Subject:
All Disciplines Arts & Humanities Biology & Life Sciences Business & Economics Chemistry & Materials Science Computer Science & Mathematics Engineering Environmental & Earth Sciences Medicine & Pharmacology Physical Sciences Public Health & Healthcare Social Sciences
Sort:
Most Viewed Latest Alphabetical (A-Z) Alphabetical (Z-A)
Filter:
All Topic Review Biography Peer Reviewed Entry Video Entry
Topic Review
Babylon
Babylon is a computer dictionary and translation program developed by the Israeli company Babylon Software Ltd. based in the city of Or Yehuda. The company was established in 1997 by the Israeli entrepreneur Amnon Ovadia. Its IPO took place ten years later. It is considered a part of Israel's Download Valley, a cluster of software companies monetizing "free" software downloads through adware. Babylon includes in-house proprietary dictionaries, as well as community-created dictionaries and glossaries. It is a tool used for translation and conversion of currencies, measurements and time, and for obtaining other contextual information. The program also uses a text-to-speech agent, so users hear the proper pronunciation of words and text. Babylon has developed 36 English-based proprietary dictionaries in 21 languages. In 2008–2009, Babylon reported earnings of 50 million NIS through its collaboration with Google. Between 2010 and 2013, Babylon became infamous for demonstrating questionable behavior typical of malware: A Babylon Toolbar bundled with Babylon and other software, has been widely identified as a browser hijacker that is very easy to install inadvertently and unnecessarily difficult to remove. This eventually led to Google terminating its agreement with Babylon Ltd. in 2013.
  • 1.2K
  • 08 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Buffon's Needle
In mathematics, Buffon's needle problem is a question first posed in the 18th century by Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon: Buffon's needle was the earliest problem in geometric probability to be solved; it can be solved using integral geometry. The solution, in the case where the needle length is not greater than the width of the strips, can be used to design a Monte Carlo method for approximating the number π, although that was not the original motivation for de Buffon's question.
  • 1.2K
  • 08 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Application Programming Interface
Template:Hatnote group An application programming interface (API) is a computing interface which defines interactions between multiple software intermediaries. It defines the kinds of calls or requests that can be made, how to make them, the data formats that should be used, the conventions to follow, etc. It can also provide extension mechanisms so that users can extend existing functionality in various ways and to varying degrees. An API can be entirely custom, specific to a component, or it can be designed based on an industry standard to ensure interoperability. Through information hiding, APIs enable modular programming, which allows users to use the interface independently of the implementation.
  • 1.2K
  • 18 Oct 2022
Topic Review
List of Metric Units
Metric units are units based on the metre, gram or second and decimal (power of ten) multiples or sub-multiples of these. The most widely used examples are the units of the International System of Units (SI). By extension they include units of electromagnetism from the CGS and SI units systems, and other units for which use of SI prefixes has become the norm. Other unit systems using metric units include:
  • 1.2K
  • 27 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Bayonetta
Bayonetta is an action hack and slash video game developed by PlatinumGames and published by Sega. The game was originally released for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in Japan in October 2009, and in North America and Europe in January 2010. The game was later released on the Wii U alongside its sequel, Bayonetta 2, releasing in September 2014 in Japan and worldwide the following month - the two games were later released worldwide on the Nintendo Switch in February 2018. An enhanced port for Windows was released in April 2017 with 4K support. A remastered version of Bayonetta as well as another PlatinumGames title, Vanquish, was released for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on February 18, 2020, as part of a compilation to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the game. Bayonetta takes place in Vigrid, a fictional city in Europe. The game stars the eponymous character, a witch who is capable of shapeshifting and using various firearms. She possesses magical attacks, and she can use her hair to summon demons to dispatch her foes. It features a rating system, which gives players a grade based on their performance, and a combat system that is similar to the Devil May Cry series. Development of the game was started in January 2007, with Hideki Kamiya being the game's director. According to Kamiya, the game was completely original, though he drew some inspirations from Scandinavian mythology, and played Devil May Cry 4 for reference. The game's theme is "sexiness" and "partial nudity", and that the characters were designed to be "fashionable". Kamiya and artist Mari Shimazaki spent more than a year to create Bayonetta's design. Several demos were released for the game prior to its launch. Bayonetta was the third project released by PlatinumGames, which was founded by former Clover Studio employees. Upon release, the game received generally positive reviews. The game was praised for its combat, presentation and soundtrack, but drew criticism for its story and quick time events. Bayonetta was nominated for and won several end-of-the-year accolades, and had sold over a million units worldwide by 2010. An anime film adaptation of the game by Gonzo, titled Bayonetta: Bloody Fate, was released in Japan in November 2013. A third game, Bayonetta 3, is in development for the Switch.
  • 1.2K
  • 22 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Sc (Command)
In Windows NT operating systems, a Windows service is a computer program that operates in the background. It is similar in concept to a Unix daemon. A Windows service must conform to the interface rules and protocols of the Service Control Manager, the component responsible for managing Windows services. It is the Services and Controller app, services.exe, that launches all the services and manages their actions, such as start, end, etc. Windows services can be configured to start when the operating system is started and run in the background as long as Windows is running. Alternatively, they can be started manually or by an event. Windows NT operating systems include numerous services which run in context of three user accounts: System, Network Service and Local Service. These Windows components are often associated with Host Process for Windows Services. Because Windows services operate in the context of their own dedicated user accounts, they can operate when a user is not logged on. Prior to Windows Vista, services installed as an "interactive service" could interact with Windows desktop and show a graphical user interface. In Windows Vista, however, interactive services are deprecated and may not operate properly, as a result of Windows Service hardening.
  • 1.2K
  • 13 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Non-Deterministic Turing Machine
In theoretical computer science, a Turing machine is a theoretical machine that is used in thought experiments to examine the abilities and limitations of computers.
  • 1.2K
  • 28 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Forecasting Plant and Crop Disease
Every year, plant diseases cause a significant loss of valuable food crops around the world. The plant and crop disease management practice implemented in order to mitigate damages have changed considerably. Today, through the application of new information and communication technologies, it is possible to predict the onset or change in the severity of diseases using modern big data analysis techniques. In this paper, we present an analysis and classification of research studies conducted over the past decade that forecast the onset of disease at a pre-symptomatic stage (i.e., symptoms not visible to the naked eye) or at an early stage. We examine the specific approaches and methods adopted, pre-processing techniques and data used, performance metrics, and expected results, highlighting the issues encountered. The results of the study reveal that this practice is still in its infancy and that many barriers need to be overcome.
  • 1.2K
  • 01 Feb 2021
Topic Review
Sierpinski Number
In number theory, a Sierpiński number is an odd natural number k such that [math]\displaystyle{ k \times 2^n + 1 }[/math] is composite for all natural numbers n. In 1960, Wacław Sierpiński proved that there are infinitely many odd integers k which have this property. In other words, when k is a Sierpiński number, all members of the following set are composite: If the form is instead [math]\displaystyle{ k \times 2^n - 1 }[/math], then k is a Riesel number.
  • 1.2K
  • 02 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Dual-complex Number
The dual-complex numbers make up a four-dimensional algebra over the real numbers. Their primary application is in representing rigid body motions in 2D space. Unlike multiplication of dual numbers or of complex numbers, that of dual-complex numbers is non-commutative.
  • 1.2K
  • 29 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Unfollow Everything
Facebook (and parent company Meta Platforms) has been the subject of criticism and legal action. Criticisms include the outsize influence Facebook has on the lives and health of its users and employees, as well as Facebook's influence on the way media, specifically news, is reported and distributed. Notable issues include Internet privacy, such as use of a widespread "like" button on third-party websites tracking users, possible indefinite records of user information, automatic facial recognition software, and its role in the workplace, including employer-employee account disclosure. The use of Facebook can have negative psychological effects that include feelings of sexual jealousy, stress, lack of attention, and social media addiction that in some cases is comparable to drug addiction. Facebook's operations have also received coverage. The company's electricity usage, tax avoidance, real-name user requirement policies, censorship policies, handling of user data, and its involvement in the United States PRISM surveillance program and Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal have been highlighted by the media and by critics. Facebook has come under scrutiny for 'ignoring' or shirking its responsibility for the content posted on its platform, including copyright and intellectual property infringement, hate speech, incitement of rape, violence against minorities, terrorism, fake news, Facebook murder, crimes, and violent incidents live-streamed through its Facebook Live functionality. The company and its employees have also been subject to litigation cases over the years, with its most prominent case concerning allegations that CEO Mark Zuckerberg broke an oral contract with Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra to build the then-named "HarvardConnection" social network in 2004, instead allegedly opting to steal the idea and code to launch Facebook months before HarvardConnection began. The original lawsuit was eventually settled in 2009, with Facebook paying approximately $20 million in cash and 1.25 million shares. A new lawsuit in 2011 was dismissed. Some critics point to problems which they say will result in the demise of Facebook. Facebook has been banned by several governments for various reasons, including Syria, China, Iran and Russia.
  • 1.2K
  • 01 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth
Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth is a role-playing video game developed by Atlus for the Nintendo 3DS . It is part of the Persona series, itself part of the larger Megami Tensei franchise. It was published across all territories in 2014: released in June in Japan, November in North America and Europe, and December in Australia. Atlus published the game in Japan and North America, while NIS America published it in the PAL region. The story of Persona Q is a crossover between Persona 3 and Persona 4, whose characters are drawn from their respective time periods by an unknown force and sent into a replica of Persona 4's Yasogami High School in another world. Meeting with Zen and Rei, two people whose memories were taken, the groups must unite and explore four labyrinths in the school to recover treasures hidden within. These treasures can restore Zen and Rei's memories which might help them find a way to escape. The gameplay fuses elements of the Persona and Etrian Odyssey series, and focuses on first-person dungeon crawling through labyrinths and combat using the characters' "Persona" abilities against hostiles known as Shadows. Development on the game began after Atlus's success with collaborating with an external developer on the 2012 fighting game Persona 4 Arena. It was based on the wish to create a collaborative spin-off with the Etrian Odyssey development team and fan demands for a Persona game on the 3DS. The Persona Q development team was made up of staff from both Etrian Odyssey IV and the main Persona series. Series character designer Shigenori Soejima created the cast's new deformed "chibi" appearances, while the music was composed by Atsushi Kitajoh and Toshiki Konishi with supervision by series composer Shoji Meguro. First announced in 2013 alongside the console port of Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, Persona 4 and Persona 5, it was the first Persona game to be developed for a Nintendo platform. It released to strong sales and positive reviews from critics, with several enjoying the game's comedic writing, presentation, and blend between Persona and Etrian Odyssey's gameplay styles. A sequel, Persona Q2, was released for the 3DS in Japan in November 2018 and worldwide in June 2019.
  • 1.2K
  • 24 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Camp Lazlo
Camp Lazlo (stylized as CAMP LAZLO!) is an American animated television series created by Joe Murray for Cartoon Network. It was produced by Cartoon Network Studios. The show revolves around Lazlo, a spider monkey who attends a Boy Scout-like summer camp with a cast of anthropomorphic animal characters. The series has a style of humor similar to the Nickelodeon series Rocko's Modern Life (which Murray also created and is most known for) SpongeBob SquarePants and The Powerpuff Girls. The series premiered on Cartoon Network on July 8, 2005 at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT with five seasons, 61 episodes, and an hour-long television special. During its run, the series won three Emmy Awards and three Pulcinella Awards, and was also nominated for another Emmy and an Annie Award.
  • 1.2K
  • 07 Nov 2022
Topic Review
High-frequency analysis, Model Validation and Intraday risk metrics
Despite the growing amount of research in the field of high frequency financial data analysis, few studies have focused on model validation and high-frequency risk measures. This study contributes to the literature in the following ways: A rigorous model validation, both in terms of in-sample fit and out-sample performance for the MC-GARCH model under five error distributions is provided. Statistical and graphical tests are conducted to validate the models. One component of the MC-GARCH model is the daily variance forecast. For this purpose, the GARCH(1,1) and EGARCH(1,1) under the five error distributions are compared and the best model among the 10 GARCH models is used to forecast the daily variance. The modelling and forecasting performance of the MC-GARCH model under different distributional assumptions is assessed in this study. The 99% intraday VaR is forecasted and three backtesting procedures are used. This is the first study to assess the VaR predictive ability of the MC-GARCH models by using an asymmetric VaR loss function. This is the first study to forecast the intraday expected shortfall under different distributional assumptions for the MC-GARCH model. Again, three backtests are used including the recently proposed ES regression backtest. Due to the high importance of risk management, the results of this study may contribute in many fields. This study is highly relevant to the banking industry since banks are required to calculate risk metrics on a daily basis for internal control purposes and for determining their capital requirements. Risk measurement is also essential to the insurance industry from the pricing of insurance contracts to determining the Solvency Capital Requirement (SCR) and therefore the results of this study might be useful. Any other organisation having an exposure to some kind of financial risk might benefit from this study. 
  • 1.2K
  • 30 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Dragonchain
Dragonchain is a hybrid blockchain platform for enterprises and developers. It was originally developed at The Walt Disney Company in Seattle in 2014 and then open-sourced in 2016. Despite extensive speculation, there is no current relationship between Disney and Dragonchain. The open source code is maintained by the Dragonchain Foundation. The commercial blockchain platform is maintained by the commercial entity named The Dragon Company. Dragonchain is a public/private hybrid blockchain platform that allows integration with other blockchain protocols, legacy systems, oracles, and API's. Developers can use existing smart contracts from the library or write their own smart contracts to build (decentralized) blockchain applications in known languages. In 2020, Medek Health launched Covid SafePass with the City of Apopka, using Dragonchain blockchain solutions in line with the FDA guidance on Digital Health Policies and Public Health Solutions for COVID-19.
  • 1.2K
  • 21 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Domain Hack
A domain hack is a domain name that suggests a word, phrase, or name when concatenating two or more adjacent levels of that domain. For example, "bir.ds" and "examp.le", using the fictitious country-code domains .ds and .le, suggest the words birds and example respectively. In this context, the word hack denotes a clever trick (as in programming), not an exploit or break-in (as in security). Domain hacks offer the ability to produce short domain names. This makes them potentially valuable as redirectors, pastebins, base domains from which to delegate subdomains and URL shortening services.
  • 1.2K
  • 30 Sep 2022
Topic Review
Economic History
Economic history is the academic study of economies or economic events of the past. Research is conducted using a combination of historical methods, statistical methods and the application of economic theory to historical situations and institutions. The field can encompass a wide variety of topics, including equality, finance, technology, labour, and business. It emphasizes historicizing the economy itself, analyzing it as a dynamic force and attempting to provide insights into the way it is structured and conceived. Using both quantitative data and qualitative sources, economic historians emphasize understanding the historical context in which major economic events take place. They often focus on the institutional dynamics of systems of production, labor, and capital, as well as the economy's impact on society, culture, and language. Scholars of the discipline may approach their analysis from the perspective of different schools of economic thought, such as mainstream economics, Marxian economics, the Chicago school of economics, and Keynesian economics. Economic history has several sub-disciplines. Historical methods are commonly applied in financial and business history, which overlap with areas of social history such as demographic and labor history. In the sub-discipline called New Economic History or cliometrics, economists use quantitative (econometric) methods. In history of capitalism, historians explain economic historical issues and processes from a historical point of view.
  • 1.2K
  • 21 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Dream Chronicles
Dream Chronicles, originally titled Dream Chronicles: The Endless Slumber, is an adventure, hidden object, and puzzle casual game developed by KatGames and published by PlayFirst. It is the first installment in the series. Set in a mystical world where mortal and fairy realms collide, the game tells the story of a mortal woman named Faye who is the only being able to awaken from a powerful fairy's dream spell. She embarks on an adventure through a dream world to find her fairy husband and save her hometown. To solve the mystery, players must complete puzzles and search for clues leading to the whereabouts of Faye's husband. As the first part of the first trilogy, Dream Chronicles spawned two direct sequels, Dream Chronicles 2 and Dream Chronicles, which were released in 2008 and 2009 respectively.
  • 1.2K
  • 12 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Forensic Toxicology
Forensic toxicology is the use of toxicology and disciplines such as analytical chemistry, pharmacology and clinical chemistry to aid medical or legal investigation of death, poisoning, and drug use. The primary concern for forensic toxicology is not the legal outcome of the toxicological investigation or the technology utilized, but rather the obtainment and interpretation of results. A toxicological analysis can be done to various kinds of samples. A forensic toxicologist must consider the context of an investigation, in particular any physical symptoms recorded, and any evidence collected at a crime scene that may narrow the search, such as pill bottles, powders, trace residue, and any available chemicals. Provided with this information and samples with which to work, the forensic toxicologist must determine which toxic substances are present, in what concentrations, and the probable effect of those chemicals on the person. In the United States, forensic toxicology can be separated into 3 disciplines: Postmortem toxicology, human performance toxicology, and forensic drug testing (FDT). Postmortem toxicology includes the analysis of biological specimens taken from an autopsy to identify the effect of drugs, alcohol, and poisons. A wide range of biological specimens may be analyzed including blood, urine, gastric contents, oral fluids, hair, tissues, and more. The forensic toxicologist works with pathologists, medical examiners, and coroners to help determine the cause and manner of death. In human performance toxicology, a dose-response relationship between a drug(s) present in the body and the effects on the body are examined. This field of forensic toxicology is responsible for building and implementing laws such as driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Lastly, forensic drug testing (FDT) is the detection of drug use among individuals in the workplace, sport doping, drug-related probation, and new job applicant screenings. Determining the substance ingested is often complicated by the body's natural processes (see ADME), as it is rare for a chemical to remain in its original form once in the body. For example: heroin is almost immediately metabolised into another substance and further to morphine, making detailed investigation into factors such as injection marks and chemical purity necessary to confirm diagnosis. The substance may also have been diluted by its dispersal through the body; while a pill or other regulated dose of a drug may have grams or milligrams of the active constituent, an individual sample under investigation may only contain micrograms or nanograms.
  • 1.2K
  • 09 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Social Engineering (Security)
In the context of information security, social engineering is the psychological manipulation of people into performing actions or divulging confidential information. This differs from social engineering within the social sciences, which does not concern the divulging of confidential information. A type of confidence trick for the purpose of information gathering, fraud, or system access, it differs from a traditional "con" in that it is often one of many steps in a more complex fraud scheme. It has also been defined as "any act that influences a person to take an action that may or may not be in their best interests." An example of social engineering is the use of the "forgot password" function on most websites which require login. An improperly-secured password-recovery system can be used to grant a malicious attacker full access to a user's account, while the original user will lose access to the account.
  • 1.2K
  • 08 Nov 2022
  • Page
  • of
  • 47
Featured Entry Collections
>>

Featured Books

>>
Encyclopedia of Social Sciences
Encyclopedia of COVID-19
Encyclopedia of Fungi
Encyclopedia of Digital Society, Industry 5.0 and Smart City
ScholarVision Creations
Feedback