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HandWiki is the world's largest wiki-style encyclopedia dedicated to science, technology and computing. It allows you to create and edit articles as long as you have external citations and login account. In addition, this is a content management environment that can be used for collaborative editing of original scholarly content, such as books, manuals, monographs and tutorials.

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Technology and Society
Technology society and life or technology and culture refers to the inter-dependency, co-dependence, co-influence, and co-production of technology and society upon one another. Evidence for this synergy has been found since humanity first started using simple tools. The inter-relationship has continued as modern technologies such as the printing press and computers have helped shape society. The first scientific approach to this relationship occurred with the development of tektology, the "science of organization", in early twentieth century Imperial Russia. In modern academia, the interdisciplinary study of the mutual impacts of science, technology, and society, is called science and technology studies. The simplest form of technology is the development and use of basic tools. The prehistoric discovery of how to control fire and the later Neolithic Revolution increased the available sources of food, and the invention of the wheel helped humans to travel in and control their environment. Developments in historic times have lessened physical barriers to communication and allowed humans to interact freely on a global scale, such as the printing press, telephone, and Internet. Technology has developed advanced economies, such as the modern global economy, and has led to the rise of a leisure class. Many technological processes produce by-products known as pollution, and deplete natural resources to the detriment of Earth's environment. Innovations influence the values of society and raise new questions in the ethics of technology. Examples include the rise of the notion of efficiency in terms of human productivity, and the challenges of bioethics. Philosophical debates have arisen over the use of technology, with disagreements over whether technology improves the human condition or worsens it. Neo-Luddism, anarcho-primitivism, and similar reactionary movements criticize the pervasiveness of technology, arguing that it harms the environment and alienates people. However, proponents of ideologies such as transhumanism and techno-progressivism view continued technological progress as beneficial to society and the human condition.
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  • 24 Nov 2022
Topic Review
List of Socialist States
Several past and present states have declared themselves socialist states or in the process of building socialism. The majority of self-declared socialist countries have been Marxist–Leninist or inspired by it, following the model of the Soviet Union or some form of people's or national democracy. They share a common definition of socialism and they refer to themselves as socialist states on the road to communism with a leading vanguard party structure, hence they are often called communist states. Meanwhile, the countries in the non-Marxist–Leninist category represent a wide variety of different interpretations of the term socialism and in many cases the countries do not define what they mean by it. Modern uses of the term socialism are wide in meaning and interpretation. Because a sovereign state is a different entity from the political party that rules that state at any given time, a country may be ruled by a socialist party without the country itself claiming to be socialist or the socialist party being written into the constitution. This has occurred in both one-party and multi-party political systems. In particular, there are numerous cases of social democratic and democratic socialist parties winning elections in liberal democratic states and ruling for a number of terms until a different party wins the elections. While socialist parties have won many elections around the world and most elections in the Nordic countries, many of those countries have not adopted socialism as a state ideology or written the party into the constitution. Several countries with liberal democratic constitutions mention socialism. India is a liberal democracy that has been ruled by non-socialist parties on many occasions, but its constitution makes references to socialism. Certain other countries such as Croatia, Hungary, Myanmar, and Poland have constitutions that make references to their communist and socialist past by recognizing or condemning it, but without claiming to be socialist in the present.
  • 18.8K
  • 22 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Epoch
In astronomy, an epoch or reference epoch is a moment in time used as a reference point for some time-varying astronomical quantity. It is useful for the celestial coordinates or orbital elements of a celestial body, as they are subject to perturbations and vary with time. These time-varying astronomical quantities might include, for example, the mean longitude or mean anomaly of a body, the node of its orbit relative to a reference plane, the direction of the apogee or aphelion of its orbit, or the size of the major axis of its orbit. The main use of astronomical quantities specified in this way is to calculate other relevant parameters of motion, in order to predict future positions and velocities. The applied tools of the disciplines of celestial mechanics or its subfield orbital mechanics (for predicting orbital paths and positions for bodies in motion under the gravitational effects of other bodies) can be used to generate an ephemeris, a table of values giving the positions and velocities of astronomical objects in the sky at a given time or times. Astronomical quantities can be specified in any of several ways, for example, as a polynomial function of the time-interval, with an epoch as a temporal point of origin (this is a common current way of using an epoch). Alternatively, the time-varying astronomical quantity can be expressed as a constant, equal to the measure that it had at the epoch, leaving its variation over time to be specified in some other way—for example, by a table, as was common during the 17th and 18th centuries. The word epoch was often used in a different way in older astronomical literature, e.g. during the 18th century, in connection with astronomical tables. At that time, it was customary to denote as "epochs", not the standard date and time of origin for time-varying astronomical quantities, but rather the values at that date and time of those time-varying quantities themselves. In accordance with that alternative historical usage, an expression such as 'correcting the epochs' would refer to the adjustment, usually by a small amount, of the values of the tabulated astronomical quantities applicable to a fixed standard date and time of reference (and not, as might be expected from current usage, to a change from one date and time of reference to a different date and time).
  • 1.8K
  • 22 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Broken/Astronomy
Astronomy (from Greek: ἀστρονομία) is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It applies mathematics, physics, and chemistry in an effort to explain the origin of those objects and phenomena and their evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, galaxies, and comets; the phenomena also includes supernova explosions, gamma ray bursts, quasars, blazars, pulsars, and cosmic microwave background radiation. More generally, all phenomena that originate outside Earth's atmosphere are within the purview of astronomy. A branch of astronomy called cosmology is the study of the Universe as a whole. Astronomy is one of the oldest of the natural sciences. The early civilizations in recorded history, such as the Babylonians, Greeks, Indians, Egyptians, Nubians, Iranians, Chinese, Maya, and many ancient indigenous peoples of the Americas, performed methodical observations of the night sky. Historically, astronomy has included disciplines as diverse as astrometry, celestial navigation, observational astronomy, and the making of calendars, but professional astronomy is now often considered to be synonymous with astrophysics. Professional astronomy is split into observational and theoretical branches. Observational astronomy is focused on acquiring data from observations of astronomical objects, which is then analyzed using basic principles of physics. Theoretical astronomy is oriented toward the development of computer or analytical models to describe astronomical objects and phenomena. The two fields complement each other, with theoretical astronomy seeking to explain observational results and observations being used to confirm theoretical results. Astronomy is one of the few sciences in which amateurs still play an active role, especially in the discovery and observation of transient events. Amateur astronomers have made and contributed to many important astronomical discoveries, such as finding new comets.
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  • 22 Nov 2022
Topic Review
HSP60
Heat shock proteins are generally responsible for preventing damage to proteins in response to high levels of heat. Heat shock proteins are classified into six major families based on their molecular mass: small HSPs, HSP40, HSP60, HSP70, HSP90, and HSP110 HSP60 is implicated in mitochondrial protein import and macromolecular assembly. It may facilitate the correct folding of imported proteins, and may also prevent misfolding and promote the refolding and proper assembly of unfolded polypeptides generated under stress conditions in the mitochondrial matrix. HSP60 interacts with HRAS and with HBV protein X and HTLV-1 protein p40tax. HSP60 belongs to the chaperonin (HSP60) family. Note: This description may include information from UniProtKB. Alternate Names: 60 kDa chaperonin, Chaperonin 60, CPN60, Heat shock protein 60, HSP-60, HuCHA60, Mitochondrial matrix protein P1, P60 lymphocyte protein, HSPD1 Heat shock protein 60 (HSP60) is a mitochondrial chaperonin that is typically held responsible for the transportation and refolding of proteins from the cytoplasm into the mitochondrial matrix. In addition to its role as a heat shock protein, HSP60 functions as a chaperonin to assist in folding linear amino acid chains into their respective three-dimensional structure. Through the extensive study of groEL, HSP60’s bacterial homolog, HSP60 has been deemed essential in the synthesis and transportation of essential mitochondrial proteins from the cell's cytoplasm into the mitochondrial matrix. Further studies have linked HSP60 to diabetes, stress response, cancer and certain types of immunological disorders.
  • 1.6K
  • 22 Nov 2022
Topic Review
VAX-11
The VAX-11 is a discontinued family of superminicomputers developed and manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). They were first announced in 1977, and were the first computers to implement the Virtual Address eXtension (VAX) instruction set architecture (ISA). The VAX-11 processors also supported the user mode PDP-11 instruction set for backwards compatibility (thus the -11 in VAX-11). They were discontinued in 1988, having been supplanted by the MicroVAX family on the low end, and the VAX 8000 family on the high end. It is historically one of the most successful and studied computers in history.
  • 2.7K
  • 22 Nov 2022
Topic Review
White–Juday Warp-Field Interferometer
The White–Juday warp-field interferometer is an experiment designed to detect a microscopic instance of a warping of spacetime. If such a warp is detected, it is hoped that more research into creating an Alcubierre warp bubble will be inspired. A research team led by Harold "Sonny" White in collaboration with Dr. Richard Juday at the NASA Johnson Space Center and Dakota State University are conducting experiments, but results so far have been inconclusive.
  • 8.4K
  • 24 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Style (Sociolinguistics)
In sociolinguistics, a style is a set of linguistic variants with specific social meanings. In this context, social meanings can include group membership, personal attributes, or beliefs. Linguistic variation is at the heart of the concept of linguistic style—without variation there is no basis for distinguishing social meanings. Variation can occur syntactically, lexically, and phonologically. Many approaches to interpreting and defining style incorporate the concepts of indexicality, indexical order, stance-taking, and linguistic ideology. Note that a style is not a fixed attribute of a speaker. Rather, a speaker may use different styles depending on context. Additionally, speakers often incorporate elements of multiple styles into their speech, either consciously or subconsciously, thereby creating a new style.
  • 6.0K
  • 22 Nov 2022
Topic Review
NATO Research and Technology Organisation
Coordinates: 48°53′17″N 2°16′07″E / 48.88806°N 2.26861°E / 48.88806; 2.26861 The NATO Research and Technology Organisation (RTO) (French: Organisation pour la Recherche et la Technologie OTAN) was a former agency of NATO for scientific and technological research. It was established in 1998, and replaced in 2012 by the NATO Science and Technology Organisation (STO). RTO promoted and conducted co-operative scientific research and exchange of technical information among 26 NATO nations and 38 NATO partners. The largest such collaborative body in the world, the RTO encompasses over 3000 scientists and engineers addressing the complete scope of defence technologies and operational domains. This effort is supported by an executive agency, the Research and Technology Agency (RTA), that facilitates the collaboration by organising a wide range of studies, workshops, symposia, and other forums in which researchers can meet and exchange knowledge.
  • 1.3K
  • 24 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Parent Management Training
Parent management training (PMT), also known as behavioral parent training (BPT) or simply parent training, is a family of treatment programs that aims to change parenting behaviors, teaching parents positive reinforcement methods for improving pre-school and school-age children's behavior problems (such as aggression, hyperactivity, temper tantrums, and difficulty following directions). PMT is one of the most investigated treatments available for disruptive behavior, particularly oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) and conduct disorder (CD); it is effective in reducing child disruptive behavior and improving parental mental health. PMT has also been studied as a treatment for disruptive behaviors in children with other conditions. Limitations of the existing research on PMT include a lack of knowledge on mechanisms of change and the absence of studies of long-term outcomes. PMT may be more difficult to implement when parents are unable to participate fully due to psychopathology, limited cognitive capacity, high partner conflict, or inability to attend weekly sessions. PMT was initially developed in the 1960s by child psychologists who studied changing children's disruptive behaviors by intervening to change parent behaviors. The model was inspired by principles of operant conditioning and applied behavioral analysis. Treatment, which typically lasts for several months, focuses on parents learning to provide positive reinforcement, such as praise and rewards, for children's appropriate behaviors while setting proper limits, using methods such as removing attention for inappropriate behaviors.
  • 2.0K
  • 22 Nov 2022
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