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The Hofmeister kink (sometimes also translated Hofmeister kick, German: Hofmeister-Knick) is an automotive design feature seen on modern BMWs and automobiles by other manufacturers. The feature consists of a low forward bend at the C-pillar or D-pillar in the case of touring vehicles or SUVs. It is named for Wilhelm Hofmeister, BMW design chief from 1955-1970.

Among the first cars to feature this design trait were some 1949 General Motors 2-door cars, as well as the 1958 Lancia Flaminia Sport Zagato and the 1961 Lancia Flavia Coupé. Despite its being used broadly across automotive makes, the term "Hofmeister kink" is generally used in reference to automobiles designed by BMW it later appeared in.

The first BMWs to feature it were the BMW 3200 CS and the BMW 1500 shown at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September 1961 and was later named after then-BMW director of design, Wilhelm Hofmeister. In early models, the widened base of the C-pillar sometimes featured the BMW roundel.

Apart from its stylistic effect, the Hofmeister kink is said by BMW to suggest that all BMW models have rear-wheel drive (or all-wheel drive biased to the rear).

Not unique to BMW models, similar C-pillar kinks have appeared on cars of other brands both before 1961 and since. For example, the 1951 Kaiser Deluxe Golden Dragon shows a considerable "Hofmeister kink" in its greenhouse design. Another instance is seen with the 1994 Chevrolet Impala SS, based on the 1991+ Chevrolet Caprice, which had a plastic C-pillar kink insert and unique quarter window added to its design for its debut year. For 1994, the Caprice retained the standard triangular shaped window glass. In 1995, GM did away with the plastic insert, and incorporated this kink into the stamped sheetmetal quarter panels themselves for both the Impala SS as well as the Caprice Classic. In addition, the kink is present on some Honda Accord and Civic models.

A green wave occurs when a series of traffic lights (usually three or more) are coordinated to allow continuous traffic flow over several intersections in one main direction.

Any vehicle travelling along with the green wave (at an approximate speed decided upon by the traffic engineers) will see a progressive cascade of green lights, and not have to stop at intersections. This allows higher traffic loads, and reduces noise and energy use (because less acceleration and braking is needed). In practical use, only a group of cars (known as a "platoon", the size of which is defined by the signal times) can use the green wave before the time band is interrupted to give way to other traffic flows.

The coordination of the signals is sometimes done dynamically, according to sensor data of currently existing traffic flows - otherwise it is done statically, by the use of timers. Under certain circumstances, green waves can be interwoven with each other, but this increases their complexity and reduces usability, so in conventional set-ups only the roads and directions with the heaviest loads get this preferential treatment.

In 2011, a study modeled the implementation of green waves during the night in a busy Manchester suburb (Chorlton-cum-Hardy) using S-Paramics microsimulation and the AIRE emissions module. The results showed using green wave signal setups on a network have the potential to:

• Reduce CO₂, NO_x and PM₁₀ emissions from traffic.
• Reduce fuel consumption of vehicles.
• Be used on roads that intersect with other green waves.
• Reduce the time cars wait at side roads.
• Give pedestrians more time to cross at crossings and help them to cross streets as vehicles travel in platoons
• Control the speed of traffic in urban areas.
• Reduce component wear of vehicles and indirect energy consumption through their manufacture

A green wave in both directions may be possible with different speed recommendations for each direction, otherwise traffic coming from one direction may reach the traffic light faster than from the other direction if the distance from the previous traffic light is not mathematically a multiple of the opposite direction. Alternatively a dual carriageway may be suitable for green waves in both directions if there is sufficient space in the central reservation to allow pedestrians to wait and separate pedestrian crossing stages for each side of the road.

Green waves are sometimes used to facilitate bicycle traffic. Copenhagen, Amsterdam, San Francisco, and other cities may synchronize traffic signals to provide a green light for a flow of cyclists. On San Francisco's Valencia Street, the signals were retimed in early 2009 to provide a green wave in both directions, possibly the first street in the world with a two-way green wave for cyclists. In Copenhagen, a green wave on the arterial street Nørrebrogade facilitates 30,000 cyclists to maintain a 12 mph (19.3 km/h) speed for 2.5 kilometers. In Amsterdam, cyclists riding at a speed of 15 to 18 km/h will be able to travel without being stopped by a red signal. Tests show that public transport can benefit as well and cars may travel slightly slower.

In Vienna, Austria a stretch of cycle path on Lassellestrasse in the 2nd district has a display that tells cyclists their speed and the speed they must maintain to make the next green light.

Frederiksberg, a part of Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, has implemented a green wave for emergency vehicles to improve the public services.

In the UK, in 2009, it was revealed that the Department for Transport had previously discouraged green waves as they reduced fuel usage, and thus less revenue was raised from fuel taxes. Despite this government Webtag documents were only updated in 2011. It is still unclear if the economic appraisal software used to apply these guidelines has also been updated and if the new guidelines are being applied to new projects.

In a more limited sense, the term Green wave has also been applied to railroad travel. For several years starting in the 1960s, the German Federal Railway maintained an advertising campaign featuring the slogan garantiert grüne Welle (Guaranteed Green Wave), which communicated the notion of speed, limited delays and open track blocks to potential customers choosing between train and automobile travel, and was featured prominently in promotional materials ranging from posters to radio jingles.

In 2002, the United States Department of Justice began a probe into the activities of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) manufacturers in response to complaints by US computer makers, including Dell and Gateway. The computer makers said that inflated DRAM pricing was causing them lost profits and hindering their effectiveness in the marketplace, in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.

To date, five manufacturers have pleaded guilty to their involvement in an international price-fixing conspiracy between July 1, 1998, and June 15, 2002, including Hynix, Infineon, Micron Technology, Samsung, and Elpida.

Ensete ventricosum, commonly known as enset or ensete, Ethiopian banana, Abyssinian banana, and false banana, is an herbaceous species of flowering plant in the banana family Musaceae. The domesticated form of the plant is only cultivated in Ethiopia, where it provides the staple food for approximately 20 million people. The name Ensete ventricosum was first published in 1948 in the Kew Bulletin, 1947, p. 101. Its synonyms include Musa arnoldiana De Wild., Musa ventricosa Welw. and Musa ensete J.F.Gmel. In its wild form, it is native to the eastern edge of the Great African Plateau, extending northwards from South Africa through Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania to Ethiopia, and west to the Congo, being found in high rainfall forests on mountains, and along forested ravines and streams.

The 100 Year Starship (100YSS) is a joint U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) grant project to a private entity. The goal of the study is to create a business plan that can foster the research and technology needed for interstellar travel within 100 years.

A role-playing game theory is the ludology of role-playing games (RPGs) where they are studied as a social or artistic phenomenon. RPG theories seek to understand what role-playing games are, how they function, and how the process can be refined in order to improve the gaming experience and produce more useful game products.

A Royal Mail rubber band is a small red elastic loop used by the postal delivery service in the United Kingdom. In the course of its work, the Royal Mail consumes nearly one billion rubber bands per year to tie together bundles of letters at sorting offices. In the 2000s, complaints about Royal Mail rubber bands littering the streets of Britain gave rise to ongoing press interest in this minor cultural phenomenon. The Royal Mail no longer uses red rubber bands.

The Abelian sandpile model, also known as the Bak–Tang–Wiesenfeld model, was the first discovered example of a dynamical system displaying self-organized criticality. It was introduced by Per Bak, Chao Tang and Kurt Wiesenfeld in a 1987 paper.

The model is a cellular automaton. In its original formulation, each site on a finite grid has an associated value that corresponds to the slope of the pile. This slope builds up as "grains of sand" (or "chips") are randomly placed onto the pile, until the slope exceeds a specific threshold value at which time that site collapses transferring sand into the adjacent sites, increasing their slope. Bak, Tang, and Wiesenfeld considered process of successive random placement of sand grains on the grid; each such placement of sand at a particular site may have no effect, or it may cause a cascading reaction that will affect many sites.

The model has since been studied on the infinite lattice, on other (non-square) lattices, and on arbitrary graphs (including directed multigraphs). It is closely related to the dollar game, a variant of the chip-firing game introduced by Biggs.

Spicules are structural elements found in most sponges. The meshing of many spicules serves as the sponge's skeleton and thus it provides structural support and potentially defense against predators.

Sponge spicules are made of calcium carbonate or silica. Large spicules visible to the naked eye are referred to as megascleres, while smaller, microscopic ones are termed microscleres. The composition, size, and shape of spicules are major characters in sponge systematics and taxonomy.

A simulation game is "a game that contains a mixture of skill, chance, and strategy to simulate an aspect of reality, such as a stock exchange". Similarly, Finnish author Virpi Ruohomäki states that "a simulation game combines the features of a game (competition, cooperation, rules, participants, roles) with those of a simulation (incorporation of critical features of reality). A game is a simulation game if its rules refer to an empirical model of reality". A properly built simulation game used to teach or learn economics would closely follow the assumptions and rules of the theoretical models within this discipline.