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Topic Review
Skeptical Movement
The skeptical movement (British spelling: sceptical movement) is a modern social movement based on the idea of scientific skepticism (also called rational skepticism). The movement has the goal of investigating claims made on fringe topics and determining whether they are supported by empirical research and are reproducible, as part of a methodological norm pursuing "the extension of certified knowledge". The process followed is sometimes referred to as skeptical inquiry. Roots of the movement date at least from the 19th century, when people started publicly raising questions regarding the unquestioned acceptance of claims about spiritism, of various widely-held superstitions, and of pseudoscience. Publications such as those of the Dutch Vereniging tegen de Kwakzalverij (1881) also targeted medical quackery. Using as a template the Belgian organization founded in 1949, Comité Para, Americans Paul Kurtz and Marcello Truzzi founded the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), in Amherst, New York, in 1976. Now known as the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), this organization has inspired others to form similar groups worldwide.
  • 4.9K
  • 15 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Gade Language in Nigeria
The Gade people of Nigeria
  • 4.9K
  • 06 Nov 2025
Topic Review
Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication
The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), legally S.W.I.F.T. SCRL, provides a network that enables financial institutions worldwide to send and receive information about financial transactions in a secure, standardized and reliable environment. SWIFT also sells software and services to financial institutions, much of it for use on the SWIFTNet network, and ISO 9362 Business Identifier Codes (BICs, previously Bank Identifier Codes), popularly known as "SWIFT codes". As of 2018, around half of all high-value cross-border payments worldwide used the SWIFT network. (As of 2015), SWIFT linked more than 11,000 financial institutions in more than 200 countries and territories, who were exchanging an average of over 32 million messages per day (compared to an average of 2.4 million daily messages in 1995). SWIFT transports financial messages in a highly secure way but does not hold accounts for its members and does not perform any form of clearing or settlement. SWIFT does not facilitate funds transfer: rather, it sends payment orders, which must be settled by correspondent accounts that the institutions have with each other. Each financial institution, to exchange banking transactions, must have a banking relationship by either being a bank or affiliating itself with one (or more) so as to enjoy those particular business features. SWIFT has been criticized for its inefficiency, with the Financial Times observing in 2018 that transfers frequently "pass through multiple banks before reaching their final destination, making them time-consuming, costly and lacking transparency on how much money will arrive at the other end". SWIFT has introduced its own improved service, called "Global Payments Innovation" (GPI), stating that as of 2018 it had been adopted by 165 banks, and was completing half of its payments in under 30 minutes. SWIFT is a cooperative society under Belgian law owned by its member financial institutions with offices around the world. SWIFT's headquarters are in La Hulpe, Belgium, near Brussels. The main building was designed by Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura and completed in 1989. The chairman of SWIFT is Yawar Shah, originally from Pakistan , and its CEO, since July 2019, is Javier Pérez-Tasso, originally from Spain. SWIFT hosts an annual conference, called Sibos, specifically aimed at the financial services industry. SWIFT has at various times attracted controversy for enabling the US government to monitor and in some cases interfere with intra-European transactions. (See: U.S. government involvement.)
  • 4.9K
  • 25 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Internet of Things Architectures and Applications
The Internet of Things (IoT) has changed the worldwide network of people, smart devices, intelligent things, data, and information as an emergent technology. IoT development is still in its early stages, and numerous interrelated challenges must be addressed. IoT is the unifying idea of embedding everything. The Internet of Things offers a huge opportunity to improve the world’s accessibility, integrity, availability, scalability, confidentiality, and interoperability. However, securing the Internet of Things is a difficult issue. The IoT aims to connect almost everything within the framework of a common infrastructure. This helps in controlling devices and, will allow device status to be updated everywhere and at any time. To develop technology via IoT, several critical scientific studies and inquiries have been carried out. However, many obstacles and problems remain to be tackled in order to reach IoT’s maximum potential. 
  • 4.9K
  • 18 Jan 2022
Topic Review
Cost-Effective Water Purification Method
Water scarcity is occurring due to the rapid increase in the global population, intense industrialization, stringent water quality standards, and negative climate change. Contamination with heavy metals (arsenic, iron, lead, mercury, chromium), microbes (Escherichia coli, Staphylococus), biological compounds, and other components (fluoride, cadmium) is widely encountered. Carbon based materials, including activated carbon, MWCNT. graphene, r-graphene, cabon dot and fullerene provides cost effective option for water purification. The specific surface area, strong sorption, fast kinetics and like, are properties of these carbon based materials responsible potential water treatment application. 
  • 4.9K
  • 12 Jan 2021
Topic Review
Urban Middle-Class
With the rapid urbanization, the emergence of a middle class is exerting its influence on the urban form and structure. A data-driven approach based on principal component analysis (PCA) has been used to define multidimensionally the middle class and its housing typology.
  • 4.9K
  • 22 Sep 2022
Topic Review
Intelligent Road Defects Detection Technology
Road defects are important factors affecting traffic safety. In order to improve the identification efficiency of road diseases and the pertinence of maintenance and management, intelligent detection technologies of road diseases have been developed. The problems of high cost and low efficiency of artificial inspection of road diseases are solved efficiently, and the quality of road construction is improved availably. This is not only the guarantee of highway quality but also the guarantee of people’s lives and safety.
  • 4.9K
  • 15 Jun 2022
Topic Review
AKT and Related Signaling Pathways
Global environmental pollution has led to human exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation due to the damaged ozone layer, thereby increasing the incidence and death rate of skin cancer including both melanoma and non-melanoma. Overexpression and activation of V-akt murine thymoma viral oncogene homolog (AKT, also known as protein kinase B) and related signaling pathways are major factors contributing to many cancers including lung cancer, esophageal squamous cell carcinoma and skin cancer. Although BRAF inhibitors are used to treat melanoma, further options are needed due to treatment resistance and poor efficacy. Depletion of AKT expression and activation, and related signaling cascades by its inhibitors, decreases the growth of skin cancer and metastasis. Here we have focused the effects of AKT and related signaling (PI3K/AKT/mTOR) pathways by regulators derived from plants and suggest the need for efficient treatment in skin cancer therapy.
  • 4.9K
  • 28 Sep 2020
Topic Review
Pyrolysis
Pyrolysis: Thermochemical decomposition of organic materials in the absence of oxygen. Polymer-derived carbon: Carbon obtained by heat-treatment (pyrolysis followed by carbon-carbon bond formation and rearrangement) of natural or synthetic polymers. In addition to the supplied heat, surrounding gaseous environment, presence of magnetic field and applied pressure influence pyrolysis.
  • 4.9K
  • 01 Nov 2020
Topic Review
Sulfate-Reducing Bacteria
Sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) are a group of anaerobic microorganisms that can be present in the environment and gastrointestinal tract as a part of the intestinal microbiome and can be involved in inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs), including ulcerative colitis in the human and animals.
  • 4.9K
  • 07 Feb 2021
Topic Review
Sustainability Strategies in the Automotive Industry
The automotive industry is a complex system of connections, direct and indirect products, and interactions for the purpose of creating economic value. As this industry has a significant impact on the environment, the economy, and people, it also plays a significant role in sustainable development. Regulatory agencies evaluate car and parts companies to ensure that these companies meet environmental standards and reduce the environmental impact of production processes and products themselves.
  • 4.9K
  • 19 Apr 2022
Topic Review
You're Either with Us, or Against Us
In political communication, the phrase "you're either with us, or against us" and similar variations are used to depict situations as being polarized and to force witnesses, bystanders, or others unaligned with some form of pre-existing conflict to either become allies of the speaking party or lose favor. The implied consequence of not joining the team effort is to be deemed an enemy. An example is the statement of the former US President George W. Bush, who said after 9/11 at the launch of his anti-terrorism campaign in the form "Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."
  • 4.9K
  • 23 Nov 2022
Topic Review
GC-IMS
Gas chromatography-ion mobility spectrometry (GC-IMS) is a powerful technique for the separation and sensitive detection of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). It is a rapid, robust and easy-to-handle technique, which has recently gained attention for targeted as well as non-targeted screening (NTS) approaches. In this article, the general working principles of GC-IMS are presented.
  • 4.9K
  • 03 Nov 2021
Topic Review
Salient Object Detection
Detection and localization of regions of images that attract immediate human visual attention is currently an intensive area of research in computer vision. The capability of automatic identification and segmentation of such salient image regions has immediate consequences for applications in the field of computer vision, computer graphics, and multimedia. A large number of salient object detection (SOD) methods have been devised to effectively mimic the capability of the human visual system to detect the salient regions in images. These methods can be broadly categorized into two categories based on their feature engineering mechanism: conventional or deep learning-based. In this survey, most of the influential advances in image-based SOD from both conventional as well as deep learning-based categories have been reviewed in detail. Relevant saliency modeling trends with key issues, core techniques, and the scope for future research work have been discussed in the context of difficulties often faced in salient object detection. Results are presented for various challenging cases for some large-scale public datasets. Different metrics considered for assessment of the performance of state-of-the-art salient object detection models are also covered. Some future directions for SOD are presented towards end.
  • 4.9K
  • 19 Nov 2020
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
James I of Aragon (1213–1276)
James I, King of Aragon (1213–1276). He was the third king of the Crown of Aragon, which had come into existence through the union between Queen Petronila of Aragon (1157-1164) and the Count of Barcelona Ramon Berenguer IV (1137–1162). James I represents a milestone in the iconography of the Kings of Aragon, although this is due more to his successors’ promotion of him rather than to his own efforts. In order to organise and unify his dominions after the conquests of Mallorca and Valencia, he immersed himself in legal work that consolidated his legislative power whilst still allowing his territories to retain a certain degree of autonomy. He carried out an essential monetary reorganisation in which his coinage retained its obverse but altered its reverse according to the place of issue. He never succeeded in being crowned, although he featured the crown prominently in his stamps and seals and, on some coins, he added the term rex gratia Dei. In addition, he revived the sword as a royal insignia, having proclaimed the right of conquest as the basis of his sovereignty.
  • 4.9K
  • 13 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Principle of Least Action
The principle of least action – or, more accurately, the principle of stationary action – is a variational principle that, when applied to the action of a mechanical system, can be used to obtain the equations of motion for that system. It was historically called "least" because its solution requires finding the path of motion in space that has the least value. The principle can be used to derive Newtonian, Lagrangian and Hamiltonian equations of motion, and even general relativity (see Einstein–Hilbert action). In relativity, a different action must be minimized or maximized. The classical mechanics and electromagnetic expressions are a consequence of quantum mechanics. The stationary action method helped in the development of quantum mechanics. In 1933, the physicist Paul Dirac demonstrated how this principle can be used in quantum calculations by discerning the quantum mechanical underpinning of the principle in the quantum interference of amplitudes. Subsequently Julian Schwinger and Richard Feynman independently applied this principle in quantum electrodynamics. The principle remains central in modern physics and mathematics, being applied in thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, the theory of relativity, quantum mechanics, particle physics, and string theory and is a focus of modern mathematical investigation in Morse theory. Maupertuis' principle and Hamilton's principle exemplify the principle of stationary action. The action principle is preceded by earlier ideas in optics. In Ancient Greece , Euclid wrote in his Catoptrica that, for the path of light reflecting from a mirror, the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection. Hero of Alexandria later showed that this path was the shortest length and least time. Scholars often credit Pierre Louis Maupertuis for formulating the principle of least action because he wrote about it in 1744 and 1746. However, Leonhard Euler discussed the principle in 1744,[ and evidence shows that Gottfried Leibniz preceded both by 39 years.
  • 4.9K
  • 29 Sep 2022
Topic Review
Soft Gelatin Capsules
The development of soft gelatin capsules (SGCs) dosage forms has attracted a great deal of interest in the oral delivery of poorly water-soluble drugs. This is attributed to the increased number of poorly soluble drugs in the pipeline, and hence the challenges of finding innovative ways of developing bioavailable and stable dosage forms. Encapsulation of these drugs into SGCs is one of the approaches that is utilized to deliver the active ingredients to the systemic circulation to overcome certain formulation hurdles. Once formulated, encapsulated drugs in the form of SGCs require suitable in vitro dissolution test methods to ensure drug product quality and performance.
  • 4.9K
  • 04 Mar 2021
Topic Review
Acute and Chronic Stress Reactions and HPA Axis
Due to the influence of various stressful stimuli, psychological stress alters the homeostasis of the organism. Consequently, the organism reacts, and the sympathetic-adrenal-medullary (SAM) system and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis are activated, producing and releasing specific hormones. In addition to acute stress, chronic psychological stress also activates the HPA axis, which causes elevated glucocorticoid levels. 
  • 4.9K
  • 26 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Structure of Piezoelectric Accelerometers
Compared with other types of sensors, piezoelectric accelerometers have the advantages of a large range, a wide-frequency band, a simple structure, stable performance, good output linearity, etc. The principle of a piezoelectric accelerometer is based on the property of the active element, and its structure is mainly composed of a mass block, a piezoelectric sensitive element, and a base.
  • 4.8K
  • 28 Sep 2023
Topic Review
Foods with Function Claims (FFC)
A new type of foods with function claims, called Foods with Function Claims (FFC) in Japan, was introduced in April 2015. The FFC allows manufactures to submit labeling to the Secretary-General of the Consumer Affairs Agency in Japan that indicates the food is expected to have a specific effect on health.
  • 4.8K
  • 10 Jan 2022
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