at this time 

\begin{figure}
\centering
\includegraphics[bb=80 70 535 380,clip,width=8 7cm]{12082f6 ps}
\caption{Variation of the UVW2 magnitude of the bright UV source
  during the Swift observations  The same time axis as
  Fig \,\ref{lightcurve} has been used to aid comparison, and a zoom
  is also shown  The UVW2 filter was only employed during observations
  00030895002, 00030895004, 00030895005, 00030895006 \& 00030895007
  (hence the points span the dates 07/03/07 to 22/03/07)  The errors here are 1-$\sigma$  }
\label{uvotlc}
\end{figure}

It is possible to include the UVOT-detected flux with the XRT spectrum
described in Section~3  UVOT files, created using {\em uvot2pha} for
the five observations (00030895002, 00030895004, 00030895005,
00030895006 \& 00030895007) where the UVW2 filter was employed, were
incorporated into {\em xspec}, along with the appropriate response
file (swuw2\_20041120v104 rsp) from the Swift-XRT Calibration
Database  We attempted to fit a single black-body spectrum to the
Swift-XRT+UV data (again using C-statistics, the {\em wabs} absorption
model and the {\em wilm} cosmic abundance table, plus the inclusion of
the {\em xspec-redden} component to model the absorption in the UV
band)  The best fit however, with a much lower temperature of
$kT$=$36^{+3}_{-4}$\,eV, is a very poor fit to the data; we obtain a
{\em goodness} P-statistic value of 0 00, based on 5000 random
simulations  This notwithstanding, a flux in the UVW2
(1 57$-$7 77\,eV) band of 3 5$\pm{0 2}\times10^{-13}$\,ergs cm$^{-2}$
s$^{-1}$ can be obtained, corresponding to a UVW2 luminosity, for the
assumed distance of 50\,kpc, of 1 0$\pm{0 1}\times10^{35}$\,ergs
s$^{-1}$ 

The very poor single black-body fit above, plus the large change in
fitted temperature is strongly suggestive that a model other than, or
in addition to the XRT-derived kT=59\,eV black body model (Section~3)
should be used to describe the UVW2 data  As we have no UV data other
than in the UVW2 filter, all that can be done is to apply the
XRT-derived black body model to the UVW2+XRT data, and in doing this,
a large flux excess with respect to the XRT-derived black body model
is seen in the UVW2 band  This is shown in Fig \ref{xrtuvotspec}  This
excess in UV emission (most of the $10^{35}$\,ergs s$^{-1}$ discussed
above) is likely due to a combination of residual post-nova nuclear
burning on the surface of the white dwarf, plus accretion in the disk,
including from emission lines  The situation is likely to be rather
complex, depending on the structure of both the ejecta and the
accretion disk, and is beyond the scope of the present work, where we
only have sparse UV data   For a review of the UV emission from
classical novae, see Shore (2008) 


\begin{figure}
\centering
\includegraphics[bb=100 15 580 710,clip,width=6 0cm,angle=270]{12082f7 ps}
\caption{Swift-XRT spectrum (black) from XMMSL1 J060636 2-694933, plus
  the best-fit black-body model to this spectrum (Section~3; Fig \,2),
  but extending into the UV to the Swift-UVOT UVW2 flux points (coloured)
  (see text)  The data points are plotted such that adjacent data
  bins have been grouped together to have a significance of at least
  3  The solid line show the best fit to the Swift-XRT spectrum  The
  ratio of the data to the best fit model is shown in the lower
  panel }
\label{xrtuvotspec}
\end{figure}


\subsection{Magellan optical observations}

On Nov ~13, 14, and 15, 2007, XMMSL1~J060636 2--694933 was observed
with the Low--Dispersion Survey Spectrograph 3 (LDSS3) mounted on the
Magellan Clay telescope  Images were obtained through the Sloan
$g^\prime$, $r^\prime$ and $i^\prime$ filters  On Nov ~15, 2007
conditions were photometric and the Landolt field RU 149A was observed
to flux calibrate the data in the $g^\prime$, $r^\prime$ and
$i^\prime$--bands   The Landolt (1992) magnitudes of the standards
were converted to Sloan magnitudes using the transformations presented
in Smith et al \ (2002)  All the images were debiased and flatfielded
using dome flatfield frames  We applied aperture photometry on each of
the images using DAOPHOT in \textsc{IRAF}\footnote{\textsc {iraf} is
  distributed by the National Optical Astronomy Observatories} to
compute the instrumental magnitudes of the stars  Differential
photometry of the optical counterpart to XMMSL1~J060636 2-694933
(marked by an arrow in Fig ~\ref{magellan}) was performed with respect
to the field star (marked with a `c' in Fig ~\ref{magellan})  This was the
brightest isolated and unsaturated star common to all frames   The
calibrated brightness of this comparison star is $g'= 18 42 \pm 0 04$,
$r'= 17 85 \pm 0 06$ and $i'=17 58 \pm 0 07$ 

\begin{figure}
\centering
\includegraphics[bb=35 215 575 575,clip,width=8 7cm]{12082f8 ps}
\caption{Magellan Clay LDSS3 finder chart  The counterpart to
  XMMSL1~J060636 2-694933 (and the bright Swift-UVOT UVW2-filter
  source; Figs \ref{uvot}\&\ref{uvotlc}) is marked with an arrow  The comparison star is
  shown marked with a 'c' }
\label{magellan}
\end{figure}

In addition to the imaging observations described above, we have
obtained spectroscopic observations on Nov ~13, 14, and 15, 2007 using
the VPH All grism, which has 660 lines per mm, and employing a
1\arcsec\ wide slit  This set-up provides a mean dispersion of 2\AA\,
per pixel  For a slit width of 1 arcsecond and a mean seeing close to
1\arcsec, the mean spectral resolution is $\approx$10\AA  On Nov ~13, 2007
we took 4 exposures of 450\,s each, on Nov ~14, 2007 we took 2
exposures of 900\,s each, and on Nov ~15, 2007 we took one 1200\,s
exposure with the slit at the parallactic angle  The spectra were bias
and flatfield corrected, and extracted in \textsc{IRAF}  The
instrumental response was corrected using the spectrophotometric flux
calibrators LTT 3218 (Nov ~13), H600 (Nov ~14) and LTT 9293 (Nov ~15) 
Significant differences in the flux around H$\alpha$ are apparent with
the flux being 50\% higher during the Nov ~15, 2007 with respect to
the Nov ~13, 2007 observations  Since there is no evidence for
brightening in the $r^\prime$ images we attribute the difference to
the fact that the source was not observed at the parallactic angle on
Nov ~13 and 14, 2007  We exported the one dimensional spectra to the
spectral analysis software package \textsc{molly} for further
analysis 

\begin{figure}
\centering
\includegraphics[bb=70 30 600 800,clip,width=6 8cm,angle=270]{12082f9 ps}
\caption{Magellan Clay averaged optical spectrum of the optical source
  associated with XMMSL1 J060636 2-694933  The flux scaling is
  approximate  The prominent strong emission lines are marked (see
  text)  }
\label{optspec}
\end{figure}

We have averaged all spectra (see Fig ~\ref{optspec})  We find several
strong emission lines  The strongest of these emission lines are best
interpreted as due to [OIII] 4958 9\AA\, and 5006 9\AA\,, He~II at
4685 8\AA\, and a blend of the H$\alpha$ plus the [NII] at 6548 1\AA\,
and 6583 4\AA\,, lines found often in novae (Williams 1992)  In this
case the main [OIII] lines appear redshifted by approximately 2000\,km
s$^{-1}$  We interprete this as due to clumpy outflows in the nova
shell  The integrated light from different outflowing parts can also
explain the substructure that is present in the [OIII] lines  The
outflow velocities that we obtain for the H$\alpha$ and H$\beta$ lines
is $\approx$350\,km s$^{-1}$, hence less than that for the [OIII]
lines   Note that, if XMMSL1~J060636 2-694933 does reside within the
LMC, then the systematic line-of-sight recession velocity of the LMC,
262$\pm$3 4\,km~s$^{-1}$ (van der Marel et al \ 2002), should be taken
into account; i e \,a good fraction of the observed H$\alpha$ and H$\beta$
recession would then be due to the recession of the LMC itself 

\subsection{Long-term Optical light curve}

Analysis of archival robotic optical survey data from 3-minute CCD
exposures (pixel size 14\arcsec 8), obtained with a 70\,mm (200\,mm
focal length) f/2 8 telephoto lens in the course of the All Sky
Automated Survey (ASAS; Pojmanski 2002) show that the visual magnitude
of this source rose from m$_{V}\raisebox{-1mm}{$\stackrel{>}{\sim}$}$14 to m$_{V}$$\approx$12 between
Sep ~18, 2005 and Sep ~30, 2005, and then declined rapidly thereafter (see
Fig \ref{optlc})  ASAS did not detect any significant emission from
the source after around November 2005, the source having dimmed below
the limiting magnitude of ASAS 

The decline from the brightest data point ($\approx$2 2 magnitudes in
10 days, then a further $\sim$1 3 magnitudes in 46 days) suggests that
this is a nova of the 'very fast' speed class (Warner 1995, Downes
et al \ 2001)  We estimate that the time that the light curve takes to
decline 2 magnitudes below maximum observed brightness is
8$\pm$2\,days (see Section~6) 

\begin{figure}
\centering
\includegraphics[bb=30 78 453 549,clip,width=7 8cm,angle=270]{12082f10 ps}
\caption{All Sky Automated Survey V-band magnitudes of the optical counterpart 
to XMMSL1~J060636 2-694933, during outburst (late September 2005) and afterwards }
\label{optlc}
\end{figure}



\section{Discussion}

The optical spectrum, showing lines of [OIII] 4958 9\AA\, and
5006 9\AA\,, He~II at 4685 8\AA\, and a blend of the H$\alpha$ plus
[NII] at 6548 1\AA\, and 6583 4\AA\, suggests that
XMMSL1~J060636 2-694933 was a nova, observed (in Nov 2007) in the late
A$_{0}$ auroral phase  The fact that the observed [OIII] lines are not
in the more usual, optically thin 3:1 ratio, can be explained in terms
of a clumpy outflow scenario, whereby individual clumps of both
rest-frame and redward-shifted material are observed, and the
superposition of these account for the observed [OIII] ratio (note
further that density enhancements can change observed [OIII] ratios to
more like $\sim$1:1)  Clumps of material are often seen in nova ejecta
(e g  Shara et al \ 1997), and outflows of speeds around 2000\,km
s$^{-1}$ are not uncommon in novae (e g  in nova LMC 1991; Schwartz
et al \ 2001) 

XMMSL1~J060636 2-694933 was likely at its onset (in Oct 2005) a very
fast, Fe~{\sc ii} nova (Section~3 and Williams et al \ 1991; Williams
et al \ 1994)  An accurate classification now however is not possible,
so late after maximum brightness  The soft ($kT_{\rm
  eff}$$\approx$60--70\,eV) X-ray spectrum indicates that the nova was
in a super-soft source (SSS) state (Krautter 2008) during its
discovery (in July 2006), and throughout its X-ray decline (by more
than two orders of magnitude) in the observations of Sept 2006, March
2007 and June 2007   Such a state originates from nuclear burning on
the surface of the white dwarf, and measurements of the intensity,
duration, and temperature can be used to estimate the distance to the
nova and the mass of the white dwarf (e g  Balman et al \ 1998; Lanz
et al \ 2005)  Indeed, we believe (Section~4) that the white dwarf
within XMMSL1~J060636 2-694933 may be quite massive
($>$1 2$M_{\odot}$) 

As discussed earlier, classical novae are almost always discovered
optically in the early phases of their outbursts 
XMMSL1~J060636 2-694933 is very unusual therefore in that it has been
discovered first in X-rays  As such, it is useful to compare it with
XMMSL1~J070542 7-381442 (also known as V598 Pup; Read et al \ 2008),
another nova recently discovered (in X-rays) in the XMM-Newton slew
survey  With a peak $m_{V}$ of $\ltsim12$, XMMSL1~J060636 2-694933 is
not a particularly bright nova (c f  V598 Pup, which reached an
m$_{V}$ of $\raisebox{-1mm}{$\stackrel{<}{\sim}$}$4), and so it is not surprising that it went
unnoticed, only being discovered in X-rays during the later (here
291\,days after the outburst), optically thin nebular phase, when
classical novae are typically observed as soft X-ray sources  Though
this delay should be taken as a upper limit, it is long when compared
to V598 Pup ($\raisebox{-1mm}{$\stackrel{<}{\sim}$}$127 days), but may instead be more similar to the
delays of $\sim$200 days seen in V1974 Cyg (Krautter et al \ 1996),
$\sim$6 months of V382 Vel (Orio et al \ 2002), and 6$-$8 months of
V1494 Aql (Drake et al \ 2003)  In their X-ray monitoring of optical
novae in M31, Pietsch et al \ (2007) detect 11 out of 34 novae in
X-rays within a year after their optical outbursts  Seven novae are
seen to be X-ray bright, several (3$-$9) years after outburst, and
three novae showed very short X-ray outbursts, starting within
50\,days of outburst, but lasting only two to three months 
XMMSL1~J060636 2-694933 therefore is not particularly unusual 

A method to estimate the distance to the nova is to use the relation
between the absolute magnitude at maximum brightness and the time that
the light curve takes to decline 2 magnitudes below maximum
brightness, $t_{2}$ (Della Valle \& Livio 1995)  We have no
information over the 12 days between the data point of maximum
brightness and the lower limit prior to this (Fig \,\ref{optlc}), and
therefore we have no exact outburst date, nor exact apparent
magnitude at outburst   Assuming for the moment though that we have
caught the outburst exactly in the Sep ~30, 2005 observation, then we
can estimate (Sect ~5 3) $t_{2}$ to be 8$\pm$2\,days, and using this,
we can estimate (Della Valle \& Livio 1995) the absolute magnitude at
maximum brightness $M_{V}$ to be --8 7$\pm$0 6  An absolute magnitude
of $M_{V}$=--8 7 implies a peak luminosity $\sim$7 times the Eddington
luminosity for a 1\,$M_{\odot}$ white dwarf  This is quite typical of
novae 

With $A_{V}$=0 39$^{+0 05}_{-0 09}$ (90\% error), as derived (Predehl
\& Schmitt 1995) from $N_{\rm
  H}$=6 9$^{+1 0}_{-1 6}\times10^{20}$\,cm$^{-2}$ (from the highest
statistic spectral fit; the XMM-Newton ToO observation), and with
$M_{V}$=--8 7$\pm$0 6, and a peak $m_{V}$ of 12 0, we can derive a
distance to XMMSL1~J060636 2-694933 of 115$^{+43}_{-30}$\,kpc   As
discussed above however, we are unsure as to the exact outburst date
and the maximum brightness at outburst  Our assumed peak $m_{V}$ of
12 0 is almost certainly an underestimation  Although we have no
information in the 12 days prior to Sep ~30, 2005, a simple linear
extrapolation of the early October lightcurve back prior to Sep ~30,
2005 suggests that the actual peak $m_{V}$ was somewhere between 9 and
12  The corresponding distance estimates are then between 29 and
115\,kpc (with a mid-point $m_{V}$=10 5 value yielding a distance
estimate of 58\,kpc)  Many methods have been used to estimate the
distance to the LMC (e g   Kovacs 2000, Nelson et al \ 2000), but a
value of around 50\,kpc appears to be quite robust  Our distance
estimate is certainly consistent with that of the LMC, though the
errors are quite large   It does appear to be the case however, that
our distance estimate places the source far outside of our own Galaxy 
This, together with the source's position on the sky (at the eastern
edge of the LMC) and the sizable ($\sim$Galactic) X-ray hydrogen
column densities obtained from the spectral fits, suggest strongly
that XMMSL1~J060636 2-694933 lies within the LMC itself   Note further
that the (pile-up corrected) spectral model normalizations to the
initial Slew discovery data (Sect ~2) also imply an approximate
distance to XMMSL1~J060636 2-694933 of $\sim$50\,kpc 

The source had, at the time of the slew detection, an absorbed
(0 2$-$2\,keV) X-ray flux of 4 8$^{+2 7}_{-1 6}\times10^{-11}$\,ergs
cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$, corresponding to a 0 2$-$2\,keV X-ray luminosity
(at 50\,kpc) of 1 4$^{+0 8}_{-0 5}\times10^{37}$\,ergs s$^{-1}$ 
Assuming instead for the moment a distance more like 100\,kpc (though
this is thought to be well beyond the LMC, e g  Kovacs 2000), then the
(0 2$-$2\,keV) X-ray luminosity of
5 7$^{+3 0}_{-1 9}\times$$10^{37}$\,erg s$^{-1}$ obtained is at the high end of the X-ray luminosities of
classical SSS-phase novae discussed e g \,in Orio et al \ (2002) and
Ness et al \ (2007)  As discussed though, we have very likely missed
the outburst peak, and as such, our more probable assumed distance of
50\,kpc gives rise to a more typical SSS-phase X-ray luminosity   The
luminosities of 7$-$8$\times$$10^{34}$\,erg s$^{-1}$, obtained during
the Swift and pointed XMM-Newton observations, are more typical of
novae at later times, when the emission can also sometimes be
described by a thermal plasma, rather than a black-body type spectrum,
or a more mixed spectrum, due to the complex structure of the ejecta
and the accretion disk (Krautter 2008, Shore 2008) 


\section{Conclusions}

A bright X-ray source, XMMSL1~J060636 2-694933, was detected in an
XMM-Newton slew on 18 July 2006 at a position where no previous X-ray
source had been seen  The XMM-Newton slew data, plus follow-up dedicated
XMM-Newton and Swift observations, plus optical imaging and
spectroscopic data acquired with the Magellan Clay telescope and 
All-Sky Automated Survey (ASAS) data were used to classify the new object
as a nova, and to examine its properties  The primary conclusions are
as follows:

  \begin{itemize}

  \item The soft X-ray spectrum indicates that the nova was in a
    super-soft source (SSS) state at its discovery in July 2007
    (XMM-Newton slew) and through its X-ray decline (by over two
    orders of magnitude) in September 2006 (XMM-Newton slew), March
    2007 (Swift) and June 2007 (XMM-Newton) 

  \item The Magellan optical spectrum (Nov 2007) of the source
    indicates that it was very likely then a nova in the late
    A$_{0}$ auroral phase 

  \item The very fast optical decline (ASAS) during the nova's onset
    (Oct 2005), indicates that the initial nova was likely of speed class
    'very fast' 

  \item The very fast speed, together with the absolute magnitude at
    maximum brightness and the X-ray absorption, give rise to a
    distance to the source far beyond our own Galaxy  The large
    distance, together with the source's position in the sky, at the
    eastern edge of the LMC, and the spectral information from the
    X-ray data, are very suggestive that the nova is situated within
    the LMC itself 

  \item Analysis of XMM-Newton slew data is continuing to provide a
    powerful means of finding new X-ray transient objects 

\end{itemize}

\begin{acknowledgements}

  The XMM-Newton project is an ESA Science Mission with instruments
  and contributions directly funded by ESA Member States and the USA
  (NASA)  The XMM-Newton project is supported by the Bundesministerium
  f\"ur Wirtschaft und Technologie/Deutsches Zentrum f\"ur Luft- und
  Raumfahrt (BMWI/DLR, FKZ 50 OX 0001), the Max-Planck Society and the
  Heidenhain-Stiftung  AMR and PE acknowledge the support of STFC
  funding, and PGJ of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific
  Research  The ASAS project is supported by the N2030731/1328 grant
  from the MNiSzW  We thank the referee (G \,Sala) for very useful
  comments and several references that have improved the paper
  notably  We thank Kim Page for providing the white dwarf atmosphere
  model, and we thank her and Graham Wynn for useful discussions  The
  use of the spectral analysis software package \textsc{molly} written
  by Tom Marsh is also acknowledged  MM acknowledges support by a
  Miller Institute Research Fellowship during the time in which part
  of the work was completed 

\end{acknowledgements}


Context 2: For other uses, see Electricity (disambiguation) 
"Electric" redirects here  For other uses, see Electric (disambiguation) 
Lightning is one of the most dramatic effects of electricity 
Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge  In early days, electricity was considered as being not related to magnetism  Later on, many experimental results and the development of Maxwell's equations indicated that both electricity and magnetism are from a single phenomenon: electromagnetism  Various common phenomena are related to electricity, including lightning, static electricity, electric heating, electric discharges and many others 
The presence of an electric charge, which can be either positive or negative, produces an electric field  The movement of electric charges is an electric current and produces a magnetic field 
When a charge is placed in a location with a non-zero electric field, a force will act on it  The magnitude of this force is given by Coulomb's law  Thus, if that charge were to move, the electric field would be doing work on the electric charge  Thus we can speak of electric potential at a certain point in space, which is equal to the work done by an external agent in carrying a unit of positive charge from an arbitrarily chosen reference point to that point without any acceleration and is typically measured in volts 
electronics which deals with electrical circuits that involve active electrical components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies 
Electrical phenomena have been studied since antiquity, though progress in theoretical understanding remained slow until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries  Even then, practical applications for electricity were few, and it would not be until the late nineteenth century that electrical engineers were able to put it to industrial and residential use  The rapid expansion in electrical technology at this time transformed industry and society, becoming a driving force for the Second Industrial Revolution  Electricity's extraordinary versatility means it can be put to an almost limitless set of applications which include transport, heating, lighting, communications, and computation  Electrical power is now the backbone of modern industrial society 
Long before any knowledge of electricity existed, people were aware of shocks from electric fish  Ancient Egyptian texts dating from 2750 BCE referred to these fish as the "Thunderer of the Nile", and described them as the "protectors" of all other fish  Electric fish were again reported millennia later by ancient Greek, Roman and Arabic naturalists and physicians  Several ancient writers, such as Pliny the Elder and Scribonius Largus, attested to the numbing effect of electric shocks delivered by catfish and electric rays, and knew that such shocks could travel along conducting objects  Patients suffering from ailments such as gout or headache were directed to touch electric fish in the hope that the powerful jolt might cure them  Possibly the earliest and nearest approach to the discovery of the identity of lightning, and electricity from any other source, is to be attributed to the Arabs, who before the 15th century had the Arabic word for lightning ra‘ad (رعد) applied to the electric ray 
Ancient cultures around the Mediterranean knew that certain objects, such as rods of amber, could be rubbed with cat's fur to attract light objects like feathers  Thales of Miletus made a series of observations on static electricity around 600 BCE, from which he believed that friction rendered amber magnetic, in contrast to minerals such as magnetite, which needed no rubbing  Thales was incorrect in believing the attraction was due to a magnetic effect, but later science would prove a link between magnetism and electricity  According to a controversial theory, the Parthians may have had knowledge of electroplating, based on the 1936 discovery of the Baghdad Battery, which resembles a galvanic cell, though it is uncertain whether the artifact was electrical in nature 
Benjamin Franklin conducted extensive research on electricity in the 18th century, as documented by Joseph Priestley (1767) History and Present Status of Electricity, with whom Franklin carried on extended correspondence 
Electricity would remain little more than an intellectual curiosity for millennia until 1600, when the English scientist William Gilbert wrote De Magnete, in which he made a careful study of electricity and magnetism, distinguishing the lodestone effect from static electricity produced by rubbing amber  He coined the New Latin word electricus ("of amber" or "like amber", from ἤλεκτρον, elektron, the Greek word for "amber") to refer to the property of attracting small objects after being rubbed  This association gave rise to the English words "electric" and "electricity", which made their first appearance in print in Thomas Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica of 1646 
Further work was conducted in the 17th and early 18th centuries by Otto von Guericke, Robert Boyle, Stephen Gray and C  F  du Fay  Later in the 18th century, Benjamin Franklin conducted extensive research in electricity, selling his possessions to fund his work  In June 1752 he is reputed to have attached a metal key to the bottom of a dampened kite string and flown the kite in a storm-threatened sky  A succession of sparks jumping from the key to the back of his hand showed that lightning was indeed electrical in nature  He also explained the apparently paradoxical behavior of the Leyden jar as a device for storing large amounts of electrical charge in terms of electricity consisting of both positive and negative charges 
In 1791, Luigi Galvani published his discovery of bioelectromagnetics, demonstrating that electricity was the medium by which neurons passed signals to the muscles  Alessandro Volta's battery, or voltaic pile, of 1800, made from alternating layers of zinc and copper, provided scientists with a more reliable source of electrical energy than the electrostatic machines previously used  The recognition of electromagnetism, the unity of electric and magnetic phenomena, is due to Hans Christian Ørsted and André-Marie Ampère in 1819–1820  Michael Faraday invented the electric motor in 1821, and Georg Ohm mathematically analysed the electrical circuit in 1827  Electricity and magnetism (and light) were definitively linked by James Clerk Maxwell, in particular in his "On Physical Lines of Force" in 1861 and 1862 
While the early 19th century had seen rapid progress in electrical science, the late 19th century would see the greatest progress in electrical engineering  Through such people as Alexander Graham Bell, Ottó Bláthy, Thomas Edison, Galileo Ferraris, Oliver Heaviside, Ányos Jedlik, William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, Charles Algernon Parsons, Werner von Siemens, Joseph Swan, Reginald Fessenden, Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse, electricity turned from a scientific curiosity into an essential tool for modern life 
In 1887, Heinrich Hertz:843–44 discovered that electrodes illuminated with ultraviolet light create electric sparks more easily  In 1905, Albert Einstein published a paper that explained experimental data from the photoelectric effect as being the result of light energy being carried in discrete quantized packets, energising electrons  This discovery led to the quantum revolution  Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921 for "his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect"  The photoelectric effect is also employed in photocells such as can be found in solar panels and this is frequently used to make electricity commercially 
The first solid-state device was the "cat's-whisker detector" first used in the 1900s in radio receivers  A whisker-like wire is placed lightly in contact with a solid crystal (such as a germanium crystal) to detect a radio signal by the contact junction effect  In a solid-state component, the current is confined to solid elements and compounds engineered specifically to switch and amplify it  Current flow can be understood in two forms: as negatively charged electrons, and as positively charged electron deficiencies called holes  These charges and holes are understood in terms of quantum physics  The building material is most often a crystalline semiconductor 
The solid-state device came into its own with the invention of the transistor in 1947  Common solid-state devices include transistors, microprocessor chips, and RAM  A specialized type of RAM called flash RAM is used in USB flash drives and more recently, solid-state drives to replace mechanically rotating magnetic disc hard disk drives  Solid state devices became prevalent in the 1950s and the 1960s, during the transition from vacuum tubes to semiconductor diodes, transistors, integrated circuit (IC) and the light-emitting diode (LED) 
The presence of charge gives rise to an electrostatic force: charges exert a force on each other, an effect that was known, though not understood, in antiquity :457 A lightweight ball suspended from a string can be charged by touching it with a glass rod that has itself been charged by rubbing with a cloth  If a similar ball is charged by the same glass rod, it is found to repel the first: the charge acts to force the two balls apart  Two balls that are charged with a rubbed amber rod also repel each other  However, if one ball is charged by the glass rod, and the other by an amber rod, the two balls are found to attract each other  These phenomena were investigated in the late eighteenth century by Charles-Augustin de Coulomb, who deduced that charge manifests itself in two opposing forms  This discovery led to the well-known axiom: like-charged objects repel and opposite-charged objects attract 
The force acts on the charged particles themselves, hence charge has a tendency to spread itself as evenly as possible over a conducting surface  The magnitude of the electromagnetic force, whether attractive or repulsive, is given by Coulomb's law, which relates the force to the product of the charges and has an inverse-square relation to the distance between them :35 The electromagnetic force is very strong, second only in strength to the strong interaction, but unlike that force it operates over all distances  In comparison with the much weaker gravitational force, the electromagnetic force pushing two electrons apart is 1042 times that of the gravitational attraction pulling them together 
Study has shown that the origin of charge is from certain types of subatomic particles which have the property of electric charge  Electric charge gives rise to and interacts with the electromagnetic force, one of the four fundamental forces of nature  The most familiar carriers of electrical charge are the electron and proton  Experiment has shown charge to be a conserved quantity, that is, the net charge within an electrically isolated system will always remain constant regardless of any changes taking place within that system  Within the system, charge may be transferred between bodies, either by direct contact, or by passing along a conducting material, such as a wire :2–5 The informal term static electricity refers to the net presence (or 'imbalance') of charge on a body, usually caused when dissimilar materials are rubbed together, transferring charge from one to the other 
The charge on electrons and protons is opposite in sign, hence an amount of charge may be expressed as being either negative or positive  By convention, the charge carried by electrons is deemed negative, and that by protons positive, a custom that originated with the work of Benjamin Franklin  The amount of charge is usually given the symbol Q and expressed in coulombs; each electron carries the same charge of approximately −1 6022×10−19 coulomb  The proton has a charge that is equal and opposite, and thus +1 6022×10−19 coulomb  Charge is possessed not just by matter, but also by antimatter, each antiparticle bearing an equal and opposite charge to its corresponding particle 
The movement of electric charge is known as an electric current, the intensity of which is usually measured in amperes  Current can consist of any moving charged particles; most commonly these are electrons, but any charge in motion constitutes a current  Electric current can flow through some things, electrical conductors, but will not flow through an electrical insulator 
By historical convention, a positive current is defined as having the same direction of flow as any positive charge it contains, or to flow from the most positive part of a circuit to the most negative part  Current defined in this manner is called conventional current  The motion of negatively charged electrons around an electric circuit, one of the most familiar forms of current, is thus deemed positive in the opposite direction to that of the electrons  However, depending on the conditions, an electric current can consist of a flow of charged particles in either direction, or even in both directions at once  The positive-to-negative convention is widely used to simplify this situation 
The process by which electric current passes through a material is termed electrical conduction, and its nature varies with that of the charged particles and the material through which they are travelling  Examples of electric currents include metallic conduction, where electrons flow through a conductor such as metal, and electrolysis, where ions (charged atoms) flow through liquids, or through plasmas such as electrical sparks  While the particles themselves can move quite slowly, sometimes with an average drift velocity only fractions of a millimetre per second,:17 the electric field that drives them itself propagates at close to the speed of light, enabling electrical signals to pass rapidly along wires 
Current causes several observable effects, which historically were the means of recognising its presence  That water could be decomposed by the current from a voltaic pile was discovered by Nicholson and Carlisle in 1800, a process now known as electrolysis  Their work was greatly expanded upon by Michael Faraday in 1833  Current through a resistance causes localised heating, an effect James Prescott Joule studied mathematically in 1840 :23–24 One of the most important discoveries relating to current was made accidentally by Hans Christian Ørsted in 1820, when, while preparing a lecture, he witnessed the current in a wire disturbing the needle of a magnetic compass  He had discovered electromagnetism, a fundamental interaction between electricity and magnetics  The level of electromagnetic emissions generated by electric arcing is high enough to produce electromagnetic interference, which can be detrimental to the workings of adjacent equipment 
In engineering or household applications, current is often described as being either direct current (DC) or alternating current (AC)  These terms refer to how the current varies in time  Direct current, as produced by example from a battery and required by most electronic devices, is a unidirectional flow from the positive part of a circuit to the negative :11 If, as is most common, this flow is carried by electrons, they will be travelling in the opposite direction  Alternating current is any current that reverses direction repeatedly; almost always this takes the form of a sine wave :206–07 Alternating current thus pulses back and forth within a conductor without the charge moving any net distance over time  The time-averaged value of an alternating current is zero, but it delivers energy in first one direction, and then the reverse  Alternating current is affected by electrical properties that are not observed under steady state direct current, such as inductance and capacitance :223–25 These properties however can become important when circuitry is subjected to transients, such as when first energised 
The concept of the electric field was introduced by Michael Faraday  An electric field is created by a charged body in the space that surrounds it, and results in a force exerted on any other charges placed within the field  The electric field acts between two charges in a similar manner to the way that the gravitational field acts between two masses, and like it, extends towards infinity and shows an inverse square relationship with distance  However, there is an important difference  Gravity always acts in attraction, drawing two masses together, while the electric field can result in either attraction or repulsion  Since large bodies such as planets generally carry no net charge, the electric field at a distance is usually zero  Thus gravity is the dominant force at distance in the universe, despite being much weaker 
A hollow conducting body carries all its charge on its outer surface  The field is therefore zero at all places inside the body :88 This is the operating principal of the Faraday cage, a conducting metal shell which isolates its interior from outside electrical effects 
The principles of electrostatics are important when designing items of high-voltage equipment  There is a finite limit to the electric field strength that may be withstood by any medium  Beyond this point, electrical breakdown occurs and an electric arc causes flashover between the charged parts  Air, for example, tends to arc across small gaps at electric field strengths which exceed 30 kV per centimetre  Over larger gaps, its breakdown strength is weaker, perhaps 1 kV per centimetre  The most visible natural occurrence of this is lightning, caused when charge becomes separated in the clouds by rising columns of air, and raises the electric field in the air to greater than it can withstand  The voltage of a large lightning cloud may be as high as 100 MV and have discharge energies as great as 250 kWh 
A pair of AA cells  The + sign indicates the polarity of the potential difference between the battery terminals 
The concept of electric potential is closely linked to that of the electric field  A small charge placed within an electric field experiences a force, and to have brought that charge to that point against the force requires work  The electric potential at any point is defined as the energy required to bring a unit test charge from an infinite distance slowly to that point  It is usually measured in volts, and one volt is the potential for which one joule of work must be expended to bring a charge of one coulomb from infinity :494–98 This definition of potential, while formal, has little practical application, and a more useful concept is that of electric potential difference, and is the energy required to move a unit charge between two specified points  An electric field has the special property that it is conservative, which means that the path taken by the test charge is irrelevant: all paths between two specified points expend the same energy, and thus a unique value for potential difference may be stated :494–98 The volt is so strongly identified as the unit of choice for measurement and description of electric potential difference that the term voltage sees greater everyday usage 
For practical purposes, it is useful to define a common reference point to which potentials may be expressed and compared  While this could be at infinity, a much more useful reference is the Earth itself, which is assumed to be at the same potential everywhere  This reference point naturally takes the name earth or ground  Earth is assumed to be an infinite source of equal amounts of positive and negative charge, and is therefore electrically uncharged—and unchargeable 
Electric potential is a scalar quantity, that is, it has only magnitude and not direction  It may be viewed as analogous to height: just as a released object will fall through a difference in heights caused by a gravitational field, so a charge will 'fall' across the voltage caused by an electric field  As relief maps show contour lines marking points of equal height, a set of lines marking points of equal potential (known as equipotentials) may be drawn around an electrostatically charged object  The equipotentials cross all lines of force at right angles  They must also lie parallel to a conductor's surface, otherwise this would produce a force that will move the charge carriers to even the potential of the surface 
Ørsted's discovery in 1821 that a magnetic field existed around all sides of a wire carrying an electric current indicated that there was a direct relationship between electricity and magnetism  Moreover, the interaction seemed different from gravitational and electrostatic forces, the two forces of nature then known  The force on the compass needle did not direct it to or away from the current-carrying wire, but acted at right angles to it  Ørsted's slightly obscure words were that "the electric conflict acts in a revolving manner " The force also depended on the direction of the current, for if the flow was reversed, then the force did too 
Ørsted did not fully understand his discovery, but he observed the effect was reciprocal: a current exerts a force on a magnet, and a magnetic field exerts a force on a current  The phenomenon was further investigated by Ampère, who discovered that two parallel current-carrying wires exerted a force upon each other: two wires conducting currents in the same direction are attracted to each other, while wires containing currents in opposite directions are forced apart  The interaction is mediated by the magnetic field each current produces and forms the basis for the international definition of the ampere 
This relationship between magnetic fields and currents is extremely important, for it led to Michael Faraday's invention of the electric motor in 1821  Faraday's homopolar motor consisted of a permanent magnet sitting in a pool of mercury  A current was allowed through a wire suspended from a pivot above the magnet and dipped into the mercury  The magnet exerted a tangential force on the wire, making it circle around the magnet for as long as the current was maintained 
Experimentation by Faraday in 1831 revealed that a wire moving perpendicular to a magnetic field developed a potential difference between its ends  Further analysis of this process, known as electromagnetic induction, enabled him to state the principle, now known as Faraday's law of induction, that the potential difference induced in a closed circuit is proportional to the rate of change of magnetic flux through the loop  Exploitation of this discovery enabled him to invent the first electrical generator in 1831, in which he converted the mechanical energy of a rotating copper disc to electrical energy  Faraday's disc was inefficient and of no use as a practical generator, but it showed the possibility of generating electric power using magnetism, a possibility that would be taken up by those that followed on from his work 
Italian physicist Alessandro Volta showing his "battery" to French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte in the early 19th century 
The ability of chemical reactions to produce electricity, and conversely the ability of electricity to drive chemical reactions has a wide array of uses 
Electrochemistry has always been an important part of electricity  From the initial invention of the Voltaic pile, electrochemical cells have evolved into the many different types of batteries, electroplating and electrolysis cells  Aluminium is produced in vast quantities this way, and many portable devices are electrically powered using rechargeable cells 
A basic electric circuit  The voltage source V on the left drives a current I around the circuit, delivering electrical energy into the resistor R  From the resistor, the current returns to the source, completing the circuit
Context 3: Ann's Mega Dub: 12/19/10 - 12/26/10
Got o have a penis to be an expert
Thursday on NPR's Fresh Air, Terry Gross wanted to talk film and music  Since women don't know a thing about either and aren't interested in either, Terry had to find men who were 'experts 'This is C I 's " Iraq snapshot Friday, December 24, 2010  Chaos and violence continue, Nouri's incomplete Cabinet continues to receive criticism, a father offers an 'excuse' for killing his own daughter, and more Marci Stone (US Headlines Examiner) reports, "Friday afternoon, Santa is currently in Baghdad, Iraq and on his next stop is Moscow, Russia, according to the 2010 NORAD Santa Tracker  The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) has been tracking Santa as he makes his annual journey throughout the world " Gerald Skoning (Palm Beach Post) quotes Santa saying, "We send our special wishes for peace and goodwill to all  That includes the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and North Korea " Please note that this is Santa's seventh trip to Iraq since the start of the Iraq War and, as usual, his journey was known in advance  No waiting until he hit the ground to announce he was going to Iraq -- the way George The Bully Boy Bush had to and the way US President Barack Obama still has to  In the lead up to Santa's yearly visit, many 'authorities' in Iraq began insisting that Christmas couldn't be celebrated publicly, that even Santa was banned  Gabriel Gatehouse (BBC News) quotes Shemmi Hanna stating, "I wasn't hurt but I wish that I had been killed  I wish I had become a martyr for this church, but God kept me alive for my daughters " Shemmi Hanna was in Our Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad when it was assaulted October 31st and she lost her husband, her son, her daughter-in-law and her infant grandson in the attack  The October 31st attack marks the latest wave of violence targeting Iraqi Christians  The violence has led many to flee to northern Iraq (KRG) or to other countries  Zvi Bar'el (Haaretz) notes, "This week the Iraqi legislature discussed the Christians' situation and passed a resolution in principle to help families who fled  However, the parliament does not know where the Christians are, how many are still in Iraq, in their homes, and how many have found asylum in Iraqi Kurdistan " John Leland (New York Times) reports:The congregants on Friday night were fewer than 100, in a sanctuary built for four or five times as many  But they were determined  This year, even more than in the past, Iraqi's dwindling Christian minority had reasons to stay home for Christmas  "Yes, we are threatened, but we will not stop praying," the Rev  Meyassr al-Qaspotros told the Christmas Eve crowd at the Sacred Church of Jesus, a Chaldean Catholic church  "We do not want to leave the country because we will leave an empty space " Raheem Salman (Los Angeles Times) reports, "Rimon Metti's family will go to Christian services on Christmas Day, but his relatives will be praying for their own survival and wondering whether this is their last holiday season in Baghdad  If they had any grounds for optimism about the future of their faith in Iraq, it vanished this year amid repeated attacks on fellow believers " Shahsank Bengali (McClatchy Newspapers) adds, "Nearly two months after a shocking assault by Islamist militants, Our Lady of Salvation Catholic Church will commemorate Christmas quietly, with daytime mass and prayers for the dead, under security fit more for a prison than a house of worship  It is the same at Christian churches across Baghdad and northern Iraq, where what's left of one of the world's oldest Christian communities prepares to mark perhaps the most somber Christmas since the start of the Iraq war "Meanwhile Taylor Luck (Jordan Times) reports on Iraqi refugees in Jordan:Although the calendar will say December 25, for Theresa, Saturday will not be Christmas  There will be no cinnamon klecha cooling on the dining room table, no outdoor ceramic nativity scene, no readings of hymns with relatives  The 63-year-old Iraqi woman has even refused to put up Christmas lights in the crowded two-room Amman hotel apartment she has called home since fleeing Baghdad last month "There is no holiday spirit  All we have is fear," she said This holiday will instead mark another year without news from her 46-year-old son, who was kidnapped outside Baghdad in late 2006 From Turkey, Sebnem Arsu (New York Times -- link has text and video) notes the increase in Iraq refugees to the country since October 31st and quotes Father Emlek stating, "I've never seen as many people coming here as I have in the last few weeks  They also go to Lebanon, Jordan and Syria but it seems that Turkey is the most popular despite the fact that they do not speak the language " Jeff Karoub (AP) reports on the small number of Iraqi refugees who have made it to the US and how some of them "struggle with insomnia, depression and anxiety "One group in Iraq who can openly celebrate Christmas are US service members who elect to  Barbara Surk (AP) reports that tomorrow Chief Warrant Officer Archie Morgan will celebrate his fourth Christmas in Iraq and Captain Diana Crane is celebrating her second Christmas in Iraq: "Crane was among several dozen troops attending a Christmas Eve mass in a chapel in Camp Victory, an American military base just outside Baghdad " Marc Hansen (Des Moines Reigster) speaks with six service members from Iowa who are stationed in Iraq  Sgt 1st Class Dennis Crosser tells Hansen, "I certainly understand from reading the paper what's going on in Afghanistan and the attention definitely needs to be on the troops there  But everyone serving here in Operation New Dawn appreciates a little bit of attention as we finish this up "Today Jiang Yu, China's Foreign Minister, issued the following statement, "We welcome and congratulate Iraq on forming a new government  We hope that the Iraqi Government unite all its people, stabilize the security situation, accelerate economic reconstruction and make new progress in building its country " James Cogan (WSWS) reports:US State Department official Philip Crowley declared on Wednesday that Washington had not "dictated the terms of the government"  In reality, constant American pressure was applied to Maliki, Allawi, Kurdish leaders and other prominent Iraqi politicians throughout the entire nine-month process to form a cabinet  The US intervention included numerous personal phone calls and visits to Baghdad by both President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden The key objective of the Obama administration has been to ensure that the next Iraqi government will "request" a long-term military partnership with the US when the current Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) expires at the end of 2011  The SOFA is the legal basis upon which some 50,000 American troops remain in Iraq, operating from large strategic air bases such as Balad and Tallil and Al Asad  US imperialism spent billions of dollars establishing these advanced bases as part of its wider strategic plans and has no intention of abandoning them Cogan's only the second person to include the SOFA in his report  Some are impressed with the 'feat' of taking nearly ten months to form a government, stringing the country along for ten months while no decisions could go through  The editorial board of the Washington Post, for example, was full of praise yesterday  Today they're joined by Iran's Ambassador to Iraq, Hassan Danaiifar  The Tehran Times reports that Danaiifar was full of praise today hailing the "positive and final step which ended the 10-month political limbo in Iraq " However, Danaiifar was less pie-in-the-sky than the Post editorial board because he can foresee future problems as evidenced by his statement, "We may witness the emergence of some problems after one and half of a year -- for example, some ministers may be impeached " Of course, there are already many clouds on the horizon, even if Iranian diplomats and Post editorial boards can't suss them out  For example, Ben Bendig (Epoch Times) noted the objection of Iraq's female politicians to Nouri al-Maliki's decision to nominate only one woman (so far) to his Cabinet: "Some 50 female lawmakers went to the country's top leadership, the United Nations and the Arab League to voice their concern and desire for increased representation " BNO notes that protest and also that a group of Iraqi MPs are alleging that Iraqiya bought seats in the Cabinet via money exchanged in Jordan  UPI adds, "Maliki, a Shiite who has a long history of working with Tehran, has named himself acting minister of defense, interior and national security, three most powerful and sensitive posts in the government he is stitching together  Although Maliki appears to be bending over backward to accommodate rivals among Iraq's Shiite majority as well as minority Sunnis and Kurds in his administration in a spirit of reconciliation, he is unlikely to relinquish those ministries that dominate the security sector " DPA reports, "Sheikh Abdel-Mahdi al-Karbalaei, a confident of influential Shiite spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, said that the new cabinet is 'below the standards' Iraqi citizens had hoped for and suggested it could prove to be weaker than the previous government " Ranj Alaaldin (Guardian) also spots clouds on the horizon:Lasting peace and stability depends on resolving outstanding disputes with the Kurds on oil, revenue-sharing, security and the disputed territories (Kirkuk in particular)  The Kurds, rather than exploiting their kingmaker position to take a stronger proportion of ministries in Baghdad (they are taking just one major portfolio – the foreign ministry), are instead banking on guarantees from Maliki to implement their list of 19 demands that includes resolving the above disputes in their favour They may have been naive, though  With their historical and federalist partners, the Islamic supreme council of Iraq in decline, the Kurds may be isolated in the new government – a government dominated by the nationalistic and centrist characteristics of the INM, the Sadrists and indeed State of Law Maliki may, therefore, turn out to be unable to grant concessions even if he wanted to and could use Osama Nujayfi, the new ultra-nationalist speaker of parliament and Kurdish foe, to absorb the Kurdish criticism and insulate himself from any attacks AP reports that Iraqi police sought out a 19-year-old woman because of rumors that she was working with al Qaida in Mesopotamia only to be greeted with the news that her father allegedly killed her and the father showed the police where he buried the woman       last month  The story begs for more than it offers  The most obvious observation is: what does it say that a woman's allegedly killed by her father and no one says a word for over a month? After that, it should probably be noted that there are many men in Iraq killing women who, no doubt, would love to also be able to pin the blame on al Qaida  In other violence, Reuters notes a house bombing in Haswa which claimed the life of Mohammed al-Karrafi, "his wife, two sons and a nephew" -- as well as injuring four more people, and a Samarra roadside bombing which claimed the lives of 2 police officers  DPA notes it was two homes bombed in Haswa and that the Samarra roadside bombing also injured four Iraqi soldiers  Jomana Karadsheh (CNN) reports, "Another policeman was wounded in Baghdad Friday night when a roadside bomb detonated by a police patrol, an Interior Ministry official told CNN "And we'll close with this from Peace Mom Cindy Sheehan's latest Al Jazeera column:The recent repeal of the US military policy of "Don't ask, don't tell" is far from being the human rights advancement some are touting it to be  I find it intellectually dishonest, in fact, illogical on any level to associate human rights with any military, let alone one that is currently dehumanising two populations as well as numerous other victims of it's clandestine "security" policies Placing this major contention aside, the enactment of the bill might be an institutional step forward in the fight for "equality"; however institutions rarely reflect reality Do we really think that the US congress vote to repeal the act and Obama signing the bill is going to stop the current systemic harassment of gays in the military?While I am a staunch advocate for equality of marriage and same-sex partnership, I cannot - as a peace activist - rejoice in the fact that now homosexuals can openly serve next to heterosexuals in one of the least socially responsible organisations that currently exists on earth: The US military It is an organisation tainted with a history of intolerance towards anyone who isn't a Caucasian male from the Mid-West  Even then I'm sure plenty fitting that description have faced the terror and torment enshrined into an institution that transforms the pride and enthusiasm of youth into a narrow zeal for dominating power relations And we'll close with this from Francis A  Boyle's "2011: Prospects for Humanity?" (Global Research):Historically, this latest eruption of American militarism at the start of the 21st Century is akin to that of America opening the 20th Century by means of the U S -instigated Spanish-American War in 1898  Then the Republican administration of President William McKinley stole their colonial empire from Spain in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines; inflicted a near genocidal war against the Filipino people; while at the same time illegally annexing the Kingdom of Hawaii and subjecting the Native Hawaiian people (who call themselves the Kanaka Maoli) to near genocidal conditions  Additionally, McKinley's military and colonial expansion into the Pacific was also designed to secure America's economic exploitation of China pursuant to the euphemistic rubric of the "open door" policy  But over the next four decades America's aggressive presence, policies, and practices in the "Pacific" would ineluctably pave the way for Japan's attack at Pearl Harbor on Dec  7, 194l, and thus America's precipitation into the ongoing Second World War  Today a century later the serial imperial aggressions launched and menaced by the Republican Bush Jr  administration and now the Democratic Obama administration are threatening to set off World War III  By shamelessly exploiting the terrible tragedy of 11 September 2001, the Bush Jr  administration set forth to steal a hydrocarbon empire from the Muslim states and peoples living in Central Asia and the Persian Gulf under the bogus pretexts of (1) fighting a war against international terrorism; and/or (2) eliminating weapons of mass destruction; and/or (3) the promotion of democracy; and/or (4) self-styled "humanitarian intervention " Only this time the geopolitical stakes are infinitely greater than they were a century ago: control and domination of two-thirds of the world's hydrocarbon resources and thus the very fundament and energizer of the global economic system – oil and gas  The Bush Jr / Obama administrations have already targeted the remaining hydrocarbon reserves of Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia for further conquest or domination, together with the strategic choke-points at sea and on land required for their transportation  In this regard, the Bush Jr



ground_truth: 4.5x10^8 cm.

prompt_front: Now, answer the following question based on the text below, only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: How is electricity used in everyday life?

Read the following text and answer briefly.

Context 2: 
An electric circuit is an interconnection of electric components such that electric charge is made to flow along a closed path (a circuit), usually to perform some useful task 
Electric power is the rate at which electric energy is transferred by an electric circuit  The SI unit of power is the watt, one joule per second 
Electricity generation is often done with electric generators, but can also be supplied by chemical sources such as electric batteries or by other means from a wide variety of sources of energy  Electric power is generally supplied to businesses and homes by the electric power industry  Electricity is usually sold by the kilowatt hour (3 6 MJ) which is the product of power in kilowatts multiplied by running time in hours  Electric utilities measure power using electricity meters, which keep a running total of the electric energy delivered to a customer  Unlike fossil fuels, electricity is a low entropy form of energy and can be converted into motion or many other forms of energy with high efficiency 
Electronics deals with electrical circuits that involve active electrical components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes, optoelectronics, sensors and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies  The nonlinear behaviour of active components and their ability to control electron flows makes amplification of weak signals possible and electronics is widely used in information processing, telecommunications, and signal processing  The ability of electronic devices to act as switches makes digital information processing possible  Interconnection technologies such as circuit boards, electronics packaging technology, and other varied forms of communication infrastructure complete circuit functionality and transform the mixed components into a regular working system 
Today, most electronic devices use semiconductor components to perform electron control  The study of semiconductor devices and related technology is considered a branch of solid state physics, whereas the design and construction of electronic circuits to solve practical problems come under electronics engineering 
Thus, the work of many researchers enabled the use of electronics to convert signals into high frequency oscillating currents, and via suitably shaped conductors, electricity permits the transmission and reception of these signals via radio waves over very long distances 
Early 20th-century alternator made in Budapest, Hungary, in the power generating hall of a hydroelectric station (photograph by Prokudin-Gorsky, 1905–1915) 
In the 6th century BC, the Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus experimented with amber rods and these experiments were the first studies into the production of electrical energy  While this method, now known as the triboelectric effect, can lift light objects and generate sparks, it is extremely inefficient  It was not until the invention of the voltaic pile in the eighteenth century that a viable source of electricity became available  The voltaic pile, and its modern descendant, the electrical battery, store energy chemically and make it available on demand in the form of electrical energy  The battery is a versatile and very common power source which is ideally suited to many applications, but its energy storage is finite, and once discharged it must be disposed of or recharged  For large electrical demands electrical energy must be generated and transmitted continuously over conductive transmission lines 
Electrical power is usually generated by electro-mechanical generators driven by steam produced from fossil fuel combustion, or the heat released from nuclear reactions; or from other sources such as kinetic energy extracted from wind or flowing water  The modern steam turbine invented by Sir Charles Parsons in 1884 today generates about 80 percent of the electric power in the world using a variety of heat sources  Such generators bear no resemblance to Faraday's homopolar disc generator of 1831, but they still rely on his electromagnetic principle that a conductor linking a changing magnetic field induces a potential difference across its ends  The invention in the late nineteenth century of the transformer meant that electrical power could be transmitted more efficiently at a higher voltage but lower current  Efficient electrical transmission meant in turn that electricity could be generated at centralised power stations, where it benefited from economies of scale, and then be despatched relatively long distances to where it was needed 
Since electrical energy cannot easily be stored in quantities large enough to meet demands on a national scale, at all times exactly as much must be produced as is required  This requires electricity utilities to make careful predictions of their electrical loads, and maintain constant co-ordination with their power stations  A certain amount of generation must always be held in reserve to cushion an electrical grid against inevitable disturbances and losses 
Electricity is a very convenient way to transfer energy, and it has been adapted to a huge, and growing, number of uses  The invention of a practical incandescent light bulb in the 1870s led to lighting becoming one of the first publicly available applications of electrical power  Although electrification brought with it its own dangers, replacing the naked flames of gas lighting greatly reduced fire hazards within homes and factories  Public utilities were set up in many cities targeting the burgeoning market for electrical lighting  In the late 20th century and in modern times, the trend has started to flow in the direction of deregulation in the electrical power sector 
The resistive Joule heating effect employed in filament light bulbs also sees more direct use in electric heating  While this is versatile and controllable, it can be seen as wasteful, since most electrical generation has already required the production of heat at a power station  A number of countries, such as Denmark, have issued legislation restricting or banning the use of resistive electric heating in new buildings  Electricity is however still a highly practical energy source for heating and refrigeration, with air conditioning/heat pumps representing a growing sector for electricity demand for heating and cooling, the effects of which electricity utilities are increasingly obliged to accommodate 
Electricity is used within telecommunications, and indeed the electrical telegraph, demonstrated commercially in 1837 by Cooke and Wheatstone, was one of its earliest applications  With the construction of first intercontinental, and then transatlantic, telegraph systems in the 1860s, electricity had enabled communications in minutes across the globe  Optical fibre and satellite communication have taken a share of the market for communications systems, but electricity can be expected to remain an essential part of the process 
The effects of electromagnetism are most visibly employed in the electric motor, which provides a clean and efficient means of motive power  A stationary motor such as a winch is easily provided with a supply of power, but a motor that moves with its application, such as an electric vehicle, is obliged to either carry along a power source such as a battery, or to collect current from a sliding contact such as a pantograph  Electrically powered vehicles are used in public transportation, such as electric buses and trains, and an increasing number of battery-powered electric cars in private ownership 
Electronic devices make use of the transistor, perhaps one of the most important inventions of the twentieth century, and a fundamental building block of all modern circuitry  A modern integrated circuit may contain several billion miniaturised transistors in a region only a few centimetres square 
A voltage applied to a human body causes an electric current through the tissues, and although the relationship is non-linear, the greater the voltage, the greater the current  The threshold for perception varies with the supply frequency and with the path of the current, but is about 0 1 mA to 1 mA for mains-frequency electricity, though a current as low as a microamp can be detected as an electrovibration effect under certain conditions  If the current is sufficiently high, it will cause muscle contraction, fibrillation of the heart, and tissue burns  The lack of any visible sign that a conductor is electrified makes electricity a particular hazard  The pain caused by an electric shock can be intense, leading electricity at times to be employed as a method of torture  Death caused by an electric shock is referred to as electrocution  Electrocution is still the means of judicial execution in some jurisdictions, though its use has become rarer in recent times 
Electricity is not a human invention, and may be observed in several forms in nature, a prominent manifestation of which is lightning  Many interactions familiar at the macroscopic level, such as touch, friction or chemical bonding, are due to interactions between electric fields on the atomic scale  The Earth's magnetic field is thought to arise from a natural dynamo of circulating currents in the planet's core  Certain crystals, such as quartz, or even sugar, generate a potential difference across their faces when subjected to external pressure  This phenomenon is known as piezoelectricity, from the Greek piezein (πιέζειν), meaning to press, and was discovered in 1880 by Pierre and Jacques Curie  The effect is reciprocal, and when a piezoelectric material is subjected to an electric field, a small change in physical dimensions takes place 
§Bioelectrogenesis in microbial life is a prominent phenomenon in soils and sediment ecology resulting from anaerobic respiration  The microbial fuel cell mimics this ubiquitous natural phenomenon 
Some organisms, such as sharks, are able to detect and respond to changes in electric fields, an ability known as electroreception, while others, termed electrogenic, are able to generate voltages themselves to serve as a predatory or defensive weapon  The order Gymnotiformes, of which the best known example is the electric eel, detect or stun their prey via high voltages generated from modified muscle cells called electrocytes  All animals transmit information along their cell membranes with voltage pulses called action potentials, whose functions include communication by the nervous system between neurons and muscles  An electric shock stimulates this system, and causes muscles to contract  Action potentials are also responsible for coordinating activities in certain plants 
In the 19th and early 20th century, electricity was not part of the everyday life of many people, even in the industrialised Western world  The popular culture of the time accordingly often depicted it as a mysterious, quasi-magical force that can slay the living, revive the dead or otherwise bend the laws of nature  This attitude began with the 1771 experiments of Luigi Galvani in which the legs of dead frogs were shown to twitch on application of animal electricity  "Revitalization" or resuscitation of apparently dead or drowned persons was reported in the medical literature shortly after Galvani's work  These results were known to Mary Shelley when she authored Frankenstein (1819), although she does not name the method of revitalization of the monster  The revitalization of monsters with electricity later became a stock theme in horror films 
As the public familiarity with electricity as the lifeblood of the Second Industrial Revolution grew, its wielders were more often cast in a positive light, such as the workers who "finger death at their gloves' end as they piece and repiece the living wires" in Rudyard Kipling's 1907 poem Sons of Martha  Electrically powered vehicles of every sort featured large in adventure stories such as those of Jules Verne and the Tom Swift books  The masters of electricity, whether fictional or real—including scientists such as Thomas Edison, Charles Steinmetz or Nikola Tesla—were popularly conceived of as having wizard-like powers 
With electricity ceasing to be a novelty and becoming a necessity of everyday life in the later half of the 20th century, it required particular attention by popular culture only when it stops flowing, an event that usually signals disaster  The people who keep it flowing, such as the nameless hero of Jimmy Webb’s song "Wichita Lineman" (1968), are still often cast as heroic, wizard-like figures 
Ampère's circuital law, connects the direction of an electric current and its associated magnetic currents 
^ Diogenes Laertius  R D  Hicks (ed )  "Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book 1 Chapter 1 "  Perseus Digital Library  Tufts University  Retrieved 5 February 2017  Aristotle and Hippias affirm that, arguing from the magnet and from amber, he attributed a soul or life even to inanimate objects 
^ Aristotle  Daniel C  Stevenson (ed )  "De Animus (On the Soul) Book 1 Part 2 (B4 verso)"  The Internet Classics Archive  Translated by J A  Smith  Retrieved 5 February 2017  Thales, too, to judge from what is recorded about him, seems to have held soul to be a motive force, since he said that the magnet has a soul in it because it moves the iron 
^ a b c Guarnieri, M  (2014)  "Electricity in the age of Enlightenment"  IEEE Industrial Electronics Magazine  8 (3): 60–63  doi:10 1109/MIE 2014 2335431 
^ Srodes, James (2002), Franklin: The Essential Founding Father, Regnery Publishing, pp  92–94, ISBN 0-89526-163-4 It is uncertain if Franklin personally carried out this experiment, but it is popularly attributed to him 
^ a b Guarnieri, M  (2014)  "The Big Jump from the Legs of a Frog"  IEEE Industrial Electronics Magazine  8 (4): 59–61, 69  doi:10 1109/MIE 2014 2361237 
^ Hertz, Heinrich (1887)  "Ueber den Einfluss des ultravioletten Lichtes auf die electrische Entladung"  Annalen der Physik  267 (8): S  983–1000  Bibcode:1887AnP   267  983H  doi:10 1002/andp 18872670827 
^ "The Nobel Prize in Physics 1921"  Nobel Foundation  Retrieved 2013-03-16 
^ John Sydney Blakemore, Solid state physics, pp  1–3, Cambridge University Press, 1985 ISBN 0-521-31391-0 
^ Richard C  Jaeger, Travis N  Blalock, Microelectronic circuit design, pp  46–47, McGraw-Hill Professional, 2003 ISBN 0-07-250503-6 
^ "The repulsive force between two small spheres charged with the same type of electricity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the centres of the two spheres " Charles-Augustin de Coulomb, Histoire de l'Academie Royal des Sciences, Paris 1785 
^ Sewell, Tyson (1902), The Elements of Electrical Engineering, Lockwood, p  18   The Q originally stood for 'quantity of electricity', the term 'electricity' now more commonly expressed as 'charge' 
^ a b Berkson, William (1974), Fields of Force: The Development of a World View from Faraday to Einstein, Routledge, p  370, ISBN 0-7100-7626-6 Accounts differ as to whether this was before, during, or after a lecture 
^ "Lab Note #105 EMI Reduction – Unsuppressed vs  Suppressed"  Arc Suppression Technologies  April 2011  Retrieved March 7, 2012 
^ Almost all electric fields vary in space  An exception is the electric field surrounding a planar conductor of infinite extent, the field of which is uniform 
^ Paul J  Nahin (9 October 2002)  Oliver Heaviside: The Life, Work, and Times of an Electrical Genius of the Victorian Age  JHU Press  ISBN 978-0-8018-6909-9 
^ "The Bumpy Road to Energy Deregulation"  EnPowered  2016-03-28 
^ a b c d e f g h Van Riper, op cit , p  71 
Look up electricity in Wiktionary, the free dictionary 
Basic Concepts of Electricity chapter from Lessons In Electric Circuits Vol 1 DC book and series 
Context 3:  administration announced the establishment of the U S  Pentagon's Africa Command (AFRICOM) in order to better control, dominate, and exploit both the natural resources and the variegated peoples of the continent of Africa, the very cradle of our human species  This current bout of U S  imperialism is what Hans Morgenthau denominated "unlimited imperialism" in his seminal work Politics Among Nations (4th ed  1968, at 52-53): The outstanding historic examples of unlimited imperialism are the expansionist policies of Alexander the Great, Rome, the Arabs in the seventh and eighth centuries, Napoleon I, and Hitler  They all have in common an urge toward expansion which knows no rational limits, feeds on its own successes and, if not stopped by a superior force, will go on to the confines of the political world  This urge will not be satisfied so long as there remains anywhere a possible object of domination--a politically organized group of men which by its very independence challenges the conqueror's lust for power  It is, as we shall see, exactly the lack of moderation, the aspiration to conquer all that lends itself to conquest, characteristic of unlimited imperialism, which in the past has been the undoing of the imperialistic policies of this kind…  On 10 November 1979 I visited with Hans Morgenthau at his home in Manhattan  It proved to be our last conversation before he died on 19 July 1980  Given his weakened physical but not mental condition and his serious heart problem, at the end of our necessarily abbreviated one-hour meeting I purposefully asked him what he thought about the future of international relations  iraqbbc newsgabriel gatehousethe new york timesjohn lelandhaaretzzvi bar'elthe jordan timestaylor luckthe associated pressjeff karoubthe los angeles timesraheem salmancnnjomana karadsheh
Terry thinks she's a man
Yesterday on NPR's Fresh Air the hour went to a male TV critic  It's always a man with Terry  Always  And somebody tell her that a snotty, snooty TV critic really doesn't make for good programming This is C I 's "Iraq snapshot:" Thursday, December 23, 2010  Chaos and violence continue, Iraqi women make clear their displeasure over the Cabinet make up, Daniel Ellsberg and Veterans for Peace get some recognition, and more  Last Thursday a protest held outside the White House  One of the organizers was Veterans for Peace and Pentagon Papers whistle blower Daniel Ellsberg participated and spoke  Juana Bordas (Washington Post) advocates for both of them to be named persons of the year: Veterans for Peace and Daniel Ellsberg should be this year's person of the year because of their courage and bravery to stand up for all of us who believe that "war is not the answer " Moreover in a time of economic recession, the war machine is bankrupting our country  As John Amidon, a Marine Corps veteran from Albany asked at the White House protest, "How is the war economy working for you?"While unemployment rates hover near 10 percent, there is no doubt that the U S  economy and quality of life is faltering  Worldwide we are 14th in education, 37th in the World Health Organization's ranking on medical systems, and 23rd in the U N  Environmental Sustainability Index on being most livable and greenest benefits  There is one place we take the undeniable world lead  The US military spending accounts for a whopping 46 5 percent of world military spending--the next ten countries combined come in at only 20 7 percent  Linda Pershing (Truthout) reports, "Responding to a call from the leaders of Stop These Wars(1) - a new coalition of Veterans for Peace and other activists - participants came together in a large-scale performance of civil resistance  A group of veterans under the leadership of Veterans for Peace members Tarak Kauff, Will Covert and Elaine Brower, mother of a Marine who has served three tours of duty in Iraq, sponsored the event with the explicit purpose of putting their bodies on the line  Many participants were Vietnam War veterans; others ranged from Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans in their 20s and 30s to World War II vets in their 80s and older  They were predominately white; men outnumbered women by at least three to one  After a short rally in Lafayette Park, they formed a single-file procession, walking across Pennsylvania Avenue to the solemn beat of a drum  As they reached the police barricade (erected to prevent them from chaining themselves to the gate, a plan they announced on their web site), the activists stood shoulder to shoulder, their bodies forming a human link across the 'picture postcard' tableau in front of the White House " Maria Chutchian (Arlington Advocate) quotes, participant Nate Goldshlag (Vietnam veteran) stating, ""There was a silent, single file march around Lafayette Park to a drum beat  Then we went in front of the White House,  There were barricades set up in front of white house fence  So when we got there, we jumped over barricades and were able to get right next to the White House fence " Participant Linda LeTendre (Daily Gazette) reports: At the end of the rally, before the silent, solemn procession to the White House fence, in honor of those killed in Iraq and Afghan wars of lies and deceptions, the VFP played taps and folded an American flag that had been left behind at a recent funeral for the veteran of one of those wars  Two attendees in full dress uniform held and folded the flag  I had the image of all of the people who stood along the roads and bridges when the bodies of the two local men, Benjamin Osborn and David Miller, were returned to the Capital District  I thought if all of those people were here now or spoke out against war these two fine young men might still be with us I was blessed enough to be held in custody with one of those in uniform; a wonderful young man who had to move from his hometown in Georgia because no one understood why as a veteran he was against these wars  Even his family did not understand  (He remains in my prayers )Our plan was to attach ourselves to the White House fence until President Obama came out and talked to us or until we were arrested and dragged away  I don't have to tell you how it ended Mr  Ellsberg was one of 139 people arrested at that action  We've noted the protest in pretty much every snapshot since last Thursday  If something else comes out that's worth noting on the protest, we'll include it  We will not include people who don't have their facts and it's really sad when they link to, for example, Guardian articles and the links don't even back them up  It's real sad, for example, when they're trashing Hillary (big strong men that they are) and ripping her apart and yet Barack? "Obama's inaccurate statements"??? What the hell is that? You're inferring he lied, say so  Don't be such a little chicken s**t  It's especially embarrasing when you're grandstanding on 'truth ' Especially when you're the little s**t that clogged up the public e-mail account here in the summer of 2008 whining that you were holding Barack to a standard, then admitting that you weren't, then whining that if you did people would be mean to you  Oh, that's sooooooo sad  Someone might say something bad about you  The horror  You must suffer more than all the people in Iraq and Afghanistan combined  While the action took place in DC, actions also took place in other cities  We've already noted NYC's action this week, Doug Kaufmann (Party for Socialism & Liberation) reports on the Los Angeles action: Despite heavy rain, over 100 people gathered in Los Angeles on the corner of Hollywood and Highland to demand an end to the U S  wars on Afghanistan and Iraq  People came from as far as Riverside to protest, braving what Southern California media outlets have dubbed the "storm of the decade " The demonstration, initiated and led by the ANSWER Coalition, broke the routine of holiday shopping and garnered support from activists and even passers by, who joined in chanting "Money for jobs and education -- not for war and occupation!" and "Occupation is a crime -- Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine!" Protesters held banners reading, "U S /NATO Out of Afghanistan!" and "Yes to jobs, housing and education -- no to war, racism and occupation!"Speakers at the demonstration included representatives of Korean Americans for Peace, ANSWER Coalition, KmB Pro-People Youth, Veterans for Peace, Party for Socialism and Liberation and National Lawyers Guild  Tuesday, Nouri al-Maliki managed to put away the political stalemate thanks to a lot of Scotch -- tape to hold the deal together and booze to keep your eyes so crossed you don't question how someone can claim to have formed a Cabinet when they've left over ten positions to be filled at a later date  One group speaking out is women  Bushra Juhi and Qassmi Abdul-Zahra (AP) report, "Iraq's female lawmakers are furious that only one member of the country's new Cabinet is a woman and are demanding better representation in a government that otherwise has been praised by the international community for bringing together the country's religious sects and political parties " As noted Tuesday, though represenation in Parliament is addressed in Iraq's Constitution, there is nothing to address women serving in the Cabinet  Aseel Kami (Reuters) notes one of the most damning aspects of Nouri's chosen men -- a man is heaing the Ministry of Women's Affairs  Iraqiya's spokesperson Maysoon Damluji states, "There are really good women who could do wel       they cannot be neglected and marginalized " Al-Amal's Hanaa Edwar states, "They call it a national (power) sharing government  So where is the sharing? Do they want to take us back to the era of the harem? Do they want to take us back to the dark ages, when women were used only for pleasure " Deborah Amos (NPR's All Things Considered) reports that a struggle is going on between secular impulses and fundamentalist ones  Gallery owner Qasim Sabti states, "We know it's fighting between the religious foolish man and the civilization man  We know we are fighting like Gandhi, and this is a new language in Iraqi life  We have no guns  We do not believe in this kind of fighting " Deborah Amos is the author of Eclipse of the Sunnis: Power, Exile, and Upheaval in the Middle East  Meanwhile Nizar Latif (The National) reports that distrust is a common reaction to the new government in Baghdad and quotes high school teacher Hussein Abed Mohammad stating, "Promises were made that trustworthy, competent people would be ministers this time around, but it looks as if everything has just been divided out according to sectarian itnerests  No attention has been paid to forming a functioning government, it is just a political settlement of vested interests  I'm sure al Maliki will have the same problems in his next four years as he had in the last four years " Days away from the ten months mark, Nouri managed to finally end the stalemate  Some try to make sense of it and that must have been some office party that the editorial board of the Washington Post is still coming down from judging by "A good year in Iraq " First up, meet the new Iraqi Body Count -- an organization that provides cover for the war and allows supporters of the illegal war to point to it and insist/slur "Things aren't so bad!" Sure enough, the editorial board of the Post does just that noting the laughable "civilian deaths" count at iCasualities  As we noted -- long, long before we walked away from that crap ass website, they're not doing a civilian count  They're noting how many deaths Reuters reports 



ground_truth: Electricity is used for transport, heating, lighting, communications, and computation.

prompt_front: Now, answer the following question based on the text below, only give me the answer and do not output any other words.

Question: What is the main topic of the text?

Read the following text and answer briefly.

Context 4:  283 (52): 36655–36664  doi:10 1074/jbc M802761200  PMC 2605998  PMID 18836183  ^ Viegas, C  S ; Cavaco, S ; Neves, P  L ; Ferreira, A ; João, A ; Williamson, M  K ; Price, P  A ; Cancela, M  L ; Simes, D  C  (Dec 2009)  "Gla-rich protein is a novel vitamin K-dependent protein present in serum that accumulates at sites of pathological calcifications"  American Journal of Pathology  175 (6): 2288–2298  doi:10 2353/ajpath 2009 090474  PMC 2789615  PMID 19893032  ^ Hafizi, S ; Dahlbäck, B  (Dec 2006)  "Gas6 and protein S  Vitamin K-dependent ligands for the Axl receptor tyrosine kinase subfamily"  The FEBS Journal  273 (23): 5231–5244  doi:10 1111/j 1742-4658 2006 05529 x  PMID 17064312  ^ Kulman, J  D ; Harris, J  E ; Xie, L ; Davie, E  W  (May 2007)  "Proline-rich Gla protein 2 is a cell-surface vitamin K-dependent protein that binds to the transcriptional coactivator Yes-associated protein"  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America  104 (21): 8767–8772  doi:10 1073/pnas 0703195104  PMC 1885577  PMID 17502622  ^ "Vitamin K"  MedlinePlus  US National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health  Sep 2016  Retrieved 26 May 2009  ^ Conly, J; Stein, K  (Dec 1994)  "Reduction of vitamin K2 concentrations in human liver associated with the use of broad spectrum antimicrobials"  Clinical and Investigative Medicine  17 (6): 531–539  PMID 7895417  ^ Ferland, G ; Sadowski, J  A ; O'Brien, M  E  (Apr 1993)  "Dietary induced subclinical vitamin K deficiency in normal human subjects"  Journal of Clinical Investigation  91 (4): 1761–1768  doi:10 1172/JCI116386  PMC 288156  PMID 8473516  ^ Holden, R  M ; Morton, A  R ; Garland, J  S ; Pavlov, A ; Day, A  G ; Booth, S  L  (Apr 2010)  "Vitamins K and D status in stages 3-5 chronic kidney disease"  Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology  5 (4): 590–597  doi:10 2215/CJN 06420909  PMC 2849681  PMID 20167683  ^ Hodges, S  J ; Pilkington, M  J ; Shearer, M  J ; Bitensky, L ; Chayen, J (Jan 1990)  "Age-related changes in the circulating levels of congeners of vitamin K2, menaquinone-7 and menaquinone-8"  Clinical Science  78 (1): 63–66  PMID 2153497  ^ "Vitamin K"  Dietary Reference Intakes for Vitamin A, Vitamin K, Arsenic, Boron, Chromium, Copper, Iodine, Iron, Manganese, Molybdenum, Nickel, Silicon, Vanadium, and Zinc (PDF)  National Academy Press  2001  p  162–196  ^ Tolerable Upper Intake Levels For Vitamins And Minerals (PDF), European Food Safety Authority, 2006 ^ a b Rhéaume-Bleue, p  42
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Binkley, S  B ; Thayer, S  A ; Doisy, E  A  (1939)  "On the constitution of Vitamin K1"  Journal of the American Chemical Society  61 (7): 1928–1929  doi:10 1021/ja01876a510  ^ Fieser, L  F  (1939)  "Synthesis of Vitamin K1"  Journal of the American Chemical Society  61 (12): 3467–3475  doi:10 1021/ja01267a072  ^ Dam, C  P  H  (12 Dec 1946)  "The discovery of vitamin K, its biological functions and therapeutical application" (PDF)  Nobel Prize lecture  ^ Warner, E  D ; Brinkhous, K  M ; Smith, H  P  (1938)  "Bleeding Tendency of Obstructive Jaundice"  Proceedings of the Society of Experimental Biology and Medicine  37 (4): 628–630  doi:10 3181/00379727-37-9668P  ^ Stenflo, J; Fernlund, P ; Egan, W ; Roepstorff, P  (Jul 1974)  "Vitamin K dependent modifications of glutamic acid residues in prothrombin"  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America  71 (7): 2730–2733  doi:10 1073/pnas 71 7 2730  PMC 388542  PMID 4528109  ^ Nelsestuen, G  L ; Zytkovicz, T  H ; Howard, J  B  (Oct 1974)  "The mode of action of vitamin K  Identification of gamma-carboxyglutamic acid as a component of prothrombin" (PDF)  Journal of Biological Chemistry  249 (19): 6347–6350  PMID 4214105  ^ Magnusson, S ; Sottrup-Jensen, L ; Petersen, T  E ; Morris, H  R ; Dell, A  (Aug 1974)  "Primary structure of the vitamin K-dependent part of prothrombin"  FEBS Letters  44 (2): 189–193  doi:10 1016/0014-5793(74)80723-4  PMID 4472513  Bibliography[edit]
Rhéaume-Bleue, Kate (2012)  Vitamin K2 and the Calcium Paradox  John Wiley & Sons, Canada  ISBN 1-118-06572-7  External links[edit]
"Vitamin K: Another Reason to Eat Your Greens"  v
TPP / ThDP (B1)
FMN, FAD (B2)
NAD+, NADH, NADP+, NADPH (B3)
Coenzyme A (B5)
PLP / P5P (B6)
THFA / H4FA, DHFA / H2FA, MTHF (B9)
AdoCbl, MeCbl (B12)
Phylloquinone (K1), Menaquinone (K2)
non-vitamins
Coenzyme B
Heme / Haem (A, B, C, O)
Molybdopterin/Molybdenum cofactor
THMPT / H4MPT
Fe2+, Fe3+
vitamins: see vitamins
Antihemorrhagics (B02)
(coagulation)
Phytomenadione (K1)
Menadione (K3)
intrinsic: IX/Nonacog alfa
VIII/Moroctocog alfa/Turoctocog alfa
extrinsic: VII/Eptacog alfa
common: X
II/Thrombin
I/Fibrinogen
XIII/Catridecacog
combinations: Prothrombin complex concentrate (II, VII, IX, X, protein C and S)
Carbazochrome
thrombopoietin receptor agonist (Romiplostim
Eltrombopag)
Tetragalacturonic acid hydroxymethylester
Epinephrine/Adrenalone
amino acids (Aminocaproic acid
Aminomethylbenzoic acid)
serpins (Aprotinin
Alfa1 antitrypsin
Camostat) 



ground_truth: The main topic of the text is Iraq's politics and current situation.