Summary

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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Elephant in the Room
Elephant in the room is an English-language metaphorical idiom for an obvious problem or risk that no one wants to discuss. It is based on the idea/thought that something as conspicuous as an elephant can appear to be overlooked in codified social interactions, and that the sociology/psychology of repression also operates on the macro scale.
  • 14.9K
  • 28 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Motor Torpedo Boat
User:RMCD bot/subject notice Motor Torpedo Boat (MTB) was the name given to fast torpedo boats by the Royal Navy and the Royal Canadian Navy. The 'motor' in the formal designation, referring to the use of petrol engines, was to distinguish them from the majority of other naval craft that used steam turbines or reciprocating steam engines. The capitalised term is generally used for the Royal Navy (RN) boats and abbreviated to "MTB". During the Second World War, the US Navy built such craft, identified by the hull classification symbol "PT", for "Patrol, Torpedo". German motor torpedo boats of the Second World War were called S-boote (Schnellboote, "fast boats") by the Kriegsmarine and "E-boats" by the Allies. Italian MTBs of this period were known as Motoscafo Armato Silurante ("MAS boats", torpedo armed motorboats). French MTBs were known as vedettes lance torpilles ("torpedo-launching fast boats"). Soviet MTBs were known as торпедные катеры (torpyedniye katyery; "torpedo cutters", often abbreviated as TKA). Romanian MTBs were known as vedete torpiloare ("torpedo fast boats"). After the end of the War in 1945, a number of the Royal Navy's MTBs were stripped and the empty hulls sold for use as houseboats.
  • 2.6K
  • 28 Oct 2022
Topic Review
The Clouds
The Clouds (Ancient Greek: Nephelai) is a Greek comedy play written by the playwright Aristophanes. A lampooning of intellectual fashions in classical Athens, it was originally produced at the City Dionysia in 423 BC and was not as well received as the author had hoped, coming last of the three plays competing at the festival that year. It was revised between 420 and 417 BC and was thereafter circulated in manuscript form. No copy of the original production survives, and scholarly analysis indicates that the revised version is an incomplete form of Old Comedy. This incompleteness, however, is not obvious in translations and modern performances. Retrospectively, The Clouds can be considered the world's first extant "comedy of ideas" and is considered by literary critics to be among the finest examples of the genre. The play also, however, remains notorious for its caricature of Socrates and is mentioned in Plato's Apology as a contributor to the philosopher's trial and execution.
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  • 28 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Context of Computational Complexity
In computational complexity theory and analysis of algorithms, a number of metrics are defined describing the resources, such as time or space, that a machine needs to solve a particular problem. Interpreting these metrics meaningfully requires context, and this context is frequently implicit and depends on the field and the problem under consideration. This article describes a number of important pieces of context and how they affect metrics.
  • 751
  • 28 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Chu (Daoism)
Chu (廚, lit. "kitchen") is a Daoist name used for various religious practices including communal chu (Kitchen) banquet rituals in Way of the Celestial Masters liturgy, the legendary xingchu (行廚, Mobile Kitchen) associated with Daoist xian ("transcendents; 'immortals'"), and wuchu (五廚, Five Kitchens) representing the wuzang (五臟, Five Viscera) in neidan meditation techniques.
  • 720
  • 28 Oct 2022
Topic Review
G-Factor
A g-factor (also called g value or dimensionless magnetic moment) is a dimensionless quantity that characterizes the magnetic moment and angular momentum of an atom, a particle or the nucleus. It is essentially a proportionality constant that relates the different observed magnetic moments μ of a particle to their angular momentum quantum numbers and a unit of magnetic moment (to make it dimensionless), usually the Bohr magneton or nuclear magneton.
  • 5.3K
  • 28 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Baby Bonus
A baby bonus is a government payment to parents of a newborn baby or adopted child to assist with the costs of childrearing.
  • 2.6K
  • 28 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Astrophysics Data System
The SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) is an online database of over 16 million astronomy and physics papers from both peer reviewed and non-peer reviewed sources. Abstracts are available free online for almost all articles, and full scanned articles are available in Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) and Portable Document Format (PDF) for older articles. It was developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and is managed by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. ADS is a powerful research tool and has had a significant impact on the efficiency of astronomical research since it was launched in 1992. Literature searches that previously would have taken days or weeks can now be carried out in seconds via the ADS search engine, which is custom-built for astronomical needs. Studies have found that the benefit to astronomy of the ADS is equivalent to several hundred million US dollars annually, and the system is estimated to have tripled the readership of astronomical journals. Use of ADS is almost universal among astronomers worldwide, and therefore ADS usage statistics can be used to analyze global trends in astronomical research. These studies have revealed that the amount of research an astronomer carries out is related to the per capita gross domestic product (GDP) of the country in which he/she is based, and that the number of astronomers in a country is proportional to the GDP of that country, so the total amount of research done in a country is proportional to the square of its GDP divided by its population.
  • 1.7K
  • 28 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Regularization
In physics, especially quantum field theory, regularization is a method of modifying observables which have singularities in order to make them finite by the introduction of a suitable parameter called the regulator. The regulator, also known as a "cutoff", models our lack of knowledge about physics at unobserved scales (e.g. scales of small size or large energy levels). It compensates for (and requires) the possibility that "new physics" may be discovered at those scales which the present theory is unable to model, while enabling the current theory to give accurate predictions as an "effective theory" within its intended scale of use. It is distinct from renormalization, another technique to control infinities without assuming new physics, by adjusting for self-interaction feedback. Regularization was for many decades controversial even amongst its inventors, as it combines physical and epistemological claims into the same equations. However, it is now well understood and has proven to yield useful, accurate predictions.
  • 1.5K
  • 28 Oct 2022
Topic Review
WRKY Transcription Factor
The WRKY transcription factor family (pronounced ‘worky’) is a class of DNA-binding proteins. WRKY transcription factors are primarily specific to plants and algae (Viridiplantae); although, individual WRKY proteins do appear in the human protozoan parasite Giardia lamblia and slime mold Dictyostelium discoideum. These transcription factors recognize a (T/A)TGAC(T/A) cis-regulatory element, also known as a W-box, in the promoters of target genes. WRKY transcription factors play a major role in plant defense to abiotic and biotic stresses, but also contribute to plant development and secondary metabolism. These roles are governed by an ever increasingly complex network of interactions with other DNA-binding and non-DNA-binding proteins.
  • 1.5K
  • 28 Oct 2022
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