Refuge (ecology)

A refuge is a concept in ecology, in which an organism obtains protection from predation by hiding in an area where it is inaccessible or cannot easily be found. 　Due to population dynamics, when refuges are available, populations of both predators and prey are significantly higher, and significantly more species can be supported in an area.

Hook

A hook is a tool consisting of a length of material, typically metal, that contains a portion that is curved or indented, such that it can be used to grab onto, connect, or otherwise attach itself onto another object. 　In a number of uses, one end of the hook is pointed, so that this end can pierce another material, which is then held by the curved or indented portion. 　Some kinds of hooks, particularly fish hooks, also have a barb, a backwards-pointed projection near the pointed end of the hook to ensure that once the hook is embedded in its target, it can not easily be removed.

Quarterback

The quarterback (commonly abbreviated "QB"), colloquially known as the "signal caller", is a position in gridiron football. 　Quarterbacks are members of the offensive platoon and mostly line up directly behind the offensive line. 　In modern American football, the quarterback is usually considered the leader of the offense, and is often responsible for calling the play in the huddle. 　The quarterback also touches the ball on almost every offensive play, and is almost always the offensive player that throws forward passes. 　When the QB is tackled behind the line of scrimmage, it is called a sack.

Cruz

Cruz is a surname of Iberian origin, first found in Castile,[citation needed] Spain, but later spread throughout the territories of the former Spanish and Portuguese Empires. 　In Spanish and Portuguese, the word means "cross", either the Christian cross or the figure of transecting lines or ways. 　For example, in the Philippines, the adopted Tagalog word is rendered to "krus" in plain usage, but the Spanish spelling survives as a surname. 　The word "Cruz" (Spanish for "Cross"), as well as "Vera Cruz" ("True Cross") and "Santa Cruz" ("Holy Cross") are used as surnames and toponyms. 　Its origin as a surname particularly flourished after the Alhambra Decree of 1492 and the increasing activities of the Spanish Inquisition, when New Christian families with Crypto-Jewish, Moorish, and/or mixed religious heritage converted to the state-enforced religion of Catholicism and subsequently fashioned and adopted surnames with unambiguous religious affiliation.

Canyon

A canyon (from Spanish: cañón; archaic British English spelling: cañon), or gorge, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. 　Rivers have a natural tendency to cut through underlying surfaces, eventually wearing away rock layers as sediments are removed downstream. 　A river bed will gradually reach a baseline elevation, which is the same elevation as the body of water into which the river drains. 　The processes of weathering and erosion will form canyons when the river's headwaters and estuary are at significantly different elevations, particularly through regions where softer rock layers are intermingled with harder layers more resistant to weathering. 　A canyon may also refer to a rift between two mountain peaks, such as those in ranges including the Rocky Mountains, the Alps, the Himalayas or the Andes. 　Usually, a river or stream carves out such splits between mountains. 　Examples of mountain-type canyons are Provo Canyon in Utah or Yosemite Valley in California's Sierra Nevada. 　Canyons within mountains, or gorges that have an opening on only one side, are called box canyons. 　Slot canyons are very narrow canyons that often have smooth walls. 　Steep-sided valleys in the seabed of the continental slope are referred to as submarine canyons. 　Unlike canyons on land, submarine canyons are thought to be formed by turbidity currents and landslides.

Monk

A monk (/mʌŋk/, from Greek: μοναχός, monachos, "single, solitary" via Latin monachus) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. 　A monk may be a person who decides to dedicate their life to serving other people and serving God, or to be an ascetic who voluntarily chooses to leave mainstream society and live their life in prayer and contemplation. 　The concept is ancient and can be seen in many religions and in philosophy. 　In the Greek language, the term can apply to women, but in modern English it is mainly in use for men. 　The word nun is typically used for female monastics. 　Although the term monachos is of Christian origin, in the English language monk tends to be used loosely also for both male and female ascetics from other religious or philosophical backgrounds. 　However, being generic, it is not interchangeable with terms that denote particular kinds of monk, such as cenobite, hermit, anchorite, hesychast, or solitary. 　Traditions of Christian monasticism exist in major Christian denominations, with religious orders being present in Catholicism, Lutheranism, Oriental Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodoxy, Reformed Christianity, Anglicanism and Methodism. 　Indian religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, also have monastic traditions as well.

Brush

A brush is a common tool with bristles, wire or other filaments. 　It generally consists of a handle or block to which filaments are affixed in either a parallel or perpendicular orientation, depending on the way the brush is to be gripped during use. 　The material of both the block and bristles or filaments is chosen to withstand hazards of its intended use, such as corrosive chemicals, heat or abrasion. 　It is used for cleaning, grooming hair, make up, painting, surface finishing and for many other purposes. 　It is one of the most basic and versatile tools in use today, and the average household may contain several dozen varieties.

Proton

A proton is a stable subatomic particle, symbol p , H+, or 1H+ with a positive electric charge of +1 e (elementary charge). 　Its mass is slightly less than that of a neutron and 1,836 times the mass of an electron (the proton–electron mass ratio). 　Protons and neutrons, each with masses of approximately one atomic mass unit, are jointly referred to as "nucleons" (particles present in atomic nuclei). 　One or more protons are present in the nucleus of every atom. 　They provide the attractive electrostatic central force that binds the atomic electrons. 　The number of protons in the nucleus is the defining property of an element, and is referred to as the atomic number (represented by the symbol Z). 　Since each element has a unique number of protons, each element has its own unique atomic number, which determines the number of atomic electrons and consequently the chemical characteristics of the element. 　The word proton is Greek for "first", and this name was given to the hydrogen nucleus by Ernest Rutherford in 1920. 　In previous years, Rutherford had discovered that the hydrogen nucleus (known to be the lightest nucleus) could be extracted from the nuclei of nitrogen by atomic collisions. 　Protons were therefore a candidate to be a fundamental or elementary particle, and hence a building block of nitrogen and all other heavier atomic nuclei. 　Although protons were originally considered to be elementary particles, in the modern Standard Model of particle physics, protons are now known to be composite particles, containing three valence quarks, and together with neutrons are now classified as hadrons. 　Protons are composed of two up quarks of charge +2/3e and one down quark of charge −1/3e. 　The rest masses of quarks contribute only about 1% of a proton's mass. 　The remainder of a proton's mass is due to quantum chromodynamics binding energy, which includes the kinetic energy of the quarks and the energy of the gluon fields that bind the quarks together. 　Because protons are not fundamental particles, they possess a measurable size; the root mean square charge radius of a proton is about 0.84–0.87 fm (1 fm = 10−15 m). 　In 2019, two different studies, using different techniques, found this radius to be 0.833 fm, with an uncertainty of ±0.010 fm. 　Free protons occur occasionally on Earth: thunderstorms can produce protons with energies of up to several tens of MeV. 　At sufficiently low temperatures and kinetic energies, free protons will bind to electrons. 　However, the character of such bound protons does not change, and they remain protons. 　A fast proton moving through matter will slow by interactions with electrons and nuclei, until it is captured by the electron cloud of an atom. 　The result is a protonated atom, which is a chemical compound of hydrogen. 　In a vacuum, when free electrons are present, a sufficiently slow proton may pick up a single free electron, becoming a neutral hydrogen atom, which is chemically a free radical. 　Such "free hydrogen atoms" tend to react chemically with many other types of atoms at sufficiently low energies. 　When free hydrogen atoms react with each other, they form neutral hydrogen molecules (H2), which are the most common molecular component of molecular clouds in interstellar space. 　Free protons are routinely used for accelerators for proton therapy or various particle physics experiments, with the most powerful example being the Large Hadron Collider.

Deer

Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. 　The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including muntjac, elk (wapiti), red deer, and fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including reindeer (caribou), white-tailed deer, roe deer, and moose. 　Male deer of all species (except the water deer), as well as female reindeer, grow and shed new antlers each year. 　In this, they differ from permanently horned antelope, which are part of a different family (Bovidae) within the same order of even-toed ungulates (Artiodactyla). 　The musk deer (Moschidae) of Asia and chevrotains (Tragulidae) of tropical African and Asian forests are separate families that are also in the ruminant clade Ruminantia; they are not especially closely related to Cervidae. 　Deer appear in art from Paleolithic cave paintings onwards, and they have played a role in mythology, religion, and literature throughout history, as well as in heraldry, such as red deer that appear in the coat of arms of Åland. 　Their economic importance includes the use of their meat as venison, their skins as soft, strong buckskin, and their antlers as handles for knives. 　Deer hunting has been a popular activity since the Middle Ages and remains a resource for many families today.

Shanghai

Shanghai (/ʃæŋˈhaɪ/; Chinese: 上海, Shanghainese: Zaon6he5 [zɑ̃̀.hɛ́] (listen), Standard Mandarin pronunciation: [ʂâŋ.xàɪ] (listen)) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). 　The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowing through it. 　The population of the city proper is the third most populous in the world, with 24.89 million inhabitants in 2021, while the urban area is the most populous in China with 39,300,000 residents. 　As of 2018, the Greater Shanghai metropolitan area was estimated to produce a gross metropolitan product (nominal) of nearly 9.1 trillion RMB ($1.33 trillion). 　Shanghai is one of the world's major centers for finance, business and economics, research, science and technology, manufacturing, transportation, tourism, and culture, and the Port of Shanghai is the world's busiest container port. 　Originally a fishing village and market town, Shanghai grew in importance in the 19th century due to both domestic and foreign trade and its favorable port location. 　The city was one of five treaty ports forced to open to European trade after the First Opium War. 　The Shanghai International Settlement and the French Concession were subsequently established. 　The city then flourished, becoming a primary commercial and financial hub of Asia in the 1930s. 　During the Second Sino-Japanese War, the city was the site of the major Battle of Shanghai. 　After the war, with the CPC takeover of the mainland in 1949, trade was limited to other socialist countries and the city's global influence declined. 　By the 1990s, economic reforms introduced by Deng Xiaoping a decade earlier resulted in an intense redevelopment of the city, especially the Pudong New Area, aiding the return of finance and foreign investment. 　The city has since re-emerged as a hub for international trade and finance; it is the home of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, one of the largest stock exchanges in the world by market capitalization and the Shanghai Free-Trade Zone, the first free-trade zone in mainland China. 　Shanghai has been classified as an Alpha+ (global first-tier) city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. 　As of 2022, it is home to 12 companies of the Fortune Global 500 and is ranked 4th on the Global Financial Centres Index. 　The city is also a center for research and development and home to many highly ranked Double First-Class Universities. 　The Shanghai Metro, first opened in 1993, is the largest metro network in the world by route length. 　Shanghai has been described as the "showpiece" of the booming economy of China. 　Featuring several architectural styles such as Art Deco and shikumen, the city is renowned for its Lujiazui skyline, museums and historic buildings including the City God Temple, Yu Garden, the China Pavilion and buildings along the Bund, which includes Oriental Pearl TV Tower. 　Shanghai is also known for its sugary cuisine, distinctive local language and vibrant international flair.

Boulevard

A boulevard is a type of broad avenue planted with rows of trees, or in parts of North America, any urban highway. 　Boulevards were originally circumferential roads following the line of former city walls. 　In American usage, boulevards may be wide, multi-lane arterial thoroughfares, often divided with a central median, and perhaps with side-streets along each side designed as slow travel and parking lanes and for bicycle and pedestrian usage, often with above-average quality of landscaping and scenery.

Conquest

Conquest is the act of military subjugation of an enemy by force of arms. 　Military history provides many examples of conquest: the Roman conquest of Britain, the Mauryan conquest of Afghanistan and of vast areas of the Indian subcontinent, the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire and various Muslim conquests, to mention just a few. 　The Norman conquest of England provides an example: it built on cultural ties, led to the subjugation of the Kingdom of England to Norman control and brought William the Conqueror to the English throne in 1066. 　Conquest may link in some ways with colonialism. 　England, for example, experienced phases and areas of Anglo-Saxon, Viking and Franco-Norman colonisation and conquest.

Stern

The stern is the back or aft-most part of a ship or boat, technically defined as the area built up over the sternpost, extending upwards from the counter rail to the taffrail. 　The stern lies opposite the bow, the foremost part of a ship. 　Originally, the term only referred to the aft port section of the ship, but eventually came to refer to the entire back of a vessel. 　The stern end of a ship is indicated with a white navigation light at night. 　Sterns on European and American wooden sailing ships began with two principal forms: the square or transom stern and the elliptical, fantail, or merchant stern, and were developed in that order. 　The hull sections of a sailing ship located before the stern were composed of a series of U-shaped rib-like frames set in a sloped or "cant" arrangement, with the last frame before the stern being called the fashion timber(s) or fashion piece(s), so called for "fashioning" the after part of the ship. 　This frame is designed to support the various beams that make up the stern. 　In 1817 the British naval architect Sir Robert Seppings introduced the concept of the round or circular stern. 　The square stern had been an easy target for enemy cannon, and could not support the weight of heavy stern chase guns. 　But Seppings' design left the rudder head exposed, and was regarded by many as simply ugly—no American warships were designed with such sterns, and the round stern was quickly superseded by the elliptical stern. 　The United States began building the first elliptical stern warship in 1820, a decade before the British. 　USS Brandywine became the first sailing ship to sport such a stern. 　Though a great improvement over the transom stern in terms of its vulnerability to attack when under fire, elliptical sterns still had obvious weaknesses which the next major stern development — the iron-hulled cruiser stern — addressed far better and with significantly different materials.

Bonus

Look up Bonus or bonus in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. 　Bonus commonly means: Bonus, a Commonwealth term for a distribution of profits to a with-profits insurance policy Bonus payment, an extra payment received as a reward for doing one's job well or as an incentive Bonus may also refer to:

Accounting

Accounting, also known as accountancy, is the measurement, processing, and communication of financial and non-financial information about economic entities such as businesses and corporations. 　Accounting, which has been called the "language of business", measures the results of an organization's economic activities and conveys this information to a variety of stakeholders, including investors, creditors, management, and regulators. 　Practitioners of accounting are known as accountants. 　The terms "accounting" and "financial reporting" are often used as synonyms. 　Accounting can be divided into several fields including financial accounting, management accounting, tax accounting and cost accounting. 　Financial accounting focuses on the reporting of an organization's financial information, including the preparation of financial statements, to the external users of the information, such as investors, regulators and suppliers. 　Management accounting focuses on the measurement, analysis and reporting of information for internal use by management. 　The recording of financial transactions, so that summaries of the financials may be presented in financial reports, is known as bookkeeping, of which double-entry bookkeeping is the most common system. 　Accounting information systems are designed to support accounting functions and related activities. 　Accounting has existed in various forms and levels of sophistication throughout human history. 　The double-entry accounting system in use today was developed in medieval Europe, particularly in Venice, and is usually attributed to the Italian mathematician and Franciscan friar Luca Pacioli. 　Today, accounting is facilitated by accounting organizations such as standard-setters, accounting firms and professional bodies. 　Financial statements are usually audited by accounting firms, and are prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). 　GAAP is set by various standard-setting organizations such as the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) in the United States and the Financial Reporting Council in the United Kingdom. 　As of 2012, "all major economies" have plans to converge towards or adopt the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).

Joke

A joke is a display of humour in which words are used within a specific and well-defined narrative structure to make people laugh and is usually not meant to be interpreted literally. 　It usually takes the form of a story, often with dialogue, and ends in a punch line, whereby the humorous element of the story is revealed; this can be done using a pun or other type of word play, irony or sarcasm, logical incompatibility, hyperbole, or other means. 　Linguist Robert Hetzron offers the definition: A joke is a short humorous piece of oral literature in which the funniness culminates in the final sentence, called the punchline… In fact, the main condition is that the tension should reach its highest level at the very end. 　No continuation relieving the tension should be added. 　As for its being "oral," it is true that jokes may appear printed, but when further transferred, there is no obligation to reproduce the text verbatim, as in the case of poetry. 　It is generally held that jokes benefit from brevity, containing no more detail than is needed to set the scene for the punchline at the end. 　In the case of riddle jokes or one-liners, the setting is implicitly understood, leaving only the dialogue and punchline to be verbalised. 　However, subverting these and other common guidelines can also be a source of humour—the shaggy dog story is an example of an anti-joke; although presented as a joke, it contains a long drawn-out narrative of time, place and character, rambles through many pointless inclusions and finally fails to deliver a punchline. 　Jokes are a form of humour, but not all humour is in the form of a joke. 　Some humorous forms which are not verbal jokes are: involuntary humour, situational humour, practical jokes, slapstick and anecdotes. 　Identified as one of the simple forms of oral literature by the Dutch linguist André Jolles, jokes are passed along anonymously. 　They are told in both private and public settings; a single person tells a joke to his friend in the natural flow of conversation, or a set of jokes is told to a group as part of scripted entertainment. 　Jokes are also passed along in written form or, more recently, through the internet. 　Stand-up comics, comedians and slapstick work with comic timing and rhythm in their performance, and may rely on actions as well as on the verbal punchline to evoke laughter. 　This distinction has been formulated in the popular saying "A comic says funny things; a comedian says things funny".

Instability

In dynamical systems instability means that some of the outputs or internal states increase with time, without bounds. 　Not all systems that are not stable are unstable; systems can also be marginally stable or exhibit limit cycle behavior. 　In structural engineering, a structural beam or column can become unstable when excessive compressive load is applied. 　Beyond a certain threshold, structural deflections magnify stresses, which in turn increases deflections. 　This can take the form of buckling or crippling. 　The general field of study is called structural stability. 　Atmospheric instability is a major component of all weather systems on Earth.

Ottawa

Ottawa (/ˈɒtəwə/ (listen), /ˈɒtəwɑː/; Canadian French: [ɔtawɑ]) is the capital city of Canada. 　It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. 　Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core of the Ottawa–Gatineau census metropolitan area (CMA) and the National Capital Region (NCR). 　As of 2021,[update] Ottawa had a city population of 1,017,449 and a metropolitan population of 1,488,307, making it the fourth-largest city and fourth-largest metropolitan area in Canada. 　Ottawa is the political centre of Canada and headquarters to the federal government. 　The city houses numerous foreign embassies, key buildings, organizations, and institutions of Canada's government, including the Parliament of Canada, the Supreme Court, the residence of Canada's viceroy, and Office of the Prime Minister. 　Founded in 1826 as Bytown, and incorporated as Ottawa in 1855, its original boundaries were expanded through numerous annexations and were ultimately replaced by a new city incorporation and amalgamation in 2001. 　The municipal government of Ottawa is established and governed by the City of Ottawa Act of the Government of Ontario, and has an elected city council across 24 wards and a mayor elected city-wide. 　Ottawa has the most educated population among Canadian cities and is home to a number of colleges and universities, research and cultural institutions, including the University of Ottawa, Carleton University, Algonquin College, the National Arts Centre, the National Gallery of Canada; and numerous national museums, monuments, and historic sites. 　It is one of the most visited cities in Canada, with over 11 million visitors in 2018.

Imprisonment

Imprisonment is the restraint of a person's liberty, for any cause whatsoever, whether by authority of the government, or by a person acting without such authority. 　In the latter case it is "false imprisonment". 　Imprisonment does not necessarily imply a place of confinement, with bolts and bars, but may be exercised by any use or display of force (such as placing one in handcuffs), lawfully or unlawfully, wherever displayed, even in the open street. 　People become prisoners, wherever they may be, by the mere word or touch of a duly authorized officer directed to that end. 　Usually, however, imprisonment is understood to imply an actual confinement in a jail or prison employed for the purpose according to the provisions of the law. 　Sometimes gender imbalances occur in imprisonment rates, with incarceration of males proportionately more likely than incarceration of females.

Capability

Look up capability, capable, or incapable in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. 　A capability is the ability to execute a specified course of action or to achieve certain outcomes. 　As it applies to human capital, capability represents performing or achieving certain actions/outcomes in terms of the intersection of capacity and ability. 　Capability may also refer to:

Massacre

A massacre is the killing of a large number of people, especially those who are not involved in any fighting or have no way of defending themselves. 　A massacre is generally considered to be morally unacceptable, especially when perpetrated by a group of political actors against defenseless victims. 　The word is a loan of a French term for "butchery" or "carnage". 　A "massacre" is not necessarily a "crime against humanity". 　Other terms with overlapping scope include war crime, pogrom, mass killing, mass murder, and extrajudicial killing.

Virtually

In mathematics, especially in the area of abstract algebra that studies infinite groups, the adverb virtually is used to modify a property so that it need only hold for a subgroup of finite index. 　Given a property P, the group G is said to be virtually P if there is a finite index subgroup H ≤ G {\displaystyle H\leq G} such that H has property P. Common uses for this would be when P is abelian, nilpotent, solvable or free. 　For example, virtually solvable groups are one of the two alternatives in the Tits alternative, while Gromov's theorem states that the finitely generated groups with polynomial growth are precisely the finitely generated virtually nilpotent groups. 　This terminology is also used when P is just another group. 　That is, if G and H are groups then G is virtually H if G has a subgroup K of finite index in G such that K is isomorphic to H. In particular, a group is virtually trivial if and only if it is finite. 　Two groups are virtually equal if and only if they are commensurable.

Solomon

Solomon (/ˈsɒləmən/; Hebrew: שְׁלֹמֹה‎, Modern: Šlōmō, Tiberian: Šălōmō, lit. 'peaceful'), also called Jedidiah (Hebrew: יְדִידְיָהּ‎, Modern: Yǝdīdǝyah, Tiberian: Yăḏīḏăyāh, "beloved of Yah"), was a monarch of ancient Israel and the son and successor of David, according to the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament. 　He is described as having been the penultimate ruler of an amalgamated Israel and Judah. 　The hypothesized dates of Solomon's reign are 970–931 BCE. 　After his death, his son and successor Rehoboam would adopt harsh policy towards the northern tribes, eventually leading to the splitting of the Israelites between the Kingdom of Israel in the north and the Kingdom of Judah in the south. 　Following the split, his patrilineal descendants ruled over Judah alone. 　The Bible says Solomon built the First Temple in Jerusalem, dedicating the temple to Yahweh, or God in Judaism. 　Solomon is portrayed as wealthy, wise and powerful, and as one of the 48 Jewish prophets. 　He is also the subject of many later references and legends, most notably in the Testament of Solomon (part of first-century biblical apocrypha). 　In the New Testament, he is portrayed as a teacher of wisdom excelled by Jesus of Nazareth, and as arrayed in glory but excelled by "the lilies of the field". 　In the Quran, he is considered to be a major Islamic prophet and is generally referred to as Sulaiman ibn Dawud (Arabic: سُلَيْمَان بْن دَاوُوْد, lit. 'Solomon, son of David'). 　In mostly non-biblical circles, Solomon also came to be known as a magician and an exorcist, with numerous amulets and medallion seals dating from the Hellenistic period invoking his name.

Ritual

A ritual is a sequence of activities involving gestures, words, actions, or objects, performed according to a set sequence. 　Rituals may be prescribed by the traditions of a community, including a religious community. 　Rituals are characterized, but not defined, by formalism, traditionalism, invariance, rule-governance, sacral symbolism, and performance. 　Rituals are a feature of all known human societies. 　They include not only the worship rites and sacraments of organized religions and cults, but also rites of passage, atonement and purification rites, oaths of allegiance, dedication ceremonies, coronations and presidential inaugurations, marriages, funerals and more. 　Even common actions like hand-shaking and saying "hello" may be termed as rituals. 　The field of ritual studies has seen a number of conflicting definitions of the term. 　One given by Kyriakidis is that a ritual is an outsider's or "etic" category for a set activity (or set of actions) that, to the outsider, seems irrational, non-contiguous, or illogical. 　The term can be used also by the insider or "emic" performer as an acknowledgement that this activity can be seen as such by the uninitiated onlooker. 　In psychology, the term ritual is sometimes used in a technical sense for a repetitive behavior systematically used by a person to neutralize or prevent anxiety; it can be a symptom of obsessive–compulsive disorder but obsessive-compulsive ritualistic behaviors are generally isolated activities.