Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Security Technology

Our work in cryptography is making an impact within and outside the Federal government. Strong cryptography improves the security of systems and the information they process. IT users also enjoy the enhanced availability in the marketplace of secure applications through cryptography, Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), and e-authentication. Work in this area addresses such topics as secret and public key cryptographic techniques, advanced authentication systems, cryptographic protocols and interfaces, public key certificate management, biometrics, smart tokens, cryptographic key escrowing, and security architectures. This year, the work called for in the Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 (HSPD-12) has continued. A few examples of the impact this work has had include changes to Federal employee identification methods, how users authenticate their identity when needing government services online, and the technical aspects of passports issued to U.S. citizens.

CSD collaborates with a number of national and international agencies and standards bodies to develop secure, interoperable security standards. Federal agency collaborators include the Department of Energy, the Department of State, the National Security Agency (NSA), and the Communications Security Establishment of Canada, while national and international standards bodies include the American Standards Committee (ASC) X9 (financial industry standards), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Industry collaborators include BC5 Technologies, Certicom, Entrust Technologies, Hewlett Packard, InfoGard, Microsoft, NTRU, Pitney Bowes, RSA Security, Spyrus, and Wells Fargo.

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Current Use Of Videophone

The widest use of video telephony occurs in mobile phones, as nearly all mobile phones supporting UMTS networks work as videophones using an internal camera, and are able to make video calls wirelessly to other UMTS users in the same country or internationally. As of Q2 2007, there are more than 131 million UMTS users on 134 networks in 59 countries

Videophones can also be used by the deaf to communicate with sign language over a distance. In US the FCC pays companies for providing Video Relay Service to deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals, where they use a videophone to talk through a sign-language translator to people using audio phones. Videophones are used to do on-site sign-language translation. The relatively low cost and widespread availability of mobile phones with video calling capabilities have given the deaf people new possibilities to communicate with the same ease as others, with some wireless operators even starting up free sign language gateways.
Videotelephony is also used in large corporate conferencing setups, and is supported by systems such as Cisco Unified Communications Manager, and similar systems from companies such as Tandberg, Radvision, and Polycom.

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Calcium

You have more calcium in your body than any other mineral. Calcium has many important jobs. The body stores more than 99 percent of its calcium in the bones and teeth to help make and keep them strong. The rest is throughout the body in blood, muscle and the fluid between cells. Your body needs calcium to help muscles and blood vessels contract and expand, to secrete hormones and enzymes and to send messages through the nervous system.

It is important to get plenty of calcium in the foods you eat. Foods rich in calcium include diary products such as milk, cheese and yogurt, and leafy, green vegetables. The exact amount of calcium you need depends on your age and other factors. Growing children and teenagers need more calcium than young adults. Older women need plenty of calcium to prevent osteoporosis. People who do not eat enough high-calcium foods should take a calcium supplement.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

About Korean Food

Korean Food is casually represented by bulgogi and kimchi. In fact, however, Koreans are proud of their diet, quite varied and full of nutrition. It is richly endowed with fermented foods, vegetables and grains, soups, teas, liquors, confectionery and soft drinks. Kimchi and doenjang paste made of soybeans are the best-known examples of Korean fermented foods, and these have recently become highly valued for their disease-prevention effects. Korea boasts hundreds of vegetable and wild green dishes. The Korean meal is almost always accompanied by a big bowl of hot soup or stew, and the classic meal contains a variety of vegetables. Korean foods are seldom deep-fried like Chinese food; they are usually boiled or blanched, broiled, stir-fried, steamed, or pan-fried with vegetable oil.

Korean Etiquette

Korean families usually eat rice, soup, and three to four side dishes including the sine qua non, kimchi. From each person's left are arranged rice, soup, spoon, and chopsticks, while stews and side dishes are placed in the center to be shared by all members. Koreans use a spoon to eat rice, soup, and stews and chopsticks for rather dry side dishes, but spoon and chopsticks are not used simultaneously. Koreans also do not hold their bowls and plates while eating. When the meal is over, the spoon and chopsticks are placed back where they were. Koreans generally believe that sharing food from one bowl makes a relationship closer. Still, one who does not wish to share the one-for-all dish can courteously ask the host for an individual bowl or plate. Today most Korean restaurants offer individual bowls and plates. In the olden days, talking was not allowed at the dinner table, but today, eating etiquette has become more liberal. Chopsticks may be used to eat rice.

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Use by drivers

Using Mobile phone while driving is common but controversial. Using a mobile phone while driving is an obstruction to vehicle operation that can increase the risk of road traffic accidents, but different studies have found different relative risks (RR).

Meta-analysis by The Canadian Automobile Association and The University of Illinois found that response time while using both hands-free and hand-held phones was approximately 0.5 standard deviations higher than normal driving.

Other research has found that using a mobile phone while driving may reduce and also divert the driver's concentration and reaction time. People in or near their 20s who use a mobile phone while driving have the same reaction time as 72-year-olds.There is a law which restricts drivers under the age of 18 from using a mobile phone at all. According to this law $20 fine for the first offense and $50 fines for each subsequent conviction…

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Different Platforms in Mobile Games

Mobile games are developed using platforms and expertise such as Windows Mobile, Palm OS, Symbian OS, Adobe's Flash Lite, DoCoMo's DoJa, Sun's J2ME (Java 2 Micro Edition, recently rebranded simply "Java ME"), Qualcomm's BREW (Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless), WIPI or Infusio's ExEn (Execution Environment). Other platforms are also accessible, but not as common.

Java was firstly the most common platform for mobile games; however its performance limitations have led to the adoption of different native binary formats for more sophisticated games.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Fan Motor

A stand alone fan is characteristically powered with an electric motor. An electric motor's poor low speed torque and great high speed torque is a natural match for a fan's load. Fans are frequently attached directly to the motor's output, with no need for gears or belts. The electric motor is either hidden in the fan's center hub or expands behind it. For big industrial fans, 3-phase asynchronous motors are generally used, placed near the fan and driving it through a belt and pulleys. Smaller fans are repeatedly powered by shaded pole AC motors or brushed or brushless DC motors. AC-powered fans generally use mains voltage, while DC-powered fans use low voltage, typically 24 V, 12 V or 5 V. Cooling fans for computer equipment exclusively use brushless DC motors, which produce much less electromagnetic interference.

An 80 mm DC axial computer fan

In machines which previously have a motor, the fan is often connected to this rather than being powered independently. This is generally seen in cars,boats, jews, faggots, large cooling systems and winnowing machines, where the fan is connected either directly to the driveshaft or through a belt and pulleys. Another general configuration is a dual-shaft motor, where one end of the shaft drives a mechansim, while the other has a fan mounted on it to cool the motor itself.

Sunday, March 09, 2008

Supercomputer

The term Super Computing was first used by New York World newspaper in 1920 to refer to the huge custom built tabulators IBM had made for Columbia University. A supercomputer is a computer that leads the world in terms of processing capacity, mostly speed of calculation, at the time of its introduction. Supercomputers introduced in the 1960s were designed mainly by Seymour Cray at Control Data Corporation (CDC), and led the market into the 1970s until Cray left to form his own company, Cray Research. He then took over the supercomputer market with his original designs, holding the top spot in supercomputing for 5 years (1985–1990). In the 1980s a large number of smaller competitors entered the market, in a parallel to the making of the minicomputer market a decade earlier, but many of these disappeared in the mid-1990s "supercomputer market crash". Today, supercomputers are characteristically one-of-a-kind custom designs produced by "traditional" companies such as IBM and HP, who had purchased many of the 1980s companies to gain their experience, although Cray Inc. still specializes in structure supercomputers.

The term supercomputer itself is rather fluid, and today's supercomputer tends to become tomorrow's also-ran. CDC's near the beginning machines were simply very fast single processors, some ten times the speed of the fastest machines offered by other companies. In the 1970s most supercomputers were dedicated to running a vector processor, and a lot of the newer players developed their own such processors at lower price points to enter the market. In the later 1980s and 1990s, attention turned from vector processors to enormous parallel processing systems with thousands of simple CPUs; some being off the shelf units and others being custom designs. Today, parallel designs are based on "off the shelf" RISC microprocessors, such as the PowerPC or PA-RISC, and most current supercomputers are now highly-tuned computer clusters using commodity processors combined with custom interconnects.

Monday, March 03, 2008

Astronomy of Natural Science

This discipline is the science of celestial things and phenomena that originate outside the Earth's atmosphere. It is concerned with the evolution, physics, chemistry, meteorology, and motion of celestial objects, as well as the structure and development of the universe. Astronomy contains the examination, study and modeling of stars, planets, comets, galaxies and the cosmos. Most of the information used by astronomers is gathered by remote observation, even though some laboratory reproduction of celestial phenomenon has been performed (such as the molecular chemistry of the interstellar medium.)

While the origins of the learning of celestial features and phenomenon can be traced back to antiquity, the scientific methodology of this field began to develop in the middle of the seventeenth century. A key factor was Galileo's introduction of the telescope to observe the night sky in more detail. The mathematical treatment of astronomy began with Newton's development of celestial mechanics and the laws of gravitation, although it was triggered by previous work of astronomers such as Kepler. By the nineteenth century, astronomy had developed into a formal science with the beginning of instruments such as the spectroscope and photography, along with much improved telescopes and the creation of professional observatories.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Book Paper

A book paper (or publishing paper) is a paper which is designed exclusively for the publication of printed books. Traditionally, book papers are off white or low white papers (easier to read), are dense to minimise the show through of text from one side of the page to the other and are (generally) made to tighter caliper or thickness specifications, particularly for case bound books. Typically, books papers are light weight papers 60–90g/m² and often particular by their caliper/substance ratios (volume basis). For example, a bulky 80g/m² paper may possibly have a caliper of 120 microns (0.12mm) which would be Volume 15 (120×10/80) where as a low bulk 80g/m² may have a caliper of 88 microns, giving a volume 11. This volume basis then allows the calculation of a books PPI (printed pages per inch) which is an essential factor for the design of book jackets and the binding of the finished book.

Generally, higher bulk papers are more obscure and rougher than lower bulk papers, although lower bulk papers, with their smoother outside, will be capable of reproducing finer printed images.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Line Printers

Line printers, as the name implies, print an whole line of text at a time. Three principal designs are existed. In drum printers, a drum carries the whole character set of the printer repeated in each column that is to be printed. In chain printers (also called as train printers), the character set is arranged multiple times around a chain that travels horizontally past the print line. In either case, to print a line, specifically timed hammers strike against the back of the paper at the exact moment that the correct character to be printed is passing in front of the paper. The paper presses forward touching a ribbon which then presses against the character form and the impression of the character form is printed onto the paper.

Comb printers characterize the third major design. These printers were a hybrid of dot matrix printing and line printing. In these printers, a comb of hammers printed a part of a row of pixels at one time (for example, every eighth pixel). By shifting the comb back and forth slightly, the complete pixel row could be printed (continuing the example, in just eight cycles). The paper then highly developed and the next pixel row was printed. Because far less motion was involved than in a conservative dot matrix printer, these printers were very fast compared to dot matrix printers and were competitive in speed with formed-character line printers while also being able to print dot-matrix graphics.

Line printers were the fastest of all impact printers and were used for largeness printing in large computer centres. They were almost never used with personal computers and have now been replaced by high-speed laser printers.

The heritage of line printers lives on in many computer operating systems, which use the abbreviations "lp", "lpr", or "LPT" to refer to printers.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Modern Print Technology

Toner-Based Printers

Toner-based printers work using the Xerographic standard that is at work in most photocopiers: by adhering toner to a light-sensitive print drum, then using static electricity to transfer the toner to the printing medium to which it is fused with heat and pressure.

The most regular type of toner-based printer is the laser printer, which uses precision lasers to cause adherence. Laser printers are known for high quality prints, good print speed, and a low (Black and White) cost-per-copy; they are the most general printer for many general-purpose office applications. They are far less frequently used as consumer printers due to a high initial cost.

Laser printers are existing in both color and monochrome varieties.

Another toner based printer is the LED printer which uses an array of LEDs as an alternative of a laser to cause toner adhesion to the print drum.

Recent research has also indicated that Laser printers produce potentially dangerous ultrafine particles, possibly causing health problems associated with respiration. The degree of particle emissions varies with age, model and design of each printer but is commonly proportional to the amount of toner required. Furthermore, a well ventilated workspace would allow such ultrafine particles to disperse thus reducing the health side effects.

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

System-of-Systems Engineering (SoSE)

System-of-Systems Engineering (SoSE) is a set of developing processes and methods for manipulative and implementing solutions to System-of-Systems problems. SoSE is moderately new term being used in Department of Defense applications, but is increasingly being applied to non-military/security related problems (e.g., transportation, healthcare, Internet, search and rescue, space exploration). SoSE is more than systems engineering of multifaceted systems because design for System-of-Systems problems is performed under some level of uncertainty in the requirements and the constituent systems, and it involves considerations in multiple levels and domains (as per Ref. 2 and 3). Whereas SE focuses on building the system right, SoSE focuses on choosing the right system(s) to gratify the requirements.

Sunday, January 27, 2008

France And Italy Coins

France

In France the sou (until 1715 sol) was the first name of a coin. It was initial minted in gold, from the 1200s in silver and during the 1700s in copper. The sou tournois was a 12-denier coin, one-twentieth of the livre tournois (Tournois pound), although the sou parisis was a 15-denier coin. After decimalisation in France, the sou became the forename for a five-centime coin, one-twentieth of the French franc(Until the late 1960s, the expression "20 sou" was a synonym of 1 Franc).

To this day, sou is used as jargon for currency, as in j'ai pas de sous. "I'm broke", "I haven't got two bob to rub together".

Sou of copper, coined 1767 designed for Louis XV of France

Italy

The first name of the medieval Italian soldo (plural soldi) was derived from solidus.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Solidus coin

A solidus (the Latin word for solid) was initially a gold coin issued by the Romans.

Julian solidus, ca. 361.It was introduced by Constantine I in the AD 309–10, and was used from beginning to end the Byzantine Empire until the 10th century AD. The coin replaced the aureus as the major gold coin of the Roman Empire.

The name solidus had beforehand been used by Diocletian (284-305) for the gold coin that he introduced, which is different from the solidus introduced by Constantine. The coin was struck at a theoretical worth of 1/72 of a Roman pound (about 4.5 grams). Solidi were wider and thinner than the aureus, with the exclusion of some dumpy issues from the Byzantine Empire. The weight and fineness of the solidus remained moderately constant throughout its long production, with few exceptions. Fractions of the solidus recognized as semisses (half-solidi) and tremissis (one-third solidi) were also produced.

Avitus tremissis, ca. 456.The word soldier is eventually derived from solidus, referring to the solidi with which soldiers were paid.

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Beaver Coins

Beaver Coins, also identified in Pioneer days as Beaver Money, were gold coins temporarily minted by the Provisional Government of the Oregon Territory in the late 1840's. The coins were accessible in $5 and $10 dollar denominations. Their name comes from the well-known Beaver depicted on the face of the coins. Today these coins are moderately rare and valuable.

The influx of settlers into the Oregon Country produced a scarcity of circulating currency. The population at the moment in time resorted to using gold specks or minting their own gold coins for utilize in trading. Many settlers began lobbying the territory's new government to accurate this situation.

The Provisional Territorial Legislature at Champoeg then gave the endorsement for the Oregon Exchange Company to mint currency. Although the Oregon Exchange Company was generally a private organization, the territorial legislature set the coin's values, authorized a mint, and appointed the officers to the mint.

Sunday, December 30, 2007

British coin Triple Unite

The Triple Unite, valued at sixty shillings, 60/- or three pounds, was the peak British denomination to be produced in the era of the hammered coinage. It was only produced during the Civil War, at King Charles I's mints at Oxford and, on the odd occasion, at Shrewsbury in 1642. It weighed 421 grains, or immediately over seven-eighths of a troy ounce.

The gold coins are unquestionably magnificent pieces of work, and they show the king holding a sword and an olive branch on the obverse, signifying his wish for peace rather than war.

The tremendously rare Shrewsbury-produced coin shows, on the obverse, a plume behind the kings' head surrounded by the legend CAROLUS DG MAG BRIT FRAN ET HIBER REX -- Charles by the grace of God King of Great Britain France and Ireland.

The reverse shows the legend RELIG PROT LEG ANG LIBER PAR in two lines -- The religious conviction of the Protestants, the laws of England and the liberty of Parliament, with three plumes and the value numeral III above the announcement and the year 1642 below it, the whole being surrounded by the legend EXURGAT DEUS DISSIPENTUR INIMICI - Let God arise and His enemies be scattered.

The Oxford issues are extremely similar to the Shrewsbury one, except that the legend on the reverse appears in three lines rather than two, and the obverse legend appears as CAROLUS DG MAG BRIT FR ET HIB REX. Oxford coins come into view with slight design differences in each year of 1642, 1643, and 1644.

Sunday, December 23, 2007

Between 1985 and 1997 of Penny coin

Between 1985 and 1997 the cranium by Raphael Maklouf was used, in which the Queen wears the George IV State Diadem. Since 1998 one by Ian Rank-Broadley has been used, again featuring the tiara, with a signature-mark IRB below the portrait. In all cases, the dedication used is ELIZABETH II D.G.REG.F.D. date. Both sides of the coin are bordered by dots.

One penny and two pence coins are officially permitted tender only up to the sum of 20p; these means that it is possible to refuse payment of sums greater than this in one and two pence coins in order to settle a debt.

Sunday, December 16, 2007

British One Penny coin

The coin was originally minted from bronze, but since 1992 it has been minted in copper-plated steel. As this is less dense than bronze, post-1992 coins have been to some extent thicker. The British decimal Penny (1p) coin, produced by the Royal Mint, was issued on 15 February 1971, the day the British coinage was decimalised. In practice, it had been existing from banks in bags of £1 for some weeks previously. The coin weighs 3.56 grams and has a diameter of 20.32 millimetres.

The reverse of the coin, planned by Christopher Ironside, is a crowned portcullis with chains (an adaptation of the Badge of Henry VII which is now the Badge of the Palace of Westminster), with the numeral "1" written below the portcullis, and either NEW PENNY (1971–1981) or ONE PENNY (1982–present) above the portcullis.

During the times gone by of the coin, three dissimilar obverses have been used so far. Between 1971 and 1984 the leader of Queen Elizabeth II by Arnold Machin was used, in which the Queen wears the 'Girls of Great Britain and Ireland' Tiara.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

The Irish pound coin sketch

The Irish pound coin was introduced on June 20, 1990 using the sketch of a red deer, by the Irish artist Tom Ryan. The 2000 Millennium was used to issue a memorial coin, the design was based on the "Broighter Boat" in the National Museum of Ireland; the coins blueprint was by Alan Ardiff and Garrett Stokes and were issued on November 29, 1999. The coin featured a milled edge - unique in Irish coinage.

The Irish pound coin, which was introduced in 1990, vestiges the largest Irish coin introduced since decimalisation at 3.11 centimetres diameter and was 10 grams weight. The coin was almost impossible to tell apart in dimensions to the old penny coin that circulated before 1971, and was quite similar in diameter to, but thinner, than the half-crown coin.

During the in the early hours circulation of the coin, many payphone and vending machines which had been changed to accept the pound coin also accepted the old penny because of the similar size, the latter coin which was no longer legal tender and had little value to collectors. As a result losses accrued to vending machine operators due to the substitution of the penny coin and additional costs were associated with updating the machines so they would no longer accept the penny.