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Blue–Green Alliance
A Blue–green alliance describes either an alliance or coalition between "blue" conservative parties and green parties, or "blue" labor organizations, such as labor unions, and environmental organizations such as green parties. "Blue-Green" can also refer to a right-tendency within green parties based around green conservatism.
  • 245
  • 15 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Virtual Volunteering
Virtual volunteering refers to volunteer activities completed, in whole or in part, using the Internet and a home, school, telecenter, or work computer or other Internet-connected device, such as a smart-phone (a cell phone with Internet functions) or personal digital assistant (PDA). Virtual volunteering is also known as online volunteering, remote volunteering or e-volunteering.
  • 320
  • 14 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Preservation (Library and Archival Science)
In library and archival science, preservation is a set of activities aimed at prolonging the life of a record, book, or object while making as few changes as possible. Preservation activities vary widely and may include monitoring the condition of items, maintaining the temperature and humidity in collection storage areas, writing a plan in case of emergencies, digitizing items, writing relevant metadata, and increasing accessibility. Preservation, in this definition, is practiced in a library or an archive by a librarian, archivist, or other professional when they perceive a record is in need of care. Preservation should be distinguished from conservation-restoration of cultural heritage, which refers to the treatment and repair of individual items to slow the process of decay, or restore them to a usable state. Because preservation covers a wide range of efforts aimed at prolonging the life of a record, conservation can be thought of as one of those efforts under the umbrella of preservation. Conservation is occasionally used interchangeably with preservation, particularly outside the professional literature.
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Topic Review
School Belonging
The most commonly used definition of school belonging comes from a 1993 academic article by researchers Carol Goodenow and Kathleen Grady, who describe school belonging as "the extent to which students feel personally accepted, respected, included, and supported by others in the school social environment." The construct of school belonging involves feeling connected with and attached to one's school. It also encompasses involvement and affiliation with one's school community. Conversely, students who do not feel a strong sense of belonging within their school environment are frequently described as being alienated or disaffected. There are a number of terms within educational research that are used interchangeably with school belonging, including school connectedness, school attachment, and school engagement. School belonging is determined by a myriad of factors, including academic achievement and motivation, personal characteristics, social relationships, demographic characteristics, school climate, and participation in extracurricular activities. Research indicates that school belonging has significant implications for students, as it has been consistently linked with academic outcomes, psychological adjustment, well-being, identity formation, mental health, and physical health—it is considered a fundamental aspect of students' development. A sense of belonging to one's school is considered particularly important for adolescents because they are within a period of transition and identity formation, and research has found that school belonging significantly declines during this period. Psychological Sense of School Membership (PSSM), developed in 1993, is one of the measures to ascertain the degree to which students feel a sense of school belonging. Students rate the extent to which they agree or disagree with statements, such as "People here notice when I'm good at something." In 2003, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention held an international convention where the Wingspread Declaration on School Connections was developed as a group of tactics to increase students' sense of belonging and connection with their school.
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  • 14 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Rhizome
Rhizome is an American not-for-profit arts organization that supports and provides a platform for new media art.
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Topic Review
Comparison of U.S. State and Territory Governments
In the United States , the government of each of the 50 states is structured in accordance with its individual constitution. In turn, each state constitution must be grounded in republican principles. Article IV, Section 4, Clause 1 of the United States Constitution tasks the federal government with assuring that each state's government is so organized. All state governments are modeled after the federal government and consist of three branches (although the three-branch structure is not Constitutionally required): executive, legislative, and judicial. All state governments are also organized as presidential systems where the governor is both head of government and head of state (even though this too is not required). The government of each of the five permanently inhabited U.S. territories is modeled and organized in a like fashion. Each state is itself a sovereign entity, and as such, reserves the right to organize in any way (within the above stated parameter) deemed appropriate by its people. As a result, while the governments of the various states share many similar features, they often vary greatly with regard to form and substance. No two state governments are identical. The following tables compare and contrast some of the features of U.S. state governments.
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Topic Review
Reflective Practice
Reflective practice is the ability to reflect on one's actions so as to engage in a process of continuous learning. According to one definition it involves "paying critical attention to the practical values and theories which inform everyday actions, by examining practice reflectively and reflexively. This leads to developmental insight". A key rationale for reflective practice is that experience alone does not necessarily lead to learning; deliberate reflection on experience is essential. Reflective practice can be an important tool in practice-based professional learning settings where people learn from their own professional experiences, rather than from formal learning or knowledge transfer. It may be the most important source of personal professional development and improvement. It is also an important way to bring together theory and practice; through reflection a person is able to see and label forms of thought and theory within the context of his or her work. A person who reflects throughout his or her practice is not just looking back on past actions and events, but is taking a conscious look at emotions, experiences, actions, and responses, and using that information to add to his or her existing knowledge base and reach a higher level of understanding.
  • 4.4K
  • 14 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Peer-to-Patent
The Peer To Patent project is an initiative that seeks to assist patent offices in improving patent quality by gathering public input in a structured, productive manner. Peer To Patent is the first social-software project directly linked to decision-making by the federal government. An initial pilot project in collaboration with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) was completed June 15, 2009. That pilot examined more than 220 patent applications in the fields of software and business methods. The Peer To Patent project has issued two anniversary reports from the initial pilot ( and), and a final report from the initial pilot is pending. Following the conclusion of the initial pilot the USPTO undertook an evaluation of Peer To Patent assisted by students from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. That evaluation concluded that the program had merit and should be continued. On October 19, 2010, the USPTO and New York Law School jointly announced a new pilot program commencing October 25, 2010, and continuing through September 30, 2011 (with the review period extending through December 31, 2011). This new pilot will not only include patent applications covering subject matter included in the initial pilot, it will now include telecommunications, speech recognition, translation, biotechnology, bioinformatics and biopharmaceuticals. Other patent offices involved in pilot programs include IP Australia, the Japan Patent Office, and the Korean Intellectual Property Office. The UK Intellectual Property Office announced on November 4, 2010, that it would commence a pilot in 2011 and the pilot commenced on 1 June 2011.
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Topic Review
Amnesty
Amnesty (from the Greek ἀμνηστία amnestia, "forgetfulness, passing over") is defined as: "A pardon extended by the government to a group or class of people, usually for a political offense; the act of a sovereign power officially forgiving certain classes of people who are subject to trial but have not yet been convicted." It includes more than pardon, inasmuch as it obliterates all legal remembrance of the offense. Amnesty is more and more used to express "freedom" and the time when prisoners can go free. Amnesties, which in the United Kingdom may be granted by the crown or by an act of Parliament, were formerly usual on coronations and similar occasions, but are chiefly exercised towards associations of political criminals, and are sometimes granted absolutely, though more frequently there are certain specified exceptions. Thus, in the case of the earliest recorded amnesty, that of Thrasybulus at Athens, the thirty tyrants and a few others were expressly excluded from its operation; and the amnesty proclaimed on the restoration of Charles II of England did not extend to those who had taken part in the execution of his father. Other famous amnesties include: Napoleon's amnesty of March 13, 1815 from which thirteen eminent persons, including Talleyrand, were exempt; the Prussian amnesty of August 10, 1840; the general amnesty proclaimed by the emperor Franz Josef I of Austria in 1857; the general amnesty granted by President of the United States, Andrew Johnson, after the American Civil War (1861–April 9, 1865), in 1868, and the French amnesty of 1905. Amnesty in U.S. politics in 1872 meant restoring the right to vote and hold office to ex-Confederates, which was achieved by act of Congress. Those were true amnesties, pardoning past violations without changing the laws violated. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986—signed into law by President Ronald Reagan on November 6, 1986—granted amnesty to about 3 million undocumented immigrants in the United States.
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Topic Review
Andrew Jackson Presidential Campaign, 1828
In 1828, Andrew Jackson, who had lost the 1824 election in a runoff in the United States House of Representatives, despite winning both the popular vote and the Electoral vote by significant margins, ran for President of the United States. He had been nominated by the Tennessee state legislature in 1825, and did not face any opposition from Democratic candidates. Jackson launched his campaign on January 8, 1828 with a major speech on the 13th anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans from 1815, thus marking the birth of the modern Democratic Party. Jackson accepted John C. Calhoun, incumbent Vice President under John Quincy Adams, as his running mate. John Quincy Adams was an unpopular President from the beginning of his term, and the Democratic Party, which was just beginning to emerge as a political force, mobilized behind Jackson, a popular war hero who had served in the Battle of New Orleans. Despite his successes as a member of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, as well as the Military Governor of Florida, Jackson had been born in relatively modest surroundings in rural Carolina, which appealed to the majority of Americans, who were small farmers who benefited from the introduction of Universal male suffrage from the 1820s to the 1840s. This expansion of voting rights helped both major political parties (the Democrats and the National Republicans) canvass voters and expand the popular vote. The campaign was marked by large amounts of nasty "mudslinging." Jackson's marriage, for example, came in for vicious attack. When Jackson married his wife Rachel in 1791, the couple believed that she was divorced, however the divorce was not yet finalized, so he had to remarry her once the legal papers were complete. In the Adams campaign's hands, this became a scandal. Charles Hammond, in his Cincinnati Gazette, asked: "Ought a convicted adulteress and her paramour husband be placed in the highest offices of this free and Christian land?" Jackson also came under heavy attack as a slave trader who bought and sold slaves and moved them about in defiance of modern standards or morality. (He was not attacked for merely owning slaves used in plantation work.) The Coffin Handbills attacked Jackson for his courts-martial, execution of deserters and massacres of Indian villages, and also his habit of dueling.
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