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Topic Review
Ferret
The ferret (Mustela furo) is a domestic species of small mustelid. The only domesticated species in Mustelidae, it is thought to be a descendant of the European polecat, a mammal belonging to the same genus as the weasel, Mustela. Their fur is typically brown, black, white, or mixed. They have an average length of 51 cm (20 in), including a 13 cm (5.1 in) tail, weigh about between 0.7 and 2.0 kg (1.5 and 4.4 lb), and have a natural lifespan of 7 to 10 years. Ferrets are sexually dimorphic predators, with males being substantially larger than females. The history of the ferret's domestication is uncertain, like that of most other domestic animals, but it is likely that they have been domesticated for at least 2,500 years. They are still used for hunting rabbits in some parts of the world, but increasingly they are kept only as pets. Being so closely related to polecats, ferrets easily hybridize with them, and this has occasionally resulted in feral colonies of polecat–ferret hybrids that have caused damage to native fauna, especially in New Zealand. As a result, New Zealand and some other parts of the world have imposed restrictions on the keeping of ferrets. Several other mustelids are also known as ferrets, such as the black-footed ferret, an endangered species native to North America.
  • 2.9K
  • 21 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Hot dip galvanizing
Hot-dip galvanizing is one of the most effective methods of protecting steel against corrosion. It allows one to obtain good quality coatings, ensuring long-term protection with relatively low operating costs of the coatings.
  • 2.9K
  • 29 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Sensor Fusion Technology in Autonomous Vehicles
Complete autonomous systems such as self-driving cars to ensure the high reliability and safety of humans need the most efficient combination of four-dimensional (4D) detection, exact localization, and artificial intelligent (AI) networking to establish a fully automated smart transportation system. Sensor fusion also called multisensory data fusion or sensor data fusion is used to improve the specific detection task. In AVs, the primary sensors of cameras, radio detection and ranging (RADAR), and light detection and ranging (LiDAR) are used for object detection, localization, and classification.
  • 2.9K
  • 17 Jan 2024
Topic Review
New Chronology (Rohl)
New Chronology is an alternative chronology of the ancient Near East developed by English Egyptologist David Rohl and other researchers beginning with A Test of Time: The Bible - from Myth to History in 1995. It contradicts mainstream Egyptology by proposing a major revision of the established Egyptian chronology, in particular by re-dating Egyptian kings of the Nineteenth through Twenty-fifth Dynasties, bringing forward conventional dating by up to 350 years. Rohl asserts that the New Chronology allows him to identify some of the characters in the Hebrew Bible with people whose names appear in archaeological finds. The New Chronology, one of several proposed radical revisions of the conventional chronology, has not been accepted in academic Egyptology, where the conventional chronology or small variations of it remain standard. Amélie Kuhrt, head of Ancient Near Eastern History at University College London, in one of the standard reference works of the discipline, notes: "Many scholars feel sympathetic to the critique of weaknesses in the existing chronological framework [...], but most archaeologists and ancient historians are not at present convinced that the radical redatings proposed stand up to close examination." Rohl's most vocal critic has been Kenneth Kitchen, one of the leading experts on biblical history and the author of the standard work on the conventional chronology of the Third Intermediate Period of Egypt, the period most directly affected by the New Chronology's redating of the Nineteenth to Twenty-fifth Dynasties.
  • 2.9K
  • 20 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells
Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) have emerged as promising alternatives to traditional silicon-based solar cells due to their relatively high conversion efficiency, low cost, flexibility, and environmentally benign fabrication processes.
  • 2.9K
  • 25 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Social Entrepreneurship
Social entrepreneurship (SE) is about entrepreneurial initiatives aimed at exploiting opportunities to generate social value
  • 2.9K
  • 23 Jul 2021
Topic Review
Glutathione and Cardiovascular Diseases
Cardiovascular diseases such as coronary artery occlusion, hypertensive heart disease and stroke, high blood pressure, myocardial infarction, cerebrovascular disease, heart failure, rheumatic heart disease, congenital heart disease and cardiomyopathies generate thousands of patients with high mortality and morbidity worldwide. The appearance of these diseases increases with the aging of the population. In addition, these diseases are complicated by some comorbidity that patients present (overweight, obesity, diabetes mellitus, etc.). The installation and development of these diseases are closely linked to metabolic changes that generate a state of oxidative stress, due to the excessive production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS).
  • 2.9K
  • 09 Aug 2021
Topic Review
E-Consumers in the E-Services Market
In economics, the “consumer” is considered in terms of choice theory, representing the entity that consumes and creates demand. Typically, the term is identified with the purchaser who consumes the products bought and enjoys their use value. In marketing theory, the consumer is the starting point of marketing activities that are undertaken in the market for goods and services. The purpose of these activities is to direct the marketing strategy of producers and sellers to identify the requirements of consumers.
  • 2.9K
  • 25 Feb 2022
Topic Review
Pectolinarin and Pectolinarigenin
Flavonoids are metabolites widely distributed in plants and commonly present in foods, such as fruits and vegetables. Pectolinarin, which belongs to the flavone subclass, has attracted considerable attention due to its presence in many medicinal plants. It has turned out to be a good biological agent especially due to its antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antidiabetic, and antitumor activities, evaluated both in vitro and in vivo. Its aglycone, the metabolite pectolinarigenin, is also known for a series of biological properties including anti-inflammatory and antidiabetic effects. In the first overview on the two metabolites here presented, their collection, isolation and the results of their biological evaluation are reported
  • 2.9K
  • 28 Dec 2020
Topic Review
Conducting Polymers
Conducting polymers are an important class of functional materials that has been widely applied to fabricate electrochemical biosensors, because of their interesting and tunable chemical, electrical, and structural properties. Conducting polymers can also be designed through chemical grafting of functional groups, nanostructured, or associated with other functional materials such as nanoparticles to provide tremendous improvements in sensitivity, selectivity, stability and reproducibility of the biosensor’s response to a variety of bioanalytes. Such biosensors are expected to play a growing and significant role in delivering the diagnostic information and therapy monitoring since they have advantages including their low cost and low detection limit.
  • 2.9K
  • 12 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Blue in Culture
The colour blue has been important in culture, politics, art and fashion since ancient times. Blue was used in ancient Egypt for jewellery and ornament. In the Renaissance, blue pigments were prized for paintings and fine blue and white porcelain. in the Middle Ages, deep rich blues made with cobalt were used in stained glass windows. In the 19th century, the colour was often used for military uniforms and fashion. As the colour that most symbolized harmony, blue was chosen as the colour of the flags of the United Nations and the European Union. Surveys in the US and Europe show that blue is the colour most commonly associated with harmony, faithfulness, confidence, distance, infinity, the imagination, cold, and occasionally with sadness. In US and European public opinion polls it is the most popular colour, chosen by almost half of both men and women as their favourite colour. The same surveys also showed that blue was the colour most associated with the masculine, just ahead of black, and was also the colour most associated with intelligence, knowledge, calm, and concentration.
  • 2.9K
  • 16 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Chiropractic
Chiropractic is a form of alternative medicine mostly concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of mechanical disorders of the musculoskeletal system, especially the spine. Proponents claim that such disorders affect general health via the nervous system, through vertebral subluxation, claims which are demonstrably false. The main chiropractic treatment technique involves manual therapy, especially spinal manipulation therapy (SMT), manipulations of other joints and soft tissues. Its foundation is at odds with mainstream medicine, and chiropractic is sustained by pseudoscientific ideas such as subluxation and "innate intelligence" that reject science. Chiropractors are not medical doctors. Numerous controlled clinical studies of treatments used by chiropractors have been conducted, with conflicting results. Systematic reviews of this research have not found evidence that chiropractic manipulation is effective, with the possible exception of treatment for back pain. A critical evaluation found that collectively, spinal manipulation was ineffective at treating any condition. Spinal manipulation may be cost-effective for sub-acute or chronic low back pain but the results for acute low back pain were insufficient. The efficacy and cost-effectiveness of maintenance chiropractic care are unknown. There is not sufficient data to establish the safety of chiropractic manipulations. It is frequently associated with mild to moderate adverse effects, with serious or fatal complications in rare cases. There is controversy regarding the degree of risk of vertebral artery dissection, which can lead to stroke and death, from cervical manipulation. Several deaths have been associated with this technique and it has been suggested that the relationship is causative, a claim which is disputed by many chiropractors. Chiropractic is well established in the United States, Canada, and Australia. It overlaps with other manual-therapy professions such as osteopathy and physical therapy. Most who seek chiropractic care do so for low back pain. Back and neck pain are considered the specialties of chiropractic, but many chiropractors treat ailments other than musculoskeletal issues. Many chiropractors describe themselves as primary care providers, but the chiropractic clinical training does not support the requirements to be considered primary care providers, so their role on primary care is limited and disputed. Chiropractic has two main groups: "straights", now the minority, emphasize vitalism, "innate intelligence", and consider vertebral subluxations to be the cause of all disease; "mixers", the majority, are more open to mainstream views and conventional medical techniques, such as exercise, massage, and ice therapy. D. D. Palmer founded chiropractic in the 1890s, after saying he received it from "the other world", and his son B. J. Palmer helped to expand it in the early 20th century. Throughout its history, chiropractic has been controversial. Despite the overwhelming evidence that vaccination is an effective public health intervention, among chiropractors there are significant disagreements over the subject, which has led to negative impacts on both public vaccination and mainstream acceptance of chiropractic. The American Medical Association called chiropractic an "unscientific cult" in 1966 and boycotted it until losing an antitrust case in 1987. Chiropractic has had a strong political base and sustained demand for services; in recent decades, it has gained more legitimacy and greater acceptance among conventional physicians and health plans in the United States.
  • 2.9K
  • 02 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Low-Cost 3D Laser Scanning Technology
By moving a commercial 2D LiDAR, 3D maps of the environment can be built, based on the data of a 2D LiDAR and its movements. Compared to a commercial 3D LiDAR, a moving 2D LiDAR is more economical. A series of problems need to be solved in order for a moving 2D LiDAR to perform better, among them, improving accuracy and real-time performance. In order to solve these problems, estimating the movements of a 2D LiDAR, and identifying and removing moving objects in the environment, are issues that should be studied.
  • 2.9K
  • 03 Jun 2021
Topic Review
Aphid Transmission of Potyvirus
Potyviruses are the largest group of plant infecting RNA viruses that cause significant losses in a wide range of crops across the globe. The majority of viruses in the genus Potyvirus are transmitted by aphids in a non-persistent, non-circulative manner and have been extensively studied vis-à-vis their structure, taxonomy, evolution, diagnosis, transmission, and molecular interactions with hosts.
  • 2.9K
  • 21 Nov 2020
Topic Review
Creatine
Creatine is a naturally occurring compound, functioning in conjunction with creatine kinase to play a quintessential role in both cellular energy provision and intracellular energy shuttling. An extensive body of literature solidifies the ergogenic benefits gained following dietary creatine supplementation; however, recent findings have further indicated a potential therapeutic role for creatine in several pathologies such as myopathies, neurodegenerative disorders, metabolic disturbances, chronic kidney disease and inflammatory diseases. Furthermore, creatine has been found to exhibit non-energy-related properties, such as serving as a potential antioxidant and anti-inflammatory. Despite the therapeutic success of creatine supplementation in varying clinical populations, there is scarce information regarding the potential application of creatine for combatting the current leading cause of mortality, cardiovascular disease (CVD). Taking into consideration the broad ergogenic and non-energy-related actions of creatine, it could be hypothesize that creatine supplementation may be a potential therapeutic strategy for improving vascular health in at-risk populations such as older adults or those with CVD. This entry gives a short background on creatine, its cellular function and metabolism, in addition to the pleiotropic applications of creatine within just a few clinical populations. Furthermore, this entry concludes by eluding to the potential in which creatine may possess to benefit vascular health and to combat the pathology the underlies CVD.  
  • 2.9K
  • 28 Sep 2020
Topic Review
Development of Electrostatic Microactuators
Operation with micrometric size objects requires a change in the entire paradigm in manipulation equipment and particularly in the field of related actuators. Microactuators have low energy efficiency compared to the devices of macroscale. The dimensions of these drives are so small that standard kinematic arrangement is not applicable. On the other hand, the small size allows the use of lower mechanical parameters materials due to the dimensional limits of the micromechanisms. With the development of the biological industry, these actuators became a key for living cell positioning, high-speed microscopy, and other micro-scale technologies. New emerging transducer materials such as magnetic nanoparticles, metallic nanoparticles, expandable micro-spheres, and conductive polymers can be used for the design of micro-scale sensors and actuators. Despite the used materials, the surface effects and inter-molecular interactions are important in micro-scale; in nanoscale, these phenomena become essential. Micro/nanoelectromechanical systems (MEMSs/NEMSs) with electrostatic drives have fast response, are power efficient, and fit well for micro- and nanopositioning. Drive operating voltage, response speed, operating stroke, generated force, and the accumulated amount of energy define these actuators’ application area. The electrostatic actuators suffer from the pull-in phenomenon (loss of the equilibrium between attractive and repulsive forces), limiting their performance. This limitation could be overcome by developing actuators based on repulsive force or electrostatic levitation.
  • 2.9K
  • 26 Aug 2022
Topic Review
Logical Form (Linguistics)
In some theories of syntax and grammar, in particular in the Chomskyan schools of government and binding theory and the minimalist program, the Logical Form (abbreviated LF and conventionally spelled with capital initial letters) of a linguistic expression is a mental representation of it, derived solely from surface structure. In the words of Noam Chomsky, LF captures "those aspects of semantic representation that are strictly determined by grammar, abstracted from other cognitive systems". It functions as the interface between grammar and conceptual-intentional properties of language, analogous to how the phonetic form (abbreviated PF) is the interface between grammar and the audio-perceptual properties of utterances. Logical Form is the level of representation that affects the semantic interpretation of a sentence. LF is sometimes referred to as a covert level of representation, because the output of this level is not actually pronounced by the speaker. Worth noting is that many theories of syntax do not acknowledge Logical Form (e.g. Lexical Functional Grammar, Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, Dependency Grammars, Tree-Adjoining Grammar, etc.), at least not in the way it is understood in Government and Binding Theory and the Minimalist Program. The postulation of such a level of representation remains a subject of debate.
  • 2.9K
  • 30 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Diet and Ganglioside Expression
Gangliosides are series of glycosphingolipids containing sialic acids in the oligosaccharide portion in mammalian cells. Gangliosides are a component of cellular membranes and play roles in modulating membrane function and the activity of membrane proteins. Abnormal expression and metabolism of gangliosides lead to the onset of several conditions in humans, such as neurologic diseases, diabetes, and cancer. A number of studies have been carried out to date to investigate the role of gangliosides in these diseases, and the effect of diet on tissue expression of gangliosides has recently become a topic of interest in this field. As gangliosides are degraded in the intestinal tract, ingested food-derived gangliosides are not directly absorbed into tissues in vivo, but the degradation products can be absorbed and affect ganglioside expression in the tissues. Recent studies have also shown that the expression of gangliosides in tissue cells can be indirectly induced by controlling the expression of ganglioside metabolism-related genes via the diet. These results indicate that dietary control can regulate the expression levels of gangliosides in tissues, which is expected to play a role in preventing and treating ganglioside-related diseases.
  • 2.9K
  • 13 Oct 2021
Topic Review
Supercapacitor
Supercapacitors are electrical devices for fast storage and release of electric energy utilizing charge accumulation in the electrochemical double layer. In terms of volumetric and gravimetric capacities they exceed conventional dielectric and electrolytic capacitors by several orders of magnitude. However, the low energy density of supercapacitors has seriously limited their wider application in many fields. Increase of energy density highly depends on development of a new generation of advanced electrode materials for supercapacitors.
  • 2.9K
  • 26 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Gut Microbiota and Related Diseases
Dynamic interactions between gut microbiota and a host’s innate and adaptive immune systems play key roles in maintaining intestinal homeostasis and inhibiting inflammation. The gut microbiota metabolizes proteins and complex carbohydrates, synthesize vitamins, and produce an enormous number of metabolic products that can mediate cross-talk between gut epithelial and immune cells. As a defense mechanism, gut epithelial cells produce a mucosal barrier to segregate microbiota from host immune cells and reduce intestinal permeability. An impaired interaction between gut microbiota and the mucosal immune system can lead to an increased abundance of potentially pathogenic gram-negative bacteria and their associated metabolic changes, disrupting the epithelial barrier and increasing susceptibility to infections. Gut dysbiosis, or negative alterations in gut microbial composition, can also dysregulate immune responses, causing inflammation, oxidative stress, and insulin resistance. Over time, chronic dysbiosis and the translocation of bacteria and their metabolic products across the mucosal barrier may increase prevalence of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, inflammatory bowel disease, autoimmune disease, and a variety of cancers. 
  • 2.9K
  • 23 Jan 2021
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