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
Aesthetics
Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed through judgments of taste. Aesthetics covers both natural and artificial sources of experiences and how we form a judgment about those sources. It considers what happens in our minds when we engage with objects or environments such as viewing visual art, listening to music, reading poetry, experiencing a play, watching a fashion show, movie, sports or even exploring various aspects of nature. The philosophy of art specifically studies how artists imagine, create, and perform works of art, as well as how people use, enjoy, and criticize art. Aesthetics considers why people like some works of art and not others, as well as how art can affect moods or even our beliefs. Both aesthetics and the philosophy of art ask questions like "What is art?," "What is a work of art?," and "What makes good art?" Scholars in the field have defined aesthetics as "critical reflection on art, culture and nature". In modern English, the term "aesthetic" can also refer to a set of principles underlying the works of a particular art movement or theory (one speaks, for example, of a Renaissance aesthetic).
  • 3.4K
  • 04 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Wife
A wife is a female partner in a continuing marital relationship. The term continues to be applied to a woman who has separated from her partner, and ceases to be applied to such a woman only when her marriage has come to an end, following a legally recognized divorce or the death of her spouse. On the death of her partner, a wife is referred to as a widow, but not after she is divorced from her partner. The rights and obligations of a wife in relation to her partner and her status in the community and in law vary between cultures and have varied over time.
  • 3.3K
  • 17 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Psychophysics
Psychophysics quantitatively investigates the relationship between physical stimuli and the sensations and perceptions they produce. Psychophysics has been described as "the scientific study of the relation between stimulus and sensation" or, more completely, as "the analysis of perceptual processes by studying the effect on a subject's experience or behaviour of systematically varying the properties of a stimulus along one or more physical dimensions". Psychophysics also refers to a general class of methods that can be applied to study a perceptual system. Modern applications rely heavily on threshold measurement, ideal observer analysis, and signal detection theory. Psychophysics has widespread and important practical applications. For example, in the study of digital signal processing, psychophysics has informed the development of models and methods of lossy compression. These models explain why humans perceive very little loss of signal quality when audio and video signals are formatted using lossy compression.
  • 3.3K
  • 10 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Hypocrisy
Hypocrisy is the contrivance of a false appearance of virtue or goodness, while concealing real character or inclinations, especially with respect to religious and moral beliefs; hence, in a general sense, hypocrisy may involve dissimulation, pretense, or a sham. Hypocrisy is the practice of engaging in the same behavior or activity for which one criticizes another. In moral psychology, it is the failure to follow one's own expressed moral rules and principles. According to British political philosopher David Runciman, "Other kinds of hypocritical deception include claims to knowledge that one lacks, claims to a consistency that one cannot sustain, claims to a loyalty that one does not possess, claims to an identity that one does not hold". American political journalist Michael Gerson says that political hypocrisy is "the conscious use of a mask to fool the public and gain political benefit". Hypocrisy has been a subject of folk wisdom and wisdom literature from the beginnings of human history. Increasingly, since the 1980s, it has also become central to studies in behavioral economics, cognitive science, cultural psychology, decision making, ethics, evolutionary psychology, moral psychology, political sociology, positive psychology, social psychology, and sociological social psychology.
  • 3.3K
  • 21 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Social Conflict
Social conflict refers to the tension, disagreement, or antagonism between individuals or groups within a society arising from opposing interests, values, or actions. It is a fundamental concept in sociology, highlighting the role of power, resources, and societal structures in shaping conflicts that can range from interpersonal disputes to large-scale social movements.
  • 3.3K
  • 26 Jan 2024
Topic Review
AI-Based and Big Data Analytics on Urban Planning
In order to enable a holistic approach to design and planning, there is a need to integrate those data sources and combine them with other more traditional methods of urban assessment. At the same time, there are still various concerns about big data analytics based on AI-related tools connected, for example, with the accessibility to and accuracy of big data, as well as the limitations of different types of AI-based tools which do not permit this kind of analytics to fully replace traditional urban planning analyses. In terms of technological change, the application of big data in design and planning may greatly support traditional planning methods and provide conditions for innovation; however, due to its limitations, it can only enrich but in no way replace traditional urban studies.
  • 3.3K
  • 03 Dec 2021
Topic Review
Scientific Tourism
Scientific tourism (ST) is a transversal approach to tourism development and management that can be applied in the evolution of many segments, from rural, to ecotourism or mass tourism.  ST focuses on contributing to the resilience of communities and territories by building shared knowledge and understanding of essential socio-ecological characteristics and dynamics.  The website of the ST network (scientific-tourism.org), defines ST as an activity where visitors participate in the generation and dissemination of scientific knowledge being developed by research and development centers. Mao and Bourlon described ST using a spectrum of levels and thematic approaches, organized around the four overarching categories: (1) adventure tourism with a scientific dimension, (2) cultural tourism with a scientific dimension, (3) scientific eco-volunteering, and (4) scientific research-based tourism. The authors suggested that, in many cases, the four forms of ST were complementary, and could simultaneously occur or merge within the scope of a destination or project. While this approach to ST incorporates many of the concepts of learning tourism, it differs in that it is grounded in the perspective of scientific knowledge generation and dissemination. Scientific tourism (ST) development builds on the scientific heritage of a geography, by matching researchers with local actors in an ongoing process that leads to shared understanding and the creation of new knowledge that can support the conservation and resilience of communities and their natural and socio-cultural settings. Through purposeful grounding of tourism in science, local communities can become more engaged with the socio-ecological systems in which they live and become empowered to innovate the ways in which tourism evolves.
  • 3.3K
  • 23 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Grand Duchy
A grand duchy is a country or territory whose official head of state or ruler is a monarch bearing the title of grand duke or grand duchess. Relatively rare until the abolition of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the term was often used in the official name of countries smaller than most continental kingdoms of modern Europe (e.g., Denmark, Spain, United Kingdom) yet larger than most of the sovereign duchies in the Holy Roman Empire, Italy or Scandinavia (e.g. Anhalt, Lorraine, Modena, Schleswig-Holstein). During the 19th century there were as many as 14 grand duchies in Europe at once (a few of which were first created as exclaves of the Napoleonic empire but later re-created, usually with different borders, under another dynasty). Some of these were sovereign and nominally independent (Baden, Hesse and by Rhine, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Oldenburg, Saxe-Weimar and Tuscany), some sovereign but held in personal union with larger realms by a monarch whose grand-dukedom was borne as a subsidiary title (Finland, Luxembourg, Transylvania), some of which were client states of a more powerful realm (Cleves and Berg), and some whose territorial boundaries were nominal and the position purely titular (Frankfurt). In the 21st century, only Luxembourg remains a grand duchy.
  • 3.3K
  • 17 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Urban Vulnerability
Urban vulnerability can be defined as the process produced by the combination of many disadvantaged dimensions in which any possibility of upward social mobility, and overcoming social condition exclusions, is extremely hard to achieve. Usually, the more vulnerable and distressed areas lack basic services and have a higher number of obsolete buildings, unfavorable social characteristics, vulnerable people, and more prominent gender differences. 
  • 3.2K
  • 26 Oct 2021
Topic Review
Islamic Primary Schools in the Netherlands
Because of the constitutional Freedom of education in the Netherlands, everyone can establish a school and is entitled to full state funding. There now are 52 primary Islamic schools, with around 12,500 pupils mostly of Turkish and Moroccan descent. They focus on developing an Islamic religious identity, and high educational quality and pupil achievement. Because most pupils come from socioeconomic disadvantaged backgrounds, the schools receive nearly twice as much budget than schools with a predominantly non-disadvantaged population. The existence of Islamic schools has always been controversial. Their output in terms of academic achievement is relatively high, however. In an absolute sense they achieve below the “average” Dutch school, but when compared with schools with the same disadvantaged pupil population, they achieve better. Lately, there have been problems with secondary Islamic schools in the Netherlands. As a result, several politicians propose to abolish the Freedom of education act.  
  • 3.2K
  • 03 Nov 2020
  • Page
  • of
  • 288
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