Introducing to Pāli-English English-Pāli and Buddhism dictionaries for Stardict

The aims of this post is to introduce you to Stardict, a free & opensource international dictionary, provide some useful and free dictionaries including Pāli-English English-Pāli. Whenever you visit a web page in Pāli, just select or double click on a Pāli word, Stardict will auto look up the meanings of that word in English, you do not need to type the Pāli word.
If you want to type Pāli word, please see part 5. And if you just want to read the Tipitaka in Pali, you can use Pāli Text Reader, Pāli Text Reader itself contains Pāli-English dictionary.

This post has 5 parts as listed bellow:

1-What is Stardict
2-Downnload& Install Stardict
3-Add dictionaries to Stardict
4-Stardict pronounces English words
5-More Pāli resources

1-What is Stardict?

StarDict is a Cross-Platform and international dictionary Software. It has powerful features such as “Glob-style pattern matching”, “Scan selection word,” “Fuzzy query,” etc. Stardict Version3.0 has developed a lot of new functions, such as Full-text translation, Net Dict.

Just select the Pali word on the website, Stardict will look for its means in English

• Mouse Inquiry: When “scan” option is selected, you can capture the words via mouse to translate.
• More Powerful!: Thousands of free dictionaries can be found on the internet. Choose your own favorites.
• Net Dict : Dictionary installation on your own computer is not necessary any more. Click the main menu icon on the top right of the corner, choose “Preferences” option. Here you can set Net dict. Register or log on your account, then you can use the Net Dict with your own dictionaries.
• Full-text translation: Click text translate icon on the left. With google, yahoo, Altavista, Excite Janpan translation engines you can tranlate from one language to another with satisfactory results.
• My other posts about Stardict can be found Here

2-Downnload& Install Stardict

According to which OS you are using, you can downloa d 1 of these versions and install Stardict. For the Window OS and Linux system, just double click on the downloaded file to start to install. (If you can’t downloa d the files here, please try this link.)

For Linux (Debian, Ubuntu) stardict_3.0.1-1_i386.deb 1.6 MB (Or you can install via terminal: sudo apt-get install stardict)

For Window OS:  stardict-3.0.2.exe 10.6 MB

For Mac OS http://sourceforge.net/projects/stardict/files/stardict/3.0.1/StarDict-3.0.1-MacOSX.zip/download

3-Add dictionaries to Stardict

Here are some of Stardict Dictionaries that I am using:

Pāli-English-English-Pāli-Vietnamese

1) English-Pali của ngài A.P. Buddhadatta

2) Pali-English của ngài A.P. Buddhadatta

3) Pali-Việt của ngài Bửu Chơn

4) Thuật ngữ Luật tạng Pali-Việt của Sư Giác Nguyên

5) Abhidhamma Pali-Việt của ngài Tịnh Sự

6) Việt-Pali của Sadi Định Phúc

7) Pali-English English-Pali Dictionary

8) Pali-English Dictionary-Pali Text Society

9) CKJ Buddhism Dictionary

Download links:

http://cid-2aaf1aaefb464249.office.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/stardict

Mirror links:

1- Pali Dictionaries and Buddhism Terms:

http://cuongdang.info/stardict/pali/3Buddhism-and-8Pali-dicts.zip

2- Some useful dictionaries for Vietnamese (En-Vn, Vn-En, Fr-Vn, Vn-Fr, Vn-Vn, Rus-Vn) 6 dictionaries

http://cuongdang.info/stardict/6dics-En-Vn-and-others-for-vietnamese.zip

For other language dictionaries you can download them from

http://stardict.sourceforge.net/Dictionaries.php

or

http://reciteword.cosoft.org.cn/stardict-iso/stardict-dic/

A- Install Dictionaries in Linux:

If you are using Ubuntu Linux and new to Ubuntu, you can use this method:

Firstly, right click on the downloaded compressed file and choose Extract Here, you will get a new folder (*).

Using sudo nautilus to copy dics to /usr/share/stardict/dic

Now open the Terminal (Go to the menu Applications/Accessories/Terminal)  type:

sudo nautilus

provide your root password, then the nautilus (like window explorer on Window^^) will be opened. Now just browse to the uncompress folder (*) and copy them to  usr/share/stardict/dic.

Or you can use this method:

To install these tarball dictionaries, do this:

tar -xjvf a.tar.bz2

sudo mv a /usr/share/stardict/dic

B – Install Dictionaries in Window OS:

Use free uncompress program 7 Zip or other unzip softwares like Winrar…. to extract the .tar.bz2 file, which you get a directory, then move this directory to the dic\, such as C:\Program files\stardict\dic\

C- Install Dictionaries in Mac OS X:

tar -xjvf a.tar.bz2 -C /opt/gtk/usr/share/stardict/dic

4-Stardict pronounces English words

WyabdcRealPeopleTTS package make StarDict pronounce those English words. It is just many .wav files. In Linux, you can extract(tar -xjvf) the tarball at “/usr/share/”. In Windows, you can use  7 Zip or other unzip softwares like Winrar to extract the tarball and install it at “C:\Program Files\” or “Program Files\StarDict\”.

5-More Pāli resources

0-  Chaṭṭha Saṅgāyana Tipitaka Version 4.0 (CST4):

CST4 is a desktop client for browsing and searching the Pāli Canon

http://www.tipitaka.org/cst/cst4-2008-04-20-beta15.exe

Noted, Window XP users, need to install Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 first to be able to run CST4 properly: Download Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 from:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=79BC3B77-E02C-4AD3-AACF-A7633F706BA5&displaylang=en

More details and updated version: http://www.tipitaka.org/cst4

1- Pāli Text Reader http://sourceforge.net/projects/palireader/

2-Pāli Dictionary by Tong Phuoc Khai (now available Window version only) http://sourceforge.net/projects/pali/

3- Pāli Keyboard and typing (now Window version only): http://www.tipitaka.org/keyboard

4- Typing Pāli on Ubuntu: http://cuongdang.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/pali-dict-stardict-ubuntu21.pngtype-romanized-pali-and-sanskrit-in-ubuntu-9-10-windows-and-openoffice-org-3-2.html

UPDATED on Aug 26:

5- Digital Pali Reader (cross-platform)  http://sourceforge.net/projects/digitalpali/

A Pali-English text reader Firefox Extension that allows Pali students to read the Pali Canon. Automatically recognizes pali words and gives definitions from the CPED and PED, as well as DPPN if available. Includes text search and dictionary lookup.

If you meet difficulties in installing or using Stardict, don’t hesitate to  leave a comment here or send an email to me:

info @ cuongdang  .info

Thank you!

World top pharmaceutical companies ranking in sales of 2008

According to Wikipedia, here are the top 3 pharmaceutical companies in sales in the world (2008).

1-Pfizer (US)

Short profile

It produces Lipitor (atorvastatin, used to lower blood cholesterol); the neuropathic pain/fibromyalgia drug Lyrica (pregabalin); the oral antifungal medication Diflucan (fluconazole), the antibiotic Zithromax (azithromycin), Viagra (sildenafil) for erectile dysfunction, and the anti-inflammatory Celebrex (celecoxib) (also known as Celebra in some countries outside the USA and Canada, mainly in South America). Its headquarters are in Midtown Manhattan, New York City.

2-GlaxoSmithKline (UK)
GlaxoSmithKline plc (LSE: GSK NYSE: GSK) is a British pharmaceutical, biological, and healthcare company. GSK is the world’s fourth largest pharmaceutical company after Roche, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson, by revenue[3]; and a research-based company with a wide portfolio of pharmaceutical products covering anti-infectives, central nervous system, respiratory, gastro-intestinal/metabolic, oncology, and vaccines products. It also has a Consumer Healthcare operation comprising leading oral healthcare products, nutritional drinks, and over the counter medicines. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.

3-Novartis (Switzerland)

Novartis manufactures drugs such as clozapine (Clozaril), diclofenac (Voltaren), carbamazepine (Tegretol), valsartan (Diovan), imatinib mesylate (Gleevec / Glivec), ciclosporin (Neoral / Sandimmun), letrozole (Femara), methylphenidate (Ritalin), terbinafine (Lamisil), and others. Novartis owns Sandoz, a large manufacturer of generic drugs. The company formerly owned the Gerber Products Company, a major infant and baby products producer, but sold it to Nestlé on 1 September 2007.

The top 15 pharmaceutical companies by 2008 sales are:

Rank	Company	Sales ($M)	Based/Headquartered in
1	Pfizer	43,363	US
2	GlaxoSmithKline	36,506	UK
3	Novartis	36,506	Switzerland
4	Sanofi-Aventis	35,642	France
5	AstraZeneca	32,516	UK/Sweden
6	Hoffmann–La Roche	30,336	Switzerland
7	Johnson & Johnson	29,425	US
8	Merck & Co.	26,191	US
9	Abbott	19,466	US
10	Eli Lilly and Company	19,140	US
11	Amgen	15,794	US
12	Wyeth	15,682	US
13	Teva	15,274	Israel
14	Bayer	15,660	Germany
15	Takeda	13,819	Japan

Top 10 US and Global Products of 2008 (Click on the image for larger size)

Top 10 global pharmaceutical products of 2008 - Adapted from http://pharmexec.com

Recommended further reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmaceutical_industry

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Pharmaceutical_companies_by_country

Adapted from:

1. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
2. http://pharmexec.com

Accelerator mass spectrometry – and "3,000-year-old rice grains"

It has been come to my attention that recently, Vietnam scientist have found some “3,000-year-old rice grains”. And some of these rice grains have sprouted well.

I am so surprised with this news and wondering that it is true or not! I hope that it is not just another “science trick”. If this discovery is true, it should be one of the greatest discovery of the year 2010.

Now the bottom line is that how we will determine the age of these “3,000-year-old-rice grains”?

After asked Mr. Google, I see this one, a usable method for determining the age of stuff in archeology

Accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) differs from other forms of mass spectrometry in that it accelerates ions to extraordinarily high kinetic energies before mass analysis. The special strength of AMS among the mass spectrometric methods is its power to separate a rare isotope from an abundant neighboring mass (“abundance sensitivity”, e.g. ¹⁴C from ¹²C).^[1] The method suppresses molecular isobars completely and in many cases can separate atomic isobars (e.g. ¹⁴N from ¹⁴C) also. This makes possible the detection of naturally occurring, long-lived radio-isotopes such as ¹⁰Be, ³⁶Cl, ²⁶Al and ¹⁴C. Their typical isotopic abundance ranges from 10^-12 to 10^-18. AMS can outperform the competing technique of decay counting for all isotopes where the half life is long enough.^[2]

Applications of AMS

The applications are many. AMS is most often employed to determine the concentration of ¹⁴C, e.g. by. Archaeologists for radiocarbon dating. An accelerator mass spectrometer is required, over other forms of mass spectrometry, because of their insufficient abundance sensitivity, and to resolve stable nitrogen-14 from radiocarbon. Due to the long half-life of ¹⁴C, decay counting requires significantly larger samples. ¹⁰Be, ²⁶Al, and ³⁶Cl are used for surface exposure dating in geology. ³H, ¹⁴C, ³⁶Cl, and ¹²⁹I are used as hydrological tracer.

Accelerator mass spectrometry is widely used in biomedical research.^[5][6][7]. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Currently, there are about 180 AMS facilities in the world (Wikipedia) – and there is no one in Vietnam

So now just hope that is true and wait for the analytic results coming from a foreign AMS facility.

Human origin: African Origins? Wow Then they come to S.East Asia (inc. Vietnam ^^)?

I have no idea about this research, I just post it here for archiving purposes only.

Human origin: African Origins? {Wow, then they come to S.East Asia (inc. Vietnam ^^)}

Read more at:

• Journey of Mankind
• DNA evidence backs up ‘out-of-Africa’ human origin theory

IT makes us feel more freedom and improves overall well-being

A research which is based on data collected from more than 35,000 survey respondents across the globe from BCS shows that:

• People around the world think that IT (i.e. Internet access) increases their sense of freedom by 15% and improves their overall well-being. Altogether, our life satisfaction increases by 10% when we have IT access, the study, from UK research firm BCS suggests, concludes.
• Benefit most from IT access are:

1. Women
2. Individuals in lower income households and those with less education.

Because “IT helps to promote and enable empowerment and autonomy.” For women specifically it serves as an important “social and family network support tool.”

For further information, read the BCS’s report:
Info Dividend 1
Adapted from:

The Web Makes the World Happier [STUDY]

SETI@home and BOINC: compute for science

BOINC is a program that lets you donate your idle computer time to science projects like SETI@home, Climateprediction.net, Rosetta@home, World Community Grid, and many others.

What is SETI@home?
SETI@home is a scientific experiment that uses Internet-connected computers in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). You can participate by running a free program that downloads and analyzes radio telescope data.

Read more about SETI@home: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/

After installing BOINC on your computer, you can connect it to as many of these projects as you like.

You may run this software on a computer only if you own the computer or have the permission of its owner.

Download BOINC client software

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/download_all.php

Read more:

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/

The negative effects of cul-de-sacs – air pollution, fuel use, and body mass index.

A cul-de-sac (literally “bottom of the bag”) is a word of French origin referring to a dead end, close, no through road (UK English) or court (American and Australian English) meaning dead-end street with only one inlet/outlet. While historically built for other reasons, its modern use is to calm vehicle traffic.  – From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A research of Lawrence Frank on the effects of cul-de-sacs in neighbourhoods in King County, Washington, found that:

Residents in areas with the most interconnected streets travel 26% fewer vehicle miles than those in areas with many cul-de-sacs.

Meanwhile, recent studies by Frank and others show that the higher a neighborhood’s overall walkability, the greater the amount of walking and biking— which means a drop in per capita air pollution, fuel use, and body mass index.

• Cul-de-sacs inherently encourages car use, even for the shortest trips.

• It limits the growth of communities and transportation options.

Cul-de-sacs increase safety because they limit traffic. WHY?

• The more empty and desolate a suburban (and often affluent) street is, the more likely crime is to occur. Also, it’s much harder for emergency vehicles to reach these homes if they’re sequestered in the belly of a web of disconnected dead-ends.

Images and mapping courtesy of Urban Design 4 Health

Adapted from:

The Unintended Consequences of Cul-de-sacs

How Cul-de-Sacs Are Killing Your Community

Creative – to alleviate children’s fears of doctors and medical facilities.

A LITTLE TLC: Leonie, left, and a medical student “operated” on a stuffed animal at the “Teddy Bear Hospital” of the Virchow Clinical Centre in Berlin Monday. The “hospital” is meant to alleviate children’s fears of doctors and medical facilities. (Timur Emek/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images)

The sound of the ocean helps your privacy on the beach and your Office?

The sound of the ocean creates privacy on the beach

Think of the ocean. On the beach the sound of the surf and the wind help create a certain degree of sonic privacy. You can still talk to people near you, but you aren’t dealing with as much distraction from the conversation of people sitting nearby. Even though the ocean is making quite a bit of noise, it isn’t a distraction.

Most people don’t realise how much distractions cost them. If your job involves anything beyond very mundane work, it is impossible to jump right back into where you left off once something breaks your concentration. Even for very average work, it will often take 10 to 15 minutes to get back to your full level of concentration. That means if you make $20 per hour, every interruption costs you around $5 in work value. Yes, I know you probably still get paid–even when you are interrupted, but your output is often what will determine your raises and promotion, so interruptions of your concentration do eventually cost you money.

Via

SO CAN IT really HELP YOU CONCENTRATE better if you listen to the “OCEANIC SOUND” while you are working in YOUR OFFICE or WORKPLACE?

Studies clash on vitamin benefits

To take the multivitamin or to not take the multivitamin: That is the question researchers are still trying to answer.

New research on vitamins has offered conclusions that weren’t crystal clear. But researchers generally recommend getting vitamins from foods, not supplements, to boost your health.

Vitamin supplements and cancer

A study done on women in Puerto Rico, presented Sunday at the American Association for Cancer Research, found that multivitamin and calcium supplements have a protective effect against breast cancer. But a large Swedish study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that taking multivitamin supplements may increase the risk of breast cancer.

The Puerto Rican study, which was not published in a peer-reviewed journal, looked at the capacity of DNA to repair itself in the face of damage. A low DNA repair capacity has previously been linked to cancer risk, said Jaime Matta at the Ponce School of Medicine. Researchers surveyed 268 breast cancer patients and 457 healthy controls and took samples from them to analyze their DNA repair capacity.

They found that participants who took multivitamin supplements reduced the odds of having breast cancer by 30 percent, and those who took calcium had a 40 percent decreased risk. Statistical analysis suggested that the calcium effect could be explained by the DNA repair capacity, but the vitamin effect was independent. Taking supplements of individual vitamins such as A, C and E had no effect, Matta said.

The Swedish study, which looked at more than 35,000 Swedish women, found that those who reported taking multivitamins were 19 percent more likely to develop breast cancer than those who said they didn’t take them.

Both studies should be looked at in the broader context of research on the subject, which has consistently found no association between multivitamins and cancer, said Joanne Dorgan, epidemiologist at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

A 2009 study of more than 160,000 women in the U.S. Women’s Health Initiative found no link between multivitamin use and the likelihood of developing cancer or cardiovascular disease, or of dying. Other large-scale studies similarly have not found connections between breast cancer and multivitamin use.

The Swedish study, which also has a large sample, should be followed up, Dorgan said.

Although the Puerto Rican study is small, it generates a useful hypothesis about DNA repair capacity that should be looked into also, said Dr. Banu Arun, professor of medicine at University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. It is important to explore why some people may benefit from vitamin intake more than others, and DNA repair capacity is a possible factor in that, she said.

Arun’s bottom line: “Don’t take all of these multivitamins with the intention that it will decrease breast cancer risk. Getting the vitamins and minerals from natural sources — food source — is the best.” Those with deficiencies because of genetics or chronic illnesses should compensate with supplements, she said.

Vitamins in diet and the heart

Getting nutrients from foods gets more support from a large Japanese study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

Researchers looked at more than 23,000 men and 35,000 women, ages 40 to 79. They used questionnaires to assess how much folate, vitamin B-6 and vitamin B-12 participants had in their diets.

They found that greater intake of folate and vitamin B-6 was linked to fewer deaths from heart failure in men. These nutrients were also linked to fewer deaths from stroke, heart disease and overall cardiovascular diseases in women.

When researchers controlled for cardiovascular risk factors and took out the participants who used supplements, the folate and vitamin B-6 continued to show these benefits.

Previous research has found that higher levels of homocysteine, an amino acid in the blood, may be related to blood clots and artery lining damage. B vitamins such as folic acid help break down homocysteine, but this study does not prove a direct cause.

The study represents a substantial source of data to further evaluate or expand upon dietary recommendations, said Linda Van Horn, nutrition researcher at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, who was not involved in the study.

The large sample size and the standardized food frequency questionnaire give credence to the study, Van Horn said.

“These particular nutrients — there’s no reason to think they wouldn’t be as important in an American population as they are in a Japanese population,” she said.

Still, the findings may not be entirely generalizable to the United States, as the Japanese dietary intake is different, and the country’s population is less obese as a whole. There should be a similar assessment in the United States to determine if the findings can be applied there, researchers said.

The message is to eat foods that contain B-vitamins, Van Horn said. These include dark green leafy vegetables such as spinach, broccoli, dried beans, peas, lentils and kidney beans, and chickpeas. Many cereals are also fortified with the vitamins.

Source: CNN