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Topic Review
Proto-Berber
Proto-Berber or Proto-Libyan is the reconstructed proto-language from which the modern Berber languages stem. Proto-Berber was an Afroasiatic language, and as such, its descendant Berber languages are cousins to the Egyptian language, Cushitic languages, Semitic languages, Chadic languages, and the Omotic languages.
  • 1.0K
  • 07 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Proto-Austronesian
Proto-Austronesian (commonly abbreviated as PAN or PAn) is a proto-language. It is the reconstructed ancestor of the Austronesian languages, one of the world's major language families. Lower-level reconstructions have also been made, and include Proto-Malayo-Polynesian, Proto-Oceanic, and Proto-Polynesian. Recently, linguists such as Malcolm Ross and Andrew Pawley have built large lexicons for Proto-Oceanic and Proto-Polynesian.
  • 1.5K
  • 25 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Proto-Austroasiatic
Proto-Austroasiatic is the reconstructed ancestor of the Austroasiatic languages. Proto-Mon–Khmer (i.e., all Austroasiatic branches except for Munda) has been reconstructed in Harry L. Shorto's Mon–Khmer Comparative Dictionary, while a new Proto-Austroasiatic reconstruction is currently being undertaken by Paul Sidwell.
  • 859
  • 01 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Proto-Algonquian
Proto-Algonquian (commonly abbreviated PA) is the proto-language from which the various Algonquian languages are descended. It is generally estimated to have been spoken around 2,500 to 3,000 years ago, but on the question of where it was spoken, there is less agreement. The Algonquian family, which is a branch of the larger Algic language family, is usually divided into three subgroups: Eastern Algonquian, which is a genetic subgroup, and Central Algonquian and Plains Algonquian, both of which are areal groupings. In the historical linguistics of North America, Proto-Algonquian is one of the best studied, most thoroughly reconstructed proto-languages. It is descended from Proto-Algic.
  • 834
  • 15 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Prophet, Seer, and Revelator
Prophet, seer, and revelator is an ecclesiastical title used in the Latter Day Saint movement. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) is the largest denomination of the movement, and it currently applies the terms to the members of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. In the past, it has also been applied to the Presiding Patriarch of the church and the Assistant President of the Church. Other sects and denominations of the movement also use these terms.
  • 970
  • 25 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Proper Name
In the philosophy of language, a proper name – examples include a name of a specific person or place – is a name which ordinarily is taken to uniquely identify its referent in the world. As such it presents particular challenges for theories of meaning, and it has become a central problem in analytic philosophy. The common-sense view was originally formulated by John Stuart Mill in A System of Logic (1843), where he defines it as "a word that answers the purpose of showing what thing it is that we are talking about but not of telling anything about it". This view was criticized when philosophers applied principles of formal logic to linguistic propositions. Gottlob Frege pointed out that proper names may apply to imaginary and nonexistent entities, without becoming meaningless, and he showed that sometimes more than one proper name may identify the same entity without having the same sense, so that the phrase "Homer believed the morning star was the evening star" could be meaningful and not tautological in spite of the fact that the morning star and the evening star identifies the same referent. This example became known as Frege's puzzle and is a central issue in the theory of proper names. Bertrand Russell was the first to propose a descriptivist theory of names, which held that a proper name refers not to a referent, but to a set of true propositions that uniquely describe a referent – for example, "Aristotle" refers to "the teacher of Alexander the Great". Rejecting descriptivism, Saul Kripke and Keith Donnellan instead advanced causal-historical theories of reference, which hold that names come to be associated with individual referents because social groups who link the name to its reference in a naming event (e.g. a baptism), which henceforth fixes the value of the name to the specific referent within that community. Today a direct reference theory is common, which holds that proper names refer to their referents without attributing any additional information, connotative or of sense, about them.
  • 576
  • 21 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Project Alpha
Project Alpha was an effort by magician James Randi to test the quality of scientific rigor of a well-known test of paranormal phenomena. In the late 1970s, Randi contacted the newly established McDonnell Laboratory for Psychical Research ("MacLab") with suggestions on how to conduct tests for paranormal phenomena. At the same time, two teenage boys (Steve Shaw, later known as Banachek, and Mike Edwards) independently contacted the McDonnell Laboratory and volenteered as subjects for such tests from 1979 to 1982. They quickly proved to exhibit a range of paranormal abilities far and away better than the other subjects of the experiment. The lab began leaking reports of the pair's capabilities, which were in fact simple magic tricks. When rumors of the test subjects' connection to Randi reached Peter Phillips, head of the MacLab, he instituted tighter protocols for the experiments; the two subjects' results declined sharply. In 1983, Randi held a press conference to expose the deception In the wake of Project Alpha, there were a number of controversies about the ethics of interference in scientific research and the validity of paranormal research as it then existed. It remains a watershed event in the field of parapsychology.
  • 581
  • 28 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Profiling (Non-)Nascent Entrepreneurs
System-level feature sets with four machine learning modeling algorithms: multivariate adaptive regression spline (MARS), support vector machine (SVM), random forest (RF), and AdaBoost.
  • 343
  • 01 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Profession (Religious)
The term religious profession is used in many western-rite Christian denominations (including those of Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, and other traditions) to refer to the solemn admission of men or women into a religious order by means of public vows. The term is defined in the 1983 Code of Canon Law of the Roman Catholic Church in relation to members of religious institutes as follows: Canon Law also recognizes public profession of the three evangelical counsels on the part of Christians who live the "eremitic or anchoritic life" without being members of a religious institute: The three evangelical counsels, which are considered in greater depth in the article about them, are those of chastity, poverty and obedience. The Benedictine religious profession of "stability, conversion of manners and obedience", though historically preceding the profession of the evangelical counsels by several centuries, includes the three evangelical counsels implicitly. Some orders add to the three evangelical counsels special vows inspired by the purpose of their own founder (see in particular the fourth vow unique to the Society of Jesus). Religious profession is often associated with the granting of a religious habit, which the newly professed receives, with or without ceremony, from the superior of the institute or from the bishop. Acceptance of the habit implies acceptance of the obligation of membership of the religious institute, including the vows of chastity, poverty and obedience. Religious profession can be temporary or perpetual: "Temporary profession is to be made for the period defined by the institute's own law. This period may not be less than three years nor longer than six years." "When the period of time for which the profession was made has been completed, a religious who freely asks, and is judged suitable, is to be admitted to a renewal of profession or to perpetual profession; otherwise, the religious is to leave." Conditions for making a temporary religious profession are a minimum age of 18 years, completion of a regular novitiate, freedom of choice on the part of the person making the profession, and acceptance by the superior after a vote by the superior's council. Additional conditions for making perpetual profession are a minimum age of 21 years and the completion of at least three years of temporary profession. The traditional distinction between simple and solemn vows is no longer taken into account for canonical effects.
  • 562
  • 25 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Principle of Least Action
The principle of least action – or, more accurately, the principle of stationary action – is a variational principle that, when applied to the action of a mechanical system, can be used to obtain the equations of motion for that system. It was historically called "least" because its solution requires finding the path of motion in space that has the least value. The principle can be used to derive Newtonian, Lagrangian and Hamiltonian equations of motion, and even general relativity (see Einstein–Hilbert action). In relativity, a different action must be minimized or maximized. The classical mechanics and electromagnetic expressions are a consequence of quantum mechanics. The stationary action method helped in the development of quantum mechanics. In 1933, the physicist Paul Dirac demonstrated how this principle can be used in quantum calculations by discerning the quantum mechanical underpinning of the principle in the quantum interference of amplitudes. Subsequently Julian Schwinger and Richard Feynman independently applied this principle in quantum electrodynamics. The principle remains central in modern physics and mathematics, being applied in thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, the theory of relativity, quantum mechanics, particle physics, and string theory and is a focus of modern mathematical investigation in Morse theory. Maupertuis' principle and Hamilton's principle exemplify the principle of stationary action. The action principle is preceded by earlier ideas in optics. In Ancient Greece , Euclid wrote in his Catoptrica that, for the path of light reflecting from a mirror, the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection. Hero of Alexandria later showed that this path was the shortest length and least time. Scholars often credit Pierre Louis Maupertuis for formulating the principle of least action because he wrote about it in 1744 and 1746. However, Leonhard Euler discussed the principle in 1744,[ and evidence shows that Gottfried Leibniz preceded both by 39 years.
  • 1.9K
  • 29 Sep 2022
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