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Topic Review
Ubasoku
Upāsaka (masculine) or Upāsikā (feminine) are from the Sanskrit and Pāli words for "attendant". This is the title of followers of Buddhism (or, historically, of Gautama Buddha) who are not monks, nuns, or novice monastics in a Buddhist order, and who undertake certain vows. In modern times they have a connotation of dedicated piety that is best suggested by terms such as "lay devotee" or "devout lay follower".
  • 522
  • 28 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Artistic Interchange between Al-Andalus and Iberian Christian Kingdoms
The ivory casket made in Cuenca in A.D. 1026 and signed by Mohammad ibn Zayyan constitutes invaluable evidence for the study of artistic transfers between Al-Andalus and the Iberian Christian kingdoms. In the 12th century this piece was transformed in the monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos (Burgos) with the addition of Christian-themed enamels and reused as a reliquary. 
  • 518
  • 02 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Fairy Path
According to folklore a fairy path (or 'passage', 'avenue', or 'pass') is a route taken by fairies usually in a straight line and between sites of traditional significance, such as fairy forts or raths (a class of circular earthwork dating from the Iron Age), "airy" (eerie) mountains and hills, thorn bushes, springs, lakes, rock outcrops, and Stone Age monuments. Ley lines and spirit paths, such as with corpse roads, have some similarities with these fairy paths. A fairy ring is also a path used by fairies, but in a circle, for dancing, as described by poet W. B. Yeats, "...the fairies dance in a place apart, Shaking their milk-white feet in a ring,..." The concept is usually associated with Celtic folklore, especially that of Ireland.
  • 518
  • 02 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Placing Critical Pressure on Creative Holography
In her seminal PhD thesis, submitted to the Royal College of Art, London, in 1994, Margaret Benyon, MBE, postulated the question “How is holography Art?”. (Benyon 1994) Within her 226 pages, she attempted to put pressure on the ‘How’ not the ‘Why’ or the ‘If’, using the lens of her own, considerable, research in the field. The broad issues surrounding this area of critical debate have not been extensively or continuously explored, either from within the field of practising artists investigating holography as a process, medium and methodology or through broader discursive platforms within the visual arts. The medium remains, for most, a curious optical innovation that lacks critical consideration. Perhaps, almost 25 years later, Benyon’s question is somewhat redundant, or too blunt an instrument to accurately pressurise the extensive research which has taken place over this period. Artists have actively extended the vocabulary of holographic imaging, not only through disrupting the technology, which makes it practical, but also through an attempt to investigate its visual, conceptual and practical vocabularies.
  • 516
  • 23 Jun 2020
Topic Review
Causes of Schizophrenia
The causes of schizophrenia have been the subject of much debate, with various factors proposed and discounted or modified. The language of schizophrenia research under the medical model is scientific. Such studies suggest that genetics, prenatal development, early environment, neurobiology, and psychological and social processes are important contributory factors. Psychiatric research into the development of the disorder is often based on a neurodevelopmental model (proponents of which see schizophrenia as a syndrome.) However, schizophrenia is diagnosed on the basis of symptom profiles. Neural correlates do not provide sufficiently useful criteria. The one thing that researchers can agree on is that schizophrenia is a complicated and variable condition. It is best thought of as a syndrome, a cluster of symptoms that may or may not have related causes, rather than a single disease. It is possible for schizophrenia to develop at any age, but it mostly happens to people within the ages of 16–30 (generally males aged 16–25 years and females 25–30 years); about 75 percent of people living with the illness developed it in these age-ranges. Childhood schizophrenia that develops before the age of 13 is quite rare. There is on average a somewhat earlier onset for men than women, with the possible influence of the female sex hormone estrogen being one hypothesis and socio-cultural influences another. Studies have found that people born during the months of late winter and early spring have a slight risk of developing schizophrenia, a phenomenon known as the seasonality effect. Possible factors implicated include vitamin D deficiency, and prenatal infection.
  • 513
  • 24 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Live Streaming World News
Live streaming world news refers to live videos streams of world television news which are provided via streaming television or via streaming media by various television networks and television news outlets, from various countries. These are provided through Smart TV, or else through the networks' own websites, or also possibly via internet television, especially YouTube, or via video on demand services, subscription video on demand websites such as e.g. Hulu, mobile apps, or digital media players that are designed to play streaming television, such as e.g. the Roku media player. It is distinct from news broadcasts that are transmitted via conventional broadcast television; since it is not transmitted via cable television services, and not via over-the-air television that is transmitted via over-the-air broadcasting. For some twenty-four-hour news channels, the content being shown via its streaming news service, and via its broadcast television channels, may be identical; however, for regular commercial networks, the content of the streaming news may be quite different than what is being broadcast; i.e. the broadcast channels may carry standard television entertainment, while the streaming service is devoted to news only. One example of this is the ABC Network of the United States, and its streaming online news service.
  • 513
  • 02 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Suicide Experience
The suicide experience combines despair with the perception of suicide as the last option to alter its suffering effectively and actively. Shneidman’s phenomenology understands the suicidal mind in terms of psychological pain, as opposed to focusing on the individual context.
  • 512
  • 26 Oct 2021
Topic Review
Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry
Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry, a book by British philosopher Owen Barfield, is concerned with physics, the evolution of consciousness, pre-history, ancient Greece, ancient Israel, the medieval period, the scientific revolution, Christianity, Romanticism, and much else. The book was Barfield's favorite of those he authored, and the one that he most wanted to continue to be read. It was first published in England in 1957, and it was first issued in paperback in the United States in 1965. According to Barfield, the book enjoyed a far greater reception by the public in the United States, where Barfield often accepted invitations to lecture, than it did in England. The book explores approximately three thousand years of history — particularly the history of human consciousness in relation to that which precedes or underlies the world of perception or phenomena. Given the vast field considered by the book, it is concise and brief, about two hundred pages. Barfield describes the growth of human consciousness as an interaction with nature, leading the reader to a fresh understanding of man's history, circumstances, and destiny. Saving the Appearances has in common with some thoughts of Teilhard de Chardin the understanding of idols as appearances having nothing within. "[A] representation, which is collectively mistaken for an ultimate – ought not to be called a representation. It is an idol. Thus the phenomena themselves are idols, when they are imagined as enjoying that independence of human perception which can in fact only pertain to the unrepresented."
  • 510
  • 25 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Tutor
A tutor, formally also called an academic tutor, is a person who provides assistance or tutelage to one or more people on certain subject areas or skills. The tutor spends a few hours on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis to transfer their expertise on the topic or skill to the student. Tutoring can take place in different settings,
  • 509
  • 23 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Liexian Zhuan
The Liexian Zhuan, sometimes translated as Biographies of Immortals, is the oldest extant Chinese hagiography of Daoist xian "transcendents; immortals; saints; alchemists". The text, which compiles the life stories of about 70 mythological and historical xian, was traditionally attributed to the Western Han dynasty editor and imperial librarian Liu Xiang (77-8 BCE), but internal evidence dates it to the 2nd century CE during the Eastern Han period. The Liexian Zhuan became a model for later authors, such as Ge Hong's 4th century CE Shenxian zhuan ("Biographies of Divine Immortals").
  • 508
  • 05 Dec 2022
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