omniomni/omni-engineering huggingface dataset:
IBM Granite. IBM Granite is a series of decoder-only AI foundation models created by IBM. It was announced on September 7, 2023, and an initial paper was published 4 days later. Initially intended for use in the IBM's cloud-based data and generative AI platform Watsonx along with other models, IBM opened the source code of some code models. Granite models are trained on datasets curated from Internet, academic publishings, code datasets, legal and finance documents.

Foundation models
A foundation model is an AI model trained on broad data at scale such that it can be adapted to a wide range of downstream tasks.

Granite's first foundation models were Granite.13b.instruct and Granite.13b.chat. The "13b" in their name comes from 13 billion, the amount of parameters they have as models, lesser than most of the larger models of the time.  Later models vary from 3 to 34 billion parameters.

On May 6, 2024, IBM released the source code of four variations of Granite Code Models under Apache 2, an open source permissive license that allows completely free use, modification and sharing of the software, and put them on Hugging Face for public use. According to IBM's own report, Granite 8b outperforms Llama 3 on several coding related tasks within similar range of parameters.

See also
 Mistral AI, a company that also provides open source models
 GPT
 LLaMA
 Cyc
 Gemini

References

External links
 GitHub page
 IBM Granite Playground

IBM products
IBM software
Large language models
Generative artificial intelligence
Artificial neural networks
2023 software
Free software
Open-source artificial intelligence
F. H. Smiles. F. H. Smiles (1862 – 10 May 1895) was a Scottish surveyor who was involved in the establishment of Siam's (now Thailand's) railway network at the end of the nineteenth century, and who pioneered work in mapping out the official boundaries of the Kingdom.

Career 
F. H. Smiles AMICE was born in Edinburgh in 1862. He joined a civil engineer in Glasgow as a trainee surveyor and upon qualification joined Punchard, McTaggart, Lowther and Co. of London. 

In 1888, Punchard and Co. were awarded a contract by the Siamese Government for railway surveys and Smiles went to Siam to join Sir Andrew Clarke who had been commissioned by the government to formulate plans for the construction of a railway network in Siam. Whilst working as a member of Clarke's railway survey department of nine engineers, he surveyed many parts of the Kingdom including the route between Bangkok and Chiang Mai.

In November 1891, he joined the Royal Survey Department as assistant to the Director General, James McCarthy who, under instructions from the King Chulalongkorn who was seeking to modernise Siam, was carrying out an extensive survey of the country and its borders with a view to constructing an accurate map of Siam. 

Smiles spent three years carrying out survey work for the government in all parts of Siam. Whilst near Siem Reap (in present day Cambodia) he contracted dysentery at Ban Chan and died on 10 May 1895. He was buried in the nearby town of Sanka.

References 

1862 births
1895 deaths
Scottish surveyors
British expatriates in Thailand
Expatriates in the Rattanakosin Kingdom
Deaths from dysentery
Date of birth unknown
Erik van Sabben. Erik Jacob van Sabben (Vlissingen, The Netherlands January 31, 1972—January 16, 2009) was a Dutch engineer. He was allegedly recruited in 2008 by the Dutch intelligence services AIVD and MIVD to infect the centrifuge infrastructure at the Natanz nuclear enrichment lab in Iran with the Stuxnet malware in 2009.
The industrial espionage operation required years of preparation and cooperation between the CIA and Mossad, and cost $1 billion in a collaborative effort known as Operation Olympic Games. Stuxnet reportedly ruined almost one-fifth of Iran's nuclear centrifuges.

Van Sabben  died at age 36 in an apparent single-vehicle motorcycle accident in Dubai. He was survived by his Iranian wife, Alenoosh, and two children from his first marriage, Yanna and Max van Sabben.

See also
2021 Natanz incident
Nuclear program of Iran

References

Further reading

External links 

1972 births
2009 deaths
People from Vlissingen
Cyberattacks on energy sector
Hacking in the 2010s
Nuclear program of Iran
Malware targeting industrial control systems
Road incident deaths in the United Arab Emirates
Motorcycle road incident deaths
20th-century Dutch engineers
21st-century Dutch engineers
Emtrasur Cargo. Emtrasur Cargo (legally Empresa de Transporte Aéreocargo del Sur S.A.) is a cargo subsidiary of Venezuelan flag carrier Conviasa.

Controversies
Emtrasur owned a Boeing 747-300M (YV3531, msn 23413) that previously belonged to Iranian airline Mahan Air, a company that American assistant secretary of export enforcement at the Department of Commerce, Matthew S. Axelrod, alleges has connections to Hezbollah.

On June 8, 2022, the Boeing 747 arrived in Argentina, after a flight originating in Mexico with a stop-over in Venezuela. Two days later, it took off for Uruguay but was denied entry into Uruguayan airspace and returned to Argentina, landing back at Ezeiza International Airport in Buenos Aires. The 747 was subsequently detained there for two years. 

On February 11, 2024 the plane was transferred to the United States Department of Justice. The next day, the Argentine government allowed it to be flown to the United States where it landed at Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport as TYSON23.

In response to the seizure of the aircraft, Venezuela closed its airspace to all Argentine-registered, Argentina-bound and outbound aircraft. Venezuelan Minister of Foreign Affairs Yván Gil described the seizure as a 'criminal act' of 'piracy and theft', calling the Argentine Government 'neo-Nazi'.  

The United States Department of Justice declared that the airplane would be "prepared for disposition" without elaborating on plans for the jet. The 747 was scrapped on February 28, 2024.

Fleet

Current fleet
As of April 2024, Emtrasur Cargo is not known to operate any aircraft.

Former fleet
Emtrasur Cargo formerly operated the following aircraft:

See also
List of airlines of Venezuela

External links

Airlines of Venezuela
Venezuelan brands
Airlines established in 2020
Robolights. Robolights is an art installation in Palm Springs, California. It consists of sculptures that were made by Kenny Irwin starting in 1986 and surround his house at 1077 E Granvia Valmonte. All the sculptures are made from recycled materials. It is a popular attraction during the holiday season in the winter, with around 60,000 visitors in 2018. It is the largest residential, private, Christmas lights display in the United States.

History
Kenny Irwin Jr., the creator of the sculptures, created his first robot, a -tall wooden robot, at age 9. He developed a signature style — large, lit-up, and multicolored robots. His father, Ken Irwin Sr., who is also an artist, allowed him to use the family home as a "canvas" and Irwin continued to build robots since. The installation began in 1986, when Irwin was only 12. He continues to build robots 350 days a year and 10–12 hours a day.

A vandal stole many Christmas lights and some sculptures were stolen in 2009. In 2012, the cost of running of the installation became too great and Irwin had to ask for donations online.

The city of Palm Springs sued Irwin in 2016 for violating the building code, as visitors were frequently annoying residents of nearby houses, generating noise, traffic, and trash. In that same year, an electrical fire broke out on the property due to a malfunctioning electric component of the pool. After the fire, the area was subject to inspections, and the city found that some statues on the roof were unauthorized. These statues could provide a potential danger if the wind blew them off. Because of this, the city ordered Irwin to close the property to the public. However, he did not comply, and he was brought to court. The case was eventually settled in 2017, with Irwin having to require a permit and pay for a program that would reduce trash and traffic. In 2018, Irwin agreed with the city to move his art to a more commercial location, with the city providing $125,000 to cover expenses. As of the 2023 season, the move has not occurred.

References

1986 establishments in California
Palm Springs, California
Public art in California
Tourist attractions in Riverside County, California
Potassium hexafluorotitanate. Potassium hexafluorotitanate is an inorganic compound of potassium, fluorine, and titanium with the chemical formula .

Synthesis
Hydrofluoric acid reacts with metatitanic acid to generate fluorotitanic acid; then it is  neutralized with potassium hydroxide to produce potassium hexafluorotitanate.

Physical properties
The compound forms white powder. Potassium hexafluorotitanate is soluble in hot water, slightly soluble in cold water, and inorganic acid. Insoluble in ammonia.

Chemical properties
Reacts with sodium to form titanium, potassium monofluoride and sodium monofluoride:

Uses
The compound is used as an analytical reagent, also used in the manufacture of titanic acid and metallic titanium. Can also be used as a catalyst for polypropylene synthesis. It is a component of the metal phosphating surface adjustment.

References

Titanium compounds
Potassium compounds
Fluorine compounds
Titanium(IV) compounds
Fluorometallates
INS Nirdeshak (2022). INS Nirdeshak (Hindi: निर्देशक lit. director) is the second ship of her class of survey ships. It is a hydrographic survey ship built by GRSE for the Indian Navy. The ship inherits the same name as that of a previous survey vessel which served the Navy until December 2014.

Design 
The ships have a displacement of  and a length of . They have a cruising speed of  with a maximum speed of  and an operating range of  at a speed of . The ships have a complement of 231 and are equipped with hydrographic sensor equipment and a hangar which can accommodate one advanced light helicopter. In the secondary role, the ships can be fitted with a CRN 91 naval gun. In addition, the vessels will follow MARPOL (marine pollution) Standards of the International Maritime Organisation and will be built per Classification Society Rules and Naval Ship Regulations.

The primary role of the vessels would be to conduct coastal and deep-water hydro-graphic survey of ports, navigational channels, Exclusive Economic Zones and collection of oceanographic data for defence. Their secondary role would be to perform search & rescue, ocean research and function as hospital ships for casualties.

Construction 
The keel of the ship was laid on 1 December 2020 and launched on 26 May 2022. 

The ship was delivered to the Indian Navy on 8 October 2024. It was commissioned on 18 December 2024.

See also
Sandhayak-class survey vessel (2023) - class of survey ship
INS Nirdeshak (J19) -predecessor ship with the same name

References

Ships built in India
Indian Navy
2022 ships
Mirosław J. Skibniewski. Mirosław J. Skibniewski is a professor of construction engineering and project management in the A. James Clark School of Engineering of the University of Maryland, College Park. Since 1994, he has been the editor-in-chief of Automation in Construction (Elsevier). He is also a co-editor-in-chief of Frontiers of Engineering Management (Springer Nature).

Biography 

Skibniewski obtained his PhD in 1986 from Carnegie Mellon University. He also holds a Master of Science from Carnegie Mellon University (1983) and a Master of Engineering from Warsaw University of Technology (1981). Before his appointment at the University of Maryland, College Park, he spent approximately 20 years at Purdue University as a faculty member and administrator.

Before working in academia, Skibniewski was an engineering professional for Intertek Professional Service Industries, Inc (formerly Pittsburgh Testing Laboratory), where he led structural, construction and industrial safety investigations as well as various forensic engineering projects.

Currently, Skibniewski holds several honorary positions in multiple universities in the Americas, Asia and Europe.

Research 

Skibniewski's research focuses on automation and robotic applications in construction, information technologies for project management, as well as construction project management and engineering. He has published over 300 papers in the field of construction, reaching an h-index of 64 in Google Scholar and 49 on Scopus.

Selected works 
Nitithamyong, P., & Skibniewski, M. J. (2004). Web-based construction project management systems: how to make them successful?. Automation in construction, 13(4), 491–506.

Skibniewski, M. J., & Chao, L. C. (1992). Evaluation of advanced construction technology with AHP method. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 118(3), 577–593.

Russell, J. S., & Skibniewski, M. J. (1988). Decision criteria in contractor prequalification. Journal of management in engineering, 4(2), 148–164.

Selected awards 
Skibniewski received many awards over his career:
 Presidential Young Investigator Award by National Science Foundation (1986)
 Walter L. Huber Research Prize by American Society of Civil Engineers (1998)
 Civil Engineering Faculty Medal by the Slovak University of Technology (2004)
 Tucker-Hasegawa Research Award by the International Association for Automation and Robotics in Construction (2007)

References 

1957 births
Living people
Carnegie Mellon University alumni
University of Maryland, College Park faculty
Warsaw University of Technology alumni
Purdue University faculty
Page (firm). Page, legally Page Southerland Page, Inc., is an architecture and engineering firm currently headquartered in Washington, DC. In revenue, it is ranked as one of the largest architecture firms in the United States.

In 2022, Page generated $516 million in revenue, the third most of any architecture engineering firm in the United States. In 2022, Page had the most design fee growth among all leading interior design firms worldwide with almost 83 million U.S. dollars. The firm that recorded the second highest design fee growth in 2022 was Gensler. As of 2024, Page operates 21 offices in the U.S., Mexico, and the United Arab Emirates.

History

In 1898, Charles Henry Page and his brother Louis Page formed Page Brother, Architects and focused on designing courthouses and public schools. Charles's son, Charles Henry Page Jr., joined the firm following Louis's death in 1934. A year later, Louis's son, Louis Charles Page Jr., partnered with his college roommate, Louis Southerland, to form the Austin-based firm Page and Southerland. Louis's brother, George Page, would join the firm in 1939 and the name changed to Page Southerland Page. The firm changed its name to just Page in 2013.

In 2022, Page bought the architectural and planning firm, EYP, merging the former Albany-based company's national offices and design portfolio. In 2023, Page acquired Davis Brody Bond, a former New York City-based architecture firm with notable projects including the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, the Portico Gallery at the Frick Collection, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Notable projects 
Indeed Tower, Austin, Texas, 2021
National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, DC, 2016
Architecture of Buffalo Bayou Park and The Cistern, Houston, Texas, 2016
TDECU Football Stadium at the University of Houston, Texas, 2014
Architecture of Discovery Green Urban Park, Houston, Texas, 2014
US Embassy Innovation Center in Helsinki, Finland, 2014
National September 11 Memorial & Museum, New York, New York, 2011
The Portico Gallery at the Frick Collection, New York, New York, 2011
Abu Dhabi National Oil Company Petroleum Institute, United Arab Emirates, 2010,
Seay Biomedical Research Building - University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, Texas, 1996
Royal Navy Hospital, Jubail, Saudi Arabia, 1978
Travis County Courthouse, Austin, Texas, 1930
The Littlefield Building, Austin, Texas, 1912

References

Architecture firms of the United States
1898 establishments
Companies based in Washington, D.C.
Bisphenol-A bis(diphenyl phosphate). Bisphenol A diphenyl phosphate is a halogen-free flame retardant used plastics. It is used in polymer blends of engineering plastics, such as PPO/HIPS and PC/ABS, which are commonly used to make casing for electrical items like TVs, computers and home appliances.

It is formed by the transesterification of bisphenol A with triphenyl phosphate. The commercial grade material can contain oligomers (CAS: 181028–79–5)

References

Phosphate esters
Flame retardants
Sora-Q. Sora-Q is a miniature Lunar rover designed and made by Japanese space agency JAXA, toy manufacturer Tomy, Sony, and Doshisha University.

It was launched to the Moon first on the failed Hakuto-R Mission 1 in 2022, and on 2023 Smart Lander for Investigating Moon mission, where it is officially called the Lunar Excursion Vehicle 2 (LEV-2). The rover was successfully deployed and operated after landing on January 19, 2024.

The baseball-sized rover has a mass of 250 g and diameter of 8 cm and is equipped with two small cameras. LEV-2 extends its shape to crawl on the lunar surface using two wheels at its sides, a method of locomotion inspired by frogs and sea turtles; it can "run"  for approximately two hours.

References

External links 
 Video of Sora-Q moving in sand

Landers (spacecraft)
Missions to the Moon
Lunar rovers
JAXA
German trawler V 602 Richard C. Krogmann. Richard C. Krogmann was a German fishing trawler which was built in 1928. She was requisitoned by the Kriegsmarine during the Second World War. She was used as a minesweeper and a Vorpostenboot. She struck a mine and sank at the mouth of the Charente in 1943.

Description
The ship  long, with a beam of . She had a depth of . She was assessed at , . She was powered by a four-cylinder compound steam engine, which had two cylinders of  diameter and two cylinders of  diameter by  stroke. The engine was built by Christiansen & Meyer, Harburg, Germany. It was rated at 59 nhp. It drove a single screw propeller. It could propel the ship at .

History
Richard C. Krogmann was built as yard number 226 by Schiffbau-Gesellschaft Unterweser, Wesermünde-Lehe, Germany. She was launched on 14 June 1928 and completed on 1 August. Owned by the Cuxhavener Hochseefischerei AG,} her port of registry was Cuxhaven. She was allocated the Code Letters RGVN, and the fishing boat registration HC 206. On 8 March 1929, she was sold to the Nordsee Hochseefischerei. In 1934, her Code Letters were changed to DHUB.

On 5 September 1939, Richard C. Krogmann was requisitioned by the Kriegsmarine. Designated as a minesweeper, she was allocated the pennant number M 1902. On 1 June 1940, she was redesignated as a vorpostenboot. She was allocated to 7 Vorpostenflotille as V 704 Richard C. Krogmann. On 1 July 1943, she was reallocated to 6 Vorpostenflotille as V 602 Richard C. Krogmann. On 11 December 1943, she struck a mine at the mouth of the Charente () and sank.

References

Sources

1928 ships
Ships built in Germany
Steamships of Germany
Fishing vessels of Germany
World War II merchant ships of Germany
Auxiliary ships of the Kriegsmarine
Maritime incidents in December 1943
Al-Maasara Engineering Industries. The Al-Maasara Engineering Industries Company () or Military Factory 45 () is an Egyptian government joint-stock company, one of the companies of the National Authority for Military Production affiliated with the Ministry of Military Production. It was established in 1952 on an area of 97 acres in the al-Maasara area in Helwan, Cairo Governorate and was opened on 4 August 1954, in order to produce ammunition of various types for the benefit of the Egyptian Armed Forces, it is currently working in the field of producing meters for electricity, water, natural gas, chemicals for civil works, and light metal industries.

Products 

 Electricity, water and natural gas meters.
 Hazardous waste incinerators.
 Household chemicals.

See also 

 Abu Zaabal Engineering Industries

References 

Engineering companies of Egypt
Egyptian companies established in 1952
Defence companies of Egypt
Helwan
Government-owned companies of Egypt
Lithium hexafluorotitanate. Lithium hexafluorotitanate is an inorganic compound of lithium, fluorine, and titanium with the chemical formula .

Synthesis
Interaction of titanium hydroxide or oxide and lithium fluoride with hydrofluoric acid.

Physical properties
The compound forms crystals of tetragonal crystal system with a space group of P42/mnm (no. 136).

Chemical properties
The compound forms hydrates *.

References

Titanium compounds
Lithium compounds
Fluorine compounds
Titanium(IV) compounds
Fluorometallates
Cutting mat. A cutting mat is a mat that is placed between a workpiece to be cut and the surface below (e.g. a table) to protect the surface.

They are used, amongst other things, in hobby work for precise and clean cuts of paper, cardboard or textiles using a scalpel or rotary cutter. They often have grids with a line every 5 or 10 millimeter that can be used to position, aim and measure the workpiece.

Examples of uses are textile cutting for patchwork, or paper cutting for art or architecture modeling. They are also used as a substrate in vinyl cutters.

Materials 

Cutting mats are made in various materials. Vinyl chloride (soft or hard plastic) and alkene are the most common materials. Many mats are somewhat soft and bendable, and some are marketed as having "self-healing" properties. Some mats have a magnetic core. There are also mats made of glass.

Wear 
Some cutting mats are marketed as "self-healing", but this claimed functioning is not well documented. Apparently, such cutting mats have the characteristic that stripes from cuts in the mat are not so easily visible. However, this only applies when the cutting blade is moved perpendicular to the surface. Ordinary cuts in the plate itself will therefore often not be very visible in the form of surface irregularities even with repeated use, unless the surface cuts are done in a V shape, which, on the other hand, quickly will leave irregularities that make the mat difficult to use.

Cutting mats are usually not heat resistant.

Storage 
Some mats do not tolerate sunlight well, and should therefore not be stored in direct sunlight. Mats can bend if they are not stored flat, which may result in them not lying evenly during use.

Size and grids 

Many cutting mats are plastic sheets in the sizes A4 (297 × 210 mm) or A5  (210 × 148 mm), but there are also larger sheets in A1 (841 × 594 mm, or possibly 900 × 600 mm) or larger.

The thickess is in the order of 3 to 5 mm.

The grid often has divisions with lines every 5 mm or 10 mm.

Improvised variants 
For occasional and ad hoc work, one can instead use old newspapers, magazines, cardboard or the like instead of a dedicated cutting mat.

Other uses 
Cutting boards with grids are sometimes used for scale when taking pictures.

See also 
 Origami
 Cutting board

References 

Textile arts
Quilting