Trace (semiology)

The trace in semiotics[citation needed] is a concept developed by Jacques Derrida in Writing and Difference to denote the history that a sign carries with it as the result of its use through time.　[page needed] Words like "black", for example, carry the trace of all their previous uses with them, making them sensitive, loaded words when used in any context. 　The trace then reveals the possibility for alternative interpretation of concepts, regardless of how carefully articulated they may be, whenever they are expressed in language.

Punishment

Punishment, commonly, is the imposition of an undesirable or unpleasant outcome upon a group or individual, meted out by an authority—in contexts ranging from child discipline to criminal law—as a response and deterrent to a particular action or behavior that is deemed undesirable or unacceptable. 　It is, however, possible to distinguish between various different understandings of what punishment is. 　The reasoning for punishment may be to condition a child to avoid self-endangerment, to impose social conformity (in particular, in the contexts of compulsory education or military discipline), to defend norms, to protect against future harms (in particular, those from violent crime), and to maintain the law—and respect for rule of law—under which the social group is governed. 　Punishment may be self-inflicted as with self-flagellation and mortification of the flesh in the religious setting, but is most often a form of social coercion. 　The unpleasant imposition may include a fine, penalty, or confinement, or be the removal or denial of something pleasant or desirable. 　The individual may be a person, or even an animal. 　The authority may be either a group or a single person, and punishment may be carried out formally under a system of law or informally in other kinds of social settings such as within a family. 　Negative consequences that are not authorized or that are administered without a breach of rules are not considered to be punishment as defined here. 　The study and practice of the punishment of crimes, particularly as it applies to imprisonment, is called penology, or, often in modern texts, corrections; in this context, the punishment process is euphemistically called "correctional process". 　Research into punishment often includes similar research into prevention. 　Justifications for punishment include retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, and incapacitation. 　The last could include such measures as isolation, in order to prevent the wrongdoer's having contact with potential victims, or the removal of a hand in order to make theft more difficult. 　If only some of the conditions included in the definition of punishment are present, descriptions other than "punishment" may be considered more accurate. 　Inflicting something negative, or unpleasant, on a person or animal, without authority or not on the basis of a breach of rules is typically considered only revenge or spite rather than punishment. 　In addition, the word "punishment" is used as a metaphor, as when a boxer experiences "punishment" during a fight. 　In other situations, breaking a rule may be rewarded, and so receiving such a reward naturally does not constitute punishment. 　Finally the condition of breaking (or breaching) the rules must be satisfied for consequences to be considered punishment. 　Punishments differ in their degree of severity, and may include sanctions such as reprimands, deprivations of privileges or liberty, fines, incarcerations, ostracism, the infliction of pain, amputation and the death penalty. 　Corporal punishment refers to punishments in which physical pain is intended to be inflicted upon the transgressor. 　Punishments may be judged as fair or unfair in terms of their degree of reciprocity and proportionality to the offense. 　Punishment can be an integral part of socialization, and punishing unwanted behavior is often part of a system of pedagogy or behavioral modification which also includes rewards.

Punishment (psychology)

In operant conditioning, punishment is any change in a human or animal's surroundings which, occurring after a given behavior or response, reduces the likelihood of that behavior occurring again in the future. 　As with reinforcement, it is the behavior, not the human/animal, that is punished. 　Whether a change is or is not punishing is determined by its effect on the rate that the behavior occurs. 　This is called motivating operations (MO), because they alter the effectiveness of a stimulus. 　MO can be categorized in abolishing operations, decrease the effectiveness of the stimuli and establishing, increase the effectiveness of the stimuli. 　For example, a painful stimulus which would act as a punisher for most people may actually reinforce some behaviors of masochistic individuals. 　There are two types of punishment, positive and negative. 　Positive punishment involves the introduction of a stimulus to decrease behavior while negative punishment involves the removal of a stimulus to decrease behavior. 　While similar to reinforcement, punishment's goal is to decrease behaviors while reinforcement's goal is to increase behaviors. 　Different kinds of stimuli exist as well. 　There are rewarding stimuli which are considered pleasant and aversive stimuli, which are considered unpleasant. 　There are also two types of punishers. 　There are primary punishers which directly affect the individual such as pain and are a natural response and then there are secondary punishers which are things that are learned to be negative like a buzzing sound when getting an answer wrong on a game show. 　Conflicting findings have been found on the effectiveness of the use of punishment. 　Some have found that punishment can be a useful tool in suppressing behavior while some have found it to have a weak effect on suppressing behavior. 　Punishment can also lead to lasting negative unintended side effects as well. 　Punishment has been found to be effective in countries that are wealthy, high in trust, cooperation, and democracy. 　Punishment has been used in a lot of different applications. 　Punishment has been used in applied behavioral analysis, specifically in situations to try and punish dangerous behaviors like head banging. 　Punishment has also been used to psychologically manipulate individuals to gain control over victims. 　It has also been used in scenarios where an abuser may try punishment in order to traumatically bond their victim with them. 　Stuttering therapy has also seen the use of punishment with effective results. 　Certain punishment techniques have been effective in children with disabilities, such as autism and intellectual disabilities.

Mac

Look up Mac, mac, MAC, maç, or mac- in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. 　Mac or MAC most commonly refers to: Mac (computer), a line of personal computers made by Apple Inc. 　Mackintosh, a raincoat made of rubberized cloth A variant of the word macaroni, mostly used in the name of the dish mac and cheese Mac, Gaelic for "son", a prefix to family names often appearing in Gaelic names McIntosh (apple), a common cultivar of apple originating in Canada, and the inspiration for the computer line's name Mac or MAC may also refer to:

Scientist

A scientist is a person who researches to advance knowledge in an area of the natural sciences. 　By modern definitions, many scientists are required to have advanced degrees in an area of science and careers in various sectors of the economy such as academia, industry, government, and nonprofits pertaining to their discipline. 　In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. 　Instead, philosophers engaged in the philosophical study of nature called natural philosophy, a precursor of natural science. 　Though Thales (circa 624–545 BC) was arguably the first scientist for describing how cosmic events may be seen as natural, not necessarily caused by gods, it was not until the 19th century that the term scientist came into regular use after it was coined by the theologian, philosopher, and historian of science William Whewell in 1833.

Stochastic

Stochastic (/stəˈkæstɪk/, from Greek στόχος (stókhos) 'aim, guess') refers to the property of being well described by a random probability distribution. 　Although stochasticity and randomness are distinct in that the former refers to a modeling approach and the latter refers to phenomena themselves, these two terms are often used synonymously. 　Furthermore, in probability theory, the formal concept of a stochastic process is also referred to as a random process. 　Stochasticity is used in many different fields, including the natural sciences such as biology, chemistry, ecology, neuroscience, and physics, as well as technology and engineering fields such as image processing, signal processing, information theory, computer science, cryptography, and telecommunications. 　It is also used in finance, due to seemingly random changes in financial markets as well as in medicine, linguistics, music, media, colour theory, botany, manufacturing, and geomorphology.

Habitat

In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. 　A species habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ecological niche. 　Thus "habitat" is a species-specific term, fundamentally different from concepts such as environment or vegetation assemblages, for which the term "habitat-type" is more appropriate. 　The physical factors may include (for example): soil, moisture, range of temperature, and light intensity. 　Biotic factors will include the availability of food and the presence or absence of predators. 　Every species has particular habitat requirements, with habitat generalist species able to thrive in a wide array of environmental conditions while habitat specialist species requiring a very limited set of factors to survive. 　The habitat of a species is not necessarily found in a geographical area, it can be the interior of a stem, a rotten log, a rock or a clump of moss; a parasitic organism has as its habitat the body of its host, part of the host's body (such as the digestive tract), or a single cell within the host's body. 　Habitat types are environmental categorizations of different environments based on the characteristics of a given geographical area, particularly vegetation and climate. 　Thus habitat types do not refer to a single species but to multiple species living in the same area. 　For example, terrestrial habitat types include forest, steppe, grassland, semi-arid or desert. 　Fresh-water habitat types include marshes, streams, rivers, lakes, and ponds; marine habitat types include salt marshes, the coast, the intertidal zone, estuaries, reefs, bays, the open sea, the sea bed, deep water and submarine vents. 　Habitat types may change over time. 　Causes of change may include a violent event (such as the eruption of a volcano, an earthquake, a tsunami, a wildfire or a change in oceanic currents); or change may occur more gradually over millennia with alterations in the climate, as ice sheets and glaciers advance and retreat, and as different weather patterns bring changes of precipitation and solar radiation. 　Other changes come as a direct result of human activities, such as deforestation, the plowing of ancient grasslands, the diversion and damming of rivers, the draining of marshland and the dredging of the seabed. 　The introduction of alien species can have a devastating effect on native wildlife – through increased predation, through competition for resources or through the introduction of pests and diseases to which the indigenous species have no immunity.

Blade

A blade is the portion of a tool, weapon, or machine with an edge that is designed to puncture, chop, slice or scrape surfaces or materials. 　Blades are typically made from materials that are harder than those they are to be used on. 　Historically, humans have made blades from flaking stones such as flint or obsidian, and from various metal such as copper, bronze and iron. 　Modern blades are often made of steel or ceramic. 　Blades are one of humanity's oldest tools, and continue to be used for combat, food preparation, and other purposes. 　Blades work by concentrating force on the cutting edge. 　Certain blades, such as those used on bread knives or saws, are serrated, further concentrating force on the point of each tooth.

Blade (archaeology)

In archaeology, a blade is a type of stone tool created by striking a long narrow flake from a stone core. 　This process of reducing the stone and producing the blades is called lithic reduction. 　Archaeologists use this process of flintknapping to analyze blades and observe their technological uses for historical purposes. 　Blades are defined as being flakes that are at least twice as long as they are wide and that have parallel or subparallel sides and at least two ridges on the dorsal (outer) side. 　Blade cores appear and are different from regular flaking cores, as each core's conchoidal nature is suited for different types of flaking. 　Blades are created using stones that have a cryptocrystalline structure and easily be fractured into a smooth piece without fracturing. 　Blades became the favored technology of the Upper Palaeolithic era, although they are occasionally found in earlier periods. 　Different techniques are also required for blade creation; a soft punch or hammerstone is necessary for creating a blade. 　The long sharp edges of blades made them useful for a variety of purposes. 　After blades are flaked, they are often incorporated as parts of larger tools, such as spears. 　Other times, the simple shape and sharpness serves the designed role. 　Blades were often employed in the impression process of material culture, assisting ancient humans in imprinting ornate designs into other parts of their material culture. 　Scrapers, used for hide working or woodworking, or burins, used for engraving, are two common such examples. 　Cores from which blades have been struck are called blade cores and the tools created from single blades are called blade tools. 　Small examples (under 12 mm) are called microblades and were used in the Mesolithic as elements of composite tools. 　Blades with one edge blunted by removal of tiny flakes are called backed blade. 　A blade core becomes an exhausted core when there are no more useful angles to knock off blades. 　Blades can be classified into many different types depending on their shape and size. 　Archaeologists have also been known to use the microscopic striations created from the lithic reduction process to classify the blades into specific types. 　Once classified archaeologists can use this information to see how the blade was produced, who produced it, and how it was used.

Kent

Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. 　It borders Greater London to the northwest, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the southwest, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces the French department of Pas-de-Calais across the Strait of Dover. 　The county town is Maidstone. 　It is the fifth most populous county in England, the most populous non-metropolitan county and the most populous of the home counties. 　Kent was one of the first British territories to be settled by Germanic tribes, most notably the Jutes, following the withdrawal of the Romans. 　Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, the oldest cathedral in England, has been the seat of the Archbishops of Canterbury since the conversion of England to Christianity that began in the 6th century with Saint Augustine. 　Rochester Cathedral in Medway is England's second-oldest cathedral. 　Located between London and the Strait of Dover, which separates England from mainland Europe, Kent has been the setting for both conflict and diplomacy, including the Battle of Britain in World War II and the Leeds Castle peace talks of 1978 and 2004. 　England relied on the county's ports to provide warships through much of its history; the Cinque Ports in the 10th–14th centuries and Chatham Dockyard in the 16th–20th centuries were of particular importance. 　France can be seen clearly in fine weather from Folkestone and the White Cliffs of Dover. 　Hills in the form of the North Downs and the Greensand Ridge span the length of the county and in the Vale of Holmesdale in between and to the south are most of the county's 26 castles. 　Kent's economy is diversified: agriculture, haulage, logistics and tourism are various industries. 　Because of its orchards and allotments, Kent is known as "The Garden of England". 　In northwest Kent, industries include extraction of aggregate building materials, printing and scientific research. 　Coal mining has also played its part in Kent's industrial heritage. 　Large parts of Kent are within the London commuter belt and its strong transport connections to the capital and the nearby continent make Kent a high-income county. 　Twenty-eight per cent of the county forms part of two Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty: the North Downs and The High Weald.

Confusion

In medicine, confusion is the quality or state of being bewildered or unclear. 　The term "acute mental confusion" is often used interchangeably with delirium in the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems and the Medical Subject Headings publications to describe the pathology. 　These refer to the loss of orientation, or the ability to place oneself correctly in the world by time, location and personal identity. 　Mental confusion is sometimes accompanied by disordered consciousness (the loss of linear thinking) and memory loss (the inability to correctly recall previous events or learn new material).

Worship

Look up worship in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. 　Worship is an act of religious devotion usually directed towards a deity. 　It may involve one or more of activities such as veneration, adoration, praise, and praying. 　For many, worship is not about an emotion, it is more about a recognition of a God or gods.　[citation needed] An act of worship may be performed individually, in an informal or formal group, or by a designated leader. 　Such acts may involve honoring.

Arkansas

Arkansas (/ˈɑːrkənsɔː/ (listen) AR-kən-saw) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. 　It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. 　Its name is from the Osage language, a Dhegiha Siouan language, and referred to their relatives, the Quapaw people. 　The state's diverse geography ranges from the mountainous regions of the Ozark and Ouachita Mountains, which make up the U.S. Interior Highlands, to the densely forested land in the south known as the Arkansas Timberlands, to the eastern lowlands along the Mississippi River and the Arkansas Delta. 　Arkansas is the 29th largest by area and the 34th most populous state, with a population of just over 3 million at the 2020 census. 　The capital and most populous city is Little Rock, in the central part of the state, a hub for transportation, business, culture, and government. 　The northwestern corner of the state, including the Fayetteville–Springdale–Rogers Metropolitan Area and Fort Smith metropolitan area, is a population, education, and economic center. 　The largest city in the state's eastern part is Jonesboro. 　The largest city in the state's southeastern part is Pine Bluff. 　Previously part of French Louisiana and the Louisiana Purchase, the Territory of Arkansas was admitted to the Union as the 25th state on June 15, 1836. 　Much of the Delta had been developed for cotton plantations, and landowners there largely depended on enslaved African Americans' labor. 　In 1861, Arkansas seceded from the United States and joined the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. 　On returning to the Union in 1868, Arkansas continued to suffer economically, due to its overreliance on the large-scale plantation economy. 　Cotton remained the leading commodity crop, and the cotton market declined. 　Because farmers and businessmen did not diversify and there was little industrial investment, the state fell behind in economic opportunity. 　In the late 19th century, the state instituted various Jim Crow laws to disenfranchise and segregate the African-American population. 　During the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, Arkansas and particularly Little Rock were major battlegrounds for efforts to integrate schools. 　White interests dominated Arkansas's politics, with disfranchisement of African Americans and refusal to reapportion the legislature. 　Only after the civil rights movement and federal legislation passed were more African Americans able to vote. 　The Supreme Court overturned rural domination in the South and other states that had refused to reapportion their state legislatures or retained rules based on geographic districts. 　In a series of cases in the 1960s during the height of related civil rights activities, the Warren Court invoked a one person, one vote principle, applying the Equal Protection Clause of the constitution and holding that states had to organize their legislatures by districts that held approximately equal populations, and that these had to be redefined as necessary after each decade's census. 　Following World War II in the 1940s, Arkansas began to diversify its economy and see prosperity. 　During the 1960s, the state became the base of the Walmart corporation, the world's largest company by revenue, headquartered in Bentonville. 　In the 21st century, Arkansas's economy is based on service industries, aircraft, poultry, steel, and tourism, along with important commodity crops of cotton, soybeans and rice. 　Arkansas's culture is observable in museums, theaters, novels, television shows, restaurants, and athletic venues across the state. 　Notable people from the state include politician and educational advocate William Fulbright; former president Bill Clinton, who also served as the 40th and 42nd governor of Arkansas; general Wesley Clark, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander; Walmart founder and magnate Sam Walton; singer-songwriters Johnny Cash, Charlie Rich, Jimmy Driftwood, and Glen Campbell; actor-filmmaker Billy Bob Thornton; poet C. D. Wright; physicist William L. McMillan, a pioneer in superconductor research; poet laureate Maya Angelou; Douglas MacArthur; musician Al Green; actor Alan Ladd; basketball player Scottie Pippen; singer Ne-Yo; Chelsea Clinton; actress Sheryl Underwood; and author John Grisham.

Oblast

An oblast (/ˈɒblæst/; also UK: /ˈɒblɑːst/; Cyrillic (in most languages, including Russian and Ukrainian): область, Bulgarian: област) is a type of administrative division within some Slavic areas, the Russian Empire, and the Soviet Union; it continues to be used in Russia and some post-Imperial/Soviet states. 　The term oblast has no universal definition or exact comparison in English, although it has been presented as analogous to the term "county" in the U.S. Official terms in successor states of the Soviet Union differ, but some still use a cognate of the Russian term, e.g., vobłasć (voblasts, voblasts', official orthography: вобласць, Taraškievica: вобласьць, [ˈvobɫasʲtsʲ]) is used for regions of Belarus, oblys (plural: oblystar) for regions of Kazakhstan, and oblusu (облусу) for regions of Kyrgyzstan. 　The term is often translated as "area", "zone", "province" or "region". 　The last translation may lead to confusion, because "raion" may be used for other kinds of administrative division, which may be translated as "region", "district" or "county" depending on the context. 　Unlike "province", translations as "area", "zone", and "region" may lead to confusion because they have very common meanings other than a political division.

Civilian

Civilians under international humanitarian law are "persons who are not members of the armed forces" and they are not "combatants if they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war". 　It is slightly different from a non-combatant, because some non-combatants are not civilians (for example, military chaplains who are attached to the belligerent party or military personnel who are serving with a neutral country). 　Civilians in the territories of a party to an armed conflict are entitled to certain privileges under the customary laws of war and international treaties such as the Fourth Geneva Convention. 　The privileges that they enjoy under international law depends on whether the conflict is an internal one (a civil war) or an international one. 　In some nations, uniformed members of civilian police or fire departments colloquially refer to members of the public as civilians.

Hybrid (biology)

In biology, a hybrid is the offspring resulting from combining the qualities of two organisms of different breeds, varieties, species or genera through sexual reproduction. 　Generally, it means that each cell has genetic material from two different organisms, whereas an individual where some cells are derived from a different organism is called a chimera. 　Hybrids are not always intermediates between their parents (such as in blending inheritance), but can show hybrid vigor, sometimes growing larger or taller than either parent. 　The concept of a hybrid is interpreted differently in animal and plant breeding, where there is interest in the individual parentage. 　In genetics, attention is focused on the numbers of chromosomes. 　In taxonomy, a key question is how closely related the parent species are. 　Species are reproductively isolated by strong barriers to hybridisation, which include genetic and morphological differences, differing times of fertility, mating behaviors and cues, and physiological rejection of sperm cells or the developing embryo. 　Some act before fertilization and others after it. 　Similar barriers exist in plants, with differences in flowering times, pollen vectors, inhibition of pollen tube growth, somatoplastic sterility, cytoplasmic-genic male sterility and the structure of the chromosomes. 　A few animal species and many plant species, however, are the result of hybrid speciation, including important crop plants such as wheat, where the number of chromosomes has been doubled. 　Human impact on the environment has resulted in an increase in the interbreeding between regional species, and the proliferation of introduced species worldwide has also resulted in an increase in hybridisation. 　This genetic mixing may threaten many species with extinction, while genetic erosion from monoculture in crop plants may be damaging the gene pools of many species for future breeding. 　A form of often intentional human-mediated hybridisation is the crossing of wild and domesticated species. 　This is common in both traditional horticulture and modern agriculture; many commercially useful fruits, flowers, garden herbs, and trees have been produced by hybridisation. 　One such flower, Oenothera lamarckiana, was central to early genetics research into mutationism and polyploidy. 　It is also more occasionally done in the livestock and pet trades; some well-known wild × domestic hybrids are beefalo and wolfdogs. 　Human selective breeding of domesticated animals and plants has resulted in the development of distinct breeds (usually called cultivars in reference to plants); crossbreeds between them (without any wild stock) are sometimes also imprecisely referred to as "hybrids". 　Hybrid humans existed in prehistory. 　For example, Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans are thought to have interbred as recently as 40,000 years ago. 　Mythological hybrids appear in human culture in forms as diverse as the Minotaur, blends of animals, humans and mythical beasts such as centaurs and sphinxes, and the Nephilim of the Biblical apocrypha described as the wicked sons of fallen angels and attractive women.

Devoted

Devoted is the sequel to New York Times-bestselling novel Elixir by American entertainer Hilary Duff with Elise Allen. 　It was published and released to booksellers on October 11, 2011. 　It is the second in an unnamed trilogy by Duff and Allen. 　After the release of Elixir in 2010, Duff stated that she intended to write more in the series. 　She said, however, that nothing had been put down as yet and that she and her co-writer, Allen, were simply playing around with different ideas. 　On October 18, 2010, Duff posted on Twitter about a sequel: "Can't believe so many people have read the book already! Yipeeee! Starting the next one in two weeks". 　Devoted was released on October 11, 2011. 　In an interview with MTV, Duff stated that "Devoted picks up basically where Elixir left off, and Clea has a lot of big questions to answer and decisions to make."[failed verification] She also said that plans for the third and final book in the trilogy were being discussed and that "I don't think it will be as long. It will be a wrap-up, kind of where they are now and what exactly happened to the Elixir, whose hands it's in, what ends up happening with Sage."

Estimation

Estimation (or estimating) is the process of finding an estimate or approximation, which is a value that is usable for some purpose even if input data may be incomplete, uncertain, or unstable. 　The value is nonetheless usable because it is derived from the best information available. 　Typically, estimation involves "using the value of a statistic derived from a sample to estimate the value of a corresponding population parameter". 　The sample provides information that can be projected, through various formal or informal processes, to determine a range most likely to describe the missing information. 　An estimate that turns out to be incorrect will be an overestimate if the estimate exceeds the actual result and an underestimate if the estimate falls short of the actual result.

Rio

Look up RIO, Rio, rio, or río in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. 　Rio or Río is the Portuguese, Spanish, and Maltese word for "river". 　The term also exists in Italian, but is largely obsolete and used in a poetical or literary context to mean "stream"; the standard Italian word for "river" is "fiume". 　When spoken on its own, the word often means Rio de Janeiro, a major city in Brazil. 　Rio or Río may also refer to:

Cotton

Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus Gossypium in the mallow family Malvaceae. 　The fiber is almost pure cellulose, and can contain minor percentages of waxes, fats, pectins, and water. 　Under natural conditions, the cotton bolls will increase the dispersal of the seeds. 　The plant is a shrub native to tropical and subtropical regions around the world, including the Americas, Africa, Egypt and India. 　The greatest diversity of wild cotton species is found in Mexico, followed by Australia and Africa. 　Cotton was independently domesticated in the Old and New Worlds. 　The fiber is most often spun into yarn or thread and used to make a soft, breathable, and durable textile. 　The use of cotton for fabric is known to date to prehistoric times; fragments of cotton fabric dated to the fifth millennium BC have been found in the Indus Valley civilization, as well as fabric remnants dated back to 4200 BC in Peru. 　Although cultivated since antiquity, it was the invention of the cotton gin that lowered the cost of production that led to its widespread use, and it is the most widely used natural fiber cloth in clothing today. 　Current estimates for world production are about 25 million tonnes or 110 million bales annually, accounting for 2.5% of the world's arable land. 　India is the world's largest producer of cotton. 　The United States has been the largest exporter for many years.

Arabic

Arabic (اَلْعَرَبِيَّةُ, al-ʿarabiyyah [al ʕaraˈbijːa] (listen); عَرَبِيّ, ʿarabī [ˈʕarabiː] (listen) or [ʕaraˈbij]) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world. 　Having emerged in the 1st century, it is named after the Arab people; the term "Arab" was initially used to describe those living in the Arabian Peninsula, as perceived by geographers from ancient Greece. 　Since the 7th century, Arabic has been characterized by diglossia, with an opposition between a standard prestige language—i.e., Literary Arabic: Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Classical Arabic—and diverse vernacular varieties, which serve as mother tongues. 　Colloquial dialects vary significantly from MSA, impeding mutual intelligibility. 　MSA is only acquired through formal education and is not spoken natively. 　It is the language of literature, official documents, and formal written media. 　In spoken form, MSA is used in formal contexts, news bulletins and for prayers. 　This variety is the lingua franca of the Arab world and the liturgical language of Islam. 　It is an official language of 26 states and 1 disputed territory, the third most after English and French. 　It is also one of six official languages of the United Nations. 　Spoken varieties are the usual medium of communication in all other domains. 　They are not standardized and vary significantly, some of them being mutually unintelligible. 　The International Organization for Standardization assigns language codes to 33 varieties of Arabic, including MSA. 　Arabic vernaculars do not descend from MSA or Classical Arabic. 　Combined, Arabic dialects have 362 million native speakers, while MSA is spoken by 274 million L2 speakers, making it the sixth most spoken language in the world. 　Arabic is traditionally written with the Arabic alphabet, a right-to-left abjad. 　This alphabet is the official script for MSA. 　Colloquial varieties were traditionally not written, however, with the emergence of social media, the amount of written dialects has significantly increased online. 　Besides the Arabic alphabet, dialects are also often written in Latin from left to right or in Hebrew characters (in Israel) with no standardized orthography. 　Maltese and Hassaniya are the only varieties officially written in a Latin alphabet.

Logic

Logic is the study of correct reasoning. 　It includes both formal and informal logic. 　Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. 　It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premises in a topic-neutral way. 　When used as a countable noun, the term "a logic" refers to a logical formal system that articulates a proof system. 　Formal logic contrasts with informal logic, which is associated with informal fallacies, critical thinking, and argumentation theory. 　While there is no general agreement on how formal and informal logic are to be distinguished, one prominent approach associates their difference with whether the studied arguments are expressed in formal or informal languages. 　Logic plays a central role in multiple fields, such as philosophy, mathematics, computer science, and linguistics. 　Logic studies arguments, which consist of a set of premises together with a conclusion. 　Premises and conclusions are usually understood either as sentences or as propositions and are characterized by their internal structure; complex propositions are made up of simpler propositions linked to each other by propositional connectives like ∧ {\displaystyle \land } (and) or → {\displaystyle \to } (if...then). 　The truth of a proposition usually depends on the denotations of its constituents. 　Logically true propositions constitute a special case since their truth depends only on the logical vocabulary used in them and not on the denotations of other terms. 　Arguments can be either correct or incorrect. 　An argument is correct if its premises support its conclusion. 　The strongest form of support is found in deductive arguments: it is impossible for their premises to be true and their conclusion to be false. 　Deductive arguments contrast with ampliative arguments, which may arrive in their conclusion at new information that is not present in the premises. 　However, it is possible for all their premises to be true while their conclusion is still false. 　Many arguments found in everyday discourse and the sciences are ampliative arguments, sometimes divided into inductive and abductive arguments. 　Inductive arguments usually take the form of statistical generalizations while abductive arguments are inferences to the best explanation. 　Arguments that fall short of the standards of correct reasoning are called fallacies. 　Systems of logic are theoretical frameworks for assessing the correctness of reasoning and arguments. 　Logic has been studied since Antiquity; early approaches include Aristotelian logic, Stoic logic, Anviksiki, and the Mohists. 　Modern formal logic has its roots in the work of late 19th-century mathematicians such as Gottlob Frege. 　While Aristotelian logic focuses on reasoning in the form of syllogisms, in the modern era its traditional dominance was replaced by classical logic, a set of fundamental logical intuitions shared by most logicians. 　It consists of propositional logic, which only considers the logical relations on the level of propositions, and first-order logic, which also articulates the internal structure of propositions using various linguistic devices, such as predicates and quantifiers. 　Extended logics accept the basic intuitions behind classical logic and extend it to other fields, such as metaphysics, ethics, and epistemology. 　Deviant logics, on the other hand, reject certain classical intuitions and provide alternative accounts of the fundamental laws of logic.

Siege

A siege is a military blockade of a city, or fortress, with the intent of conquering by attrition, or a well-prepared assault. 　This derives from Latin: sedere, lit. 　'to sit'. 　Siege warfare is a form of constant, low-intensity conflict characterized by one party holding a strong, static, defensive position. 　Consequently, an opportunity for negotiation between combatants is common, as proximity and fluctuating advantage can encourage diplomacy. 　The art of conducting and resisting sieges is called siege warfare, siegecraft, or poliorcetics. 　A siege occurs when an attacker encounters a city or fortress that cannot be easily taken by a quick assault, and which refuses to surrender. 　Sieges involve surrounding the target to block the provision of supplies and the reinforcement or escape of troops (a tactic known as "investment"). 　This is typically coupled with attempts to reduce the fortifications by means of siege engines, artillery bombardment, mining (also known as sapping), or the use of deception or treachery to bypass defenses. 　Failing a military outcome, sieges can often be decided by starvation, thirst, or disease, which can afflict either the attacker or defender. 　This form of siege, though, can take many months or even years, depending upon the size of the stores of food the fortified position holds. 　The attacking force can circumvallate the besieged place, which is to build a line of earth-works, consisting of a rampart and trench, surrounding it. 　During the process of circumvallation, the attacking force can be set upon by another force, an ally of the besieged place, due to the lengthy amount of time required to force it to capitulate. 　A defensive ring of forts outside the ring of circumvallated forts, called contravallation, is also sometimes used to defend the attackers from outside. 　Ancient cities in the Middle East show archaeological evidence of fortified city walls. 　During the Warring States era of ancient China, there is both textual and archaeological evidence of prolonged sieges and siege machinery used against the defenders of city walls. 　Siege machinery was also a tradition of the ancient Greco-Roman world. 　During the Renaissance and the early modern period, siege warfare dominated the conduct of war in Europe. 　Leonardo da Vinci gained as much of his renown from the design of fortifications as from his artwork. 　Medieval campaigns were generally designed around a succession of sieges. 　In the Napoleonic era, increasing use of ever more powerful cannons reduced the value of fortifications. 　In the 20th century, the significance of the classical siege declined. 　With the advent of mobile warfare, a single fortified stronghold is no longer as decisive as it once was. 　While traditional sieges do still occur, they are not as common as they once were due to changes in modes of battle, principally the ease by which huge volumes of destructive power can be directed onto a static target. 　Modern sieges are more commonly the result of smaller hostage, militant, or extreme resisting arrest situations.

Wright

Wright is an occupational surname originating in England. 　The term 'Wright' comes from the circa 700 AD Old English word 'wryhta' or 'wyrhta', meaning worker or shaper of wood. 　Later it became any occupational worker (for example, a shipwright is a person who builds ships), and is used as a British family name. 　The word's use as an occupational title continued until the mid-19th century, often combined with other words such as in shipwright, wheelwright, wainwright and playwright. 　As of 2014[update], Wright was the eleventh most common surname in England. 　The word carpentier, now "carpenter", was introduced into England in the years after the Norman conquest in 1066 and slowly replaced the traditional name and meaning of wright in most of England. 　'Wright' is still used in Scottish English in the original meaning of 'skilled woodworker'. 　The Incorporation of Wrights of the Trades House of Glasgow, and the Incorporation of Wrights and Masons of Edinburgh Trades retain the word in its original meaning in their role of promoting the woodworking trade. 　Wright is also an anglicised version of the Scots Gaelic clan name "MacIntyre" or "Mac an t-Saoir", meaning "son of the wright" (son of the carpenter). 　In Ireland, the native Gaelic Mac an Cheairt sept of County Mayo occasionally changed their name to Wright. 　This is a literal translation meaning, "son of the right or righteous".