omniomni/omni-engineering huggingface dataset:
Runaway breakdown. Runaway breakdown is a theory of lightning initiation proposed by Alex Gurevich in 1992.

Electrons in air have a mean free path of ~1 cm.  Fast electrons which move at a large fraction of the speed of light have a mean free path up to 100 times longer.  Given the longer free paths, an electric field can accelerate these electrons to energies far higher than those of initially static electrons.  If they strike air molecules, more relativistic electrons will be released, creating an avalanche multiplication of "runaway" electrons.  This process, called the relativistic runaway electron avalanche, has been hypothesized to lead to electrical breakdown in thunderstorms, but only when a source of high-energy electrons from a cosmic ray is present to start the "runaway" process.

The resulting conductive plasma trail, many tens of meters long, is suggested to supply the "seed" which triggers a lightning flash.

See also
 Spark gap
 Avalanche breakdown
 Electron avalanche

References

External links 
How cosmic rays trigger lightning strikes
Runaway Breakdown and the Mysteries of Lightning - Physics Today May 2005  Also available on-line at:  http://www.phy.olemiss.edu/~jgladden/phys510/spring06/Gurevich.pdf  .
Nova Science Now segment on Lightning - Aired on PBS October 18, 2005

Lightning
Fergusonite. Fergusonite is a mineral comprising a complex oxide of various rare-earth elements. The general chemical formula of fergusonite is (Y,REE)NbO4, where REE = rare-earth elements in solid solution with Y. Yttrium is usually dominant (the mineral in this case being referred to as fergusonite-(Y)), but sometimes Ce or Nd may be the major rare-earth component (in fergusonite-(Ce) and fergusonite-(Nd), respectively). The other rare-earth elements are present in smaller amounts, and tantalum sometimes substitutes for some of the niobium. There are fergusonite-beta-(Nd), fergusonite-beta-(Y), fergusonite-beta-(Ce) forms too, but they are classified as 4.DG.10 in the Nickel–Strunz system. The mineral has tetragonal crystal symmetry and the same structure as scheelite (calcium tungstate, CaWO4), but can be metamict (amorphous) due to radiation damage from its small content of thorium. It is found as needle-like or prismatic crystals in pegmatite. It was named after British politician and mineral collector Robert Ferguson of Raith (1767–1840).

See also
 List of minerals
 List of minerals named after people

References

Lanthanide minerals
Niobium minerals
Oxide minerals
Tetragonal minerals
Minerals in space group 88
Lev Palatnyk. Lev Samiylovych Palatnik (; 26 April 1909, Poltava – 4 June 1994, Kharkiv) was a Soviet and Ukrainian physicist known for his contributions in the field of thin film physics and film material.

Biography 
Lev Palatnik was born on 26 April 1909, in Poltava. In 1926, he graduated from the Poltava Industrial and Technical School. He successfully defended his thesis at the age of 43.

References

External links
Leo Palatnik

1909 births
1994 deaths
20th-century Ukrainian physicists
Scientists from Poltava
Academic staff of Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute
National University of Kharkiv alumni
Laureates of the State Prize of Ukraine in Science and Technology

Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour
Soviet physicists
Frame Relay assembler/disassembler. A FRAD (Frame Relay access device or Frame Relay assembler/disassembler) is a device that turns data packets into Frame Relay frames that can be sent over a Frame Relay network and turns the received Frame Relay frames into data packets. Its assembly and disassembly functionality is similar to a packet assembler/disassembler (PAD), which is used for accessing X.25 networks.

References

Frame Relay
Robert Pauli Scherer. Robert Pauli Scherer (1906–1960) was an American inventor who founded the RP Sherer Corporation.

In 1933, Scherer invented the rotary die encapsulation process, revolutionizing the soft-gelatin encapsulation field.  He founded the R. P. Scherer Corporation to commercialize his invention.  R.P. Scherer was acquired by Cardinal Health, Inc. in 1998. and subsequently named Catalent Pharma Solutions.

Notes

External links
 The Catalent Pharma Solution homepage
The Scherer Laboratories homepage

1906 births
1960 deaths
American chemical engineers
American health care businesspeople
20th-century American businesspeople
20th-century American engineers
20th-century American chemists
Slooh. Slooh is a robotic telescope service that can be viewed live through a web browser. It was not the first robotic telescope, but it was the first that offered "live" viewing through a telescope via the web. Other online telescopes traditionally email a picture to the recipient. The site has a patent on their live image processing method. Slooh is an online astronomy platform with live-views and telescope rental for a fee. Observations come from a global network of telescopes located in places including Spain and Chile.

The name Slooh comes from the word "slew" to indicate the movement of a telescope, modified with "ooh" to express pleasure and surprise.

Slooh, LLC is based in Washington, Connecticut.

History
The service was founded in 2002 by Michael Paolucci. Its Canary Islands telescope went online December 25, 2003, but was not available to the public until 2004.

Participating observatories
The original astronomical observatory is located on the island Tenerife in the Canary Islands on the volcano called Teide. The site is at the  elevation and situated away from city light pollution. This (Canary Islands) site includes 2 domes, each with 2 telescopes. Each dome has a high-magnification telescope and a wide-field telescope. One dome is optimized for planetary views (e.g., more magnification and a different CCD), and the other is optimized for deep sky objects (e.g., less magnification, more light sensitive CCD).  Each dome offers 2 telescopic views: one high magnification (narrow field) view through a  Celestron Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope; and a wide view through either a telephoto lens or an APO refractor.  In 2012, the Slooh.com Canary Islands Observatory was assigned observatory code G40.

On February 14, 2009, Slooh launched a second observatory in the hills above La Dehesa, Chile.  This site offers views from the Southern Hemisphere. In 2014, the Slooh.com Chile Observatory was assigned observatory code W88.

Unlike Google Sky which features images from the Hubble Space Telescope, Slooh can take new images of the sky with its telescopes.

See also
 Amateur astronomy
 LightBuckets
 Lists of telescopes

References

Further reading

External links
 

Astronomical observatories in Chile
Astronomical observatories in Spain
Telescopes
Education companies established in 2003
2003 establishments in the Canary Islands
Software license server. A software license server is a centralized computer software system which provides access tokens, or keys, to client computers in order to enable licensed software to run on them.

In 1989, Sassafras Software Inc developed their trademarked KeyServer software license management tool. Since that time, other computing technology firms have adopted the phrase "key server" to be used interchangeably with "software license server."

It is the job of a software license server to determine and control the number of copies of a program permitted to be used based on the license entitlements that an organization owns. Typically, an end-user customer organization will install a software license server on a host computer to provide licensing services to an enterprise computing environment.

Publisher-specific license servers are commonly provided by software publishers, or through third party providers, to manage software licensing for a specific software publisher's products. Publisher-specific license servers are more commonly used for industry specialized software products than for common software products due to the high value of the managed software products.

The server component of a client–server application may also contain an internal license server.

References

See also
Floating licensing
Product activation
Digital rights management

Information technology management
Software licensing
Upset welding. Upset welding (UW)/resistance butt welding is a welding technique that produces coalescence simultaneously over the entire area of abutting surfaces or progressively along a joint, by the heat obtained from resistance to electric current through the area where those surfaces are in contact.

Pressure is applied before heating is started and is maintained throughout the heating period. The equipment used for upset welding is very similar to that used for flash welding. It can be used only if the parts to be welded are equal in cross-sectional area. The abutting surfaces must be very carefully prepared to provide for proper heating.
The difference from flash welding is that the parts are clamped in the welding machine and force is applied bringing them tightly together. High-amperage current is then passed through the joint, which heats the abutting surfaces. When they have been heated to a suitable forging temperature an upsetting force is applied and the current is stopped. The high temperature of the work at the abutting surfaces plus the high pressure causes coalescence to take place. After cooling, the force is released and the weld is completed.

References

 Welding Handbook, American Welding Society, 1950. page 438-442

See also
Welding
Flash welding
Spot welding
Percussion welding
Gas tungsten arc welding

Welding
Missile Defense Integration and Operations Center. In the military of the United States, the Missile Defense Integration and Operations Center (MDIOC), formerly Joint National Integration Center (JNIC) and before that the Joint National Test Facility (JNTF), at Schriever Space Force Base is responsible for the missile defense analysis of the United States Missile Defense Agency.

The MDIOC is a research center, whose mission is to provide missile defense related analysis, system level engineering, integration, and test and evaluation support for the development, acquisition, and deployment of missile defense systems and architectures. The MDIOC supports the development of joint and combined missile defense doctrine, requirements, and concept(s) of operations (CONOPS); as well as supporting combatant commands by integrating missile defense concepts, space asset exploitation, battle management/command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence (BM/C4I), and by conducting joint and combined simulations, wargames and participating in exercises as directed.

External links
 

United States Department of Defense agencies
Vladimír Páral. Vladimír Páral (born August 10, 1932) is a Czech fiction writer whose work ranges from biting satire to works of Socialist Realism, produced under the communist regime.

Biography
Although born in Prague, he spent his early years in Brno, where his father was a military officer. After graduating from secondary school, he received technical training then went on to study chemical engineering at a branch of the University of Chemistry and Technology in Pardubice; graduating in 1954.

He worked at various locations until 1967, when he took a permanent position at the Institute of Scientific, Technical and Economic Information. He had begun writing in 1962, and made contributions to the local daily, Průboj, under the name Jan Laban. Five years later, he started to write novels and, in 1972, became an editor at Severočeském nakladatelství.

In 1977, he was one of the signatories to , a formal government document condemning Charter 77, a human rights initiative. In 1992, some classified documents were leaked, including a list of people who had allegedly  worked for the StB (secret police), and Páral's name was on that list.

Since 1995, he has divided his time between Prague and Mariánské Lázně.

Bibliography

Black pentalogy
Veletrh splněných přání (Fair granted wishes), 1964
Soukromá vichřice: Laboratorní zpráva ze života hmyzu (Private storm: Laboratory note of insect's life), 1966
Katapult: Jízdní řád železničních, lodních a leteckých drah do ráje (Catapult: Traffic order of railway, shipment and airlines into paradise), 1967
Milenci a vrazi: Magazín ukájení před rokem 2000 (Lovers and murders: Magazine of cater before year 2000), 1969
Profesionální žena: Román pro každého (Professional woman: Novel for everyone), 1971

White pentalogy
Mladý muž a bílá velryba: Malý chemický epos (Young man and white whale: Little chemical epic), 1973
Radost až do rána: O křečcích a lidech (Joy until morning: About hamsters and people), 1975
Generální zázrak: Román naděje (General miracle: Romance of hope), 1977
Muka obraznosti: Konfrontace snu a skutečnosti (Agony of  symbolic: Confrontation of dream and reality), 1980

Sci-fi
Romeo & Julie 2300, 1982
Pokušení A-ZZ (Tepmting A-ZZ), 1982
Válka s mnohozvířetem (War with manybeast), 1983
Země žen (World of woman), 1987

Recent works
Dekameron 2000 aneb Láska v Praze, 1990
Kniha rozkoší, smíchu a radosti, 1992
Playgirls 1 and 2, 1994
Profesionální muž, 1995
Tam za vodou, 1995

References

1932 births
Living people
Czech male novelists
20th-century Czech novelists
20th-century Czech male writers
Writers from Prague
Writers from Brno
Czech science fiction writers
University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague alumni
Wagner–Meerwein rearrangement. A Wagner–Meerwein rearrangement is a class of carbocation 1,2-rearrangement reactions in which a hydrogen, alkyl or aryl group migrates from one carbon to a neighboring carbon.
  They can be described as cationic [1,2]-sigmatropic rearrangements, proceeding suprafacially and with stereochemical retention.  As such, a Wagner–Meerwein shift is a thermally allowed pericyclic process with the Woodward-Hoffmann symbol [ω0s + σ2s].  They are usually facile, and in many cases, they can take place at temperatures as low as –120 °C. The reaction is named after the Russian chemist Yegor Yegorovich Vagner; he had German origin and published in German journals as Georg Wagner; and Hans Meerwein.

Several reviews have been published.

The rearrangement was first discovered in bicyclic terpenes for example the conversion of isoborneol to camphene:

The story of the rearrangement reveals that many scientists were puzzled with this and related reactions and its close relationship to the discovery of carbocations as intermediates.

In a simple demonstration reaction of 1,4-dimethoxybenzene with either 2-methyl-2-butanol or 3-methyl-2-butanol in sulfuric acid and acetic acid yields the same disubstituted product, the latter via a hydride shift of the cationic intermediate:

Currently, there are works relating to the use of skeletal rearrangement in the synthesis of bridged azaheterocycles. These data are summarized in 

Plausible mechanisms of the Wagner–Meerwein rearrangement of diepoxyisoindoles:

The related Nametkin rearrangement, named after Sergey Namyotkin, involves the rearrangement of methyl groups in certain terpenes. In some cases the reaction type is also called a retropinacol rearrangement (see pinacol rearrangement).

References 

Rearrangement reactions
Name reactions
Conrad Allen. Conrad Keene Allen (born 1968 in Marion, Illinois) is an American inventor and Exploration Geologist.  While exploring for oil in the Middle East, Allen discovered and mapped one of the largest helium reserves in the world.  He is the inventor of the Helium Junction, which utilizes nanotechnology to separate isotopic helium from an aqueous fluid.  He is on the team that invented An iterative and repeatable workflow for comprehensive data and processes integration for petroleum exploration and production assessments.

A recognized expert in natural resource Exploration & Production, Allen served two terms on the National Petroleum Council in Washington D.C.; first appointed in 2000 by Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson and reappointed in 2003 by Secretary Spencer Abraham. A favorite of political moderates, Allen formed a Congressional Exploratory Committee (TX-02) to challenge incumbent Ted Poe in 2009.  Allen's committee notably included Texas Gubernatorial Candidate Chris Bell and US Senate Candidate Barbara Radnofsky.  Allen garnered broad support in Texas and Washington D.C. before announcing that district gerrymandering engineered by Tom Delay rendered the district out of reach for a near term challenge. Poe returned to Congress unopposed.  Allen name is often mentioned on the short list of potential candidates for US Congress and Texas Railroad Commissioner.

Allen delivered a notable Commencement Address at Bowling Green State University in 2011 where he encouraged graduates to use their education as an intellectual compass to guide them towards practical discovery and innovation, recognizing fellow alum Shantanu Narayen, CEO of Adobe Systems, who was present to receive an Honorary Doctorate. It was the last graduation ceremony held in Anderson Arena and the last presided over by President Cartwright.  Allen is a Distinguished Graduate of the Department of Geology, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio which awards the Conrad & Deanna Allen Scholarship annually.  Allen delivered a historic speech in Salt Lake City, Utah before the American Association of Petroleum Geologists urging the alliance between AAPG, NABGG and AWG and noting what he called a Social Sequence Boundary in the Oil Industry.

Allen is a former U.S. Army Officer earning Airborne Wings, the National Defense Service Medal, Army Commendation Medal and the Army Achievement Medal.  He was an adjunct professor of geology at the University of Houston–Downtown.

References

1968 births
Living people
American geologists
People from Marion, Illinois
1,3,5-Trioxane. 1,3,5-Trioxane, sometimes also called trioxane or trioxin, is a chemical compound with molecular formula CHO. It is a white, highly water-soluble solid with a chloroform-like odor. It is a stable cyclic trimer of formaldehyde, and one of the three trioxane isomers; its molecular backbone consists of a six-membered ring with three carbon atoms alternating with three oxygen atoms.

Production
Trioxane can be obtained by the acid-catalyzed cyclic trimerization of formaldehyde in concentrated aqueous solution.

Uses 
Trioxane can be used interchangeably with formaldehyde and with paraformaldehyde, however the cyclic structure is more stable and it can require high temperatures in order to react. It is a precursor for the production of polyoxymethylene plastics, of which about one million tons per year are produced.  Other applications exploit its tendency to release formaldehyde.  As such it is used as a binder in textiles, wood products, etc.  Trioxane is combined with hexamine and compressed into solid bars to make hexamine fuel tablets, used by the military and outdoorsmen as a cooking fuel.

In the laboratory, trioxane is used as an anhydrous source of formaldehyde.

See also 

 Formaldehyde
 Paraformaldehyde
 Dioxane
 1,3,5-Trioxanetrione

References 

Acetals
Trioxanes
RMD. RMD may refer to:
 Gas metal arc welding#Modified short-circuiting 
 Required minimum distribution from an individual retirement account (IRA) or qualified retirement plan in the United States 
 RMD Engineering College, a self-financing college in Chennai, Tamil Nadu
 GDP-4-dehydro-6-deoxy-D-mannose reductase
 Richard Mofe Damijo (popularly known as RMD), Nigerian actor
 Rhythmic movement disorder
 Richmond station (London), by National Rail station code
 Richmond railway station, Melbourne
 Raytheon Missiles & Defense
Mired. Contracted from the term micro reciprocal degree, the mired () is a unit of measurement used to express color temperature. Values in mireds are calculated by the formula:

 

where T  is the colour temperature in units of kelvins and M denotes the resulting mired dimensionless number. The constant  is one million kelvins.

The SI term for this unit is the reciprocal megakelvin (MK−1), shortened to mirek, but this term has not gained traction.

For convenience, decamireds are sometimes used, with each decamired equaling ten mireds.

The use of the term mired dates back to Irwin G. Priest's observation in 1932 that the just noticeable difference between two illuminants is based on the difference of the reciprocals of their temperatures, rather than the difference in the temperatures themselves.

Examples
A blue sky, which has a color temperature T of about , has a mired value of M = 40 mireds, while a standard electronic photography flash, having a color temperature T of 5000 K, has a mired value of M = 200 mireds.

Applications

Photographic filter and gel 

In photography, mireds are used to indicate the color temperature shift provided by a filter or gel for a given film and light source. For instance, to use daylight film (5700 K) to take a photograph under a tungsten light source (3200 K) without introducing a color cast, one would need a corrective filter or gel providing a mired shift

 

This corresponds to a color temperature blue (CTB) filter. Color gels with negative mired values appear green or blue, while those with positive values appear amber or red.

CCT calculation 
A number of mathematical methods, including Robertson's, calculate the correlated color temperature of a light source from its chromaticity values. These methods exploit the relatively even spacing of the mired uint internally.

Color description 
Apple's HomeKit uses the mired unit for specifying color temperature.

References

Units of measurement
Non-SI metric units
Color
WCE. WCE can stand for:

West Coast Eagles, an Australian Football League team
West Coast Express, a commuter rail service out of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
West Coast Expressway, an interstate expressway spanning across the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia. 
Windows CE, an embedded version of Microsoft Windows
Winnipeg Commodity Exchange, a derivatives market based in Winnipeg, Canada
Capsule Endoscopy, a medical procedure involving swallowing a capsule with remote imaging capabilities
World Challenge Expeditions, a British expedition organising company
Wiener Chaos Expansion, another name for Polynomial chaos