IRC (sailing)
IRC is a system of handicapping sailboats and yachts for the purpose of racing. It is managed by the Royal Ocean Racing Club in the United Kingdom through their dedicated Rating Office.
Technically, IRC does not officially stand for anything. Originally, “IR” was an abbreviation for International Rule. However, since the Rule at that stage was not recognized under International Rule (sailing), that name was not permitted. So RORC simply decided to keep the initials as the name, and even after IRC received International Rule recognition, the name remained simply IRC.
The IRC rule is not published, meaning the only bodies capable of calculating an IRC rating are the RORC Rating Office and UNCL Centre de Calcul in Paris (they are joint owners of the Rule). This prevents designers from attempting to design 'to the rule'. The earlier IOR was published, and often amended, resulting in widespread criticism for several reasons. Firstly, as the rule effectively dictated the nature of boat designs, amendments to the rule could result in older designs gaining less favourable ratings compared to their real world speed, making racing competitively more expensive. Also, the pressure to produce designs which performed well under the rule resulted in designers producing yachts with certain dimensions intentionally extreme, in order to gain an unfairly favourable rating. The production of yachts which were excessively light and beamy - what became the classic 'diamond' plan form of the IOR - was believed to impact safety, and was cited as a factor in the 1979 Fastnet race disaster. In theory, the IRC avoids these problems.
Internet Relay Chat
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is an application layer protocol that facilitates communication in the form of text. The chat process works on a client/server networking model. IRC clients are computer programs that a user can install on their system. These clients communicate with chat servers to transfer messages to other clients. IRC is mainly designed for group communication in discussion forums, called channels, but also allows one-on-one communication via private messages as well as chat and data transfer, including file sharing.
Client software is available for every major operating system that supports Internet access. As of April 2011, the top 100 IRC networks served more than half a million users at a time, with hundreds of thousands of channels operating on a total of roughly 1,500 servers out of roughly 3,200 servers worldwide.
IRC usage has been declining since 2003, losing 60% of its users (from 1 million to about 400,000 in 2014) and half of its channels (from half a million in 2003).
Setmelanotide
Setmelanotide (INN, USAN) (code name RM-493, formerly BIM-22493, IRC-022493) is a peptide drug and investigational anti-obesity medication which acts as a selective agonist of the MC4 receptor. Its peptide sequence is Ac-Arg-Cys(1)-D-Ala-His-D-Phe-Arg-Trp-Cys(1)-NH2. It is being researched by Rhythm Pharmaceuticals for the treatment of obesity and diabetes. In addition, Rhythm Pharmaceuticals is conducting trials of setmelanotide for the treatment of Prader–Willi syndrome (PWS), a genetic disorder which includes MC4 receptor deficiency and associated symptoms such as excessive appetite and obesity. As of December 2014, the drug is in phase II clinical trials for obesity and PWS.
Setmelanotide binds to and activates MC4 receptors in the paraventricular nucleus (PVN) of the hypothalamus and in the lateral hypothalamic area (LHA), areas involved in the regulation of appetite, and this action is thought to underlie its appetite suppressant effects. In addition to reducing appetite, setmelanotide increases resting energy expenditure in both obese animals and humans. Importantly, unlike certain other MC4 receptor agonists, such as LY-2112688, setmelanotide has not been found to produce increases in heart rate or blood pressure.
Nu Aquilae
Nu Aquilae (ν Aql, ν Aquilae) is the Bayer designation for a double star in the constellation of Aquila and lies close to the celestial equator. It has an apparent visual magnitude of 4.72 and so is visible to the naked eye.
The spectrum of ν Aql A matches a stellar classification of F3, with the luminosity class of Ib indicating this is a supergiant. It has over twelve times the mass of the Sun and 78 times the Sun's radius. The outer atmosphere has an effective temperature of 6,900 K and it is radiating 11,800 times as much light as the Sun. At this heat, it has the yellow-white hue of an F-type star. Based upon an annual parallax shift of only 1.15 mas (with a 23% margin of error), it is approximately 2,800 light-years (860 parsecs) from Earth.
ν Aql B is a tenth magnitude star 220 arc-seconds distant. Little is known about it except an approximate spectral classification
References
External links
Sailing
Sailing comprises wind propulsion of a craft by means of sails and steering it over water, ice or land, depending on the type of craft. A sailor manages the force of the wind on the sails by adjusting their angle with respect to the moving sailing craft and sometimes by adjusting the sail area. The force transmitted from the sails is resisted by forces from the hull, keel, and rudder of a sailing craft, by forces from skate runners for an iceboat, and by forces from wheels for a land sailing craft to allow steering a course on a point of sail with respect to the true wind.
While there are still some places in the world where sail-powered passenger, fishing and trading vessels are used, these craft have become rarer as internal combustion engines have become economically viable in even the poorest and most remote areas. In most countries sailing is enjoyed as a recreational activity or as a sport. Recreational sailing or yachting can be divided into racing and cruising. Cruising can include extended offshore and ocean-crossing trips, coastal sailing within sight of land, and daysailing.
Sailing (sport)
Sailing refers to using sailboats for sporting purposes. It can be recreational or competitive.
Sailing is the main variety of yachting, and competitive sailing the main variety of yacht racing. A sailing competition is known as a regatta, usually consists of multiple individual races, where the boat that performs best in each race is the overall winner. There is a broad variety of kinds of races and sailboats used for racing from large yacht to dinghy racing. Much racing is done around buoys or similar marks in protected waters, while some longer offshore races cross open water. All kinds of boats are used for racing, including small dinghies, catamarans, boats designed primarily for cruising, and purpose-built raceboats. The Racing Rules of Sailing govern the conduct of yacht racing, windsurfing, kitesurfing, model boat racing, dinghy racing and virtually any other form of racing around a course with more than one vessel while powered by the wind.
Membership
International federation
List of Birds of a Feather episodes
The following is a list of episodes for the British sitcom Birds of a Feather, that aired on BBC One from 16 October 1989 to 24 December 1994 and again from 26 May 1997 to 24 December 1998. The series returned over 15 years later, with its tenth series which aired on 2 January 2014 to 6 March 2014. on ITV. A Christmas special aired on 26 December 2014 whilst series eleven aired from 1 January to 12 February 2015. A total of 122 episodes have aired. A twelfth series was announced in March 2015
Broadcast
The first series, of six episodes, aired from 16 October to 20 November 1989 on Mondays at 8.30pm. A Christmas special aired on 26 December 1989 at 9.00pm. The second series aired for fifteen episodes from 6 September to 13 December 1990 on Thursdays at 8.30pm, followed by a Christmas Special on Boxing Day at 8.20pm.
The twelve-episode third series aired from 31 August to 16 November 1991 on Saturdays at 8.00pm, followed by a Christmas special on Christmas Day at 8.00pm. The fourth series, of thirteen episodes, aired from 6 September to 29 November 1992 on Sundays at 8.40pm, with a Christmas Day special at 8.00pm. Series five for thirteen episodes on Sundays at 8.20pm from 5 September to 28 November 1993, with a Christmas Special on 25 December 1993 at 8.00pm.
Podcasts:
