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Synergism (Theology)
In Christian theology, synergism is the position of those who hold that salvation involves some form of cooperation between divine grace and human freedom. It stands opposed to monergism, a doctrine most commonly associated with the Lutheran and Reformed Protestant traditions, whose soteriologies have been strongly influenced by the North African bishop and Latin Church Father Augustine of Hippo (354–430). Lutheranism, however, confesses a monergist salvation and synergist damnation (see below). Synergism is upheld by the Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches, and by the Methodist and Pentecostal traditions of Protestantism. It is an integral part of Arminian theology. Synergism and semipelagianism each teach some collaboration in salvation between God and man, but semipelagian thought teaches that the beginning half of faith is an act of human will. The Council of Orange (529), Lutheran Formula of Concord (1577), and other local councils each condemned semipelagianism as heresy.
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Topic Review
Czochralski Process
The Czochralski process is a method of crystal growth used to obtain single crystals of semiconductors (e.g. silicon, germanium and gallium arsenide), metals (e.g. palladium, platinum, silver, gold), salts and synthetic gemstones. The process is named after Polish scientist Jan Czochralski, who invented the method in 1915 while investigating the crystallization rates of metals. He made this discovery by accident: instead of dipping his pen into his inkwell, he dipped it in molten tin, and drew a tin filament, which later proved to be a single crystal. The most important application may be the growth of large cylindrical ingots, or boules, of single crystal silicon used in the electronics industry to make semiconductor devices like integrated circuits. Other semiconductors, such as gallium arsenide, can also be grown by this method, although lower defect densities in this case can be obtained using variants of the Bridgman-Stockbarger technique.
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  • 24 Nov 2022
Topic Review
XCore Architecture
The XCore Architecture is a 32-bit RISC microprocessor architecture designed by XMOS. The architecture is designed to be used in multi-core processors for embedded systems. Each XCore executes up to eight concurrent threads, each thread having its own register set, and the architecture directly supports inter-thread and inter-core communication and various forms of thread scheduling. Two versions of the XCore architecture exist: the XS1 architecture and the XS2 architecture. Processors with the XS1 architecture include the XCore XS1-G4 and XCore XS1-L1. Processors with the XS2 architecture include xCORE-200. The architecture encodes instructions compactly, using 16 bits for frequently used instructions (with up to three operands) and 32 bits for less frequently used instructions (with up to 6 operands). Almost all instructions execute in a single cycle, and the architecture is event-driven in order to decouple the timings that a program needs to make from the execution speed of the program. A program will normally perform its computations and then wait for an event (e.g. a message, time, or external I/O event) before continuing.
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Topic Review
The Blood of Olympus
The Blood of Olympus is an American fantasy-adventure novel written by Rick Riordan, based on Greek and Roman mythology. It was released on October 7, 2014, is the fifth and final novel in The Heroes of Olympus series. It is followed by The Hidden Oracle of The Trials of Apollo. The seven demigods of the Prophecy of Seven—Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase, Jason Grace, Leo Valdez, Piper McLean, Hazel Levesque, and Frank Zhang—go on their final adventure to defeat Gaea/Terra while Nico di Angelo, Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano, and Coach Gleeson Hedge attempt to bring the Athena Parthenos to Camp Half-Blood in order to prevent a war between the Roman and Greek demigods. The novel is narrated in third-person, alternating between the points of view of Jason, Piper, Leo, Reyna, and Nico, making it the first time in the series that someone other than one of the seven demigods of the prophecy is the viewpoint character.
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Topic Review
Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response
Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR), sometimes auto sensory meridian response, is a tingling sensation that typically begins on the scalp and moves down the back of the neck and upper spine. A pleasant form of paresthesia, it has been compared with auditory-tactile synesthesia and may overlap with frisson. ASMR signifies the subjective experience of "low-grade euphoria" characterized by "a combination of positive feelings and a distinct static-like tingling sensation on the skin". It is most commonly triggered by specific auditory or visual stimuli, and less commonly by intentional attention control. A genre of videos which intend to stimulate ASMR has emerged, of which over 13 million are published on YouTube.
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Topic Review
Hybrid
In biology, a hybrid is the offspring resulting from combining the qualities of two organisms of different breeds, varieties, species or genera through sexual reproduction. Hybrids are not always intermediates between their parents (such as in blending inheritance), but can show hybrid vigor, sometimes growing larger or taller than either parent. The concept of a hybrid is interpreted differently in animal and plant breeding, where there is interest in the individual parentage. In genetics, attention is focused on the numbers of chromosomes. In taxonomy, a key question is how closely related the parent species are. Species are reproductively isolated by strong barriers to hybridisation, which include genetic and morphological differences, differing times of fertility, mating behaviors and cues, and physiological rejection of sperm cells or the developing embryo. Some act before fertilization and others after it. Similar barriers exist in plants, with differences in flowering times, pollen vectors, inhibition of pollen tube growth, somatoplastic sterility, cytoplasmic-genic male sterility and the structure of the chromosomes. A few animal species and many plant species, however, are the result of hybrid speciation, including important crop plants such as wheat, where the number of chromosomes has been doubled. Human impact on the environment has resulted in an increase in the interbreeding between regional species, and the proliferation of introduced species worldwide has also resulted in an increase in hybridisation. This genetic mixing may threaten many species with extinction, while genetic erosion from monoculture in crop plants may be damaging the gene pools of many species for future breeding. A form of often intentional human-mediated hybridisation is the crossing of wild and domesticated species. This is common in both traditional horticulture and modern agriculture; many commercially useful fruits, flowers, garden herbs, and trees have been produced by hybridisation. One such flower, Oenothera lamarckiana, was central to early genetics research into mutationism and polyploidy. It is also more occasionally done in the livestock and pet trades; some well-known wild × domestic hybrids are beefalo and wolfdogs. Human selective breeding of domesticated animals and plants has resulted in the development of distinct breeds (usually called cultivars in reference to plants); crossbreeds between them (without any wild stock) are sometimes also imprecisely referred to as "hybrids". Hybrid humans existed in prehistory. For example, Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans are thought to have interbred as recently as 40,000 years ago. Mythological hybrids appear in human culture in forms as diverse as the Minotaur, blends of animals, humans and mythical beasts such as centaurs and sphinxes, and the Nephilim of the Biblical apocrypha described as the wicked sons of fallen angels and attractive women.
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Topic Review
Evolutionary History of Life
The evolutionary history of life on Earth traces the processes by which living and fossil organisms evolved, from the earliest emergence of life to the present. Earth formed about 4.5 billion years (Ga) ago and evidence suggests life emerged prior to 3.7 Ga. (Although there is some evidence of life as early as 4.1 to 4.28 Ga, it remains controversial due to the possible non-biological formation of the purported fossils.) The similarities among all known present-day species indicate that they have diverged through the process of evolution from a common ancestor. Approximately 1 trillion species currently live on Earth of which only 1.75–1.8 million have been named and 1.6 million documented in a central database. These currently living species represent less than one percent of all species that have ever lived on earth. The earliest evidence of life comes from biogenic carbon signatures and stromatolite fossils discovered in 3.7 billion-year-old metasedimentary rocks from western Greenland. In 2015, possible "remains of biotic life" were found in 4.1 billion-year-old rocks in Western Australia. In March 2017, putative evidence of possibly the oldest forms of life on Earth was reported in the form of fossilized microorganisms discovered in hydrothermal vent precipitates in the Nuvvuagittuq Belt of Quebec, Canada, that may have lived as early as 4.28 billion years ago, not long after the oceans formed 4.4 billion years ago, and not long after the formation of the Earth 4.54 billion years ago. Microbial mats of coexisting bacteria and archaea were the dominant form of life in the early Archean Epoch and many of the major steps in early evolution are thought to have taken place in this environment. The evolution of photosynthesis, around 3.5 Ga, eventually led to a buildup of its waste product, oxygen, in the atmosphere, leading to the great oxygenation event, beginning around 2.4 Ga. The earliest evidence of eukaryotes (complex cells with organelles) dates from 1.85 Ga, and while they may have been present earlier, their diversification accelerated when they started using oxygen in their metabolism. Later, around 1.7 Ga, multicellular organisms began to appear, with differentiated cells performing specialised functions. Sexual reproduction, which involves the fusion of male and female reproductive cells (gametes) to create a zygote in a process called fertilization is, in contrast to asexual reproduction, the primary method of reproduction for the vast majority of macroscopic organisms, including almost all eukaryotes (which includes animals and plants). However the origin and evolution of sexual reproduction remain a puzzle for biologists though it did evolve from a common ancestor that was a single celled eukaryotic species. Bilateria, animals having a left and a right side that are mirror images of each other, appeared by 555 Ma (million years ago). The earliest complex land plants date back to around 850 Ma, from carbon isotopes in Precambrian rocks, while algae-like multicellular land plants are dated back even to about 1 billion years ago, although evidence suggests that microorganisms formed the earliest terrestrial ecosystems, at least 2.7 Ga. Microorganisms are thought to have paved the way for the inception of land plants in the Ordovician. Land plants were so successful that they are thought to have contributed to the Late Devonian extinction event. (The long causal chain implied seems to involve the success of early tree archaeopteris (1) drew down CO2 levels, leading to global cooling and lowered sea levels, (2) roots of archeopteris fostered soil development which increased rock weathering, and the subsequent nutrient run-off may have triggered algal blooms resulting in anoxic events which caused marine-life die-offs. Marine species were the primary victims of the Late Devonian extinction.) Ediacara biota appear during the Ediacaran period, while vertebrates, along with most other modern phyla originated about 525 Ma during the Cambrian explosion. During the Permian period, synapsids, including the ancestors of mammals, dominated the land, but most of this group became extinct in the Permian–Triassic extinction event 252 Ma. During the recovery from this catastrophe, archosaurs became the most abundant land vertebrates; one archosaur group, the dinosaurs, dominated the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. After the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event 66 Ma killed off the non-avian dinosaurs, mammals increased rapidly in size and diversity. Such mass extinctions may have accelerated evolution by providing opportunities for new groups of organisms to diversify.
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Topic Review
Apocalypse
Apocalypse (from grc ἀποκάλυψις (apokálupsis) 'revelation, disclosure') is a literary genre in which a supernatural being reveals cosmic mysteries or the future to a human intermediary. The means of mediation include dreams, visions and heavenly journeys, and they typically feature symbolic imagery drawn from the Hebrew Bible, cosmological and (pessimistic) historical surveys, the division of time into periods, esoteric numerology, and claims of ecstasy and inspiration. Almost all are written under pseudonyms (false names), claiming as author a venerated hero from previous centuries, as with Book of Daniel, composed during the 2nd century BCE but bearing the name of the legendary Daniel. Eschatology, from Greek eschatos, last, concerns expectations of the end of the present age, and apocalyptic eschatology is the application of the apocalyptic world-view to the end of the world, when God will punish the wicked and reward the faithful. An apocalypse will often contain much eschatological material, but need not: the baptism of Jesus in Matthew's gospel, for example, can be considered apocalyptic in that the heavens open for the presence of a divine mediator (the dove representing the spirit of God) and a voice communicates supernatural information, but there is no eschatological element. Scholars have identified examples of the genre ranging from the mid-2nd century BCE to the 2nd century CE, and examples are to be found in Persian and Greco-Roman literature as well as Jewish and Christian. The sole clear case in the Jewish Bible (Old Testament) is chapters 7-12 of the Book of Daniel, but there are many examples from non-canonical Jewish works; the Book of Revelation is the only apocalypse in the New Testament, but passages reflecting the genre are to be found in the gospels and in nearly all the genuine Pauline epistles.Lua error: not enough memory.Lua error: not enough memory.
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Topic Review
Sovereign Citizen Movement
The sovereign citizen movement is a loose grouping of primarily American litigants, commentators, tax protesters, and financial-scheme promoters, who claim to be answerable only to their particular interpretations of the common law and to not be subject to any government statutes or proceedings. In the United States, they do not recognize U.S. currency and maintain that they are "free of any legal constraints". They especially reject most forms of taxation as illegitimate. Participants in the movement argue this concept in opposition to the idea of "federal citizens", who, they say, have unknowingly forfeited their rights by accepting some aspect of federal law. The doctrines of the movement resemble those of the freemen on the land movement more commonly found in the British Commonwealth, such as Australia and Canada. Many members of the sovereign citizen movement claim that the United States government is illegitimate. The sovereign citizen movement has been described as consisting of individuals who assert that the county sheriff is the most powerful law-enforcement officer in the country, with authority superior to that of any federal agent, elected official, or local law-enforcement official. The movement can be traced back to white-extremist groups like Posse Comitatus and the constitutional militia movement. It also includes members of certain self-declared "Moorish" sects. While the movement was originally associated with White supremacism, it now includes varying racial ideologies as well as a variety of people, most commonly white and African American. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) classifies some sovereign citizens ("sovereign citizen extremists") as domestic terrorists. In 2010, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) estimated that approximately 100,000 Americans were "hard-core sovereign believers", with another 200,000 "just starting out by testing sovereign techniques for resisting everything from speeding tickets to drug charges". In surveys conducted in 2014 and 2015, representatives of U.S. law enforcement ranked the risk of terrorism from the sovereign citizen movement higher than the risk from any other group, including Islamic extremists, militias, racists, and neo-Nazis. The New South Wales Police Force in Australia has also identified sovereign citizens as a potential terrorist threat.
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Topic Review
Archaeogaming
Archaeogaming is an archaeological framework which, broadly speaking, includes the study of archaeology in and of video games as well as the use of video-games for archaeological purposes. To this end, the study can include, but is in no means limited to: the physical excavation of video-game hardware, the use of archaeological methods within game worlds, the creation of video-games for or about archaeological practices and outcomes or the critical study of how archaeology is represented in video-games. Virtual and augmented reality applications in archaeology might also be subsumed within its rubric. M. Dennis states that archaeogaming is “the utilization and treatment of immaterial space to study created culture, specifically through videogames” which “requires treating a game world, a world bounded and defined by the limitations of its hardware, software and coding choices, as both a closed universe and as an extension of the external culture that created it. Everything that goes into the immaterial space comes from its external cultural source, in one way or another.” Taking this into consideration the archaeogaming framework indicates that there is no functional difference between studying archaeology in the physical, material world, and implementing it with regards to the study, critique and creation of video-games for and about archaeology. As such it is said that archaeogaming “requires the same standards of practice as the physical collection of excavated data, only with a different toolset. It also provides the opportunity to use game worlds to reflect on practice, theory and the perceptions of [archaeology].”
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