Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Venice

Venice is the capital of the region of Veneto and the province of the same name in Italy. Its population is 271,663 . The city is included, with Padua , in the Padua-Venice Metropolitan Area, population 1,600,000.
The city stretches across numerous small islands in the marshy Venetian Lagoon along the Adriatic Sea in northeast Italy. The saltwater lagoon stretches along the shoreline between the mouths of the Po and the Piave Rivers. The population estimate of 272,000 inhabitants includes the population of the whole Comune of Venezia; the historic city of Venice inhabitants are around 62,000, while approximately 176,000 people live in Terraferma and 31,000 live in other islands of the lagoon.
The Venetian Republic was a major sea power and a staging area for the Crusades, as well as a very important centre of commerce and art in the Renaissance.

Monday, November 20, 2006

Spatial Measurement

The measurement of physical space has long been important. Geometry, the name given to the branch of mathematics which measures spatial relations, was popularised by the ancient Greeks, although earlier societies had developed measuring systems. The International System of Units, is now the most common system of units used in the measuring of space, and is almost universally used within science.
Geography is the branch of science concerned with identifying and describing the Earth, utilising spatial awareness to try and understand why things exist in specific locations. Cartography is the mapping of spaces to allow better navigation, for visualisation purposes and to act as a locational device. Geostatistics apply statistical concepts to collected spatial data in order to create an estimate for unobserved phenomena. Astronomy is the science involved with the observation, explanation and measuring of objects in outer space

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Money

Economics offers various definitions for money, though it is now commonly defined by the functions attached to any good or token that functions in trade as a medium of exchange, store of value, and unit of account. Some authors explicitly require money to be a standard of deferred payment, too . In common usage, money refers more specifically to currency, particularly the many circulating currencies with legal tender status conferred by a national state; deposit accounts denominated in such currencies are also considered part of the money supply, although these characteristics are historically comparatively recent. Other older functions a money may possess are a means of rationing access to scarce resources, and a means of accumulating power of command over others.
The use of money provides an alternative to bartering, which is often considered to be inefficient because it requires a coincidence of wants between traders, and an agreement that these needs are of equal value, before a transaction can occur. The efficiency gains through the use of money are thought to encourage trade and the division of labour, in turn increasing productivity and wealth.

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Tobacco

Tobacco refers to a genus of broad-leafed plants of the nightshade family indigenous to North and South America, or to the dried and cured leaves of such plants. Tobacco leaves are often smoked in the form of a cigar or cigarette, or in a smoking pipe, or in a water pipe or a hookah. This could damage the lungs and could also potentially cause lung disorders such as asthma. Tobacco is also chewed, "dipped" , and sniffed into the nose as finely powdered snuff.
Tobacco contains the nicotine, a powerful neurotoxin that is particularly harmful to insects. All means of consuming tobacco result in the absorption of nicotine in varying amounts into the user's bloodstream, and over time the development of tolerance and dependence. Absorption quantity, frequency and speed seem to have a direct relationship with how strong a dependence and tolerance, if any, might be created. A lethal dose of nicotine is contained in as little as one half of a cigar or three cigarettes; however, only a fraction of the nicotine contained in these products is actually released into the smoke, and most clinically significant cases of nicotine poisoning are the result of concentrated forms of the compound used as insecticides. Other active alkaloids in tobacco include harmala alkaloids.
Tobacco smoking carries significant risks including the potential to develop various cancers as well as strokes, and severe cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. Significantly shorter life expectancies have been associated with tobacco smoking. Many jurisdictions have enacted smoking bans in an effort to minimize possible damage to public health caused by tobacco smoking. The substantially increased risk of developing cancer as a result of tobacco usage seems to be due to the plethora of nitrosamines and other carcinogenic compounds found in tobacco and its residue as a result of anaerobic heating, either due to smoking or to flue-curing or fire-curing. The use of flue-cured or fire-cured smokeless tobacco in lieu of smoked tobacco reduces the risk of respiratory cancers but still carries significant risk of oral cancer. In contrast, use of steam-cured chewing tobacco , avoids the carcinogenicity by not generating nitrosamines, but the negative effects of the nicotine on the cardiovascular system and pancreas are not ameliorated.