Cult
In the sociological classifications of religious movements in English, a cult is a religious or social group with socially deviant or novel beliefs and practices. However, whether any particular group's beliefs and practices are sufficiently deviant or novel is often unclear, thus making a precise definition problematic. In the English speaking world, the word often carries derogatory connotations, but in other European languages, it is used as English-speakers use the word "religion", sometimes causing confusion for English-speakers reading material translated from other languages. The word "cult" has always been controversial because it is (in a pejorative sense) considered a subjective term, used as an ad hominem attack against groups with differing doctrines or practices, which lacks a clear or consistent definition.
Beginning in the 1930s, cults became the object of sociological study in the context of the study of religious behavior. Certain groups have been labelled as cults and have been opposed by the Christian countercult movement for their unorthodox beliefs. Since the 1970s, some groups have been opposed by the anti-cult movement, partly motivated in reaction to acts of violence committed by members of some groups. Some of the claims by the anti-cult movement have been disputed by other scholars and by the news media, leading to further controversy. Public and governmental reactions to the cult issue have also been a source of controversy.
Cult (film)
Cult (カルト) is a 2013 Japanese horror found footage film written and directed by Kôji Shiraishi about the supernatural malevolent forces haunting the Kaneda family. It was released in Japan on July 20, 2013.
Plot
The film stars several idols who play themselves as they appear on a paranormal television show to investigate the exorcism of the Kaneda family. The supernatural events in the Kaneda household are recorded by the documentary team. A mysterious shaman seems to be the only hope of salvation not only for the family, but for the investigators as well.
Production
The film was released in Japan on July 20, 2013. The UK premiere took place on October 31, 2013.
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Cult (Bayside album)
Cult is the sixth studio album by American rock band Bayside released on February 18, 2014 on Hopeless Records in North America. In 2015, it was rereleased with a white cover and 4 bonus tracks.
Reception
The album received generally favorable reviews. The album was included at number 46 on Kerrang!'s "The Top 50 Rock Albums Of 2014" list.
Track listing
All songs written and composed by Ghanbarian/Guglielmo/O'Shea/Raneri; except for 'Hate Me': Accetta/Goodman/Ghanbarian/Guglielmo/ O'Shea/Raneri.
Personnel
Chart performance
References
External links
Index
An index is an indirect shortcut derived from and pointing into a greater volume of values, data, information or knowledge. Index may refer to:
Business
Publishing
Database index
A database index is a data structure that improves the speed of data retrieval operations on a database table at the cost of additional writes and storage space to maintain the index data structure. Indexes are used to quickly locate data without having to search every row in a database table every time a database table is accessed. Indexes can be created using one or more columns of a database table, providing the basis for both rapid random lookups and efficient access of ordered records.
An index is a copy of select columns of data from a table that can be searched very efficiently that also includes a low-level disk block address or direct link to the complete row of data it was copied from. Some databases extend the power of indexing by letting developers create indices on functions or expressions. For example, an index could be created on upper(last_name), which would only store the upper case versions of the last_name field in the index. Another option sometimes supported is the use of partial indices, where index entries are created only for those records that satisfy some conditional expression. A further aspect of flexibility is to permit indexing on user-defined functions, as well as expressions formed from an assortment of built-in functions.
Index (statistics)
In statistics and research design, an index is a composite statistic – a measure of changes in a representative group of individual data points, or in other words, a compound measure that aggregates multiple indicators. Indexes summarize and rank specific observations.
Much data in the field of social sciences is represented in various indices such as Gender Gap Index, Human Development Index or the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
Item in indexes are usually weighted equally, unless there are some reasons against it (for example, if two items reflect essentially the same aspect of a variable, they could have a weight of 0.5 each).
Constructing the items involves four steps. First, items should be selected based on their face validity, unidimensionality, the degree of specificity in which a dimension is to be measured, and their amount of variance. Items should be empirically related to one another, which leads to the second step of examining their multivariate relationships. Third, indexes scores are designed, which involves determining their score ranges and weights for the items. Finally, indexes should be validateds, which involves testing whether they can predict indicators related to the measured variable not used in their construction.
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