The Territory of Cocos Islands is an Australian external territory in the Indian Ocean, comprising a small archipelago midway between Australia and Sri Lanka and closer to the Indonesian island of Sumatra. It is in the Southern Hemisphere; the territory's dual name reflects that the islands have been known as either the Cocos Islands or the Keeling Islands. The territory consists of two atolls made up of 27 coral islands, of which only two – West Island and Home Island – are inhabited; the population of around 600 people consists of Cocos Malays, who practise Sunni Islam and speak a dialect of Malay as their first language. The territory is administered by the Australian federal government's Department of Infrastructure, Regional Development and Cities, together with Christmas Island forms the Australian Indian Ocean Territories administrative unit. However, the islanders do have a degree of self-government through the local shire council. Many public services – including health and policing – are provided by the state of Western Australia, Western Australian law applies except where the federal government has determined otherwise.

The islands were first discovered in 1609 by William Keeling, but no settlement occurred until the early 19th century. One of the first settlers was a Scottish merchant; the Clunies-Ross family ruled the islands as a private fiefdom for 150 years, with the head of the family recognised as resident magistrate. The British formally annexed the islands in 1857, for the next century they were administered from either Ceylon or Singapore; the territory was transferred to Australia in 1955, although until 1979 all of the island's real estate still belonged to the Clunies-Ross family. The islands have been called the Cocos Islands, the Keeling Islands, the Cocos–Keeling Islands and the Keeling–Cocos Islands. Cocos refers to the abundant coconut trees, while Keeling is William Keeling, who discovered the islands in 1609. John Clunies-Ross, who sailed there in the Borneo in 1825, called the group the Borneo Coral Isles, restricting Keeling to North Keeling, calling South Keeling "the Cocos properly so called".

The form Cocos Islands, attested from 1916, was made official by the Cocos Islands Act 1955. The territory's Malay name is Pulu Kokos. Sign boards on the island feature Malay translations; the Cocos Islands consist of two flat, low-lying coral atolls with an area of 14.2 square kilometres, 26 kilometres of coastline, a highest elevation of 5 metres and thickly covered with coconut palms and other vegetation. The climate is pleasant, moderated by the southeast trade winds for about nine months of the year and with moderate rainfall. Tropical cyclones may occur in the early months of the year. North Keeling Island is an atoll consisting of just one C-shaped island, a nearly closed atoll ring with a small opening into the lagoon, about 50 metres wide, on the east side; the island is uninhabited. The lagoon is about 0.5 square kilometres. North Keeling Island and the surrounding sea to 1.5 km from shore form the Pulu Keeling National Park, established on 12 December 1995. It is home to the only surviving population of the endemic, endangered, Cocos Buff-banded Rail.

South Keeling Islands is an atoll consisting of 24 individual islets forming an incomplete atoll ring, with a total land area of 13.1 square kilometres. Only Home Island and West Island are populated; the Cocos Malays maintain weekend shacks, referred to as pondoks, on most of the larger islands. There are no lakes on either atoll. Fresh water resources are limited to water lenses on the larger islands, underground accumulations of rainwater lying above the seawater; these lenses are accessed through shallow wells. Cocos Islands experiences tropical rainforest climate according to the Köppen climate classification; the archipelago has the wet season and the dry season. The wettest month is April with precipitation totaling 262.6 millimetres, the driest month is October with precipitation totaling 88.2 millimetres. The temperature varies a little; the hottest month is March with an average high temperature of 29.8 °C, while the coolest month is August with an average low temperature of 23.6 °C. In the 2016 census, the population of the islands was 544 people of which 75% are Islamic and 69.6% speak Malay rather than English at home.

The population on the two inhabited islands is split between the ethnic Europeans on West Island and the ethnic Malays on Home Island. The archipelago was discovered in 1609 by Captain William Keeling of the East India Company, on a return voyage from the East Indies. North Keeling was sketched by Ekeberg, a Swedish captain, in 1749, showing the presence of coconut palms, it appears on a 1789 chart produced by British hydrographer Alexander Dalrymple. In 1825, Scottish merchant seaman Captain John Clunies-Ross stopped at the islands on a trip to India, nailing up a Union Jack and planning to return and settle on the island

Kite are a Swedish synthpop group composed of Nicklas Stenemo and Christian Berg. Originating from Malmö and now based in Stockholm they are signed to Progress Productions and have published six EPs since their debut in 2008; each of them was released as a limited vinyl record edition. Kite have performed on festivals like Recession Festival in Århus, on Arvika Festival and Putte i parken in Sweden and Wave Gotik Treffen Leipzig, their eponymous debut EP Kite was reviewed favourably by the Side-Line magazine comparing it to classic 1980s synthpop acts like Erasure or Yazoo, while the German Sonic Seducer noted singer Stenemo's distinctive voice. The EP Kite III was lauded for its original sound by Side-Line and Sonic Seducer, the latter marking a darker tone in this release; the release Kite IV has been seen as a mix of classic 1980s synthpop like OMD and modern, experimental sounds. Kite's sixth EP VI was released in 2015, it has been compared to the sound of Vangelis. The 2010 single. Kite Kite II Kite III Kite IV Kite V Kite VI "Jonny Boy" Official myspace site Kite at Progress Productions Discogs

The multi-mission radioisotope thermoelectric generator is a type of radioisotope thermoelectric generator developed for NASA space missions such as the Mars Science Laboratory, under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Energy's Office of Space and Defense Power Systems within the Office of Nuclear Energy. The MMRTG was developed by an industry team of Teledyne Energy Systems. Space exploration missions require safe, long-lived power systems to provide electricity and heat to spacecraft and their science instruments. A uniquely capable source of power is the radioisotope thermoelectric generator – a nuclear battery that reliably converts heat into electricity. Radioisotope power has been used on eight Earth orbiting missions, eight missions travelling to each of the outer planets as well as each of Apollo missions following 11 to Earth's moon; some of the outer Solar System missions are the Pioneer, Ulysses, Galileo and New Horizons missions. The RTGs on Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 have been operating since 1977.

Radioisotope Heat Units were used to provide heat to critical components on Apollo 11 as well as the first two generations of Mars rovers. In total, over the last four decades, 26 missions and 45 RTGs have been launched by the United States. RTGs convert the heat from the natural decay of a radioisotope into electricity; the MMRTG's heat source is plutonium-238 dioxide. Solid-state thermoelectric couples convert the heat to electricity. Unlike solar arrays, the RTGs are not dependent upon the Sun, so they can be used for deep space missions. In June 2003, the Department of Energy awarded the MMRTG contract to a team led by Aerojet Rocketdyne. Aerojet Rocketdyne and Teledyne Energy Systems collaborated on an MMRTG design concept based on a previous thermoelectric converter design, SNAP-19, developed by Teledyne for previous space exploration missions. SNAP-19s powered Pioneer 11 missions as well as the Viking 1 and Viking 2 landers; the MMRTG is powered by eight Pu-238 dioxide general-purpose heat source modules, provided by the Department of Energy.

These eight GPHS modules generate about 2 kW thermal power. The MMRTG design incorporates PbTe/TAGS thermoelectric couples, where the TAGS material is a material incorporating Tellurium, Silver and Antimony; the MMRTG is designed to produce 125 W electrical power at the start of mission, falling to about 100 W after 14 years. With a mass of 45 kg the MMRTG provides about 2.8 W/kg of electrical power at beginning of life. The MMRTG design is capable of operating both in the vacuum of space and in planetary atmospheres, such as on the surface of Mars. Design goals for the MMRTG included ensuring a high degree of safety, optimizing power levels over a minimum lifetime of 14 years, minimizing weight. Curiosity, the MSL rover, landed in Gale Crater on August 6, 2012, uses one MMRTG to supply heat and electricity for its components and science instruments. Reliable power from the MMRTG will allow it to operate for several years. In February 20, 2015, a NASA official reported that there is enough plutonium available to NASA to fuel three more MMRTG like the one used by the Curiosity rover.

One is committed to the Mars 2020 rover. The other two have not been assigned to any specific mission or program, could be available by late 2021. Advanced Stirling radioisotope generator Radioisotope thermoelectric generator Nuclear power in space NASA Radioisotope Power Systems website – RTG page Idaho National Laboratory MMRTG page with photo-based "virtual tour" DOE to Crank Out New Plutonium 238 in 2019

The RD-120 is a liquid upper stage rocket engine burning RG-1 and LOX in an oxidizer rich staged combustion cycle with an O/F ratio of 2.6. It is used in the second stage of the Zenit family of launch vehicles, it has a single, fixed combustion chamber and thus on the Zenit it is paired with the RD-8 vernier engine. The engine has been developed from 1976 to 1985 by NPO Energomash with V. P. Radovsky leading the development, it is manufactured by Yuzhmash in Ukraine along with most of the rocket. It should not be confused with the RD-0120, a discontinued LOX/hydrogen rocket engine, used in the Soviet Energia launch system. During the Buran programme initial development of the 11D77 —the launch vehicle known as Zenit—, KBKhA had been assigned the development of the second stage engine, as they had done for the Proton and Soyuz vehicles, but given the difficulties for NPO Energomash in developing the RD-123, they ceded the hydrogen / oxygen sustainer engine development to KBKhA. This project, the analog of the SSME, was project RD-130 within NPO Energomash.

But when KBKhA tackled the development, named it RD-0120, a name, always a source of confusion with the engine of the current article. In exchange for them tackling the difficult development of the cryogenic propellant engine, Energomash assumed the responsibility of developing the second stage engine of the 11D77, which would be known as the RD-120; the fact that the RD-120 and the RD-0120 had this intertwined conception, within the same program, with a swap of designer bureaus, does not help to avoid the confusion. On March 16, 1976 the Government passed a resolution for the development of Zenit, the RD-171 and RD-120. By April 1976, Yuzhnoye supplied NPO Energomash with the final requirements for the 11D77 first and second stage propulsion. One of the desirable effects of consolidating the first and second stage propulsion on the same designer, was that they could learn their lessons on staged combustion engines on the smaller and simpler upper stage engine, apply them to the bigger and more innovative first stage RD-170.

NPO Energomash, had worked on a prototype kerosene / oxygen staged combustion engine in that range, based on the RD-268 hypergolic engine, under serial production with Yuzhmash. In February, 1977, the preliminary design of the RD-120 was finished, and on January 31, 1979 the first fire test of the RD-120 was performed. The RD-120 had a complicated debut, with the second stage failing on its first and fourth flights. While only the first failure could be attributed to the RD-120 —the propellant flow regulator had a leak and the stage ran out of propellant before being orbital—, the program initial performance was quite troubling, it proved its worth, by December 1987 the RD-120 were considered commissioned. But in the years of the Soviet dissolution, the second stage failed twice in a row on August 30, 1991 and February 5, 1992. Zenit had other second stage failures, but only the first one has been attributed directly to the RD-120 itself. During 1990, the NPO Energomash Head of the Propulsion Department, leading designer, V.

K. Chvanov, was awarded the State Prize for the creation of RD-120. In October 1992, Pratt & Whitney signed an agreement with NPO Energomash to sale and represent their line of engine in the United States. During the initial version of the X-34 program, the one trying to develop a reusable launch vehicle for small payloads through a public/private association, the RD-120 was considered for the 747 air-launched first stage; the RD-120 offered the best price and performance, was the preferred choice of Orbital Sciences. In fact, on October 11, 1995, the RD-120 was fired on the U. S. and thus became the first Russian rocket engine in production to be fired in American soil. This version of the engine, would differ from the Zenit in the addition of a gimbal mount that would enable it to offer TVC; this version would be known as the RD-120M. The second private partner in the X-34 program, Rockwell International, wanted to use their own engine, the RS-27, and given the constrained schedule and budget of the program, the engine selection was not able to be resolved and the program cancelled and reimplemented as the pure NASA research program that the X-34 was known for.

During the 1990s, the Chinese acquired two or three models of the RD-120, some documentation. This enabled them to bootstrap their indigenous kerosene staged combustion engine program, the YF-100 and YF-115. According to a WikiLeaks cable dated, September 28, 2007, the Ukrainian government denies any involvement of Ukrainian industry in that transfer, states that no involvement, at least until 2007, had happened with the Chinese 11th nor 4th Academy regarding the transfer of RD-120 technology; the RD-120 had significant margins built in, which allowed between 2001 and 2003 to develop a modernized'Uprated' or'Forced' version of the engine for Sea Launch which increased thrust 10% to 912 kN. It incorporated many improvements, which allowed it to increase chamber pressure and thrust without additional weight gain, it still has a 5% extra margin, extended the design life to 4260 seconds, the number of ignitions to 19 and allows to consider it as a base for a reusable rocket, the engine is still not capable of restarting inflight After a program that used 4 test engines and performed 28 hot fire tests with an accumulated running time of 8,135 seconds, the engine was qualified for flight.

Testing started in March 2004 and it had its debut flight on February 15, 2006 where it orbited EchoStar X. This engi

Surge is a citrus flavored soft drink first produced in the 1990s by The Coca-Cola Company to compete with Pepsi's Mountain Dew. Surge was advertised as having a more "hardcore" edge, much like Mountain Dew's advertising at the time, in an attempt to lure customers away from Pepsi, it was launched in Norway as Urge in 1996, was so popular that it was released in America as Surge. Lagging sales caused production to be ended in 2003 for most markets. However, popular fan bases such as Facebook's "SURGE Movement" led Coca-Cola to re-release the soft drink on September 15, 2014, for the US market via Amazon Prime in 12-packs of 16 oz cans. Following a test-market for the beverage in the Southeastern United States in early 2015, Surge was re-released in convenience stores in the Eastern United States and some Mountain states in September 2015. Surge was re-released internationally in September 2018 in Burger King restaurants in the Coca-Cola Freestyle machines. In 1997, Coca-Cola started production of Surge in the United States, with its original whitepaper name being "MDK," or "Mountain Dew Killer."

It was developed to converge with Mello Yello as a means of slowing Mountain Dew growth. Coke's attempts to draw users away with divergent products like OK Soda or with similar ones like Mello Yello had not succeeded. Surge was intended to improve on Mountain Dew by using maltodextrin for a longer-lasting blast of energy and with bolder, brighter presentation, its release was accompanied by a $50 million nationwide marketing campaign that led to high sales and popularity. A few years after the release, sales began to slip. Surge continued to be sold in vending machines, cans and as a fountains drink until its eventual discontinuation in 2003. While preparations for the US launch were underway, a cry for help came in from the Norwegian Division, who were battling a successful launch of Mountain Dew in their market; because the Surge brand was registered by another firm, the product was launched as "Urge". Local food regulation prevented the bright green color being used, so it was launched with a pale, more natural juice drink look and given a slight orange taste to match the flavor with the color.

Until September 15, 2014, when Coca-Cola re-released Surge, Norway was the only country where one could still buy a similar soft drink in any form, as the original Surge recipe was still popular there. Surge was associated with the extreme sports lifestyle, with television commercials similar to those used by Mountain Dew at the time. Coca-Cola used provocative catchphrases to market Surge to extreme sports enthusiasts and teenagers alike; some of these catchphrases included "Feed the Rush", "Life's a Scream" and the references to Surge as "A Fully Loaded Citrus Soda." Further touted was the fact that Surge had a considerable number of carbohydrates, hence the "with carbos" tagline, used in the marketing campaigns to emphasize the fact that Surge was supposed to be more than a soda, but an energy drink as well. After its inception, Surge's logo was updated and redesigned to a sharper and more modern look by a graphic designer/marketer named Colin Nekritz. In 1997 Coca-Cola settled a trademark dispute with Babson Bros. an industrial cleaning product company whose cow-milking machine has been known as Surge since 1925.

After the discontinuation of Surge in cans, a community was formed by web designer Eric "Karks" Karkovack entitled "Save Surge". The community mapped the locations at which Surge could be purchased in fountain form. Upon cancellation of the fountain syrup, the community continued, adopting an approach of activism that led to the creation of the citrus soda Vault in June 2005. After Vault's release, Karkovack announced the closure of SaveSurge.org. Vault was discontinued in 2011; as a result of Vault's discontinuation, a group was started on Facebook by Evan Carr called the "Surge Movement". The group posted requests on Coca-Cola's Facebook page, encouraged its members to call Coca-Cola's consumer affairs hotline at 1-800-GET-COKE to voice their desires further, once every month; the movement gained around 200,000 Facebook "likes" in the months after it was started and continues to grow. On September 15, 2014, Surge was re-released as an Amazon.com exclusive in packs of twelve 16 oz cans. On February 10, 2015, Coca-Cola announced that it had begun test-marketing Surge with independent resellers and vending machines across the Southeast United States.

The test run ended in late-May 2015. Two months Coca-Cola announced that it was preparing for a large-scale Surge retail release across the Eastern United States. Surge was re-released at convenience stores across the Eastern United States on September 7, 2015. In August 2018, Surge became available in Coca-Cola Freestyle machines at Burger King, it is available in several varieties, including Cherry, Grape and Zero Sugar. On November 16, 2015, Burger King restaurants released a slushy version of the beverage called "Frozen Surge" as a limited edition slushy. Burger King reintroduced it in their restaurants as a fountain drink in August, 2018 In late 2016, Valero Corner Stores partnered with Icee to release an Icee form of Surge at select locations. On January 11, 2017, Cinemark theaters released a slushy version of the beverage called "Surge Frozen" for a limited time before being discontinued in Spring 2017. Comparisons of Surge have been made to a Coca-Cola product, first released in 2005—around two years after the discontinuation of Surge.

Vault has been discontinued as of December 2011. The two drinks are noted to have had similar taste, although Vault contained higher levels of caffeine at 70.5 mg per 12 fl. oz serving and contained artificial flavors i

Denise M. Bidot is a plus-size fashion model. Born in Miami, Florida, in 2014 Bidot became the first plus-size model to walk the runway for two straight size brands during New York Fashion Week. Bidot has worked for clients such as Nordstrom, Forever21, Old Navy, Lane Bryant, Levi's, Macy's. Bidot has been featured on several television shows including nuvoTV's “Curvy Girls, HBO's Habla Women, Yahoo! En Español web series “Mama vs. Mama”, she has been included on segments on The Tyra Banks Show and The Real. In 2016 Bidot launched a lifestyle movement called "There Is No Wrong Way to Be a Woman". Bidot is one of the featured models in the new documentary film Straight/Curve. In December 2016 Bidot's picture of her wearing a two piece bathing suit in Lane Bryant's new resort collection ad campaign with the photo unretouched showing her stretch marks went viral within hours