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Topic Review
Cactaceae
The cactus family is a diverse plant group, native to the Americas. Most of the species included have very variable stem shapes, with singular geometric forms, one of the characteristics why they are considered interesting or even bizarre plants. Cacti vegetative organs have adaptations to arid ecosystems, while possessing showy and beautiful flowers. This set of characteristics has made them very popular among specialists and amateurs. In this entry we address some of the generalities of cacti, focusing on the particular modifications present in their flowers. These peculiarities  make them an interesting model to study the development and evolution of these structures. 
  • 4.8K
  • 21 Jun 2021
Topic Review
Water Extraction from the Atmosphere for Arid Zones
The air may be used as a sustainable water supply because it contains over 14,000 km3 of water vapor. There are two methods for extracting water from ambient air. The first approach entails lowering the temperature of humid ambient air to below the dew point. The second method entails sucking water vapor from moist ambient air with a solid adsorbent and a liquid absorbent and then retrieving the water by heating the absorbent and liquefying the evaporated water. Dew water appears to be an easy way to supplement drinking water supplies in a few parts of the world. Small animals and plants are the primary consumers of dew water, as it is necessary for maintaining their activities in a semiarid or dry environment. 
  • 4.8K
  • 12 Jan 2022
Topic Review
Smallpox Vaccine
The smallpox vaccine is the first vaccine to be developed against a contagious disease. In 1796, the British doctor Edward Jenner demonstrated that an infection with the relatively mild cowpox virus conferred immunity against the deadly smallpox virus. Cowpox served as a natural vaccine until the modern smallpox vaccine emerged in the 20th century. From 1958 to 1977, the World Health Organization (WHO) conducted a global vaccination campaign that eradicated smallpox, making it the only human disease to be eradicated. Although routine smallpox vaccination is no longer performed on the general public, the vaccine is still being produced to guard against bioterrorism, biological warfare, and monkeypox. The term vaccine derives from the Latin word for cow, reflecting the origins of smallpox vaccination. Edward Jenner referred to cowpox as variolae vaccinae (smallpox of the cow). The origins of the smallpox vaccine became murky over time, especially after Louis Pasteur developed laboratory techniques for creating vaccines in the 19th century. Allan Watt Downie demonstrated in 1939 that the modern smallpox vaccine was serologically distinct from cowpox, and vaccinia was subsequently recognized as a separate viral species. Whole-genome sequencing has revealed that vaccinia is most closely related to horsepox, and the cowpox strains found in Great Britain are the least closely related to vaccinia.
  • 4.8K
  • 14 Apr 2023
Topic Review
Hungarian Irredentism
Hungarian irredentism or Greater Hungary are irredentist and revisionist political ideas concerning redemption of territories of the historical Kingdom of Hungary. The idea is associated with Hungarian revisionism, targeting at least to regain control over Hungarian-populated areas in Hungary's neighbouring countries. Hungarian historians did not use the term Greater Hungary, because the "Historic Hungary" is the established term for the Kingdom of Hungary before 1920. The Treaty of Trianon defined the borders of the new independent Hungary and, compared against the claims of the pre-war Kingdom, new Hungary had approximately 72% less land stake and about two-thirds fewer inhabitants, almost 5 million of these being of Hungarian ethnicity. However, only 54% of the inhabitants of the pre-war Kingdom of Hungary were Hungarians before World War I. Following the treaty's instatement, Hungarian leaders became inclined towards revoking some of its terms. This political aim gained greater attention and was a serious national concern up through the second World War. Irredentism in the 1930s led Hungary to form an alliance with Hitler's Germany. Eva S. Balogh states: "Hungary's participation in World War II resulted from a desire to revise the Treaty of Trianon so as to recover territories lost after World War I. This revisionism was the basis for Hungary's interwar foreign policy." Hungary, supported by the Axis Powers, was successful temporarily in gaining some regions of the former Kingdom by the First Vienna Award in 1938 (southern Czechoslovakia with mainly Hungarians) and the Second Vienna Award in 1940 (Northern Transylvania with a significant Romanian population as well), and through military campaign gained regions of Carpathian Ruthenia in 1939 and (ethnically mixed) Bačka, Baranja, Međimurje, and Prekmurje in 1941 (Hungarian occupation of Yugoslav territories). Following the close of World War II, the borders of Hungary as defined by the Treaty of Trianon were restored, except for three Hungarian villages that were transferred to Czechoslovakia. These villages are today administratively a part of Bratislava.
  • 4.8K
  • 01 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Pharmaceutical Hydrates Analysis
This entry discusses a set of instrumental and computational methods that are used to characterize hydrated forms of APIs (active pharmaceutical ingredients). The focus has been put on highlighting advantages as well as on presenting some limitations of the selected analytical approaches. This has been performed in order to facilitate the choice of an appropriate method depending on the type of the structural feature that is to be analyzed, that is, degree of hydration, crystal structure and dynamics, and (de)hydration kinetics. The presented techniques include X-ray diffraction (single crystal X-ray diffraction (SCXRD), powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD)), spectroscopic (solid state nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (ssNMR), Fourier-transformed infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), Raman spectroscopy), thermal (differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA)), gravimetric (dynamic vapour sorption (DVS)), and computational (molecular mechanics (MM), Quantum Mechanics (QM), molecular dynamics (MD)) methods. Further, the successful applications of the presented methods in the studies of hydrated APIs as well as studies on the excipients’ influence on these processes have been described in many examples.
  • 4.8K
  • 19 Oct 2020
Topic Review
An Informative Lithium-Ion Battery Datasheet
Lithium-ion battery datasheets, also known as specification sheets, are documents that battery manufacturers provide to define the battery’s function, operational limit, performance, reliability, safety, cautions, prohibitions, and warranty. A datasheet lists information about the product for both informational and advertising purposes. Product manufacturers and customers rely on the datasheets for battery selection and battery management. 
  • 4.8K
  • 29 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Soil Desalination
Salinity is a major threat that reduces the capacity of all types of terrestrial ecosystems to provide services by threatening biodiversity, lowering agriculture production, degrading the environment, contaminating groundwater below standard levels, increasing flood risks, creating food security concerns, and limiting a community’s economic growth.
  • 4.8K
  • 21 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Catholic Teachings on Heresy
In the Roman Catholic Church, heresy has a very specific meaning. There are four elements which constitute formal heresy; a valid Christian baptism; a profession of still being a Christian; outright denial or positive doubt regarding a truth that the Catholic Church regards as revealed by God; and lastly, the disbelief must be morally culpable, that is, there must be a refusal to accept what is known to be a doctrinal imperative. Therefore, to become a heretic in the strict canonical sense and be excommunicated, one must deny or question a truth that is taught as the word of God, and at the same time recognize one's obligation to believe it. If the person is believed to have acted in good faith, as one might out of ignorance, then the heresy is only material and implies neither guilt nor sin against faith.
  • 4.8K
  • 24 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Creation–Evolution Controversy
The creation–evolution controversy (also termed the creation vs. evolution debate or the origins debate) involves an ongoing, recurring cultural, political, and theological dispute about the origins of the Earth, of humanity, and of other life. Species were once widely believed to be fixed products of divine creation in accordance with creationism, but since the mid-19th century evolution by natural selection has been established as an empirical scientific fact. The debate is religious, not scientific: in the scientific community, evolution is accepted as fact and efforts to sustain the traditional view are almost universally regarded as pseudoscience. While the controversy has a long history, today it has retreated to be mainly over what constitutes good science education, with the politics of creationism primarily focusing on the teaching of creationism in public education. Among majority-Christian countries, the debate is most prominent in the United States, where it may be portrayed as part of a culture war. Parallel controversies also exist in some other religious communities, such as the more fundamentalist branches of Judaism and Islam. In Europe and elsewhere, creationism is less widespread (notably, the Catholic Church and Anglican Communion both accept evolution), and there is much less pressure to teach it as fact. Christian fundamentalists repudiate the evidence of common descent of humans and other animals as demonstrated in modern paleontology, genetics, histology and cladistics and those other sub-disciplines which are based upon the conclusions of modern evolutionary biology, geology, cosmology, and other related fields. They argue for the Abrahamic accounts of creation, and, in order to attempt to gain a place alongside evolutionary biology in the science classroom, have developed a rhetorical framework of "creation science". In the landmark Kitzmiller v. Dover, the purported basis of scientific creationism was exposed as a wholly religious construct without formal scientific merit. The Catholic Church now recognizes the existence of evolution (see Catholic Church and evolution). Pope Francis has stated: "God is not a demiurge or a magician, but the Creator who brought everything to life...Evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation, because evolution requires the creation of beings that evolve." The rules of genetic evolutionary inheritance were first discovered by a Catholic priest, the Augustinian monk Gregor Mendel, who is known today as the founder of modern genetics. According to a 2014 Gallup survey, "More than four in 10 Americans continue to believe that God created humans in their present form 10,000 years ago, a view that has changed little over the past three decades. Half of Americans believe humans evolved, with the majority of these saying God guided the evolutionary process. However, the percentage who say God was not involved is rising." A 2015 Pew Research Center survey found "that while 37% of those older than 65 thought that God created humans in their present form within the last 10,000 years, only 21% of respondents between the ages of 18 and 29 agreed." The debate is sometimes portrayed as being between science and religion, and the United States National Academy of Sciences states:
  • 4.8K
  • 10 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Application of Hydrogen Storage Tanks
The most practical way of storing hydrogen gas for fuel cell vehicles is to use a composite overwrapped pressure vessel. Depending on the driving distance range and power requirement of the vehicles, there can be various operational pressure and volume capacity of the tanks, ranging from passenger vehicles to heavy-duty trucks. The current commercial hydrogen storage method for vehicles involves storing compressed hydrogen gas in high-pressure tanks at pressures of 700 bar for passenger vehicles and 350 bar to 700 bar for heavy-duty trucks. In particular, hydrogen is stored in rapidly refillable onboard tanks, meeting the driving range needs of heavy-duty applications, such as regional and line-haul trucking.
  • 4.8K
  • 28 Jul 2023
Topic Review
Camellia Seed Oils
Camellia genus (Theaceae) is comprised of world famous ornamental flowering plants. C. japonica L. and C. sasanqua Thunb are the most cultivated species due to their good adaptation. The commercial interest in this plant linked to its seed oil increased in the last few years due to its health attributes, which significantly depend on different aspects such as species and environmental conditions. Therefore, it is essential to develop fast and reliable methods to distinguish between different varieties and ensure the quality of Camellia seed oils. The present work explores the study of Camellia seed oils by species and location. Two standardized gas chromatography methods were applied and compared with that of data obtained from proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-NMR) for fatty acids profiling. The principal component analysis indicated that the proposed 1H-NMR methodology can be quickly and reliably applied to separate specific Camellia species, which could be extended to other species in future works.
  • 4.8K
  • 27 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Sustainability Accounting
Sustainability accounting is expanding in the academic context and business practice. It has different meanings but few definitions, and this demonstrates a lack of conceptualization in this regard. The concept is often used as a synonymous of environmental accounting, social accounting, or non-financial accounting. According to Zvezdov and Schaltegger (2013), it “entails systems, methods, and processes of creating sustainability information for transparency, accountability, and decision-making purposes. This includes the identification of relevant sustainability issues of the company, the definition of indicators and measures, data collection, overall performance tracking and measurement, as well as the communication with […] internal and external information recipients.
  • 4.8K
  • 27 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Historicism (Christianity)
In Christian eschatology, historicism is a method of interpretation of biblical prophecies which associates symbols with historical persons, nations or events. The main primary texts of interest to Christian historicists include apocalyptic literature, such as the Book of Daniel and the Book of Revelation. It sees the prophecies of Daniel as being fulfilled throughout history, extending from the past through the present to the future. It is sometimes called the continuous historical view. Commentators have also applied historicist methods to ancient Jewish history, to the Roman Empire, to Islam, to the Papacy, to the Modern era, and to the end time. The historicist method starts with Daniel 2 and works progressively through consecutive prophecies of the book–chapters 7, 8 and 11–resulting in a view of Daniel's prophecies very different from preterism and futurism. Almost all Protestant Reformers from the Reformation into the 19th century held historicist views.
  • 4.8K
  • 18 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Functional Pyrazolo[1,5-a]pyrimidines
Pyrazolo[1,5-a]pyrimidine (PP) derivatives are an enormous family of N-heterocyclic compounds that possess a high impact in medicinal chemistry and have attracted a great deal of attention in material science recently due to their significant photophysical properties.
  • 4.8K
  • 14 Jul 2021
Topic Review
Single Fiber Endoscope
An endoscope is an imaging device made up of a long and thin tube that can be inserted into the hollow openings of the body to image the inner sections in real time and in a less invasive manner.
  • 4.8K
  • 12 Jan 2021
Topic Review
Industrie 4.0 in Germany
German government has recognized the need for a strategic development of Industrie 4.0 for the next decade. It set the ambitious goal in its Industrial Strategy 2030 of increasing the share of German industry in gross value added in the economy to 25% by 2030—an increase of five percentage points. Industrie 4.0 promises to be an important driver in this regard, with its target vision of the AI-driven smart factory and digital, platform-based business models. To leverage the potential of Industrie 4.0 in view of the economic, ecological, and geopolitical challenges of our time, and to follow a holistic approach for creating open digital ecosystems, strategic focus in Germany is set on three areas: sovereignty, interoperability, and sustainability.
  • 4.8K
  • 23 Aug 2022
Topic Review
Competition
Competition is an interaction between organisms or species in which both require a resource that is in limited supply (such as food, water, or territory). Competition lowers the fitness of both organisms involved, since the presence of one of the organisms always reduces the amount of the resource available to the other. In the study of community ecology, competition within and between members of a species is an important biological interaction. Competition is one of many interacting biotic and abiotic factors that affect community structure, species diversity, and population dynamics (shifts in a population over time). There are three major mechanisms of competition: interference, exploitation, and apparent competition (in order from most direct to least direct). Interference and exploitation competition can be classed as "real" forms of competition, while apparent competition is not, as organisms do not share a resource, but instead share a predator. Competition among members of the same species is known as intraspecific competition, while competition between individuals of different species is known as interspecific competition. According to the competitive exclusion principle, species less suited to compete for resources must either adapt or die out, although competitive exclusion is rarely found in natural ecosystems. According to evolutionary theory, competition within and between species for resources is important in natural selection. More recently, however, researchers have suggested that evolutionary biodiversity for vertebrates has been driven not by competition between organisms, but by these animals adapting to colonize empty livable space; this is termed the 'Room to Roam' hypothesis.
  • 4.8K
  • 28 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Local Brazilian Goat Breeds
Local Brazilian goat breeds comprise six main groups (Moxotó, Canindé, Repartida, Marota, Graúna, and Azul) and the non descript group derived from crosses.  Local Brazilian goat breeds is a vital genetic resource because they represent the main source of animal's protein to local smallholder communities in the Brazilian semiarid. 
  • 4.8K
  • 20 Oct 2020
Topic Review
School of Economic Science
Coordinates: 51°31′00″N 0°09′05″W / 51.516775°N 0.151407°W / 51.516775; -0.151407 The School of Economic Science (SES), also operating under the names School of Philosophy and the School of Practical Philosophy, is a worldwide organisation based in London. It offers non-academic courses for adults, ranging from an introductory series called Practical Philosophy to more advanced classes. Its teachings are principally influenced by Advaita Vedanta, an orthodox philosophical system of Hinduism. It has a guru, Sri Vasudevananda Saraswati, who used the title Shankaracharya until 2017. The organization has been the subject of controversy, especially in connection with historical child abuse and the mistreatment of women; it has also been described as a cult, sect or new religious movement. The SES advertises introductory courses in "Practical Philosophy", "Economics with Justice" and other courses including Sanskrit language. The Practical Philosophy course involves a meditative process known as "The Exercise" and discussion of universal themes drawing on the work of European and Indian philosophers such as Plato, Marsilio Ficino, Swami Vivekananda and Adi Shankara, as well as Advaita. Those who continue involvement beyond 4 years mainly study Advaita; they are encouraged to take up meditation and to undertake voluntary work to help with the running of SES, and to attend residential programmes. SES members have founded schools for the education of children in a number of countries. SES is registered as a charity in the UK; worldwide operations register as non-profit organisations in their own countries. SES was founded in London by Labour MP Andrew MacLaren. His successor and son, SES leader Leon MacLaren (1910-1994), a barrister introduced programs on Advaita Vedanta. According to the SES financial report for 2017, it had a total of 3173 enrollments in the UK at the close of that year. As of 2012 it had a total of around 20,000 in up to 80 branches worldwide. Operating under various names, there are branches in America, Canada, Venezuela, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Trinidad, Belgium, Cyprus, Greece, Holland, Malta, Spain, Ireland, Hungary, Germany, Israel and Argentina. The head of all of these branches is the SES 'Senior Tutor', MacLaren's successor, Donald Lambie, who is also a barrister. SES course fees are kept low to encourage recruitment; thanks to donations and wills, the organization has substantial properties worldwide, including several mansions.
  • 4.8K
  • 10 Oct 2022
Biography
Firouz Naderi
Firouz Michael Naderi (Persian: فیروز نادری‎: Fīrouz Nāderi; born 1946) is an Iranian scientist who spent more than 30 years in various technical and executive positions at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) where he contributed to some of America's most iconic robotic space missions. He retired from NASA in 2016 and currently is a management consultant, an advisor to early-st
  • 4.8K
  • 15 Nov 2022
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