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
Collaborationism
Collaborationism is cooperation with the enemy against one's country of citizenship in wartime. The term is most often used to describe the cooperation of civilians with the occupying Axis Powers, especially Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan, during World War II. Motivations for collaboration by citizens and organizations included nationalism, ethnic hatred, anti-communism, antisemitism, opportunism, self-defense, or often a combination of these factors. Some collaborators in World War II committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, or atrocities such as the Holocaust. More often collaborators simply "went along to get along," attempting to benefit from the occupation or simply survive. The definition of collaborationism is imprecise and subject to interpretation. Stanley Hoffmann subdivided collaboration into involuntary (reluctant recognition of necessity) and voluntary (an attempt to exploit necessity). According to him, collaborationism can be either servile or ideological. Servile is service to an enemy based on necessity for personal survival or comfort, whereas ideological is advocacy for cooperation with an enemy power. In contrast, Bertram Gordon used the terms "collaborator" and "collaborationist" for non-ideological and ideological collaborations, respectively. James Mace Ward has asserted that, while collaboration is often equated with treason, there was "legitimate collaboration" between civilian internees (mostly Americans) in the Philippines and their Japanese captors for mutual benefit and to enhance the possibilities of the internees to survive. Collaboration with the Axis Powers in Europe and Asia existed in varying degrees in all the occupied countries. Although the United Kingdom and the United States were never occupied, a British dependency, the Channel Islands near France, was under German occupation and thousands of American civilians in Asia were interned by Japan. With the defeat of the Axis, collaborators were often punished by public humiliation, imprisonment, and execution. In France, 10,500 collaborators are estimated to have been executed, some after legal proceedings, others extrajudicially. The opposite of collaborationism in World War II was "resistance", a term which also has a broad range of meaning and interpretations.
  • 3.1K
  • 01 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Multi-Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis
Multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is a form of tuberculosis (TB) infection caused by bacteria that are resistant to treatment with at least two of the most powerful first-line anti-TB medications (drugs), isoniazid and rifampin. Some forms of TB are also resistant to second-line medications, and are called extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB). Tuberculosis is caused by infection with the bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Almost one in four people in the world are infected with TB bacteria. Only when the bacteria become active do people become ill with TB. Bacteria become active as a result of anything that can reduce the person's immunity, such as HIV, advancing age, diabetes or other immunocompromising illnesses. TB can usually be treated with a course of four standard, or first-line, anti-TB drugs (i.e., isoniazid, rifampin and any fluoroquinolone). However, beginning with the first antibiotic treatment for TB in 1943, some strains of the TB bacteria developed resistance to the standard drugs through genetic changes (see mechanisms.) Currently the majority of multidrug-resistant cases of TB are due to one strain of TB bacteria called the Beijing lineage. This process accelerates if incorrect or inadequate treatments are used, leading to the development and spread of multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB). Incorrect or inadequate treatment may be due to use of the wrong medications, use of only one medication (standard treatment is at least two drugs), not taking medication consistently or for the full treatment period (treatment is required for several months). Treatment of MDR-TB requires second-line drugs (i.e., fluoroquinolones, aminoglycosides, and others), which in general are less effective, more toxic and much more expensive than first-line drugs. Treatment schedules for MDR-TB involving fluoroquinolones and aminoglycosides can run for 2 years, compared to the 6 months of first-line drug treatment, and cost over US$100,000. If these second-line drugs are prescribed or taken incorrectly, further resistance can develop leading to XDR-TB. Resistant strains of TB are already present in the population, so MDR-TB can be directly transmitted from an infected person to an uninfected person. In this case a previously untreated person develops a new case of MDR-TB. This is known as primary MDR-TB, and is responsible for up to 75% of cases. Acquired MDR-TB develops when a person with a non-resistant strain of TB is treated inadequately, resulting in the development of antibiotic resistance in the TB bacteria infecting them. These people can in turn infect other people with MDR-TB. MDR-TB caused an estimated 600,000 new TB cases and 240,000 deaths in 2016 and MDR-TB accounts for 4.1% of all new TB cases and 19% of previously treated cases worldwide. Globally, most MDR-TB cases occur in South America, Southern Africa, India, China, and the former Soviet Union. Treatment of MDR-TB requires treatment with second-line drugs, usually four or more anti-TB drugs for a minimum of 6 months, and possibly extending for 18–24 months if rifampin resistance has been identified in the specific strain of TB with which the patient has been infected. Under ideal program conditions, MDR-TB cure rates can approach 70%.
  • 1.4K
  • 01 Dec 2022
Topic Review
East African Lion
The East African lion is a Panthera leo melanochaita population in East Africa. During the 20th century, lion populations in this part of Africa became fragmented and declined in several range countries due to loss of habitat and prey base, poaching and killing of lions to protect livestock and human life. In 2005, a Lion Conservation Strategy was developed for East and Southern Africa. Today, lion populations are stable only in large protected area complexes. The scientific name P. l. melanochaita was proposed for the Cape lion in 1842 that was eradicated in the mid-19th century. P. l. melanochaita differs genetically from P. leo leo; the two subspecies probably diverged at least 50,000 years ago.
  • 4.4K
  • 01 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Hypoxia (Medical)
Hypoxia is a condition in which the body or a region of the body is deprived of adequate oxygen supply at the tissue level. Hypoxia may be classified as either generalized, affecting the whole body, or local, affecting a region of the body. Although hypoxia is often a pathological condition, variations in arterial oxygen concentrations can be part of the normal physiology, for example, during hypoventilation training or strenuous physical exercise. Hypoxia differs from hypoxemia and anoxemia in that hypoxia refers to a state in which oxygen supply is insufficient, whereas hypoxemia and anoxemia refer specifically to states that have low or zero arterial oxygen supply. Hypoxia in which there is complete deprivation of oxygen supply is referred to as anoxia. Generalized hypoxia occurs in healthy people when they ascend to high altitude, where it causes altitude sickness leading to potentially fatal complications: high altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE) and high altitude cerebral edema (HACE). Hypoxia also occurs in healthy individuals when breathing mixtures of gases with a low oxygen content, e.g. while diving underwater especially when using closed-circuit rebreather systems that control the amount of oxygen in the supplied air. Mild, non-damaging intermittent hypoxia is used intentionally during altitude training to develop an athletic performance adaptation at both the systemic and cellular level. In acute or silent hypoxia, a person's oxygen level in blood cells and tissue can drop without any initial warning, even though the individual's chest x-ray shows diffuse pneumonia with an oxygen level below normal. Doctors report cases of silent hypoxia with COVID-19 patients who did not experience shortness of breath or coughing until their oxygen levels had plummeted to such a degree that the patients risked acute respiratory distress (ARDS) and organ failure. In a The New York Times opinion piece (April 20, 2020), emergency room doctor Richard Levitan reports: "A vast majority of Covid pneumonia patients I met had remarkably low oxygen saturations at triage—seemingly incompatible with life—but they were using their cellphones as we put them on monitors." Hypoxia is a common complication of preterm birth in newborn infants. Because the lungs develop late in pregnancy, premature infants frequently possess underdeveloped lungs. To improve lung function, doctors frequently place infants at risk of hypoxia inside incubators (also known as humidicribs) that provide warmth, humidity, and oxygen. More serious cases are treated with CPAP. The 2019 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to William G. Kaelin Jr., Sir Peter J. Ratcliffe, and Gregg L. Semenza in recognition of their discovery of cellular mechanisms to sense and adapt to different oxygen concentrations, establishing a basis for how oxygen levels affect physiological function.
  • 1.4K
  • 01 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Brain Lesion Theory
The term Brain lesion theory is a colloquialism which generally refers to the idea that brain lesions and traumatic brain injury are associated with aggressive and violent behaviour, criminality and anti-sociality . The concept of a correlation between brain injury and violent or aggressive behaviour has a strong basis in scientific literature and has been explored across multiple disciplines including forensics, psychology and sociology. Most findings in psychology suggest that the correlation between brain injury and aggression is specific to frontal lobe injury. There’s is little evidence to suggest that damage to other areas of the brain correlates with aggression. The correlations between frontal lobe injury and aggression have important implications in terms of function localisation in the brain. Function localisation is the idea that certain functions are specific certain areas of the brain. There is evidence to suggest that the frontal lobe is responsible for the control of cognitive skills like judgment and emotion regulation. Consequently, damage to the frontal lobe may lead to loss of control and impairment in social/emotional judgement therefore reducing a person’s ability to inhibit negative emotion and as a consequence increase aggressive responses. However, it is important to note that the evidence for a correlation between frontal lobe injury and aggression is heavily based on case study and consequently cannot be used to imply a causal factor in either direction. Further, aggression, violence and anti-sociality also correlate with alcoholism, abuse and a number of psychological, environmental and biological factors thus even if there was evidence for a causal link between brain injury and aggression it cannot be concluded that brain injury alone causes aggression.
  • 1.5K
  • 01 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Plaçage
Plaçage was a recognized extralegal system in French and Spanish slave colonies of North America (including the Caribbean) by which ethnic European men entered into civil unions with non-Europeans of African, Native American and mixed-race descent. The term comes from the French placer meaning "to place with". The women were not legally recognized as wives but were known as placées; their relationships were recognized among the free people of color as mariages de la main gauche or left-handed marriages. They became institutionalized with contracts or negotiations that settled property on the woman and her children and, in some cases, gave them freedom if they were enslaved. The system flourished throughout the French and Spanish colonial periods, reaching its zenith during the latter, between 1769 and 1803. It was widely practiced in New Orleans, where planter society had created enough wealth to support the system. It also took place in the Latin-influenced cities of Natchez and Biloxi, Mississippi; Mobile, Alabama; St. Augustine and Pensacola, Florida; as well as Saint-Domingue (now the Republic of Haiti). Plaçage became associated with New Orleans as part of its cosmopolitan society. In recent years, at least three historians (viz. Kenneth Aslakson, Emily Clark, and Carol Schlueter) have challenged the historicity of plaçage and have referred to many of its features, including quadroon balls, as "a myth".
  • 1.8K
  • 01 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Lebesgue Constant (Interpolation)
In mathematics, the Lebesgue constants (depending on a set of nodes and of its size) give an idea of how good the interpolant of a function (at the given nodes) is in comparison with the best polynomial approximation of the function (the degree of the polynomials are obviously fixed). The Lebesgue constant for polynomials of degree at most n and for the set of n + 1 nodes T is generally denoted by Λn(T ). These constants are named after Henri Lebesgue.
  • 1.4K
  • 01 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Etiquette in Technology
Social etiquette in real life is ingrained into our social life, although etiquette in technology, colloquially referred to as netiquette, is a fairly recent concept. It is a term used to refer to the unofficial code of policies that encourage good behavior on the Internet which is used to regulate respect and polite behavior on social media platforms, online chatting sites, web forums, and other online engagement websites. The rules of etiquette that apply when communicating over the Internet are different from those applied when communicating in person or by audio (such as telephone) or videophone. It is a social code that is used in all places where one can interact with other human beings via the Internet, including text messaging, email, online games, Internet forums, chat rooms, and many more. It can be a challenge to communicate on the Internet without misunderstandings mainly because input from facial expressions and body language is absent in cyberspace. Therefore, several rules, in an attempt to safeguard against these misunderstandings and to discourage unfriendly behavior, are regularly put in place at many websites, and often enforced by moderation by the website's users or administrators.
  • 1.1K
  • 01 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Amsterdam (VOC Ship)
The Amsterdam (Dutch pronunciation: [ˌɑmstərˈdɑm] (listen)) was an 18th-century cargo ship of the Dutch East India Company (Dutch: Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie; VOC). The VOC was established in 1602. The ship started its maiden voyage from Texel to Batavia on 8 January 1749, but was wrecked in a storm on the English Channel on 26 January 1749. The shipwreck was discovered in 1969 in the bay of Bulverhythe, near Hastings on the English south coast, and is sometimes visible during low tides. The wreck site is protected under the Protection of Wrecks Act since 1974. Some of the findings from the site are in The Shipwreck Museum in Hastings. A replica of the ship is on display in Amsterdam.
  • 2.7K
  • 01 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Mammoth Mountain
Mammoth Mountain is a lava dome complex partially located within the town of Mammoth Lakes, California, in the Inyo National Forest of Madera and Mono Counties. It is home to a large ski area primarily on the Mono County side. Mammoth Mountain was formed in a series of eruptions that ended 57,000 years ago. Mammoth still produces hazardous volcanic gases that kill trees and caused ski patroller fatalities in 2006.
  • 1.7K
  • 01 Dec 2022
  • Page
  • of
  • 863

Other Entry Collections

>>