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Object-Relational Impedance Mismatch
The object-relational impedance mismatch is a set of conceptual and technical difficulties that are often encountered when a relational database management system (RDBMS) is being served by an application program (or multiple application programs) written in an object-oriented programming language or style, particularly because objects or class definitions must be mapped to database tables defined by a relational schema. The term object-relational impedance mismatch is derived from the electrical engineering term impedance matching.
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  • 19 Oct 2022
Topic Review
The All
The All (also called The One, The Absolute, The Great One, The Creator, The Supreme Mind, The Supreme Good, The Father, and The All Mother) is the Hermetic, pantheistic, pandeistic or panentheistic (and thus also panpsychism/monopsychism/unus mundus/anima mundi) view of God, which is that everything that is, or at least that can be experienced, collectively makes up The All. One Hermetic maxim states, "While All is in The All, it is equally true that The All is in All." The All can also be seen to be androgynous, possessing both masculine and feminine qualities in equal part.
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  • 18 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Lockheed Martin CFR
The Lockheed Martin Compact Fusion Reactor (CFR) is a proposed nuclear fusion reactor project at Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works. Its high-beta configuration, which implies that the ratio of plasma pressure to magnetic pressure is greater than or equal to 1 (compared to tokamak designs' 0.05), allows a compact fusion reactor (CFR) design and expedited development. The CFR chief designer and technical team lead, Thomas McGuire studied fusion as a source of space propulsion in response to a NASA desire to improve travel times to Mars.
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  • 18 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Stock Selection Criterion
Stock selection criteria or stock picking is a multi-method technique for investing when specifically dealing with stocks (equity markets). The stock investment or position can be "long" (bought) (to benefit from a stock price increase) or "short" (sold) (to benefit from a decrease in a stock's price), depending on the investor or financial professional's expectation of how the stock price is going to move. The stock selection criteria may include systematic stock picking methods that utilize computer software and/or data.
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  • 18 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Heatable Glass
Electrically heatable glass and windows are relatively new products, which help solve problems in the design of buildings and vehicles. The idea of heating glass is based on the use of energy-efficient low-emissive glass, which is generally simple silicate glass with a special metallic oxides coating. Low-emissive coating decreases heat loss by approximately 30%. Heatable glass can be used in all kinds of standard glazing systems, whether wood, plastic, aluminum or steel. Heatable glass based on low-emissive coatings was first produced in high volume in the early 1980s. Today, heating glass is used in the construction of many kinds of buildings and in mass production of vehicles, ships and trains. Heatable glass removes discomfort and other disadvantages induced by the low heat-insulating features of silicate glass. The effect of “cold glass” disappears when the surface of the glass is heated. Condensation is eliminated, along with ice and snow covering, the window’s heat losses are compensated and room comfort is improved. Heatable glass can be used as the principal system of heating and can be combined with floor and ceiling heating. Such combination helps reduce the total rate of heat loss of the building, thereby lowering heating expenses. Also, the active area of the room can be used more efficiently, as massive window-sill radiators are not needed. Initially, heating glass was produced by sputtering ordinary glass, and stable quality could not be guaranteed. A technological breakthrough took place in 1989 when the mass production of low-emissive glass began. The glass was coated during the manufacturing process.
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  • 18 Oct 2022
Topic Review
2015 Cash for Vote Scam
The 2015 cash-for-votes scam was a political scandal, the second scandal of its kind since the 2008 cash-for-votes scandal. The 2015 political scandal started off when the Telugu Desam Party Leaders of Telangana state were caught in a video footage, aired in the media, offering bribes to a nominated MLA for his vote in the 2015 elections of the Telangana Legislative Council. The Telugu Desam MLA Revanth Reddy was arrested by the Telangana Police when he was offering Rs. 50 lakhs to the nominated MLA Elvis Stephenson. Reddy was then presented before the court of justice and sent to jail. Similarly, the phone conversation, which was quoted as the voice of N. Chandrababu Naidu, the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, with the same nominated MLA was aired in the news media. The Telugu Desam party alleged that the scandal, was a political vendetta, doctored by the Telangana State Government under the direction of K. Chandrashekhar Rao, the Chief Minister of Telangana, alongside the YSR Congress Party. In a further development, The High Court of Judicature at Hyderabad for the States of Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana, granted bail to Revanth Reddy and two other co-accused due to lack of substantial evidence.
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  • 18 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Anchoring
Anchoring or focalism is a cognitive bias where an individual depends too heavily on an initial piece of information offered (considered to be the "anchor") when making decisions. Anchoring occurs when, during decision making, an individual depends on an initial piece of information to make subsequent judgments. Those objects near the anchor tend to be assimilated toward it and those further away tend to be displaced in the other direction. Once the value of this anchor is set, all future negotiations, arguments, estimates, etc. are discussed in relation to the anchor. This bias occurs when interpreting future information using this anchor. For example, the initial price offered for a used car, set either before or at the start of negotiations, sets an arbitrary focal point for all following discussions. Prices discussed in negotiations that are lower than the anchor may seem reasonable, perhaps even cheap to the buyer, even if said prices are still relatively higher than the actual market value of the car. The original description of the anchoring effect came from psychophysics. When judging stimuli along a continuum, it was noticed that the first and last stimuli were used to compare the other stimuli (this is also referred to as "end anchoring". This was applied to attitudes by Sherif et al. in 1958 in their article "Assimilation and contrast effects of anchoring stimuli on judgments".
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  • 18 Oct 2022
Topic Review
History of Life
The history of life on Earth traces the processes by which living and fossil organisms evolved, from the earliest emergence of life to the present day. Earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago (abbreviated as Ga, for gigaannum) and evidence suggests that life emerged prior to 3.7 Ga. Although there is some evidence of life as early as 4.1 to 4.28 Ga, it remains controversial due to the possible non-biological formation of the purported fossils. The similarities among all known present-day species indicate that they have diverged through the process of evolution from a common ancestor. Only a very small percentage of species have been identified: one estimate claims that Earth may have 1 trillion species. However, only 1.75–1.8 million have been named and 1.8 million documented in a central database. These currently living species represent less than one percent of all species that have ever lived on Earth. The earliest evidence of life comes from biogenic carbon signatures and stromatolite fossils discovered in 3.7 billion-year-old metasedimentary rocks from western Greenland. In 2015, possible "remains of biotic life" were found in 4.1 billion-year-old rocks in Western Australia. In March 2017, putative evidence of possibly the oldest forms of life on Earth was reported in the form of fossilized microorganisms discovered in hydrothermal vent precipitates in the Nuvvuagittuq Belt of Quebec, Canada, that may have lived as early as 4.28 billion years ago, not long after the oceans formed 4.4 billion years ago, and not long after the formation of the Earth 4.54 billion years ago. Microbial mats of coexisting bacteria and archaea were the dominant form of life in the early Archean Epoch and many of the major steps in early evolution are thought to have taken place in this environment. The evolution of photosynthesis, around 3.5 Ga, eventually led to a buildup of its waste product, oxygen, in the atmosphere, leading to the great oxygenation event, beginning around 2.4 Ga. The earliest evidence of eukaryotes (complex cells with organelles) dates from 1.85 Ga, and while they may have been present earlier, their diversification accelerated when they started using oxygen in their metabolism. Later, around 1.7 Ga, multicellular organisms began to appear, with differentiated cells performing specialised functions. Sexual reproduction, which involves the fusion of male and female reproductive cells (gametes) to create a zygote in a process called fertilization is, in contrast to asexual reproduction, the primary method of reproduction for the vast majority of macroscopic organisms, including almost all eukaryotes (which includes animals and plants). However the origin and evolution of sexual reproduction remain a puzzle for biologists though it did evolve from a common ancestor that was a single celled eukaryotic species. Bilateria, animals having a left and a right side that are mirror images of each other, appeared by 555 Ma (million years ago). Algae-like multicellular land plants are dated back even to about 1 billion years ago, although evidence suggests that microorganisms formed the earliest terrestrial ecosystems, at least 2.7 Ga. Microorganisms are thought to have paved the way for the inception of land plants in the Ordovician period. Land plants were so successful that they are thought to have contributed to the Late Devonian extinction event. (The long causal chain implied seems to involve the success of early tree archaeopteris (1) drew down CO2 levels, leading to global cooling and lowered sea levels, (2) roots of archeopteris fostered soil development which increased rock weathering, and the subsequent nutrient run-off may have triggered algal blooms resulting in anoxic events which caused marine-life die-offs. Marine species were the primary victims of the Late Devonian extinction.) Ediacara biota appear during the Ediacaran period, while vertebrates, along with most other modern phyla originated about 525 Ma during the Cambrian explosion. During the Permian period, synapsids, including the ancestors of mammals, dominated the land, but most of this group became extinct in the Permian–Triassic extinction event 252 Ma. During the recovery from this catastrophe, archosaurs became the most abundant land vertebrates; one archosaur group, the dinosaurs, dominated the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. After the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event 66 Ma killed off the non-avian dinosaurs, mammals increased rapidly in size and diversity. Such mass extinctions may have accelerated evolution by providing opportunities for new groups of organisms to diversify.
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  • 18 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Raksha Bandhan
Raksha Bandhan, also Rakshabandhan, or Rakhi, is a popular, traditionally Hindu, annual rite, or ceremony, which is central to a festival of the same name, celebrated in parts of South Asia, and among people influenced by South Asian culture around the world. On this day, sisters of all ages tie a talisman, or amulet, called the rakhi, around the wrists of their brothers, symbolically protecting them, receiving a gift in return, and traditionally investing the brothers with a share of the responsibility of their potential care. Raksha Bandhan is observed on the last day of the Hindu lunar calendar month of Shraavana, which typically falls in August. The expression "Raksha Bandhan," Sanskrit, literally, "the bond of protection, obligation, or care," is now principally applied to this ritual. Until the mid-20th-century, the expression was more commonly applied to a similar ritual, also held on the same day, with precedence in ancient Hindu texts, in which a domestic priest ties amulets, charms, or threads on the wrists of his patrons, or changes their sacred thread, and receives gifts of money; in some places, this is still the case. In contrast, the sister-brother festival, with origins in folk culture, had names which varied with location, with some rendered as Saluno, Silono, and Rakri. A ritual associated with Saluno included the sisters placing shoots of barley behind the ears of their brothers. Of special significance to married women, Raksha Bandhan is rooted in the practice of territorial or village exogamy, in which a bride marries out of her natal village or town, and her parents, by custom, do not visit her in her married home. In rural north India, where village exogamy is strongly prevalent, large numbers of married Hindu women travel back to their parents' homes every year for the ceremony. Their brothers, who typically live with the parents or nearby, sometimes travel to their sisters' married home to escort them back. Many younger married women arrive a few weeks earlier at their natal homes and stay until the ceremony. The brothers serve as lifelong intermediaries between their sisters' married and parental homes, as well as potential stewards of their security. In urban India, where families are increasingly nuclear, the festival has become more symbolic, but continues to be highly popular. The rituals associated with this festival have spread beyond their traditional regions and have been transformed through technology and migration, the movies, social interaction, and promotion by politicized Hinduism, as well as by the nation state. Among women and men who are not blood relatives, there is also a transformed tradition of voluntary kin relations, achieved through the tying of rakhi amulets, which have cut across caste and class lines, and Hindu and Muslim divisions. In some communities or contexts, other figures, such as a matriarch, or a person in authority, can be included in the ceremony in ritual acknowledgement of their benefaction.
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  • 18 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Mediterranean U-boat Campaign (World War I)
Script error: No such module "Infobox military conflict". The Mediterranean U-boat Campaign in the Mediterranean Sea was fought by Austria-Hungary and German Empire (with some support by the Ottoman Empire) against the Allies during World War I. It was characterised by the ability of the Central Powers to raid with near impunity during the first years of the war, causing substantial shipping losses, until the introduction of the convoy system allowed the Allies to drastically cut their losses from 1917 on.
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  • 18 Oct 2022
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