Division (horticulture)

Division, in horticulture and gardening, is a method of asexual plant propagation, where the plant (usually an herbaceous perennial) is broken up into two or more parts. Both the root and crown of each part is kept intact. The technique is of ancient origin, and has long been used to propagate bulbs such as garlic and saffron. Division is mainly practiced by gardeners and very small nurseries, as most commercial plant propagation is now done through plant tissue culture.

Division is one of the three main methods used by gardeners to increase stocks of plants (the other two are seed-sowing and cuttings). Division is usually applied to mature perennial plants, but may also be used for shrubs with suckering roots, such as gaultheria, kerria and sarcococca. Annual and biennial plants do not lend themselves to this procedure, as their lifespan is too short.

Most perennials are best divided and replanted every few years to keep them healthy. They may also be divided in order to produce new plants. Those with woody crowns or fleshy roots need to be cut apart, while others can be prized apart using garden forks or hand forks. Each separate section must have both shoots and roots. Division can take place at almost any time of the year, but the best seasons are Autumn and Spring.

Division of the field

In heraldry, the field (background) of a shield can be divided into more than one area, or subdivision, of different tinctures, usually following the lines of one of the ordinaries and carrying its name (e.g. a shield divided in the shape of a chevron is said to be parted "per chevron"). Shields may be divided this way for differencing (to avoid conflict with otherwise similar coats of arms) or for purposes of marshalling (combining two or more coats of arms into one), or simply for style. The lines that divide a shield may not always be straight, and there is a system of terminology for describing patterned lines, which is also shared with the heraldic ordinaries. French heraldry takes a different approach in many cases from the one described in this article.

Common divisions of the field

Common partitions of the field are:

Division algorithm

A division algorithm is an algorithm which, given two integers N and D, computes their quotient and/or remainder, the result of division. Some are applied by hand, while others are employed by digital circuit designs and software.

Division algorithms fall into two main categories: slow division and fast division. Slow division algorithms produce one digit of the final quotient per iteration. Examples of slow division include restoring, non-performing restoring, non-restoring, and SRT division. Fast division methods start with a close approximation to the final quotient and produce twice as many digits of the final quotient on each iteration. Newton–Raphson and Goldschmidt fall into this category.

Discussion will refer to the form , where

is the input, and

is the output.

Division by repeated subtraction

The simplest division algorithm, historically incorporated into a greatest common divisor algorithm presented in Euclid's Elements, Book VII, Proposition 1, finds the remainder given two positive integers using only subtractions and comparisons:

Sword

A sword is a bladed weapon intended for both cutting and thrusting. The precise definition of the term varies with the historical epoch or the geographical region under consideration. A sword in the most narrow sense consists of a straight blade with two edges and a hilt, but depending on context, the term is also often used to refer to bladed weapons with a single edge (also referred to as a backsword).

Historically, the sword developed in the Bronze Age, evolving from the dagger; the earliest specimens date to ca. 1600 BC. The later Iron Age sword remained fairly short and without a crossguard. The spatha, as it developed in the Late Roman army, became the predecessor of the European sword of the Middle Ages, at first adopted as the Migration period sword, and only in the High Middle Ages, developed into the classical arming sword with crossguard. The word sword continues the Old English, sweord.

The use of a sword is known as swordsmanship or (in an early modern or modern context) as fencing. In the Early Modern period, western sword design diverged into roughly two forms, the thrusting swords and the sabers:

SWORD (protocol)

SWORD (Simple Web-service Offering Repository Deposit) is an interoperability standard that allows digital repositories to accept the deposit of content from multiple sources in different formats (such as XML documents) via a standardized protocol. In the same way that the HTTP protocol allows any web browser to talk to any web server, so SWORD allows clients to talk to repository servers. SWORD is a profile (specialism) of the Atom Publishing Protocol, but restricts itself solely to the scope of depositing resources into scholarly systems.

History

The first version of the SWORD protocol was created in 2007 by a consortium of UK institutional repository experts. The project to develop SWORD was funded by the JISC and managed by UKOLN. An overview of the initial development of SWORD is given in "SWORD: Simple Web-service Offering Repository Deposit." The standard grew out of a need for an interoperable method by which resources could be deposited into repositories. Interoperable standards existed to allow the harvesting of content (e.g. Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting) or for searching (e.g. OpenSearch) but not for deposit.

S.W.O.R.D. (comics)

S.W.O.R.D. (Sentient World Observation and Response Department) is a fictional counterterrorism and intelligence agency in the Marvel Comics Universe. Its purpose is to deal with extraterrestrial threats to world security.

Publication history

The group was first introduced in Astonishing X-Men vol. 3, #6 and was created by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday.

Fictional organization biography

S.W.O.R.D. is a counterpart of the better known S.H.I.E.L.D. organization, but since the departure of Nick Fury as director of S.H.I.E.L.D., relations between the two organizations have become strained. The head of S.W.O.R.D. is Special Agent Abigail Brand. Its primary command-and-control headquarters is aboard the orbital space station known as the Peak.

S.W.O.R.D. had an undercover operative in the X-Mansion. In Astonishing X-Men vol. 3, #17, the identity of this undercover operative was revealed to be Lockheed.

"Unstoppable"

The Astonishing X-Men, Hisako Ichiki, Ord of the Breakworld, and Danger are taken to deep space by S.W.O.R.D. and Agent Abigail Brand. S.W.O.R.D. psychics are unable to detect Cassandra Nova in Emma Frost's shattered psyche. Though emotionally wounded, Emma recovered fast enough to be present for the team's departure to the Breakworld, where they planned to disable a missile aimed at earth. Before they reached Breakworld, they were attacked by enemy vessels. After creating a diversion, the X-Men and Agent Brand landed on the planet, where Agent Deems was being tortured in prison.