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What is Web Hosting?

Web hosting is a service that allows organizations and individuals to post a website or web page on the Internet. A web host, or web hosting service provider, is a business that provides the technologies and services needed for the website or webpage to be viewed on the Internet. Websites are hosted or stored, on special computers called servers. When Internet users want to view your website, all they need to do is type your website address into their browser. Their computer will then connect to your server and your webpages will be delivered to them through the browser. Most web hosting companies require that you own your domain name in order to host with them. If you do not have a domain name, the web hosting companies will help you purchase one. The basic features of a web hosting plan include: Disk Space All web hosting accounts offer a certain amount of disk space that you can use to store your web files. It is recommended that you have some sort of estimates on what you need for various tasks – the amount of space you need for your emails, web files, databases, etc. By breaking down your usage, you can better estimate how much space you should go for. Bandwidth or Data Transfer Very often web hosts talk about bandwidth and data transfer as the same entity. However, they are in fact, different. Bandwidth is the amount of data that can be transferred at one time. Data transfer is the actual amount of data transferred. Think of it this way. If bandwidth were a tunnel, the bigger the tunnel the more cars can pass through it. Data transfer would then be the number of cars allowed to go through the tunnel in a given time period, say a month. The less bandwidth you have, the slower it takes your website to load, regardless of your visitor’s connection type. Visitors will have to wait their turn. The less data transfer you have, the more often you will find your website unavailable because you have reached the maximum amount of data allowed to be transferred. To determine what is sufficient, you need to take into consideration the size of your website and the number of visitors you have in a month’s time. Email Accounts Email accounts are a common feature of web hosting, especially if you are hosting a domain. There are three main types of email accounts: POP3, forwarding, and aliases. POP3 accounts are the traditional inboxes. You have space on the server to store your emails, and at the same time, you can use an email program to download your mail. Each login and password combination usually equates to one account. Forwarding mail accounts are useful if you are employing the service of another company to filter your emails for you. Rather than storing your emails on your mail server, emails are redirected to another email address. Aliases accounts are similar to forwarding mail accounts. Some hosts allow you to set up a catch-all alias, which is often used to collect emails sent to addresses not recognized by your mail server. FTP Access After you have created your web pages on your computer, you need to transfer those files to your web server. The files are transferred to the server by use of FTP. FTP is also the protocol of downloading your web files from the server to your computer, ie. backing up your website files.
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What you need to know about Finland, Sweden and NATO

Finland is on the cusp of joining NATO while Sweden is on the verge of following suit. Here’s what you need to know about how the war in Ukraine pushed the two Nordic states closer to the US-backed alliance, and what comes next. Why haven’t Finland and Sweden already joined NATO? While other Nordic countries like Norway, Denmark, and Iceland were original members of the alliance, Sweden and Finland did not join the pact for historic and geopolitical reasons. Both Finland, which declared independence from Russia in 1917 after the Bolshevik revolution, and Sweden adopted neutral foreign policy stances during the Cold War, refusing to align with the Soviet Union or the United States. For Finland, this proved more difficult, as it shared a massive border with an authoritarian superpower. To keep the peace, Finns adopted a process some call “Finlandization,” in which leaders acceded to Soviet demands from time to time. Both countries’ balancing acts effectively ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union. They joined the European Union together in 1995 and gradually aligned their defense policies with the West, while still avoiding joining NATO outright. Each country had different reasons for avoiding signing up for the NATO pact in tandem with the EU. For Finland, it was more geopolitical. The threat to Russia is more tangible thanks to the two countries’ shared 830-mile border. “Finland has been the exposed country, and we’ve been the protected country,” former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in a joint interview alongside former Finnish prime minister Alexander Stubb. While an independent nation, Sweden’s geography puts it in the same “strategic environment” as its liberal democratic neighbors, Bildt said. Finland and Sweden have enjoyed a close partnership for decades, with Stockholm viewing its decision to refrain from joining NATO as a way to help keep the heat off Helsinki. Now, however, Sweden is likely to follow Finland’s lead. “We share the idea that close cooperation will benefit both of us,” current Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said at a news conference last month alongside her Finnish counterpart, Sanna Marin. What does NATO membership entail? The reason most countries join NATO is because of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which stipulates that all signatories consider an attack on one an attack against all. Article 5 has been a cornerstone of the alliance since NATO was founded in 1949 as a counterweight to the Soviet Union. The point of the treaty, and Article 5 specifically, was to deter the Soviets from attacking liberal democracies that lacked military strength. Article 5 guarantees that the resources of the whole alliance — including the massive US military – can be used to protect any single member nation, such as smaller countries that would be defenseless without their allies. Iceland, for example, has no standing army. Bildt said he doesn’t see new big military bases being built in either country should they join NATO. He said that joining the alliance would likely mean more joint military training and planning between Finland, Sweden, and NATO’s 30 current members. Swedish and Finnish forces could also participate in other NATO operations around the globe, such as those in the Baltic states, where several bases have multinational troops. “There’s going to be preparations for contingencies as part of deterring any adventures that the Russians might be thinking of,” Bildt said. “The actual change is going to be fairly limited.” Why does Russia loathe NATO? Russian President Vladimir Putin sees the alliance as a bulwark aimed at Russia, despite the fact that it had spent much of the post-Soviet years focusing on issues like terrorism and peacekeeping. Before Putin invaded Ukraine, he made clear his belief that NATO had edged too close to Russia and should be stripped back to its borders of the 1990s, before some countries that either neighbor Russia or were ex-Soviet states joined the military alliance. Ukraine’s desire to join NATO, and its status as a NATO partner — seen as a step to eventual full membership — was one of the numerous grievances Putin cited in an attempt to justify his country’s invasion of its neighbor. The irony is that the war in Ukraine has, effectively, given NATO a new purpose. “Article 5 is back in the game, and people understand that we need NATO because of a potential Russian threat,” Stubb said in an interview with CNN before the invasion. Why the war in Ukraine changed everything Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was the final straw that pushed Sweden and Finland to pull the trigger on NATO membership. If the Kremlin was willing to invade Ukraine, a country with 44 million people, a GDP of about $516 million, and an armed force of 200,000 active troops, what would stop Putin from invading smaller countries like Finland in Sweden? “Everything changed when Russia invaded Ukraine,” Marin said in April. “People’s mindset in Finland, also in Sweden changed and shifted very dramatically.” Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February, public support for joining NATO in Finland has leaped from around 30% to nearly 80% in some polls. The majority of Swedes also approve of their country joining the alliance, according to opinion polls there. “Our NATO membership was decided on the 24th of February, at 5 o’clock in the morning, when Putin and Russia attacked Ukraine,” Stubb said. “Finland and Sweden would not have joined without this attack.” Officials in both Sweden and Finland have also expressed frustration that, in the lead-up to the war in Ukraine, Russia attempted to demand security guarantees from NATO that the alliance stop expanding eastward. Such a concession, however, would have effectively given Russia the power to dictate the foreign policies of its neighbors by taking away their ability to choose their own allies and partners. Russia, Swedish Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist told CNN, wants “real influence in the security choices in Europe.” “They want an influence over the countries in the neighborhood. And that is totally >>Read more
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Sakura – the symbol of Japan

When the god of the mountains offered Ninigi, the grandson of the sun goddess, to marry one of his daughters, he decided that if he gave preference to the eldest, High Rock, the life of their descendants would be eternal and solid, like stones. But if he prefers the youngest, Blooming, then the life of their children, regardless of social status, will be beautiful, but short, like sakura blossom. Ninigi chose Blossom and became the ancestor of the Japanese emperors. The Japanese, annually contemplating the beauty of this amazing plant and looking at the fragility of its flowering, reflect on the fact that beauty is not eternal, but life is fleeting and fragile. That is why it very much resembles a crumbling sakura flower – although it is beautiful, it leaves too soon: it is not for nothing that the blooming sakura symbolizes the frailty of life and the fickleness of being. Description of the tree Sakura is the name for trees of the pink family, the plum subfamily (the species is finely sawed cherry), most of which perform a purely decorative function: they bloom, but do not bear fruit (unlike other trees of its kind, Japanese sakura is grown not for the sake of berries, but for flowers). There are 16 types of sakura and more than 400 varieties. Despite the fact that cherry trees can be found mainly in the south of the northern hemisphere: in China, Korea, in the Himalayas, most of the trees of this species grow in Japan: nine out of sixteen species and a considerable number of varieties. There are especially a lot of someyoshino (white sakura with huge flowers) and shidarezakura (weeping willow) – this sakura color has a pink tint. Sakura grows very well next to other plants of its kind, which, depending on how they were planted, make a different impression. For example, tree branches planted in parallel rows at the top can intertwine with each other, forming a flowering arch above your head – it looks especially gorgeous if at this time the flowers have already begun to gradually fall off and a person steps on the carpet that created sakura petals. The height of the plant depends on its age, but usually it is about 8 meters (but there are also taller trees, for example, one of the oldest cherry blossoms in the world, whose age is 1800 years, has about 24 meters in height). The bark is smooth, cut across the entire surface of the tree with small horizontal cracks of a gray, green or red hue, and the wood of the tree is very flexible due to the high amount of resin in it. Leaves are oval or spear-shaped with slightly jagged edges. When a sakura branch blooms, it is completely covered with flowers, mainly white or pink, with each inflorescence consisting of several double flowers, usually having 5 petals. The Japanese managed to breed species whose flowers contain about 50 petals, the diameter of which is about 50-60 mm – outwardly they even resemble roses, peonies, chrysanthemums. Sakura petals can be of different colors: white sakura and pink are often found, but you can often see flowers of red, crimson, yellow and even green and variegated tones. Since the sakura flowers bloom even before the sakura leaves appear on the tree, it seems as if a huge number of delicate inflorescences are stuck to the dead and bare trunk (therefore, the flowering period in Japan is also associated with rebirth). When the sakura petals start to fade, but have not fallen from the tree yet, and the cherry blossom sprig is overgrown with the first leaves, the plant looks extremely elegant and summer-like (the Japanese call it Ha-Dzakura, which means “sakura with leaves”). Few trees of this species bear fruit, and if they do yield, the sakura (sakurambo) fruits are usually very small, cherry-colored, have a large stone, tightly covered with thin pulp, and taste very sour and tart. They are sold in small boxes and are extremely expensive. Flowering time Sakura bloom begins in January on about. Okinawa (located in the south) and ends at about. Hokkaido, thus moving north. The period when this tree blooms largely depends on its species: some plants begin to bloom in winter, others – at the end of spring. For example, such well-known species as: Fuyu-Dzakura – blooms in the last month of autumn; Yama-dzarkura – early plant, blooms at the end of March; Someyoshino – in early April; Yae-zakura – in the middle of spring; Kasumi-zakura – in early May. When the flower is fully open, it stays that way for about a week. How long it will bloom depends largely on the weather and temperature – the colder it is, the longer it will be possible to contemplate the sakura flowers. But strong winds and rain, on the contrary, will significantly reduce sakura bloom. Hanami Festival The sakura blossom in Japan is celebrated at the state level: the official opening of Hanami (“Contemplation of Flowers”) takes place in the main Tokyo park Shinjuku – and not only famous politicians, but also members of the imperial family take part in it. Hanami Festival The sakura blossom in Japan is celebrated at the state level: the official opening of Hanami (“Contemplation of Flowers”) takes place in the main Tokyo park Shinjuku – and not only famous politicians, but also members of the imperial family take part in it. During this period, numerous gardens, parks, squares and other places where the cherry tree blooms are visited by a huge number of people, viewing in the evening is especially popular, when the sakura branch is very beautifully highlighted. Contemplating, people arrange picnics, relax, and often use the Hanami holiday in their personal interests – they negotiate, strengthen contacts, make new acquaintances. Using wood in everyday life From the fruits of this plant, the Japanese make sour wine or add to rice during cooking. Leaves and petals are also used – >>Read more
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Calculate Your Basal Metabolic Rate to Lose Weight

BMR is short for Basal Metabolic Rate. Your Basal Metabolic Rate is the number of calories required to keep your body functioning at rest, also known as your metabolism. What affects my BMR? Anything that results in an increase to your metabolic rate will increase your BMR. This includes exercise, stress, fear and illnesses. Your BMR is relative to body mass, age, weight and height. It is also affected by your gender; as it widely regarded that men need more calories than women. BMR formula There are 2 formulae used to calculate BMR, in [kcal / 24hrs] for men and women respectively: BMR for Men = 66.47 + (13.75 * weight [kg]) + (5.003 * size [cm]) − (6.755 * age [years]) BMR for Women = 655.1 + (9.563 * weight [kg]) + (1.85 * size [cm]) − (4.676 * age [years]) Harris Benedict Formula Once you’ve calculated your BMR, this is then put into the Harris Benedict Formula , which calculates your total calorie intake required to maintain your current weight. This is as follows: Little/no exercise: BMR * 1.2 = Total Calorie Need Light exercise: BMR * 1.375 = Total Calorie Need Moderate exercise (3-5 days/wk): BMR * 1.55 = Total Calorie Need Very active (6-7 days/wk): BMR * 1.725 = Total Calorie Need Extra active (very active & physical job): BMR * 1.9 = Total Calorie Need Typical Calorie per Kilogram Needs Calorie needs per kilogram vary by activity level, with people typically needing between 12 and 15 calories per pound if they’re sedentary, 14 to 17 calories per pound if they’re moderately active, and 16 to 18 calories per pound if they’re very active. Women are at the lower end of this range, and men are at the higher end. This translates to people needing somewhere between 26.4 and 39.6 calories per kilogram to maintain their weight, depending on gender and activity level. To lose 1 kilogram of body weight, you would need to create a deficit of about 7,700 calories. Calculating BMR to Estimate Calorie Needs For a more individualized estimate of your calorie needs per kilogram, you can calculate your resting metabolic rate, or RMR, and multiply it by the appropriate activity factor. For men, RMR equals 88.362 + (4.799 x your height in centimeters) + (13.397 x your weight in kilograms) – (5.677 x your age). For women, it is 447.593 + (3.098 x your height in centimeters) + (9.247 x your weight in kilograms) – (4.33 x your age). Next, multiply this number by activity factor: x 1.2 for sedentary people х 1.375 for light activity х 1.55 for moderately active х 1.75 for very active people x 1.9 for physical jobs You can divide the result by your weight in kilograms to get the number of calories per kilogram you should consume to maintain your current weight. Effect of Exercise on Calorie Needs Aerobic exercise burns a significant amount of calories, increasing calorie needs. For example, a man between the ages of 30 and 59 who weighs 75 kilograms would need about 34 calories per kilogram if he wasn’t very active, about 40 calories per kilogram if he was active, and about 47 calories per kilogram if he was very active. The more intense the exercise, the more calories you’ll burn per minute and the greater your calorie needs. Running at a 10-minute-mile pace burns about 0.28 calorie per minute per kilogram, while walking at a 15-minute-mile pace only burns about 0.08 calorie per minute per kilogram. Aim for 30 to 60 minutes of moderately intense aerobic exercise most days of the week. Although strength-training exercise doesn’t burn a lot of calories, it can increase your calorie needs because it helps build muscle, which boosts your metabolism. Try to fit in at least two strength-training sessions per week. Body Composition Considerations As you get heavier, you tend to need fewer calories per kilogram to maintain your weight, even at the same activity level. This is because heavier people tend to have more body fat, and it takes fewer calories to maintain fat than muscle. A 30-year-old man who weighs 50 kilograms and isn’t very active needs about 42 calories per kilogram, but a similar man weighing 90 kilograms would only need about 31 calories per kilogram. Because the different ways to estimate your calorie needs don’t take into account whether weight comes from fat or muscle, they may underestimate calorie needs for people who have more muscle than average, such as body builders or elite athletes. Effect of Aging on Calorie Needs People tend to gain fat as they get older, at least in part due to the slowing down of their metabolism. This means that as you age, you’ll need fewer calories per kilogram to maintain your weight. Continuing to eat the same number of calories will lead to weight gain. Every 10 years, you’ll need to eat about 150 calories less per day to avoid this potential weight gain. Participating in strength-training workouts to build muscle may help limit these declines, which may be at least partly due to declines in muscle mass and increases in fat mass. Muscle takes more calories to maintain than fat.
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Coronavirus disease (COVID-19): Vaccines

Is there a vaccine for COVID-19? Yes there are now several vaccines that are in use. The first mass vaccination programme started in early December 2020 and as of and as of 15 February 2021, 175.3 million vaccine doses have been administered. At least 7 different vaccines (3 platforms) have been administered. WHO issued an Emergency Use Listing (EULs) for the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine (BNT162b2) on 31 December 2020. On 15 February 2021, WHO issued EULs for two versions of the AstraZeneca/Oxford COVID-19 vaccine, manufactured by the Serum Institute of India and SKBio. WHO is on track to EUL other vaccine products through June. The products and progress in regulatory review by WHO is provided by WHO and updated regularly. Once vaccines are demonstrated to be safe and efficacious, they must be authorized by national regulators, manufactured to exacting standards, and distributed. WHO is working with partners around the world to help coordinate key steps in this process, including to facilitate equitable access to safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines for the billions of people who will need them. When will COVID-19 vaccines be ready for distribution? The first COVID-19 vaccines have already begun to be introduced in countries. Before COVID-19 vaccines can be delivered: The vaccines must be proven safe and effective in large (phase III) clinical trials. Some COVID-19 vaccine candidates have completed their phase III trials, and many other potential vaccines are being developed. Independent reviews of the efficacy and safety evidence is required for each vaccine candidate, including regulatory review and approval in the country where the vaccine is manufactured, before WHO considers a vaccine candidate for prequalification. Part of this process also involves the Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety. In addition to review of the data for regulatory purposes, the evidence must also be reviewed for the purpose of policy recommendations on how the vaccines should be used. An external panel of experts convened by WHO, called the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE), analyzes the results from clinical trials, along with evidence on the disease, age groups affected, risk factors for disease, programmatic use, and other information. SAGE then recommends whether and how the vaccines should be used. Officials in individual countries decide whether to approve the vaccines for national use and develop policies for how to use the vaccines in their country based on the WHO recommendations. The vaccines must be manufactured in large quantities, which is a major and unprecedented challenge – all the while continuing to produce all the other important life-saving vaccines already in use. As a final step, all approved vaccines will require distribution through a complex logistical process, with rigorous stock management and temperature control. WHO is working with partners around the world to accelerate every step of this process, while also ensuring the highest safety standards are met. More information is available here. Will COVID-19 vaccines provide long-term protection? Because COVID vaccines have only been developed in the past months, it’s too early to know the duration of protection of COVID-19 vaccines. Research is ongoing to answer this question. However, it’s encouraging that available data suggest that most people who recover from COVID-19 develop an immune response that provides at least some period of protection against reinfection – although we’re still learning how strong this protection is, and how long it lasts. How quickly could COVID-19 vaccines stop the pandemic? The impact of COVID-19 vaccines on the pandemic will depend on several factors. These include the effectiveness of the vaccines; how quickly they are approved, manufactured, and delivered; the possible development of other variants and how many people get vaccinated Whilst trials have shown several COVID-19 vaccines to have high levels of efficacy, like all other vaccines, COVID-19 vaccines will not be 100% effective. WHO is working to help ensure that approved vaccines are as effective as possible, so they can have the greatest impact on the pandemic. What types of COVID-19 vaccines are being developed? How would they work? Scientists around the world are developing many potential vaccines for COVID-19. These vaccines are all designed to teach the body’s immune system to safely recognize and block the virus that causes COVID-19. Several different types of potential vaccines for COVID-19 are in development, including: Inactivated or weakened virus vaccines, which use a form of the virus that has been inactivated or weakened so it doesn’t cause disease, but still generates an immune response. Protein-based vaccines, which use harmless fragments of proteins or protein shells that mimic the COVID-19 virus to safely generate an immune response. Viral vector vaccines, which use a safe virus that cannot cause disease but serves as a platform to produce coronavirus proteins to generate an immune response. RNA and DNA vaccines, a cutting-edge approach that uses genetically engineered RNA or DNA to generate a protein that itself safely prompts an immune response. For more information about all COVID-19 vaccines in development, see this WHO publication, which is being updated regularly. Will other vaccines help protect me from COVID-19? Currently, there is no evidence that any other vaccines, apart from those specifically designed for the SARS-Cov-2 virus, will protect against COVID-19. However, scientists are studying whether some existing vaccines – such as the Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine, which is used to prevent tuberculosis – are also effective for COVID-19. WHO will evaluate evidence from these studies when available. What are the benefits of getting vaccinated? The COVID-19 vaccines produce protection against the disease, as a result of developing an immune response to the SARS-Cov-2 virus. Developing immunity through vaccination means there is a reduced risk of developing the illness and its consequences. This immunity helps you fight the virus if exposed. Getting vaccinated may also protect people around you, because if you are protected from getting infected and from disease, you are less likely to infect someone else. This is particularly important to protect people at increased risk for severe illness from COVID-19, such as healthcare providers, older or elderly adults, >>Read more
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