Article: It is widely assumed that architectural success was the product of a process of trial and error, with progressively less trial and more replication as the results of the process proved increasingly satisfactory. What is termed vernacular architecture continues to be produced in many parts of the world. Indeed, vernacular buildings make up most of the built world that people experience every day. Early human settlements were mostly rural. Due to a surplus in production the economy began to expand resulting in urbanization thus creating urban areas which grew and evolved very rapidly in some cases, such as that of Çatal Höyük in Anatolia and Mohenjo Daro of the Indus Valley Civilization in modern-day Pakistan.

Question: What sort of an effect did a growing economy have on human settlements?
Ans: urbanization


Article: Because of the distance of Neptune from Earth, its angular diameter only ranges from 2.2 to 2.4 arcseconds, the smallest of the Solar System planets. Its small apparent size makes it challenging to study it visually. Most telescopic data was fairly limited until the advent of Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and large ground-based telescopes with adaptive optics (AO). The first scientifically useful observation of Neptune from ground-based telescopes using adaptive optics, was commenced in 1997 from Hawaii. Neptune is currently entering its spring and summer season and has been shown to be heating up, with increased atmospheric activity and brightness as a consequence. Combined with technological advancements, ground-based telescopes with adaptive optics are recording increasingly more detailed images of this Outer Planet. Both the HST and AO telescopes on Earth has made many new discoveries within the Solar System since the mid-1990s, with a large increase in the number of known satellites and moons around the Outer Planets for example. In 2004 and 2005, five new small satellites of Neptune with diameters between 38 and 61 kilometres were discovered.

Question: When was the first useful observation of Neptune from the ground?
Ans: 1997


Article: In total, 156 prisoners have been either acquitted, or received pardons or commutations on the basis of possible innocence, between 1973 to 2015. Death penalty opponents often argue that this statistic shows how perilously close states have come to undertaking wrongful executions; proponents point out that the statistic refers only to those exonerated in law, and that the truly innocent may be a smaller number. Statistics likely understate the actual problem of wrongful convictions because once an execution has occurred there is often insufficient motivation and finance to keep a case open, and it becomes unlikely at that point that the miscarriage of justice will ever be exposed.

Question: Between 1973 and 2015, how amny prisoners were acquitted or received pardons or commutations of their death sentences due to possible innocence?
Ans: 156


Article: In a switching circuit, the idea is to simulate, as near as possible, the ideal switch having the properties of open circuit when off, short circuit when on, and an instantaneous transition between the two states. Parameters are chosen such that the "off" output is limited to leakage currents too small to affect connected circuitry; the resistance of the transistor in the "on" state is too small to affect circuitry; and the transition between the two states is fast enough not to have a detrimental effect.

Question: What is a switching circuit trying to simulate when on?
Ans:
short circuit