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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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New Mobility Agenda
The New Mobility Agenda is an international institution which, although a virtual and open collaborative project today, was originally set up by an international working group meeting at the Abbey de Royaumont near Paris in 1974 with the support of the Parisian OECD to challenge old ideas and practices in the field of urban transport through a long term collaborative program of information exchange, education and peer support. The Agenda today draws together the experience, expertise and support of more than four thousand individuals and groups worldwide in an open collaborative peer network. One of the original proponents of this approach, Professor Mikoto Usui then director of the OECD Development Centre, referred to it in the founding meeting at the "Abbé de Royaumont as an "invisible college". Drawing together the experience and expertise of more than four thousand individuals and groups worldwide, who are networked via a combination of websites, discussion groups and fora, and collaborative projects, the Agenda takes an approach to transportation planning, policy and practice that has gained considerable force over the last two decades—provides a leading-edge alternative to earlier (20th century) methods of looking at and providing mobility for people and goods in cities. The Agenda has received prestigious awards for its contributions, including the Stockholm Environment Challenge Prize (2000) and the World Technology Environment Award (2002). Like the sustainable transportation movement, to which it is closely related, it differs from previous methods (which in fact still dominate planning, policy, investment and operations in most parts of the world) in that it takes a global or broad systemic approach to the challenges of how to get around in cities, and is especially sensitive not only to pure transport efficiency (which traditionally is interpreted in pure engineering terms as speed and volume of vehicle throughput) but equally to matters of sustainable development, pollution and environmental impacts—including matters relating to climate change, the reduction of Greenhouse gases, resource efficiency, energy conservation, public health, both personal and public economics, overall time savings, public spaces, and quality of life in communities, including relations between people in public spaces – with particular attention to social justice and the unmet needs of women, children, and others with mobility or economic or health disadvantages which are not being properly served in our present mainly car-based systems and thinking, in which other forms of transport, including public transport, play only residual roles.
  • 587
  • 09 Oct 2022
Topic Review
List of Life Zones by Region
The climate and ecology of different locations on the globe naturally separate into life zones, depending on elevation, location, and latitude. The generally strong dependency on elevation is known as altitudinal zonation: the average temperature of a location decreases as the elevation increases. The general effect of elevation depends on atmospheric physics. However, the specific climate and ecology of any particular location depends on specific features of that location. This article provides a list of life zones by region, in order to illustrate the features of life zones for regions around the globe.
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  • 09 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Analog Synthesizer
An analog (or analogue) synthesizer is a synthesizer that uses analog circuits and analog signals to generate sound electronically. The earliest analog synthesizers in the 1920s and 1930s, such as the Trautonium, were built with a variety of vacuum-tube (thermionic valve) and electro-mechanical technologies. After the 1960s, analog synthesizers were built using operational amplifier (op-amp) integrated circuits, and used potentiometers (pots, or variable resistors) to adjust the sound parameters. Analog synthesizers also use low-pass filters and high-pass filters to modify the sound. While 1960s-era analog synthesizers such as the Moog used a number of independent electronic modules connected by patch cables, later analog synthesizers such as the Minimoog integrated them into single units, eliminating patch cords in favour of integrated signal routing systems.
  • 1.5K
  • 09 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Lincos (Artificial Language)
Lincos (an abbreviation of the Latin phrase lingua cosmica) is a constructed language first described in 1960 by Dr. Hans Freudenthal in his book Lincos: Design of a Language for Cosmic Intercourse, Part 1. It is a language designed to be understandable by any possible intelligent extraterrestrial life form, for use in interstellar radio transmissions. Freudenthal considered that such a language should be easily understood by beings not acquainted with any Earthling syntax or language. Lincos was designed to be capable of encapsulating "the whole bulk of our knowledge."
  • 1.8K
  • 09 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Disorders of Sex Development
Disorders of sex development (DSDs), also known as differences in sex development, diverse sex development and variations in sex characteristics (VSC), are medical conditions involving the reproductive system. More specifically, these terms refer to "congenital conditions in which development of chromosomal, gonadal, or anatomical sex is atypical." The term has been controversial, and research has shown that affected people experience a negative impact, with the terminology impacting choice and utilization of health care providers. The World Health Organization and many medical journals still reference DSDs as intersex traits or conditions. The Council of Europe and Inter-American Commission on Human Rights have called for a review of medical classifications that unnecessarily medicalize intersex traits.
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  • 09 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Dewi Sri
Dewi Sri or Shridevi (Javanese: ꦢꦺꦮꦶꦱꦿꦶ), Dewi Sri) (Sundanese: Nyai Pohaci Sanghyang Asri) is the Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese Hindu Goddess of rice and fertility, still widely worshiped on the islands of Java, Bali and Lombok, Indonesia. The cult of the rice goddess has its origin in the prehistoric domestication, development and propagation of rice cultivation in Asia, possibly brought by Austroasiatic or Austronesian population that finally migrated and settled in the archipelago. Similar but slightly different rice spirits mythologies are widespread among Indonesian ethnicities and also neighboring countries. The mythology of Dewi Sri is native to Java and Sunda and Hinduism in the archipelago since early as the first century. She was equated with the Hindu goddess Shri Lakshmi, and often regarded as an incarnation or one of her manifestations. The goddess is also associated with wealth and prosperity.
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  • 11 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Bile Acid Malabsorption
Bile acid malabsorption (BAM), known also as bile acid diarrhea, is a cause of several gut-related problems, the main one being chronic diarrhea. It has also been called bile acid-induced diarrhea, cholerheic or choleretic enteropathy, bile salt diarrhea or bile salt malabsorption. It can result from malabsorption secondary to gastrointestinal disease, or be a primary disorder, associated with excessive bile acid production. Treatment with bile acid sequestrants is often effective.
  • 1.3K
  • 09 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Urbanization
Urbanization (or urbanisation) refers to the population shift from rural to urban areas, the decrease in the proportion of people living in rural areas, and the ways in which societies adapt to this change. It is predominantly the process by which towns and cities are formed and become larger as more people begin living and working in central areas. Although the two concepts are sometimes used interchangeably, urbanization should be distinguished from urban growth. Whereas urbanization refers to the proportion of the total national population living in areas classified as urban, urban growth strictly refers to the absolute number of people living in those areas. The United Nations has projected that half of the world's population will live in urban areas at the end of 2008. It is predicted that by 2050 about 64% of the developing world and 86% of the developed world will be urbanized. That is equivalent to approximately 3 billion urbanites by 2050, much of which will occur in Africa and Asia. Notably, the United Nations has also recently projected that nearly all global population growth from 2017 to 2030 will be by cities, with about 1.1 billion new urbanites over the next 10 years. Urbanization is relevant to a range of disciplines, including urban planning, geography, sociology, architecture, economics, and public health. The phenomenon has been closely linked to modernization, industrialization, and the sociological process of rationalization. Urbanization can be seen as a specific condition at a set time (e.g. the proportion of total population or area in cities or towns), or as an increase in that condition over time. Therefore, urbanization can be quantified either in terms of the level of urban development relative to the overall population, or as the rate at which the urban proportion of the population is increasing. Urbanization creates enormous social, economic and environmental changes, which provide an opportunity for sustainability with the "potential to use resources more efficiently, to create more sustainable land use and to protect the biodiversity of natural ecosystems." Urbanization is not merely a modern phenomenon, but a rapid and historic transformation of human social roots on a global scale, whereby predominantly rural culture is being rapidly replaced by predominantly urban culture. The first major change in settlement patterns was the accumulation of hunter-gatherers into villages many thousand years ago. Village culture is characterized by common bloodlines, intimate relationships, and communal behavior, whereas urban culture is characterized by distant bloodlines, unfamiliar relations, and competitive behavior. This unprecedented movement of people is forecast to continue and intensify during the next few decades, mushrooming cities to sizes unthinkable only a century ago. As a result, the world urban population growth curve has up till recently followed a quadratic-hyperbolic pattern. Today, in Asia the urban agglomerations of Osaka, Tokyo, Mumbai, Dhaka, Karachi, Jakarta, Shanghai, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Manila, Seoul, and Beijing are each already home to over 20 million people, while Delhi is forecast to approach or exceed 40 million people in the year 2035. Cities such as Tehran, Istanbul, Mexico City, São Paulo, London, Moscow, New York City, Lagos, Los Angeles, and Cairo are, or soon will be, home to over 15 million people each.
  • 7.7K
  • 09 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Physical Information
Physical information is a form of information. In physics, it refers to the information of a physical system. Physical information is an important concept used in a number of fields of study in physics. For example, in quantum mechanics, the form of physical information known as quantum information is used in many descriptions of quantum phenomena, such as quantum observation, quantum entanglement and the causal relationship between quantum objects that carry out either or both close and long-range interactions with one another. In a general sense, information is that which resolves uncertainty, which is due to the fact that it describes the details of that which is associated with the uncertainty. The description itself is, however, divorced from any type of language. When clarifying the subject of information, care should be taken to distinguish between the following specific cases: As the above usages are all conceptually distinct from each other, overloading the word "information" (by itself) to denote (or connote) several of these concepts simultaneously can lead to confusion. Accordingly, this article uses more detailed phrases, such as those shown in bold above, whenever the intended meaning is not made clear by the context.
  • 6.0K
  • 09 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Video Toaster
The NewTek Video Toaster is a combination of hardware and software for the editing and production of NTSC standard-definition video. The plug-in expansion card initially worked with the Amiga 2000 computer and provides a number of BNC connectors on the exposed rear edge that provide connectivity to common analog video sources like VHS VCRs. The related software tools support video switching, chroma keying, character generation, animation, and image manipulation. Together, the hardware and software provided, for a few thousand U.S. dollars, a video editing suite that rivaled the output of contemporary (i.e. early 1990s) professional systems costing ten times as much. It allowed small studios to produce high-quality material and resulted in a cottage industry for video production not unlike the success of the Macintosh in the desktop publishing (DTP) market only a few years earlier. The Video Toaster won the Emmy Award for Technical Achievement in 1993. Other parts of the original software package were spun off as stand-alone products, notably LightWave 3D, and achieved success on their own. As the Amiga platform lost market share and Commodore International went bankrupt in 1994 as a result of declining sales, the Video Toaster was moved to the Microsoft Windows platform where it is still available. The company also produces what is essentially a portable pre-packaged version of the Video Toaster along with all the computer hardware needed, as the TriCaster. These became all-digital units in 2014, ending production of the analog Video Toaster line.
  • 2.4K
  • 11 Oct 2022
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