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.

Expand All
Entries
Topic Review
Sinkhole
A sinkhole, also known as a cenote, sink, sink-hole, swallet, swallow hole, or doline (the different terms for sinkholes are often used interchangeably), is a depression or hole in the ground caused by some form of collapse of the surface layer. Most are caused by karst processes – the chemical dissolution of carbonate rocks or suffosion processes. Sinkholes vary in size from 1 to 600 m (3.3 to 2,000 ft) both in diameter and depth, and vary in form from soil-lined bowls to bedrock-edged chasms. Sinkholes may form gradually or suddenly, and are found worldwide.
  • 4.5K
  • 11 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Organization Workshop
The Organization workshop (OW) – or "Laboratorio Organizacional" (LO) in both Portuguese and Spanish – is a CHAT-based learning event where participants master new organizational as well as social knowledge and skills through a learning-by-doing approach. It is aimed at large groups of unemployed and underemployed, a large number of whom sometimes may be persons with lower levels of education (LLEs). The OW addresses locally identified problems which can only be solved by collaborating groups. During a Workshop participants form a temporary enterprise which they themselves manage, an enterprise which contracts to do work at market rates. Once the workshop temporary enterprise is over, organizational, management and vocational skills gained can be used to form new businesses or social enterprises. The creator of the OW is the Brazilian sociologist Clodomir Santos de Morais. The main elements of the workshop are a large group of people (stipulated originally by de Morais as "minimum 40, with no upper limit" the freedom to organize themselves within the law and all necessary resources in the hands of the group. de Morais' OW guidelines, originally distributed in mimeographed form, were (re)printed in several countries, languages and formats (including popular cartoon) over the years. The text was first translated into English by Ian Cherrett for use in anglophone Africa.
  • 830
  • 11 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Will
Will, generally, is a faculty of the mind - within philosophy, will is important as one of the parts of the mind, along with reason and understanding. It is considered central to the field of ethics because of its role in enabling deliberate action. One of the recurring questions discussed in the Western philosophical tradition is that of free will - and the related, but more general notion of fate - which asks how the will can be truly free if a person's actions have either natural or divine causes which determine them. In turn, this is directly connected to discussions on the nature of freedom and to the problem of evil.
  • 5.0K
  • 11 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Herbalism
Herbalism (also herbal medicine) is the study of botany and use of plants intended for medicinal purposes. Plants have been the basis for medical treatments through much of human history, and such traditional medicine is still widely practiced today. Modern medicine makes use of many plant-derived compounds as the basis for evidence-based pharmaceutical drugs. Although phytotherapy may apply modern standards of effectiveness testing to herbs and medicines derived from natural sources, few high-quality clinical trials and standards for purity or dosage exist. The scope of herbal medicine is sometimes extended to include fungal and bee products, as well as minerals, shells and certain animal parts. The term, phytomedicine, may also refer to the science of pathology and damage to plants, the causes thereof, their manifestations, development, dissemination, methods for maintaining plant health, and measures used to control plant diseases and their causes. Herbal medicine is sometimes also used to refer to paraherbalism or phytotherapy, which is the alternative and pseudoscientific practice of using of extracts of plant or animal origin as supposed medicines or health-promoting agents. Phytotherapy differs from plant-derived medicines in standard pharmacology because it does not isolate and standardize the compounds from a given plant believed to be biologically active. It relies on the false belief that preserving the complexity of substances from a given plant with less processing is safer and potentially more effective. There is no evidence that either condition applies. Herbal dietary supplements most often fall under this category.
  • 4.3K
  • 11 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Drug-resistant Streptococcus Pneumoniae
A pneumococcal infection is an infection caused by the bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae, which is also called the pneumococcus. S. pneumoniae is a common member of the bacterial flora colonizing the nose and throat of 5–10% of healthy adults and 20–40% of healthy children. However, it is also a cause of significant disease, being a leading cause of pneumonia, bacterial meningitis, and sepsis. The World Health Organization estimates that in 2005 pneumococcal infections were responsible for the death of 1.6 million children worldwide.
  • 652
  • 11 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Stage-Crisis View
The stage-crisis view is a theory of adult development that was established by Daniel Levinson. Although largely influenced by the work of Erik Erikson, Levinson sought to create a broader theory that would encompass all aspects of adult development as opposed to just the psychosocial. This theory is characterized by both definitive eras as well as transition phases, whose purpose is to facilitate a smooth transition out of one era and into the next. According to his theory, various developmental tasks must be mastered as one progresses through each era; pre-adulthood, early adulthood, middle adulthood, and late adulthood. Crises are also experienced throughout the lifecycle and occur when one become burdened by either internal or external factors, such as during the midlife crisis that occurs during the midlife transition from early adulthood to middle adulthood. Levinson researched both men and women, and found that they typically go through the same cycles, though he suggested that women's cycles were more closely tied to the domestic sphere, or their family life. Due to the use of biased research methods however, the extent to which his results can be generalized remains controversial. Although not widely accepted, his theories entail many implications for both behavioral and cultural psychology.
  • 2.0K
  • 11 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Carbonite (Online Backup)
Carbonite (NASDAQ: CARB) is an online backup service, available to Windows and macOS users, that backs up documents, e-mails, music, photos, and settings. It is named after carbonite, the fictional substance used to freeze Han Solo in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. It was the first such service to offer unlimited backup space for a fixed price. Previously, all online backup services were priced by the gigabyte; many other vendors have since changed to an unlimited model. Carbonite offers two separate lines of products: Carbonite Home and Home Office for individuals, families, and one- or two-person businesses; and Carbonite Small Business for businesses with three or more computers. Carbonite was named "Best Windows Backup Tool" by Lifehacker, "Labs Winner" by PC Pro, "Editor's Choice" by NextAdvisor, Hottest Boston Company by Lead411, but received only "two mice" in a MacWorld review putting it second to last.
  • 1.0K
  • 11 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Meiko Scientific
Meiko Scientific Ltd. was a British supercomputer company based in Bristol, founded by members of the design team working on the Inmos transputer microprocessor.
  • 733
  • 11 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Aphthous Stomatitis
Aphthous stomatitis, or recurrent aphthous stomatitis (RAS), is a common condition characterized by the repeated formation of benign and non-contagious mouth ulcers (aphthae) in otherwise healthy individuals. The informal term canker sore is also used, mainly in North America, although it may also refer to other types of mouth ulcers. The cause is not completely understood but involves a T cell-mediated immune response triggered by a variety of factors which may include nutritional deficiencies, local trauma, stress, hormonal influences, allergies, genetic predisposition, certain foods, dehydration, or some food additives. These ulcers occur periodically and heal completely between attacks. In the majority of cases, the individual ulcers last about 7–10 days, and ulceration episodes occur 3–6 times per year. Most appear on the non-keratinizing epithelial surfaces in the mouth – i.e. anywhere except the attached gingiva, the hard palate and the dorsum of the tongue – although the more severe forms, which are less common, may also involve keratinizing epithelial surfaces. Symptoms range from a minor nuisance to interfering with eating and drinking. The severe forms may be debilitating, even causing weight loss due to malnutrition. The condition is very common, affecting about 20% of the general population to some degree. The onset is often during childhood or adolescence, and the condition usually lasts for several years before gradually disappearing. There is no cure, and treatments such as corticosteroids aim to manage pain, reduce healing time and reduce the frequency of episodes of ulceration.
  • 1.0K
  • 11 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Constructionism (Learning Theory)
Constructionist learning is the creation by learners of mental models to understand the world around them. Constructionism advocates student-centered, discovery learning where students use what they already know, to acquire more knowledge. Students learn through participation in project-based learning where they make connections between different ideas and areas of knowledge facilitated by the teacher through coaching rather than using lectures or step-by-step guidance. Further, constructionism holds that learning can happen most effectively when people are active in making tangible objects in the real world. In this sense, constructionism is connected with experiential learning and builds on Jean Piaget's epistemological theory of constructivism. Seymour Papert defined constructionism in a proposal to the National Science Foundation titled Constructionism: A New Opportunity for Elementary Science Education as follows: Some scholars have tried to describe constructionism as a "learning-by-making" formula but, as Seymour Papert and Idit Harel say at the start of Situating Constructionism, it should be considered "much richer and more multifaceted, and very much deeper in its implications than could be conveyed by any such formula." Papert's ideas became well known through the publication of his seminal book Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas (Basic Books, 1980). Papert described children creating programs in the Logo educational programming language. He likened their learning to living in a "mathland" where learning mathematical ideas is as natural as learning French while living in France.
  • 1.1K
  • 11 Oct 2022
  • Page
  • of
  • 863

Other Entry Collections

>>