the-french-artist/wikipedia_20220301.simple_sentence_split huggingface dataset:
A tall grass prairie has plants and grasses that typically grow three to seven feet (one to two meters) high, with occasional plants growing higher.
This type of prairie grows in areas with a good amount of rain.
Illinois (the prairie state), Indiana and Iowa are good examples of where a tall grass prairie would be.
This type of habitat usually has rich soil and is very good for farming.
Much of the original prairie has been changed into crops or lost to brush and trees.
Trees can grow in this area, but most were stopped by fires that would sweep through.
Some oaks and hickories could survive a prairie fire.
If there are scattered trees, it is called a savanna, and an area in a prairie where trees grew closer together is called a grove.
In the last century, fires have been stopped, and trees and brush that once did not grow in prairies are taking over.
Some of these invasive species were accidentally introduced from Europe or elsewhere.
In Illinois, less than 0.01% of the original prairie still exists.
For this reason, conservationists in this area practice prairie restoration to bring the prairie back.
Short grass prairie
Short grass prairie is in drier areas, and is usually one to two feet (0.3 to 0.6 meters) high and has more space between plants.
The American West (from central Texas up into Canada, east of the arid semi-desert) is all short grass prairie.
Much of this area is converted to pastures for grazing cows and sheep.
Areas near rivers are irrigated for crops.
Some of the original native plants are still widespread.
Mixed grass prairie
A mall or shopping centre is a large building that is full of many smaller shops and stores.
It is different from earlier markets or bazaars because most of the shops are not little booths or stalls in one big open area.
Each store has its own space with walls.
Most of their entrances face a central walking area inside the building.
"Mall" is the most common name for these buildings in American English, and "shopping centre" is the most common name for them in British English.
Americans also talk about "shopping centers", but they use their spelling for the word "center".
Malls are also sometimes called plazas.
People visit the stores in the mall to shop.
Most malls have parking lots (places to park cars).
Most malls also have roofs so people can shop inside.
Most malls have a food court.
Food courts are areas where people buy food.
Some malls have movie theatres.
Famous malls
West Edmonton Mall, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, is one of the largest malls in the world.
The Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota is one of the largest malls in the world.
Ice skating is skating on ice as a sport, entertainment or pastime.
Ice skates, a special type of boot with metal blades on the bottom, are worn to skate on ice.
Figure skating and speed skating are the sport forms of ice skating.
Hockey is also played on ice, with players wearing ice skates.
The International Skating Union (ISU) is the international governing body for figure skating and speed skating.
Ice skating probably began in Scandinavia as early as 1000 BCE, as a way to travel in the winter.
The sport of skating started in the Netherlands.
Since the Middle Ages, people in the Netherlands have skated on canals.
The first skating club was created in Scotland in 1742.
In 1850, Edward Bushnell created steel-bladed skates which allowed skaters to make difficult turns and movements on the ice.
Figure skating was included in the Olympics in 1908.
It was the first winter sport included in the Olympics.
Today, ice skating is a popular pastime.
Ice shows, like Ice Follies and Ice Capades, are a popular form of entertainment.
Modern figure skates have two edges on the blades and a toothed toepick on the front of the blade.
The toepick is used for jumps and spins.
Figure skating boots are made of leather.
Ice hockey skates also have two edges, but no toepick.
Speedskating ice skates have a single edge on the blade.
Men's singles, women's singles, pairs and ice dance are the four types of competitive figure skating.
In singles competitions, skaters perform a short technical routine and a longer, creative free routine.
The skaters are judged on their performance of jumps, spins and spirals, as well as their artistry.
In pairs competitions, two skaters perform two original routines together and are judged on their skills, artistry, and synchronization.
In ice dancing, two skaters perform two compulsory routines and an original routine together.
Speed skating is racing on ice.
Skaters are judged on their speed.
Speed skating has been an Olympic sport since 1924.
Rinks are places for sports.
There are several types of rinks:
"Ice rinks" are also called ice skating rinks.
Ice rinks have ice on the floor if they are inside, and on the ground if they are outside.
Ice rinks are places for people to play ice hockey and to go ice skating.
"Curling rinks" also have ice on the floor if they are inside, and on the ground if they are outside.
A sport called "curling" is played at curling rinks.
Teams of people slide heavy stones with handles down the ice toward targets under the ice.
"Roller rinks" are also called Roller Skating Rinks.
Roller rinks usually have wood on the floor if they are inside, and on the ground if they are outside.
People go roller skating at roller rinks.
"Challenge rinks" are a lesser-known variant of curling rinks.
They can usually be found around or on areas with an elevation of at least 510 meters above sea level.
A trading post is a place where trade takes place.
The path to a trading post, or between trading posts, is known as a trade route.
Trading posts were common places in Canada and the United States when they were both new countries.
People used trading posts to trade fur and other things.
The common or garden wasps, Vespula vulgaris, and hornets (Vespa) are members of the eusocial family Vespidae.
This has about 5000 species.
By far the greater number of wasp species (over 100,000) are the parasitic wasps.
Most of them are parasitoids which lay their eggs in the caterpillars of other insect species.
Almost every pest insect species has at least one wasp species that preys upon it or parasitizes it.
This makes wasps vital to the natural control of pest numbers (biocontrol).
Parasitic wasps are increasingly used in agricultural pest control as they prey mostly on pest insects and have little impact on crops.
Many people get confused between wasps and bees.
It's pretty easy to tell the difference between bees and wasps, because bees look quite hairy and wasps do not.
Wasps have biting mouthparts and antennae with 12 or 13 segments.
They usually have wings and their abdomens are attached to their thorax by a slender petiole, or a “waist”.
Females have a sting, which they use for piercing and egg laying.
Adult wasps feed mostly on nectar, but their larvae feed on insects or pollen, provided by the mother.
Free-living wasps
Nests made of paper
Most free-living wasps are social insects, like bees and ants, but there are a few solitary wasps.
Social wasps are formed of paper wasps, yellowjackets and hornets.
All three make paper nests from tree wood.
They create paper cells similar to the combs that bees make with wax.
They chew up bits of wood and convert it into a paste which they use to construct their paper nests.
Eggs & larvae
The queen lays an egg in each cell of the nests.
When it hatches the grub is fed regurgitated insects by the worker wasps.
In one group, the pollen wasps, grubs are fed pollen and nectar only.
Adult wasps eat only nectar.
Unlike honeybees, the only one in a social wasp colony that will survive the winter is the queen.
She will find a place to hibernate - in the hollows of trees, under bark, or in the walls of buildings.
In the spring, she crawls out and starts all over again building a few cells, laying a few eggs, and nurturing them until they can become workers who will do all the work while she lays more eggs.
Parasitic wasps
With most species, adult parasitic wasps themselves do not take any nutrients from their prey, and, much like bees, butterflies, and moths, those that do feed as adults typically derive all of their nutrition from nectar.
Parasitic wasps are typically parasitoids, and extremely diverse in habits, many laying their eggs in inert stages of their host (egg or pupa), or sometimes paralyzing their prey by injecting it with venom through their ovipositor.
They then insert one or more eggs into the host or deposit them upon the host externally.
The host remains alive until the parasitoid larvae are mature, usually dying either when the parasitoids pupate, or when they emerge as adults.
Farmers buy these parasitic wasps for insect control in their fields.
Solitary life
The mud dauber is one of the most common solitary wasps.
The difference between normal wasps and mud daubers can be seen easily because of its long petiole.
The female gathers together mud and puts it in her mouth to use when building her paper nest for her young.
She uses her ovipositor to sting and paralyze tiny insects, spiders, caterpillars, and other creatures, which are stuffed into the mud nest.
After each cell in the nest is filled and almost overflowing with spiders and insects, the mud dauber lays an egg in each cell, closes the openings, and leaves.
Then, when the eggs finally hatch, the larvae, have a perfectly nice feast upon which they will dine until they become adults.
Some solitary wasps make galls, which are abnormal growths on plants.
They form directly after the wasp lays its eggs, and the plant develops a growth around the egg, encasing it.
The trigger for the gall to form is not known.
The gall protects the eggs while they develop.
Galls can be found almost everywhere in the late summer, especially on the branches of oak trees, like in this picture.
Allergy and stings
A few people are allergic and might die if stung by a wasp.
Wasps do not usually sting something unless it bothers them first.
Allergy to bees is uncommon compared with allergy to wasps.
Some people have a very marked local reaction to a wasp sting.
This can usually be prevented with good self care such as elevation, cold compress, pain relief tablets and (if medically advised) antihistamines.
A sting is not the same as an allergy: the reaction to a sting is a normal immune response.
If a person has symptoms at a distance from the sting (spreading rash or itch, tight chest, wheeze, tight swallowing, swollen lips/face, faintness or nausea), they need to seek medical care immediately.
Prevention of stings is fairly easy if people understand how wasps live.
Avoid eating sweet foods in their environment and take care over sweet smells when they are particularly hungry in the autumn.
Information on Wasps and sting prevention
The Human papillomavirus (HPV) is a virus that can infect the skin or mucous membranes (like the genitals, or inside the mouth) of humans.
They cause warts.
Some of them may cause cancer.
There are over 100 different virus types in this group.
About 40 virus types can be transmitted sexually.
About 12-15 can cause cancer.
Most cases of HPV can be prevented by a vaccine, which also would stop the HPV from causing cancer.
Most cases of cervical, oral and throat cancer are caused by HPV.
A first step in treatment is the use of salicylic acid.
This is available in pharmacies, usually without a prescription.
If this does not help, the wart can be frozen, and destroyed that way, or a laser can be used to destroy it.
If this still does not help, different methods of chemotherapy can be used.
Human Papilloma Virus (HPV)  from University of California, Santa Barbara's SexInfo
hpv-centrum  - Video and info from the HPV, hpv centrums in Hungary
CDC fact sheet - HPV fact sheet from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Salicylic acid is a chemical substance.
It is an acid.
It is the base ingredient for a drug called aspirin.
It is also used as a food preservative, and to treat diseases of the skin, like acne or warts.
It is also used in shampoos to treat dandruff (flaking skin on the head).
Shampoo is a  beauty care product.
It is used to remove natural oils from hair.
It is like liquid soap, but it is made to wash hair.
It is sold in stores, and many people use it to make their hair clean.
After people use shampoo, they might use a conditioner, which makes the hair soft.
Together they have a good effect on a person's hair.
The people who make shampoo try to make it smell nice.
They also try to make the shampoo healthier.
Shostakovich's life
Shostakovich's parents came from Siberia.
His father was a biologist and engineer, and his mother was a pianist.
They lived comfortably, although this was to change after the Revolution (1917).
Shostakovich studied the piano and composition at the Petrograd Conservatory (St. Petersburg was called Petrograd between 1914 and 1924, after which it became Leningrad until 1991, when it became St. Petersburg again).
After his mother died, the family were short of money, so young Dmitri had to earn money by playing the piano in cinemas for silent movies.
He worked extremely hard and with a lot of concentration.
He was very successful both as a pianist and a composer.
His Symphony No.
1 was very popular.
His music sounded very modern  with lots of dissonant chords.
His first dramatic works include an opera called The Nose and a ballet called The Golden Age.
In 1930 he wrote an important opera called Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District.
It was a huge success, and the critics said that “it could only have been written by a Soviet composer brought up in the best traditions of Soviet culture”.
One night in 1936 Stalin came to watch it.
He left before the end.
Two days later there was an article in the official government paper Pravda.
The title was “Chaos instead of Music”.
It said that this opera was primitive and vulgar, full of screaming and noise.
The politicians were criticizing not just Shostakovich but all modern Soviet music.
Shostakovich was denounced, and his friends were too frightened to defend him in case they were denounced as well.
Shostakovich suffered quietly and wrote his Fifth Symphony.
The politicians liked this symphony.
He was once more thought of as the leading Soviet composer.
He was supposed to have said that his new symphony was the “creative reply of a Soviet artist to justified criticism”, but it was actually a critic who said this.
Shortly afterward, he received the Stalin Prize for his Piano Quintet.
During World War II Shostakovich was evacuated with his wife and two children.
His next two symphonies, nos.7 "Leningrad" and 8, describe the war.
They were hugely popular in the West.
In the United States, the Seventh Symphony became the symbol of resistance against Nazism.
After the war, Soviet politicians again began to control and criticize artistic life very hard.
In 1948, there was a big meeting at which Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and several other composers were criticized.
Their music was called “formalist”, “anti-democratic”, and lots of other things which had nothing to do with music.
There was nothing the composers could do except to say how sorry they were.
For the next five years Shostakovich was careful not to write anything the politiciones would not like.
He wrote songs such as "The Sun Shines on our Motherland".
Some of his other compositions in which he expressed his real feelings were kept in a drawer so that no one could see them.
In 1953, Stalin died and things became easier again.
Shostakovich wrote his Tenth Symphony.
The whole world now saw Shostakovich as the greatest Soviet composer.
He suffered less from official repression.
Surprisingly, articles criticizing the music of modern young composers carried his name, but a lot of these articles he had not written.
He was persuaded to sign them so that the politicians would leave him in peace.
He wrote more symphonies and quartets as well as concertos.
His opera Lady Macbeth was revised and given a different title: Katerina Izmaylova.
It was performed in many countries, and was made into a movie.
Yet in 1962, he wrote his very serious Symphony No.
13 using poems including one of the Babi Yar massacre, so he suffered from repression again.
In his later years, Shostakovich suffered from ill-health.
He had poliomyelitis, which made it difficult for him to use his hands and legs.
He suffered several heart attacks, and started to lose his sight.
He died of lung cancer in 1975.
Shostakovich’s music
Shostakovich is best known for his fifteen symphonies and fifteen string quartets.
His most important opera is Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District.
He also wrote a lot of film music and music for plays including Hamlet.
Shostakovich read a lot of Russian literature.
His songs had words by famous Russian writers such as Alexander Pushkin, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Marina Tsvetaeva and Alexander Blok.
He wrote twenty-four Preludes and Fugues for piano, a piano trio, two piano concertos, a piano quintet, a sonata for cello and piano, and a sonata for viola and piano (his last work).
He had lots of friends who regularly gave the first performances of his works.
Most of his symphonies were first performed by the Leningrad Philharmonic conducted by Eugeny Mravinsky.
His string quartets were first performed by the Beethoven String Quartet.
The violinist David Oistrakh, the cellist Mstislav Rostropovitch, and the pianist Sviatoslav Richter were all close friends who played his music.
Shostakovich the pianist
Shostakovich had an amazing musical memory and could play almost anything he knew by ear.
When he was young he spent hours improvising, composing, and playing.
Although he had small hands, he was a very gifted pianist.
He had no difficulty in playing any of his works on the piano, even music written for an orchestra.
He often played his music too fast and without much expression.
Shostakovich’s personality
Shostakovich was a very nervous person.
He was shy and very self-critical.
He hated having to talk to people he did not know.
He did not sit still, always fidgeting and twitching his face nervously.
He was, however, always very polite and very kind to everyone he met.
He was very careful not to criticize musicians who asked him for advice.
He said very little, but what he said was carefully thought out.
He wrote lots of letters to the authorities to try to help his friends.
He was very reliable, and always tried to arrive on time.
In his last years, he found it very difficult to use his hands because of his illness, but he always insisted on writing down his music himself.
The New Grove Dictionary of Music & Musicians edited by Stanley Sadie (1980)
Shostakovich: A life Remembered by Elizabeth Wilson (1994)
Soviet musicians
An object that is transparent can be seen through.
That is, what is on the other side of the object can be seen through it.
The image you can see through a transparent object is similar to the image you can see without it.
It may be changed if the transparent object behaves like a lens.
This could change the size or shape of the image.
The opposite of transparency is opacity.
Some animals are transparent, so predators cannot see them so easily.
An example of a transparent animal is the jellyfish.
Transparency works better in places with a small amount of light than in places with lots of light.
Light passes through a translucent object, but you cannot see objects behind it.
The light passes through but the material scatters the light, so you cannot see the object, only its shadow.
Punjab is a region in South Asia.
It is divided by the Radcliffe Line: Some parts of it are in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, and others are in the Republic of India.
It is in a plain, with the River Indus flowing through the western part, which is in Pakistan.
The soil is very fertile.
It lives from agriculture.
Main religions in the region are Islam, Sikhism and Hinduism.
Doab (India)
Punjab (India)
Regions of Pakistan
Regions of India
Hepatitis is a disease of the liver.
In hepatitis, the liver is inflamed.
There can be several reasons why the liver is inflamed.
For this reason there are several kinds of hepatitis.
The most common forms are Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C. Most cases of Hepatitis are caused by viruses.
Some forms are caused by bacteria, fungi or parasites.
The bacteria that cause tuberculosis or syphilis can also cause hepatitis; so can the parasite that causes malaria.
Hepatitis can also be caused by alcohol.
About one in four people who drink more than three alcoholic drinks a day (over a period of 10–15 days) will have some form of hepatitis caused by alcohol.
Various drugs and chemicals can also cause hepatitis, most notably paracetamol (overdose), yellow phosphorous, and others.
Hepatitis may also be caused by other diseases.
Hepatitis A can be spread through personal contact, eating raw seafood, or drinking water with the hepatitis A virus in it.
This happens mostly in third world countries.
Strict personal hygiene and avoiding raw and unpeeled foods can help prevent an infection.
Once a person has hepatitis A, their immune system makes antibodies to fight the virus.
This will make them immune against future infection.
People with hepatitis A should rest, drink a lot of water and avoid alcohol.
The time between the infection and the start of the illness can run from 15 to 45 days.
About 15% of people with hepatitis A have symptoms from six months to a year after the first diagnosis.
Infected people excrete the hepatitis A virus in their stool two weeks before and one week after the appearance of jaundice.
Hepatitis B is not spread by food or casual contact.
Instead, hepatitis B is spread by blood or body fluids from an infected person.
A baby can get it from its mother during childbirth, and it can also be spread by sexual contact, use of street drugs, and unsafe medical care.
Some people just have hepatitis B for a little while and then suppress the infection.
Others can be infected for life, usually with few or no symptoms for many years.
Hepatitis B sometimes damages the liver severely, and can cause cancer.
There is a vaccine that can prevent hepatitis B.  There is no cure for hepatitis B, but there is treatment.
Hepatitis C is not spread by food or casual contact.
It is spread in ways that are similar to hepatitis B.  There is no vaccine, and the treatment is somewhat unpleasant.
People with hepatitis C who drink alcohol greatly increase their risk for liver damage.
International Community : Viral Hepatitis Community
A rodeo is a North American sport.
It is a collection of several similar activities that came from the history of the day-to-day lives of Mexican vaqueros (cowboys) and American cowboys.
It has events that came from the handling of cattle, and the riding and training of horses.
Rodeos started as a competition between the cowboys to see who was the best.
Over time it has gone from taking a collection of money for the person who won to today's large professional competitions such as the National Finals Rodeo with a lot of money for the winners.
Equestrian sports
The Dewey Decimal System is a way to put books in order by subject.
It is often used in public libraries and schools in the United States and other countries.
It places the books on the shelf by subject using numbers from 000 to 999.
It is called "decimal" because it uses numbers to the right of the decimal point for more detail (e.g. 944.1 for History of Brittany).
Each subject has its own group of numbers.
The system was created by Melvil Dewey in 1876.
It is also called the Dewey Decimal Classification.
The classification has been changed many times.
The latest change is number 23 in 2011.
There is also a smaller one for small libraries called "Abridged Dewey".
000 – Computer science, information, and general works
100 – Philosophy and psychology
200 – Religion
300 – Social sciences
400 – Language
500 – Science
600 – Technology
700 – Arts and recreation
800 – Literature
900 – History and geography
Full, 2011
Abridged 2014
A rhombus is a parallelogram with all sides equal in length.
A rhombus with all angles equal is called a square.
The word rhombus comes from the Greek word rhombos, meaning "spinning top".
A  rhombus is sometimes called a diamond, but not all rhombi are diamond shaped.
To find the perimeter of a rhombus, just add up all the sides.
Also opposite sides are parallel and opposite angles are equal.
Another interesting thing is that the diagonals (dashed lines in second figure) meet in the middle at a right angle.
Change is the money returned after paying for something with more money than it costs.
For example, if someone buys a 25-pence sweet bar with 1 pound (100 pence), they will get 75 pence back.
Change can also mean any kind of money in coin form.
To have exact change means to have the exact cost of the item.
In the United States, buses require people riding the bus to have exact change.
The bus does not give money back.
They must pay exactly what the cost is, they can not pay more.
Homework, or a homework assignment, is a set of tasks assigned to students by their teachers to be completed outside the classroom.
Common homework assignments may include required reading, a writing or typing project, mathematical exercises to be completed, information to be read before a test, or other skills to be practiced.
The effects of homework are debated.
Generally speaking, homework does not help young children.
Homework may help older students, especially low-achieving students.
However, homework also creates stress for students and parents, and reduces the amount of time that students can spend in other activities.
Homework dates back to the 1900s, though it may have existed from earlier.
Garlic (species Allium sativum) is a type of plant that people eat for food.
Garlic is related to onions, shallots, and leeks.
It has a very strong flavor and smell.
Most of the time, people use it as a flavoring so that it helps make food taste better.
Garlic is used as herbal medicine in the treatment of cold and flu.
It has side effects of heartburn, flatulence and sweating.
The part of the garlic plant that people eat is called the head.
It grows at the bottom of a long green stalk.
People pull the head apart into smaller pieces called cloves of garlic.
Cloves have papery skin on them.
People peel off the skin before cooking the cloves.
People plant garlic in the fall right after the first frost.
They plant the clove like a seed.
One clove can grow into a whole head.
The garlic plant grows its roots before the ground freezes for winter.
People harvest (collect) the garlic in the middle of the next summer.
Garlic is in legends about vampires.
In these legends, vampires do not like garlic.
Garlic keeps vampires away.
Writers for the Toronto Garlic Festival say this might be because the vampire legend comes from the disease porphyria.
People with porphyria do not like to eat foods that have sulfur in them, like garlic.
Glaze is a layer or coating used on pottery or ceramics.
It may be called vitreous enamel or porcelain enamel.
Powdered glass is fused onto ceramics by firing to between 750 and 850 °C (1,380 and 1,560 °F).
The powder melts, flows, and then hardens to a smooth, lasting vitreous coating on metal, or on glass or ceramics.
This is done in a kiln.
There are many different types of glaze, some are used for decoration and some are used to make pottery watertight so it can hold liquids.
Glaze serves to colour, decorate, strengthen or waterproof an item.
Glazing is important for earthenware vessels as otherwise they would leak water.
Glaze is also used on stoneware and porcelain.
In addition to the functional aspect of glazes, they can form a variety of surface finishes, including degrees of gloss and matte and colour.
Glazes may also enhance an underlying design or texture.
Glaze is used on building materials.
The Iron Pagoda, built in 1049 in Kaifeng, China, of glazed bricks is an example.
Ceramic glaze raw materials generally include silica, which forms glass when fired.
Metal oxides, such as sodium, potassium and calcium, act as a "flux" to lower the melting temperature.
Alumina, often derived from clay, stiffens the molten glaze to prevent it from running off the piece.
Colour comes from iron oxide, copper carbonate or cobalt carbonate.
Tin oxide or zirconium oxide make the glaze opaque.
Nuclear means relating to a nucleus.
It may be about:
Naval reactors
Nuclear fuel cycle
Nuclear navy
Nuclear warfare
Mutual Nuclear Deterrence
Nuclear Proliferation
Nuclear space
Nuclear operator
about 37 miles (60 kilometers) southeast of San Francisco and about 20 miles northwest of San José, in Santa Clara County.
Leland and Jane Stanford opened the university on 1 October 1891.
They named the university after their son, Leland Stanford Junior, who died at young age.
With one of the largest university campuses in the United States, the University includes the Schools of Engineering, Law, Medicine, Education, Business, Earth Sciences, and Humanities and Sciences.
Stanford also hosts volunteer programs and a teaching hospital.
Leland Stanford Junior died in Europe in 1884.
His parents, Leland and Jane Stanford, were rich and influential Californians.
They chose to turn a farm they already owned into a large university, as a memorial to their curious son.
Stanford had early trouble, as the school ran low on money, and was hurt by the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake.
Herbert Hoover, who later became the US President, helped the school improve its operations, and later university leaders pushed students and alumni to develop the surrounding area.
By the 1950's, cities around Stanford University were filling with technology companies, starting what became Silicon Valley.
Stanford has many special areas.
In honor of Stanford graduate and US president Herbert Hoover, Stanford hosts a large think tank and archive called the Hoover Institution.
Many former students, like the founders of HP, donate lots of money and have buildings named after them.
A large radio telescope called "The Dish" sits on the hills above Stanford.
Stanford has about 7,000 undergraduate students, and a larger number of students working on advanced degrees.
Few high school students who apply to Stanford are accepted - over the last several years, only four out of every hundred students who applied were offered a spot.
People who worked at or graduated from Stanford University
Nicolas Sadirac (1989), founder and current head of the École pour l'informatique et les nouvelles technologies
Volunteers in Asia - American non-profit organization closely related to Stanford
Beta (letter), the second letter of the Greek alphabet
Beta version, a version of software given to users for testing
Beta particle, a subatomic particle
Beta, a brand of recording tape that used to be used in electronic videocassette recorders (VCRs)
Palladium is a chemical element.
It has the chemical symbol Pd.
It has the atomic number 46.
It is silver white.
In chemistry it is placed in a group of metal elements named the transition metals.
It is also part of the platinum group.
Palladium has similar chemistry to platinum.
It is extracted from (made by taking from) some copper and nickel ores.
Its main use is as a catalyst and also in jewellery.
Personal care items are toiletry items.
These are products used by people to look after their bodies, and to improve their appearance.
They are usually sold in chemist shops and supermarkets.
Many celebrities use beauty products.
Personal care includes products as diverse as  cleansing pads, bandages, colognes, cotton swabs, cotton pads, deodorant, eye liner, facial tissue, hair clippers, lip gloss, lipstick, lotion, makeup,  nail files, pomade, perfumes, razors, shaving cream, moisturizer, talcum powder, toilet paper, toothpaste, and wet wipes.
The Irish Republican Army or IRA originated from the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and fought against the British Army to get freedom for Ireland in the Irish War of Independence.
The British army had invaded Ireland earlier in the plantation of Ulster and then invaded Dublin, after some time when the IRA had fought the island of Ireland was split up and the Republic of Ireland became independent, the IRA split up and some parts of it were involved in the fighting in Northern Ireland called "The Troubles".
The original IRA are now named as ná Óglaigh na hÉireann.
While the other IRA have used guerilla tacticts to achieve a united Ireland free from British rule.
The original IRA
After the unilateral declaration of independence by the Irish Parliament in 1919, the IRA continued the war against British occupation in what was called the Irish War of Independence.
This ended in 1921 with the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty, which divided the island into the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The signing of the treaty led to a split in the IRA between those who were against the treaty and those who were for it.
This led to a very bitter civil war, which saw former friends and even family members on different sides.
The IRA lost the civil war but the group did not go away and they continued to fight Great Britain.
In the 1930s, the leftist group achieved some success in overcoming the division between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland .
The refusal of IRA-Leadership, to cooperate with this course, led to a further division.
Frank Ryan led a part of the Congress-group after Spain, where they are in the Spanish Civil War against General Francisco Franco.
The brutal police action against the Northern Ireland civil rights movement and the raids by loyalist paramilitaries in 1967 brought the IRA back on the map.
At that time and until the end of the 80s were Northern Irish Catholics were in a legal vacuum, and were de facto vulnerable to the whims of the official from Britain supported nordir-Protestant police forces and paramilitary groups.
Open violence to murders, torture, open prosecution, defamation and exclusion of qualified training and public offices were years of normalcy for the Northern Irish Catholics.
The IRA obtained the support of large parts of the Catholic population, and almost had the status of a "protecting power".
Some Irish-Americans also supported the violence.
In the 60s, there were differences between the military and the Provisionals oriented rather Marxist-theory oriented Officials.
This resulted 1969 to re-divide into Provisional Irish Republican Army PIRA and the "official" group OIRA, which is strong in the civil rights movement-oriented.
The "official" wing of the IRA never formally dissolved, but is de facto since about 1980 is no longer relevant.
In the 80 years changed the leadership of the Provisional IRA, instead of the veterans from the south over younger activists from Northern Ireland to key positions.
At the top of the Sinn Féin joined Gerry Adams, the party clearly to the left.
In 1993 he initiated jointly with the Social Democrats John Hume to the peace process, in August 1994, the IRA a unilateral ceasefire, a prerequisite for the Good Friday Agreement created.
Despite the ceasefire, the IRA remained active even though not fighting.
Only two small splinter groups held up at the last state of war: The Real IRA and the Continuity IRA.
When a car bomb attack the splinter group, which is called "Real IRA", in August 1998, in Northern Ireland Omagh were a total of 29 people killed.
On 28 In July 2005, the end of the IRA's armed warfare. "
All IRA-Soldiers have been instructed to lay down their arms," reads a statement from the IRA days, and continued: "We believe that there is now an alternative way, (…) the British rule in our country to an end.
”On 26 September 2005, the complete disarmament of the IRA by the head of thedisarmament commission, Canadian General John de Chastelain, announced.
Two pastors, one Catholic, one Protestant were present at the destruction of weapons, no photographs or video was allowed to be taken as proof.
Rhythm and blues (also known as R&B or RnB) is a popular music genre combining jazz, gospel, and blues influences, first performed by African American artists.
It is now performed worldwide by people of many cultures and ethnic groups.
During the 1980s, James Brown and Sly & the Family Stone had used parts of psychedelic rock and other styles in their music.
Funk became a big part of disco music.
In the early 1980s, funk and soul had become sultry and more sexual with the work of Prince and others.
The modern style of contemporary R&B came to be a major part of American popular music.
R&B today defines a style of African-American music.
It combines elements of soul music, funk music, pop music, and (after 1986) hip hop in what is now called contemporary R&B.
R&B in the 2000s
By the 2000s, the only big difference between a record being a hip hop record or an R&B record is whether its vocals are rapped or sung.
R&B started to focus more on solo artists than groups.
By 2005, the most famous R&B artists include Usher, Beyoncé (formerly of Destiny's Child), Ashanti, and Mariah Carey.
Soulful R&B continues to be popular, with artists such as Alicia Keys, R. Kelly, John Legend, and Toni Braxton.
Some R&B singers have used parts of Caribbean music in their work.
Hip hop music
Blues music
Tungsten (sometimes named wolfram) is a chemical element on the periodic table.
It has the chemical symbol W and it has the atomic number 74.
It is a steel-gray to white colored metal.
In chemistry, it is placed in a group of metal elements named the transition metals.
Tungsten is found in several ores, including wolframite and scheelite.
Tungsten has a higher melting point than any other non-alloy that exists.
The pure form (only tungsten) is mainly used in electrical equipment.
Its compounds and alloys are used for many things, the most well known being its use in electrical filaments for light bulbs.
It is also used in the filament and target in most X-ray tubes, superalloys, and in glass-to-metal seals.
Tungsten's density and hardness have many uses.
In the military, for example, tungsten has been used in armor-piercing artillery.
Tungsten's density is almost the same as gold.
Gold-plated tungsten ingots have been fraudulently passed off as solid gold.
An arc is a part of a circle.
An arc is a curved line.
The curve of an arc is constant and does not change (that is, an arc has constant curvature).
It sometimes is portrayed as a dotted line.
In a circle, the arc from point A to point B is written as .
We call the length of an arc an arc length.
For an arc on a circle with radius  subtended by an angle , its arc length is precisely .
Particulates are very tiny pieces of a solid or liquid that are carried floating in a gas.
When the tiny pieces are solid, it is called a smoke.
When the tiny pieces are liquid, it is called an aerosol.
Aerosols can be naturally found in clouds and geysers.
There are also artificial aerosols such as haze and some air pollutants.
Smokes can be found naturally in wildfires and volcanoes.
Artificially, they can be found in cigarettes, factories and power plants.
Both of them can cause air pollution and climate change.
Shorthand or stenography is a way of writing.
Shorthand systems allow people to write much faster.
Shorthand systems have been in use since antiquity.
Now, they are not used as much, because there are dictation machines to record voices.
Shorthand Untangled  - A site dealing with the skills of shorthand, with lots of learning and practice material
Teeline Online - Learn Teeline Shorthand in your own time - online and offline lessons, exercises, assignments, shortcuts - all you need to either refresh or start from scratch
A full description in English of the Dutch shorthand system Groote
A complete Dutch book from 1925 about system Groote
A downloadable Teeline book (MSWord), written for journalists in particular  (see Teeline)
Dictation disc samples for free download
AgiliWriting - an alphabetic shorthand
Alpha, the Easy Alphabetic Shorthand
Handywrite, a phonetic shorthand system
Keyscript is a fully alphabetical shorthand based on Pitman's.
It saves 60% of writing
Sound writing - a learning resource from the British Library
The Shorthand Place - includes chronological list of shorthand systems
The Louis A. Leslie Collection of Historical Shorthand Materials.
The Shorthand World and Imperial Typist magazine vol.
1 and vol.
5 available on Google Books
A sine wave is a curve, a continuous function with this shape:
All waves can be made by adding up sine waves.
Waves made of Sine Waves
Examples of waves:
Properties of Sine Waves
Sine waves have a "length" called a wavelength.
Sine waves repeat over time, so this makes them periodic.
The time it takes for a part of the sine wave (one cycle) to travel before it repeats itself is called the period, represented by the letter T. The frequency of a sine wave is the number of oscillations it makes in one second.
This is measured in Hertz, which have units of s-1.
The frequency can be found by dividing 1/T (this is also called taking the reciprocal).
Collingwood Football Club, the Magpies, is a club which plays Australian Rules Football in the AFL.
It comes from Collingwood, a suburb of Melbourne in Victoria.
In the AFL/VFL, it has won 15 premierships.
The Collingwood Football Club was formed in February 1892.
Collingwood played its first game in the Victorian Football Association on 7 May 1892, against Carlton.
In 1902, Collingwood won its first premiership against the Essendon Football Club.
The Victorian Football League (VFL) formed in 1897.
Collingwood was one of the original teams (along with Fitzroy, Melbourne, St Kilda, Carlton, Essendon, South Melbourne and Geelong).
In the early years of the VFL, Collingwood was the most successful team; it won 11 premierships in the first 40 years.
They won the most recent AFL premiership against St Kilda in 2010.
The teams had to play a second match after the scores were equal at the end of the first Grand Final game.
Football Club website
Vibration means quickly moving back and forth (or up and down) about a point of equilibrium.
The vibration may be periodic (having a pattern) or random.
Something that is vibrating may shake at the same time.
If it vibrates in a regular way, it may produce a musical note because it can make the air vibrate.
This vibration will send sound waves to the ear and to the brain.
In structural engineering including earthquake engineering, vibrations may be bad.
They may cause the structure to fail.
The time it takes a vibrating object to go back and forth completely is the period.
The number of back-and-forth movements in one second is its frequency, measured in Hertz (Hz).
The farthest possible distance from the equilibrium point is the amplitude.
Types of vibration
Free vibration occurs when vibration is set off with a push and allowed to vibrate freely.
Examples of this type of vibration are pulling a child back on a swing and then letting go or hitting a tuning fork and letting it ring.
The mechanical system will then vibrate at a 'Natural frequency' and gradually wind down.
Forced  vibration is when an alternating force or motion is applied to a mechanical system.
Examples of this type of vibration include
a shaking washing machine due to an imbalance.
transportation vibration (caused by a combination of truck engine, springs, road).
vibration of a building during an earthquake.
In forced vibration the frequency of the vibration is the frequency of the force or motion applied.
The size of the effect depends on the actual mechanical system.
Molybdenum is a chemical element.
It has the chemical symbol Mo. It has the atomic number 42.
It has 35 isotopes.
The name Molybdenum is from the Greek meaning "leadlike".
The color of pure molybdenum is silvery-white.
It does not occur naturally, and is made from molybdenite.
It is used in alloys with other metals like stainless steel.
It helps to make metal stronger, especially in high temperatures, and makes it less likely to rust.
This makes it good for use in high speed tools, such as drills and saw blades.
It is used in aircraft and missile parts, as well as in nuclear reactors.
It is also not toxic, so it is used in making metal bowls for use in making food, medicines and other chemicals.
Molybdenum was used for many years before it was identified in 1778 by Swedish scientist, Carl Wilhelm Scheele.
In 1782, Peter Jacob Hjelm was able to separate it into a dark powder he called "molybdenum".
It was first mined in 1916 at Climax, near Leadville, in Colorado.
In chemistry, a solution is a homogeneous mixture  of two or more substances.
The substances that are dissolved are called solutes.
The substance the solutes are dissolved in is called the solvent.
An example from everyday experience is a solid like salt or sugar (which are crystalline solids), dissolved in a liquid (like water).
Gases can dissolve in liquids.
An example is carbon dioxide or oxygen in water.
Liquids may dissolve in other liquids and gases in other gases.
The amount of solute added to the solvent determines the concentration of the solution.
The solution with the large amount of solute is called a concentrated solution; the solution with less solute is called a dilute solution.
Examples of solid solutions are alloys and some minerals.
For example, brass is an alloy of copper and zinc.
Hypertonic
Hypotonic
Insurance is a term in law and economics.
It is something people buy to protect themselves from losing money.
People who buy insurance pay a "premium" (often paid every month) and promise to be careful (a "duty of care").
In exchange for this, if something bad happens to the person or thing that is insured, the company that sold the insurance will pay the money back. (
However, there are some times when the company will not have to pay the money back, such as if the person was not careful.)
Types of insurance
There are different kinds of insurance.
There are life insurance and general insurance.
In life insurance, someone ensures their life or someone else's life.
At the death of the insured person or on the date of maturity whichever happens earlier, the amount insured will be paid.
fire insurance
marine insurance
life Insurance
home insurance
commercial insurance
business insurance
Actuaries are the people who figure out how much the premium should be, forecast trends, evaluate the cost impact of medical programs, design and price new products, assist in designing formulary models, and forecast the impact of risk adjustment on revenues.
They balance how much the insurer might have to pay out against the chances of having to pay out.
If actuaries think there is a big chance that the company will have to pay out, they will make the premium higher.
A Bunsen burner is a common piece of laboratory equipment.
It is commonly used for heating chemical substances, sterilization, and combustion.
It works by burning flammable gas.
It is named after Robert Wilhelm Bunsen, a German chemist.
He made important improvements on an earlier burner invented by Michael Faraday.
The Bunsen burner can be adjusted to make a flame that is very hot without making much light.
This allows seeing the different colors that various chemicals make when they are sprinkled into the flame.
Chain reaction
Chemical reaction, happens when one or more chemicals are changed into one or more other chemicals.
Light reaction
Nuclear reaction, a process involving an atomic nucleus or more than one nucleus.
Reaction (physics) -From Newton's third law: "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction".
The idea that any one force has an opposite force.
He was sent to a local school to learn how to read and write.
A local vicar paid for this, seeing his obvious intelligence.
Faraday became the greatest experimental physicist of the nineteenth century.
Faraday became a Fellow of the Royal Society, and was awarded the Royal, Copley and Rumford medals of the Society.
Although Faraday had only primary school education, and did not know higher mathematics, he became one of the most influential scientists in history.
For the most part, he was an autodidact: he taught himself.
At the time when he lived, people like him were called natural philosophers.
Then, only a little was known about electricity.
Michael Faraday discovered many things about the way electricity flowing in a wire can act like a magnet (now called electromagnetism).
He also found out a lot about the way electricity can be used with chemicals to make them change (now called electrochemistry).
He showed that magnetism is able to affect rays of light, as there is an underlying relationship between the two phenomena.
His inventions of electromagnetic rotary devices formed the foundation of electric motor technology, and it was largely due to his efforts that electricity became viable for use in technology.