Sphere of influenceIn the field of international relations, a sphere of influence is a spatial region or concept division over which a state or organization has a level of cultural, economic, military or political exclusivity. While there may be a formal alliance or other treaty obligations between the influenced and influencer, such formal arrangements are not necessary and the influence can often be more of an example of soft power. Similarly, a formal alliance does not necessarily mean that one country lies within another's sphere of influence.
Financial crisisA financial crisis is any of a broad variety of situations in which some financial assets suddenly lose a large part of their nominal value. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, many financial crises were associated with banking panics, and many recessions coincided with these panics. Other situations that are often called financial crises include stock market crashes and the bursting of other financial bubbles, currency crises, and sovereign defaults.
SociolinguisticsSociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any or all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on language and the ways it is used. It can overlap with the sociology of language, which focuses on the effect of language on society. Sociolinguistics overlaps considerably with pragmatics and is closely related to linguistic anthropology. Sociolinguistics' historical interrelation with anthropology can be observed in studies of how language varieties differ between groups separated by social variables (e.
Geometric transformationIn mathematics, a geometric transformation is any bijection of a set to itself (or to another such set) with some salient geometrical underpinning. More specifically, it is a function whose domain and range are sets of points — most often both or both — such that the function is bijective so that its inverse exists. The study of geometry may be approached by the study of these transformations. Geometric transformations can be classified by the dimension of their operand sets (thus distinguishing between, say, planar transformations and spatial transformations).
Smart growthSmart growth is an urban planning and transportation theory that concentrates growth in compact walkable urban centers to avoid sprawl. It also advocates compact, transit-oriented, walkable, bicycle-friendly land use, including neighborhood schools, complete streets, and mixed-use development with a range of housing choices. The term "smart growth" is particularly used in North America.
Local governmentLocal government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically localised and has limited powers. While in some countries, "government" is normally reserved purely for a national administration (government) (which may be known as a central government or federal government), the term local government is always used specifically in contrast to national government – as well as, in many cases, the activities of sub-national, first-level administrative divisions (which are generally known by names such as cantons, provinces, states, oblasts, or regions).
Introduced speciesAn introduced species, alien species, exotic species, adventive species, immigrant species, foreign species, non-indigenous species, or non-native species is a species living outside its native distributional range, but which has arrived there by human activity, directly or indirectly, and either deliberately or accidentally. Non-native species can have various effects on the local ecosystem. Introduced species that become established and spread beyond the place of introduction are considered naturalized.
Hybrid (biology)In biology, a hybrid is the offspring resulting from combining the qualities of two organisms of different varieties, species or genera through sexual reproduction. Generally, it means that each cell has genetic material from two different organisms, whereas an individual where some cells are derived from a different organism is called a chimera. Hybrids are not always intermediates between their parents (such as in blending inheritance), but can show hybrid vigor, sometimes growing larger or taller than either parent.
Transformation matrixIn linear algebra, linear transformations can be represented by matrices. If is a linear transformation mapping to and is a column vector with entries, then for some matrix , called the transformation matrix of . Note that has rows and columns, whereas the transformation is from to . There are alternative expressions of transformation matrices involving row vectors that are preferred by some authors. Matrices allow arbitrary linear transformations to be displayed in a consistent format, suitable for computation.
Economic inequalityEconomic inequality is an umbrella term for a) income inequality or distribution of income (how the total sum of money paid to people is distributed among them), b) wealth inequality or distribution of wealth (how the total sum of wealth owned by people is distributed among the owners), and c) consumption inequality (how the total sum of money spent by people is distributed among the spenders).
Local ringIn mathematics, more specifically in ring theory, local rings are certain rings that are comparatively simple, and serve to describe what is called "local behaviour", in the sense of functions defined on varieties or manifolds, or of algebraic number fields examined at a particular place, or prime. Local algebra is the branch of commutative algebra that studies commutative local rings and their modules. In practice, a commutative local ring often arises as the result of the localization of a ring at a prime ideal.
DiscourseDiscourse is a generalization of the notion of a conversation to any form of communication. Discourse is a major topic in social theory, with work spanning fields such as sociology, anthropology, continental philosophy, and discourse analysis. Following pioneering work by Michel Foucault, these fields view discourse as a system of thought, knowledge, or communication that constructs our experience of the world. Since control of discourse amounts to control of how the world is perceived, social theory often studies discourse as a window into power.
