1.
Rat
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Rats are various medium-sized, long-tailed rodents of the superfamily Muroidea. True rats are members of the genus Rattus, the most important of which to humans are the black rat, Rattus rattus, many members of other rodent genera and families are also referred to as rats, and share many characteristics with true rats. Rats are typically distinguished from mice by their size, generally, when someone discovers a large muroid rodent, its common name includes the term rat, while if it is smaller, the name includes the term mouse. The muroid family is broad and complex, and the common terms rat, scientifically, the terms are not confined to members of the Rattus and Mus genera, for example, the pack rat and cotton mouse. The best-known rat species are the black rat and the brown rat, the group is generally known as the Old World rats or true rats, and originated in Asia. Rats are bigger than most Old World mice, which are their relatives, the term rat is also used in the names of other small mammals which are not true rats. Examples include the North American pack rats, a number of species loosely called kangaroo rats, Rats such as the bandicoot rat are murine rodents related to true rats, but are not members of the genus Rattus. Male rats are called bucks, unmated females are called does, pregnant or parent females are called dams, a group of rats is referred to as a mischief. The common species are opportunistic survivors and often live with and near humans, therefore and they may cause substantial food losses, especially in developing countries. However, the distributed and problematic commensal species of rats are a minority in this diverse genus. Many species of rats are island endemics and some have become endangered due to loss or competition with the brown. Wild rodents, including rats, can carry many different zoonotic pathogens, such as Leptospira, Toxoplasma gondii, another zoonotic disease linked to the rat is the foot-and-mouth disease. The average lifespan of any given rat depends on species is being discussed. The black and brown rats diverged from other Old World rats during the beginning of the Pleistocene in the forests of Asia, specially bred rats have been kept as pets at least since the late 19th century. Pet rats are typically variants of the brown rat, but black rats. Pet rats behave differently from their wild counterparts depending on how many generations they have kept as pets. Pet rats do not pose any more of a risk than pets such as cats or dogs. Tamed rats are generally friendly and can be taught to perform selected behaviors, in 1895, Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts established a population of domestic albino brown rats to study the effects of diet and for other physiological studies
2.
Chinese zodiac
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The Chinese zodiac is a classification scheme that assigns an animal and its reputed attributes to each year in a repeating 12-year cycle. The 12-year cycle is an approximation to the 11. 86-year orbital period of Jupiter, nevertheless, there are major differences, the Chinese 12-part cycle corresponds to years, rather than months. The Chinese zodiac is represented by 12 animals, whereas some of the signs in the Western zodiac are not animals, the animals of the Chinese zodiac are not associated with constellations spanned by the ecliptic plane. The zodiac traditionally begins with the sign of the Rat, the following are the twelve zodiac signs in order and their characteristics. It is a misconception that the animals assigned by year are the only signs. In fact, there are also animal signs assigned by month, by day, while a person might appear to be a Dragon because they were born in the year of the Dragon, they might also be a Snake internally, an Ox truly, and a Goat secretively. A conflict between a persons zodiac sign and how they live is known as tai sui or kai sui, within the Four Pillars, the year is the pillar representing information about the persons family background and society or relationship with their grandparents. The persons age can also be deduced from the sign of the person, the current sign of the year. For example, a person who is a Tiger is either 12,24,36 or 48 years old in 2010, in 2011, the year of the Rabbit, that person is one year older. The following table shows the 60-year cycle matched up to the Western calendar for the years 1924–2043, the sexagenary cycle begins at lichun about February 4 according to some astrological sources. Within the Four Pillars, the month is the pillar representing information about the parents or childhood. Many Chinese astrologers consider the month pillar to be the most important one in determining the circumstances of ones adult life, the 12 animals are also linked to traditional Chinese agricultural calendar, which runs alongside the better known lunar calendar. Instead of months, this calendar is divided into 24 two week segments known as Solar Terms, each animal is linked to two of these solar terms for a period similar to the Western month. Again unlike the cycle of the years, which begins with the Rat. Around summer days are longer than days, because it occurs differences of perihelion and aphelion. As each sign is linked to a month of the solar year, each of the elements is also linked to a season, and the element that shares a season with a sign is known as that signs fixed element. In other words, that element is believed to some of its characteristics to the sign concerned. The fixed element of each sign applies also to the year and hour signs and it is important to note that the fixed element is separate from the cycle of elements which interact with the signs in the 60-year cycle
3.
Chinese calendar
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Traditional Chinese calendar is a lunisolar calendar which reckons years, months and days according to astronomical phenomena. It is used for activities in China and overseas Chinese communities. It depictures and lists the dates of traditional Chinese holidays, and guides Chinese people in selecting the most auspicious days for weddings, funerals, moving, in the Chinese calendar, the days begin and end at midnight. The months begin on the day with the dark moon, the years begin with the dark moon near the midpoint between winter solstice and spring equinox. The solar terms are the important components of the Chinese calendar, in a month, there are one to three solar terms. The currently used traditional Chinese calendar is the end result of centuries of evolution, many astronomical and seasonal factors were added by ancient scientists, and people can reckon the date of natural phenomena such as the moon phase and tide upon the Chinese calendar. The Chinese calendar has over 100 variants, whose characteristics reflect the evolutionary path. As with Chinese characters, different variants are used in different parts of the Chinese cultural sphere, calendars in Mongolia and Tibet have absorbed elements from the Chinese calendar and elements from other systems, but they are not direct descendants of the Chinese calendar. The official calendar in China is the Gregorian calendar, but the traditional Chinese calendar still plays an important role there. The Chinese calendar is known officially as the Rural Calendar, but is referred to by other names, such as the Former Calendar. The Chinese calendar preserves traditional East Asian culture, although the month sequences of Chinese calendar is decided by the solar term, the Chinese calendar is not an agriculture calendar. The Chinese calendar has greatly influenced the traditional calendars around Asia, the calendar has a year, month and date frame. The key elements are the day, synodic month and solar year, the Chinese calendar is a lunisolar calendar, similar to the Hindu and Hebrew calendars. The concepts in the Chinese, Hindu, and Hebrew calendars, day, in the Chinese calendar, a day starts from the midnight, in the Hindu calendars, a day starts from sunrise, and in the Hebrew calendar, a day starts from sunset. Month, the time is based on the obliquity of the moon path, a month is about 29 17/32 days. Phase, 1/30 month, 12° obliquity of the moon path, a unique concept of dating method in the Hindu calendar, a phase is about 63/64 day, which derived out the 64 divinatory symbols. Date, the day number in a month, in the Chinese and Hebrew calendars, days are numbered in sequence from 1 to 29 or 30, and in the Hindu calendars, the days are numbered according to the number of the phase in the days. In the Hindu calendars, some dates may be vacant, Year, the time based on the earths revolution
4.
Earthly Branches
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The Earthly Branches provide one Chinese system for reckoning time. This system was built from observations of the orbit of Jupiter, Chinese astronomers divided the celestial circle into 12 sections to follow the orbit of 歲星 Suìxīng. Astronomers rounded the orbit of Suixing to 12 years, Suixing was associated with 攝提 Shètí and sometimes called Sheti. In correlative thinking, the years of the Jupiter cycle also identify the twelve months of the year, twelve animals, directions, seasons. When a Branch is used for an hour, the listed periods are meant. When used for a time of a day, it is the center of the period. For instance, 午 means noon or a period from 11am to 1pm, Chinese seasons are based on observations of the sun and stars. Many Chinese calendrical systems have started the new year on the new moon after the winter solstice. The Earthly Branches are today used with the Heavenly Stems in the current version of the traditional Chinese calendar and in Taoism. The Ganzhi combination is a new way to mark time, in the second millennium BC, during the Shang era. The Branches are as old as the Stems, but the Stems were tied to the calendars of Chinese kings. They were not part of the systems for the majority of Chinese people. In the traditional Kazakh version of the 12-year animal cycle, the Dragon is substituted by a snail, since twelve points were not enough for sailing, twelve midpoints were added. Instead of combining two adjacent direction names, they assigned new names as follows, For the four diagonal directions, for the rest, the Heavenly Stems were used. According to the Five Elements theory, east is assigned to wood, thus they were assigned clockwise to the two adjacent points of the east. Following is a table of the 24 directions, Advanced mariners such as Zheng He used 48-point compasses. An additional midpoint was called by a combination of its two closest basic directions, such as 丙午 for the direction of 172. 5°, the midpoint between 丙, 165°, and 午, 180°. Sexagesimal cycle Sheng Xiao Celestial stem Chinese calendar Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches - Hong Kong Observatory
5.
Symbol
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A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise very different concepts and experiences, all communication is achieved through the use of symbols. Symbols take the form of words, sounds, gestures, ideas or visual images and are used to other ideas. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for STOP, on a map, a blue line might represent a river. Alphabetic letters may be symbols for sounds, personal names are symbols representing individuals. A red rose may symbolize love and compassion, the variable x, in a mathematical equation, may symbolize the position of a particle in space. In cartography, a collection of symbols forms a legend for a map The word derives from the Greek symbolon meaning token or watchword. It is an amalgam of syn- together + bole a throwing, a casting, the sense evolution in Greek is from throwing things together to contrasting to comparing to token used in comparisons to determine if something is genuine. The meaning something which stands for something else was first recorded in 1590, later, expanding on what he means by this definition Campbell says, a symbol, like everything else, shows a double aspect. We must distinguish, therefore between the sense and the meaning of the symbol. The term meaning can only to the first two but these, today, are in the charge of science – which is the province as we have said, not of symbols. The ineffable, the unknowable, can be only sensed. Heinrich Zimmer gives an overview of the nature, and perennial relevance. Concepts and words are symbols, just as visions, rituals, through all of these a transcendent reality is mirrored. They are so many metaphors reflecting and implying something which, though thus variously expressed, is ineffable, though thus rendered multiform, Symbols hold the mind to truth but are not themselves the truth, hence it is delusory to borrow them. Each civilisation, every age, must bring forth its own, in the book Signs and Symbols, it is stated that A symbol. Is a visual image or sign representing an idea -- a deeper indicator of a universal truth, Symbols are a means of complex communication that often can have multiple levels of meaning. This separates symbols from signs, as signs have only one meaning, human cultures use symbols to express specific ideologies and social structures and to represent aspects of their specific culture
6.
Wu Xing
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The Five Phases are Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. This order of presentation is known as the generation sequence. In the order of mutual overcoming, they are Wood, Earth, Water, Fire, the system of five phases was used for describing interactions and relationships between phenomena. The system is used as a reference in some forms of complementary and alternative medicine. Xing of Wu Xing means moving, a planet is called a star in Chinese. Wu Xing originally refers to the five planets that create five dimensions of earth life. Wu Xing is also translated as Five Elements and this is used extensively by many including practitioners of Five Element acupuncture. This translation arose by analogy with the Western system of the four elements. By the same token, Mù is thought of as Tree rather than Wood, the word element is thus used within the context of Chinese medicine with a different meaning to its usual meaning. It should be recognized that the phase, although commonly preferred, is not perfect. Phase is a translation for the five seasons mentioned below. Manfred Porkert attempts to resolve this by using Evolutive Phase for 五行 Wǔ Xíng and Circuit Phase for 五運 Wǔ Yùn, some of the Mawangdui Silk Texts also present the Wu Xing as five virtues or types of activities. Within Chinese medicine texts the Wu Xing are also referred to as Wu Yun or a combination of the two characters these emphasise the correspondence of five elements to five seasons, another tradition refers to the Wǔ Xíng as Wǔ Dé, the Five Virtues. Wood parts Earth Earth dams Water Water extinguishes Fire Fire melts Metal Metal chops Wood This cycle might also be called controls, according to Wu Xing theory, the structure of the cosmos mirrors the five phases. Each phase has a series of associations with different aspects of nature. In the ancient Chinese form of known as Feng Shui practitioners all based their art. All of these phases are represented within the trigrams, associated with these phases are colors, seasons and shapes, all of which are interacting with each other. Based on a directional energy flow from one phase to the next
7.
Chart
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A chart, also called a graph, is a graphical representation of data, in which the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart. A chart can represent tabular numeric data, functions or some kinds of qualitative structure, the term chart as a graphical representation of data has multiple meanings, A data chart is a type of diagram or graph, that organizes and represents a set of numerical or qualitative data. Maps that are adorned with extra information for a purpose are often known as charts, such as a nautical chart or aeronautical chart. Other domain specific constructs are sometimes called charts, such as the chart in music notation or a record chart for album popularity. Charts are often used to understanding of large quantities of data. Charts can usually be more quickly than the raw data. They are used in a variety of fields, and can be created by hand or by computer using a charting application. Certain types of charts are useful for presenting a given data set than others. For example, data that presents percentages in different groups are displayed in a pie chart. On the other hand, data that represents numbers that change over a period of time might be best shown as a line chart. A chart can take a variety of forms, however there are common features that provide the chart with its ability to extract meaning from data. Typically the data in a chart is represented graphically, since humans are able to infer meaning from pictures quicker than from text. Text is generally used only to annotate the data, one of the most important uses of text in a graph is the title. A graphs title usually appears above the graphic and provides a succinct description of what the data in the graph refers to. Dimensions in the data are displayed on axes. If a horizontal and an axis are used, they are usually referred to as the x-axis and y-axis respectively. Each axis will have a scale, denoted by periodic graduations, each axis will typically also have a label displayed outside or beside it, briefly describing the dimension represented. If the scale is numerical, the label will often be suffixed with the unit of scale in parentheses
8.
Gregorian calendar
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The Gregorian calendar is internationally the most widely used civil calendar. It is named after Pope Gregory XIII, who introduced it in October 1582, the calendar was a refinement to the Julian calendar involving a 0. 002% correction in the length of the year. The motivation for the reform was to stop the drift of the calendar with respect to the equinoxes and solstices—particularly the northern vernal equinox, transition to the Gregorian calendar would restore the holiday to the time of the year in which it was celebrated when introduced by the early Church. The reform was adopted initially by the Catholic countries of Europe, the last European country to adopt the reform was Greece, in 1923. Many countries that have used the Islamic and other religious calendars have come to adopt this calendar for civil purposes. The reform was a modification of a made by Aloysius Lilius. His proposal included reducing the number of years in four centuries from 100 to 97. Lilius also produced an original and practical scheme for adjusting the epacts of the moon when calculating the date of Easter. For example, the years 1700,1800, and 1900 are not leap years, but the years 1600 and 2000 are. The canonical Easter tables were devised at the end of the third century, when the vernal equinox fell either on 20 March or 21 March depending on the years position in the leap year cycle. As the rule was that the full moon preceding Easter was not to precede the equinox, the date was fixed at 21 March for computational purposes, the Gregorian calendar reproduced these conditions by removing ten days. To unambiguously specify a date, dual dating or Old Style, dual dating gives two consecutive years for a given date, because of differences in the starting date of the year, and/or to give both the Julian and the Gregorian dates. The Gregorian calendar continued to use the calendar era, which counts years from the traditional date of the nativity. This year-numbering system, also known as Dionysian era or Common Era, is the predominant international standard today, the Gregorian calendar is a solar calendar. A regular Gregorian year consists of 365 days, but as in the Julian calendar, in a leap year, in the Julian calendar a leap year occurs every 4 years, but the Gregorian calendar omits 3 leap days every 400 years. In the Julian calendar, this day was inserted by doubling 24 February. In the modern period, it has become customary to number the days from the beginning of the month, some churches, notably the Roman Catholic Church, delay February festivals after the 23rd by one day in leap years. Gregorian years are identified by consecutive year numbers, the cycles repeat completely every 146,097 days, which equals 400 years
