Discuss the concept of aspect-oriented programming (AOP) and its role in separating cross-cutting concerns from core application logic.

Aspect-oriented programming (AOP) is a programming paradigm that allows developers to modularize cross-cutting concerns, such as logging, security, and transaction management, into separate modules called aspects. AOP achieves this by introducing a new layer of abstraction called advice, which can be applied to multiple points in the codebase without modifying the core application logic.