WhitesilverFarm

organic cotton goods

2006-10-30T11:55:00.000-08:00

Liv organic cotton goods are soft luxurious nad affordable and they have a huge range of organic clothing.

Eisenhower, Mamie

2005-04-04T18:51:00.000-07:00

Although she did not change the job of first lady, Mamie Eisenhower was a favourite of many American women, who imitated her youthful style (known as the “Mamie style”) and what her husband called her “unaffected manner.”

Australian Ballet

2005-04-04T15:07:00.000-07:00

Peggy van Praagh was the first artistic director (1962–74). Since 1965 the company has made periodic tours

Estonia, Relief and drainage

2005-04-03T23:27:00.000-07:00

The Estonian landscape is largely the product of glacial activity; the south is covered with moraine hills, and the central part abounds in elongated hills with flat tops. The northern part of Estonia is characterized by long narrow swells consisting of deposits left by glacial rivers that formed during the melting of ice. Extensive sandy areas mark what was once

T'ien

2005-04-02T10:07:00.000-08:00

As a god, T'ien is sometimes perceived to be an impersonal power in contrast to Shang-ti (“Supreme Ruler”), but the two are closely identified and the terms frequently used synonymously. Evidence suggests

Girodias, Maurice

2005-04-01T06:01:00.000-08:00

As a young man Girodias worked closely with his father, Jack Kahane, whose Obelisk Press published such classics of erotica as Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer (1934) and Frank Harris's My Life and Loves, 3 vol. (1923–27). Girodias, who took his mother's non-Jewish maiden name during

Hooded Seal

2005-04-01T03:44:00.000-08:00

Also called Bladdernose Seal (Cystophora cristata), dark-faced seal of the family Phocidae, found in open waters of the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans. It is characterized by a large “hood” on the top of the snout. Grayish with either light or dark blotches (less distinct in the female), the hooded seal is gregarious and apparently feeds mainly on fish. The adult male may be about 3.5 metres (12 feet) long and

Puerto Montt

2005-03-31T02:58:00.000-08:00

Founded in 1853, the settlement was named for Manuel Montt, then president of Chile. Early German settlers have given it a distinctive appearance. Puerto Montt is a commercial centre for an agricultural

Yamazaki Sokan

2005-03-30T14:41:00.000-08:00

Little is known of Sokan's life. According to tradition he served as a retainer to the shogun Ashikaga Yoshihisa and became a monk after Yoshihisa's

Mansfield, Arabella

2005-03-30T10:00:00.000-08:00

Belle Babb graduated from Iowa Wesleyan University in 1866 (by which time she was known as Arabella). She then taught political science, English, and history at Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa, until her marriage in 1868 to John M. Mansfield,

Fabula Atellana

2005-03-29T18:37:00.000-08:00

(Latin: “Atellan play”), the earliest native Italian farce, presumably rustic improvisational comedy featuring masked stock characters. The farces derived their name from the town of Atella in the Campania region of southern Italy and seem to have originated among Italians speaking the Oscan dialect. They became a popular entertainment in ancient republican and

Cano, Alonso

2005-03-29T15:11:00.000-08:00

Moving to Sevilla in 1614, Cano studied sculpture under Juan Martínez Montañés and painting under Francisco Pacheco. Forced to leave

Halide Mineral

2005-03-28T19:43:00.000-08:00

Compositionally and structurally, three broad categories of halide minerals are recognized; these categories, which are

A-mdo

2005-03-27T20:09:00.000-08:00

Also called Mdo-smad, one of three regions into which the area of central Asia inhabited by Tibetans is traditionally divided. During the 7th to 9th centuries, the central Tibetan kingdom was extended until it reached the Tarim Basin on the north, China on the east, India and Nepal on the south, and Kashmir on the west. The newly added dominions to the east and northeast were called Mdo-Khams.

Quaking Grass

2005-03-26T20:32:00.000-08:00

The various species are native to Eurasia. Briza maxima, B. media, and B. minor (shivery grass) are cultivated as ornamentals and have become naturalized in temperate

Anshar And Kishar

2005-03-26T17:07:00.000-08:00

In Mesopotamian mythology, the male and female principles, the twin horizons of sky and earth. Their parents were either Apsu (the watery deep beneath the earth) and Tiamat (the personification of salt water) or Lahmu and Lahamu, the first set of twins born to Apsu and Tiamat. Anshar and Kishar, in turn, were the parents of Anu (An), the supreme heaven god.

Sartawi, 'isam

2005-03-25T19:44:00.000-08:00

Trained as a medical doctor in Baghdad, Iraq, Sartawi was conducting research in the United States

Asyut

2005-03-24T13:59:00.000-08:00

Asy

Botosani

2005-03-24T08:31:00.000-08:00

Judet (county), northeastern Romania, occupying an area of 1,946 square miles (4,965 square km), and bounded on the north by Ukraine and on the east by Moldova. The Prut and Siret rivers are, respectively, the county's eastern and western borders. Both rivers drain southeastward. Botosani (q.v.) city, a textile centre, is the county capital. Other towns include Trusesti, Nicolae Balcescu, Dorohoi,

Bach, Johann Christoph Friedrich

2005-03-23T16:19:00.000-08:00

Probably educated by his father's cousin Johann Elias Bach, J.C.F. Bach became a chamber musician to Count Wilhelm at Bückeburg in 1750, and was appointed concertmaster c. 1758. His career was steady and his output of compositions extensive. He made a successful transition from the late Baroque

Resist Printing

2005-03-23T13:41:00.000-08:00

Any of various methods of colouring cloth in a pattern by pretreating designed areas to resist penetration by the dye. To obtain a two-colour pattern on goods already dyed in one colour, a dye paste is applied in the desired design; the paste contains a substance resistant to a second dye, which is then applied to the cloth, developing colour only in the areas not covered

Benedetti, Mario

2005-03-22T05:10:00.000-08:00

Benedetti was born to a prosperous family of Italian immigrants. His father was a viniculturist and a chemist. At age four the boy was taken to Montevideo, where he received a superior education at a private school. He was deeply affected by his early experience of the capital

Cambridge, Adolphus Frederick, 1st Duke Of

2005-03-21T16:12:00.000-08:00

Having studied at the University of Göttingen, he served in the Hanoverian army and with the British army in the Low Countries, being severely wounded in 1793. He was created Earl of Tipperary and Duke of Cambridge in November 1801 and became a privy councillor in 1802. In 1813 he was promoted field marshal

Zollinger, Albin

2005-03-20T23:32:00.000-08:00

Zollinger was a primary school teacher who lived in or near Zürich all his life except for four years (1903–07) in Argentina. Three-quarters of his work was written in the last 10 years of his life, during which he consumed himself in creative activity. Following

Rural Electrification

2005-03-20T21:34:00.000-08:00

Project implemented in the United States in the second quarter of the 20th century by the Rural Electrification Administration (REA), a federal agency established in 1935, under the New Deal, in an effort to raise the standard of rural living and to slow the extensive migration of rural Americans to urban centres; more than 98 percent of the United States' farms were equipped

Bacall, Lauren

2005-03-19T14:15:00.000-08:00

Bacall started modeling in 1941 and supplemented her income with jobs as a theatre usher and as a hostess at the Stage Door Canteen, which kept her next to the Broadway theatre scene

Computer Virus

2005-03-19T10:23:00.000-08:00

A virus consists of a set of instructions that attaches itself to other computer programs, usually in the computer's operating system,

Quantum Mechanics, Electron spin and antiparticles

2005-03-19T10:20:00.000-08:00

In 1928 the English physicist Paul A.M. Dirac produced a wave equation for the electron that combined relativity with quantum mechanics. Schrödinger's wave equation does not satisfy the requirements of the special theory of relativity because it is based on a nonrelativistic expression for the kinetic energy (p2/2me). Dirac showed that an electron has an additional quantum

Annelid, Circulatory system

2005-03-19T08:42:00.000-08:00

The circulatory system in the lower oligochaetes consists of a dorsal vessel that arises from a blood sinus or capillary network surrounding the intestine and conveys blood forward; a ventral vessel that conveys blood backward; and connective vessels between the two. The blood vessel walls consist of an outer membranous (peritoneal) layer containing muscle

Altman, Benjamin

2005-03-17T23:50:00.000-08:00

Altman had little formal schooling, but at the age of 25 he opened his first dry-goods store in Manhattan and in 1906 moved it to the uptown section, pioneering the movement of business there. With additions in 1913–14, the store

Annelid, Circulatory system

2005-03-17T08:24:00.000-08:00

Any of about 30 species of mammals related to rabbits and belonging to the same family (Leporidae). In general, hares have longer ears and longer hind feet than rabbits. While the tail is relatively short, it is longer than that of rabbits. The vernacular names hare and rabbit are frequently misapplied to particular species. Jackrabbits of North

Gambia, The

2005-03-17T05:31:00.000-08:00

Officially Republic of The Gambia, country of western Africa, with an area of 4,127 square miles (10,689 square kilometres). Essentially, The Gambia is a strip of land 15 to 30 miles (25 to 50 kilometres) wide and 295 miles long on either bank of the Gambia River; except for a short coastline, it is surrounded by Senegal. Its unusual shape and size are attributable to territorial compromises arising from 19th-century Anglo-French rivalry

Winterthur

2005-03-16T19:34:00.000-08:00

City, Zürich canton, northern Switzerland. It lies in a wooded basin east of the Töss River, northeast of Zürich city. The Roman settlement of Vitodurum was on the site of the city's northeastern suburb of Ober-Winterthur. Winterthur was founded about 1175 by the counts of Kyburg, who granted it a charter with extensive privileges. It was inherited in 1264 by the Habsburgs, who sold

China, The rise of the Manchu

2005-03-15T08:44:00.000-08:00

The Manchu, who ruled China from 1644 to 1911, were descendants of the Juchen tribes who had ruled North China as the Chin dynasty in the 12th century. From the 15th century they had paid tribute to the Ming and been organized in the commandery system, so they had long had extensive and regular contact with the Chinese state and, more importantly, with the Chinese military officers

Egypt, Growth of Mamluk armies

2005-03-15T05:40:00.000-08:00

The only real security for Ayyubid Egypt lay in its independent military strength. This explains why one of the last sultans, al-Malik as-Salih Ayyub (died 1249), resorted to increased purchase of Turkish slaves—called Mamluks, a name derived from the Arabic word for slave—as a means of manning his armies. Although slave troops had formed an important part of Egyptian armies since

Romance Stanza

2005-03-14T06:45:00.000-08:00

Also called romance-six a six-line verse stanza common in metrical romances in which the first, second, fourth, and fifth lines have four accents each and the third and sixth lines have three accents each and in which the rhyme scheme is aabaab. It is a type of tail rhyme.

Welles, Gideon

2005-03-13T16:50:00.000-08:00

Born into a wealthy family, Welles was educated at private schools. He studied law but in 1826 became cofounder and editor of the Hartford Times. The next year, he became the youngest member of the Connecticut legislature and served there until 1835. An ardent

Yung-ho

2005-03-12T13:25:00.000-08:00

Shih (municipality), T'ai-pei hsien (county), northern Taiwan, 1 mi (1.6 km) south of Taipei city, in the northern part of the island's western coastal plain. Situated on the east bank of Shuang Hsi (river), the city flourished in the early 18th century. It is a market centre for the tea and rice produced in the surrounding region. Glass and glass products, and small machinery manufacturing

Narodnost

2005-03-11T11:12:00.000-08:00

Doctrine or national principle, the meaning of which has changed over the course of Russian literary criticism. Originally denoting simply literary fidelity to Russia's distinct cultural heritage, narodnost, in the hands of radical critics such as Nikolay Dobrolyubov, came to be the measure of an author's social responsibility, both in portraying the aspirations

Mckinley, John

2005-03-11T03:47:00.000-08:00

After practicing law briefly in Kentucky, where he grew up, McKinley settled in Huntsville, Alabama, then a centre of planting and political interests, in 1818. In 1820 he was elected to the Alabama state legislature and two years later, despite the support

Selfoss

2005-03-10T18:28:00.000-08:00

Village, southwestern Iceland, 30 miles (48 km) east-southeast of Reykjavík. It lies on the Ölfusá River, about 5 miles (8 km) from the Atlantic Ocean. An agricultural market and dairying centre on the western edge of the country's most extensive agricultural region, it supplies most of the milk for the capital. Selfoss is also a popular resort. Pop. (1992 est.) 3,977.

Cabinet

2005-03-10T02:14:00.000-08:00

In furniture design, originally a small room for displaying precious objects and later a piece of furniture composed of a network of small drawers commonly enclosed by a pair of doors. Cabinets were first used in Italy during the late Renaissance. In many parts of Europe, cabinets became the most sumptuous pieces of furniture, with great displays of marquetry, carving,

Ploidy

2005-03-09T13:02:00.000-08:00

In genetics, the number of chromosomes occurring in the nucleus of a cell. In normal somatic (body) cells, the chromosomes exist in pairs. The condition is called diploidy. During meiosis the cell produces gametes, or germ cells, each containing half the normal or somatic number of chromosomes. This condition is called haploidy. When two germ cells (e.g., egg and sperm) unite,

Spanish Lace

2005-03-08T13:19:00.000-08:00

Lace made in Spain; the name is also erroneously given to much lace that was in fact imported into Spain from the 17th century onward. The Spaniards imported a great deal of Venetian needle lace for church use in the 17th century. When the Spanish monasteries were dissolved in 1830, much ecclesiastical lace came to light that was described as “Spanish point,” but little, if any, of

Clout Shooting

2005-03-08T01:44:00.000-08:00

As practiced by the Royal Company of Archers (the British sovereign's bodyguard in Scotland, formally organized in 1676) and the Woodmen of Arden (English society of archers, founded 1785), traditional longbows

Marketing, Packaging and branding

2005-03-08T01:07:00.000-08:00

Packaging and branding are also substantial components in the marketing of a product. Packaging in some instances may be as simple as customers in France carrying long loaves of unwrapped bread or small produce dealers in Italy wrapping vegetables in newspapers or placing them in customers' string bags. In most industrialized countries, however, the packaging

Ecuador, Domination of Velasco Ibarra (post-World War II)

2005-03-07T18:47:00.000-08:00

Politics and government after World War II presented contradictions. Ecuador enjoyed a long period of constitutional government and relatively free elections following the presidency of the Radical Liberal leader Galo Plaza (1948–52). There were also two long interludes of military government (1963–66; 1972–79), but the period was dominated by one of Latin America's great caudillos,

Boina

2005-03-07T10:53:00.000-08:00

The other son, Adriamandisoarivo, continued the migration

Berbera

2005-03-06T19:26:00.000-08:00

Port, northwestern Somalia, on the Gulf of Aden. It lies at the terminus of roads from the towns of Hargeysa and Burko and has an airport. Known during classical times and to Ibn Sa'id (d. 1286) and other early Arab geographers, Berbera was one of the Muslim settlements of the medieval state of Adal. It was sacked by the Portuguese in 1518 and occupied by the sharifs of Mocha in the 17th century,

Stainless Steel

2005-03-06T00:14:00.000-08:00

Any one of a family of alloy steels usually containing 10 to 30 percent chromium. In conjunction with low carbon contents, chromium imparts remarkable resistance to corrosion and heat. Other elements such as nickel, molybdenum, titanium, aluminum, niobium, copper, nitrogen, sulfur, phosphorus, and selenium may be added to increase corrosion resistance to specific environments,

Islamic World, Cultural flowering in Iraq

2005-03-05T16:48:00.000-08:00

By the late 9th and early 10th centuries the last remnant of the caliphal state was Iraq, under control of the Turkic soldiery. Political decline and instability did not preclude cultural creativity and productivity, however. In fact, Iraq's “generation of 870,” loosely construed, contained some of the most striking and lastingly important figures in all of early Islamicate

Protein, Other approaches to the determination of protein structure

2005-03-05T16:25:00.000-08:00

None of the several other physical methods that have been used to obtain information on the secondary and tertiary structure of proteins provides as much direct information as the X-ray diffraction technique. Most of the techniques, however, are much more simple than X-ray diffraction, which requires, for the resolution of the structure of one protein, many years

Eckermann, Johann Peter

2005-03-04T16:03:00.000-08:00

Reared

Ijsselmeer Polders

2005-03-04T02:15:00.000-08:00

The Zuiderzee project, which involved the construction of a dam (Afsluitdijk; completed 1932) enclosing the IJsselmeer

Kanye

2005-03-03T23:11:00.000-08:00

Village, southern Botswana. It lies along a main road southwest of Gaborone, the national capital. It is one of the country's largest villages and the traditional headquarters of the Bangwaketse people. Kanye is equipped with a mission hospital, an airfield, banks, and schools. Pop. (1984 est.) 23,000.

Bonde, Gustaf, Friherre

2005-03-03T20:27:00.000-08:00

After becoming governor of the province of Södermanland (1648) and a privy councillor (1653), Bonde was chosen lord treasurer and a member of the regency council (1660). He reduced

Hoopoe

2005-03-03T10:46:00.000-08:00

(Upupa epops), strikingly crested bird found from southern Europe and Africa to southeastern Asia, the sole member of the family Upupidae of the roller order, Coraciiformes. About 28 centimetres (11 inches) long, it is pinkish brown on the head and shoulders, with a long, black-tipped, erectile crest and black-and-white barred wings and tail. The hoopoe takes insects

Bradford

2005-03-02T18:41:00.000-08:00

City, McKean county, northern Pennsylvania, U.S., on the forks of the Tunungwant (Tuna) River, near the New York state border. Settlers first came to the area about 1823 or 1827, but Bradford itself was not established until 1837. First called Littleton, it took the name Bradford after 1854, probably for the New Hampshire home of many of its settlers. The discovery of oil (1871) brought sudden wealth,

Plurality System

2005-03-01T21:18:00.000-08:00

Advantages of the plurality system are

Quadruple Alliance

2005-03-01T15:19:00.000-08:00

Alliance first formed in 1813, during the final phase of the Napoleonic Wars, by Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, for the purpose of defeating Napoleon, but conventionally dated from Nov. 20, 1815, when it was officially renewed to prevent recurrence of French aggression and to provide machinery to enforce the peace settlement concluded at the Congress of Vienna. The members

Ear, Human, Transduction of mechanical vibrations

2005-03-01T06:30:00.000-08:00

The hair cells located in the organ of Corti transduce mechanical sound vibrations into nerve impulses. They are stimulated when the basilar membrane, on which the organ of Corti rests, vibrates. The hair cells are held in place by the reticular lamina, a rigid structure supported by the pillar cells, or rods of Corti, which are attached to the basilar fibres. At the base

Saarinen, Eero

2005-02-28T05:19:00.000-08:00

Eero was the son of the noted architect Eliel Saarinen and Loja Gesellius, a sculptor. The Saarinen family of four, including a sister, Eva-Lisa, moved to the United States in 1923. Eero attended public schools in Michigan. In 1929 he studied sculpture at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris but, as he recounted years later, “it never occurred to me to do anything but follow

Earth Sciences, Geologic time and the age of the Earth

2005-02-27T19:23:00.000-08:00

By mid-century the fossiliferous strata of Europe had been grouped into systems arrayed in chronological order. The stratigraphic column, a composite of these systems, was pieced together from exposures in different regions by application of the principles of superposition and faunal sequence. Time elapsed during the formation of a system became known as a

Brugge

2005-02-27T18:12:00.000-08:00

French Bruges, capital of West Flanders province, northwestern Belgium, about 10 miles (16 km) south of Zeebrugge, its port on the North Sea. Originally a landing place on the Zwijn estuary, into which the Reie River flowed, it was mentioned in the 7th century as the Municipium Brugense (a name derived from a Roman bridge over the Reie). After it was evangelized by St. Eloi, bishop of Noyon-Tournai,

Quaestor

2005-02-27T05:30:00.000-08:00

With the advent of the republic in the year 509 BC, each of the two consuls, who at first were called praetors, appointed a quaestor to be the

John Bar Qursos,

2005-02-26T04:50:00.000-08:00

A soldier before becoming a monk, John was made bishop in 519 and undertook the spread of a doctrine of Christ's person and work common to Syrian and Egyptian monasticism, a belief derived from a beatifying inner experience of

Biblical Literature, On Western civilization

2005-02-25T20:36:00.000-08:00

The Bible brought its view of God, the universe, and mankind into all the leading Western languages and thus into the intellectual processes of Western man. The Greek translation of the Old Testament made it accessible in the Hellenistic period (c. 300 BCE–c. 300 CE) and provided a language for the New Testament and for the Christian liturgy and theology of the first three centuries.

Ford Foundation

2005-02-25T14:51:00.000-08:00

American philanthropic foundation, established in 1936 with gifts and bequests from Henry Ford and his son Edsel. At its peak it had assets of more than $4,000,000,000. Its chief concerns have been international affairs (particularly population control and the alleviation of food shortages), communications (especially public television), humanities and the arts, and, in later years,

Biblical Literature, The Letter of Paul to the Ephesians

2005-02-25T03:59:00.000-08:00

The authenticity of Ephesians as a genuinely Pauline epistle has been doubted since the time of the Dutch Humanist Erasmus in the 16th century. It is most reasonable to consider it as “deutero-Pauline”—i.e., in the tradition of Paul but not written by him. The problem of Ephesians cannot be solved apart from that of Colossians, because many similarities are noted in the style

Economic Planning

2005-02-24T05:30:00.000-08:00

By the late 1960s the majority of the world's countries conducted

Fish Oil

2005-02-23T23:15:00.000-08:00

Fatty oil from the bodies of fishes, used in the manufacture of many products, such as margarine, cooking oil, cosmetics, caulking compounds, paints, industrial coatings, lubricants, water repellents, soaps, and candles. It is also used in the tanning of leather, the manufacture of rubber, and the production of chemicals used for making synthetic wax. Anchovy, menhaden,

Davila, Arrigo Caterino

2005-02-23T08:44:00.000-08:00

About 1583 Davila became a page in the service of Catherine de Médicis, wife of King Henry II of France. He subsequently became a soldier and fought in the French civil wars until the peace in 1598. He then returned to Padua, where he

Biblical Literature, Literal interpretation

2005-02-22T13:43:00.000-08:00

Literal interpretation is often, but not necessarily, associated with the belief in verbal or plenary inspiration, according to which not only the biblical message but also the individual words in which that message was delivered or written down were divinely chosen. In an extreme form this would imply that God dictated the message to the speakers or writers word

Kecskemét

2005-02-22T13:10:00.000-08:00

Town and seat, Bács-Kiskun megye (county), central Hungary. Long established as a centre for handicrafts and cattle raising, it has also grown in importance for its viticulture, vegetables, and fruit. It is surrounded by flat sandy farmland, often referred to as “the orchard of Hungary.” The locality provides as much as 25 percent of the country's fruit, notably apricots, and

Peking University

2005-02-21T08:25:00.000-08:00

Chinese (Wade–Giles) Pei-ching Ta-hsüeh , (Pinyin) Beijing Daxue , byname Pei-ta , or Beida in Peking, one of the oldest and most important institutions of higher learning in China. It originated as the Capital College, which was founded in 1898 by the emperor Kuang-hsü as part of his short-lived program to modernize and reform China's institutions. This school languished after the empress dowager Tz'u-hsi's coup d'état of the same year. After the overthrow of the

Production Function

2005-02-20T16:05:00.000-08:00

The production function can

Console

2005-02-20T10:51:00.000-08:00

In architecture, type of bracket or corbel, particularly one with a scroll-shaped profile: usually an ogee (S or inverted S curve) or double-ogee terminating in volutes (spirals) above and below. A console projects about one-half its height or less to support a windowhead, cornice, shelf, or sculpture. The difference between a console and other varieties of bracket has more

Gonyaulax

2005-02-20T04:42:00.000-08:00

Genus of dinoflagellates (single-celled aquatic organisms) that inhabit fresh, salt, or brackish water. Members are covered by closely fitting cellulose plates and have two flagella: one extends downward from a longitudinal groove in the armour, and the other, in an encircling groove, appears to keep the animal afloat. There is no eyespot (stigma), and the pigment-containing

Wu-han

2005-02-19T15:49:00.000-08:00

Pinyin Wuhan fifth largest city of the People's Republic of China, in Hupeh Province, located at the confluence of the Han and Yangtze rivers. It is a conurbation of three adjacent cities—Han-k'ou (Hankow), Han-yang, and Wu-ch'ang; the last is the capital of Hupeh Province. Han-k'ou lies on the north bank of the Yangtze at the mouth of the Han. Immediately across the Han from it is the older city

p-n Junction

2005-02-19T06:31:00.000-08:00

In electronics, the interface within diodes, transistors, and other semiconductor devices between two different types of materials called p-type and n-type semiconductors. These materials are formed by the deliberate addition of impurities to pure semiconductor materials, such as silicon. Semiconductors of p-type contain holes, mobile vacancies in the electronic

France, History Of, A republic in crisis

2005-02-19T06:04:00.000-08:00

By the spring of 1793, however, the republic was beleaguered. In the second round of the war, the coalition—now reinforced by Spain, Piedmont, and Britain—routed French forces in the Austrian Netherlands and the Rhineland and breached the Pyrenees. Fighting on five different fronts and bereft of effective leadership, French armies seemed to be losing everywhere. Even General

Xu Wei

2005-02-19T03:29:00.000-08:00

As a young man, Xu repeatedly failed to pass civil service examinations. During the 1550s and '60s he did succeed in gaining a reputation as a poet and painter, but as his reputation as an artist

Furniture, Egypt

2005-02-17T06:40:00.000-08:00

Beds, stools, throne chairs, and boxes were the chief forms of furniture in ancient Egypt. Although only a few important examples of actual furniture survive, stone carvings, fresco paintings, and models made as funerary offerings present rich documentary evidence. The bed may have been the earliest form; it was constructed of wood and consisted of a simple framework

Shimodate

2005-02-17T04:19:00.000-08:00

City, Ibaraki ken (prefecture), Honshu, Japan, situated on a tributary of the Kokai River. Shimodate was a cotton textile centre during the Tokugawa era (1603–1867). The construction of railways during the Meiji era (1868–1912) connected the city with Mito (east) and Utsunomiya (northwest). It is now a major commercial and transport centre producing electrical appliances. Pop. (1990) 66,030.

Goode, G(eorge) Brown

2005-02-16T11:30:00.000-08:00

After graduating from Wesleyan University at Middletown, Conn., he spent a year at Harvard University studying natural history under Louis Agassiz. Goode took charge

Percy, Walker

2005-02-16T00:15:00.000-08:00

Orphaned in late childhood, Percy and his brothers went to live with his father's cousin, a bachelor and lawyer, in Greenville, Miss. Percy studied at the University of North Carolina (B.A., 1937) and Columbia University (M.D., 1941) and, while working as a pathologist

Skate

2005-02-15T22:22:00.000-08:00

In zoology, any of numerous flat-bodied, cartilaginous fishes constituting the suborder Rajoidea of the order Batoidei (skates, rays, and others). Skates are found in most parts of the world, from tropical to near-Arctic waters and from the shallows to depths of more than 2,700 metres (8,900 feet). Nine genera of skates are placed in three families: Rajidae, Arynchobatidae,

Arminius, Jacobus

2005-02-15T05:34:00.000-08:00

His father died when Arminius was an infant, and one Theodore Aemilius adopted the child and provided for his schooling in Utrecht. On the death of

Nirmala

2005-02-14T09:25:00.000-08:00

An ascetic order of the Sikhs, a religious group of India. Nirmalas (“those without blemish”) at first wore only white garments but later adopted the ochre robes worn by Hindu ascetics and shared some other practices, such as birth and death rites, with Hindus. Like the Udasi order of Sikh ascetics the Nirmalas carried on missionary activities for the Sikhs and served as

Ba'al Shem Tov

2005-02-14T03:39:00.000-08:00

Byname of Israel Ben Eliezer, acronym Besht charismatic founder (c. 1750) of Hasidism, a Jewish spiritual movement characterized by mysticism and opposition to secular studies and Jewish rationalism. He aroused controversy by mixing with ordinary people, renouncing mortification of the flesh, and insisting on the holiness of ordinary bodily existence. He was also responsible

Typhus

2005-02-13T23:37:00.000-08:00

Acute, infectious series of diseases that are characterized by a sudden onset with headache, chills, fever, and general pains, a rash appearing on the third to fifth day, and toxemia (toxic substances in the blood), and terminating after about two to three weeks. Originally considered a single clinical entity, it is now regarded as a group of closely related diseases caused

Vienna, Siege Of

2005-02-13T14:48:00.000-08:00

The leader of the Hungarian Calvinists, Imre Thököly, appealed to the Turkish grand vizier, Kara Mustafa, to attack

Ayton, Sir Robert

2005-02-13T10:27:00.000-08:00

Educated at the University of St. Andrews, in the county of Fife, Ayton came into favour at court for a Latin panegyric on the accession of James VI to the English throne. He was knighted in 1612 and subsequently held various lucrative offices, including that

Aquaculture

2005-02-13T04:10:00.000-08:00

Fish may be confined in earth ponds, concrete pools, barricaded coastal waters, or cages suspended in open water. In these enclosures, the fish can be supplied

Carnival

2005-02-11T20:19:00.000-08:00

The merrymaking and festivity that takes place in many Roman Catholic countries in the last days and hours before the Lenten season. The derivation of the word is uncertain, though it possibly can be traced to the medieval Latin carnem levare or carnelevarium, which means to take away or remove meat. This coincides with the fact that carnival is the final festivity

Molina, Mario

2005-02-11T11:10:00.000-08:00

In full Mario José Molina Mexican-born American chemist who was jointly awarded the 1995 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, along with chemists F. Sherwood Rowland and Paul Crutzen, for research in the 1970s concerning the decomposition of the ozonosphere, which shields the Earth from dangerous solar radiation. The discoveries of Molina and Rowland—that some industrially manufactured

Kadet

2005-02-11T04:02:00.000-08:00

The Kadets dominated the first Duma in 1906, but the tradition

Daniel Romanovich

2005-02-11T01:43:00.000-08:00

Son of Prince Roman Mstislavich, Daniel was only four years old when his father, who had united Galicia and Volhynia, died in a battle against the Poles (1205). Not until 1221 did Daniel begin to overthrow other pretenders

Yakima River

2005-02-09T18:57:00.000-08:00

River, south-central Washington, U.S., rising in the Cascade Range, near Snoqualmie Pass. It flows southeastward about 200 miles (320 km) past Ellensburg and Yakima to join the Columbia River near Kennewick in Benton county. The Yakima and its tributaries irrigate about 460,000 acres (190,000 hectares) in the river valley. The Keechelus Dam, near the river's source, is a major unit of the U.S. Bureau

Sortition

2005-02-09T09:15:00.000-08:00

Election by lot, a method of choosing public officials in some ancient Greek city-states. It was used especially in the Athenian democracy, from which most information about the practice is derived. With few exceptions, all magistrates were chosen by lot, beginning with the archons in 487–486 BC; likewise the Boule (council) of 500 and the juries of the law courts were chosen by lot.