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Snowball Effect
A snowball effect is a process that starts from an initial state of small significance and builds upon itself, becoming larger (graver, more serious), and also perhaps potentially dangerous or disastrous (a vicious circle), though it might be beneficial instead (a virtuous circle). This is a cliché in cartoons and modern theatrics and it is also used in psychology. The common analogy is with the rolling of a snowball down a snow-covered hillside. As it rolls the ball will pick up more snow, gaining more mass and surface area, and picking up even more snow and momentum as it rolls along. In aerospace engineering, it is used to describe the multiplication effect in an original weight saving. A reduction in the weight of the fuselage will require less lift, meaning the wings can be smaller. Hence less thrust is required and therefore smaller engines, resulting in a greater weight saving than the original reduction. This iteration can be repeated several times, although the decrea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vicious Circle
A vicious circle (or cycle) is a complex chain of events that reinforces itself through a feedback loop, with detrimental results. It is a system with no tendency toward equilibrium (social, economic, ecological, etc.), at least in the short run. Each iteration of the cycle reinforces the previous one, in an example of positive feedback. A vicious circle will continue in the direction of its momentum until an external factor intervenes to break the cycle. A well-known example of a vicious circle in economics is hyperinflation. A virtuous circle is an equivalent system with a favorable outcome. Examples Vicious circles in the subprime mortgage crisis The contemporary subprime mortgage crisis is a complex group of vicious circles, both in its genesis and in its manifold outcomes, most notably the late 2000s recession. A specific example is the circle related to housing. As housing prices decline, more homeowners go " underwater", when the market value of a home drops below ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chain Reaction
A chain reaction is a sequence of reactions where a reactive product or by-product causes additional reactions to take place. In a chain reaction, positive feedback leads to a self-amplifying chain of events. Chain reactions are one way that systems which are not in thermodynamic equilibrium can release energy or increase entropy in order to reach a state of higher entropy. For example, a system may not be able to reach a lower energy state by releasing energy into the environment, because it is hindered or prevented in some way from taking the path that will result in the energy release. If a reaction results in a small energy release making way for more energy releases in an expanding chain, then the system will typically collapse explosively until much or all of the stored energy has been released. A macroscopic metaphor for chain reactions is thus a snowball causing a larger snowball until finally an avalanche results ("snowball effect"). This is a result of stored gravitation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Streisand Effect
Attempts to hide, remove, or censor information often have the unintended consequence of increasing awareness of that information via the Internet. This is called the Streisand effect. It is named after American singer and actress Barbra Streisand, whose attempt to suppress the California Coastal Records Project's photograph of her cliff-top residence in Malibu, California, taken to document California coastal erosion, inadvertently drew greater attention to the photograph in 2003. Attempts to suppress information are often made through cease-and-desist letters, but instead of being suppressed, the information receives extensive publicity, as well as media extensions such as videos and spoof songs, which can be mirrored on the Internet or distributed on file-sharing networks. In addition, seeking or obtaining an injunction to prohibit something from being published or remove something that is already published can lead to increased publicity of the published work. The Streisa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Snowball Sampling
In sociology and statistics research, snowball sampling (or chain sampling, chain-referral sampling, referral sampling) is a nonprobability sampling technique where existing study subjects recruit future subjects from among their acquaintances. Thus the sample group is said to grow like a rolling snowball. As the sample builds up, enough data are gathered to be useful for research. This sampling technique is often used in hidden populations, such as drug users or sex workers, which are difficult for researchers to access. As sample members are not selected from a sampling frame, snowball samples are subject to numerous biases. For example, people who have many friends are more likely to be recruited into the sample. When virtual social networks are used, then this technique is called virtual snowball sampling. It was widely believed that it was impossible to make unbiased estimates from snowball samples, but a variation of snowball sampling called respondent-driven sampling has b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Slippery Slope
A slippery slope argument (SSA), in logic, critical thinking, political rhetoric, and caselaw, is an argument in which a party asserts that a relatively small first step leads to a chain of related events culminating in some significant (usually negative) effect. The core of the slippery slope argument is that a specific decision under debate is likely to result in unintended consequences. The strength of such an argument depends on whether the small step really is likely to lead to the effect. This is quantified in terms of what is known as the warrant (in this case, a demonstration of the process that leads to the significant effect). This type of argument is sometimes used as a form of fearmongering in which the probable consequences of a given action are exaggerated in an attempt to scare the audience. However, differentiation is necessary, since, in other cases, it might be demonstrable that the small step is likely to lead to an effect. The fallacious sense of "slippery ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Self-fulfilling Prophecy
A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that comes true at least in part as a result of a person's or group of persons' belief or expectation that said prediction would come true. This suggests that people's beliefs influence their actions. The principle behind this phenomenon is that people create consequences regarding people or events, based on previous knowledge of the subject. There are three factors within an environment that can come together to influence the likelihood of a self-fulfilling prophecy becoming a reality: appearance, perception, and belief. When a phenomenon cannot be seen, appearance is what we rely upon when a self-fulfilling prophecy is in place. When it comes to a self-fulfilling prophecy there also must be a distinction "between 'brute and institutional' facts". The philosopher John Searle states the difference as "facts hatexist independently of any human institutions; institutional facts can only exist within institutions." There is an inability of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Road To Serfdom
''The Road to Serfdom'' ( German: ''Der Weg zur Knechtschaft'') is a book written between 1940 and 1943 by Austrian-British economist and philosopher Friedrich Hayek. Since its publication in 1944, ''The Road to Serfdom'' has been popular among liberal (especially classical) and conservative thinkers, and remains referenced in modern discourse. It has been translated into more than 20 languages and sold over two million copies (as of 2010). The book was first published in Britain by Routledge in March 1944, during World War II, and was quite popular, leading Hayek to call it "that unobtainable book", also due in part to wartime paper rationing. It was published in the United States by the University of Chicago Press in September 1944 and achieved great popularity. At the arrangement of editor Max Eastman, the American magazine ''Reader's Digest'' published an abridged version in April 1945, enabling ''The Road to Serfdom'' to reach a wider non-academic audience. ''The Road to Se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Positive Feedback
Positive feedback (exacerbating feedback, self-reinforcing feedback) is a process that occurs in a feedback loop which exacerbates the effects of a small disturbance. That is, the effects of a perturbation on a system include an increase in the magnitude of the perturbation. That is, ''A produces more of B which in turn produces more of A''.Keesing, R.M. (1981). Cultural anthropology: A contemporary perspective (2nd ed.) p.149. Sydney: Holt, Rinehard & Winston, Inc. In contrast, a system in which the results of a change act to reduce or counteract it has negative feedback. Both concepts play an important role in science and engineering, including biology, chemistry, and cybernetics. Mathematically, positive feedback is defined as a positive loop gain around a closed loop of cause and effect. That is, positive feedback is Phase (waves), in phase with the input, in the sense that it adds to make the input larger. Positive feedback tends to cause Control theory#Stability, system i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Matthew Effect
The Matthew effect of accumulated advantage, Matthew principle, or Matthew effect, is the tendency of individuals to accrue social or economic success in proportion to their initial level of popularity, friends, wealth, etc. It is sometimes summarized by the adage "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer". The term was coined by sociologists Robert K. Merton and Harriet Zuckerman in 1968 and takes its name from the Parable of the Talents in the biblical Gospel of Matthew. The Matthew effect may largely be explained by preferential attachment, whereby wealth or credit is distributed among individuals according to how much they already have. This has the net effect of making it increasingly difficult for low ranked individuals to increase their totals because they have fewer resources to risk over time, and increasingly easy for high rank individuals to preserve a large total because they have a large amount to risk. The study of Matthew effects were initially focused primarily ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Katamari Damacy
() is a third-person puzzle-action video game developed and published by Namco for the PlayStation 2. It was released in Japan in March 2004 and in North America in September 2004. Designer Keita Takahashi struggled to pitch the game to Namco's superiors, eventually seeking student aid from the Namco Digital Hollywood Game Laboratory to develop the project for less than 1 million. As director, Takahashi emphasized concepts of novelty, ease of understanding, and enjoyment. The game's plot concerns a diminutive prince on a mission to rebuild the stars, constellations, and Moon, which were inadvertently destroyed by his father, the King of All Cosmos. This is achieved by rolling a magical, highly adhesive ball called a ''katamari'' around various locations, collecting increasingly larger objects, ranging from thumbtacks to human beings to mountains, until the ball has grown large enough to become a star. ''Katamari Damacy'' story, settings and characters are highly stylized and s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Domino Effect
A domino effect or chain reaction is the cumulative effect generated when a particular event triggers a chain of similar events. This term is best known as a mechanical effect and is used as an analogy to a falling row of dominoes. It typically refers to a linked sequence of events where the time between successive events is relatively small. It can be used literally (an observed series of actual collisions) or metaphorically (causal linkages within systems such as global finance or politics). The term ''domino effect'' is used both to imply that an event is inevitable or highly likely (as it has already started to happen), and conversely to imply that an event is impossible or highly unlikely (the one domino left standing). Demonstration of the effect The domino effect can easily be visualized by placing a row of dominoes upright, each separated by a small distance. Upon pushing the first domino, the next domino in line will be knocked over, and so on, thus firing a linear ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clapotis
In hydrodynamics, a clapotis (from French for "lapping of water") is a non-breaking standing wave pattern, caused for example, by the reflection of a traveling surface wave train from a near vertical shoreline like a breakwater, seawall or steep cliff. The resulting ''clapotic'' wave does not travel horizontally, but has a fixed pattern of nodes and antinodes. These waves promote erosion at the toe of the wall, and can cause severe damage to shore structures. The term was coined in 1877 by French mathematician and physicist Joseph Valentin Boussinesq who called these waves 'le clapotis' meaning "the lapping". In the idealized case of "full clapotis" where a purely monotonic incoming wave is completely reflected normal to a solid vertical wall, the standing wave height is twice the height of the incoming waves at a distance of one half wavelength from the wall. In this case, the circular orbits of the water particles in the deep-water wave are converted to purely linear motion, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
