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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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List of Gliders (T)
This is a list of gliders/sailplanes of the world, (this reference lists all gliders with references, where available) Note: Any aircraft can glide for a short time, but gliders are designed to glide for longer.
  • 820
  • 04 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Addax (Genus)
The addax (Addax nasomaculatus), also known as the white antelope and the screwhorn antelope, is an antelope native to the Sahara Desert. The only member of the genus Addax, it was first described scientifically by Henri de Blainville in 1816. As suggested by its alternative name, the pale antelope has long, twisted horns - typically 55 to 80 cm (22 to 31 in) in females and 70 to 85 cm (28 to 33 in) in males. Males stand from 105 to 115 cm (41 to 45 in) at the shoulder, with females at 95 to 110 cm (37 to 43 in). They are sexually dimorphic, as the females are smaller than the males. The colour of the coat depends on the season - in the winter, it is greyish-brown with white hindquarters and legs, and long, brown hair on the head, neck, and shoulders; in the summer, the coat turns almost completely white or sandy blonde. The addax mainly eats grasses and leaves of any available shrubs, leguminous herbs and bushes. They are well-adapted to exist in their desert habitat, as they can live without water for long periods of time. Addax form herds of five to 20 members, consisting of both males and females. They are led by the oldest female. Due to its slow movements, the addax is an easy target for its predators: humans, lions, leopards, cheetahs and African wild dogs. Breeding season is at its peak during winter and early spring. The natural habitat of the addax are arid regions, semideserts and sandy and stony deserts. The addax is a critically endangered species of antelope, as classified by the IUCN. Although extremely rare in its native habitat due to unregulated hunting, it is quite common in captivity. The addax was once abundant in North Africa; however it is currently only native to Chad, Mauritania, and Niger. It is extirpated from Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Sudan, and Western Sahara, but has been reintroduced into Morocco and Tunisia.
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  • 04 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Deathtrap (Plot Device)
A deathtrap is a literary and dramatic plot device in which a villain who has captured the hero or another sympathetic character attempts to use an elaborate, improbable, and usually sadistic method of murdering them. It is often used as a means to create dramatic tension in the story and to have the villain reveal important information to the hero, confident that the hero will shortly not be able to use it. It may also be a means to show the hero's resourcefulness in escaping, or the writer's ingenuity at devising a last-minute rescue or deus ex machina.
  • 2.4K
  • 04 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Measurement and Signature Intelligence
Measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT) is a technical branch of intelligence gathering, which serves to detect, track, identify or describe the distinctive characteristics (signatures) of fixed or dynamic target sources. This often includes radar intelligence, acoustic intelligence, nuclear intelligence, and chemical and biological intelligence. MASINT is defined as scientific and technical intelligence derived from the analysis of data obtained from sensing instruments for the purpose of identifying any distinctive features associated with the source, emitter or sender, to facilitate the latter's measurement and identification. MASINT specialists themselves struggle with providing simple explanations of their field. One attempt calls it the “CSI” of the intelligence community, in imitation of the television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. This emphasizes how MASINT depends on a great many sciences to interpret data. Another possible definition calls it "astronomy except for the direction of view." The allusion here is to observational astronomy being a set of techniques that do remote sensing looking away from the earth (contrasted with how MASINT employs remote sensing looking toward the earth). Astronomers make observations in multiple electromagnetic spectra, ranging through radio waves, infrared, visible, and ultraviolet light, into the X-ray spectrum and beyond. They correlate these multispectral observations and create hybrid, often “false-color” images to give a visual representation of wavelength and energy, but much of their detailed information is more likely a graph of such things as intensity and wavelength versus viewing angle.
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  • 04 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Turbocharged Direct Injection
Turbocharged direct injection or TDI is a design of turbodiesel engines featuring turbocharging and cylinder-direct fuel injection that was developed and produced by the Volkswagen Group (VW AG). These TDI engines are widely used in all mainstream Volkswagen Group marques of passenger cars and light commercial vehicles made by the company (particularly those sold in Europe). They are also used as marine engines in Volkswagen Marine and Volkswagen Industrial Motor applications. TDI engines installed in 2009 to 2015 model year Volkswagen Group cars sold through 18 September 2015 had an emissions defeat device, which activated emissions controls only during emissions testing. The emissions controls were suppressed otherwise, allowing the TDI engines to exceed legal limits on emissions. VW has admitted to using the illegal device in its TDI diesel cars. In many countries, TDI is a registered trademark of Volkswagen AG. The TDI designation has also been used on vehicles powered by Land Rover-designed diesel engines. These are unrelated to Volkswagen Group engines.
  • 8.4K
  • 08 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Kaleidoscope
A kaleidoscope (/kəˈlaɪdəskoʊp/) is an optical instrument with two or more reflecting surfaces (or mirrors) tilted to each other at an angle, so that one or more (parts of) objects on one end of the mirrors are seen as a regular symmetrical pattern when viewed from the other end, due to repeated reflection. The reflectors are usually enclosed in a tube, often containing on one end a cell with loose, colored pieces of glass or other transparent (and/or opaque) materials to be reflected into the viewed pattern. Rotation of the cell causes motion of the materials, resulting in an ever-changing view being presented.
  • 3.6K
  • 04 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Social Security
Social security is "any government system that provides monetary assistance to people with an inadequate or no income". In the United States, this is usually called welfare or a social safety net, especially when talking about Canada and European countries. Social security is asserted in Article 22 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states: In simple terms, the signatories agree that the society in which a person lives should help them to develop and to make the most of all the advantages (culture, work, social welfare) which are offered to them in the country. Social security may also refer to the action programs of an organization intended to promote the welfare of the population through assistance measures guaranteeing access to sufficient resources for food and shelter and to promote health and well-being for the population at large and potentially vulnerable segments such as children, the elderly, the sick and the unemployed. Services providing social security are often called social services. Terminology in this area is somewhat different in the United States from in the rest of the English-speaking world. The general term for an action program in support of the well being of poor people in the United States is welfare program, and the general term for all such programs is simply welfare. In American society, the term welfare arguably has negative connotations. In the United States, the term Social Security refers to the US social insurance program for all retired and disabled people. Elsewhere the term is used in a much broader sense, referring to the economic security society offers when people are faced with certain risks. In its 1952 Social Security (Minimum Standards) Convention (nr. 102), the International Labour Organization (ILO) defined the traditional contingencies covered by social security as including: People who cannot reach a guaranteed social minimum for other reasons may be eligible for social assistance (or welfare, in American English). Modern authors often consider the ILO approach too narrow. In their view, social security is not limited to the provision of cash transfers, but also aims at security of work, health, and social participation; and new social risks (single parenthood, the reconciliation of work and family life) should be included in the list as well. Social security may refer to: A report published by the ILO in 2014 estimated that only 27% of the world's population has access to comprehensive social security.
  • 1.3K
  • 04 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Angra Mainyu
Angra Mainyu (/ˈæŋrə ˈmaɪnjuː/) is the Avestan-language name of Zoroastrianism's hypostasis of the "destructive spirit". The Middle Persian equivalent is Ahriman 𐭠𐭧𐭫𐭬𐭭𐭩‎ (Anglicised pronunciation: /ˈɑːrɪmən/). Angra Mainyu is omnimalevolent. Angra Mainyu is Ahura Mazda’s adversary.
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  • 04 Nov 2022
Topic Review
List of Most Successful U-boat Commanders
The list of most successful U-boat commanders contains the top-scoring German U-boat commanders in the two World Wars based on their total tonnage sunk. The tonnage figures (and sometimes the number of ships sunk) is still being debated among historians. This is often due to convoy battles at night when an attacking "wolfpack" fired torpedoes into the convoy and two (sometimes more) commanders claimed the same ship. Although post-war research has clarified most of those claims, some are still in question.
  • 8.4K
  • 04 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Cinnamon (Desktop Environment)
Cinnamon is a free and open-source desktop environment for the X Window System that derives from GNOME 3 but follows traditional desktop metaphor conventions. Cinnamon is the principal desktop environment of the Linux Mint distribution and is available as an optional desktop for other Linux distributions and other Unix-like operating systems as well. The development of Cinnamon began as a reaction to the April 2011 release of GNOME 3 in which the conventional desktop metaphor of GNOME 2 was abandoned in favor of GNOME Shell. Following several attempts to extend GNOME 3 such that it would suit the Linux Mint design goals, the Mint developers forked several GNOME 3 components to build an independent desktop environment. Separation from GNOME was completed in Cinnamon 2.0, which was released in October 2013. Applets and desklets are no longer compatible with GNOME 3. As the distinguishing factor of Linux Mint, Cinnamon has generally received favorable coverage by the press, in particular for its ease-of-use and gentle learning curve. With respect to its conservative design model, Cinnamon is similar to the Xfce and GNOME 2 (MATE and GNOME Flashback/Classic) desktop environments.
  • 3.4K
  • 07 Nov 2022
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