Subject:
All Disciplines Arts & Humanities Biology & Life Sciences Business & Economics Chemistry & Materials Science Computer Science & Mathematics Engineering Environmental & Earth Sciences Medicine & Pharmacology Physical Sciences Public Health & Healthcare Social Sciences
Sort:
Hottest Latest Alphabetical (A-Z) Alphabetical (Z-A)
Type:
All Topic Review Biography
Topic Review
Deathtrap (Plot Device)
A deathtrap is a literary and dramatic plot device in which a villain who has captured the hero or another sympathetic character attempts to use an elaborate, improbable, and usually sadistic method of murdering them. It is often used as a means to create dramatic tension in the story and to have the villain reveal important information to the hero, confident that the hero will shortly not be able to use it. It may also be a means to show the hero's resourcefulness in escaping, or the writer's ingenuity at devising a last-minute rescue or deus ex machina.
  • 1.4K
  • 04 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Benefit Fraud in the United Kingdom
Benefit fraud is a form of welfare fraud as found within the system of government benefits paid to individuals by the welfare state in the United Kingdom.
  • 272
  • 04 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Modern Stoicism
Modern Stoicism is an intellectual and popular movement that began at the end of the 20th century aimed at reviving the practice of Stoicism. It is not to be confused with neostoicism, an analogous phenomenon in the 17th century. The term "modern Stoicism" covers both the revival of interest in the Stoic philosophy and the philosophical efforts to adjust ancient Stoicism to the language and conceptual framework of the present. The rise of modern Stoicism has received attention in the international media since around November 2012 when the first Annual Stoic Week event was organized.
  • 3.2K
  • 04 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Landtag
A Landtag (State Diet) is a representative assembly (parliament) in German-speaking countries with legislative authority and competence over a federated state (Land). Landtage assemblies are the legislative bodies for the individual states of Germany and states of Austria, and have authority to legislate in non-federal matters for the regional area. Likewise, the Landtag of South Tyrol (Italian: Consiglio della Provincia autonoma di Bolzano) is the legislature of the autonomous province of South Tyrol in northeast Italy. In the sovereign principality of Liechtenstein the national parliament is called the Landtag of Liechtenstein.
  • 672
  • 04 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Implicit-Association Test
The implicit-association test (IAT) is a controversial assessment intended to detect subconscious associations between mental representations of objects (concepts) in memory. Its best-known application is the assessment of implicit stereotypes held by test subjects, such as associations between particular racial categories and stereotypes about those groups. The test has been applied to a variety of belief associations, such as those involving racial groups, gender, sexuality, age, and religion but also the self-esteem, political views, and predictions of the test taker. The implicit-association test is the subject of significant academic and popular debate regarding its validity, reliability, and usefulness in assessing implicit bias. The IAT was introduced in the scientific literature in 1998 by Anthony Greenwald, Debbie McGhee, and Jordan Schwartz. The IAT is now widely used in social psychology research and, to some extent, in clinical, cognitive, and developmental psychology research. More recently, the IAT has been used as an assessment in implicit bias trainings, which claim to reduce the unconscious bias and discriminatory behavior of participants.
  • 364
  • 04 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Villa Tunari Massacre
The Villa Tunari Massacre was a 27 June 1988 mass murder committed by UMOPAR (Rural Patrol Mobile Unit) troops in response to a protest by coca-growing peasants (cocaleros) in the town of Villa Tunari in Chapare Province, Bolivia. The cocalero movement had mobilized since late May 1988 in opposition to coca eradication under Law 1008, then on the verge of becoming law. According to video evidence and a joint church-labor investigative commission, UMOPAR opened fired on unarmed protesters, at least two of whom were fatally shot, and many of whom fled to their deaths over a steep drop into the San Mateo River. The police violence caused the deaths of 9 to 12 civilian protesters, including three whose bodies were never found, and injured over a hundred. The killings were followed by further state violence in Villa Tunari, Sinahota, Ivirgarzama, and elsewhere in the region, including machine gun fire, beatings, and arrests. The massacre helped bring about the consolidation of Chapare coca growers' unions into the Coordinadora of the Six Federations of the Tropic of Cochabamba. Representatives of the National Congress, Catholic Church, Permanent Assembly for Human Rights, and the Central Obrera Boliviana labor federation formed a joint "multisectoral commission" to investigate the repression in the Chapare, which traveled to the region on 30 June 1988.
  • 465
  • 04 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Law of the Land
The phrase law of the land is a legal term, equivalent to the Latin lex terrae, or legem terrae in the accusative case. It refers to all of the laws in force within a country or region, including statute law and case-made law.
  • 1.6K
  • 04 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Geo-Blocking
Geo-blocking or geoblocking is technology that restricts access to Internet content based upon the user's geographical location. In a geo-blocking scheme, the user's location is determined using Internet geolocation techniques, such as checking the user's IP address against a blacklist or whitelist, GPS queries in the case of a mobile device, accounts, and measuring the end-to-end delay of a network connection to estimate the physical location of the user. The result of this check is used to determine whether the system will approve or deny access to the website or to particular content. The geolocation may also be used to modify the content provided, for example, the currency in which goods are quoted, the price or the range of goods that are available, besides other aspects. The term is most commonly associated with its use to restrict access to premium multimedia content on the Internet, such as films and television shows, primarily for copyright and licensing reasons. There are other uses for geo-blocking, such as blocking malicious traffic or to enforce price discrimination, location-aware authentication, fraud prevention, and online gambling (where gambling laws vary by region).
  • 454
  • 04 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Brahmacarya
Brahmacharya (/ˌbrɑːməˈtʃɑːrjə/; Devanagari: ब्रह्मचर्य, Bengali: ব্রহ্মচর্য odia:ବ୍ରହ୍ମଚର୍ଯ୍ୟ lit."pure conduct") is a concept within Indian religions that literally means to stay in conduct within one's own Self. In Yoga, Hinduism and Jainism it generally refers to a lifestyle characterized by sexual continence or complete abstinence. Brahmacharya is somewhat different from the English term "celibacy," which merely means non-indulgence in sexual activity. Brahmacharya is when a person completely controls his body and mind (citta) through ascetic means. In the Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist monastic traditions, brahmacharya implies, among other things, the mandatory renunciation of sex and marriage. It is considered necessary for a monk's spiritual practice. Western notions of the religious life as practiced in monastic settings mirror these characteristics.
  • 3.9K
  • 04 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Empathy Gap
A hot-cold empathy gap is a cognitive bias in which people underestimate the influences of visceral drives on their own attitudes, preferences, and behaviors. The most important aspect of this idea is that human understanding is "state-dependent". For example, when one is angry, it is difficult to understand what it is like for one to be calm, and vice versa; when one is blindly in love with someone, it is difficult to understand what it is like for one not to be, (or to imagine the possibility of not being blindly in love in the future). Importantly, an inability to minimize one's gap in empathy can lead to negative outcomes in medical settings (e.g., when a doctor needs to accurately diagnose the physical pain of a patient), and in workplace settings (e.g., when an employer needs to assess the need for an employee's bereavement leave). Hot-cold empathy gaps can be analyzed according to their direction: They can also be classified in regards to their relation with time (past or future) and whether they occur intra- or inter-personally: The term hot-cold empathy gap was coined by Carnegie Mellon University psychologist George Loewenstein. Hot-cold empathy gaps are one of Loewenstein's major contributions to behavioral economics.
  • 408
  • 04 Nov 2022
  • Page
  • of
  • 285
Featured Entry Collections
>>

Featured Books

>>
Encyclopedia of Social Sciences
Encyclopedia of COVID-19
Encyclopedia of Fungi
Encyclopedia of Digital Society, Industry 5.0 and Smart City
Video Production Service
Feedback