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
Stylometry and Numerals Usage: Benford's Law and Beyond
Benford’s Law is a strange manifestation of the law of large numbers (understood as the combined action of a large number of random factors leading to a result that is almost independent of the case).
  • 899
  • 11 Jan 2022
Topic Review Peer Reviewed
Data Quality—Concepts and Problems
Data Quality is, in essence, understood as the degree to which the data of interest satisfies the requirements, is free of flaws, and is suited for the intended purpose. Data Quality is usually measured utilizing several criteria, which may differ in terms of assigned importance, depending on, e.g., the data at hand, stakeholders, or the intended use.
  • 846
  • 14 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Excommunication of Catholic Politicians Who Support Abortion
Because the Catholic Church opposes abortion as a matter of doctrine, some Catholic bishops have refused or threatened to refuse communion, or threatened to declare excommunication upon Catholic politicians who support abortion. In some cases, officials have stated that ministers should refuse communion to such politicians per canon 915 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law; elsewhere, that the politicians should, on their own, refrain from receiving communion ad normam canon 916; and in other cases, excommunication has been suggested.
  • 898
  • 23 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Christian Chinese cloisonné
Cloisonné is the technique of creating designs on metal vessels with colored-glass paste placed within enclosures made of copper or bronze wires, which have been bent or hammered into the desired pattern. Known as cloisons (French for “partitions”), the enclosures generally are either pasted or soldered onto the metal body. The first written reference of Cloisonné in China is in Cao Zhao’s Gegu yaolun (格古要論)), or Important discussions about assessing antiques (1388), where it is called “Dashi (‘Muslim’) ware”. However, the oldest known pieces in China correspond to the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368). Similarly, in Cao Zhao’s book, cloisonné was associated with the trousseau of elite ladies, but was not yet considered appropriate for the art collection of refined literati. In Chinese cloisonné, blue is the predominant color, and the Chinese name for the technique is jingtailan (“blue Jingtai objects”) referring to Emperor Jingtai (r. 1449–1457), in whose times the production of these objects flourished. By the late Ming Dynasty, cloisonné passed from the trousseau of the Chinese elite ladies and Buddhist temples to the collections of the literati as an exquisite object to integrate into the Chinese artistic tradition. What is more, it was even part of sets of offerings in Confucian mausoleums and in the halls of representation of power in the Forbidden City. To achieve the definitive implantation of Christianity in China, since the 17th century the Jesuit missionaries used the adaptationist method in their preaching and artistic practices to be able to empathize with Chinese audiences. Thus, they used Western models, but adaptingadapted to the visual language and the ornamental and symbolic motifs of the Chinese artistic tradition. In any case, the Jesuits aimed to convert the elites first. To do this, they used artistic and literary means already established in the Chinese culture of the literati, such as cloisonné precious objects and Chinese inscriptions. Thus, these objects of art are not only situated within a dialogue between the West and the East but also within the stratification of the Chinese society that the Jesuits took into consideration.
  • 896
  • 22 Dec 2021
Topic Review
Wesleyanism
Wesleyanism, or Wesleyan theology, is a movement of Protestant Christians who seek to follow the "methods" or theology of the eighteenth-century evangelical reformers John Wesley and his brother Charles Wesley. More broadly, it refers to the theological system inferred from the various sermons, theological treatises, letters, journals, diaries, hymns, and other spiritual writings of the Wesleys and their contemporary coadjutors such as John William Fletcher. Wesleyanism, manifest today in Methodist and Holiness churches, is named for its founders, the Wesleys. In 1736, these two brothers traveled to the Georgia colony in America as missionaries for the Church of England; they left rather disheartened at what they saw. Both of them subsequently had "religious experiences," especially John in 1738, being greatly influenced by the Moravian Christians. They began to organize a renewal movement within the Church of England to focus on personal faith and holiness. John Wesley took Protestant churches to task over the nature of sanctification, the process by which a believer is conformed to the image of Christ, emphasizing New Testament teachings regarding the work of God and the believer in sanctification. The movement did well within the Church of England in Britain, but when the movement crossed the ocean into America, it took on a form of its own, finally being established as the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1784. The Wesleyan churches are very similar to Anglicanism (in Church government and liturgical practices), yet have added a strong emphasis on personal faith and personal experience. At its heart, the theology of John Wesley stressed the life of Christian holiness: to love God with all one’s heart, mind, soul and strength and to love one’s neighbour as oneself. See also Ministry of Jesus. Wesley’s teaching also stressed experiential religion and moral responsibility.
  • 895
  • 22 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Multilingual Pedagogies in Norwegian Schools
Teachers in Norway have been increasingly faced with the challenge of adapting their instruction methods to address the needs of minority-language students. It seems to indicate that multilingual practices are being introduced in Norwegian classrooms. However, they often rely on majority languages, such as English and Norwegian. Some teachers have been found to employ minority languages to support learners’ English writing in drafts. Minority languages in Norwegian schools tend to be regarded as less valuable than Norwegian and English.
  • 895
  • 29 Jun 2022
Topic Review
Zephaniah Kingsley
Zephaniah Kingsley Jr. (December 4, 1765 – September 14, 1843), a Quaker born in England who moved as a child with his family to South Carolina, became a planter, slave trader, and merchant who built several plantations in the Spanish colony of Florida in what is now Jacksonville, Florida. He served on the Florida Territorial Council after Florida was acquired by the United States in 1821. Kingsley Plantation, which he owned and where he lived for 25 years, has been preserved as part of the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve, run by the United States National Park Service. Kingsley was a relatively lenient slaveholder, who allowed his slaves the opportunity to be hired out and earn their freedom. He took four enslaved African women as common-law wives, practicing polygamy. His first wife, Anna Madgigine Jai Kingsley, was 13 years old when Kingsley purchased her in Havana. He said that he had married her, which he never said of his three other common-law wives. He emancipated Anna Jai when she turned 18, and trusted her with running his plantation when he was away on business. He had a total of nine mixed-race children with his wives. He educated his children to high standards and worked to ensure he could settle his estate on them and his wives. His interracial family and his business interests resulted in Kingsley being deeply invested in the Spanish system of slavery and society. As in the French colonies, certain rights were provided to a class of free people of color, and multiracial natural children were allowed to inherit property from white fathers. "In the Spanish Floridas free people of color ... enjoyed tremendously elevated status when compared to virtually any other person of African descent in North America.":61 Kingsley became involved in politics when control of the Florida colony passed in 1821 from Spain to the United States. He tried to persuade the new territorial government to maintain the special status of the population of free people of color, who were mostly multi-racial. He was unsuccessful in this effort, and in 1828 he published a pamphlet that defended a system of slavery that would allow slaves to purchase their freedom, and give rights to free blacks and free people of color. Faced with American laws that forbade interracial marriage, and discouraged "free people of color" (see Free black#Free negroes unwelcome) being allowed to stay or settle in the state, between 1835 and 1837, Kingsley relocated his large family to Haiti. (At that time it controlled part of what is today the Dominican Republic.) After his death, his estate in Florida was the subject of dispute between his widow Anna Jai and other members of Kingsley's family, but she was successful in gaining the estate he had bequeathed to her.
  • 891
  • 11 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Folk Art
Folk art covers all forms of visual art made in the context of folk culture. Definitions vary, but generally the objects have practical utility of some kind, rather than being exclusively decorative. The makers of folk art are normally trained within a popular tradition, rather than in the fine art tradition of the culture. There is often overlap, or contested ground, with naive art, but in traditional societies where ethnographic art is still made, that term is normally used instead of "folk art". The types of object covered by the term varies considerably and in particular "divergent categories of cultural production are comprehended by its usage in Europe, where the term originated, and in the United States, where it developed for the most part along very different lines." Folk arts are rooted in and reflective of the cultural life of a community. They encompass the body of expressive culture associated with the fields of folklore and cultural heritage. Tangible folk art includes objects which historically are crafted and used within a traditional community. Intangible folk arts include such forms as music, dance and narrative structures. Each of these arts, both tangible and intangible, was originally developed to address a real need. Once this practical purpose has been lost or forgotten, there is no reason for further transmission unless the object or action has been imbued with meaning beyond its initial practicality. These vital and constantly reinvigorated artistic traditions are shaped by values and standards of excellence that are passed from generation to generation, most often within family and community, through demonstration, conversation, and practice.
  • 889
  • 15 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Buddhology
Buddhology is the study of the Buddha or Buddhahood. The term is also used as a synonym for Buddhist Studies, contemporary academic investigation of Buddhism. There are varied and nuanced understandings of the precise nature of a Buddha expressed in the different Buddhist traditions and movements.
  • 887
  • 02 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Ganapati Atharvashirsa
The Ganapati Atharvashirsa (Sanskrit: गणपत्यथर्वशीर्ष, Gaṇapatyatharvaśīrṣa) is a Sanskrit text and a minor Upanishad of Hinduism. It is a late Upanishadic text dedicated to Ganesha, the deity representing intellect and learning. It asserts that Ganesha is same as the eternal underlying reality, Brahman. The text is attached to the Atharvaveda, and is also referred to as the Sri Ganapati Atharva Sirsha, the Ganapati Atharvashirsha, the Ganapati Atharvasirsa, or the Ganapati Upanishad. The text exists in several variants, but with the same message. Ganesha is described to be same as other Hindu gods, as ultimate truth and reality (Brahman), as satcitananda, as the soul in oneself (Atman) and in every living being, as Om.
  • 886
  • 17 Nov 2022
  • Page
  • of
  • 134
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
ScholarVision Creations
Feedback