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Topic Review
Abuse of Process
Abuse of process is a cause of action in tort arising from one party making misusing or perversion of regularly issued court process (civil or criminal) not justified by the underlying legal action. It is a common law intentional tort. It is to be distinguished from malicious prosecution, another type of tort that involves misuse of the public right of access to the courts. The elements of a valid cause of action for abuse of process in most common law jurisdictions are as follows: (1) the existence of an ulterior purpose or motive underlying the use of process, and (2) some act in the use of the legal process not proper in the regular prosecution of the proceedings. Abuse of process can be distinguished from malicious prosecution, in that abuse of process typically does not require proof of malice, lack of probable cause in procuring issuance of the process, or a termination favorable to the plaintiff, all of which are essential to a claim of malicious prosecution. "Process," as used in this context, includes not only the "service of process," i.e. an official summons or other notice issued from a court, but means any method used to acquire jurisdiction over a person or specific property that is issued under the official seal of a court. Typically, the person who abuses process is interested only in accomplishing some improper purpose that is collateral to the proper object of the process and that offends justice, such as an unjustified arrest or an unfounded criminal prosecution. Subpoenas to testify, attachments of property, executions on property, garnishments, and other provisional remedies are among the types of "process" considered to be capable of abuse.
  • 421
  • 21 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Achievement Orientation
Achievement orientation refers to how an individual interprets and reacts to tasks, resulting in different patterns of cognition, affect and behavior. Developed within a social-cognitive framework, achievement goal theory proposes that students’ motivation and achievement-related behaviors can be understood by considering the reasons or purposes they adopt while engaged in academic work. The focus is on how students think about themselves, their tasks, and their performance. In general, an individual can be said to be “mastery” or “performance” oriented, based on whether one's goal is to develop one's ability or to demonstrate one's ability, respectively. Achievement orientations have been shown to be associated with individuals’ academic achievement, adjustment, and well-being.
  • 2.0K
  • 13 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Adjective Check List
The Adjective Check List (ACL) is a psychological assessment containing 300 adjectives used to identify common psychological traits. The ACL was constructed by Harrison G. Gough and Alfred B. Heilbrun, Jr. with the goal to assess psychological traits of an individual. The ACL measures 37 scales within 5 categories: modus operandi (4 scales), need (15 scales), topical (9 scales), transactional analysis (5 scales), and origence-intellectence (4 scales). To complete the ACL, respondents select the adjectives that they believe describe themselves (or someone else). Any number of items may be selected from the list of adjectives. In this way, the results are customized to include only those adjectives salient to the individual being assessed. The ACL takes between 10-15 minutes to complete and may be administered to individuals, groups, or used by researchers to describe study participants. The ACL is protected by copyright law, published by Consulting Psychologists Press, and distributed by Mind Garden, Inc. The ACL was first developed in the early days of the Institute of Personality Assessment and Research at the University of California, Berkeley. It has been used since 1952 by many psychologists worldwide and is one of the 100 most frequently used and cited tests in psychology.
  • 421
  • 29 Sep 2022
Topic Review
Adverse Possession
Adverse possession, sometimes colloquially described as "squatter's rights",[lower-alpha 1] is a legal principle that applies when a person who does not have legal title to a piece of property—usually land (real property)—attempts to claim legal ownership based upon a history of possession or occupation of the land without the permission of its legal owner. In general, a property owner has the right to recover possession of their property from unauthorized possessors through legal action such as ejectment. However, in the English common law tradition, courts have long ruled that when someone occupies a piece of property without permission and the property's owner does not exercise their right to recover their property for a significant period of time, not only is the original owner prevented from exercising their right to exclude, but an entirely new title to the property springs up in the adverse possessor. In effect, the adverse possessor becomes the property's new owner.[lower-alpha 2] Over time, legislatures have created statutes of limitations that specify the length of time that owners have to recover possession of their property from adverse possessors. In the United States, for example, these time limits vary widely between individual states, ranging from as low as five years to as many as 40 years. Although the elements of an adverse possession action are different in every jurisdiction, a person claiming adverse possession is usually required to prove non-permissive use of the property that is actual, open and notorious, exclusive, adverse, and continuous for the statutory period.[lower-alpha 3] Personal property, traditionally known as "chattel", may also be adversely possessed, but owing to the differences in the nature of real and chattel property, the rules governing such claims are rather more stringent, and favor the legal owner rather than the adverse possessor. Claims for adverse possession of chattel often involve works of art.
  • 784
  • 17 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Aestheticization of Violence
The aestheticization of violence in high culture art or mass media has been the subject of considerable controversy and debate for centuries. In Western art, graphic depictions of the Passion of Christ have long been portrayed, as have a wide range of depictions of warfare by later painters and graphic artists. Theater and, in modern times, cinema have often featured battles and violent crimes, while images and descriptions of violence have always been a part of literature. Margaret Bruder states that the aestheticization of violence in film is the depiction of violence in a "stylistically excessive", "significant and sustained way" in which audience members are able to connect references from the "play of images and signs" to artworks, genre conventions, cultural symbols, or concepts.
  • 2.6K
  • 15 Nov 2022
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).
  • 3.0K
  • 04 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Aggression
Aggression is overt or covert, often harmful, social interaction with the intention of inflicting damage or other harm upon another individual. It may occur either reactively or without provocation. In humans, aggression can be caused by various triggers, from frustration due to blocked goals to feeling disrespected. Human aggression can be classified into direct and indirect aggression; whilst the former is characterized by physical or verbal behavior intended to cause harm to someone, the latter is characterized by behavior intended to harm the social relations of an individual or group. In definitions commonly used in the social sciences and behavioral sciences, aggression is an action or response by an individual that delivers something unpleasant to another person. Some definitions include that the individual must intend to harm another person. In an interdisciplinary perspective, aggression is regarded as “an ensemble of mechanism formed during the course of evolution in order to assert oneself, relatives or friends against others, to gain or to defend resources (ultimate causes) by harmful damaging means [...] These mechanisms are often motivated by emotions like fear, frustration, anger, feelings of stress, dominance or pleasure (proximate causes) [...] Sometimes aggressive behavior serves as a stress relief or a subjective feeling of power." Predatory or defensive behavior between members of different species may not be considered aggression in the same sense. Aggression can take a variety of forms, which may be expressed physically, or communicated verbally or non-verbally: including anti-predator aggression, defensive aggression (fear-induced), predatory aggression, dominance aggression, inter-male aggression, resident-intruder aggression, maternal aggression, species-specific aggression, sex-related aggression, territorial aggression, isolation-induced aggression, irritable aggression, and brain-stimulation-induced aggression (hypothalamus). There are two subtypes of human aggression: (1) controlled-instrumental subtype (purposeful or goal-oriented); and (2) reactive-impulsive subtype (often elicits uncontrollable actions that are inappropriate or undesirable). Aggression differs from what is commonly called assertiveness, although the terms are often used interchangeably among laypeople (as in phrases such as "an aggressive salesperson").
  • 1.2K
  • 10 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Agit-Train
An agit-train (Russian: агитпоезд) was a locomotive engine with special auxiliary cars outfitted for propaganda purposes by the Bolshevik government of Soviet Russia during the time of the Russian Civil War, War Communism, and the New Economic Policy. Brightly painted and carrying on board a printing press, government complaint office, printed political leaflets and pamphlets, library books, and a mobile movie theater, agit-trains traveled the rails of Russia , Siberia, and the Ukraine in an attempt to inculcate the values and program of the new revolutionary government to a scattered and isolated peasantry. Launched in August 1918, agit-trains — and their close counterparts, the urban agit-streetcar (Russian: агиттрамвай) and the aquatic agit-boat (Russian: агитпарaход) — continued in limited use throughout the 1920s. The agit-train concept was revived during the years of World War II as a mechanism for the direct spread of information during a time when ordinary means of communication and government control structures between the center and the periphery had faltered.
  • 392
  • 26 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Agri Food Sector
  Definition given the complexity of the sector, each supply chain has some peculiarities that require suitable tools. For this reason, it is difficult to identify a common tool for the implementation of circular practices. However, the use of a shared assessment tool should enable comparison of circular performances and practices among the different stages and supply chains and involving all the actors of the AFS. This collaborative approach is required both vertically (among the stages of the supply chain) and horizontally (among the different supply chains) in order to catalyse the transition towards circular business models and to efficiently implement circular practices.  
  • 4.5K
  • 19 Apr 2021
Topic Review
Agri-Biodiversity Conservation Policy
Agri-biodiversity conservation policy is the set of principles and legislative measures and recommendations, at the national, subnational or international level, that seek to preserve and enhance the conservation status of farmland biodiversity.  
  • 480
  • 26 Sep 2021
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