1.
Hardcover
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A hardcover or hardback book is one bound with rigid protective covers. It has a flexible, sewn spine which allows the book to lie flat on a surface when opened, following the ISBN sequence numbers, books of this type may be identified by the abbreviation Hbk. Hardcover books are printed on acid-free paper, and are much more durable than paperbacks. Hardcover books are more costly to manufacture. If brisk sales are anticipated, an edition of a book is typically released first. Some publishers publish paperback originals if slow hardback sales are anticipated, for very popular books these sales cycles may be extended, and followed by a mass market paperback edition typeset in a more compact size and printed on shallower, less hardy paper. In the past the release of an edition was one year after the hardback. It is very unusual for a book that was first published in paperback to be followed by a hardback, an example is the novel The Judgment of Paris by Gore Vidal, which had its revised edition of 1961 first published in paperback, and later in hardcover. Hardcover books are sold at higher prices than comparable paperbacks. Hardcovers typically consist of a block, two boards, and a cloth or heavy paper covering. The pages are sewn together and glued onto a flexible spine between the boards, and it too is covered by the cloth, a paper wrapper, or dust jacket, is usually put over the binding, folding over each horizontal end of the boards. On the folded part, or flap, over the front cover is generally a blurb, the back flap is where the biography of the author can be found. Reviews are often placed on the back of the jacket, bookbinding Paperback How to make a simple Hardcover book
2.
Zen
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Zen is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty as Chan Buddhism. Zen school was influenced by Taoism and developed as a distinguished school of Chinese Buddhism. From China, Chan Buddhism spread south to Vietnam, northeast to Korea and east to Japan, the term Zen is derived from the Japanese pronunciation of the Middle Chinese word 禪 which traces its roots to the Indian practice of Dhyana. Zen emphasizes rigorous self-control, meditation-practice, insight into Buddha-nature, as such, it de-emphasizes mere knowledge of sutras and doctrine and favors direct understanding through zazen and interaction with an accomplished teacher. The Prajñāpāramitā literature and, to an extent, Madhyamaka have also been influential in the shaping of the paradoxical language of the Zen-tradition. Central to Zen is the practice of dhyana or meditation, during sitting meditation, practitioners usually assume a position such as the lotus position, half-lotus, Burmese, or seiza postures, using the dhyāna mudrā. To regulate the mind, awareness is directed towards counting or watching the breath or by bringing that awareness to the center below the navel. Often, a square or round cushion placed on a mat is used to sit on, in some other cases. This practice may simply be called sitting dhyāna, which is zuòchán in Chinese, in the Sōtō school of Zen, meditation with no objects, anchors, or content, is the primary form of practice. The meditator strives to be aware of the stream of thoughts, allowing them to arise, in the Japanese language, this practice is called Shikantaza. Intensive group meditation may be practiced occasionally in some temples, in the Japanese language, this practice is called Sesshin. While the daily routine may require monks to meditate for hours each day. In modern Buddhist practice in Japan, Taiwan, and the West, lay students often attend these intensive practice sessions and these are held at many Zen centers, especially in commemoration of the Buddhas attainment of Anuttarā Samyaksaṃbodhi. One distinctive aspect of Zen meditation in groups is the use of a kyosaku, at the beginning of the Sòng dynasty, practice with the kōan method became popular, whereas others practiced silent illumination. This became the source of differences in practice between the Línjì and Cáodòng schools. A kōan, literally public case, is a story or dialogue and these anecdotes give a demonstration of the masters insight. Koans emphasize the non-conceptional insight that the Buddhist teachings are pointing to, koans can be used to provoke the great doubt, and test a students progress in Zen practice. Kōan-inquiry may be practiced during zazen, kinhin, and throughout all the activities of daily life, kōan practice is particularly emphasized by the Japanese Rinzai school, but it also occurs in other schools or branches of Zen depending on the teaching line
3.
Motorcycle
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A motorcycle is a two- or three-wheeled motor vehicle. Motorcycle design varies greatly to suit a range of different purposes, long travel, commuting, cruising, sport including racing. Motorcycling is riding a motorcycle and related social activity such as joining a motorcycle club, in 1894, Hildebrand & Wolfmüller became the first series production motorcycle, and the first to be called a motorcycle. In 2014, the three top motorcycle producers globally by volume were Honda, Yamaha, and Hero MotoCorp, in developing countries, motorcycles are overwhelmingly utilitarian due to lower prices and greater fuel economy. Of all the motorcycles in the world, 58% are in the Asia-Pacific and Southern and Eastern Asia regions, according to the United States Department of Transportation the number of fatalities per vehicle mile traveled was 37 times higher for motorcycles than for cars. The term motorcycle has different legal definitions depending on jurisdiction, there are three major types of motorcycle, street, off-road, and dual purpose. Within these types, there are many sub-types of motorcycles for different purposes, there is often a racing counterpart to each type, such as road racing and street bikes, or motocross and dirt bikes. Street bikes include cruisers, sportbikes, scooters and mopeds, off-road motorcycles include many types designed for dirt-oriented racing classes such as motocross and are not street legal in most areas. Dual purpose machines like the style are made to go off-road but include features to make them legal. Each configuration offers either specialised advantage or broad capability, and each design creates a different riding posture, the first internal combustion, petroleum fueled motorcycle was the Daimler Reitwagen. It was designed and built by the German inventors Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach in Bad Cannstatt, instead, it relied on two outrigger wheels to remain upright while turning. The inventors called their invention the Reitwagen and it was designed as an expedient testbed for their new engine, rather than a true prototype vehicle. The first commercial design for a cycle was a three-wheel design called the Butler Petrol Cycle. He exhibited his plans for the vehicle at the Stanley Cycle Show in London in 1884, the vehicle was built by the Merryweather Fire Engine company in Greenwich, in 1888. The engine was liquid-cooled, with a radiator over the driving wheel. Speed was controlled by means of a valve lever. No braking system was fitted, the vehicle was stopped by raising and lowering the rear driving wheel using a foot-operated lever, the driver was seated between the front wheels. It wasnt, however, a success, as Butler failed to find sufficient financial backing, many authorities have excluded steam powered, electric motorcycles or diesel-powered two-wheelers from the definition of a motorcycle, and credit the Daimler Reitwagen as the worlds first motorcycle
4.
Minnesota
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Minnesota is a state in the midwestern and northern regions of the United States. Minnesota was admitted as the 32nd U. S. state on May 11,1858, the state has a large number of lakes, and is known by the slogan Land of 10,000 Lakes. Its official motto is LÉtoile du Nord, Minnesota is the 12th largest in area and the 21st most populous of the U. S. Minnesota is known for its progressive political orientation and its high rate of civic participation and voter turnout. Until European settlement, Minnesota was inhabited by the Dakota and Ojibwe/Anishinaabe, in recent decades, immigration from Asia, the Horn of Africa, and Latin America has broadened its historic demographic and cultural composition. Minnesotas standard of living index is among the highest in the United States, Native Americans demonstrated the name to early settlers by dropping milk into water and calling it mnisota. Many places in the state have similar names, such as Minnehaha Falls, Minneiska, Minneota, Minnetonka, Minnetrista, and Minneapolis, a combination of mni and polis, Minnesota is the second northernmost U. S. state. Its isolated Northwest Angle in Lake of the Woods county is the part of the 48 contiguous states lying north of the 49th parallel. The state is part of the U. S. region known as the Upper Midwest and it shares a Lake Superior water border with Michigan and a land and water border with Wisconsin to the east. Iowa is to the south, North Dakota and South Dakota are to the west, with 86,943 square miles, or approximately 2.25 percent of the United States, Minnesota is the 12th-largest state. Minnesota has some of the Earths oldest rocks, gneisses that are about 3.6 billion years old. About 2.7 billion years ago, basaltic lava poured out of cracks in the floor of the primordial ocean, the roots of these volcanic mountains and the action of Precambrian seas formed the Iron Range of northern Minnesota. Following a period of volcanism 1, in more recent times, massive ice sheets at least one kilometer thick ravaged the landscape of the state and sculpted its terrain. The Wisconsin glaciation left 12,000 years ago and these glaciers covered all of Minnesota except the far southeast, an area characterized by steep hills and streams that cut into the bedrock. This area is known as the Driftless Zone for its absence of glacial drift, much of the remainder of the state outside the northeast has 50 feet or more of glacial till left behind as the last glaciers retreated. Gigantic Lake Agassiz formed in the northwest 13,000 years ago and its bed created the fertile Red River valley, and its outflow, glacial River Warren, carved the valley of the Minnesota River and the Upper Mississippi downstream from Fort Snelling. Minnesota is geologically quiet today, it experiences earthquakes infrequently, the states high point is Eagle Mountain at 2,301 feet, which is only 13 miles away from the low of 601 feet at the shore of Lake Superior. Notwithstanding dramatic local differences in elevation, much of the state is a rolling peneplain. Two major drainage divides meet in Minnesotas northeast in rural Hibbing, forming a triple watershed, precipitation can follow the Mississippi River south to the Gulf of Mexico, the Saint Lawrence Seaway east to the Atlantic Ocean, or the Hudson Bay watershed to the Arctic Ocean
5.
California
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California is the most populous state in the United States and the third most extensive by area. Located on the western coast of the U. S, California is bordered by the other U. S. states of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California. Los Angeles is Californias most populous city, and the second largest after New York City. The Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nations second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, California also has the nations most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The Central Valley, an agricultural area, dominates the states center. What is now California was first settled by various Native American tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish Empire then claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its war for independence. The western portion of Alta California then was organized as the State of California, the California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom. If it were a country, California would be the 6th largest economy in the world, fifty-eight percent of the states economy is centered on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5 percent of the states economy, the story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián, written as a sequel to Amadis de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts. This conventional wisdom that California was an island, with maps drawn to reflect this belief, shortened forms of the states name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000. The Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups also were diverse in their organization with bands, tribes, villages. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered many social and economic relationships among the diverse groups, the first European effort to explore the coast as far north as the Russian River was a Spanish sailing expedition, led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542. Some 37 years later English explorer Francis Drake also explored and claimed a portion of the California coast in 1579. Spanish traders made unintended visits with the Manila galleons on their trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565
6.
Montana
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Montana /mɒnˈtænə/ is a state in the Western region of the United States. The states name is derived from the Spanish word montaña, Montana has several nicknames, although none official, including Big Sky Country and The Treasure State, and slogans that include Land of the Shining Mountains and more recently The Last Best Place. Montana has a 545-mile border with three Canadian provinces, British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan, the state to do so. It also borders North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, Montana is ranked 4th in size, but 44th in population and 48th in population density of the 50 United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges, smaller island ranges are found throughout the state. In total,77 named ranges are part of the Rocky Mountains, the eastern half of Montana is characterized by western prairie terrain and badlands. The economy is based on agriculture, including ranching and cereal grain farming. Other significant economic activities include oil, gas, coal and hard rock mining, lumber, the health care, service, and government sectors also are significant to the states economy. Millions of tourists annually visit Glacier National Park, the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, the name Montana comes from the Spanish word Montaña and the Latin word Montana, meaning mountain, or more broadly, mountainous country. Montaña del Norte was the name given by early Spanish explorers to the mountainous region of the west. The name was changed by Representatives Henry Wilson and Benjamin F. Harding, when Ashley presented a bill to establish a temporary government in 1864 for a new territory to be carved out of Idaho, he again chose Montana Territory. This time Rep. Samuel Cox, also of Ohio, objected to the name, Cox complained that the name was a misnomer given most of the territory was not mountainous and that a Native American name would be more appropriate than a Spanish one. Other names such as Shoshone were suggested, but it was decided that the Committee on Territories could name it whatever they wanted, with an area of 147,040 square miles, Montana is slightly larger than Japan. It is the fourth largest state in the United States after Alaska, Texas, and California, the largest landlocked U. S. state, and the worlds 56th largest national state/province subdivision. To the north, Montana shares a 545-mile border with three Canadian provinces, British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan, the state to do so. It borders North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, the states topography is roughly defined by the Continental Divide, which splits much of the state into distinct eastern and western regions. Most of Montanas 100 or more named mountain ranges are in the western half. The Absaroka and Beartooth ranges in the states south-central part are part of the Central Rocky Mountains
7.
Philosophy
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Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. The term was coined by Pythagoras. Philosophical methods include questioning, critical discussion, rational argument and systematic presentation, classic philosophical questions include, Is it possible to know anything and to prove it. However, philosophers might also pose more practical and concrete questions such as, is it better to be just or unjust. Historically, philosophy encompassed any body of knowledge, from the time of Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle to the 19th century, natural philosophy encompassed astronomy, medicine and physics. For example, Newtons 1687 Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy later became classified as a book of physics, in the 19th century, the growth of modern research universities led academic philosophy and other disciplines to professionalize and specialize. In the modern era, some investigations that were part of philosophy became separate academic disciplines, including psychology, sociology. Other investigations closely related to art, science, politics, or other pursuits remained part of philosophy, for example, is beauty objective or subjective. Are there many scientific methods or just one, is political utopia a hopeful dream or hopeless fantasy. Major sub-fields of academic philosophy include metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, political philosophy, logic, philosophy of science, since the 20th century, professional philosophers contribute to society primarily as professors, researchers and writers. Traditionally, the term referred to any body of knowledge. In this sense, philosophy is related to religion, mathematics, natural science, education. This division is not obsolete but has changed, Natural philosophy has split into the various natural sciences, especially astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology and cosmology. Moral philosophy has birthed the social sciences, but still includes value theory, metaphysical philosophy has birthed formal sciences such as logic, mathematics and philosophy of science, but still includes epistemology, cosmology and others. Many philosophical debates that began in ancient times are still debated today, colin McGinn and others claim that no philosophical progress has occurred during that interval. Chalmers and others, by contrast, see progress in philosophy similar to that in science, in one general sense, philosophy is associated with wisdom, intellectual culture and a search for knowledge. In that sense, all cultures and literate societies ask philosophical questions such as how are we to live, a broad and impartial conception of philosophy then, finds a reasoned inquiry into such matters as reality, morality and life in all world civilizations. Socrates was an influential philosopher, who insisted that he possessed no wisdom but was a pursuer of wisdom
8.
Philosophy of science
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Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of theories. This discipline overlaps with metaphysics, ontology, and epistemology, for example, in addition to these general questions about science as a whole, philosophers of science consider problems that apply to particular sciences. Some philosophers of science also use contemporary results in science to reach conclusions about philosophy itself, Karl Popper and Charles Sanders Pierce moved on from positivism to establish a modern set of standards for scientific methodology. Subsequently, the coherentist approach to science, in which a theory is validated if it makes sense of observations as part of a coherent whole, became prominent due to W. V. Quine and others. Some thinkers such as Stephen Jay Gould seek to ground science in axiomatic assumptions, another approach to thinking about science involves studying how knowledge is created from a sociological perspective, an approach represented by scholars like David Bloor and Barry Barnes. Finally, a tradition in continental philosophy approaches science from the perspective of an analysis of human experience. Philosophies of the particular sciences range from questions about the nature of time raised by Einsteins general relativity, a central theme is whether one scientific discipline can be reduced to the terms of another. That is, can chemistry be reduced to physics, or can sociology be reduced to individual psychology, the general questions of philosophy of science also arise with greater specificity in some particular sciences. For instance, the question of the validity of scientific reasoning is seen in a different guise in the foundations of statistics, the question of what counts as science and what should be excluded arises as a life-or-death matter in the philosophy of medicine. Distinguishing between science and non-science is referred to as the demarcation problem, for example, should psychoanalysis be considered science. How about so-called creation science, the multiverse hypothesis, or macroeconomics. Karl Popper called this the question in the philosophy of science. However, no unified account of the problem has won acceptance among philosophers, Martin Gardner has argued for the use of a Potter Stewart standard for recognizing pseudoscience. Early attempts by the logical positivists grounded science in observation while non-science was non-observational, Popper argued that the central property of science is falsifiability. That is, every genuinely scientific claim is capable of being proven false, a closely related question is what counts as a good scientific explanation. In addition to providing predictions about events, society often takes scientific theories to provide explanations for events that occur regularly or have already occurred. One early and influential theory of scientific explanation is the deductive-nomological model and it says that a successful scientific explanation must deduce the occurrence of the phenomena in question from a scientific law
9.
NPR
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NPR produces and distributes news and cultural programming. Individual public radio stations are not required to broadcast all NPR programs that are produced and its content is also available on-demand via the web, mobile, and podcasts. The organizations legal name is National Public Radio and its brand is NPR. Is NPR has been used by its hosts for many years. However, National Public Radio remains the name of the group. National Public Radio replaced the National Educational Radio Network on February 26,1970 and this act was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, and established the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which created the Public Broadcasting Service in addition to NPR. A CPB organizing committee under John Witherspoon first created a Board of Directors chaired by Bernard Mayes, the board then hired Donald Quayle to be the first president of NPR with 30 employees and 90 charter member stations, and studios in Washington, D. C. NPR aired its first broadcast in April 1971, covering United States Senate hearings on the Vietnam War, a month later, the afternoon drive-time newscast All Things Considered began, on May 3,1971, first hosted by Robert Conley. NPR was primarily a production and distribution organization until 1977, when it merged with the Association of Public Radio Stations, NPR suffered an almost fatal setback in 1983 when efforts to expand services created a deficit of nearly US$7 million. After a congressional investigation and the resignation of NPRs president, Frank Mankiewicz, NPR also agreed to turn its satellite service into a cooperative venture, making it possible for non-NPR shows to get national distribution. It took NPR approximately three years to pay off the debt, delano Lewis, the president of C&P Telephone, left that position to become NPRs CEO and president in January 1994. In November 1998, NPRs board of directors hired Kevin Klose, NPR spent nearly $13 million to acquire and equip a West Coast 25, 000-square-foot production facility, NPR West, which opened in Culver City, Los Angeles County, California, in November 2002. C. In November 2003, NPR received US$235 million from the estate of the late Joan B, Kroc, the widow of Ray Kroc, founder of McDonalds Corporation. This was the largest monetary gift ever to a cultural institution, in 2004 NPRs budget increased by over 50% to US$153 million due to the Kroc gift. US$34 million of the money was deposited in its endowment, the endowment fund before the gift totaled $35 million. NPR will use the interest from the bequest to expand its news staff, the 2005 budget was about US$120 million. In August 2005, NPR entered podcasting with a directory of over 170 programs created by NPR, by November of that year, users downloaded NPR and other public radio podcasts 5 million times
10.
Spark plug
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A spark plug has a metal threaded shell, electrically isolated from a central electrode by a porcelain insulator. The central electrode, which may contain a resistor, is connected by an insulated wire to the output terminal of an ignition coil or magneto. The spark plugs shell is screwed into the engines cylinder head. Spark plugs may also be used in applications such as furnaces wherein a combustible fuel/air mixture must be ignited. In this case, they are referred to as flame igniters. In 1860 Étienne Lenoir used a spark plug in his gas engine. Early patents for spark plugs included those by Nikola Tesla, Frederick Richard Simms, helen Blair Bartlett also played a vital role in making the insulator in 1930. The plug is connected to the voltage generated by an ignition coil or magneto. As current flows from the coil, a voltage develops between the central and side electrodes. Initially no current can flow because the fuel and air in the gap is an insulator, once the voltage exceeds the dielectric strength of the gases, the gases become ionized. The ionized gas becomes a conductor and allows current to flow across the gap, spark plugs usually require voltage of 12, 000–25,000 volts or more to fire properly, although it can go up to 45,000 volts. They supply higher current during the process, resulting in a hotter. As the current of electrons surges across the gap, it raises the temperature of the channel to 60,000 K. The intense heat in the channel causes the ionized gas to expand very quickly. This is the click heard when observing a spark, similar to lightning and thunder. The heat and pressure force the gases to react with each other, the size of this fireball, or kernel, depends on the exact composition of the mixture between the electrodes and the level of combustion chamber turbulence at the time of the spark. A small kernel will make the run as though the ignition timing was retarded. A spark plug is composed of a shell, insulator and the central conductor, spark plugs are specified by size, either thread or nut, sealing type, and spark gap
11.
Carburetor
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A carburetor, or carburettor, or carburator, or carburetter is a device that blends air and fuel for an internal combustion engine in the proper ratio for combustion. It is sometimes shortened to carb in North America or carby in Australia. To carburate or carburet is to blend the air and fuel or to equip with a carburetor for that purpose, carburetors have largely been supplanted in the automotive and, to a lesser extent, aviation industries by fuel injection. They are still common on engines for lawn mowers, rototillers. The word carburetor comes from the French carbure meaning carbide, carburer means to combine with carbon. In fuel chemistry, the term has the specific meaning of increasing the carbon content of a fluid by mixing it with a volatile hydrocarbon. The first carburetor was invented by Samuel Morey in 1826, a carburetor was invented by an Italian, Luigi De Cristoforis, in 1876. Another carburetor was developed by Enrico Bernardi at the University of Padua in 1882, for his Motrice Pia, a carburetor was among the early patents by Karl Benz as he developed internal combustion engines and their components. Early carburetors were the surface type, in which air is charged with fuel by being passed over the surface of gasoline. In 1885, Wilhelm Maybach and Gottlieb Daimler developed a float carburetor for their engine based on the atomizer nozzle, hungarian engineers János Csonka and Donát Bánki patented a carburetor for a stationary engine in 1893. Frederick William Lanchester of Birmingham, England, experimented with the wick carburetor in cars, in 1896, Frederick and his brother built the first gasoline-driven car in England, a single cylinder 5 hp internal combustion engine with chain drive. Unhappy with the performance and power, they re-built the engine the next year into a horizontally opposed version using his new wick carburetor design. Carburetors were the method of fuel delivery for most US-made gasoline-fueled engines up until the late 1980s. 1991, Jeep Grand Wagoneer with the AMC360 cu in V8 engine, low-cost commercial vans and 4WDs in Australia continued with carburetors even into the 2000s, the last being the Mitsubishi Express van in 2003. Elsewhere, certain Lada cars used carburetors until 2006, many motorcycles still use carburetors for simplicitys sake, since a carburetor does not require an electrical system to function. EEC legislation required all vehicles sold and produced in countries to have a catalytic converter after December 1992. This legislation had been in the pipeline for some time, with cars becoming available with catalytic converters or fuel injection from around 1990. Fords first fuel-injected car was the Ford Capri RS2600 in 1970, general Motors launched its first fuel-injected car around the same time, when began to introduce fuel-injected engines to its Vauxhall Cavalier/Opel Ascona range
12.
Raphael
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Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, known as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, together with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, he forms the traditional trinity of great masters of that period. Raphael was enormously productive, running a large workshop and, despite his death at 37. Many of his works are found in the Vatican Palace, where the frescoed Raphael Rooms were the central, the best known work is The School of Athens in the Vatican Stanza della Segnatura. After his early years in Rome much of his work was executed by his workshop from his drawings and he was extremely influential in his lifetime, though outside Rome his work was mostly known from his collaborative printmaking. Raphael was born in the small but artistically significant central Italian city of Urbino in the Marche region and his poem to Federico shows him as keen to show awareness of the most advanced North Italian painters, and Early Netherlandish artists as well. In the very court of Urbino he was probably more integrated into the central circle of the ruling family than most court painters. Under them, the court continued as a centre for literary culture, growing up in the circle of this small court gave Raphael the excellent manners and social skills stressed by Vasari. Castiglione moved to Urbino in 1504, when Raphael was no longer based there but frequently visited, Raphael mixed easily in the highest circles throughout his life, one of the factors that tended to give a misleading impression of effortlessness to his career. He did not receive a humanistic education however, it is unclear how easily he read Latin. His mother Màgia died in 1491 when Raphael was eight, followed on August 1,1494 by his father, Raphael was thus orphaned at eleven, his formal guardian became his only paternal uncle Bartolomeo, a priest, who subsequently engaged in litigation with his stepmother. He probably continued to live with his stepmother when not staying as an apprentice with a master and he had already shown talent, according to Vasari, who says that Raphael had been a great help to his father. A self-portrait drawing from his teenage years shows his precocity and his fathers workshop continued and, probably together with his stepmother, Raphael evidently played a part in managing it from a very early age. In Urbino, he came into contact with the works of Paolo Uccello, previously the court painter, and Luca Signorelli, according to Vasari, his father placed him in the workshop of the Umbrian master Pietro Perugino as an apprentice despite the tears of his mother. The evidence of an apprenticeship comes only from Vasari and another source, an alternative theory is that he received at least some training from Timoteo Viti, who acted as court painter in Urbino from 1495. An excess of resin in the varnish often causes cracking of areas of paint in the works of both masters, the Perugino workshop was active in both Perugia and Florence, perhaps maintaining two permanent branches. Raphael is described as a master, that is to say fully trained and his first documented work was the Baronci altarpiece for the church of Saint Nicholas of Tolentino in Città di Castello, a town halfway between Perugia and Urbino. Evangelista da Pian di Meleto, who had worked for his father, was named in the commission
