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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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Congressional Research Service Reports
Reports by the Congressional Research Service, usually referred to as CRS Reports, are the encyclopedic research reports written to clearly define issues in a legislative context. Over 700 new CRS reports are produced each year; almost 4,000 exist. The types of CRS reports include Issue Briefs (IB), Research Memos (RM), and Reports, which appear in both Short (RS) and Long (RL) formats.
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  • 27 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Tapas (Indian Religions)
Tapas (Sanskrit: तपस्) is a variety of austere spiritual meditation practices in Indian religions. In Jainism, it means asceticism (austerities, body mortification); in Buddhism, it denotes spiritual practices including meditation and self-discipline; and in the different traditions within Hinduism it means a spectrum of practices ranging from asceticism, inner cleansing to self-discipline by meditation practices. The Tapas practice often involves solitude, and is a part of monastic practices that are believed to be a means to moksha (liberation, salvation). In the Vedas literature of Hinduism, fusion words based on tapas are widely used to expound several spiritual concepts that develop through heat or inner energy, such as meditation, any process to reach special observations and insights, the spiritual ecstasy of a yogin or Tāpasa (a vṛddhi derivative meaning "a practitioner of austerities, an ascetic"), even warmth of sexual intimacy. In certain contexts, the term means penance, pious activity, as well as severe meditation.
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  • 27 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Group on Earth Observations
The Group on Earth Observations (or GEO) coordinates international efforts to build a Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). It links existing and planned Earth observation systems and supports the development of new ones in cases of perceived gaps in the supply of environment-related information. It aims to construct a global public infrastructure for Earth observations consisting in a flexible and distributed network of systems and content providers.
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  • 27 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Maya
Maya (/ˈmɑːjə/; Devanagari: माया, IAST: māyā), literally "illusion" or "magic", has multiple meanings in Indian philosophies depending on the context. In later Vedic texts, māyā connotes a "magic show, an illusion where things appear to be present but are not what they seem"; the principle which shows "attributeless Absolute" as having "attributes". Māyā also connotes that which "is constantly changing and thus is spiritually unreal" (in opposition to an unchanging Absolute, or Brahman), and therefore "conceals the true character of spiritual reality". In the Advaita Vedanta school of Hindu philosophy, māyā, "appearance", is "the powerful force that creates the cosmic illusion that the phenomenal world is real." In this nondualist school, māyā at the individual level appears as the lack of knowledge (avidyā) of the real Self, Atman-Brahman, mistakingly identifying with the body-mind complex and its entanglements. In Hinduism, māyā is also an epithet for goddess Lakshmi, and the name of a manifestation of Lakshmi, the goddess of "wealth, prosperity and love". In Buddhist philosophy, Māyā is invoked as one of twenty subsidiary unwholesome mental factors, responsible for deceit or concealment about the nature of things. Maya is also the name of Gautama Buddha's mother.
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  • 27 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Enterprise Architect
Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is a visual modeling and design tool based on the OMG UML. The platform supports: the design and construction of software systems; modeling business processes; and modeling industry based domains. It is used by businesses and organizations to not only model the architecture of their systems, but to process the implementation of these models across the full application development life-cycle.
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  • 27 Oct 2022
Topic Review
EncFS
EncFS is a Free (LGPL) FUSE-based cryptographic filesystem. It transparently encrypts files, using an arbitrary directory as storage for the encrypted files. Two directories are involved in mounting an EncFS filesystem: the source directory, and the mountpoint. Each file in the mountpoint has a specific file in the source directory that corresponds to it. The file in the mountpoint provides the unencrypted view of the one in the source directory. Filenames are encrypted in the source directory. Files are encrypted using a volume key, which is stored either within or outside the encrypted source directory. A password is used to decrypt this key.
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  • 27 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Middle East Respiratory Syndrome–related Coronavirus
Middle East respiratory syndrome–related coronavirus (MERS-CoV), or EMC/2012 (HCoV-EMC/2012), is the virus that causes Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). It is a species of coronavirus which infects humans, bats, and camels. The infecting virus is an enveloped, positive-sense, single-stranded RNA virus which enters its host cell by binding to the DPP4 receptor. The species is a member of the genus Betacoronavirus and subgenus Merbecovirus. Initially called simply novel coronavirus or nCoV, it was first reported in June 2012 after genome sequencing of a virus isolated from sputum samples from a person who fell ill in a 2012 outbreak of a new flu-like respiratory illness. By July 2015, MERS-CoV cases had been reported in over 21 countries, in Europe, North America and Asia as well as the Middle East. MERS-CoV is one of several viruses identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a likely cause of a future epidemic. They list it for urgent research and development.
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  • 27 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Flat Twin Engine
A flat-twin is a two-cylinder internal combustion engine with the cylinders on opposite sides of the crankshaft. It is a flat engine with two cylinders. Used in motorcycles for more than a century, flat-twins have also been used in automobiles, light aircraft, stationary powerplants, and household appliances. Early flat-twin motorcycles' engines were mounted with the cylinders in line with the frame. This caused uneven cooling of the cylinders and required the motorcycle to have a long wheelbase. Later flat-twin motorcycles' engines were mounted with their cylinders across the frame for better air cooling and a shorter wheelbase. Disadvantages of this layout include torque reaction in the motorcycle in turns and the potential to damage cylinder heads.
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  • 27 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Satellite Geolocation
Satellite geolocation is the process of locating the origin of a signal appearing on a satellite communication channel. Typically, this process is used to mitigate interference on communication satellites. Usually, these interference signals are caused by human error or equipment failure, but can also be caused by deliberate jamming. Identifying the geographical location of an interfering signal informs the mitigation activity.
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  • 31 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Plasma Medicine
Plasma medicine is an emerging field that combines plasma physics, life sciences and clinical medicine. It is being studied in disinfection, healing, and cancer. Most of the research is in vitro and in animal models. It uses ionized gas (physical plasma) for medical uses or dental applications. Plasma, often called the fourth state of matter, is an ionized gas containing positive ions and negative ions or electrons, but is approximately charge neutral on the whole. The plasma sources used for plasma medicine are generally low temperature plasmas, and they generate ions, chemically reactive atoms and molecules, and UV-photons. These plasma-generated active species are useful for several bio-medical applications such as sterilization of implants and surgical instruments as well as modifying biomaterial surface properties. Sensitive applications of plasma, like subjecting human body or internal organs to plasma treatment for medical purposes, are also possible. This possibility is being heavily investigated by research groups worldwide under the highly-interdisciplinary research field called 'plasma medicine'.
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