Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Jubilee (Biblical)Jubilee (Biblical)
For other uses, see Jubilee (disambiguation) The Jubilee (Hebrew Yovel יובל) year, is the year at the end of a seven cycles of Sabbatical years, and according to Biblical regulations had a special impact on the ownership and management of land, in the territory of the kingdoms of Israel and of Judah; there is some debate whether it was the 49th year (the last year of seven sabbatical cycles), or whether it was the following 50th year. The English term Jubilee derives from the Hebrew term yobel (via Latin:Jubilaeus), which in turn derives from yobhel, meaning ram. The biblical rules concerning Sabbatical years are still observed by many religious Jews in the State of Israel, but the regulations for the Jubilee year have not been observed for many centuries.

Origin and purpose

Jewish holidays
Jubilee (Christian)
Bank holiday
New Deal

Tuesday, October 30, 2007


Negligence is a legal concept usually used to achieve compensation for accidents and injuries. Negligence is a type of tort or delict and a civil wrong, but can also be used in criminal law. Negligence means conduct that is culpable because it misses the legal standard required of a reasonable person in protecting individuals against foreseeably risky, harmful acts of other members of society. Negligent behavior towards others gives them rights to be compensated for the harm to their body, property, mental well-being, financial status, or relationships. Negligence is used in comparison to acts or omissions which are intentional or willful. The law of negligence at common law is one aspect of the law of liability. Although resulting damages must be proved in order to recover compensation in a negligence action, the nature and extent of those damages are not the primary focus of this discussion.

Elements of negligence claims

Main article: Duty of care Breach of duty

Main article: Causation (law) Factual causation
Sometimes factual causation is distinguished from 'legal causation' to avert the danger of defendants being exposed to, in the words of Cardozo J, "liability in an indeterminate amount for an indeterminate time to an indeterminate class." The wife of a policeman, Mrs Jaensch suffered a nervous shock injury from the aftermath of a motor vehicle accident although she was not actually at the scene at the time of the accident. The court upheld in addition to it being reasonably foreseeable that his wife might suffer such an injury, it also required that there be sufficient proximity between the plaintiff and the defendant who caused the accident. Here there was sufficient causal proximity.

Legal causation or remoteness
Even though there is breach of duty, the negligence suits will not be successful unless there is provable injury. The plaintiff/claimant must have suffered loss or damage flowing naturally from the breach of the duty of care if damages are to be awarded. The damage may be physical (e.g. personal injury), economic (e.g. pure financial loss), or both (e.g. financial loss of earnings consequent on a personal injury), reputational (e.g. in a defamation case), or in relationships where a family may have lost a wage earner through a negligent act. In English law, at least, the right to claim for purely economic loss is limited to a number of 'special' and clearly defined circumstances, often related to the nature of the duty to the plaintiff as between clients and lawyers, financial advisers, and other professions where money is central to the consultative services.
Emotional distress has been recognized as compensable in the case of negligence. The state courts of California allowed recovery for emotional distress alone — even in the absence of any physical injury.

Damage
In civil law systems (as opposed to Common Law) such those found in continental Europe, Quebec, and Puerto Rico, negligence is classified as a form of extra-contractual responsibility, sometimes called a quasi-delict in distinction to the more willful delicts within the conceptual framework of the law of obligations. There are some differences in the comparable laws of negligence in civil law jurisdictions, but the basic principles of delict and quasi-delict are similar albeit established by courts applying the inquisitorial system rather than the adversarial system. So investigative judges or magistrates will interview all parties and witnesses, and then prepare reports to be submitted to a panel of judges for final decision. That decision may also be appealed several levels through a judicial hierarchy.

Procedures and law in civil law jurisdictions

Main article: DamagesNegligenceNegligence See also

Monday, October 29, 2007

Update (SQL)
An SQL UPDATE statement changes the data of one or more records in a table. Either all the rows can be updated, or a subset may be chosen using a condition.
The UPDATE statement has the following form:
UPDATE table_name SET column_name = value [, column_name = value ...] [WHERE condition]
For the UPDATE to be successful, the user must have data manipulation privileges (UPDATE privilege) on the table or column, the updated value must not conflict with all the applicable constraints (such as primary keys, unique indexes, CHECK constraints, and NOT NULL constraints).

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Scottish Football League Premier Division
The Scottish Football League Premier Division was, from 1975 until 1998, the top division of the Scottish Football League and the entire Scottish football league system. It lay above the Scottish Football League First, Second and Third divisions.
Promotion and relegation between the Premier and New First divisions was: automatic relegation for the Premier's bottom club and its replacement by the First's champion; the second-from bottom in the Premier and the First's runner-up then competed in a test match series, home and away.
Before the start of the 1998-1999 season, the clubs of the Premier Division resigned en masse to form the Scottish Premier League, following the example of English clubs who formed the FA Premier League in 1992. The Scottish Football League did not reform the Premier Division, instead leaving the league with just the First, Second and Third divisions.

Saturday, October 27, 2007


Fuzzy electronics is an electronic technology that uses fuzzy logic, instead of the two-value logic more commonly used in digital electronics. It has a wide range applications, including control systems and artificial intelligence.

Fuzzy electronicsFuzzy electronics See also

Defuzzification
Fuzzy set
Fuzzy set operations

Friday, October 26, 2007

White House
See also: Executive Office of the President of the United States
The White House is the official home and principal workplace of the President of the United States of America. The house is built of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the late Georgian style. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C. As the office of the United States President, the term "White House" is used as a metonym for a United States president's administration, the Executive Office of the President. The property is owned by the National Park Service and is part of the President's Park.


The young republic's new capital city was sited on land ceded by two states—Virginia and Maryland—which both transferred ownership of the land to the federal government in response to a compromise with President Washington. The D.C. commissioners were charged by Congress with building the new city under the direction of the President. The architect of the White House was chosen in a competition, which received nine proposals, including one submitted anonymously by Thomas Jefferson.
The White House maintains a comments line to register voice opinions on the phone number 202-456-1111.

The official White House website is http://www.whitehouse.gov/. It was established on October 17, 1994, during President Clinton's administration. The two versions of the White House website used by the Clinton administration have been archived by the National Archives and Records Administration. Both are maintained in an active form, with active links. The first White House site can be found at http://clinton1.nara.gov/, and the second at http://clinton2.nara.gov/. They are among the earliest examples of historic preservation of digital media.
The website whitehouse.com was an adult and political entertainment website that first came online in 1997. Now marketed as "your source for up-to-date information to help you keep track of the major party candidates for President."
The website whitehouse.org should not be mistaken as the official White House website as it is a parody of U.S. President George W. Bush and his family, friends and administration.

Under president Harry S. Truman, who oversaw a major renovation of the house, several U.S. State Department embassies and consular facilities were modeled on the White House. A 1:25 scale model at Minimundus at Klagenfurt in Carinthia, Austria, is extremely accurate, including the East and West Colonnades and the East and West Wings. In Atlanta, Georgia, a nearly full-scale model exists. The exterior is less accurate. It is owned by Atlanta home builder Fred Milani, an American citizen born in Iran. In 2001 a Chinese businessman built a model of cast concrete. The Chinese model is nearly exact in exterior dimensions but departs from the original in details, such the pitch of the portico modeled on the North Portico. It also lacks the carved details in the window hoods and above doorways. The interior of the Chinese copy has a fanciful floor plan placing the Oval Office in the central residence, where the Blue Room would be on the State Floor of the White House. In front of the replica stands a miniature Washington Monument. It also has a one-third-size Mount Rushmore with employees' quarters located in the back.
An exacting scale model of the White House built by John and Jan Zweifel has traveled across many of the United States on exhibition.




Category:Rooms in the White House
White House Historical Association
White House History
Committee for the Preservation of the White House
White House Office of the Curator
White House Executive Residence
Chief Usher of the White House
State Arrival Ceremony
White House Endowment Trust
White House Acquisition Trust
Western White House
Number One Observatory Circle, the residence of the Vice President.
White House Communications Agency
White House Situation Room
White House Fellows
List of U.S. Presidential residences
Official residence
Abbott, James A. A Frenchman in Camelot: The Decoration of the Kennedy White House by Stéphane Boudin. Boscobel Restoration Inc.: 1995. ISBN 0-9646659-0-5.
Abbott James A., and Elaine M. Rice. Designing Camelot: The Kennedy White House Restoration. Van Nostrand Reinhold: 1998. ISBN 0-442-02532-7.
Abbott, James A. Jansen. Acanthus Press: 2006. ISBN 0-926494-33-3.
Clinton, Hillary Rodham. An Invitation to the White House: At Home with History. Simon & Schuster: 2000. ISBN 0-684-85799-5.
Garrett, Wendell. Our Changing White House. Northeastern University Press: 1995. ISBN 1-55553-222-5.
Kenny, Peter M., Frances F. Bretter and Ulrich Leben. Honoré Lannuier Cabinetmaker from Paris: The Life and Work of French Ébiniste in Federal New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and Harry Abrams: 1998. ISBN 0-87099-836-6.
Leish, Kenneth. The White House. Newsweek Book Division: 1972. ISBN 0-88225-020-5.
McKellar, Kenneth, Douglas W. Orr, Edward Martin, et al. Report of the Commission on the Renovation of the Executive Mansion. Commission on the Renovation of the Executive Mansion, Government Printing Office: 1952.
Monkman, Betty C. The White House: The Historic Furnishing & First Families. Abbeville Press: 2000. ISBN 0-7892-0624-2.
Penaud, Guy Dictionnaire des châteaux du Périgord. Editions Sud-Ouest: 1996. ISBN 2-87901-221-X.
Seale, William. The President's House. White House Historical Association and the National Geographic Society: 1986. ISBN 0-912308-28-1.
Seale, William, The White House: The History of an American Idea. White House Historical Association: 1992, 2001. ISBN 0-912308-85-0.
West, J.B. with Mary Lynn Kotz. Upstairs at the White House: My Life with the First Ladies. Coward, McCann & Geoghegan: 1973. SBN 698-10546-X.
Wolff, Perry. A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F. Kennedy. Doubleday & Company: 1962.
Exhibition Catalogue, Sale 6834: The Estate of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis April 23-26, 1996. Sothebys, Inc.: 1996.
The White House: An Historic Guide. White House Historical Association and the National Geographic Society: 2001. ISBN 0-912308-79-6.
The White House. The First Two Hundred Years, ed. by Frank Freidel/William Pencak, Boston 1994.
Official White House website
National Park Service website for the President's Park
The White House Museum, a detailed online tour of the White House
The White House Historical Association, with historical photos, online tours and exhibits, timelines, and facts
Twentieth Century American Sculpture at the White House, including artists Nancy Graves, Allan McCollum, and Tom Otterness
Maps and aerial photos for 38°53′52″N 77°02′12″W / 38.89767, -77.03655Coordinates: 38°53′52″N 77°02′12″W / 38.89767, -77.03655

  • Maps from WikiMapia, Google Maps, Live Search Maps, Yahoo! Maps, or MapQuest
    Topographic maps from TopoZone or TerraServer-USA
    A time magazine report about the Chinese replica

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Rudolf Ludwig Mössbauer
Rudolf Ludwig Mössbauer (German: Rudolf Ludwig Mößbauer), born January 31, 1929, is a German physicist who studied gamma rays from nuclear transitions.
Mössbauer was born in Munich, where he also studied physics at the Munich University of Technology (TUM) and did his PhD with Heinz Maier-Leibnitz. Along with Robert Hofstadter of the United States he won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1961 for his 1957 discovery of the Mossbauer effect—research which he carried out as a PhD student at the Institute for Physics of the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg

The Leader

Mössbauer effect
Mössbauer spectroscopy

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Domesticated
Domestication refers to the process of taming a population of animals (although it can also be used to refer to plants) or even a species as a whole. Humans have brought these populations under their care for a wide range of reasons: to produce food or valuable commodities (such as wool, cotton, or silk), for help with various types of work, transportation and to enjoy as pets or ornamental plants. Plants domesticated primarily for aesthetic enjoyment in and around the home are usually called house plants or ornamentals, while those domesticated for large-scale food production are generally called crops. Likewise, animals domesticated for home companionship are usually called pets while those domesticated for food or work are called livestock or farm animals.

Process of domestication
According to evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond, animal species must meet six criteria in order to be considered for domestication:
A herding instinct arguably aids in domesticating animals: tame one and others will follow, regardless of chiefdom.

Flexible diet — Creatures that are willing to consume a wide variety of food sources and can live off less cumulative food from the food pyramid (such as corn or wheat) are less expensive to keep in captivity. Most carnivores can only be fed meat, which requires the expenditure of many herbivores.
Reasonably fast growth rate — Fast maturity rate compared to the human life span allows breeding intervention and makes the animal useful within an acceptable duration of caretaking. Large animals such as elephants require many years before they reach a useful size.
Ability to be bred in captivity — Creatures that are reluctant to breed when kept in captivity do not produce useful offspring, and instead are limited to capture in their wild state. Creatures such as the panda and cheetah are difficult to breed in captivity.
Pleasant disposition — Large creatures that are aggressive toward humans are dangerous to keep in captivity. The African buffalo has an unpredictable nature and is highly dangerous to humans. Although similar to domesticated pigs in many ways, American peccaries and Africa's warthogs and bushpigs are also dangerous in captivity.
Temperament which makes it unlikely to panic — A creature with a nervous disposition is difficult to keep in captivity as they will attempt to flee whenever they are startled. The gazelle is very flighty and it has a powerful leap that allows it to escape an enclosed pen.
Modifiable social hierarchy — Social creatures that recognize a hierarchy of dominance can be raised to recognize a human as its pack leader. Bighorn sheep cannot be herded because they lack a dominance hierarchy, whilst antelopes and giant forest hogs are territorial when breeding and cannot be maintained in crowded enclosures in captivity. Domestication of animals
See agriculture for additional information on early crop use.
The earliest human attempts at plant domestication occurred in Asia. There is early evidence for conscious cultivation and trait selection of plants by pre-Neolithic groups in Syria: grains of rye with domestic traits have been recovered from Epi-Palaeolithic (ca. 11,000 BC) contexts at Abu Hureyra in Syria, but this appears to be a localised phenomenon resulting from cultivation of stands of wild rye, rather than a definitive step towards domestication.
By 10,000 BC the bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria) plant, used as a container before the advent of ceramic technology, appears to have been domesticated. The domesticated bottle gourd reached the Americas from Asia by 8000 BC, probably with peoples migrating into the continent from Asia.
Cereal crops were first domesticated around 9000 BC in the Fertile Crescent in the Middle East. The first domesticated crops were generally annuals with large seeds or fruits. These included pulses such as peas and grains such as wheat.
The Middle East was especially suited to these species; the dry-summer climate was conducive to the evolution of large-seeded annual plants, and the variety of elevations led to a great variety of species. As domestication took place humans began to move from a hunter-gatherer society to a settled agricultural society. This change would eventually lead, some 4000 to 5000 years later, to the first city states and eventually the rise of civilization itself.
Domestication was gradual, a process of trial and error that occurred slowly. Over time perennials and small trees began to be domesticated including apples and olives. Some plants were not domesticated until recently such as the macadamia nut and the pecan.
In different parts of the world very different species were domesticated. In the Americas squash, maize, and beans formed the core of the diet. In East Asia millets, rice, and soy were the most important crops. Some areas of the world such as Southern Africa, Australia and California and southern South America never saw local species domesticated.
Over the millennia many domesticated species have become utterly unlike their natural ancestors. Corn cobs are now dozens of times the size of their wild ancestors. A similar change occurred between wild strawberries and domesticated strawberries.
See also: Cultigen

Domestication of plants
The boundaries between surviving wild populations and domestic clades of elephants, for example, can become vague. This is due to their slow growth. Similar problems of definition arise when, for example, domesticated cats go feral. A classification system that can help solve this confusion might be set up on a spectrum of increasing domestication:
This classification system does not account for several complicating factors: genetically modified organisms, feral populations, and hybridization. Many species that are farmed or ranched are now being genetically modified. This creates a unique category because it alters the organisms as a group but in ways unlike traditional domestication. Feral organisms are members of a population that was once raised under human control, but is now living and multiplying outside of human control. Examples include mustangs. Hybrids can be wild, domesticated, or both: a liger is a hybrid of two wild animals, a mule is a hybrid of two domesticated animals, and a beefalo is a cross between a wild and a domestic animal.
A great difference exists between a tame animal and a domesticated animal. The term "domesticated" refers to an entire species or variety while the term "tame" can refer to just one individual within a species or variety. Humans have tamed many thousands of animals that have never been truly domesticated. These include the elephant, giraffes, and bears. There is debate over whether some species have been domesticated or just tamed. Some state that the elephant has been domesticated, while others argue the cat has never been. One dividing line is whether a specimen born to wild parents would differ in behavior from one born to domesticated parents. For instance a dog is certainly domesticated because even a wolf (genetically the origin of all dogs) raised from a pup would be very different from a dog.

Wild: These species experience their full life cycles without deliberate human intervention.
Raised at zoos or botanical gardens (captive): These species are nurtured and sometimes bred under human control, but remain as a group essentially indistinguishable in appearance or behaviour from their wild counterparts. (It should be noted that zoos and botanical gardens sometimes exhibit domesticated or feral animals and plants such as camels, mustangs, and some orchids.)
Raised commercially (captive or semidomesticated): These species are ranched or farmed in large numbers for food, commodities, or the pet trade, but as a group they are not substantially altered in appearance or behavior. Examples include the elephant, ostrich, deer, alligator, cricket, pearl oyster, and ball python. (These species are sometimes referred to as partially domesticated.)
Domesticated: These species or varieties are bred and raised under human control for many generations and are substantially altered as a group in appearance or behaviour. Examples include the Canary, Pigeons, the Budgerigar, the peach-faced Lovebird, dogs, cats, sheep, cattle, chickens, llamas, guinea pigs and laboratory mice. Degrees of domestication
Despite long enthusiasm about revolutionary progress in farming, few crops and probably even fewer animals ever became domesticated.
Domesticated species, when bred for tractability, companionship or ornamentation rather than for survival, can often fall prey to disease: several sub-species of apples or cattle, for example, face extinction; and many dogs with very respectable pedigrees appear prone to genetic problems.
One side effect of domestication has been disease. For example, cattle have given humanity various viral poxes, measles, and tuberculosis; pigs gave influenza; and horses the rhinoviruses. Humans share over sixty diseases with dogs. Many parasites also have their origins in domestic animals.

Limits of domestication
See the table by species below
Since the process of domestication inherently takes many generations over a long period of time, and the spread of breed and husbandry techniques is also slow, it is not meaningful to give a single "date of domestication". The methods available to estimate domestication dates introduce further uncertainty, especially when domestication has occurred in the distant past. So the dates given here should be treated with caution; in some cases evidence is scanty and future discoveries may alter the dating significantly.
Dates and places of domestication are mainly estimated by archaeological methods, more precisely archaeozoology. These methods consist of excavating or studying the results of excavation in human prehistorical occupation sites. Animal remains are dated with archaeological methods, the species they belong to is determined, the age at death is also estimated, and if possible the form they had, that is to say a possible domestic form. Various other clues are taken advantage of, such as slaughter or cutting marks. The aim is to determine if they are game or raised animal, and more globally the nature of their relationship with humans. For example the skeleton of a cat found buried close to humans is a clue that it may have been a pet cat. The age structure of animal remains can also be a clue of husbandry, in which animals were killed at the optimal age.
New technologies and especially mitochondrial DNA provide an alternative angle of investigation, and make it possible to reestimate the dates of domestication based on research into the genealogical tree of modern domestic animals.
It is admitted for several species that domestication occurred in several places distinctly. However, this does not rule out later crossing inside a species; therefore it appears useless to look for a separate wild ancestor for each domestic breed.
The first animal to be domesticated appears to have been the dog, in the Upper Paleolithic era; this preceded the domestication of other species by several millennia. In the Neolithic a number of important species (such as the goat, sheep, pig and cow) were domesticated, as part of the spread of farming which characterises this period. The goat, sheep and pig in particular were domesticated independently in the Levant and Asia.
There is early evidence of beekeeping, in the form of rock paintings, dating to 13,000 BC.
Recent archaeological evidence from Cyprus indicates domestication of a type of cat by perhaps 7500 BC.
The earliest secure evidence of horse domestication, bit wear on horse molars at Dereivka in Ukraine, dates to around 4000BC. The unequivocal date of domestication and use as a means of transport is at the Sintashta chariot burials in the southern Urals, ca 2000 BC. Local equivalents and smaller species were domesticated from the 2500s BC.
The availability of both domesticated vegetable and animal species increased suddenly following the voyages of Christopher Columbus and the contact between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. This is part of what is referred to as the Columbian Exchange.

Dates and places of domestication
ExtinctDomesticated Extinct in the Wild Critically Endangered Endangered Vulnerable Threatened Conservation Dependent Near Threatened Least Concern Domesticated World Conservation Union IUCN Red List Second circle

Modern Domestications
Some species are said to have been domesticated, but are not any more, either because they have totally disappeared, or since only their domestic form no longer exists. An example would be the African and Asian elephants (See War elephant)and Bos aegyptiacus.

Hybrid Domestic Animals

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Neil HarrisNeil Harris
For other people named Neil Harris, see Neil Harris (disambiguation).
Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only and correct as of 12/08/2007. * Appearances (Goals)
Neil Harris (born on July 12, 1977 in Orsett, Essex, England), is a professional football striker who currently plays for Millwall.
Harris attended Brentwood School, Essex in the year above Frank Lampard.
His football career began at Cambridge City. He was later sold to Millwall for £30,000 on March 26, 1999. In the same season, he was named player of the year for Millwall and later helped them to a Division 2 championship in 2000-01 with a remarkable goal scoring record. Harris was the Golden Boot winner for being the top English goal scorer during the 2000/01 season, earning him the nickname of "Bomber", in reference to Arthur Travers Harris. Neil Harris was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 2001, but after receiving intensive treatment including surgery, he was given the all clear a year later. [1]By the end of his Millwall career, Harris wasn't being played because the then player-manager Dennis Wise didn't believe he was up to par, and that led him to sign for Cardiff City on loan to prove he was good enough for first team football at Millwall. Unfortunately, Harris was unable to prove himself and was subsequently sold to Nottingham Forest for an undisclosed fee after they were relegated to Football League One in the 2004-05 season. He was unable to make an impact at the City Ground and so was loaned out to Gillingham who had also been relegated to League One at the same time as Nottingham Forest.
He scored 6 goals for Gillingham during his season long loan spell, at the end of which he returned to Forest, hoping to make an impact under new manager Colin Calderwood. Harris's old club Millwall made a loan deal for him on a 6 month deal in August 2006, however Harris rejected the offer saying if he were to move it would have to be on a permanent basis, and with Darren Byfield and Ben May set to return from injury for Millwall, Harris believed he would have once again been forced out the side, which was the reason he left The New Den in the first instance. Millwall therefore, withdrew from transfer negotiations. He finally opened his goal-scoring account for Forest on the 2 September 2006 after 21 months of waiting in a 4-0 victory against Chesterfield. It was a cutely struck volley from a few yards out. He and his team mates joy was clear to see in his celebration, as he ran towards the corner of the stadium and didn't look as though he would stop, until his team mates caught up. In the post match report, he admitted he was finally enjoying life at Nottingham Forest. Nonetheless, a certain contingent of the Forest fans still criticised Harris for his relatively poor scoring record and somewhat poor performance record.
In January 2007 Harris's contract was terminated by mutual consent. He re-signed with Millwall on an 18 month contract on January 8, 2007, less than 24 hours after leaving Forest, much to the delight of the Millwall fans.
Speaking to BBC Sport on 9 January, Harris stated, "There is something special about this club, it brings out the best in me as a player and a person. It feels like home, it always has done. I can't wait to get started."
On 20 January 2007 in his second game for Millwall, Harris made club history by scoring in the 16th minute of the 4-0 win over Rotherham to become Millwall's top league goal scorer with 94 goals surpassing the previous club record of 93 goals he had jointly held with Teddy Sheringham.
Harris informed the South London Press on 23 January, that it is now his intention to surpass Sheringham's 111 goal total for Millwall stating: "There is no question of me relaxing after one goal. At last I can say, without putting too much pressure on myself, that I want Teddy's overall record. The thing I've always wanted is to be number one, and that means getting a total of 112".
Harris's overall total of goals scored for Millwall, now stands at 104 in all competitions.

Monday, October 22, 2007


Hydrogenation is a class of chemical reactions which result in an addition of hydrogen (H2) usually to unsaturated organic compounds. Typical substrates include alkenes, alkynes, ketones, nitriles, and imines. Most hydrogenations involve the direct addition of diatomic hydrogen (H2) but some involve the alternative sources of hydrogen, not H2: these processes are called transfer hydrogenations. The reverse reaction, removal of hydrogen, is called dehydrogenation.
The classical example of a hydrogenation is the addition of hydrogen on unsaturated bonds between carbon atoms, converting alkenes to alkanes. Numerous important applications are found in the petrochemical, pharmaceutical and food industries. Health concerns associated with the hydrogenation of unsaturated fats to produce saturated fats and trans fats is an important aspect of current consumer awareness. Hydrogenation differs from protonation or hydride addition (e.g. use of sodium borohydride): in hydrogenation, the products have the same charge as the reactants.

The hydrogenation process
With rare exception, no reaction below 480 °C occurs between H2 and organic compounds in the absence of metal catalysts. The catalyst simultaneously binds both the H2 and the unsaturated substrate and facilitates their union. Platinum group metals, particularly platinum, palladium, rhodium and ruthenium, are highly active catalysts. Highly active catalysts operate at lower temperatures and lower pressures of H2. Non-precious metal catalysts, especially those based on nickel (such as Raney nickel and Urushibara nickel) have also been developed as economical alternatives but they are often slower or require higher temperatures. The trade-off is activity (speed of reaction) vs. cost of the catalyst and cost of the apparatus required for use of high pressures.
Two broad families of catalysts are known - homogeneous and heterogeneous. Homogeneous catalysts dissolve in the solvent that contains the unsaturated substrate. Heterogeneous catalysts are solids that are suspended in the same solvent with the substrate or are treated with gaseous substrate. In the pharmaceutical industry and for special chemical applications, soluble ""homogeneous"" catalyst are sometimes employed, such as the rhodium-based compound known as Wilkinson's catalyst, or the iridium-based Crabtree's catalyst.
The activity and selectivity of catalysts can be adjusted by changing the environment around the metal, i.e. the coordination sphere. Different faces of a crystalline heterogeneous catalyst display distinct activities, for example. Similarly, heterogeneous catalysts are affected by their supports, i.e. the material upon with the heterogeneous catalyst is bound. Homogeneous catalysts are affected by their ligands. In many cases, highly empirical modifications involve selective "poisons." Thus, a carefully chosen catalyst can be used to hydrogenate some functional groups without affecting others, such as the hydrogenation of alkenes without touching aromatic rings, or the selective hydrogenation of alkynes to alkenes using Lindlar's catalyst. For prochiral substrates, the selectivity of the catalyst can be adjusted such that one enantiomeric product is produced.

Catalysts
The catalytic hydrogenation of organic sulfur compounds to form gaseous hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is very widely used in petroleum refineries, petrochemical plants and other industries to desulfurize various final products, intermediate products and process feedstocks by converting sulfur compounds to gaseous hydrogen sulfide which is then easily removed by distillation. The gaseous hydrogen sulfide is subsequently recovered in an amine treater and finally converted to elemental sulfur in a Claus process unit. In those industries, desulfurization process units are often referred to as hydrodesulfurizers (HDS) or hydrotreaters (HDT). In the petroleum refining and petrochemical industries, cobalt-molybdenum or nickel-molybdenum catalysts are commonly used for hydrogenation and hydrogenolysis catalysts.

Mechanism of reaction
The obvious source of H2 is the gas itself, often under pressure. Hydrogen can also be transferred from hydrogen-donor molecules, such as hydrazine, Transfer hydrogenation can be metal catalysed. Hydrogenation does proceed from some hydrogen donors without catalysts, examples being diimide and aluminium isopropoxide.

Hydrogen sources
The reaction is carried out at different temperatures and pressures depending upon the substrate. Hydrogenation is a strongly exothermic reaction. In the hydrogenation of vegetable oils and fatty acids, for example, the heat released is about 25 kcal per mole (105 kJ/mol), sufficient to raise the temperature of the oil by 1.6-1.7 °C per iodine number drop.

Temperatures
Hydrogenation is widely applied to the processing of vegetable oils and fats. Complete hydrogenation converts unsaturated fatty acids to saturated ones. In practice the process is not usually carried to completion. Since the original oils usually contain more than one double bond per molecule (that is, they are poly-unsaturated), the result is usually described as partially hydrogenated vegetable oil; that is some, but usually not all, of the double bonds in each molecule have been reduced . This is done by adding hydrogen atoms which bond to the carbon, thus occupying a place in the outer orbital of the carbon which would have otherwise been used to bond with the next carbon in the fatty acid chain.
Hydrogenation results in the conversion of liquid vegetable oils to solid or semi-solid fats, such as those present in margarine. Changing the degree of saturation of the fat changes some important physical properties such as the melting point, which is why liquid oils become semi-solid. Semi-solid fats are preferred for baking because the way the fat mixes with flour produces a more desirable texture in the baked product. Since partially hydrogenated vegetable oils are cheaper than animal source fats, are available in a wide range of consistencies, and have other desirable characteristics (e.g., increased oxidative stability (longer shelf life)), they are the predominant fats used in most commercial baked goods. Fat blends formulated for this purpose are called shortenings.

Unsaturated fat

  • Monounsaturated fat
    Polyunsaturated fat
    Trans fat
    Omega: 3, 6, 9
    Saturated fat

    • Interesterified fat
      Fatty acid
      Essential fatty acid Hydrogenation Hydrogenation in the food industry

      Main article: trans fat History

      Dehydrogenation
      Transfer hydrogenation
      Hydrogenolysis
      Hydrodesulfurization, Hydrotreater and Oil desulfurization

Sunday, October 21, 2007


Infobox last updated on: July 9, 2007.
Roger Federer (IPA pronunciation: [ˈɹɑ.dʒər ˈfɛ.dər.ər] His current lead in the rankings guarantees that on August 27, 2007 he will break Steffi Graf's record for most consecutive weeks (186) as the top-ranked male or female player. In 2007, he was named Laureus World Sportsman of the Year for a record third consecutive time.

Personal life

Career
Federer started playing tennis at the age of six.

Juniors

Professional
In July 1998, Federer joined the ATP tour at Gstaad. The following year he debuted for the Swiss Davis Cup team against Italy and finished the year as the youngest player (for the year) inside the ATP's top 100 ranking. In 2000, Federer reached the semifinals at the Sydney Olympics and lost the bronze medal match to Arnaud Di Pasquale of France. Federer reached his first final in Marseille which he lost to Marc Rosset and was also the runner-up in Basel. He failed to make an impression at the Grand Slams and the Masters Series tournaments but still ended the year ranked 29th. (All results and ranking history from [1])

Early years
Federer's first ATP tournament victory came in Milan in February 2001. During the same month, he won three matches for his country in its 3-2 Davis Cup victory over the United States. He later reached the quarterfinals at Wimbledon, defeating four-time defending champion and seven-time Wimbledon champion Pete Sampras in the fourth round in a closely fought match, a victory that many consider to be the turning point of his career. He then lost to Tim Henman in the quarterfinal but finished the year ranked 13th. (All results in 2001)

2001
Federer reached his first ATP Masters Series (AMS) final at the Miami Masters, where he lost to Andre Agassi. He won his next AMS final in Hamburg. He also won both his Davis Cup singles matches against former world number ones (Russians Marat Safin and Yevgeny Kafelnikov). Despite early-round exits at the French Open, Wimbledon, and the U.S. Open, and the untimely loss of his long-time Australian coach and mentor Peter Carter in a car crash in August,

2002
Federer started 2003 by winning consecutive tournaments in Dubai and Marseille. He won in Munich without losing a set, but suffered a first-round loss at the French Open. On July 6, 2003, he defeated Mark Philippoussis and won his first Grand Slam title at Wimbledon, becoming the first Swiss male player to do so. He dropped only one set during the entire tournament. He also won four Davis Cup matches during the year to lead Switzerland to the semifinals of the World Group. He finished 2003 by winning the Tennis Masters Cup at Houston, finishing second in the ATP Champions Race behind American Andy Roddick. In December, he parted ways with Peter Lundgren, his coach for four years. (All results in 2003)

2003
In 2004, Federer had one of the most dominating and successful years in the open era of modern men's tennis.

2004
Federer reached the 2005 Australian Open semifinals before falling to eventual winner Marat Safin in a five-set night match that lasted more than four hours.

2005
Federer won three of the four Grand Slam singles tournaments and ended the year ranked number one, with his points ranking several thousand points greater than that of his nearest competitor.

2006
Federer won his third Australian Open and tenth Grand Slam singles title when he, as defending champion, won the tournament without dropping a set, defeating Fernando González of Chile in the final 7-6(2), 6-4, 6-4. Bjorn Borg was the last man to win a Grand Slam singles title without dropping a set, at the 1980 French Open.

2007
On May 2, 2007, the "Battle of Surfaces," an exhibition event, took place at the Palma Arena in Majorca. Federer and Nadal met on a tennis court that was half grass and half clay. Nadal won 7-5, 4-6, 7-6(10).

Battle of Surfaces exhibition
Federer has a versatile, all-court playing style and can hit all of the fundamental shots with a high degree of proficiency. He is an adept volleyer and an excellent baseliner who can dictate play with precise groundstrokes from both wings. His second serve usually has a heavily kicked delivery. Federer generally serves with placement and precision, but on occasion he will hit a powerful serve to keep his opponents off balance.
His footwork, balance, and court coverage are exceptional, and he is considered to be one of the fastest movers in the game. Unlike most players who take many small steps when approaching the ball in order to maintain balance (exemplified by the classic footwork of Jimmy Connors), Federer takes long fluid strides. He can hit a strong shot on the run or while backpedaling, allowing him to switch from defense to offense as well as any player on tour.
Federer's relaxed, smooth playing style belies his aggressive and opportunistic tactics. He constructs points to get in a position that allows him to hit winners with his powerful groundstrokes.

Playing style
Federer, who has used various rackets, currently plays with a Wilson K Factor KSix-One Tour 90 Racquet;

Equipment & Apparel

Main article: Records held by Roger Federer Records

ATP European Player of the Year.
Swiss Sportsman of the Year.
Swiss of the Year.
Michael-Westphal Award.
ATP European Player of the Year.
ITF World Champion.
Sports Illustrated Tennis Player of the Year.
Swiss Sportsman of the Year.
Swiss of the Year.
European Sportsman of the Year.
Reuters International Sportsman of the Year.
BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year.
International Tennis Writers Association (ITWA) Player of the Year.
Golden Bagel Award.
Ambassador of United Nations' Year of Sport and Physical Education.
Goldene Kamera Award.
ATP Player of the Year (for the year 2004).
Stefan Edberg Sportsmanship Award.
ATPTennis.com Fan's Favourite.
Laureus World Sportsman of the Year.
Michael-Westphal Award.
International Tennis Writers Association (ITWA) Player of the Year.
International Tennis Writers Ambassador for Tennis.
Most Outstanding Athlete by the United States Sport's Academy.
Freedom Air People's Choice Sports Awards International Sportsperson of the Year.
ITF World Champion.
European Sportsman of the Year.
ESPY Best Male Tennis Player.
L'Equipe Magazine's Champion of Champions (for the year 2005).
ATP Player of the Year (for the year 2005).
Stefan Edberg Sportsmanship Award.
ATPTennis.com Fan's Favourite.
Laureus World Sportsman of the Year.
ESPY Best Male Tennis Player.
International Tennis Writers Association (ITWA) Player of the Year.
International Tennis Writers Ambassador for Tennis.
ITF World Champion.
BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year.
Swiss Sportsman of the Year.
European Sportsman of the Year.
EFE's Sportsman of the Year.
Golden Bagel Award.
Most Outstanding Athlete of the Year by The United States Sports Academy.
L'Equipe Magazine's Champion of Champions (for the year 2006).
ATP Player of the Year (for the year 2006).
Stefan Edberg Sportsmanship Award.
ATPTennis.com Fan's Favourite.
Arthur Ashe Humanitarian of the Year.
Laureus World Sportsman of the Year.
ESPY Best Male Tennis Player.
ESPY Best Male International Athlete. Awards

Career statistics

Grand Slam singles finals (13)

Roger Federer Wins (11)

Runner-ups (2)

Tennis Masters Cup singles finals (4)

Wins (3)

Runner-up (1)

ATP Tennis Masters Series singles finals (18)

Wins (13)

Runner-ups (5)

Career finals (75)

Singles

Wins (49)

Runner-ups (15)

Doubles

Singles performance timeline
*As of 8 July 2007.

Saturday, October 20, 2007


For ownership of articles in Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Ownership of articles.
Owner Ownership is the state or fact of exclusive rights and control over property, which may be an object, land/real estate, intellectual property or some other kind of property. It is embodied in an ownership right also referred to as title.
Ownership is the key building block in the development of the capitalist socio-economic system. The concept of ownership has existed for thousands of years and in all cultures. Over the millennia, however, and across cultures what is considered eligible to be property and how that property is regarded culturally is very different. Ownership is the basis for many other concepts that form the foundations of ancient and modern societies such as money, trade, debt, bankruptcy, the criminality of theft and private vs. public property.
The process and mechanics of ownership are fairly complex since one can gain, transfer and lose ownership of property in a number of ways. To acquire property one can purchase it with money, trade it for other property, receive it as a gift, steal it, find it, make it or homestead it. One can transfer or lose ownership of property by selling it for money, exchanging it for other property, giving it as a gift, being robbed of it, misplacing it, or having it stripped from one's ownership through legal means such as eviction, foreclosure and seizure. Ownership is self-propagating in that if an object is owned by someone, any additional goods produced by using that object will also be owned by the same person. If one finds an object, one can legitimately take ownership of that object as long as no one claims to have previously lost that object. Some jurisdictions place time restraints on finding lost property before that property becomes fair game for anyone to claim ownership of once found. Such is the case of the gold found in the sunken SS Republic. The SS Republic steamship sank off the coast of Georgia in 1865 and lost thousands of gold coins and bars to the ocean. In 2003 Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc. discovered the ship and was awarded possession of the gold after the insurance company that had paid off damages to the original owners claimed they were the rightful owners of the gold.

Types of owners
Individuals may own property directly. In some societies only adult men may own property; in other societies (such as the Haudenosaunee), property is matrilinear and passed on from mother to daughter. In most societies both men and women can own property with no restrictions.

In person
Throughout history, nations (or governments) and religions have owned property. These entities exist primarily for other purposes than to own or operate property, hence they may have no clear rules regarding the disposition of their property.
To own and operate property, structures (often known today as legal entities) have been created in many societies throughout history. The differences in how they deal with members' rights is a key factor in determining their type. Each type has advantages and disadvantages derived from their means of recognizing or disregarding (rewarding or not), contributions of financial capital or personal effort.
Cooperatives, corporations, trusts, partnerships, condominium associations are only some of the many varied types of structured ownership; each type has many subtypes. Legal advantages or restrictions on various types of structured ownership have existed in many societies past and present. To govern how assets are to be used, shared or treated, rules and regulations may be legally imposed or internally adopted or decreed.

Structured Ownership Entities
Ownership implies responsibility, for actions regarding the property. A "legal shield" is said to exist if the entity's legal liabilities do not get redistributed among the entity's owners or members. An application of this, to limit ownership risks, is to form a new entity to purchase, own and operate each property. Since the entity is separate and distinct from others, if a problem occurs which leads to a massive liability, the individual is protected from losing more than the value of that one property. Many other properties are protected, when owned by other distinct entities.
In the loosest sense of group ownership, a lack of legal framework, rules and regulations may mean that group ownership of property places every member in a position of responsibility (liability) for the actions of each other member. A structured group duly constituted as an entity under law may still not protect members from being personally liable for each others' actions. Court decisions against the entity itself may give rise to unlimited personal liability for each and every member. An example of this situation is a professional partnership (e.g. law practice) in some jurisdictions. Thus, being a partner or owner in a group may give little advantage in terms of share ownership while producing a lot of risk to the partner, owner or participant.

Liability for the Group or for Others in the Group
At the end of each financial year, accounting rules determine a surplus or profit, which may be retained inside the entity or distributed among owners according to the initial setup intent when the entity was created.
Entities with a member focus will give financial surplus back to members according to the volume of financial activity that the participating member generated for the entity. Examples of this are producer cooperatives, buyer cooperatives and participating whole life policyholders in both mutual and share-capital insurance companies.
Entities with share voting rights that depend on financial capital distribute surplus among shareholders without regard to any other contribution to the entity. Depending on internal rules and regulations, certain classes of shares have the right to receive increases in financial "dividends" while other classes do not. After many years the increase over time is substantial if the business is profitable. Examples of this are common shares and preferred shares in private or publicly listed share capital corporations.
Entities with a focus on providing service in perpetuam do not distribute financial surplus; they must retain it. It will then serve as a cushion against losses or as a means to finance growth activities. Examples of this are not-for-profit entities: they are allowed to make profits, but are not permitted to give any of it back to members except by way of discounts in the future on new transactions.
Depending on the charter at the foundation of the entity, and depending on the legal framework under which the entity was created, the form of ownership is determined once and for all time. To change it requires significant work in terms of communicating with stakeholders (member-owners, governments, etc) and acquiring their approval. Whatever structural constraints or disadvantages exist at the creation thus remain an integral part of the entity. Common in New York City is a form of real estate ownership known as a cooperative (also co-operative or co-op) which relies heavily on internal rules of operation instead of the legal framework governing condominium associations. These "co-ops", owning the building for the mutual benefit of its members, can ultimately perform most of the functions of a legally constituted condominium, i.e. restricting use appropriately and containing financial liabilities to within tolerable levels. To change their structure now that they are up and operating would require significant effort to achieve acceptance among members and various levels of government.

Sharing Gains
The owning entity makes rules governing use of property; each property may comprise areas that are made available to any and every member of the group to use. When the group is the entire nation, the same principle is in effect whether the property is small (e.g. picnic rest stops along highways) or large such as national parks, highways, ports, and publicly owned buildings. Smaller examples of shared use include common areas such as lobbies, entrance hallways and passages to adjacent buildings.
One disadvantage of communal ownership, known as the Tragedy of the Commons, occurs where unlimited unrestricted and unregulated access to a resource (e.g. pasture land) destroys the resource because of over-exploitation. The benefits of exploitation accrue to individuals immediately, while the costs of policing or enforcing appropriate use, and the losses dues to overexploitation, are distributed among many, and are only visible to these gradually.
In an ideal communist nation the means of production of goods would be owned communally by all people of that nation; the original thinkers did not specify rules and regulations.

Sharing Use

Types of ownership

Main article: Personal property Personal property

Main article: Real estate Land ownership
An individual or group of individuals can own corporations and other legal entities. A legal entity is a legal construct through which the law allows a group of natural persons to act as if it were an individual for certain purposes. Some companies and entities are owned privately by the individuals who registered them with the government while other companies are owned publicly.
Some duly incorporated entities may not be owned by individuals nor by other entities; they exist without being owned once they are created. Not being owned, they cannot be bought and sold. Mutual life insurance companies, credit unions, and cooperatives are examples of this. No person can purchase the company, as their ownership is not legally available for sale, neither as shares nor as a single whole.
A a publicly listed company, known as a public company, is owned by any member of the public who wishes to purchase stock in that company rather than by a relatively few individuals. A company that is owned by stockholders who are members of the general public and trade shares publicly, often through a listing on a stock exchange. Ownership is open to anyone who has the money and inclination to buy shares in the company. Owners, however, are generally classified in three groups. Those with 5% Ownerships of the stock usually hold significant sway over the company. Mutual Funds and regular institutions can also own the stock; if they own enough, can are considered as part of the 5% ownership category. They usually are differentiated from privately held companies where the shares are held by a small group of individuals often members of one or a small group of families or otherwise related individuals (or other companies). For a discussion of the British and Irish variant of this type of company, see public limited company.

Corporations and legal entities

Main article: Intellectual property Intellectual property

Main article: Chattel slavery Chattel slavery
In modern Western popular culture some people (principally among the extreme political left) believe that exclusive ownership of property underlies much social injustice, and facilitates tyranny and oppression on an individual and societal scale. Others (principally among the political right and political center) consider the striving to achieve greater ownership of wealth as the driving factor behind human technological advancement and increasing standards of living.

Owner Social Views of Ownership
Ownership society is a slogan for a model of society promoted by United States President George W. Bush. It takes as lead values personal responsibility, economic liberty, and the owning of property. The ownership society discussed by Bush also extends to certain proposals of specific models of health care and social security. Critics have claimed that Bush's agenda for an ownership society also includes extending tax cuts, allowing wealthy Americans to shelter income from tax, and using the tax code to curtail the government's role in health care and retirement saving. Some say that the ultimate purpose of these proposals is the abolition of the graduated income tax, a progressive tax, and its replacement with a structurally simpler flat tax.

Ownership society