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Topic Review
Unlawful Combatant
An unlawful combatant, illegal combatant or unprivileged combatant/belligerent is, according to United States law, a person who directly engages in armed conflict in violation of the laws of war and therefore is claimed to not be protected by the Geneva Conventions. The International Committee of the Red Cross points out that the terms "unlawful combatant", "illegal combatant" or "unprivileged combatant/belligerent" are not defined in any international agreements. The Geneva Conventions apply in wars between two or more sovereign states. Article 5 of the Third Geneva Convention states that the status of detainees whose combatant status is in doubt should be determined by a "competent tribunal". Until such time, they must be treated as prisoners of war. After a "competent tribunal" has determined that an individual is not a lawful combatant, the "detaining power" may choose to accord the individual the rights and privileges of a prisoner of war as described in the Third Geneva Convention, but is not required to do so. An individual who is not a lawful combatant, who is not a national of a neutral state, and who is not a national of a co-belligerent state, retains rights and privileges under the Fourth Geneva Convention so that he must be "treated with humanity and, in case of trial, shall not be deprived of the rights of fair and regular trial". While the concept of an unlawful combatant is included in the Third Geneva Convention, the phrase itself does not appear in the document. Article 4 of the Third Geneva Convention does describe categories under which a person may be entitled to POW status. There are other international treaties that deny lawful combatant status for mercenaries and children. In the United States, the Military Commissions Act of 2006 codified the legal definition of this term and invested the U.S. President with broad discretion to determine whether a person may be designated an unlawful enemy combatant under United States law. The assumption that unlawful combatant status exists as a separate category to lawful combatant and civilian is contradicted by the findings of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the Celebici Judgment. The judgment quoted the 1958 International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) commentary on the Fourth Geneva Convention: "Every person in enemy hands must be either a prisoner of war and, as such, be covered by the Third Convention; or a civilian covered by the Fourth Convention. There is no intermediate status; nobody in enemy hands can be outside the law". Thus, anyone not entitled to prisoner of war status maintains the same rights as a civilian, and must be prosecuted under domestic law. Neither status exists in non-international conflict, with all parties equally protected under International Humanitarian Law. The Geneva Conventions do not recognize any status of lawfulness for combatants in conflicts not involving two or more nation states, such as during civil wars between government's forces, and insurgents. A state in such a conflict is legally bound only to observe Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions and may ignore all of the other Articles. But each one of them is completely free to apply all or part of the remaining Articles of the Convention.
  • 5.7K
  • 02 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Okara and Gut
Okara is a white-yellow fibrous residue consisting of the insoluble fraction of the soybean seeds remaining after extraction of the aqueous fraction during the production of tofu and soymilk, and is generally considered a waste product. It is packed with a significant number of proteins, isoflavones, soluble and insoluble fibers, soyasaponins, and other mineral elements, which are all attributed with health merits. With the increasing production of soy beverages, huge quantities of this by-product are produced annually, which poses significant disposal problems and financial issues for producers. Extensive studies have been done on the biological activities, nutritional values, and chemical composition of okara as well as its potential utilization. Owing to its peculiar rich fiber composition and low cost of production, okara might be potentially useful in the food industry as a functional ingredient or good raw material and could be used as a dietary supplement to prevent varied ailments such as prevention of diabetes, hyperlipidemia, obesity, as well as to stimulate the growth of intestinal microbes and production of microbe-derived metabolites (xenometabolites), since gut dysbiosis (imbalanced microbiota) has been implicated in the progression of several complex diseases.
  • 5.7K
  • 31 Jan 2021
Topic Review
Urban-Resilience Computation Simulation
Urban resilience refers to the ability of an urban system to withstand, absorb, recover, and adapt to man-made or natural disturbances and to learn timely control of current and future expectations. Simulating the dynamic process of urban resilience and analyzing the mechanism of resilience-influencing factors are of great significance to improve the intelligent decision-making ability of resilient urban planning. 
  • 5.7K
  • 19 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Lattice Materials
Lattice material is a cellular material consisting of a periodic network of structural elements such as rods or beams. This network of lattices exists over a wide spectrum of scale from the nanoscale to macroscale and has been applied in a wide area of applications. In the nanoscale spectrum, most of the CNT (Carbon Nano Tube) based sensors are made using lattice materials. Micro-lattices material is being developed intensively as it offers high energy absorption capability. On a macroscale, due to its high stiffness and lightweight properties, lattice materials are widely used in aerospace applications.
  • 5.6K
  • 28 Mar 2022
Topic Review
Aloe vera
Aloe vera plant offers a sustainable solution for the removal of various pollutants from water. Due to its chemical composition, Aloe vera has been explored as coagulant/flocculant and biosorbent for water treatment. 
  • 5.6K
  • 23 Jun 2021
Topic Review
Normative
Normative generally means relating to an evaluative standard. Normativity is the phenomenon in human societies of designating some actions or outcomes as good or desirable or permissible and others as bad or undesirable or impermissible. A norm in this normative sense means a standard for evaluating or making judgments about behavior or outcomes. Normative is sometimes also used, somewhat confusingly, to mean relating to a descriptive standard: doing what is normally done or what most others are expected to do in practice. In this sense a norm is not evaluative, a basis for judging behavior or outcomes; it is simply a fact or observation about behavior or outcomes, without judgment. Many researchers in science, law, and philosophy try to restrict the use of the term normative to the evaluative sense and refer to the description of behavior and outcomes as positive, descriptive, predictive, or empirical. Normative has specialised meanings in different academic disciplines such as philosophy, social sciences, and law. In most contexts, normative means 'relating to an evaluation or value judgment.' Normative propositions tend to evaluate some object or some course of action. Normative content differs from descriptive content. One of the major developments in analytic philosophy has seen the reach of normativity spread to virtually all corners of the field, from ethics and the philosophy of action, to epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of science. Saul Kripke famously showed that rules (including mathematical rules, such as the repetition of a decimal pattern) are normative in an important respect. Though philosophers disagree about how normativity should be understood, it has become increasingly common to understand normative claims as claims about reasons. As Derek Parfit explains:
  • 5.6K
  • 14 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Innovative Industrial Use of Bamboo
Industrial and service development has led researchers to focus on non-conventional materials with significant roles in innovation development and implementation. Entrepreneurs aim to develop innovative and creative strategies using good, valuable, durable, and sustainable materials that serve industrial and economic development. As result, the use of natural construction and production materials has increased interest related to the desire of developing greener and/or environmentally friendly processes. Several natural, re-emerging materials used in the past (e.g., bamboo, straw, reeds, and hemp) have been found useful again and deserving of research to fully understand their potential for different applications. 
  • 5.6K
  • 21 Feb 2022
Topic Review
Manual Muscle Testing for Post-Stroke Upper Extremity Assessment
The Manual Muscle Testing (MMT) scoring system is an assessment tool used by rehabilitation physicians or physiatrists, physiotherapists, neurologists, and other clinicians who deal with the individuals’ functional status. The most frequently used approach is the use of MMT to assess the grade of muscle weakness in different pathologies.
  • 5.6K
  • 16 Jun 2022
Topic Review
Anthrozoology
Anthrozoology is the interdisciplinary study of relationships between humans and other animals.
  • 5.6K
  • 01 Aug 2024
Topic Review
Artificial Intelligence in Water Treatment and Monitoring
Artificial-intelligence methods and machine-learning models have demonstrated their ability to optimize, model, and automate critical water- and wastewater-treatment applications, natural-systems monitoring and management, and water-based agriculture such as hydroponics and aquaponics. In addition to providing computer-assisted aid to complex issues surrounding water chemistry and physical/biological processes, artificial intelligence and machine-learning (AI/ML) applications are anticipated to further optimize water-based applications and decrease capital expenses. Poor data management, low explainability, poor model reproducibility and standardization, as well as a lack of academic transparency are all important hurdles to overcome in order to successfully implement these intelligent applications. Recommendations to aid explainability, data management, reproducibility, and model causality are offered in order to overcome these hurdles and continue the successful implementation of these powerful tools. 
  • 5.6K
  • 01 Jul 2022
Topic Review
Deriving the Schwarzschild Solution
The Schwarzschild solution describes spacetime under the influence of a massive, non-rotating, spherically symmetric object. It is considered by some to be one of the simplest and most useful solutions to the Einstein field equations.
  • 5.6K
  • 18 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Dry Sanitation Systems
Dry sanitation systems (waterless or composting toilets) have been used since the 1970s. Their use has received acceptance in rural regions of Europe and the United States. Some of the advantages of dry sanitation systems include their waterless nature, their low energy requirement and the creation of fertilizer as an added value product. Moreover, the use of such a system is a sustainable sanitation approach that may reduce the burden on infrastructure and provide sanitation to the 2.5 billion people worldwide who do not currently have access to it. The critical factors when choosing a dry sanitation system and their optimum parameters include aeration, moisture content (50%–60%), temperature (40–65 °C), carbon to nitrogen ratio (25–35), pH (5.5–8.0) and porosity (35%–50%). The temperature–time criterion approach is the most common method used to evaluate the stability and safety of the compost as a fertilizer. The risks of handling the waste after 12 months of composting have been calculated as low.
  • 5.6K
  • 27 Oct 2020
Topic Review
French Republican Calendar
The French Republican calendar (French: calendrier républicain français), also commonly called the French Revolutionary calendar (calendrier révolutionnaire français), was a calendar created and implemented during the French Revolution , and used by the French government for about 12 years from late 1793 to 1805, and for 18 days by the Paris Commune in 1871. The revolutionary system was designed in part to remove all religious and royalist influences from the calendar, and was part of a larger attempt at decimalisation in France (which also included decimal time of day, decimalisation of currency, and metrication). It was used in government records in France and other areas under French rule, including Belgium, Luxembourg, and parts of the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Malta, and Italy.
  • 5.6K
  • 19 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Ante-Nicene Period
The Ante-Nicene Period (literally meaning "before Nicaea") of the history of early Christianity was the period following the Apostolic Age of the 1st century down to the First Council of Nicaea in 325. This period of Christian history had a significant impact on the unity of doctrine across all Christendom and the spreading of Christianity to a greater area of the world. Those seen as prominent figures of this era, referred to as the Ante-Nicene Fathers or Proto-orthodox Christians, generally agreed on most doctrine while the teachings of those early Christian writers which the general majority considered to be heretical, were rejected.
  • 5.6K
  • 14 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Passive Films
The outstanding corrosion resistance of many metals and alloys results from the presence of a thin oxide-“passive”-film on the bare metal surface formed during its exposure to an oxidising environment. Once a film is formed, typically 1-3 nm thick, the reaction rate between the metallic material and the environment will be several orders of magnitude lower. The original theory of film formation goes back to Michael  Faraday, who in the 19th century studied iron surfaces and found them “altered”. A review of the early days of passive film research has been written by Uhlig (1979). A general introduction to the theory of passivity has been published by Sato (1990), whereas the electronic properties of passive films on different materials have been  reviewed by Schultze and Lohrengel (2000). The characterisation of the composition and structure of such thin films and the study of their interaction with corrosive environments requires a combination of sophisticated experimental techniques, namely electrochemical methods, XPS, ESCA, AES, SIMS, ISS, ARXPS, XANES, ICP-AES/MS, and others, which are leading to advanced progress over the past two decades.
  • 5.6K
  • 21 Dec 2020
Topic Review
MAPK Pathways in Cancer Metastasis
Metastasis is perhaps the most common reason for treatment failure in cancer patients, as well as the leading cause of cancer-related death. Mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) are serine/threonine-protein kinases that can be activated by a variety of extracellular stimuli including growth factors, cytokines, insulin, environmental factors, and oxidative and genotoxic stress. It is becoming increasingly clear that MAPKs are involved in all the steps required for hyperproliferating cells to develop into metastatic tumors. However, scholars are currently lacking in vivo data to fully understand how MAPK signaling pathways can affect the progression of metastatic disease. 
  • 5.6K
  • 26 May 2022
Topic Review
Algorithmic Journalism
A term that attempts to describe the procedures that have been brought about by recent technological changes in the field of journalism. Characterized by researchers as “the process of using software or algorithms to automatically generate news stories" (Graefe 2016) and “the combination of algorithms, data, and knowledge from the social sciences to supplement the accountability function of journalism” (Hamilton and Turner 2009).
  • 5.6K
  • 03 Jun 2021
Topic Review
Candida albicans
Candida albicans is a common commensal fungus that colonizes the oropharyngeal cavity, gastrointestinal and vaginal tract, and healthy individuals’ skin.
  • 5.6K
  • 23 Feb 2021
Topic Review
List of Methods of Torture
A list of torture methods and devices includes:
  • 5.6K
  • 19 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Algorithm for Dysphagia Screening
Dysphagia is often unrecognized because many people are unfamiliar with symptoms and signs of dysphagia  besides choking during swallowing.  Dysphagia screening is therefore important. A good screening should be a quick process and minimally invasive but can determine the likelihood of dysphagia. Here, an algorithm for dysphagia screening is introduced. The algorithm can be used for people unspecialized in dysphagia.
  • 5.6K
  • 05 Nov 2020
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