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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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Mindwipe (Transformers)
Mindwipe is the name of two fictional characters in the Transformers toy line and fictional series by Hasbro. Both are Decepticons.
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  • 02 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Polanyi’s Paradox
Polanyi's paradox, named in honour of the British-Hungarian philosopher Michael Polanyi, is the theory that human knowledge of how the world functions and capability are, to a large extent, beyond our explicit understanding. The theory was articulated by Michael Polanyi in his book The Tacit Dimension in 1966, but it was economist David Autor that named it as Polanyi's paradox in his 2014 research paper on “Polanyi's Paradox and the Shape of Employment Growth”. Summarised in the slogan "We can know more than we can tell", Polanyi's paradox is mainly to explain the cognitive phenomenon that there exist many tasks which we, human beings, understand intuitively how to perform but cannot verbalize the rules or procedures behind it. This "self-ignorance" is common to many human activities, from driving a car in traffic to face recognition. As Polanyi argues, humans are relying on their tacit knowledge, which is difficult to adequately express by verbal means, when engaging these tasks. Polanyi's paradox has been widely considered a major obstacle in the fields of AI and automation, since the absence of consciously accessible knowledge creates tremendous difficulty in programming.
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Topic Review
Classic Car
A classic car is an older automobile; the exact definition varies around the world. The common theme is of an older car with enough historical interest to be collectable and worth preserving or restoring rather than scrapping. Cars 20 years and older typically fall into the classic class. Organizations such as the Classic Car Club of America (CCCA) and the Antique Automobile Club of America (AACA) maintain a list of eligible unmodified cars that are called "classic". These are described as "fine" or "distinctive" automobile, either American or foreign built, produced between 1915 to 1998. Post–World War II "classic cars" are not precisely defined and the term is often applied to any older vehicle.
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  • 02 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Fuzzy Control
Fuzzy logic is derived from fuzzy set theory dealing with reasoning that is approximate rather than precisely deduced from classical predicate logic. It can be thought of as the application side of fuzzy set theory dealing with well thought out real world expert values for a complex problem (Klir 1997). Degrees of truth are often confused with probabilities. However, they are conceptually distinct; fuzzy truth represents membership in vaguely defined sets, not likelihood of some event or condition. To illustrate the difference, consider this scenario: Bob is in a house with two adjacent rooms: the kitchen and the dining room. In many cases, Bob's status within the set of things "in the kitchen" is completely plain: he's either "in the kitchen" or "not in the kitchen". What about when Bob stands in the doorway? He may be considered "partially in the kitchen". Quantifying this partial state yields a fuzzy set membership. With only his big toe in the dining room, we might say Bob is 99% "in the kitchen" and 1% "in the dining room", for instance. No event (like a coin toss) will resolve Bob to being completely "in the kitchen" or "not in the kitchen", as long as he's standing in that doorway. Fuzzy sets are based on vague definitions of sets, not randomness. Fuzzy logic allows for set membership values to range (inclusively) between 0 and 1, and in its linguistic form, imprecise concepts like "slightly", "quite" and "very". Specifically, it allows partial membership in a set. It is related to fuzzy sets and possibility theory. It was introduced in 1965 by Lotfi Zadeh at the University of California, Berkeley. Fuzzy logic is controversial in some circles, despite wide acceptance and a broad track record of successful applications. It is rejected by some control engineers for validation and other reasons, and by some statisticians who hold that probability is the only rigorous mathematical description of uncertainty. Critics also argue that it cannot be a superset of ordinary set theory since membership functions are defined in terms of conventional sets.
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Topic Review
Hellhole
Hellhole is a large and deep pit cave in Germany Valley, eastern West Virginia. It is the 7th longest cave in the United States and is home to almost half of the world's population of Virginia big-eared bats. At 518 feet (158 meters), Hellhole is the deepest of several caves in the Valley. Hellhole has had a long and storied association with the National Speleological Society dating back to the creation of that organization in the early 1940s. Many basic caving techniques (e.g., the single rope technique) were developed in Hellhole's 154-foot (47 meter) entrance drop.
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Topic Review
Flocculus (Cerebellar)
The flocculus (Latin: tuft of wool, diminutive) is a small lobe of the cerebellum at the posterior border of the middle cerebellar peduncle anterior to the biventer lobule. Like other parts of the cerebellum, the flocculus is involved in motor control. It is an essential part of the vestibulo-ocular reflex, and aids in the learning of basic motor skills in the brain. It is associated with the nodulus of the vermis; together, these two structures compose the vestibular part of the cerebellum. At its base, the flocculus receives input from the inner ear's vestibular system and regulates balance. Many floccular projections connect to the motor nuclei involved in control of eye movement.
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Topic Review
Interaction Between Monetary and Fiscal Policies
Fiscal policy and monetary policy are the two tools used by the state to achieve its macroeconomic objectives. While for many countries the main objective of fiscal policy is to increase the aggregate output of the economy, the main objective of the monetary policies is to control the interest and inflation rates. The IS/LM model is one of the models used to depict the effect of policy interactions on aggregate output and interest rates. The fiscal policies have a direct impact on the goods market and the monetary policies have a direct impact on the asset markets; since the two markets are connected to each other via the two macrovariables output and interest rates, the policies interact while influencing output and interest rates. Traditionally, both the policy instruments were under the control of the national governments. Thus traditional analyses were made with respect to the two policy instruments to obtain the optimum policy mix of the two to achieve macroeconomic goals, lest the two policy tools be aimed at mutually inconsistent targets. But more recently, owing to the transfer of control with respect to monetary policy formulation to central banks, formation of monetary unions (like European Monetary Union formed via the Stability and Growth Pact), and attempts being made to form fiscal unions, there has been a significant structural change in the way in which fiscal and monetary policies interact. There is a dilemma as to whether these two policies are complementary, or act as substitutes to each other for achieving macroeconomic goals. Policy makers are viewed as interacting as strategic substitutes when one policy maker's expansionary (contractionary) policies are countered by another policy maker's contractionary (expansionary) policies. For example: if the fiscal authority raises taxes or cuts spending, then the monetary authority reacts to it by lowering the policy rates and vice versa. If they behave as strategic complements, then an expansionary (contractionary) policy of one authority is met by expansionary (contractionary) policies of the other. The issue of interaction and the policies being complements or substitutes for each other arises only when the authorities are independent of each other. But when the goals of one authority are made subservient to those of the other, then one authority solely dominates the policy making and no interaction worthy of analysis would arise. Also, fiscal and monetary policies interact only to the extent of influencing the final objective. So long as the objectives of one policy are not influenced by the other, there is no direct interaction between them.
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Topic Review
Magnavox Odyssey²
The Magnavox Odyssey², also known as Philips Odyssey², is a second generation home video game console that was released in 1978. It was sold in Europe as the Philips Videopac G7000, in Brazil as the Philips Odyssey and in Japan as Odyssey2 (オデッセイ2 odessei2). The Odyssey² was one of the major three home consoles prior to the 1983 video game market crash, along with Atari 2600 and Intellivision. In the early 1970s, Magnavox pioneered the home video game industry by successfully bringing the first home console to market, the Odyssey, which was quickly followed by a number of later models, each with a few technological improvements (see Magnavox Odyssey series). In 1978, Magnavox, now a subsidiary of North American Philips, decided to release an all-new successor, Odyssey². In 2009, the video game website IGN named the Odyssey² the 21st greatest video game console, out of its list of 25.
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Topic Review
List of Volcanic Features on Io
This is a list of named volcanic surface features on Jupiter's moon Io. These names have been approved for use by the International Astronomical Union. The features listed below represent a subset of the total known volcanic features on Io's surface with the majority currently not having an officially approved name. The names of volcanic features on Io use a combination of a name derived from mythological figures from around the world related to the Sun, fire, volcanoes, thunder, or smithing, places from the Greek mythological story of Io, Dante's Inferno, or from the name of a nearby feature on Io's surface and an approved descriptive term. The descriptive term used is based on the type of feature named and how it was first discovered. Volcanoes that were first observed as an active feature from observations of a volcanic plume fit under the category of "Eruptive Center" and do not use a descriptive term, though portions of these features may have also received names that do use a descriptive term, like Prometheus Patera or Masubi Fluctus. Lava flows use the descriptive term fluctus or the plural fluctūs, e.g. Acala Fluctus. Volcanic depressions use the term patera or the plural paterae, e.g. Ah Peku Patera. The term has also become the generic term for referring to these structures. Small shield volcanoes use the term tholus or the plural tholi, e.g. Inachus Tholus. Finally, channels carved by volcanic lava flows through thermal erosion use the term vallis or the plural valles. See also the list of mountains on Io and the list of regions on Io.
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Topic Review
Smith Electric Vehicles
Smith Electric Vehicles (also known as Smith's) was a manufacturer of electric trucks. The company, founded in 1920 in the north of England, moved its headquarters to Kansas City, Missouri in 2011. In 2015, Smith idled its manufacturing and it ceased all operations in 2017. Smith was a manufacturer of the world's largest range of zero-emission commercial electric vehicles, with gross vehicle weights (GVWs) from 3,500 to 12,000 kilograms (7,700 to 26,500 lb). From 2010 to 2015, the company produced over 800 commercial electric fleet vehicles. Formerly based in Washington, Tyne and Wear, it manufactured vehicles for the European, Canadian, Southeast Asian and US markets. Smith was formerly part of the Tanfield Group, which trades on the London Stock Exchange's Alternative Investment Market. Tanfield established a Delaware corporation, Smith Electric Vehicles US Corp (SEV US Corp), in 2009 to penetrate the North American market. The company headquarters is in Kansas City, Missouri. In March 2010, the US company indicated that it wanted to buy out its UK counterpart. After a poor multi-year trading history, Smith's UK branches were shut down. This included Smith Electric Vehicles (Europe), which was put into administration, and Smith Technologies (which entered liquidation).
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