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Topic Review
Breast Implant Illness
Breast implant illness refers to a combination of different symptoms related to breast implant surgery, including fatigue, brain fog, and arthralgias. This malaise occurs after cosmetic and reconstructive breast surgeries, although it has not been proven to be a disease. Complications associated with breast implants include breast pain, capsular contracture, infections, as well as other manifestations specific to breast reconstruction. 
  • 3.7K
  • 26 May 2022
Topic Review
Corneal Sensory Nerves
The cornea is an avascular connective tissue that is crucial, not only as the primary barrier of the eye but also as a proper transparent refractive structure. Corneal transparency is necessary for vision and is the result of several factors, including its highly organized structure, the physiology of its few cellular components, the absence of blood and lymphatic vessels in healthy conditions, the tightly controlled hydration state, and the lack of myelinated nerves, among others. The cornea is supplied by both sensory and autonomic nerves, being one of the most densely innervated tissues in the body. Corneal innervation is anatomically organized into four levels ranging from the nerve trunks in the corneal stroma to the nerve terminals in the epithelium. Electrophysiological recordings of corneal sensory nerve fibers have revealed the existence of three different functional types of sensory neurons that are classified into mechanonociceptors, polymodal nociceptors and cold thermoreceptors depending on the modality of stimuli by which they are activated. The impulse discharge is conducted by these neurons to the central nervous system, where sensory input is processed to finally evoke a sensation and to regulate ocular protective functions, such as tearing and blinking.
  • 3.7K
  • 21 Mar 2022
Topic Review
Unemployment Benefits
Unemployment benefits (depending on the jurisdiction also called unemployment insurance or unemployment compensation) are payments made by back authorized bodies to unemployed people. In the United States, benefits are funded by a compulsory governmental insurance system, not taxes on individual citizens. Depending on the jurisdiction and the status of the person, those sums may be small, covering only basic needs, or may compensate the lost time proportionally to the previous earned salary. Unemployment benefits are generally given only to those registering as unemployed, and often on conditions ensuring that they seek work and do not currently have a job, and are validated as being laid off and not fired for cause in most states.
  • 3.7K
  • 11 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Structuralism (Philosophy of Science)
Structuralism[α] (also known as scientific structuralism or as the structuralistic theory-concept) asserts that all aspects of reality are best understood in terms of empirical scientific constructs of entities and their relations, rather than in terms of concrete entities in themselves. Structuralism is an active research program in the philosophy of science, which was first developed in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s by several analytic philosophers.
  • 3.7K
  • 23 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Polarization Holography
Polarization holography has the unique capacity to record and retrieve the amplitude, phase, and polarization of light simultaneously in a polarization-sensitive recording material and has attracted widespread attention. Polarization holography is a noteworthy technology with potential applications in the fields of high-capacity data storage, polarization-controlled optical elements, and other related fields.
  • 3.7K
  • 23 Jan 2021
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Cultures of Spalting
Wood decayed and colored by fungi, colloquially known as ‘spalted wood’, has been a source of art and folklore across numerous cultures. From intarsia and marquetry in Italy and Germany to woodturning in the U.S. and carving and mythology in Chile, the uses of, and stories about, spalted wood are explored, as well as how those have shaped their surrounding cultures as well as modern science. 
  • 3.7K
  • 26 Jul 2022
Topic Review
Arthropoda
Arthropods (/ˈɑːrθrəpɒd/, from grc ἄρθρον (arthron) 'joint', and πούς (pous) 'foot' (gen. ποδός)) are invertebrate animals having an exoskeleton, a segmented body, and paired jointed appendages. Arthropods form the phylum Arthropoda. They are distinguished by their jointed limbs and cuticle made of chitin, often mineralised with calcium carbonate. The arthropod body plan consists of segments, each with a pair of appendages. Arthropods are bilaterally symmetrical and their body possesses an external skeleton. In order to keep growing, they must go through stages of moulting, a process by which they shed their exoskeleton to reveal a new one. Some species have wings. They are an extremely diverse group, with up to 10 million species. The haemocoel, an arthropod's internal cavity, through which its haemolymph – analogue of blood – circulates, accommodates its interior organs; it has an open circulatory system. Like their exteriors, the internal organs of arthropods are generally built of repeated segments. Their nervous system is "ladder-like", with paired ventral nerve cords running through all segments and forming paired ganglia in each segment. Their heads are formed by fusion of varying numbers of segments, and their brains are formed by fusion of the ganglia of these segments and encircle the esophagus. The respiratory and excretory systems of arthropods vary, depending as much on their environment as on the subphylum to which they belong. Arthropods use combinations of compound eyes and pigment-pit ocelli for vision. In most species, the ocelli can only detect the direction from which light is coming, and the compound eyes are the main source of information, but the main eyes of spiders are ocelli that can form images and, in a few cases, can swivel to track prey. Arthropods also have a wide range of chemical and mechanical sensors, mostly based on modifications of the many bristles known as setae that project through their cuticles. Similarly, their reproduction and development are varied; all terrestrial species use internal fertilization, but this is sometimes by indirect transfer of the sperm via an appendage or the ground, rather than by direct injection. Aquatic species use either internal or external fertilization. Almost all arthropods lay eggs, but many species give birth to live young after the eggs have hatched inside the mother, and a few are genuinely viviparous, such as aphids. Arthropod hatchlings vary from miniature adults to grubs and caterpillars that lack jointed limbs and eventually undergo a total metamorphosis to produce the adult form. The level of maternal care for hatchlings varies from nonexistent to the prolonged care provided by social insects. The evolutionary ancestry of arthropods dates back to the Cambrian period. The group is generally regarded as monophyletic, and many analyses support the placement of arthropods with cycloneuralians (or their constituent clades) in a superphylum Ecdysozoa. Overall, however, the basal relationships of animals are not yet well resolved. Likewise, the relationships between various arthropod groups are still actively debated. Today, Arthropods contribute to the human food supply both directly as food, and more importantly, indirectly as pollinators of crops. Some species are known to spread severe disease to humans, livestock, and crops.
  • 3.7K
  • 10 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Infrastructure
Infrastructure is the set of fundamental facilities and systems serving a country, city, or other area, including the services and facilities necessary for its economy to function. Infrastructure is composed of public and private physical structures such as roads, railways, bridges, tunnels, water supply, sewers, electrical grids, and telecommunications (including Internet connectivity and broadband speeds). In general, it has also been defined as "the physical components of interrelated systems providing commodities and services essential to enable, sustain, or enhance societal living conditions". There are two general types of ways to view infrastructure: hard and soft. Hard infrastructure refers to the physical networks necessary for the functioning of a modern industry. This includes roads, bridges, railways, etc. Soft infrastructure refers to all the institutions that maintain the economic, health, social, and cultural standards of a country. This includes educational programs, official statistics, parks and recreational facilities, law enforcement agencies, and emergency services. The word infrastructure has been used in French since 1875 and in English since 1887, originally meaning "The installations that form the basis for any operation or system". The word was imported from French, where it was already used for establishing a roadbed of substrate material, required before railroad tracks or constructed pavement could be laid on top of it. The word is a combination of the Latin prefix "infra", meaning "below", as many of these constructions are underground (for example, tunnels, water and gas systems, and railways), and the French word "structure" (derived from the Latin word "structure"). The army use of the term achieved currency in the United States after the formation of NATO in the 1940s, and by 1970 was adopted by urban planners in its modern civilian sense.
  • 3.7K
  • 15 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Nail Mini-Organ Stem Cells
Nails are highly keratinized skin appendages that exhibit continuous growth under physiological conditions and full regeneration upon removal. These mini-organs are maintained by two autonomous populations of skin stem cells. The fast-cycling, highly proliferative stem cells of the nail matrix (nail stem cells (NSCs)) predominantly replenish the nail plate. Furthermore, the slow-cycling population of the nail proximal fold (nail proximal fold stem cells (NPFSCs)) displays bifunctional properties by contributing to the peri-nail epidermis under the normal homeostasis and the nail structure upon injury. Here, we discuss nail mini-organ stem cells’ location and their role in skin and nail homeostasis and regeneration, emphasizing their importance to orchestrate the whole digit tip regeneration. Such endogenous regeneration capabilities are observed in rodents and primates. However, they are limited to the region adjacent to the nail’s proximal area, indicating the crucial role of nail mini-organ stem cells in digit restoration.
  • 3.7K
  • 04 May 2021
Topic Review
Catalytic Actions of Transformation Catalysts
Transformation catalysts (TCs) are ways of organizing that take catalytic actions to connect, cohere, and amplify the efforts of numerous initiatives oriented towards resolving complex socio-ecological problems like the ones embedded in the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. TCs target systems-level solutions by working with narrative to bring about cognitive or paradigm shifts and orient towards systemic change. They take catalytic actions by connecting, cohering, and amplifying the actions of numerous otherwise unconnected actors. TCs use sensemaking processes to problematize and create urgency around key issues, through adopting a systems orientation. 
  • 3.7K
  • 28 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Instructional Scaffolding
Instructional scaffolding is the support given to a student by an instructor throughout the learning process. This support is specifically tailored to each student; this instructional approach allows students to experience student-centered learning, which tends to facilitate more efficient learning than teacher-centered learning. This learning process promotes a deeper level of learning than many other common teaching strategies. Instructional scaffolding provides sufficient support to promote learning when concepts and skills are being first introduced to students. These supports may include resource, compelling task, templates and guides, and/or guidance on the development of cognitive and social skills. Instructional scaffolding could be employed through modeling a task, giving advice, and/or providing coaching. These supports are gradually removed as students develop autonomous learning strategies, thus promoting their own cognitive, affective and psychomotor learning skills and knowledge. Teachers help the students master a task or a concept by providing support. The support can take many forms such as outlines, recommended documents, storyboards, or key questions.
  • 3.7K
  • 01 Nov 2022
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Unveiling Neuromarketing and Its Research Methodology
Neuromarketing is the union of cognitive psychology, which studies mental processes, neurology and neurophysiology, which study the functioning and responses of the brain and body physiology to external stimuli, and marketing, which studies valuable exchanges, to explain marketing effects on customers’ and consumers’ behaviours and on buying and decision processes. It includes a set of research techniques that, by observing and evaluating how the brain and other body parts respond, avoids possible biases and provides truthful and objective information on consumer subconscious. The term “consumer neuroscience” covers academic approaches using techniques such as fMRI, Eye Tracking, or EED. The objectives of this entry are to show what neuromarketing is and what added value it brings to the study of consumer behaviour and purchase decision processes. The conclusions show a favourable future and positive attitudes towards neuromarketing.
  • 3.7K
  • 13 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Gopal Krishna Gokhale
Gopal Krishna Gokhale CIE pronunciation (help·info) (9 May 1866 – 19 February 1915) was one of the political leaders and a social reformer during the Indian Independence Movement against the British Empire in India. Gokhale was a senior leader of the Indian National Congress and founder of the Servants of India Society. Through the Society as well as the Congress and other legislative bodies he served in, Gokhale campaigned for Indian self-rule and also social reform. He was the leader of the moderate faction of the Congress party that advocated reforms by working with existing government institutions.
  • 3.7K
  • 26 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Polylactic Acid and Its Synthesis
Biomaterials are natural or engineered substances that interact with components of living systems that can be exploited for a medical purpose, either as therapeutic or diagnostic agents.  Poly-(lactic Acid) (PLA) is a compostable polymer derived from corn sugar, potato, and sugar cane whose promising physicochemical properties are comparable to those of petroleum-based polymers, such as polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, polycarbonate, and polyethylene terephthalate. PLA is a semicrystalline polymer that hydrolyses in physiological media, yielding lactic acid, a non-toxic component that is eliminated via the Krebs cycle as water and carbon dioxide. The biocompatibility, biodegradability, and resorbability characteristics of PLA have promoted its use in the biomedical field for a wide range of applications (suture threads, bone fixation screws, drug delivery systems, etc.), offering an alternative to conventional biocompatible materials such as metals and ceramics.
  • 3.7K
  • 30 Sep 2022
Topic Review Video Peer Reviewed
Sustainable Fashion—Rationale and Policies
Sustainable fashion refers to efforts to minimize the fashion industry’s adverse environmental and social impacts. This entry describes the industry’s entire production chain: from polyester production, cotton growth and wasteful fashion consumption patterns to landfilling, where so many clothes end up. The entry characterizes the drivers behind the industry’s poor record regarding sustainability and employee exploitation, as well as new policies around the world designed to improve the industry’s performance These include the Australian Modern Slavery law, the French law prohibiting the destruction of textile surpluses and the New York Fashion Sustainability and Social Accountability Act. 
  • 3.7K
  • 14 Jun 2022
Topic Review
Molten Salt Reactor
A molten salt reactor (MSR) is a class of nuclear fission reactor in which the primary nuclear reactor coolant and/or the fuel is a molten salt mixture. Only two MSRs have ever operated, both research reactors in the United States . The 1950's Aircraft Reactor Experiment was primarily motivated by the compact size that the technique offers, while the 1960's Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment aimed to prove the concept of a nuclear power plant which implements a thorium fuel cycle in a breeder reactor. Increased research into Generation IV reactor designs began to renew interest in the technology, with multiple nations having projects and, as of September 2021, China is on the verge of starting its TMSR-LF1 thorium MSR. MSRs are considered safer than conventional reactors because they operate with fuel already in a molten state, and in event of an emergency, the fuel mixture is designed to drain from the core where it will solidify, preventing the type of nuclear meltdown and associated hydrogen explosions (like what happened in the Fukushima nuclear disaster) that are at risk in conventional (solid-fuel) reactors. They operate at or close to atmospheric pressure, rather than the 75-150 times atmospheric pressure of a typical light-water reactor (LWR), hence reducing the need for large, expensive reactor pressure vessels used in LWRs. Another characteristic of MSRs is that the radioactive fission gases produced are absorbed into the molten salt, as opposed to conventional reactors where the fuel rod tubes must contain the gas. MSR's can also be refueled while operating (essentially online-nuclear reprocessing) while conventional reactors must be shut down for refueling (Heavy water reactors like the CANDU or the Atucha-class PHWRs being a notable exception). A further key characteristic of MSRs is operating temperatures of around 700 °C (1,292 °F), significantly higher than traditional LWRs at around 300 °C (572 °F), providing greater electricity-generation efficiency, the possibility of grid-storage facilities, economical hydrogen production, and, in some cases, process-heat opportunities. Relevant design challenges include the corrosivity of hot salts and the changing chemical composition of the salt as it is transmuted by the neutron flux in the reactor core. MSRs offer multiple advantages over conventional nuclear power plants, although for historical reasons they have not been deployed.
  • 3.7K
  • 15 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Bush Encroachment in Namibia
Bush encroachment is a natural phenomenon characterised by the excessive expansion of bush at the expense of other plant species, especially grasses. Bush encroachment is estimated to affect up to 45 million ha of Namibian land and has severe negative consequences on key Ecosystem services, especially agricultural productivity and groundwater recharge. Agricultural productivity in Namibia has declined by two thirds throughout the past decades, mainly due to the negative impact of bush encroachment. The phenomenon affects both commercial and communal farming in Namibia, mostly the central, eastern and north-eastern regions.
  • 3.7K
  • 23 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Theory of Urban Farming
Urban agriculture attempts to advance sustainable agricultural methods, such as composting, the use of organic fertilizers, and water conservation. It involves a multidisciplinary approach, combining knowledge of soil science, plant physiology, sustainable agriculture, and technology. Crop rotation and companion planting are two other methods urban farmers can utilize to lessen the demand for pesticides and herbicides. The crops are managed using advanced technology involving sensor-based monitoring, automated irrigation systems, and data analysis to maximize crop output. Urban crop farming is regarded as an important agricultural activity for the modern and circular economy, as it can also improve the urban residents’ income and reduce agricultural waste and gaseous emissions from long-distance transportation.
  • 3.7K
  • 23 May 2023
Topic Review
Cholinergic Receptors
Cholinergic receptors are activated by acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter that is released by the motor neurons for sensory and motor processing.
  • 3.7K
  • 30 Dec 2021
Topic Review
Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage: The Amazonian Kichwa People
Indigenous peoples are the holders of a great diversity of tangible and intangible cultural heritage (uses, representations, expressions, knowledge and techniques), also known as living heritage. 
  • 3.7K
  • 11 Jan 2022
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