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History of South Asian Domes
Islamic rule over northern and central India brought with it the use of domes constructed with stone, brick and mortar, and iron dowels and cramps. Centering was made from timber and bamboo. The use of iron cramps to join together adjacent stones was known in pre-Islamic India, and was used at the base of domes for hoop reinforcement. The synthesis of styles created by this introduction of new forms to the Hindu tradition of trabeate construction created a distinctive architecture. Domes in pre-Mughal India have a standard squat circular shape with a lotus design and bulbous finial at the top, derived from Hindu architecture. Because the Hindu architectural tradition did not include arches, flat corbels were used to transition from the corners of the room to the dome, rather than squinches. In contrast to Persian and Ottoman domes, the domes of Indian tombs tend to be more bulbous.
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  • 20 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Refractometer
A refractometer is a laboratory or field device for the measurement of an index of refraction (refractometry). The index of refraction is calculated from the observed refraction angle using Snell's law. For mixtures, the index of refraction then allows to determine the concentration using mixing rules such as the Gladstone–Dale relation and Lorentz–Lorenz equation.
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  • 20 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Coherent States
In physics, specifically in quantum mechanics, a coherent state is the specific quantum state of the quantum harmonic oscillator, often described as a state which has dynamics most closely resembling the oscillatory behavior of a classical harmonic oscillator. It was the first example of quantum dynamics when Erwin Schrödinger derived it in 1926, while searching for solutions of the Schrödinger equation that satisfy the correspondence principle. The quantum harmonic oscillator and hence, the coherent states arise in the quantum theory of a wide range of physical systems. For instance, a coherent state describes the oscillating motion of a particle confined in a quadratic potential well (for an early reference, see e.g. Schiff's textbook). The coherent state describes a state in a system for which the ground-state wavepacket is displaced from the origin of the system. This state can be related to classical solutions by a particle oscillating with an amplitude equivalent to the displacement. These states, expressed as eigenvectors of the lowering operator and forming an overcomplete family, were introduced in the early papers of John R. Klauder, e.g. . In the quantum theory of light (quantum electrodynamics) and other bosonic quantum field theories, coherent states were introduced by the work of Roy J. Glauber in 1963. The concept of coherent states has been considerably abstracted; it has become a major topic in mathematical physics and in applied mathematics, with applications ranging from quantization to signal processing and image processing (see Coherent states in mathematical physics). For this reason, the coherent states associated to the quantum harmonic oscillator are sometimes referred to as canonical coherent states (CCS), standard coherent states, Gaussian states, or oscillator states.
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  • 20 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Longitudinal Static Stability
In flight dynamics, longitudinal static stability is the stability of an aircraft in the longitudinal, or pitching, plane under steady flight conditions. This characteristic is important in determining whether a human pilot will be able to control the aircraft in the pitching plane without requiring excessive attention or excessive strength.
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  • 20 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Reading (Process)
User:RMCD bot/subject notice Reading is a complex "cognitive process" of decoding symbols in order to construct or derive meaning (reading comprehension). Reading is a means of language acquisition, communication, and of sharing information and ideas. The symbols are typically visual (written or printed) but may be tactile (Braille). Like all languages, it is a complex interaction between the text and the reader which is shaped by the reader’s prior knowledge, experiences, attitude, and language community which is culturally and socially situated. The reading process requires continuous practice, development, and refinement. In addition, reading requires creativity and critical analysis. Consumers of literature make ventures with each piece, innately deviating from literal words to create images that make sense to them in the unfamiliar places the texts describe. Because reading is such a complex process, it cannot be controlled or restricted to one or two interpretations. There are no concrete laws in reading, but rather it allows readers an escape to produce their own products introspectively. This promotes deep exploration of texts during interpretation. Readers use a variety of reading strategies to assist with decoding (to translate symbols into sounds or visual representations of speech) and comprehension. Readers may use context clues to identify the meaning of unknown words. Readers integrate the words they have read into their existing framework of knowledge or schema. Other types of reading are not speech based writing systems, such as music notation or pictograms. The common link is the interpretation of symbols to extract the meaning from the visual notations or tactile signals (as in the case of Braille).
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  • 20 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Anesthesiologist Assistant
In the United States , anesthesiologist assistants - known in full as certified anesthesiologist assistants - are master's degree prepared clinicians that practice medicine under the direction of licensed anesthesiologists to implement anesthesia care plans for a patient undergoing surgery. CAAs are integral members of the anesthesia care team as described by the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA). All CAAs possess a baccalaureate degree (in any field with a major focus on pre med sciences), and complete an intensive didactic and clinical program at a postgraduate level. CAAs are trained in the delivery and maintenance of all types of anesthesia care as well as advanced patient monitoring techniques under the direction of a physician anesthesiologist. The goal of CAA education is to guide the transformation of student applicants into competent clinicians who aspire to practice in the anesthesia care team.
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  • 20 Oct 2022
Topic Review
High Energy Nuclear Physics
High-energy nuclear physics studies the behaviour of nuclear matter in energy regimes typical of high energy physics. The primary focus of this field is the study of heavy-ion collisions, as compared to lower atomic mass atoms in other particle accelerators. At sufficient collision energies, these types of collisions are theorized to produce the quark–gluon plasma. In peripheral nuclear collisions at high energies one expects to obtain information on the electromagnetic production of leptons and mesons which are not accessible in electron-positron colliders due to their much smaller luminosities. Previous high-energy nuclear accelerator experiments have studied heavy-ion collisions using projectile energies of 1 GeV/nucleon up to 158 GeV/nucleon. Experiments of this type, called "fixed target" experiments, primarily accelerate a "bunch" of ions (typically around [math]\displaystyle{ 10^6 }[/math] to [math]\displaystyle{ 10^8 }[/math] ions per bunch) to speeds approaching the speed of light (0.999c) and smash them into a target of similar heavy ions. While all collision systems are interesting, great focus was applied in the late 1990s to symmetric collision systems of gold beams on gold targets at Brookhaven National Laboratory's Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS) and uranium beams on uranium targets at CERN's Super Proton Synchrotron. Currently, high-energy nuclear physics experiments are being conducted at Brookhaven National Laboratory's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and in CERN's new Large Hadron Collider. The four primary experiments at RHIC (PHENIX, STAR, PHOBOS, and BRAHMS) study collisions of highly relativistic nuclei. Unlike fixed target experiments, collider experiments steer two accelerated beams of ions toward each other at (in the case of RHIC) six interaction regions. At RHIC, ions can be accelerated (depending on the ion size) from 100 GeV/nucleon to 250GeV/nucleon. Since each colliding ion possesses this energy moving in opposite directions, the maximum energy of the collisions can achieve a center of mass collision energy of 200GeV/nucleon for gold and 500GeV/nucleon for protons. The ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment) detector at the LHC at CERN is specialized in studying Pb-Pb nuclei collisions at a centre of mass energy of 2.76 TeV per nucleon pair. Other LHC detectors like CMS, ATLAS, and LHCb also have heavy ion programs.
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  • 20 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Calibre
Calibre (/ˈkælɪbər/, stylised calibre) is a cross-platform free and open-source suite of e-book software. Calibre supports organizing existing e-books into virtual libraries, displaying, editing, creating and converting e-books, as well as syncing e-books with a variety of e-readers. Editing books is supported for EPUB and AZW3 formats. Books in other formats like MOBI must first be converted to those formats, if they are to be edited.
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  • 20 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Sex-Chromosome Dosage Compensation
Dosage compensation is the process by which organisms equalize the expression of genes between members of different biological sexes. Across species, different sexes are often characterized by different types and numbers of sex chromosomes. In order to neutralize the large difference in gene dosage produced by differing numbers of sex chromosomes among the sexes, various evolutionary branches have acquired various methods to equalize gene expression among the sexes. Because sex chromosomes contain different numbers of genes, different species of organisms have developed different mechanisms to cope with this inequality. Replicating the actual gene is impossible; thus organisms instead equalize the expression from each gene. For example, in humans, females (XX) silence the transcription of one X chromosome of each pair, and transcribe all information from the other, expressed X chromosome. Thus, human females have the same number of expressed X-linked genes as do human males (XY), both sexes having essentially one X chromosome per cell, from which to transcribe and express genes. There are three main mechanisms of achieving dosage compensation which are widely documented in the literature and which are common to most species. These include random inactivation of one female X chromosome (as observed in Mus musculus; this is called X-inactivation), a two-fold increase in the transcription of a single male X chromosome (as observed in Drosophila melanogaster), and decreased transcription by half in both of the X chromosomes of a hermaphroditic organism (as observed in Caenorhabditis elegans). These mechanisms have been widely studied and manipulated in model organisms commonly used in the laboratory research setting. A summary of these forms of dosage compensation is illustrated below. However, there are also other less common forms of dosage compensation, which are not as widely researched and are sometimes specific to only one species (as observed in certain bird and monotreme species).
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  • 20 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Osmium-162
Osmium (76Os) has seven naturally occurring isotopes, five of which are stable: 187Os, 188Os, 189Os, 190Os, and (most abundant) 192Os. The other natural isotopes, 184Os, and 186Os, have extremely long half-life (1.12×1013 years and 2×1015 years, respectively) and for practical purposes can be considered to be stable as well. 187Os is the daughter of 187Re (half-life 4.56×1010 years) and is most often measured in an 187Os/188Os ratio. This ratio, as well as the 187Re/188Os ratio, have been used extensively in dating terrestrial as well as meteoric rocks. It has also been used to measure the intensity of continental weathering over geologic time and to fix minimum ages for stabilization of the mantle roots of continental cratons. However, the most notable application of Os in dating has been in conjunction with iridium, to analyze the layer of shocked quartz along the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary that marks the extinction of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. There are also 30 artificial radioisotopes, the longest-lived of which is 194Os with a half-life of six years; all others have half-lives under 94 days. There are also nine known nuclear isomers, the longest-lived of which is 191mOs with a half-life of 13.10 hours. All isotopes and nuclear isomers of osmium are either radioactive or observationally stable, meaning that they are predicted to be radioactive but no actual decay has been observed.
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