French auto sales plummet on virus shock
French new car sales in March plunged more than 72 percent and could be down 20 percent for the full year as the coronavirus outbreak sinks the market, industry figures showed Wednesday.
Apr 1, 2020
0
5
French new car sales in March plunged more than 72 percent and could be down 20 percent for the full year as the coronavirus outbreak sinks the market, industry figures showed Wednesday.
Apr 1, 2020
0
5
Business
Taiwanese tech giant and iPhone assembler Foxconn said Tuesday its Chinese factories are operating at 50 percent of seasonal capacity and are expecting to take a hit for the current quarter due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Mar 3, 2020
1
0
Energy & Green Tech
The transition to renewable energy makes it more important for power producers to get accurate information about the weather that is to come. Climate scientists are currently investing considerable effort and resources to ...
Feb 18, 2020
0
66
Computer Sciences
The exponential growth in computer processing power seen over the past 60 years may soon come to a halt. Complex systems such as those used in weather forecast, for example, require high computing capacities, but the costs ...
Feb 13, 2020
0
811
Automotive
Crisis-hit Japanese automaker Nissan said Thursday its net profit plunged more than 87 percent for the nine months to December as it struggles with weak demand and fallout from the arrest of former boss Carlos Ghosn.
Feb 13, 2020
0
3
Business
Japanese automaker Honda reported Friday a nearly 31% dive in its October-December profit as strong demand for its motorcycles failed to make up for falling vehicles sales.
Feb 7, 2020
0
2
Business
Panasonic said on Monday its operating profit for the April-December period dropped 18 percent on lower sales in China but it left its full-year forecast intact despite the deadly coronavirus outbreak.
Feb 3, 2020
0
3
Consumer & Gadgets
Surveys show that consumers are worried that smart speakers are eavesdropping on their conversations and day-to-day lives. Now University of British Columbia researchers have found that people are also concerned about something ...
Jan 28, 2020
0
21
Computer Sciences
A team of researchers working at Google's Mountain View research center has developed a deep-learning-based weather forecasting tool for predicting short-term weather events. They have written a paper describing their "nowcasting ...
Energy & Green Tech
The amount of energy produced by renewable sources ebbs and flows. The Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics ITWM has found a smart work-around for these fluctuations. Its scientists developed an innovative energy ...
Jan 7, 2020
0
9
Forecastle refers to the upper deck of a sailing ship forward of the foremast, or the forward part of a ship with the sailors' living quarters. Related to the latter meaning is the phrase "before the mast" which denotes anything related to ordinary sailors, as opposed to a ship's officers.
In medieval shipbuilding, a ship of war was usually equipped with a tall, multi-deck castle-like structure in the bow of the ship. It served as a platform for archers to shoot down on enemy ships, or as a defensive stronghold if the ship were boarded. A similar but usually much larger structure, called the aftcastle, was at the aft end of the ship, often stretching all the way from the main mast to the stern.
Having such tall upper works on the ship was detrimental to sailing performance. As cannons were introduced and gunfire replaced boarding as the primary means of naval combat during the 16th century, the medieval forecastle was no longer needed, and later ships such as the galleon had only a low, one-deck high forecastle.
In addition to crew's quarters, the forecastle may contain essential machinery such as the anchor windlass. On many modern US Naval ships, such as aircraft carriers, the forecastle is the location where boatswain will display their fancy knotwork such as coxcombing.
Some sailing ships and many modern non-sail ships have no forecastle as such at all but the name is still used to indicate the foremost part of the upper deck – although often called the foredeck – and for any crews quarters in the bow of the ship, even if below the main deck.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA