Volume

Volume is a measure of three-dimensional space. 　It is often quantified numerically using SI derived units (such as the cubic metre and litre) or by various imperial or US customary units (such as the gallon, quart, cubic inch). 　The definition of length (cubed) is interrelated with volume. 　The volume of a container is generally understood to be the capacity of the container; i.e., the amount of fluid (gas or liquid) that the container could hold, rather than the amount of space the container itself displaces. 　In ancient times, volume is measured using similar-shaped natural containers and later on, standardized containers. 　Some simple three-dimensional shapes can have their volume easily calculated using arithmetic formulas. 　Volumes of more complicated shapes can be calculated with integral calculus if a formula exists for the shape's boundary. 　Zero-, one- and two-dimensional objects have no volume; in fourth and higher dimensions, an analogous concept to the normal volume is the hypervolume.

Prison

A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, British English, Australian, South African and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correctional facility, lock-up, hoosegow or remand center, is a facility in which inmates (or prisoners) are confined against their will and usually denied a variety of freedoms under the authority of the state as punishment for various crimes. 　Prisons are most commonly used within a criminal justice system: people charged with crimes may be imprisoned until their trial; those pleading or being found guilty of crimes at trial may be sentenced to a specified period of imprisonment. 　In simplest terms, a prison can also be described as a building in which people are legally held as a punishment for a crime they have committed. 　Prisons can also be used as a tool of political repression by authoritarian regimes. 　Their perceived opponents may be imprisoned for political crimes, often without trial or other legal due process; this use is illegal under most forms of international law governing fair administration of justice. 　In times of war, prisoners of war or detainees may be detained in military prisons or prisoner of war camps, and large groups of civilians might be imprisoned in internment camps. 　In American English, the terms prison and jail have separate definitions, though this is not always strictly adhered to in casual speech. 　A prison or penitentiary holds people for longer periods of time, such as many years, and is operated by a state or federal government. 　A jail holds people for shorter periods of time (e.g. for shorter sentences or pre-trial detention) and is usually operated by a local government, typically the county sheriff. 　Outside of North America, prison and jail often have the same meaning.

Israel

Coordinates: 31°N 35°E / 31°N 35°E / 31; 35 Israel (/ˈɪzri.əl, -reɪ-/; Hebrew: יִשְׂרָאֵל Yīsrāʾēl [jisʁaˈʔel]; Arabic: إِسْرَائِيل ʾIsrāʾīl), officially the State of Israel (מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl [mediˈnat jisʁaˈʔel]; دَوْلَة إِسْرَائِيل Dawlat Isrāʾīl), is a country in Western Asia. 　Situated between the Eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea, it is bordered by Lebanon to the north, by Syria to the northeast, by Jordan to the east, by Egypt to the southwest, and by the Palestinian territories — the West Bank along the east and the Gaza Strip along the southwest — with which it shares legal boundaries. 　Tel Aviv is the economic and technological center of the country, while its seat of government is in its proclaimed capital of Jerusalem, although Israeli sovereignty over East Jerusalem is unrecognized internationally. 　The area of modern Israel and the West Bank is of great significance to the Abrahamic religions. 　In ancient history, it was where Canaanite and later Israelite civilizations emerged, while in the early first millennium BCE the kingdoms of Israel and Judah emerged, before falling to the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian empires, respectively. 　During the classical era, the region was ruled by the Achaemenid, Macedonian, Ptolemaic and Seleucid empires. 　In the 2nd century BCE, an independent Hasmonean kingdom emerged, before Rome conquered the area a century later. 　In the 7th century, the Muslim conquest of the Levant established caliphal rule. 　The First Crusade of the 11th century brought the founding of Crusader states, the last ending in the 13th century at the hands of the Mamluks, who lost the area to the Ottoman Empire at the onset of the 16th century. 　In late 19th century, Jews began immigrating to the area as part of the Zionist movement. 　Following World War I, the allied powers assigned the Mandate for Palestine to Britain, which during the war made a declaration of support for the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. 　After World War II, the newly formed United Nations adopted the Partition Plan for Palestine, recommending the creation of independent Arab and Jewish states, and placing Jerusalem under international control. 　Following a civil war within Mandatory Palestine between Yishuv and Palestinian Arab forces, Israel declared independence on 14 May 1948 at the termination of the British Mandate. 　A day later, several surrounding Arab countries intervened, leading to the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, which concluded with the 1949 Armistice Agreements that saw Israel in control of most of the former mandate territory, while the West Bank and Gaza were held by Jordan and Egypt respectively. 　Over 700,000 Palestinian Arabs were expelled from or fled the territory Israel would come to control, with fewer than 150,000 Palestinian Arabs remaining within Israel. 　During and immediately after the war, around 260,000 Jews emigrated or fled from the Arab world to Israel. 　Israel has since fought wars with several Arab countries, and since the 1967 Six-Day War has occupied the Syrian Golan Heights and the Palestinian territories of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip—the longest military occupation in modern history—though whether Gaza remains occupied following the Israeli disengagement is disputed. 　Israel has effectively annexed East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, though these actions have been rejected as illegal by the international community, and established settlements within the occupied territories, which are also considered illegal under international law. 　While Israel has signed peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, and has normalized relations with a number of other Arab countries, it remains formally at war with Syria and Lebanon, and efforts to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict have thus far stalled. 　The country has a parliamentary system, proportional representation, and universal suffrage. 　The prime minister serves as head of government, while the Knesset is the unicameral legislature. 　An OECD member, Israel is a highly developed country with a very high standard of living, performing very high in measures of education, life expectancy, wealth per adult, happiness and per capita income. 　With a population of over nine million people, it has the world's 28th-largest economy by nominal GDP.

Weight

In science and engineering, the weight of an object is the force acting on the object due to gravity. 　Some standard textbooks define weight as a vector quantity, the gravitational force acting on the object. 　Others define weight as a scalar quantity, the magnitude of the gravitational force. 　Yet others define it as the magnitude of the reaction force exerted on a body by mechanisms that counteract the effects of gravity: the weight is the quantity that is measured by, for example, a spring scale. 　Thus, in a state of free fall, the weight would be zero. 　In this sense of weight, terrestrial objects can be weightless: ignoring air resistance, the famous apple falling from the tree, on its way to meet the ground near Isaac Newton, would be weightless. 　The unit of measurement for weight is that of force, which in the International System of Units (SI) is the newton. 　For example, an object with a mass of one kilogram has a weight of about 9.8 newtons on the surface of the Earth, and about one-sixth as much on the Moon. 　Although weight and mass are scientifically distinct quantities, the terms are often confused with each other in everyday use (e.g. comparing and converting force weight in pounds to mass in kilograms and vice versa). 　Further complications in elucidating the various concepts of weight have to do with the theory of relativity according to which gravity is modeled as a consequence of the curvature of spacetime. 　In the teaching community, a considerable debate has existed for over half a century on how to define weight for their students. 　The current situation is that a multiple set of concepts co-exist and find use in their various contexts.

Contact (geology)

A geological contact is a boundary which separates one rock body from another. 　A contact can be formed during deposition, by the intrusion of magma, or through faulting or other deformation of rock beds that brings distinct rock bodies into contact. 　The geologic subdiscipline of stratigraphy is primarily concerned with depositional contacts, while faults and shear zones are of particular interest in structural geology. 　Faults and shear zones can be regarded as a form of secondary structure in the rock beds.

Sky

The sky is an unobstructed view upward from the surface of the Earth. 　It includes the atmosphere and outer space. 　It may also be considered a place between the ground and outer space, thus distinct from outer space. 　In the field of astronomy, the sky is also called the celestial sphere. 　This is an abstract sphere, concentric to the Earth, on which the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars appear to be drifting. 　The celestial sphere is conventionally divided into designated areas called constellations. 　Usually, the term sky informally refers to a perspective from the Earth's surface; however, the meaning and usage can vary. 　An observer on the surface of the Earth can see a small part of the sky, which resembles a dome (sometimes called the sky bowl) appearing flatter during the day than at night. 　In some cases, such as in discussing the weather, the sky refers to only the lower, denser layers of the atmosphere. 　The daytime sky appears blue because air molecules scatter shorter wavelengths of sunlight more than longer ones (redder light). 　The night sky appears to be a mostly dark surface or region spangled with stars. 　The Sun and sometimes the Moon are visible in the daytime sky unless obscured by clouds. 　At night, the Moon, planets, and stars are similarly visible in the sky. 　Some of the natural phenomena seen in the sky are clouds, rainbows, and aurorae. 　Lightning and precipitation are also visible in the sky. 　Certain birds and insects, as well as human inventions like aircraft and kites, can fly in the sky. 　Due to human activities, smog during the day and light pollution during the night are often seen above large cities.

Path (topology)

In mathematics, a path in a topological space X {\displaystyle X} is a continuous function from the closed unit interval [ 0 , 1 ] {\displaystyle [0,1]} into X . 　{\displaystyle X.　} Paths play an important role in the fields of topology and mathematical analysis. 　For example, a topological space for which there exists a path connecting any two points is said to be path-connected. 　Any space may be broken up into path-connected components. 　The set of path-connected components of a space X {\displaystyle X} is often denoted π 0 ( X ) . 　{\displaystyle \pi _{0}(X).　} One can also define paths and loops in pointed spaces, which are important in homotopy theory. 　If X {\displaystyle X} is a topological space with basepoint x 0 , {\displaystyle x_{0},} then a path in X {\displaystyle X} is one whose initial point is x 0 {\displaystyle x_{0}} . 　Likewise, a loop in X {\displaystyle X} is one that is based at x 0 {\displaystyle x_{0}} .

Shape

A shape or figure is a graphical representation of an object or its external boundary, outline, or external surface, as opposed to other properties such as color, texture, or material type. 　A plane shape or plane figure is constrained to lie on a plane, in contrast to solid 3D shapes. 　A two-dimensional shape or two-dimensional figure (also: 2D shape or 2D figure) may lie on a more general curved surface (a non-Euclidean two-dimensional space).

Newspaper

A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. 　Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports and art, and often include materials such as opinion columns, weather forecasts, reviews of local services, obituaries, birth notices, crosswords, editorial cartoons, comic strips, and advice columns. 　Most newspapers are businesses, and they pay their expenses with a mixture of subscription revenue, newsstand sales, and advertising revenue. 　The journalism organizations that publish newspapers are themselves often metonymically called newspapers. 　Newspapers have traditionally been published in print (usually on cheap, low-grade paper called newsprint). 　However, today most newspapers are also published on websites as online newspapers, and some have even abandoned their print versions entirely. 　Newspapers developed in the 17th century, as information sheets for merchants. 　By the early 19th century, many cities in Europe, as well as North and South America, published newspapers. 　Some newspapers with high editorial independence, high journalism quality, and large circulation are viewed as newspapers of record. 　With the advent of the internet many newspapers are now digital, with their news presented online rather than in a physical format, with there now being a decline in sales for paper copies of newspapers.

Latin

Latin (lingua Latīna, [ˈlɪŋɡʷa laˈtiːna] or Latīnum, [laˈtiːnʊ̃]) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. 　Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the Roman Republic it became the dominant language in the Italian region and subsequently throughout the Roman Empire. 　Even after the fall of Western Rome, Latin remained the common language of international communication, science, scholarship and academia in Europe until well into the 18th century, when other regional vernaculars (including its own descendants, the Romance languages) supplanted it in common academic and political usage, and it eventually became a dead language in the modern linguistic definition. 　Latin is a highly inflected language, with three distinct genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter), six or seven noun cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, ablative, and vocative), five declensions, four verb conjugations, six tenses (present, imperfect, future, perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect), three persons, three moods, two voices (passive and active), two or three aspects, and two numbers (singular and plural). 　The Latin alphabet is directly derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets. 　By the late Roman Republic (75 BC), Old Latin had been standardized into Classical Latin used by educated elites. 　Vulgar Latin was the colloquial form spoken at that time among lower-class commoners and attested in inscriptions and the works of comic playwrights Plautus and Terence and author Petronius. 　Late Latin is the written language from the 3rd century, and its various Vulgar Latin dialects developed in the 6th to 9th centuries into the modern Romance languages. 　Medieval Latin was used during the Middle Ages as a literary language from the 9th century to the Renaissance, which then used Renaissance Latin. 　Later, New Latin evolved during the early modern era to eventually become various forms of rarely spoken Contemporary Latin, one of which, Ecclesiastical Latin, remains the official language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church at Vatican City. 　Latin has also greatly influenced the English language and historically contributed many words to the English lexicon after the Christianization of Anglo-Saxons and the Norman conquest. 　In particular, Latin (and Ancient Greek) roots are still used in English descriptions of theology, science disciplines (especially anatomy and taxonomy), medicine, and law.

Emperor

An emperor (from Latin: imperator, via Old French: empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. 　Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife (empress consort), mother (empress dowager), or a woman who rules in her own right and name (empress regnant). 　Emperors are generally recognized to be of the highest monarchic honor and rank, surpassing kings. 　In Europe, the title of Emperor has been used since the Middle Ages, considered in those times equal or almost equal in dignity to that of Pope due to the latter's position as visible head of the Church and spiritual leader of the Catholic part of Western Europe. 　The Emperor of Japan is the only currently reigning monarch whose title is translated into English as "Emperor". 　Both emperors and kings are monarchs or sovereigns, but both emperor and empress are considered the higher monarchical titles. 　In as much as there is a strict definition of emperor, it is that an emperor has no relations implying the superiority of any other ruler and typically rules over more than one nation. 　Therefore, a king might be obliged to pay tribute to another ruler, or be restrained in his actions in some unequal fashion, but an emperor should in theory be completely free of such restraints. 　However, monarchs heading empires have not always used the title in all contexts—the British sovereign did not assume the title Empress of the British Empire even during the incorporation of India, though she was declared Empress of India. 　In Western Europe, the title of Emperor was used exclusively by the Holy Roman Emperor, whose imperial authority was derived from the concept of translatio imperii, i.e. they claimed succession to the authority of the Western Roman Emperors, thus linking themselves to Roman institutions and traditions as part of state ideology. 　Although initially ruling much of Central Europe and northern Italy, by the 19th century the Emperor exercised little power beyond the German-speaking states. 　Although technically an elective title, by the late 16th century the imperial title had in practice come to be inherited by the Habsburg Archdukes of Austria and following the Thirty Years' War their control over the states (outside the Habsburg monarchy, i.e. Austria, Bohemia and various territories outside the empire) had become nearly non-existent. 　However, Napoleon Bonaparte was crowned Emperor of the French in 1804 and was shortly followed by Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor, who declared himself Emperor of Austria in the same year. 　The position of Holy Roman Emperor nonetheless continued until Francis II abdicated that position in 1806. 　In Eastern Europe, the monarchs of Russia also used translatio imperii to wield imperial authority as successors to the Eastern Roman Empire. 　Their status was officially recognized by the Holy Roman Emperor in 1514, although not officially used by the Russian monarchs until 1547. 　However, the Russian emperors are better known by their Russian-language title of Tsar even after Peter the Great adopted the title of Emperor of All Russia in 1721. 　Historians have liberally used emperor and empire anachronistically and out of its Roman and European context to describe any large state from the past or the present. 　Such Pre-Roman titles as Great King or King of Kings, used by the Kings of Persia and others, are often considered as the equivalent. 　Sometimes this reference has even extended to non-monarchically ruled states and their spheres of influence such as the Athenian Empire of the late 5th century BC, the Angevin Empire of the Plantagenets and the Soviet and American "empires" of the Cold War era. 　However, such "empires" did not need to be headed by an "emperor". 　Empire became identified instead with vast territorial holdings rather than the title of its ruler by the mid-18th century. 　For purposes of protocol, emperors were once given precedence over kings in international diplomatic relations, but currently precedence among heads of state who are sovereigns—whether they be kings, queens, emperors, empresses, princes, princesses and, to a lesser degree, presidents—is determined by the duration of time that each one has been continuously in office. 　Outside the European context, emperor was the translation given to holders of titles who were accorded the same precedence as European emperors in diplomatic terms. 　In reciprocity, these rulers might accredit equal titles in their native languages to their European peers. 　Through centuries of international convention, this has become the dominant rule to identifying an emperor in the modern era.

Finite

Look up finite, finitely, or finiteness in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. 　Finite is the opposite of infinite. 　It may refer to: Finite number (disambiguation) Finite set, a set whose cardinality (number of elements) is some natural number Finite verb, a verb form that has a subject, usually being inflected or marked for person and/or tense or aspect "Finite", a song by Sara Groves from the album Invisible Empires

Crew

A crew is a body or a class of people who work at a common activity, generally in a structured or hierarchical organization. 　A location in which a crew works is called a crewyard or a workyard. 　The word has nautical resonances: the tasks involved in operating a ship, particularly a sailing ship, providing numerous specialities within a ship's crew, often organised with a chain of command. 　Traditional nautical usage strongly distinguishes officers from crew, though the two groups combined form the ship's company. 　Members of a crew are often referred to by the title crewman or crew-member. 　Crew also refers to the sport of rowing, where teams row competitively in racing shells.

Agency (sociology)

In social science, agency is the capacity of individuals to have the power and resources to fulfill their potential. 　For instance, structure consists of those factors of influence (such as social class, religion, gender, ethnicity, ability, customs, etc.) that determine or limit agents and their decisions. 　The influences from structure and agency are debated—it is unclear to what extent a person's actions are constrained by social systems. 　One's agency is one's independent capability or ability to act on one's will. 　This ability is affected by the cognitive belief structure which one has formed through one's experiences, and the perceptions held by the society and the individual, of the structures and circumstances of the environment one is in and the position one is born into. 　Disagreement on the extent of one's agency often causes conflict between parties, e.g. parents and children.

Agency (psychology)

In psychology, agents are goal-directed entities that are able to monitor their environment to select and perform efficient means-ends actions that are available in a given situation to achieve an intended goal. 　Agency, therefore, implies the ability to perceive and to change the environment of the agent. 　Crucially, it also entails intentionality to represent the goal-state in the future, equifinal variability to be able to achieve the intended goal-state with different actions in different contexts, and rationality of actions in relation to their goal to produce the most efficient action available. 　Cognitive scientists and psychologists have thoroughly investigated agency attribution in humans and non-human animals, since social cognitive mechanisms such as communication, social learning, imitation, or theory of mind presuppose the ability to identify agents and differentiate them from inanimate, non-agentive objects. 　This ability has also been assumed to have a major effect on inferential and predictive processes of the observers of agents, because agentive entities are expected to perform autonomous behavior based on their current and previous knowledge and intentions. 　On the other hand, inanimate objects are supposed to react to external physical forces. 　Although the concepts are often confused with one another, sensitivity to agency and the sense of agency are distinct and separate concepts. 　The sensitivity to agency can be explained as a cognitive ability to identify agentive entities in the environment, while the sense of agency refers to the exertion of control over the environment and sometimes to self-efficacy, which is an individual's learned belief of how able they are to succeed in specific situations.

Semi

Look up semi in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. 　Semi- is a numerical prefix meaning "half" The prefix alone is often used as an abbreviation when the rest of the word (the thing which half of is being described) is clear from context. 　Semi or SEMI may refer to: Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) Semiconductor industry, also known as semi or semis in financial news Semi-automatic firearm Semi-detached house, a type of housing Semi-erection, a partial erection when the penis is enlarged but not fully erect Semi-final, of a knockout competition Semi-formal, (esp. high school) dance Semi Ojeleye (born 1994), American basketball player Semiquaver, the time interval in music, which is half the length of a quaver Semi-submersible, a watercraft which operates mostly submerged Semi-trailer truck (UK: articulated lorry), a truck design of a tractor vehicle pulling semi-trailers Semi-trailer, a trailer with wheels at the rear end only Tractor unit (semi truck engine), the motortruck engine drive unit vehicle that pulls the trailers Tesla Semi, vehicle by Tesla, Inc. 　; an electric vehicle based tractor unit that pulls trailers Road train, an extreme version of the semi truck train of trailers Goo Semi, member of South Korean girlgroup Cignature

Spoke

A spoke is one of some number of rods radiating from the center of a wheel (the hub where the axle connects), connecting the hub with the round traction surface. 　The term originally referred to portions of a log that had been riven (split lengthwise) into four or six sections. 　The radial members of a wagon wheel were made by carving a spoke (from a log) into their finished shape. 　A spokeshave is a tool originally developed for this purpose. 　Eventually, the term spoke was more commonly applied to the finished product of the wheelwright's work, than to the materials they used.

Concept

Concepts are defined as abstract ideas. 　They are understood to be the fundamental building blocks of the concept behind principles, thoughts and beliefs. 　They play an important role in all aspects of cognition. 　As such, concepts are studied by several disciplines, such as linguistics, psychology, and philosophy, and these disciplines are interested in the logical and psychological structure of concepts, and how they are put together to form thoughts and sentences. 　The study of concepts has served as an important flagship of an emerging interdisciplinary approach called cognitive science. 　In contemporary philosophy, there are at least three prevailing ways to understand what a concept is: Concepts as mental representations, where concepts are entities that exist in the mind (mental objects) Concepts as abilities, where concepts are abilities peculiar to cognitive agents (mental states) Concepts as Fregean senses, where concepts are abstract objects, as opposed to mental objects and mental states Concepts can be organized into a hierarchy, higher levels of which are termed "superordinate" and lower levels termed "subordinate". 　Additionally, there is the "basic" or "middle" level at which people will most readily categorize a concept. 　For example, a basic-level concept would be "chair", with its superordinate, "furniture", and its subordinate, "easy chair". 　Concepts may be exact, or inexact. 　When the mind makes a generalization such as the concept of tree, it extracts similarities from numerous examples; the simplification enables higher-level thinking. 　A concept is instantiated (reified) by all of its actual or potential instances, whether these are things in the real world or other ideas. 　Concepts are studied as components of human cognition in the cognitive science disciplines of linguistics, psychology, and philosophy, where an ongoing debate asks whether all cognition must occur through concepts. 　Concepts are regularly formalized in mathematics, computer science, databases and artificial intelligence. 　Examples of specific high-level conceptual classes in these fields include classes, schema or categories. 　In informal use the word concept often just means any idea.

Software

Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. 　This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. 　At the lowest programming level, executable code consists of machine language instructions supported by an individual processor—typically a central processing unit (CPU) or a graphics processing unit (GPU). 　Machine language consists of groups of binary values signifying processor instructions that change the state of the computer from its preceding state. 　For example, an instruction may change the value stored in a particular storage location in the computer—an effect that is not directly observable to the user. 　An instruction may also invoke one of many input or output operations, for example displaying some text on a computer screen; causing state changes which should be visible to the user. 　The processor executes the instructions in the order they are provided, unless it is instructed to "jump" to a different instruction, or is interrupted by the operating system. 　As of 2023[update], most personal computers, smartphone devices and servers have processors with multiple execution units or multiple processors performing computation together, so computing has become a much more concurrent activity than in the past. 　The majority of software is written in high-level programming languages. 　They are easier and more efficient for programmers because they are closer to natural languages than machine languages. 　High-level languages are translated into machine language using a compiler or an interpreter or a combination of the two. 　Software may also be written in a low-level assembly language, which has a strong correspondence to the computer's machine language instructions and is translated into machine language using an assembler.

Architecture

Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. 　It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings or other structures. 　The term comes from Latin architectura; from Ancient Greek ἀρχιτέκτων (arkhitéktōn) 'architect'; from ἀρχι- (arkhi-) 'chief', and τέκτων (téktōn) 'creator'. 　Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural symbols and as works of art. 　Historical civilizations are often identified with their surviving architectural achievements. 　The practice, which began in the prehistoric era, has been used as a way of expressing culture for civilizations on all seven continents. 　For this reason, architecture is considered to be a form of art. 　Texts on architecture have been written since ancient times. 　The earliest surviving text on architectural theories is the 1st century AD treatise De architectura by the Roman architect Vitruvius, according to whom a good building embodies firmitas, utilitas, and venustas (durability, utility, and beauty). 　Centuries later, Leon Battista Alberti developed his ideas further, seeing beauty as an objective quality of buildings to be found in their proportions. 　Giorgio Vasari wrote Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects and put forward the idea of style in the Western arts in the 16th century. 　In the 19th century, Louis Sullivan declared that "form follows function". 　"Function" began to replace the classical "utility" and was understood to include not only practical but also aesthetic, psychological and cultural dimensions. 　The idea of sustainable architecture was introduced in the late 20th century. 　Architecture began as rural, oral vernacular architecture that developed from trial and error to successful replication. 　Ancient urban architecture was preoccupied with building religious structures and buildings symbolizing the political power of rulers until Greek and Roman architecture shifted focus to civic virtues. 　Indian and Chinese architecture influenced forms all over Asia and Buddhist architecture in particular took diverse local flavors. 　In fact, During the European Middle Ages, pan-European styles of Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals and abbeys emerged while the Renaissance favored Classical forms implemented by architects known by name. 　Later, the roles of architects and engineers became separated. 　Modern architecture began after World War I as an avant-garde movement that sought to develop a completely new style appropriate for a new post-war social and economic order focused on meeting the needs of the middle and working classes. 　Emphasis was put on modern techniques, materials, and simplified geometric forms, paving the way for high-rise superstructures. 　Many architects became disillusioned with modernism which they perceived as ahistorical and anti-aesthetic, and postmodern and contemporary architecture developed. 　Over the years, the field of architectural construction has branched out to include everything from ship design to interior decorating.

Accepted

Accepted is a 2006 American comedy film directed by Steve Pink (in his directorial debut) and written by Adam Cooper, Bill Collage and Mark Perez. 　The plot follows a group of high school graduates who create their own fake college after being rejected from the colleges to which they applied. 　The story takes place in Wickliffe and a fictitious college town called Harmon in Ohio.

Britain

Look up Britain in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. 　Britain most often refers to: The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands Great Britain, the largest island in the United Kingdom and Europe. 　Britain may also refer to:

Noise

Noise is unwanted sound considered unpleasant, loud or disruptive to hearing. 　From a physics standpoint, there is no distinction between noise and desired sound, as both are vibrations through a medium, such as air or water. 　The difference arises when the brain receives and perceives a sound. 　Acoustic noise is any sound in the acoustic domain, either deliberate (e.g., music or speech) or unintended. 　In contrast, noise in electronics may not be audible to the human ear and may require instruments for detection. 　In audio engineering, noise can refer to the unwanted residual electronic noise signal that gives rise to acoustic noise heard as a hiss. 　This signal noise is commonly measured using A-weighting or ITU-R 468 weighting. 　In experimental sciences, noise can refer to any random fluctuations of data that hinders perception of a signal.

Equation

In mathematics, an equation is a formula that expresses the equality of two expressions, by connecting them with the equals sign =. 　The word equation and its cognates in other languages may have subtly different meanings; for example, in French an équation is defined as containing one or more variables, while in English, any well-formed formula consisting of two expressions related with an equals sign is an equation. 　Solving an equation containing variables consists of determining which values of the variables make the equality true. 　The variables for which the equation has to be solved are also called unknowns, and the values of the unknowns that satisfy the equality are called solutions of the equation. 　There are two kinds of equations: identities and conditional equations. 　An identity is true for all values of the variables. 　A conditional equation is only true for particular values of the variables. 　An equation is written as two expressions, connected by an equals sign ("="). 　The expressions on the two sides of the equals sign are called the "left-hand side" and "right-hand side" of the equation. 　Very often the right-hand side of an equation is assumed to be zero. 　Assuming this does not reduce the generality, as this can be realized by subtracting the right-hand side from both sides. 　The most common type of equation is a polynomial equation (commonly called also an algebraic equation) in which the two sides are polynomials. 　The sides of a polynomial equation contain one or more terms. 　For example, the equation A x 2 + B x + C − y = 0 {\displaystyle Ax^{2}+Bx+C-y=0} has left-hand side A x 2 + B x + C − y {\displaystyle Ax^{2}+Bx+C-y} , which has four terms, and right-hand side 0 {\displaystyle 0} , consisting of just one term. 　The names of the variables suggest that x and y are unknowns, and that A, B, and C are parameters, but this is normally fixed by the context (in some contexts, y may be a parameter, or A, B, and C may be ordinary variables). 　An equation is analogous to a scale into which weights are placed. 　When equal weights of something (e.g., grain) are placed into the two pans, the two weights cause the scale to be in balance and are said to be equal. 　If a quantity of grain is removed from one pan of the balance, an equal amount of grain must be removed from the other pan to keep the scale in balance. 　More generally, an equation remains in balance if the same operation is performed on its both sides. 　In Cartesian geometry, equations are used to describe geometric figures. 　As the equations that are considered, such as implicit equations or parametric equations, have infinitely many solutions, the objective is now different: instead of giving the solutions explicitly or counting them, which is impossible, one uses equations for studying properties of figures. 　This is the starting idea of algebraic geometry, an important area of mathematics. 　Algebra studies two main families of equations: polynomial equations and, among them, the special case of linear equations. 　When there is only one variable, polynomial equations have the form P(x) = 0, where P is a polynomial, and linear equations have the form ax + b = 0, where a and b are parameters. 　To solve equations from either family, one uses algorithmic or geometric techniques that originate from linear algebra or mathematical analysis. 　Algebra also studies Diophantine equations where the coefficients and solutions are integers. 　The techniques used are different and come from number theory. 　These equations are difficult in general; one often searches just to find the existence or absence of a solution, and, if they exist, to count the number of solutions. 　Differential equations are equations that involve one or more functions and their derivatives. 　They are solved by finding an expression for the function that does not involve derivatives. 　Differential equations are used to model processes that involve the rates of change of the variable, and are used in areas such as physics, chemistry, biology, and economics. 　The "=" symbol, which appears in every equation, was invented in 1557 by Robert Recorde, who considered that nothing could be more equal than parallel straight lines with the same length.