Picul

A picul /ˈpɪkəl/ or tam is a traditional Asian unit of weight, defined as "a shoulder-load, as much as a man can carry on a shoulder-pole".

History

The word pikul appeared as early as the mid 9th century in Javanese.

Following Spanish, Portuguese, British and most especially the Dutch colonial maritime trade, the term picul was both a convenient unit, and a lingua franca unit that was widely understood and employed by other Austronesians (in modern Malaysia and the Philippines) and their centuries-old trading relations with Indians, Chinese and Arabs. It remained a convenient reference unit for many commercial trade journals in the 19th century. One example is Hunts Merchant Magazine of 1859 giving detailed tables of expected prices of various commodities, such as coffee, e.g. one pikul of Javanese coffee could be expected to be bought from 8 to 8.50 Spanish dollars in Batavia and Singapore.

Definitions

As for any traditional measurement unit, the exact definition of the picul varied historically and regionally. In imperial China and later, the unit was used for a measure equivalent to 100 catties.

TAM Airlines

TAM Airlines (Portuguese: TAM Linhas Aéreas) is the Brazilian brand of LATAM Airlines Group. The merger of TAM with LAN Airlines was completed on June 22, 2012. The company is currently the largest Brazilian airline by market share and fleet size, though it is not a flag carrier.

Before the takeover, TAM was Brazil's and Latin America's largest airline. Its headquarters are in São Paulo, operating scheduled services to destinations within Brazil, as well as international flights to Europe and other parts of North and South America. Shares in the company were traded on the São Paulo Exchange (BM&F Bovespa) and New York Stock Exchange as "TAM". Prior to the merger with LAN, the company closed its capital, transferring its shares to LATAM Airlines Group. However, in August 2015, it was announced that the two airlines would fully rebrand as LATAM, with one livery to be applied on all aircraft by 2018.

According to the National Civil Aviation Agency of Brazil (ANAC), between January and December 2014 TAM had 38.1% of the domestic and 78.82% of the international market shares in terms of passengers per kilometer flown, making it the largest airline in Brazil.

James Randi Educational Foundation

The James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) was started as an American non-profit organization founded in 1996 by magician and skeptic James Randi. The JREF's mission includes educating the public and the media on the dangers of accepting unproven claims, and to support research into paranormal claims in controlled scientific experimental conditions.In September 2015, the organization said it would change to a grant-making foundation.

The organization administers the One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge, which offers a prize of one million U.S. dollars which it will pay out to anyone who can demonstrate a supernatural or paranormal ability under agreed-upon scientific testing criteria. The JREF also maintains a legal defense fund to assist persons who are attacked as a result of their investigations and criticism of people who make paranormal claims.

The organization has been funded through member contributions, grants, and conferences, though it will no longer accept donations or memberships after 2015. The JREF website publishes a (nominally daily) blog at randi.org, Swift, which includes the latest JREF news and information, as well as exposés of paranormal claimants.

Unité

Unité is a mobile network operator in Moldova. Working in CDMA, UMTS and LTE standards.

General information

Communication standard: Unité has a license to work in CDMA standard on frequency of 450 MHz as well as in UMTS standard on frequencies of 2100 MHz and 900 MHz.

Numbering resources:
Unité network codes are:

Internationally they have the form:

Network code:
For CDMA standard: 259 03, where 259 — Mobile Country Code (MCC) for Moldova, and 03 — Mobile Network Code (MNC) for Unité network.
For UMTS standard: 259 05, where 259 — Mobile Country Code (MCC) for Moldova, and 05 — Mobile Network Code (MNC) for Unité network.

History

Unité began its activity on March 1, 2007 as CDMA operator. On April 1, 2010 Unité launched its own 3.5G network.

Mobile Internet

Unité offers mobile internet services via CDMA standard under the brand of "Connect" with speeds up to 2.4 Mbit/s and via 3.5G under the brand of "3G Connect" with speeds up to 14.4 Mbit/s

Ownership

Moldtelecom is 100% shareholder of the operator.

Unit of alcohol

Units of alcohol are used in the United Kingdom (UK) as a measure to quantify the actual alcoholic content within a given volume of an alcoholic beverage, in order to provide guidance on total alcohol consumption.

A number of other countries (including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the US) use the concept of a "standard drink", the definition of which varies from country to country, for the same purpose. "Standard drinks" were referred to in the first UK guidelines (1984) that published "safe limits" for drinking, but these were replaced by references to "alcohol units" in the 1987 guidelines and the latter term has been used in all subsequent UK guidance.

One unit of alcohol (UK) is defined as 10 millilitres (8 grams) of pure alcohol. Typical drinks (i.e. typical quantities or servings of common alcoholic beverages) may contain 1–3 units of alcohol.

Containers of alcoholic beverages sold directly to UK consumers are normally labelled to indicate the number of units of alcohol in a typical serving of the beverage (optional) and in the full container (can or bottle), as well as information about responsible drinking. Additionally, the advent of smartphones has led to the creation of apps which report the number of units contained in an alcoholic drink.

Military organization

Military organization or military organisation is the structuring of the armed forces of a state so as to offer military capability required by the national defense policy. In some countries paramilitary forces are included in a nation's armed forces, though not considered military. Armed forces that are not a part of military or paramilitary organizations, such as insurgent forces, often mimic military organizations, or use ad hoc structures.

Military organization is hierarchical. The use of formalized ranks in a hierarchical structure came into widespread use with the Roman Army. In modern times, executive control, management and administration of military organization is typically undertaken by the government through a government department within the structure of public administration, often known as a Ministry of Defense, Department of Defense, or Department of War. These in turn manage Armed Services that themselves command combat, combat support and service support formations and units.