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S stars are a classification of star where the atmospheric carbon and oxygen abundances are nearly equal, and neither C nor O (or at least not much of either) is available to form other molecules. These stars show zirconium oxide and unusual metal lines such as barium.
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The S-band is the frequency band from 1550 to 5200 Mhz employed in radar.
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Saccharic acid is a dibasic acid, which occurs in varieties that differ in their optical activity, and is obtained by the oxidation of cane-sugar, grape-sugar, and other carbohydrates ny nitric acid. It is isomeric with mucic acid.
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Saccharose is a former alternative name for sucrose.
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SafeBoot by Fischer International Systems Limited is a computer product which prevents a PC from being booted from a floppy disk, and prevents a hard disk from being read in another computer.
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Safflower oil is a drying or semi-drying oil derived from the seeds of a plant grown in India, Egypt, Asia Minor, the USA and Australia. It oxidises at a slower rate than linseed oil, but is a useful material for the modification of alkyd resins and is used in artists' colours. A yellow dye is derived from the flower of the safflower plant which resembles but is distinct from saffron.
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Saffron is an orange-yellow dye extracted from the dried stigmas of a type of crocus (Crocus sativus) . It is used in cooking.
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Safranines are red dye-stuffs obtained by the oxidation of a mixture of paradiamine and a monoamine.
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Sal ammoniac or ammounium chloride is employed as the electrolyte in batteries of the Leclanche type, as a flux in soldering, in dyeing and calico-printing, and its fumes were formerly inhaled for the relief of bronchitis.
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Salicin is a colourless, bitter, odourless, crystalline substance obtained from the bark of several species of tree of the willow and poplar class, and used in medicine externally to check sweating and internally as a specific for rheumatism and rheumatic fever.
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Salicylic acid (ortho-hydroxy-benzoic-acid) is the active chemical constituent of aspirin. It is an aromatic acid obtained by treating with hydrochloric acid the salt obtained by the action of carbon dioxide on sodium carbonate. It occurs in nature principally as its methyl ester in the oil of wintergreen. It was formerly used as a preservative for foods and has long been used in medicine, though the dangers of excessive doses have been known since the 19th century.
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Salol, phenyl salicylate, is the pjenyl ester of salicylic acid. It forms easily fusible almost tastless crystals that are insoluble in water and have an antispetic action. Internally it decomposes into its components and was formerly used in the treatment of rheumatic fever and as an internal disinfectant.
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Saltpetre is a popular name for potassium nitrate.
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Salts are formed by the replacement of acidic hydrogen by a metal or radical by the reaction of an acid upon an alkali.
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Salvarsan is a poisonous yellowish powder discovered by Ehrlich and once used in a dilute solution as a treatment for syphilis. It is an organic compound containing a small amount of arsenic.
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Sam Spade is a freeware network query tool used to discover ip addresses, who sent an email, who hosts a web site and lots of other internet information.
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Samarium is an element with the symbol Sm.
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Dissidents Sample Wrench is an audio sample editor for the IBM PC running the Windows operating system. It supports all Windows sound-cards and a variety of MIDI-based keyboard and rack-mount samplers. Sample Wrench enables you to edit mono or stereo sounds with 24 bit better than CD quality and fidelity. Numerous special effects and processes are provided including reverb, flange, chorus, echo, amplitude modulation, frequency modulation, rectify, arbitrary transfer functions, invert, reverse, hand-drawn amplitude envelopes, pitch shift, time stretch, amplitude compressor/limiter/ expander, bass and treble EQ, filters, parametric EQ, spectral warp, resynthesis, FFT analysis, sample rate transposition, cross multiply, integrate, differentiate, dedicated looping tools, noise gate, grunge, noise reduction, click and pop removal for digitally remastering old vinyl records, impulse (acoustical) modeling, convolution and harmony.
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In audio engineering, the sampling frequency is the rate at which measurements of an audio signal are taken during A/D and D/A conversion. Once in the digital domain, the data usually remains at the same sampling frequency. The measure is typically samples per second.
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Sabdaric resin is a natural resin produced in North Africa and used in the preparation of map varnishes and paper varnishes.
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SiSoftware Sandra (System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is a personal computer information and diagnostic utility program available for the Windows operating system. It is designed to provide most of the information an engineer may need to know about the personal computer hardware, software and other connected devices. Sandra includes benchmarking modules, and makes suggestions as to how the performance of the system under analysis may be improved.
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Saponification is the process by which an oil or fat is decompossed by reaction with an alakli and converted into a soap.
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Sarcosine (methyl-glycoccoll) is a product of the decomposition of creatine, occurring in flesh, and of caffeine, occurring in tea and coffee. It may be obtained synthetically by the action of methylamine on monochloracetic acid, and forms rhombic crystals that readily dissolve in water.
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A sash saw is is a light hand saw, similar to a tenon saw but smaller, used for cutting sashes.
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SATAN (Security Analysis Tool for Auditing Networks) was a computer utility for analysing Unix networks for security vulnerabilities developed by Dan Famer of Sun Microsystems and Wietse Venema of Eindhoven University of Technology around 1993 and released into the Public Domain in 1995.
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In chemistry, a saturated solution is a solution that contains all the solute that it can hold at a given temperature and pressure.
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A scalene triangle is a triangle in which the three sides are of different lengths.
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Scandium is a metal element with the symbol Sc.
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The scarf joint is a form of electrical joint used for joining thick wires where there is no strain on the wire, and the bulkiness of the Britannia joint is an objection. The ends of each wire are filed to a flat chamfer, so that when placed together they fit exactly, and are then bound with tinned copper binding wire before being soldered.
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Scarlet chrome is a lead chromate pigment obtained by replacing part of the chromium radicle with molybdenum.
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Scart or Peritel is an industry standard form of 21-way screened connector used for connecting audio-visual equipment, such as televisions and VCR and DVD equipment. The Scart connection allows for audio and composite video signals and a number of control signals to be sent between the equipment connected.
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Schedule-Ease is a computer program for the PC that takes all the pertinent information and puts it together for you to create a weekly schedule, complete with days, times, shifts, departments, hours, rates of pay, weekly pay, and so on. With Schedule-Ease, you can improve control of your payroll, and track and manipulate employee work times to increase your company's productivity. You will be able to tell exactly where you need to add or cut employee hours, and which employees can benefit your 'bottom line' the most.
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ScheduleSoft is a point-and-click, rules-based personnel schedule generator and management computer program for the PC. You can roster employees using seniority, minimum-shift demand, post and job codes, preferences, and unlimited work patterns. Extensive online help and a comprehensive setup interview offer a quick start and painless automation of your personnel planning activities.
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Scheelium is a former alternative name for tungsten.
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Schlippe's salt is a popular name for sodium thioantimonate.
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Scintillation is a luminous effect produced when high-speed charged particles (alpha and beta particles and protons) pass through matter.
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SCMS is an abbreviation for Serial Copy Management System, and is a method used for regulating the copying of digital recordings in the consumer market. When digital to digital copies are made, the
SCMS information is also copied, and the equipment can decide whether or not to allow a copy to be made based upon the SCMS information. Recording from analogue sources does not transfer the SCMS information and enables SCMS copy protection to be bypassed.
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A scraper site is a web site that does not contain its own content, but rather presents a copy of some content from another, usually very popular, web site usually with the intention of misdirecting search engine traffic to the scraper site. Strictly speaking, search engines are themselves 'scraper sites' since they don't present their own content, but rather small sections of content from other web sites, but the term is generally restricted to web sites which extract a small amount of content which triggers a good search engine response for a popular search term. To this content is added advertising so as to generate advertising revenue from the traffic which is directed to the scraper site - rather than the originating site - by search engines when individuals search for a specific search term.
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In computer terms, a search engine is a service provided on the world wide web which allows a user to search for web pages related to a word, or phrase. Search engines are large databases which index the content of millions of web pages. They often do this with a program known as a 'spider' or 'web crawler' which acesses a web page, indexes it, and then follows the links on the page to other pages. Search engines are usually a free service to users, receiving their revenue from the sale of advertising space.
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A searchlight is an instrument for directing a powerful beam of light. They are constructed from an electric lamp and a concave mirror arranged so as to give a cylindrical beam of light.
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The second is the basic SI unit of time, one-sixtieth of a minute. It is defined as the duration of 9,192,631, 770 cycles of regulation (periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between two hyperfine levels of the ground state) of the caesium-133 isotope.
In mathematics, the second is a unit of angular measurement, equalling one-sixtieth of a minute, which in turn is one-sixtieth of a degree.
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A secondary colour is a colour produced by the combination of two primary colours. For example green produced by mixing blue and yellow is a secondary colour.
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Seismology is the scientific study of earthquakes.
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In radio terms, selectivity is the ability of a radio to reject signals on frequencies adjacent to the desired station. It is usually expressed as a bandwidth measured at 6 dB rejection points ('6 dB down' or '-6 dB'). For example, a selectivity specification of '6 kHz at -6 dB' means any signal outside the 6 kHz bandwidth will be reduced in strength by at least 6 dB (in other words, the interfering signal is only one-fourth as strong as it would be otherwise). Typical good selectivity measurements at 6 dB points are 6 kHz for AM, 2.5 kHz for SSB, and 0.5 kHz for CW.
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Selenium is a rare metal element with the symbol Se. It was discovered in 1817 by Berzelius in the refuse of a sulphuric acid manufactory in Sweden.
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A semi-conductor is a material having electrical properties intermediate between those of good electrical conductors and those of good electrical insulators, that is most substances are semi- conductors.
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In chemistry, a semipermeable membrane is a membrane that allows water and crystalloids to pass through but holds back colloids.
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Sepia is a dark brown pigment obtained from cuttlefish and used for monochrome sketching.
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The Samsung SGH-E900 is a slide-open, tri-band mobile telephone featuring touch sensitive controls. The Samsung SGH-E900 features a two megapixel digital camera which can also record movies, integrated 80 mb memory and external memory option and a 262,000 colour display. Being a tri-band telephone the Samsung SGH-E900 can be used in Europe, America and Canada.
The Samsung SGH-E900 has a built in music player, and full connectivity to a Windows PC allowing music and video to be transferred to and from the phone. The Samsung SGH-E900 supports the Bluetooth transfer technology, and has an offline mode to allow its non-wireless functions to be used on an aeroplane without interfering with the aircraft navigation systems.
The Samsung SGH-E900 utilises Java for allowing games to be played on the phone, incorporates a web browser for accessing the world wide web and can send and receive emails with full multimedia attachments supported.
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Properly, shade, when describing colour, describes a colour darkened by the addition of black. The term is often misued in place of 'colour' or 'tint'.
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Shareware is concept of marketing computer software that is freely available to try. If you like and use the software, you should send in the fee requested by the author, whose name and address will be found in a file distributed with the software.
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A shavehook is a decorator's tool used in burning off, especially designed for removing paint from mouldings. The shavehook is used with a pulling motion and as such is less liable to damage the contours of the moulding. Typically a shavehook has a triangular-shaped head, but pear-shaped and combination headed shavehooks are also made.
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Shear steel is a variety of steel in which the metal has been forged into bars, these bars cut into pieces and arranged cross-wise before being reforged into the final steel. This process produces a very hard form of steel with a web-like texture in the metal, and is used where a hard, sharp edge is required such as for shears.
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Shellac is a resin used to make varnish. It is derived from the lac insect.
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In audio engineering shelving describes an equalizer circuit that is used to cut and boost a signal above or below a specified frequency High and low band equalizers are usually
shelving type.
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Sherardizing is a method of treating iron and steel in order to obtain a rust-proof surface. Sherardizing consists of heating the iron or steel in the presence of zinc dust in such a way that an amalgamation of the two metals takes place, an iron-zinc alloy being formed.
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Sherlock by Gulf Sierra is a text comparison utility that allows you to compares two ASCII files line by line. It displays five lines from each file in separate windows. You may scroll either or both files passed the mismatch to put them in sync and continue. Either file can be automatically scanned to locate a line matching the line selected in the other file. Sherlock contains features for searching, ignoring case, spaces, tabs, jumping around the files and copying lines to a printer. This is a useful tool for programmers and writers.
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Show Your Site is a free banner exchange program for web sites on the World Wide Web offering members a 9 for 10 banner impression ratio and comprehensive statistics as to banner effectivenes as well as control over the classification of sites upon which a member's advertising banners will be displayed.
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A Sickle is a hook-shaped steel bladed instrument used for cutting grass and grain.
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Side-chain theory is a theory proposed by Ehrlich as a chemical explanation of immunity phenomena. In brief outline it is as follows: Animal cells and bacteria are complex aggregations of molecules, which are themselves complex. Complex molecules react with one another through certain of their side chains, but only when these side chains have a definite correspondence in structure (this account for the specific action of antitoxins).
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SideKick by Borland International, was a popular and simple RAM-resident desktop organiser for computers running the DOS operating system, and consisted of five windows for a Notepad, Calculator, Calendar, Dialer, and ASCII table.
SideKick's Notepad was an ASCII text editor that resembled WordStar. Although it was not a fully-fledged word processor, it was remarkably complete. The ASCII table was a handy reference for programmers. The Phone Dialer dialed a phone number found anywhere on the screen - it didn't need to be in SideKick.
The ASCII table, binary, and hexadecimal support in the Calculator and the familiar WordStar interface in the Notepad, made SideKick popular with programmers.
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Siebel Sales is a sales-effectiveness computer program for the PC, designed for individual sales professionals. Its features include account management, opportunity management, graphical organizational charting, and sales reporting. It is also a personal productivity tool, featuring contact management, calendar management, activity tracking, and expense reporting.
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In audio engineering, a signal to noise ratio is the difference between the nominal signal level and the residual noise floor, usually expressed in decibels.
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A silicate (sillic acid) is a compound formed by the combining of silica (SiO2) and water in various proportions.
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Silicon is a non-metallic element with the symbol Si.
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Silver-steel is an alloy of one part silver and 500 parts Silver-steels first made around 1822 and was adopted by the cutlers of Sheffield for making fine razors, surgical instruments etc.
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Sinapine is an organic base, existing as sulphocyanate in the seed of Sinapis alba (white mustard), and first extracted by Henry and Garot in 1825.
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Sintering is the process of heating strongly a quantity of more or less amorphous material, so causing it to coalesce into a single solid mass.
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A siphon is a bent tube with one limb longer than the other, by means of which a liquid can be drawn off to a lower level.
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Six's maximum and minimum thermometer is a popular thermometer among gardeners for use in greenhouses. Its purpose is to record the maximum and minimum temperatures reached since the thermometer was last read. Generally speaking a minimum temperature occurs during the night and a maximum during the day. It was invented by James Six towards the end of the eighteenth century, and consists of a fairly large cylindrical bulb full of alcohol, or oil of creosote, connected by a U- shaped stem to a second bulb nearly full of alcohol or oil of creosote. The bend of the U contains a thread of mercury. Two scales are provided, one against each limb of the tube so that the temperature may be read against either of the mercury levels. Resting on each of the mercury surfaces are small steel indexes provided with light springs to hold them in position in the stem. Expansion or contraction of the fluid in the larger bulb causes a movement of the mercury thread. Consequently, one or other index is pushed forward by the mercury and left in the extreme position reached. Thus, the lower end of the index on the left indicates the minimum and that on the right the maximum temperature attained. It is interesting to note that Six's maximum and minimum thermometers were still being used in 2000 of exactly the same design and construction as ones produced over 100 years ago.
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A skiagraph is a photograph taken by means of X-rays.
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A skiatron is a form of cathode-ray tube sometimes employed in radar. Its screen is composed of pottasium chloride and is white in colour, but exhibits a magenta trace of long persistence.
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In electronics, skin effect is the AC resistance of a conductor due to the tendency for high- frequency currents to travel along the surface of the wire.
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Skylab was an American space station launched in 1973.
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Slag is the chemical compound resulting during the smelting of metallic ores. It results because of the action of the flux on impurities in the ore. Slag generally consists of silicates, formed by the combination of silica with alumina, lime, magnesia, oxides of iron or other metals. By the formation of slag, the impurities in the ore are removed, and if the metallic contents of the slag are of no value the slag is regarded as smelters' refuse. Some slags, however, consisting mainly of metallic oxides produced during the refining processes, are resmelted and such slags are termed cinder or scoria. As slag has to be separated from the valuable metallic material, its fluidity, at the smelting temperature, is an important factor, and some substances such as an oxide of zinc are apt to make slags pasty.
Slags vary in chemical composition, but those which crystallise are regarded as definite chemical compounds. The colour of slags affords n indication of the composition, for example green denotes the presence of iron and copper oxide produces a red slag. Slags are used for various purposes, as ballast for railways, macadamising roads, making into bricks and others. Some slags may be burnt with lime, thus making an efficient hydraulic cement, and slag from the basic Bessemer process forms a fertiliser containing phosphorus.
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Slaked Lime is a popular name for calcium hydroxide, Ca(OH)2. Which is obtained by slaking (adding water) to calcium oxide. It is an important constituent of mortar and cement.
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Slaking is a chemical term for mixing a substance with water, as in the process of slaking lime to create slaked lime.
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A slide rule (calculating rule) is a mathematical instrument used for mechanically performing rapid calculations including multiplication, division, and the extraction of square-roots by the logarithmic methods. In the use of logarithms the multiplication of two quantities is effected by adding their logarithms, the division by subtracting them. This principle is employed in the slide rule, which in effect adds or subtracts logarithms by use of the slide that is part of its construction. The principle of the rule is due to Gunter in 1620 with the slide being added by Wingate in 1626 and the cursor by Mannheim in 1851. The cursor is a sliding glass or plastic device on the rule, enabling results to be read more quickly and accurately. Suller's slide rule is cylindrical, Stanley's watch-shaped, and most later 20th century slide rules were rectangular. Many special slide rules were invented for particular sets of calculations. The slide rule is now almost extinct since the invention of the electronic calculator.
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In engineering, a slipper is an iron slide or brake-shoe adjusted under the wheel of a vehicle to act as a drag when descending an incline.
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A Slot machine is a machine operated by coins, or in some cases by tokens similar to coins, and used for selling commodities or services automatically. Slot Machines originated with the Greeks and Romans for selling wine and are still used today.
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Slow-match was a 19th century term for a fuse used to light mines or blasts.
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Sodium Laureth Sulfate
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Smalt is a type of glass in which protoxide of cobalt has been mixed with common glass to produce a glass with a deep blue tinge to it. Smalt was discovered by a Bohemian glass blower in the 16th century. The blue glass so produced may also be ground to a fine powder to produce a blue pigment, also called smalt, which was once used to tint starch and paper.
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Smart Technology are an English PC assembler and supplier based in Birmingham. They were established in 1994 at the University of Birmingham Research Park and supply a range of budget priced desktop and laptop computers.
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Smartcom II by Hayes Microcomputer Products is a menu-driven communications package which provides the ability to communicate with mainframe computers as well as other PCs. The package was made to accompany the Hayes Smartmodem 1200 and 2100, so there are advantages in having the two together. When Smartcom II is run, it checks the Smartmodem to see if the switches are set correctly - if not it will tell you so. This is a unique feature for communications packages, the others do not tell you that your modem switches are set incorrectly until you are trying to communicate. Smartcom II has auto-dial and auto-answer features as well as a directory service. The user has the capability to create a macro command for each name listed in the directory so that you do not have to key in simple log-in information. A limited number of other computers and their numbers can be kept on the directory. For those users who send messages, Smartcom II has a simple text editor which allows the user to write messages from within the package instead of exiting to a DOS editor. Smartcom II gives the user the ability to capture downloaded data to disk as it is sent, but only as it comes across the screen.
Smartcom II emulates the DEC VT100, VT102 and VT52 terminals. Smartcom II makes communications easy by ' holding your hand' as the user specifies the commands. The menu system is good for the novice user (but the advanced user may find it slow).
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Smartcom III was a major upgrade of the popular Smartcom II product. New features included a powerful script programming language and the capability to handle two online sessions more or less simultaneously. Smartcom III's script language - SCOPE (Simple Communications Programming Environment) lets you create simple log-in or file retrieval scripts that can handle entire sessions, including reading and writing files. The dial session capability allows the user to switch from one link to another with a single keystroke. Smartcom III has a built-in editor to help you create and modify scripts. For fast execution, it also includes a compiler to convert the finished script to machine code. The compiler also checks for syntax errors and if it finds any it will return the script to the editor with appended error messages A Peruse buffer allows access to information captured while the rest of it is still being uploaded. File-compression and file- scrambling options provide data security when communicating with another
Smartcom III user.
Smartcom III emulates TTY, the DEC VT100, VT102 and VT52 and viewdata terminals.
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SmartDraw is a computer program for the PC that allows you to draw flowcharts, organizational charts, technical drawings, forms, and business presentations. This program's ease of use makes it particularly suitable for users who need to create professional-quality drawings quickly and easily. Features include automatic formatting, rotation, customisable toolbars, professional colour styles, and a library of more than 1, 500 ready-made symbols and templates. The Professional Edition also includes a real-time spelling checker, search and replace, advanced import and export filters (for AutoCAD, DXF, Visio, EPS, and other popular formats), and more. Version 4.30 added a conversion wizard that made it even easier for users of Visio, FlowCharter, and other similar programs to switch to SmartDraw with just a few clicks of the mouse. SmartDraw also supports Windows 2000.
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SmarTerm 240 by Persoft emulates DEC VT340, 240, 220, 125, 100, and 52 terminals on a PC. In addition to the features of the other SmarTerm communications programs providing text terminal emulation, SmarTerm 240 can emulate all features of DEC's ReGIS graphics language, and does Tektronix 4010 and 4014 emulation. The program supports a hotkey so you can toggle between the emulation session and DOS.
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SmarTerm 400 by Persoft emulates the Data General Dasher 100, 200, 400, 410 or 411 terminals on a PC. The primary function of this program is ASCII or binary file transfer between a PC and a host computer system.
SmarTerm 400 makes use of all the features of these terminals, including multiple display windows, 132-column support through horizontal scrolling or on-screen with supported display adapters, full- character display attributes (underline, blink, dim, reverse video), and local printer support including pass through mode, which lets you send data directly to the printer rather than from the display. SmarTerm 400 allows you to set customised softkey commands so that repetitive functions can be mapped into a single keystroke.
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SmartForecasts II by Smart Software is a business forecasting computer program that is easy to use without a knowledge of statistics. It quickly makes accurate projections of sales, expenditures, market share, inventory levels, and other items whose values are recorded periodically over time. As a business forecasting product, SmartForecasts II provides more realistic information than you would receive by adding 5% to the most recent figures in a spreadsheet. Most business forecasting is done by managers and analysts who may not be familiar with the statistical and mathematical reasoning behind forecasting but do know a great deal about products, competition, and markets. SmartForecasts II is designed to fully utilise the special knowledge and business judgment of the user. Its exceptional ease of use makes it appropriate for novices, while the variety of methods available appeal to the experienced analyst. One of the strongest features of SmartForecasts II is Automatic Forecasting, which runs an internal check among the available forecasting techniques to determine which one best forecasts your data series. Using a process that is transparent to the user, Automatic Forecasting displays results in a graph showing historical data, smoothed historical data, forecasts, and upper/lower margins of error based on the winning method. It also produces tabular results.
Forecasting can be done simultaneously on a single business variable or a group of up to 60 related variables (up to 150 data points or observations per variable), such as the sales of items in the same product line.
SmartForecasts II's unique Eyeball Forecasting lets you adjust any forecast, including automatic forecasts, to reflect business judgment or new market information. It lets you use interactive graphics to quickly draw and adjust forecasts on-screen. SmartForecasts II consists of four menu- driven modes; an edit mode for creating, editing, and transferring data; an explore mode for statistical analysis and graphing of data; a forecast mode; and an on-line help mode.
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SmartForm Assistant by Claris Corporation is a companion program to SmartForm Designer and provides help messages and automatic calculations. Using the Assistant, you can access built-in help messages, choice lists, and automatic calculated fields that were created with the Designer. The Assistant lets you fill in forms more quickly and accurately than manually.
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SmartForm Designer by Claris Corporation is an advanced computer tool designed to create professional-quality forms quickly. It creates simple or complex forms such as mailing labels, tickets, expense reports, and invoices. The Designer can create forms with calculated fields, built- in choice fields, and data-entry validation rules. Forms that are created with this product can be printed for manual completion or distributed electronically for on-line completion with SmartForm Assistant.
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SmartNotes by Personics Corporation is the electronic version of those little yellow sticky notes attached to many paper documents. SmartNotes attaches a note to a phrase in any document, cell in any spreadsheet, or field in any database and can be used to clarify a figure, comment on the wording of a phrase, or remind yourself to check an address in a data file. When pressing a key, a blank note pops up and attaches itself to a selected cell, field, or phrase. You can display all notes associated with a given screen, or scroll through the document to display all notes. The core of SmartNotes is a very fast pattern-matching technique. Because notes are kept in a separate file, there is no alteration or corruption of original data file.
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SmartWare II, by Informix Software, is the updated version of the Smart Software System. It consists of four modules: database, spreadsheet with graphics, word processor, and communications. Each of the modules is powerful enough to be compared to a standalone product in its category. SmartWare II offers a complete selection of powerful features to facilitate the building of complex custom applications and programs. It has been used extensively in companies that develop internal turnkey systems. The package provides Project Processing and a built-in application language with all four modules. Project Processing gives you access to all the SmartWare II commands, as well as over 75 programming commands, and supports programming structures such as IF-ELSE, FOR, and WHILE. You can also define your own functions with Project Processing. The SmartWare II database more closely resembles a standalone database than any of the other integrated programs. The size of the database is determined by the amount of disk space because SmartWare II writes data to
disk as RAM becomes limited. There is a report generator which allows combination of data from up to 100 files in one report and you can design custom data screens that display information from as many as 127 files on one screen. The Query-by-Example feature helps to quickly find specific data simply by selecting a sample of the type of data to extract.
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A smock-mill is a form of windmill in which a cap rotates on a vertical axis to present the sails towards the wind. The name is used in contradistinction to a postmill in which the whole mill rotates for the same purpose.
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In a steam locomotive, the smoke-box is a hollow space or box at the front end of a locomotive boiler. It is divided from the boiler by the end boiler plate known as the smoke-box tube plate, into which the forward ends of the boiler tubes are fitted. On top of the smoke-box the chimney is fixed, and centrally below the chimney is the breeches-pipe (the exhaust pipes from the cylinder, which converge into one pointing vertically upwards). As the steam exhausts up the chimney, it creates a forced draught in the smoke-box, thereby drawing the heat from the firebox through the boiler tubes. The steam-pipe from the boiler and superheater passes down the smoke-box, branching into two, one to each cylinder. At the front end the smoke-box is fitted with a circular door to allow cleaning.
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SMTP or simple mail transfer protocol is the method used by most internet hosts to handle the transfer of email across the internet. It is a simple system in which all commands and text are transferred as text, so
SMTP is easy to debug, and hack.
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In computer terms, sniffing is listening (with software) to the raw network device for packets that interest you. When your software sees a packet that fits certain criteria, it logs it to a file.
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Snobol is a high-level text-handling computer programming language.
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Snow is the crystalline form of frozen water vapour.
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The Sociological Society was a British learned society founded in 1905 to promote the investigation and advance education in social science.
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Sociology is the comprehensive study of the fundamental laws of social phenomena, or if you like, the science of man in society. The term sociology was first introduced by Comte in 1839.
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Soda or washing soda, also known as soda ash, is a common name for sodium carbonate (Na2CO3).
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Soda water is aerated water charged with carbonic acid gas. The gas is forced into the water under pressure, and the liquid mechanically bottled and corked. Soda water was first manufactured commercially in Geneva at the end of the 18th century and was introduced into Britain by Schweppe.
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Sodagrain is a trade name for caustic soda.
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Sodium is a metal element with the symbol Na.
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Sodium amide is a white, crystalline, water-soluble flammable powder used in the manufacture of sodium cyanide and in organic synthesis.
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Sodium arsenite is a white or greyish-white, water-soluble, poisonous powder used as a weed-killer and as an insecticide.
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Sodium benzoate (benzoate of soda) is a white crystalline soluble compound used as an anti-bacterial and anti-fungal agent in preserving food, as an antiseptic, and in making dyes and pharmaceuticals. It has the formula Na(C6H5COO). Sodium benzoate often causes allergic reactions and skin disorders in people. Sodium benzoate is frequently used as a preservative in milk and meat products.
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Sodium bicarbonate (also known as bicarbonate of soda and baking soda) is a white, water-soluble solid with the formula NaHCO3, used in effervescent drinks, antacid indigestion relief, soda-acid fire extinguishers and baking powder. Tarnished silver placed on aluminium foil in a container and covered with a hot solution of sodium bicarbonate will be cleaned as the sodium bicarbonate solution generates an electro-chemical reaction transferring the sulphur (the black sulphide of the tarnish) from the silver to the aluminium, leaving the original silver in place. Sodium bicarbonate can also be used as a de-odoriser in solution form, and dry, shaken onto fabrics and after a while vacuumed off.
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Sodium Bisulphite is a salt of Sulphurous Acid.
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Sodium carbonate (soda or soda ash) is an anhydrous, greyish-white, odourless, water-soluble powder. It is used in the manufacture of glass, ceramics, soap, paper, petroleum products. It occurs naturally in alkaline lakes but is derived mainly from sea water by way of electrolysis.
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Sodium chlorate is a colourless crystalline soluble compound used as a bleaching agent, weak antiseptic, and weedkiller. It has the formula NaClO3.
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Sodium chloride (commonly known as salt) is a colourless crystalline compound with the formulae NaCl. It occurs naturally as the mineral halite and in sea water.
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Sodium cyanide is a white, crystalline, deliquescent powder. It is soluble in water and very poisonous. It is prepared by heating sodium amide with charcoal and is used in casehardening alloys and electroplating.
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Sodium dichromate is a soluble crystalline solid compound, usually obtained as red or orange crystals and used as an oxidising agent, corrosion inhibitor, and mordant. It has the formula Na2Cr2O7.
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Sodium fluoroacetate is a white crystalline odourless poisonous compound, used as a rodenticide.
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Sodium fluoride is a colourless, crystalline, water-soluble poisonous substance used as an insecticide, rodenticide and also as a source of fluoride in toothpaste and added to water in many developed countries.
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Sodium hydroxide (caustic soda) is a brittle, white deliquescent solid with a soapy feel. It dissolves in water to give a strongly alkaline solution and is widely used in the manufacture of soaps, cellulose and rayon.
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Sodium hypochlorite is an unstable oxidising compound of sodium, oxygen and chlorine with the formulae NaOCl, produced by the electrolysis of sodium chloride and only known to exist in aqueous solution. Sodium hypochlorite is extensively used in household bleach, in industrial bleach for bleaching paper pulp and textiles, for the chlorination of water and in medicine as an antiseptic and fungicide.
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Sodium iodide is a salt found in kemp. It forms anhydrous cube crystals which are very soluble in water and alcohol.
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Sodium Laureth Sulfate (Sodium dodecyl sulfate, Sodium lauryl sulfate, SLS) is an inexpensive detergent commonly used in cosmetic cleansers, hair shampoos, bath and shower gels, bubble baths, engine degreasers, toothpaste, and car washes. It is very corrosive and readily attacks greasy surfaces. It is used throughout the world for clinical testing as a primary skin irritant. Laboratories use it to irritate skin on test animals and humans so that they may then test healing agents to see how effective they are on the irritated skin. A study in the late 1990s at the University of Georgia Medical College, indicated that it penetrated into the eyes as well as brain, heart, liver, and other organs and showed long-term retention in the tissues. The study also indicated that it prevented young children's eyes from developing properly and caused cataracts to develop in adults. It may also cause hair loss by attacking the follicle. In the USA it is classified as a drug in bubble baths because it eats away the skin protection and causes rashes and infection to occur. It is potentially harmful to both the skin and hair because it cleans by corrosion. It dries the skin by stripping away the protective lipids from the surface so it can't effectively regulate moisture. It is also a lung and eye irritant and is considered a reproductive hazard. Another extremely serious problem is the connection of SLS with nitrate contamination. SLS reacts with many types of ingredients used in skin products and forms nitrosomines (nitrates). Nitrates are potential cancer-causing carcinogenics.
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Sodium Nitrate is the deliquescent salt (NaNO3) occurring naturally as caliche, or made by the reaction of nitric acid and soda ash. It is used as a fertiliser and in the manufacture of explosives and as a preservative in foods.
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Sodium palm kernelate is a synthetic detergent produced from palm kernel oil, and commonly added to cleansing products.
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Sodium perborate is a white odourless crystalline compound used as an antiseptic and deodorant.
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Sodium peroxide is a yellowish-white odourless soluble powder formed when sodium reacts with an excess of oxygen. It is used as an oxidising agent in chemical preparations, a bleaching agent, an antiseptic, and in removing carbon dioxide from air in submarines.
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Sodium stearate is used as the basis of soap and detergents and is used in the manufacture of toothpaste.
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Sodium Sulphite is a salt of Sulphurous Acid. It has the formulae Na2SO37H2O.
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Sodium tallowate is a generic name for fatty acid salts obtained by mixing animal tallow with sodium hydroxide to form soap.
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Sodium thioantimonate is a yellowish crystalline substance previously suggested for use in toning photographic images.
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Sodium thiosulphate (hypo) is a white, crystalline, water-soluble substance used in photography as a fixing agent.
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Soft karaoke is a collection of computer Karaoke players in ten different International languages. Features include a search Engine that allows you to search by artist name, group name or song title quickly and easily, a fade-out facility for a smoother transition between songs, automatic microphone set-up for trouble-free use of the sound mixer.
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Soft water is water that contains very few dissolved metal ions such as calcium (Ca2+) or magnesium (Mg2+). It lathers easily with soap, and no scale is formed inside kettles or boilers. However, it has been found that the incidence of heart disease is higher in soft-water areas.
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Softerm PC is a powerful communications manager and terminal emulation program. It emulates more than 40 popular terminals and communicates to a variety of host computers and information services. In terminal-emulation mode, Softerm PC provides all keyboard and display functions. It can capture data to disk or print in transparent mode, which captures all data received, or line mode, which captures each line on the screen after it is displayed. Send-file function transmits data from disk as if it were typed on the keyboard.
Softerm PC offers various remote file transfer modes, including a character protocol which provides maximum flexibility for text file transfers. Streaming and block-modes are supported. Transmit options include fixed or variable block size, end-of-block terminator, acknowledgment of character strings, end-of-block delay and character echo wait. Softerm PC supports the concurrent operation of up to four communications ports and three printer ports through background processing queues. Speeds of up to 115K bps are supported, with PCs connected locally or remotely through standard manual or autodial modems. Softerm PC is written in assembly language for fast response and efficient operation.
Softerm PC includes disk and file utilities to display, print, or copy any file. The product supports automatic dialling in terminal and file transfer modes. A built-in phone book allows numbers to be accessed by user-defined names. Keyboard macros can be defined to send frequently used sequences of characters. You can toggle between Softerm PC and another application, such as Lotus 1-2-3.
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A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between the Earth and Sun and the Moon's shadow crosses the Earth Solar eclipses can be total, partial, or annular. A total eclipse is when the Moon obscures the Sun entirely. A partial eclipse is when the Moon only covers a portion of the Sun. Because the Moon's orbit about the Earth is not perfectly circular, sometimes it is slightly farther away from the Earth. If a solar eclipse occurs when the Moon is at the far point in its orbit, the Moon will not cover the Sun entirely. A thin ring, or annulus, of sunlight will be visible around the Moon. This kind of eclipse is called an annular eclipse.
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Solar radiation is radiation emanating from the Sun and consisting mainly of visible light, ultraviolet radiation, and infrared radiation, although the whole spectrum of electromagnetic waves is present, from radio waves to X-rays. High-energy charged particles such as electrons are also emitted, especially from solar flares. When these reach the Earth, they cause magnetic storms (disruptions of the Earth's magnetic field), which interfere with radio communications.
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Solar wind is a stream of atomic particles, mostly protons and electrons, from the Sun's corona, flowing outwards at speeds of between 300 kps and 1,000 kps. The fastest streams come from 'holes' in the Sun's corona that lie over areas where no surface activity occurs. The
solar wind pushes the gas of comets' tails away from the Sun, and 'gusts' in the solar wind cause geomagnetic disturbances and aurorae on Earth.
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A solenoid is a helical coil of insulated wire, through which an electric current is passed. If a bar of iron is inserted within the coil, it is magnetised by the current.
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A solid is a substance in which the molecules do not have free movement.
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In chemistry, a solute is a substance dissolved in a solvent.
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A solution is a homogeneous mixture of substances that cannot be separated by mechanical means.
The commonest forms of solutions are liquid. Gases dissolve in liquids according to Henry's Law, which states that the mass of any gas absorbed by a liquid is proportional to the pressure of the gas, and decreases as the temperature increases. The law only applies to gases which have a low solubility. With high solubility the probability is that a chemical action takes place which apparently invalidates the law. The decrease of solubility with pressure is seen in the familiar example of opening a bottle of fizzy drink, the dissolved gases immediately beginning to bubble out from the liquid.
Liquids mix according to no well-defined law, but the mixing is important, as upon it depend the fractional distillation processes.
As a general rule, solids dissolve in liquids at a rate depending upon the temperature, but the rule has a number of notable exceptions, e.g.: solubility actually decreases with increase of temperature. Salt dissolves very little more in hot water than cold, while potassium nitrate dissolves nearly twenty times more in boiling water than in water at freezing point. When a liquid has dissolved as much of the solid as possible it is said to be saturated. A solid dissolves out from a saturated solution on cooling, as a rule, and generally in the form of crystals.
Solid solutions are of two kinds, the solution of gases in solids and the solution of solids in solids. The occlusion of hydrogen in palladium is a well-known example of the former, and amorphous mixtures of gases, of the latter.
Research Solution
The solutrian was the middle period of the upper palaeolithic age in Europe. The climate was cold, supporting horses, reindeer and mammoth, and human remains indicate an eastern race, apparently dominating for a time the Aurignacian. The solutrian age was named from a rock-shelter at Solutre in Saone-et-Loire.
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In chemistry, a solvent is a substance in which a solute is dissolved.
Research Solvent
Somatotrophin is a growth hormone secreted by the mammalian pituitary gland. It stimulates protein synthesis and the growth of the long bones in the legs and arms. Production of
somatotrophin is greatest during early life. In man, overproduction results in gigantism and underproduction in dwarfism. Bovine somatotrophin is used to increase milk and meat production in cattle.
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Sonar is a method of locating underwater objects by the reflection of ultrasonic waves.
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The Sony Ericsson W810i is a mobile phone featuring a 2.0 Megapixel Digital Camera with video recording and playbacj facilities, Bluetooth, WAP, USB and infrafed connectivity, a digital MP3 music player and FM radio. The Sony Ericsson W810i has a 256,000 colour TFT display and built in clock, calendar and alarm as well as providing support for downloadable games through Java. The Sony Ericsson W810i has a built in 20 mb data capacity and can also accommodate an external 512 mb memory stick.
The Sony Ericsson W810i has a built in NetFront web browser for browsing the world-wide-web and supports sending and receiving emails and multimedia text messages.
The Sony Ericsson W810i has a battery life of up to 350 hours standby and up to 8 hours talk time.
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The Sony ICF-2001 was a Japanese made portable general coverage receiver made between 1980 and 1983 and providing coverage from 150 kHz to 29.9 Mhz in AM, SSB and CW modes.
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The Sony ICF-7600DA was a portable radio introduced in 1987 aimed at broadcast listeners. The Sony ICF-7600DA had 15 memory channels and covered 150 kHz to 285 kHz, 531 kHz to 1602 kHz, 3.050 Mhz to 3.565 Mhz, 3.7 Mhz to 4.215 Mhz, 4.65 Mhz to 5.165 Mhz, 5.8 Mhz to 6.315 Mhz, 6.95 Mhz to 7.465 Mhz, 9,375 Mhz 12.16 Mhz, 13.375 Mhz to 14.01 Mhz, 14.975 Mhz to 15.61 Mhz, 21.325 Mhz to 21.96 Mhz, 25.475 Mhz to 26.1 Mhz in AM mode and 87.5 Mhz to 108 Mhz in FM wide mode.
Research Sony ICF-7600DA
Soot is a black carbonaceous solid deposited as a result of the imperfect combustion of bituminous coal, wood, oil or other substances. It is primarily carbon, but also contains some hydrocarbons and may contain ammonium sulphate if derived from coal.
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Sorbic acid is found in the fruit of the rowan tree and used in food preservation. It is now chiefly manufactured synthetically from ketene.
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Sound is the changes in air pressure (a series of particle compressions followed by rarefactions) detectable by the ear. Sound can travel through gasses, liquids and solids but not through a vacuum - there are no particles in a vacuum to be compressed by the sound wave.
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Soyuz was the Soviet manned space programme that started in the 1960's. Soyuz 1 was launched in April 1967 carrying colonel Vladimir Komarov with the object of checking the craft's systems and elements in conditions of spaceflight and to conduct related experiments. During re-entry the parachute cords became entangled resulting in the parachute failing and the cosmonaut being killed in the impact when the spacecraft hit the earth.
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A spacecraft is a vehicle used to travel through space, from one planet to another or to a moon, asteroid or other planetoid.
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Spacewar is a space-combat simulation game, inspired by E. E. 'Doc' Smith's 'Lensman' books, in which two spaceships duel around a central sun, shooting torpedoes at each other and jumping through hyperspace. The game was first implemented on the PDP-1 at MIT in 1960.
SPACEWAR aficionados formed the core of the early hacker culture at MIT. Nine years later, a descendant of the game motivated Ken Thompson to build, in his spare time on a scavenged PDP-7, the operating system that became UNIX. Less than nine years after that, SPACEWAR was commercialise as one of the first video games.
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A spark plug or sparking plug is an electrical device for igniting the explosive charge in an internal combustion engine. Spark plugs are usually hexagonally shaped externally so as to fit a spanner, and fitted internally with a tube of porcelain or other suitable insulating material, which is screened by a nut and contains and insulates a small metal conducting rod, which passes down the centre. At its upper end, this rod is screwed and fitted with a nut; at the lower end it is bent to a right angle to within a few millimetres from the inner wall of the metal plug. A wire from a magnetic or induction coil distributor is attached to the top end of the rod.
The distributor is so timed that when the piston has compressed the combustible charge to the top of its stroke, an electric current passes down the insulated rod, and, leaping across the gap, causes a spark, which ignites the charge.
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Sparteine is an alkaloid obtained by extracting broom-tops (Cytisus scoparius) with acidulated water and distilling the extract with caustic alkali. Sparteine is a colourless, oily liquid with a bitter taste. Its salts were formerly used in medicine for the treatment of heat disease.
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A speaking trumpet (ear-trumpet) was an instrument formerly used prior to the invention of the electronic hearing-aid for concentrating and magnifying the sound waves of the human voice. The speaking trumpet was probably invented by Sir Samuel Morland during the 17th century. At one time speaking trumpets were widely used on board ships, but by the early 20th century was replaced on ships by other means of communication.
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In chemistry, specific gravity (or relative density) is the ratio of the weight of a given volume of a substance to the weight of an equal volume of water (or another substance chosen as a standard). For gases the standard chosen is hydrogen or air.
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The specific heat of a material is defined as the amount of heat that is required to raise the temperature of 1 gram of the material by 1 degree of the centigrade scale. As the specific heat varies with the temperature of the substance it is usual to specify the temperatures between which it has been measured, although for temperatures met with in nature the variation of specific heat is negligible. Specific heats are all measured in relation to that of water, and by definition the
specific heat of water is unity.
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Spectacles are devices for aiding sight, and consist of lenses of glass, rock crystal, or plastic, mechanically supported before the eyes. The term is more generally used for those glasses which are fixed in frames and fitted with supports for the ears. Spectacles without ear supports, which grip the nose are called pince-nez. The lenses may be surrounded by a rim for further support, or be rimless for the sake of appearance.
The invention of spectacles is probably due to the Chinese, and there are references by Latin writers to an eyeglass of beryl worn by Nero. Alessandro de Spina and Roger Bacon are both credited with the invention of spectacles in Europe, while Benjamin Franklin is credited with the invention of bifocals.
Eyeglass lenses are made from optical glass, rock crystal and plastic. The lenses are divided into two main classes, spherical and cylindrical, each sub-divided into concave and convex and their combinations. Concave lenses are used for the correction of myopia, convex lenses for hypermetropia. Cylindrical lenses are used to correct astigmatism. The surface of such lenses are sections of cylinders. Combinations of lenses are used where the sight of one eye is differently affected from the other. Prismatic glasses are used in cases of double vision, caused by weakness of the muscles of the eye-ball.
In compound spectacles the same pair of glasses may be used for long sight and for reading purposes. The bifocal lenses consist of a weak upper half and a stronger lower one, the latter for reading, the former for ordinary vision. In the torric lens one part of the glass is a spherical curve and the other cylindrical, and acts in a similar way to the bifocal.
Research Spectacles
The spectroheliograph is an instrument devised in 1889 by Hale at Chicago for the purpose of photographing solar prominences. It is essentially a spectroscope with a double slit (as suggested by Janssen in 1869), the second slit serving to exclude from the sensitive plate immediately behind it all light except that of one selected quality, usually the K-line of calcium. By giving properly adjusted movements to the several parts of the apparatus, a picture of the object in mono-chromatic light can thus be built up in sections as its image drifts across the collimator slit.
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A spectroscope is a mechanical device for analysing light. The Spectroscope resolves light into vibrations of different frequencies, so that its properties can be defined. Spectroscopes are used for such things as measuring the velocity of stars, looking at the rotation of the sun and the detection of chemical elements.
Mechanical spectroscopes generally included a slit and a collimator to admit the light in a parallel beam, and a viewing telescope. The Littrow type combines collimator and telescope, making the beam pass twice through the same lens. With a camera replacing the eyepiece, the instrument becomes a spectrograph, and when equipped with measuring scales and circles, a spectrometer.
The actual analysis is effected in refracting spectroscopes by one or more prisms of glass, or other refracting medium, which, by causing rays of shorter wave-lengths to deviate more than longer ones, splits up the beam into a rainbow spectrum with the red rays nearest the thin edge of the prism. As the dispersion increases with diminishing wave-length, the violet end is spread out more than the red, and the dispersion is called irrational. Small direct-vision instruments are made with an odd number of prisms in one tube, the even numbers reversed and of denser glass, so that for some mean ray the deviations cancel each other, the instrument being used pointing directly towards the light.
For some astronomical purposes the collimator is unnecessary, and the prism can be fixed outside the object glass of a telescope (known as an objective prism). For very refined measurements the resolving power of a prism is insufficient and a diffraction grating was used. Fraunhofer first tried an actual grating of fine silver wire, and afterwards an optical grating of parallel lines rules by a diamond on a glass plate. Later, silvered glass was used for reflection instead of transmission, and then speculum metal replaced the glass.
Diffraction spectra are formed in sets, first, second, third order etc, on each side of the directly reflected rays, with the violet end nearest the central undisturbed image. An idea of them may obtained by looking at the sun through a feather. Ruled gratings being very expensive, cheap replicas, called Thorp gratings, were made by moulding melted celluloid on a ruled grating. Rowland's concave grating acts as its own condenser and focusing lens, thus avoiding the loss of light due to absorption. It yields a perfectly normal spectrum when used in certain positions.
Resolving power is the ratio of the wave-length to the smallest difference of wave-length actually separated by the instrument. With a very narrow slit it nearly equals the number of lines in the whole grating multiplied by the order of spectrum considered. Michelson produced a grating with a resolving power of 300,000. He also invented a new form of optical grating called an echelon, comprised of glass plates of uniform thickness being arranged in steps. Higher resolving power is reached by interferometers, especially Michelson's. In these the analysis is produced by passing the ray between parallel plates of glass, one or both only partially silvered, the phase of emergent rays varying with the number of internal reflections.
Research Spectroscope
Spectroscopy is the science which deals with the methods of production of the spectra from various sources of light, and their study.
The science of spectroscopy began properly with Kirchoff's interpretation of the Fraunhofer lines in 1859, that they indicated gases and metallic vapours surrounding the incandescent body of the sun.
Research Spectroscopy
A spectrum is coloured bands formed by dispersion when a ray of light from any source is passed through a prism. The visible portion of the spectrum varies from red through orange, yellow, green and blue to violet, but the spectrum is continued beyond the red and violet. The spectra of the sun and other stars are crossed by dark lines, characteristic of the chemical elements. These lines have enabled the composition of the stars to be suggested.
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Speculum metal is an alloy of two parts copper to one part tin and a trace of arsenic. It is hard, white and brittle and can be highly polished. It was once used for making the mirrors of reflecting telescopes.
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Speed is the rate of time at which something moves, travels, proceeds or operates.
Research Speed
The speed of light is the speed at which light energy travels. In 1983 the
speed of light was defined as the speed at which light travels in a vacuum.
Research Speed Of Light
SpeedBack by MicroTools Inc. is a fast and user friendly disk defragmenter for the PC. Using a special algorithm to minimize movement of data, files are moved to the front of the disk and placed in contiguous clusters.
Research SpeedBack
Spelter is an alloy of copper and zinc in equal parts used for hard soldering and brazing. The term is also applied to zinc ingots formed by smelting.
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Abbreviations
SciTech
