(Freebase) Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). This condition progressively reduces the effectiveness of the immune system and leaves individuals susceptible to opportunistic infections and tumors. HIV is transmitted through direct contact of a mucous membrane or the bloodstream with a bodily fluid containing HIV, such as blood, semen, vaginal fluid, preseminal fluid, and breast milk. This transmission can involve anal, vaginal or oral sex, blood transfusion, contaminated hypodermic needles, exchange between mother and baby during pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding or other exposure to one of the above bodily fluids. AIDS is now a pandemic. In 2007, it was estimated that 33.2 million people lived with the disease worldwide, and that AIDS killed an estimated 2.1 million people, including 330,000 children. Over three-quarters of these deaths occurred in sub...

(Freebase) An AIDS orphan is a child who became an orphan because one or both parents died from AIDS. In statistics from the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the term is used for a child whose mother has died due to AIDS before the child's 15th birthday, regardless of whether the father is still alive. As a result of this definition, one study estimated that 80% of all AIDS orphans still have one living parent. There are 70,000 new AIDS orphans a year. By the year 2010, it is estimated that over 20 million children will be orphaned by AIDS. Because AIDS affects mainly those who are sexually active, AIDS-related deaths are often people who are their family's primary wage earners. The resulting AIDS orphans frequently depend on the state for care and financial support, particularly in Africa. The highest number of orphans due to AIDS alive in 2007 was in South Africa (although the definition of...

(Freebase) The Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) pandemic is a widespread disease caused by human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Since AIDS was first recognized in 1981, it has led to the deaths of more than 25 million people, making it one of the most destructive diseases in recorded history. Despite recent improved access to antiretroviral treatment and care in many regions of the world, in 2007 the AIDS pandemic killed an estimated 2.1 million people, including 330,000 children. In 2007, an estimated 33.2 million people lived with the disease worldwide, with an estimated 2.5 million people newly infected in 2007. This has been attributed to lack of access to antiretroviral treatment in huge areas such as the continent of Africa, where (according to French researcher Olivier Schwarz), less than 10 percent of infected are reported to have access to it. The origin of HIV/AIDS has been elucidated by studies of the HIV genome, which indicate that the most common type of HIV (HIV-1)...

(Freebase) AIESEC (pronounced "eye-sek", originally an acronym for Association Internationale des Étudiants en Sciences Économiques et Commerciales) is a global youth organisation that engages in international student exchange and internship programmes for profit and non-profit organisations. Its international office is in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The AIESEC network as of June 2009 includes over 45,000 students in 107 countries and territories, making it the largest student driven organisation in the world. It is present in over 1,700 universities across the globe, and sends students and graduates on 8,500 international exchanges yearly. The idea behind AIESEC started in the 1930s, when representatives from schools across Europe exchanged information about various programs and schools that specialized in business and economics. Students were carrying out internships in other countries, but mostly on their own initiative, and it all came to a standstill with the onslaught of World War II. In 1944,...

(Freebase) An air conditioner (often referred to as AC) is a home appliance, system, or mechanism designed to dehumidify and extract heat from an area. The cooling is done using a simple refrigeration cycle. In construction, a complete system of heating, ventilation and air conditioning is referred to as "HVAC". In 1758, Benjamin Franklin and John Hadley, professor of chemistry at Cambridge University, conducted an experiment to explore the principle of evaporation as a means to rapidly cool an object. Franklin and Hadley confirmed that evaporation of highly volatile liquids such as alcohol and ether could be used to drive down the temperature of an object past the freezing point of water. They conducted their experiment with the bulb of a mercury thermometer as their object and with a bellows used to "quicken" the evaporation; they lowered the temperature of the thermometer bulb to −14 °C (7 °F) while the ambient temperature was 18 °C (64 °F). Franklin noted that soon after they passed the...

(Freebase) Air pollution is the introduction of chemicals, particulate matter, or biological materials that cause harm or discomfort to humans or other living organisms, or damages the natural environment into the atmosphere. The atmosphere is a complex dynamic natural gaseous system that is essential to support life on planet Earth. Stratospheric ozone depletion due to air pollution has long been recognized as a threat to human health as well as to the Earth's ecosystems. Indoor air pollution and urban air quality are listed as two of the world's worst pollution problems in the 2008 Blacksmith Institute World's Worst Polluted Places report. An air pollutant is known as a substance in the air that can cause harm to humans and the environment. Pollutants can be in the form of solid particles, liquid droplets, or gases. In addition, they may be natural or man-made. Pollutants can be classified as either primary or secondary. Usually, primary pollutants are substances directly emitted from a...

(Freebase) Akshaya Patra is the name of a Non-Governmental Organization in India which supplies school meals to underprivileged school children. The Akshaya Patra Foundation, the world’s largest NGO-run midday meal program, has a vision that no child shall be deprived of education because of hunger. The Foundation was started in 2000 by its current Chairman, Madhu Pandit Das, an IIT engineer turned social entrepreneur. The Sanskrit word Akshaya Patra (meaning abundant, inexhaustible vessel) has its origins in the great epic Mahabharata and means a pot of food which provides endless nourishment. Started in 2000 by feeding 1500 children from a temporary kitchen in Bangalore, the program is currently distributing freshly cooked, healthy meals daily to over a million underprivileged children in over 5,700 government schools in seven states through 17 kitchens in India. A public-private partnership project, Akshaya Patra is a secular program that claims to combine good management, innovative...

(Freebase) Alija Izetbegović (Bosnian, in Cyrillic: Алија Изетбеговић; Bosnian pronunciation: [alija izɛtbɛɡɔʋitɕ]) (8 August 1925 – 19 October 2003) was a Bosniak activist, lawyer, author, philosopher and politician, who, in 1990, became the first president of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He served in this role until 1996, when he became a member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, serving until 2000. He was also the author of several books, most notably Islam Between East and West and the Islamic Declaration. Izetbegović was born in the town of Bosanski Šamac, situated in the north of Bosnia; he was one of five children born to a distinguished but impoverished family descended from former Ottoman aristocrats from Belgrade who fled to Bosnia after Serbia gained independence from the Ottoman Empire. His grandfather, Alija, was the mayor of Bosanski Šamac. While grandfather Alija was a soldier in Üsküdar, he married a Turkish woman called 'Sıdıka Hanım'. After marriage they moved to Šamac and...

(Freebase) Allah (English pronunciation: /ˈælə/ or /ˈɑːlə/; Arabic: الله‎ Allāh, IPA: [ʔɑlˈlɑː] ( listen), [ʔalˤˈlˤɑː]) is the Arabic word for God (with a capital G) while "Ilah" is the term used for a deity or a god in general. It is used primarily by Muslims and Bahá'ís, and often, albeit not exclusively, used by Arabic-speaking Eastern Catholic Christians, Maltese Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Mizrahi Jews and Sikhs. It is related to ʼĔlāhā in Aramaic. The term Allāh is derived from a contraction of the Arabic definite article al- "the" and ʾilāh "deity, god" to al-lāh meaning "the [sole] deity, God" (ὁ θεὸς μόνος, ho theos monos). Cognates of the name "Allāh" exist in other Semitic languages, including Hebrew and Aramaic. Biblical Hebrew mostly uses the plural form (but functional singular) Elohim. The corresponding Aramaic form is ʼĔlāhā ܐܠܗܐ in Biblical Aramaic and ʼAlâhâ ܐܲܠܵܗܵܐ in Syriac as used by the Assyrian Church, both meaning simply "God". In the Sikh scriptures,...

(Freebase) Alternative energy is an umbrella term that refers to any source of usable energy intended to replace fuel sources without the undesired consequences of the replaced fuels. The term "alternative" presupposes a set of undesirable energy technologies against which "alternative energies" are contrasted. As such, the list of energy technologies excluded is an indicator of what problems that the alternative technologies are intended to address. Controversies regarding dominant sources of energy and their alternatives have a long history. The nature of what was regarded alternative energy sources has changed considerably over time, and today, because of the variety of energy choices and differing goals of their advocates, defining some energy types as "alternative" is highly controversial. In a general sense in contemporary society, alternative energy is that which is produced without the undesirable consequences of the burning of fossil fuels, such as high carbon dioxide emissions, which...

(Freebase) Alwar (Rajasthani: अलवर शहर) is a city and administrative headquarters of Alwar District in the state of Rajasthan, India. It is a part of National Capital Region (NCR) and is located around 160 km south of Delhi, and about 150 km north of Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan. Alwar was formerly the capital of the princely state of Alwar or Ulwar in British India. India's highest ever recorded temperature of 50.6 °C (123.1 °F) was measured at Alwar on 10 May 1956. "Alwar" was formerly known as "Ulwar". This placed it in last position in alphabetically ordered lists, so a king renamed it to "Alwar" to bring it to the top. Till the 11 A.D. this area was ruled by a powerful Bargujar Chief. During the Muslim period one of the Emperors demanded a daughter in marriage from Ishwar Das the Bargujar Raja of Alwar. On his refusal to comply the Bargujar were slaughtered where ever found, but some escaped, among them Raja Dalku Rao a chief of clan, fled and founded the Sikarwar branch of Rajputs....

(Freebase) The Amazon rainforest (in Portuguese, Floresta Amazônica or Amazônia; Spanish: Selva Amazónica or Amazonia), also known as Amazonia or Amazon jungle, is a moist broadleaf forest that covers most of the Amazon Basin of South America. This basin encompasses seven million square kilometers (1.7 billion acres), of which five and a half million square kilometers (1.4 billion acres) are covered by the rainforest. This region includes territory belonging to nine nations. The majority of the forest is contained within Brazil, with 60% of the rainforest, followed by Peru with 13%, and with minor amounts in Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. States or departments in four nations bear the name Amazonas after it. The Amazon represents over half of the planet's remaining rainforests, and it comprises the largest and most species-rich tract of tropical rainforest in the world. The Amazon rainforest was short-listed in 2008 as a candidate to one of the...