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Pomphorhynchus Laevis
Pomphorhynchus laevis is an endo-parasitic acanthocephalan worm, with a complex life cycle, that can modify the behaviour of its intermediate host, the freshwater amphipod Gammarus pulex. P. laevis does not contain a digestive tract and relies on the nutrients provided by its host species. In the fish host this can lead to the accumulation of lead in P. laevis by feeding on the bile of the host species.
  • 2.1K
  • 21 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Sensation Seeking Scale
The Sensation Seeking Scale is one of the most common psychological instrument for measuring sensation seeking. It was created in 1964 by Marvin Zuckerman, at the University of Delaware. Zuckerman created the scale with the purpose of better understanding personality traits such as neuroticism, antisocial behavior, and psychopathy. This has gone through a few iterations and is currently on its 1978 version: SSS-V. There are 4 different aspects (subscales), which are: Thrill and Adventure Seeking (TAS); Disinhibition (Dis); Experience Seeking (ES); and Boredom Susceptibility (BS). Each subscale contains 10 items, making a total of 40 items. Zuckerman has proposed that these 'traits' come from a psycho-biological interaction.
  • 3.4K
  • 21 Oct 2022
Topic Review
ODEX's Actions Against File-sharing
ODEX's actions against file sharing were Japan copyright owners' pre-action discovery to Singapore Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to request for subscribers details in Singapore who were traced to illegal download activities of their licensed anime series. ODEX is a Singapore-based company that licenses and releases anime for local and regional Southeast Asian consumption. As Japanese copyright owners are located in Japan, ODEX, being holder of the Japanese anime license in Singapore, were appointed to submit legal documents and court proceedings on their behalf in Singapore.
  • 1.5K
  • 21 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Petroleum
Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name petroleum covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crude oil and petroleum products that consist of refined crude oil. A fossil fuel, petroleum is formed when large quantities of dead organisms, mostly zooplankton and algae, are buried underneath sedimentary rock and subjected to both prolonged heat and pressure. Petroleum has mostly been recovered by oil drilling. Drilling is carried out after studies of structural geology, sedimentary basin analysis, and reservoir characterisation. Recent developments in technologies have also led to exploitation of other unconventional reserves such as oil sands and oil shale. Once extracted, oil is refined and separated, most easily by distillation, into numerous products for direct use or use in manufacturing, such as gasoline (petrol), diesel and kerosene to asphalt and chemical reagents used to make plastics, pesticides and pharmaceuticals. Petroleum is used in manufacturing a wide variety of materials, and it is estimated that the world consumes about 100 million barrels (16 million cubic metres) each day. Petroleum production can be extremely profitable and was important for economic development in the 20th century, with some countries, so called "oil states", gaining significant economic and international power because of their control of oil production. Petroleum exploitation has significant negative environmental and social consequences. Most significantly, extraction, refining and burning of petroleum fuels all release large quantities of greenhouse gases, so petroleum is one of the major contributors to climate change. Furthermore, parts of the petroleum industry actively suppressed science and policy that aimed to prevent the climate crisis. Other negative environmental effects include the environmental impacts of exploration and exploitation of petroleum reserves, such as oil spills, and air and water pollution at the sites of utilization. All of these environmental impacts have direct health consequences for humans. Additionally, oil has also been a source of conflict leading to both state-led-wars and other kinds of conflicts (for example, oil revenue funded the Islamic State). Production of petroleum is expected to reach peak oil before 2035 as global economies lower dependencies on petroleum as part of climate change mitigation and a transition towards renewable energy and electrification. This is expected to have significant economic impacts that stakeholders argue need to be anticipated by a just transition and addressing the stranded assets of the petroleum industry.
  • 7.9K
  • 21 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Collective Leadership in the Soviet Union
Collective leadership (Russian: коллективное руководство, kollektivnoye rukovodstvo), or Collectivity of leadership (Russian: коллективность руководства, kollektivnost rukovodstva), was considered the ideal form of governance in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and other socialist states espousing communism. Its main task was to distribute powers and functions among the Politburo and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, as well as the Council of Ministers, to hinder any attempts to create a one-man dominance over the Soviet political system by a Soviet leader, such as that seen under Joseph Stalin 's rule. On the national level, the heart of the collective leadership was officially the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Collective leadership was characterised by limiting the powers of the General Secretary and the Chairman of the Council of Ministers as related to other offices by enhancing the powers of collective bodies, such as the Politburo. Collective leadership was introduced following Stalin's death in 1953 and subsequent party leaders ruled as part of a collective. First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev criticized Stalin's dictatorial rule at the 20th Party Congress, but his increasingly erratic decisions lead to his ouster in 1964. He was replaced in his posts by Leonid Brezhnev as First Secretary and by Alexei Kosygin as Premier. Though Brezhnev gained more and more prominence over his colleagues, he retained the Politburo's support by consulting its members on all policies. Collective leadership was maintained under Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko. Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms espoused open discussion, leading to members of the leadership openly disagreeing on how little or how much reform was needed to rejuvenate the Soviet system.
  • 2.1K
  • 21 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Polynomial Least Squares
In mathematical statistics, polynomial least squares comprises a broad range of statistical methods for estimating an underlying polynomial that describes observations. These methods include polynomial regression, curve fitting, linear regression, least squares, ordinary least squares, simple linear regression, linear least squares, approximation theory and method of moments. Polynomial least squares has applications in radar trackers, estimation theory, signal processing, statistics, and econometrics. Two common applications of polynomial least squares methods are generating a low-degree polynomial that approximates a complicated function and estimating an assumed underlying polynomial from corrupted (also known as "noisy") observations. The former is commonly used in statistics and econometrics to fit a scatter plot with a first degree polynomial (that is, a linear expression). The latter is commonly used in target tracking in the form of Kalman filtering, which is effectively a recursive implementation of polynomial least squares. Estimating an assumed underlying deterministic polynomial can be used in econometrics as well. In effect, both applications produce average curves as generalizations of the common average of a set of numbers, which is equivalent to zero degree polynomial least squares. In the above applications, the term "approximate" is used when no statistical measurement or observation errors are assumed, as when fitting a scatter plot. The term "estimate", derived from statistical estimation theory, is used when assuming that measurements or observations of a polynomial are corrupted.
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  • 21 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Evolutionary Theory of the Self
When trying to understand the self in terms of the brain, neuroscientists have found contradictory results and paradoxes. Nevertheless, Gonzalo Munevar has argued that neuroscience in an evolutionary context can give a proper explanation of the self. His Evolutionary Theory of the Self depends on, “the ability by the brain to coordinate new sensory information in light of the organism’s internal states and in the context of its personal history and genetic inheritance." His theory is an alternative conception for the explanation of the self, which takes into account the evolutionary biology of the brain. Organisms that are highly complex execute the function of telling self from other with the brain and the immune system. To fulfill the function of recognizing self from other, the brain uses past experiences and genetic inheritance (e.g. survival, reproduction). The self is defined by these functions that distinguish an organisms from other organisms, which allow them to act as one whole entity in social and physical environments. Simply put, the theory revolves around the idea that the brain constitutes the self, which represents itself in a variety of internal states. The brain/self evolves for action to be able to interact with social and physical environments. It is suggested that the brain performs a complex list of tasks to complete these interactions to distinguish self from other. This defines the brain to be characteristically distributive to complete complex tasks, and thus suggests that the self is also distributive. Therefore, the Evolutionary Theory of the Self detours from the traditional conceptions that include the self being a centralized, unitary mechanism that is both conscious (sense of self) and compiled of a collection of episodic memories. Alternatively, it suggests that the conception of self is mostly unconscious, and the brain evolves from past experiences and genetic inheritance to create the evolutionary self. In Munevar’s study, “fMRI Study of Self vs. Others’ Attributions of Traits Consistent with Evolutionary Understanding of the Self,” he aimed to demonstrate the experimental feasibility of this conception of the self as a distributive system, and discovered results complimenting the Evolutionary Theory of the Self while resolving the contradictions and paradoxes of traditional conceptions of self.
  • 2.5K
  • 25 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Eye Injury in the 2019–2020 Chilean Protests
The 2019–2020 Chilean protests are characterised by widespread eye injuries, including many globe ruptures ("exploded eyes"), among protesters as result of Chilean riot police's use of "rubber" bullets and tear gas grenades. Data from the National Institute of Human Rights (INDH) shows that the use of "rubber" bullets and pellets by security forces has left at least 1863 injured, including 268 with eye problems. According to the Chilean Ophthalmology Society, this is the highest number of injuries of this type registered during protests or in conflict zones in the world. In late November, security forces announced the suspension of the use of "rubber" pellets as a crowd control method in the protests. The INDH updated figures at the end of January 2020 reporting that 427 persons had received eye injuries at the hands of the police. Almost 90% of the injured are men. As of early January 2020 the age of injured goes from 14 to 59 years, and averages 28 years. UTO, the Ocular Trauma Unit (Spanish: Unidad de Trauma Ocular) of Hospital del Salvador has treated the majority of eye injuries. By November 18 it was estimated that nearly 30% of the cases of eye injury that had occurred in the context of the protests involved "exploded eyes", a trauma for which there is no remedy, and results in complete blindness of the affected eye. Monday October 21 is reported by ophthalmologist Mauricio López as one of the days with most eye injuries, that day Hospital Salvador received twenty cases of which ten alone came in the span of a single hour. The high command of the Chilean police ordered an end to the use of supersock cartridges on October 31. Despite this and other initiatives declared by the high command the number of severe eye injuries in November was about the double as in October. As result of the COVID-19 pandemic in Chile many of the injured have not been able to continue their treatments. In the cases where injured have gone to hospital for treatment and supervision some have had to share rooms with COVID-19 patients. Bandaged eyes had become so common that they become a symbol for protesters. Among protestors the injured are considered "martyrs" and "proof of police brutality". The eyes bandages featuring in the "A Rapist in Your Path" performances are references to the victims that have suffered eye injuries 2019–2020 Chilean protests. Singer-songwriter Nano Stern released the song Regalé mis ojos (lit. "I gave away my eyes") on November 19 paying homage to Gustavo Gatica, who lost both eyes in the protests. Álex Anwandter covered one of his eyes in homage to the injured during the Olmué Festival in January 2020. Anwandter then added that he hoped that "this time, in difference to the [Pinochet] dictatorship, there will be accountability. And the politically responsible, such as Piñera, will pay." During Mon Laferte's show in the Viña del Mar International Song Festival members of her crew covered their eye in reference to the eye injuries. Fabiola Campillai and Gustavo Gatica, two well-known victims, were part of campaign advertising for the "Approve" option in the 2020 Chilean national plebiscite held on October 25.
  • 1.0K
  • 21 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Tarbell Course in Magic
The Tarbell Course in Magic is a notable encyclopedia of magic amongst professional and amateur magicians. It has eight volumes; the first five were part of the original home-study correspondence course compiled in 1928 by Dr. Harlan Tarbell, the remaining three volumes being added on later. This magic volume series was originally designed as a correspondence course for budding magicians. Once they were collected and bound, the series has become an unparalleled reference standard for magicians. In its impact on the magic world, it is second perhaps in its influence on the art of magic only to Hoffman's Modern Magic, and many professional magicians have based their careers on the Tarbell Course.
  • 1.1K
  • 21 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Unmanned Aircraft System Simulation
Unmanned aircraft system simulation focuses on training pilots (or operators) to control an unmanned aircraft or its payload from a control station. Flight simulation involves a device that artificially re-creates aircraft flight and the environment in which it flies for pilot training, design, or other purposes. It includes replicating the equations that govern how aircraft fly, how they react to applications of flight controls, the effects of other aircraft systems, and how the aircraft reacts to external factors such as air density, turbulence, wind shear, cloud, precipitation, etc. Manned simulation is used for a variety of reasons, including flight training (mainly of pilots), the design and development of the aircraft itself, and research into aircraft characteristics and control handling qualities. Unlike manned simulation, unmanned aircraft system (UAS) simulation does not involve a pilot aboard the training device.
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  • 21 Oct 2022
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