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Topic Review
Trillian
Trillian is a proprietary multiprotocol instant messaging application created by Cerulean Studios. It is currently available for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, Android, iOS, BlackBerry OS, and the Web. It can connect to multiple IM services, such as AIM, Bonjour, Facebook Messenger, Google Talk (Hangouts), IRC, XMPP (Jabber), VZ, and Yahoo! Messenger networks; as well as social networking sites, such as Facebook, Foursquare, LinkedIn, and Twitter; and email services, such as POP3 and IMAP. Trillian no longer supports Windows Live Messenger or Skype as these services have combined and Microsoft chose to discontinue Skypekit. They also no longer support connecting to MySpace, and no longer support a distinct connection for Gmail, Hotmail or Yahoo! Mail although these can still be connected to via POP3 or IMAP. Currently, Trillian supports Facebook, Google, Jabber (XMPP), and Olark. Initially released July 1, 2000, as a freeware IRC client, the first commercial version (Trillian Pro 1.0) was published on September 10, 2002. The program was named after Trillian, a fictional character in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. A previous version of the official web site even had a tribute to Douglas Adams on its front page. On August 14, 2009, Trillian "Astra" (4.0) for Windows was released, along with its own Astra network. Trillian 5 for Windows was released in May 2011, and Trillian 6.0 was initially released in February 2017.
  • 8.7K
  • 21 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Ego-Dystonic Sexual Orientation
Ego-dystonic sexual orientation is an ego-dystonic mental disorder characterized by having a sexual orientation or an attraction that is at odds with one's idealized self-image, causing anxiety and a desire to change one's orientation or become more comfortable with one's sexual orientation. It describes not innate sexual orientation itself, but a conflict between the sexual orientation one wishes to have and the sexual orientation one actually possesses.
  • 8.7K
  • 14 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Woodward Effect
The Woodward effect, also referred to as a Mach effect, is part of a hypothesis proposed by James F. Woodward in 1990. The hypothesis states that transient mass fluctuations arise in any object that absorbs internal energy while undergoing a proper acceleration. Harnessing this effect could generate a reactionless thrust, which Woodward and others claim to measure in various experiments. Hypothetically, the Woodward effect would allow for field propulsion spacecraft engines that would not have to expel matter. Such a proposed engine is sometimes called a Mach effect thruster (MET) or a Mach Effect Gravitational Assist (MEGA) drive. So far, experimental results have not strongly supported this hypothesis, but experimental research on this effect, and its potential applications, continues. The Space Studies Institute was selected as part of NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts program as a Phase I proposal in April 2017 for Mach Effect research. The year after, NASA awarded a NIAC Phase II grant to the SSI to further develop these propellantless thrusters. The effect is controversial within mainstream physics because the underlying model proposed for it appears to be faulty, resulting in violations of energy conservation as well as momentum conservation.
  • 8.7K
  • 16 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Design Considerations of Fixed and Floating Offshore Structures
Offshore structures exist in a variety of forms, and they are used for a variety of functions in varied sea depths. These structures are tailored for certain environments and sea depths and other design considerations. 
  • 8.7K
  • 29 Jul 2022
Topic Review
Post-transition Metal
Post-transition metals are a set of metallic elements in the periodic table located between the transition metals to their left, and the metalloids to their right. Depending on where these adjacent groups are judged to begin and end, there are at least five competing proposals for which elements to include: the three most common contain six, ten and thirteen elements, respectively (see image). All proposals include gallium, indium, tin, thallium, lead, and bismuth. Physically, post-transition metals are soft (or brittle), have poor mechanical strength, and have melting points lower than those of the transition metals. Being close to the metal-nonmetal border, their crystalline structures tend to show covalent or directional bonding effects, having generally greater complexity or fewer nearest neighbours than other metallic elements. Chemically, they are characterised—to varying degrees—by covalent bonding tendencies, acid-base amphoterism and the formation of anionic species such as aluminates, stannates, and bismuthates (in the case of aluminium, tin, and bismuth, respectively). They can also form Zintl phases (half-metallic compounds formed between highly electropositive metals and moderately electronegative metals or metalloids). The name is universally used, but not officially sanctioned by any organization such as the IUPAC. The origin of the term is unclear: one early use was in 1940 in a chemistry text. Alternate names for this group are B-subgroup metals, other metals, and p-block metals; and at least thirteen other labels.
  • 8.7K
  • 21 Nov 2022
Topic Review
History of Virology
The history of virology — the scientific study of viruses and the infections they cause – began in the closing years of the 19th century. Although Louis Pasteur and Edward Jenner developed the first vaccines to protect against viral infections, they did not know that viruses existed. The first evidence of the existence of viruses came from experiments with filters that had pores small enough to retain bacteria. In 1892, Dmitry Ivanovsky used one of these filters to show that sap from a diseased tobacco plant remained infectious to healthy tobacco plants despite having been filtered. Martinus Beijerinck called the filtered, infectious substance a "virus" and this discovery is considered to be the beginning of virology. The subsequent discovery and partial characterization of bacteriophages by Frederick Twort and Félix d'Herelle further catalyzed the field, and by the early 20th century many viruses had been discovered. In 1926, Thomas Milton Rivers defined viruses as obligate parasites. Viruses were demonstrated to be particles, rather than a fluid, by Wendell Meredith Stanley, and the invention of the electron microscope in 1931 allowed their complex structures to be visualised.
  • 8.7K
  • 31 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Nature Sports
Nature sports comprise a group of sporting activities that are developed and experienced in natural or rural areas, ranging from formal to informal practices. These practices are performed in a variety of natural contexts including on land (mountain biking, rock-climbing, trekking, etc.), in water (kayaking, sailing, surfing, windsurfing, etc.), and in the air (paragliding and hang-gliding, etc.). Nature sports have a spontaneous, playful nature, "with participation predominantly taking place in informal settings, often without governing bodies or clubs or other forms of external regulation". They are generally autonomous activities, even if some nature sports are practiced collectively, such as kayaking, or those which create sporting sub-cultures, such as in surfing.
  • 8.7K
  • 06 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Applications of Cyclodextrins
Due to their unique structural, physical and chemical properties, cyclodextrins and their derivatives have been of great interest to scientists and researchers in both academia and industry for over a century. Many of the industrial applications of cyclodextrins have arisen from their ability to encapsulate, either partially or fully, other molecules, especially organic compounds. Cyclodextrins are non-toxic oligopolymers of glucose that help to increase the solubility of organic compounds with poor aqueous solubility, can mask odors from foul-smelling compounds, and have been widely studied in the area of drug delivery. 
  • 8.7K
  • 29 Mar 2022
Topic Review
Biomass Gasification
Lignocellulosic gasification is a valid thermochemical approach for the conversion of organic solid matter into a gaseous mixture that is constituted of hydrogen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and methane, named synthetic gas or syngas. Although about 55% of syngas is still produced from coal, biomass utilization, especially lignocellulose, is constantly growing. Indeed, gasification could be potentially applied to all different kinds of lignocellulosic biomass, unlike other conversion technologies. Moreover, in the last few decades, a wide range of applications of syngas have been intensively studied. Syngas can be directly used as a combustible substance in power plants for heat and power production (steam cycle, co-combustion, combustion in gas turbines or internal combustion engines, high temperature fuel cells), which represents the most common use of biomass-derived syngas. However, syngas also represents a platform that can be employed in a broad range of chemical and microbial processes, leading to gaseous and liquid fuels, as well as to chemicals. Chemical process research has mainly focused on transportation fuel production from syngas, such as Fischer–Tropsch liquid fuels, hydrogen, methanol, dimethyl ether (DME), mixed alcohols, and synthetic natural gas (SNG). Instead, the biochemical conversion route consists of syngas fermentation in which obligate anaerobic microorganisms convert syngas into organic acids, alcohols, and other chemicals. The most commonly used microorganisms are acetogens, which use the Wood–Ljungdahl metabolic pathway. Syngas fermentation is defined as an indirect fermentation process because biomass is not fed directly into the fermenter, but it is previously converted into syngas through gasification. 
  • 8.7K
  • 17 Dec 2020
Topic Review
Olfaction and Ligand–Receptor Interaction
Odorant or olfactory receptors (ORs) are located in the human nose, in the olfactory epithelium. The olfactory receptors can recognize many different odor molecules of a diverse protein sequence, and OR genes constitute the most abundant family of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). The human receptor gene family comprises 339 receptor genes and 297 receptor pseudogenes, unequally dispersed in 51 distinct loci on 21 human chromosomes. Humans have a compassionate sense of smell, which is essential for discovering odors necessary for maintaining a healthy life, such as the smell of smoke (detection of fire) and rotten food (to avoid ingestion).
  • 8.6K
  • 25 Sep 2023
Topic Review
College Students Career Decision-Making Difficulties
College students suffer from various difficulties due to their own and environmental reasons in the process of career decision-making, which may affect their individual psychological state and social functions over time. One of the main difficulties is career decision-making. Career decision-making difficulties refer to various difficulties or problems faced by individuals in the process of career decision-making, including lack of readiness (LR), lack of information (LI), and inconsistent information (II). College students have certain career decision-making difficulties due to the lack of occupational information and self-information. The career decision-making difficulties not only affect college students’ employment, but also affect their solutions to the problems in career development.
  • 8.6K
  • 02 Jul 2021
Topic Review
Glossolalia
Glossolalia or speaking in tongues is a phenomenon in which people speak words that are apparently in languages unknown to the speaker. One definition used by linguists is the fluid vocalizing of speech-like syllables that lack any readily comprehended meaning, in some cases as part of religious practice in which it is believed to be a divine language unknown to the speaker. Glossolalia is practiced in Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity as well as in other religions. Sometimes a distinction is made between "glossolalia" and "xenolalia" or "xenoglossy", which specifically designates when the language being spoken is a natural language previously unknown to the speaker. This distinction is not universally made, and the New Testament of the Bible mentions the phenomenon in at least one passage in reference to speaking in languages known to others but not to the speakers.
  • 8.6K
  • 01 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Lipsticks History, Formulations, and Production
Lipsticks are one of the most widely used cosmetic products. Social, psychological, and therapeutic benefits can be attained from using lipstick. The beauty and attractiveness of a person are enhanced as lipsticks colour the lips and protect them from the external environment.
  • 8.6K
  • 02 Mar 2022
Topic Review
Agrivoltaic System
Agrivoltaic systems (AVS) offer a symbiotic strategy for co-location sustainable renewable energy and agricultural production. This is particularly important in densely populated developing and developed countries, where renewable energy development is becoming more important; however, profitable farmland must be preserved. As emphasized in the Food-Energy-Water (FEW) nexus, AVS advancements should not only focus on energy management, but also agronomic management (crop and water management). 
  • 8.6K
  • 05 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Tandem Mass Spectrometry
Tandem mass spectrometry, also known as MS/MS or MS2, involves multiple steps of mass spectrometry selection, with some form of fragmentation occurring in between the stages. In a tandem mass spectrometer, ions are formed in the ion source and separated by mass-to-charge ratio in the first stage of mass spectrometry (MS1). Ions of a particular mass-to-charge ratio (precursor ions) are selected and fragment ions (product ions) are created by collision-induced dissociation, ion-molecule reaction, photodissociation, or other process. The resulting ions are then separated and detected in a second stage of mass spectrometry (MS2).
  • 8.6K
  • 19 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Natural Biopolymers
Natural biopolymers are an interesting resource for edible films production, as they are environmentally friendly packaging materials.
  • 8.6K
  • 23 Jun 2021
Topic Review
Kilowatt Hour
The kilowatt hour (symbol: kW⋅h, kW h, or kWh) is a unit of energy equal to 3.6 megajoules. If energy is transmitted or used at a constant rate (power) over a period of time, the total energy in kilowatt hours is equal to the power in kilowatts multiplied by the time in hours. The kilowatt hour is commonly used as a billing unit for energy delivered to consumers by electric utilities.
  • 8.6K
  • 14 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Manufacturing Processes for Ceramic Matrix Composites
Materials such as ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) have been the focus of research and being tested in different conditions for several decades now. They are known as a subgroup of composite materials and ceramics. Ceramic composites were developed to control and address problems that occurred with other commonly used ceramics, such as silicon carbide, alumina, silicon nitride, aluminum nitride, and zirconia. Such ceramics fractured with ease, revealing scratches and cracks while mechanical and thermo-mechanical loads were applied to them. CMCs exhibit mechanical and thermal properties comparable with, and in some cases, even better than, the conventional superalloys used in aero-engines. However, their adoption relies on other variables as well, such as the cost of development, industrialization, manufacturing, and the availability of manufacturing technologies and systems.
  • 8.6K
  • 27 Apr 2023
Topic Review
Cyrillic Script
The Cyrillic script (/sɪˈrɪlɪk/ sə-RIL-ik) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia and is used as the national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia, North Asia and East Asia. (As of 2019), around 250 million people in Eurasia use Cyrillic as the official script for their national languages, with Russia accounting for about half of them. With the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union on 1 January 2007, Cyrillic became the third official script of the European Union, following the Latin and Greek alphabets. In the 9th century AD, the Bulgarian tsar Simeon I the Great – following the cultural and political course of his father Boris I – commissioned a new script, the Early Cyrillic alphabet, to be made at the Preslav Literary School in the First Bulgarian Empire, which would replace the Glagolitic script, produced earlier by Saints Cyril and Methodius and the same disciples that created the new Slavic script in Bulgaria. The usage of the Cyrillic script in Bulgaria was made official in 893. The new script became the basis of alphabets used in various languages, especially those of Orthodox Slavic origin, and non-Slavic languages influenced by Bulgarian. For centuries Cyrillic was used by Catholic and Muslim Slavs too (see Bosnian Cyrillic). Cyrillic is derived from the Greek uncial script, augmented by letters from the older Glagolitic alphabet, including some ligatures. These additional letters were used for Old Church Slavonic sounds not found in Greek. The script is named in honor of the Saint Cyril, one of the two Byzantine brothers, Saints Cyril and Methodius, who created the Glagolitic alphabet earlier on. Modern scholars believe that Cyrillic was developed and formalized by the early disciples of Cyril and Methodius in the Preslav Literary School, the most important early literary and cultural centre of the First Bulgarian Empire and of all Slavs. The school developed the Cyrillic script: The earliest datable Cyrillic inscriptions have been found in the area of Preslav. They have been found in the medieval city itself, and at nearby Patleina Monastery, both in present-day Shumen Province, in the Ravna Monastery and in the Varna Monastery. With the orthographic reform of Saint Evtimiy of Tarnovo and other prominent representatives of the Tarnovo Literary School (14th and 15th centuries) such as Gregory Tsamblak or Constantine of Kostenets the school influenced Russian, Serbian, Wallachian and Moldavian medieval culture. That is famous in Russia as the second South-Slavic influence. In the early 18th century, the Cyrillic script used in Russia was heavily reformed by Peter the Great, who had recently returned from his Grand Embassy in Western Europe. The new letterforms, called the Civil script, became closer to those of the Latin alphabet; several archaic letters were abolished and several letters were designed by Peter himself. Letters became distinguished between upper and lower case. West European typography culture was also adopted. The pre-reform forms of letters called 'Полуустав' were notably kept for use in Church Slavonic and are sometimes used in Russian even today, especially if one wants to give a text a 'Slavic' or 'archaic' feel.
  • 8.6K
  • 22 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Melatonin Protects Mitochondria and Adenosine Triphosphate Production
Melatonin (N-acetyl-5-methoxytryptamine) is a ubiquitous, mitochondria-targeted molecule present in all tested eukarya and bacteria. In March 2022, the first discovery of the serotonin N-acetyltransferase (SNAT) gene—responsible for the penultimate formation of N-acetylserotonin (NAS) before its final conversion into melatonin — in archaea further consolidates the status of melatonin as a regulator of biomolecular condensates in all three domains of life in the cellular empire. RNA viruses including SARS-CoV-2 contain proteins with intrinsically disordered regions that undergo liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS). Liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) of these proteins form membraneless condensates that act as “viral factories” to facilitate and enhance replication. Phase separation of the SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid (N) protein is associated with mitochondrial dysfunction and rewiring of energy production away from oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) to favor aerobic glycolysis in cytoplasm. Increased adenosine triphosphate (ATP) in cytoplasm supports viral replication. Melatonin protects mitochondria from damage, maintains adequate levels to disassemble “viral factories”, and prevents suppression of host antiviral immune responses by inhibiting nucleocapsid phase separation via antioxidant-dependent and -independent means.
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  • 05 Sep 2022
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