171 résultats pour "features"

• Chinese Music I INTRODUCTION Classical Peking Opera Of the many major forms of regional theater in China, Peking opera is by far the most famous.

  World Music TourClick on the instruments to hear music from around the world.© Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved. However, the Confucian beliefs about music were constantly eroded throughout Chinese history by a long tradition of popular entertainment music, favored both at thecourt and by the common folk. Although excluded from official ritual performances for several thousand years, Chinese women musicians and entertainers had a centraland formative role in this entertainment music as...

• Extreme Sports.

  racing events are the Raid Gauloises and the Eco-Challenge. Created in 1989 by French journalist Gerard Fusil, the Raid Gauloises is a grueling two-week adventure racein which five-person teams cross rugged and remote terrain. The inaugural Raid was held in New Zealand, and subsequent races have been staged in Costa Rica,Madagascar, Borneo, and Chile. The race has five separate stages designed to fit each location’s unique terrain. Stages may require horseback riding, white-waterpaddling, mounta...

• New Orleans - geography.

  levees bordering Lake Pontchartrain. On the 17th Street Canal, a section about 90 m (about 300 ft) wide collapsed, allowing a torrent of water to enter the city. The rapidlyrising waters flooded more than 80 percent of New Orleans. The disaster prompted a mandatory evacuation of the entire city. A week after the storm, the U.S. Army Corpsof Engineers finished patching the 17th Street Canal levee and began pumping water out of the city. But by then the damage was catastrophic. The city’s low-lyin...

• Checks and Balances.

  no political interest has enough power to prevail over the others. In 1997 and early 1998, for example, the Senate refused to take action on many of President BillClinton’s appointments of new federal court judges. Although the Senate’s power to approve or reject federal court nominees is one of the key checks on presidentialauthority, the dispute between Clinton and the Senate meant that there were not enough federal judges to handle the court’s workload. But the system of checks andbalance was...

• Indian Music I INTRODUCTION Classical Dance of South India The southern Indian kathakali is a dance drama that dates from the 17th century.

  Sangita Ratnakara, was written in the 13th century. However, subsequent writers tended to focus on the emotional connotations of individual ragas, associating them with moods, performance times, colors, and deities, and grouping them in terms of families. The modern theoretical system began in the 16th century, when ragasbegan to be classified according to scale—72 in the Karnāṭak system and 10 principal ones in the Hindustani. The 72 mela, as the Karn āṭak scales are called, are derived thro...

• Poetry I INTRODUCTION Phyllis McGinley American poet and author Phyllis McGinley composed light, witty verse, much of which deals with family life.

  repetition of certain lines and the rhyming of certain lines. The Provençal sestina features a set of six words that end lines (end-words), repeated in a dizzyingly complexpattern. The range of effects created by the poetic line varies tremendously depending on its length, its patterns of repetition, and whether the sentence stops at the end of theline (end-stopped) or carries over the end of the line (enjambed). Many of the earliest examples of Old English poetry feature an accentual line with...

• Thermodynamics I INTRODUCTION Thermodynamics, field of physics that describes and correlates the physical properties of macroscopic systems of matter and energy.

  Carnot EngineThe idealized Carnot engine was envisioned by the French physicist Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot, who lived during theearly 19th century. The Carnot engine is theoretically perfect, that is, it converts the maximum amount of energy intomechanical work. Carnot showed that the efficiency of any engine depends on the difference between the highest andlowest temperatures reached during one cycle. The greater the difference, the greater the efficiency. An automobileengine, for example, wou...

• Homer I INTRODUCTION Homer According to tradition, the Greek poet Homer is believed to be the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two great epics of ancient Greek literature.

  The Return of OdysseusAfter the Greek warrior Odysseus returns from the Trojan War to his home in Ithaca, he kills the uninvited and unwantedsuitors of his wife, Penelope, who believed him to be dead. Odysseus’s astonishing skill with the bow convinces Penelopethat he is indeed her long-absent husband. This anonymous engraving is of an unknown date.Corbis The Odyssey narrates the return of the Greek hero Odysseus from the Trojan War. The opening scenes depict the disorder that has arisen in Ody...

• Cubism I INTRODUCTION Cubism, movement in modern art, especially in painting, invented by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso and French artist Georges Braque in 1907 and 1908.

  Mont Sainte-Victoire by CézanneFrench artist Paul Cézanne painted Mont Sainte-Victoire, a mountain near his home in Provence in southern France, onmany occasions. Over time, the images he produced became flatter, less realistic, and more abstract. In this late version,painted from 1902 to 1904, patches of color barely indicate the mountain, sky, and foreground, while creating a rhythmicpattern across the painting’s surface. The mountain and sky, both intensely blue, appear almost to merge.Philad...

• Toronto - geography.

  now a museum. In the far northeast side of the City is the Toronto Zoo, a modern zoo covering many acres and with well-designed animal displays. Originally known as the SkyDome, the Rogers Centre is a state-of-the-art stadium complex that opened in 1989. The stadium features a retractable roof that can openin 20 minutes to expose the playing field and most of the 50,000 seats to the open air. It is the home of the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League and theToronto Blue Jays of Majo...

• Toronto - Geography.

  now a museum. In the far northeast side of the City is the Toronto Zoo, a modern zoo covering many acres and with well-designed animal displays. Originally known as the SkyDome, the Rogers Centre is a state-of-the-art stadium complex that opened in 1989. The stadium features a retractable roof that can openin 20 minutes to expose the playing field and most of the 50,000 seats to the open air. It is the home of the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League and theToronto Blue Jays of Majo...

• Invertebrate - biology.

  animals with a five-pointed design. They live in the sea and move with the help of tiny fluid-filled feet—another feature found nowhere else in the animal world. Zoologists recognize several different groups of worms. The phylum known as flatworms contains the simplest animals possessing heads. Nerves and sense organs areconcentrated in the head. Most flatworms are paper-thin and live in a variety of wet or damp habitats, including the digestive systems of other animals. Roundwormsrepresent anot...

• Invertebrate - biology.

  animals with a five-pointed design. They live in the sea and move with the help of tiny fluid-filled feet—another feature found nowhere else in the animal world. Zoologists recognize several different groups of worms. The phylum known as flatworms contains the simplest animals possessing heads. Nerves and sense organs areconcentrated in the head. Most flatworms are paper-thin and live in a variety of wet or damp habitats, including the digestive systems of other animals. Roundwormsrepresent anot...

• Neptune (planet) - astronomy.

  The gaseous atmosphere of Neptune contains hydrogen, helium, and about 3 percent methane. It extends about 5,000 km (about 3,000 mi) above the planet’s ocean.Light reflected from Neptune’s deep atmosphere is blue, because the atmospheric methane absorbs red and orange light but scatters blue light. In 1998 astronomersalso identified molecules of methyl in Neptune’s atmosphere. Methyl molecules each contain one carbon atom and three hydrogen atoms. Methyl molecules are knownas hydrocarbon radical...

• Gravitation I INTRODUCTION Gravitation, the force of attraction between all objects that tends to pull them toward one another.

  precise observations possible, and Galileo was one of the first to use a telescope to study astronomy. In 1609 Galileo observed that moons orbited the planet Jupiter, afact that could not reasonably fit into an earth-centered model of the heavens. The new heliocentric theory changed scientists' views about the earth's place in the universe and opened the way for new ideas about the forces behind planetarymotion. However, it was not until the late 17th century that Isaac Newton developed a theory...

• Gravitation - astronomy.

  precise observations possible, and Galileo was one of the first to use a telescope to study astronomy. In 1609 Galileo observed that moons orbited the planet Jupiter, afact that could not reasonably fit into an earth-centered model of the heavens. The new heliocentric theory changed scientists' views about the earth's place in the universe and opened the way for new ideas about the forces behind planetarymotion. However, it was not until the late 17th century that Isaac Newton developed a theory...

• Native American Architecture.

  B Relationship to the Universe and Nature A more profound difference between European American and Native American perceptions lay in how human beings saw themselves in relationship to the universe andin what they believed their responsibilities were to the natural world and to each other. Most European Americans saw themselves as separate from creation andadversaries of nature, ever struggling to conquer and subdue nature and force it to yield to their will. Native Americans saw themselves as...

• Indian Treaties in Canada - Canadian History.

  Pontiac led an attack on British forts in the Great Lakes area to end British domination and to reinforce Indian autonomy. In response, British king George III issued theRoyal Proclamation of 1763 to try to appease the Indians of the interior. The proclamation set aside land for the Indians west of the Appalachian Mountains anddescribed this land as “lands reserved to [Indians] … as their Hunting Grounds.” The proclamation not only recognized Indian land ownership, but also required thattreaties...

• Antarctica - Geography.

  The maximum area of sea ice surrounding Antarctica each winter varies from year to year. A marked decline during the 1970s appears to have reversed in more recentdecades, except in the Antarctic Peninsula area. This area has lost almost 40 percent of its sea ice since the start of the 1980s. Sea ice is important to marine life. Krillfeed on algae that live under the sea ice and are released when the ice melts in spring and summer. In turn, many marine animals feed on krill. Emperor penguinsbreed...

• Berlin - geography.

  boroughs of Wedding and Tiergarten. Other important central areas include Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain, now united as the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg borough, andPrenzlauer Berg, now incorporated as a part of the Pankow borough. Tiergarten contains a large wooded park, a zoo, and a variety of public monuments as well as the large, modern Congress Hall and the Reichstag building, which wasbuilt from 1884 to 1894. The Reichstag and the surrounding area have undergone renovation to accommodate the Bun...

• Planetary Science - astronomy.

  III ORIGINS AND COMPOSITIONS OF PLANETS Astronomers believe that planetary systems are formed of elemental materials that were created in the interiors of giant stars. Some of this material comes from giantstars that shed material into space as they age. Most of the matter to form planets, however, comes from stars that explode as supernovas and spread debris enrichedwith the heavier chemical elements into space. According to the currently accepted views, the most likely first stage in the evo...

• Culture.

  form of knowledge, such as scientific discoveries; objects, such as works of art; and traditions, such as the observance of holidays. C1 Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativism Self-identity usually depends on culture to such a great extent that immersion in a very different culture—with which a person does not share common ways of life orbeliefs—can cause a feeling of confusion and disorientation. Anthropologists refer to this phenomenon as culture shock. In multicultural societies —societies s...

• New Brunswick - Geography.

  Grand Lake, the largest lake in New Brunswick, is in the lowlands, east of Fredericton. Most other lakes are located in the northern and southwestern parts of NewBrunswick. D Climate New Brunswick has a continental climate that is moderated by maritime influences in the coastal areas. As a result, coastal regions are slightly warmer in the winter andslightly cooler in the summer than are interior regions. Annual temperature variations are large, with the January mean usually at least 25 to 28°C...

• New Brunswick - Canadian History.

  Grand Lake, the largest lake in New Brunswick, is in the lowlands, east of Fredericton. Most other lakes are located in the northern and southwestern parts of NewBrunswick. D Climate New Brunswick has a continental climate that is moderated by maritime influences in the coastal areas. As a result, coastal regions are slightly warmer in the winter andslightly cooler in the summer than are interior regions. Annual temperature variations are large, with the January mean usually at least 25 to 28°C...

• Paris (city, France) - geography.

  Théâtre Musical de Paris and the Théâtre de la Ville. Just north of the Hôtel de Ville is the Pompidou Center, also known as Beaubourg, an arts complex devoted to modern and contemporary art and design. The structure,in steel and glass and featuring brightly colored, exposed pipes and ducts, is the work of Italian architect Renzo Piano and British architect Richard Rogers. Itscontroversial pop-art design contrasts sharply with the overall gray hue of the city, and was criticized by many followin...

• Republic of Indonesia - country.

  Mahakam in East Kalimantan and the Martapura and Barito in South Kalimantan. Most of these rivers originate in the island’s central massif (mountain mass) and meander through extensive swamps as they approach the coast. Settlements such as Samarinda and Banjarmasin cluster along the rivers, which serve ascommunication routes into the interior. The largest rivers on Sumatra drain from west to east into the Strait of Malacca. In the north, the Asahan River once linked trade between the Batak peo...

• Hawaii (state) - geography.

  limestone along the coast. The volcanoes of the Hawaiian Islands are all so-called shield volcanoes, or lava domes. Unlike the volcanoes of Alaska and South America, those of Hawaii were notcreated by very explosive eruptions. Formed mostly by lava flows, they are great rounded mountain masses, rather than steep-sided cones. Mauna Kea, dormant forcenturies, is the highest mountain in the state. It rises to 4,205 m (13,796 ft) above sea level, and its summit is dotted with cinder cones formed by...

• Hawaii (state) - USA History.

  limestone along the coast. The volcanoes of the Hawaiian Islands are all so-called shield volcanoes, or lava domes. Unlike the volcanoes of Alaska and South America, those of Hawaii were notcreated by very explosive eruptions. Formed mostly by lava flows, they are great rounded mountain masses, rather than steep-sided cones. Mauna Kea, dormant forcenturies, is the highest mountain in the state. It rises to 4,205 m (13,796 ft) above sea level, and its summit is dotted with cinder cones formed by...

• Space Exploration - astronomy.

  to produce 250,000 newtons (56,000 lb) of thrust. The Germans launched thousands of V-2s carrying explosives against targets in Britain and The Netherlands. Whilethey did not prove to be an effective weapon, V-2s did become the first human-made objects to reach altitudes above 80 km (50 mi)—the height at which outer spaceis considered to begin—before falling back to Earth. The V-2 inaugurated the era of modern rocketry. A2 Early Artificial Satellites During the years following World War II, the...

• Federal Republic of Germany - country.

  B Rivers and Lakes Rivers have played a major role in Germany’s economic development. The Rhine River flows in a northwesterly direction from Switzerland through much of westernGermany and The Netherlands into the North Sea. It is a major European waterway and a pillar of commerce and trade. Its primary German tributaries include theMain, Mosel, Neckar, and Ruhr rivers. The Oder (Odra) River, along the border between Poland and Germany, runs northward and empties into the Baltic; it provides an...

• Arctic Ocean - geography.

  VII SOVEREIGNTY ISSUES Five nations—Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia, and the United States—claim seabed rights in the Arctic Ocean. The claims include rights to exploit subsurface minerals,oil and gas deposits, and potentially useful bacteria. All five nations are signatories to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The treaty gives each nationrights to exploit all natural resources within an area 370 km (200 nautical mi) off their coastline. In addition the treaty allows each na...

• Consciousness

  view faces several serious objections. Rival views of introspective consciousness fall into three categories, according to whether they treat introspective access (1) as epistemically looser or less direct than inner perception, (2) as tighter or more direct, or (3) as fundamentally non-epistemic or nonrepresentational. Theories in category (1) explain introspection as always retrospective, or as typically based on self-directed theoretical inferences. Rivals from category (2) maintain that an i...

• Vers une philosophie du Machine Learning

  intra-mathématique est, d’une part, marquée par un modèle d’explication globale, issu de la philosophie des sciences tel que les modèles de Friedmann et Kitcher. D’autre part, des modèles tels que ceux de Steiner en philosophie des mathématiques constitue selon Mancosu une approche locale de l’explication mathématiques des résultats mathématiques, un modèle d’explication qui sera étendu à l’explication mathématiques...

• Map - Geography.

  Often only southeast slopes are hachured or shaded, giving somewhat the effect of a bird's-eye view of the area illuminated by light from the northwest. Shadings orcarefully drawn hachures, neither of which give elevations, are more easily interpreted than contour lines and are sometimes used in conjunction with them for greaterclarity. IV MAP PROJECTIONS For the representation of the entire surface of the earth without any kind of distortion, a map must have a spherical surface; a map of this...

• Poker.

  After the ante and the initial deal, the first round of betting starts with the player to the left of the dealer. This bettor can check (make no bet), make a bet, or fold. To stay in the game, subsequent bettors must call (match the current bet) or raise (increase the total bet). A round of betting ends when no player makes a further bet or a set limit of turns around the table has been reached. In the next round of betting, the player to the left of the bettor that started the last round o...

• Joseph Stalin I INTRODUCTION Joseph Stalin (1879-1953), general secretary of the Communist Party

  V FOREIGN POLICIES Although Stalin’s policy in the mid-1930s was to support the Communist International (Comintern) in forming a popular front against the rise of fascism in Europe, hegave up the idea of collective security with the West and in August 1939 decided upon an alliance with Nazi Germany. The “Secret Protocols” of the German-SovietNonaggression Pact carved up Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence; the Soviets allowed Germany to invade Poland in exchange for Hitle...

• Joseph Stalin.

  V FOREIGN POLICIES Although Stalin’s policy in the mid-1930s was to support the Communist International (Comintern) in forming a popular front against the rise of fascism in Europe, hegave up the idea of collective security with the West and in August 1939 decided upon an alliance with Nazi Germany. The “Secret Protocols” of the German-SovietNonaggression Pact carved up Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence; the Soviets allowed Germany to invade Poland in exchange for Hitle...

• Joseph Stalin .

  V FOREIGN POLICIES Although Stalin’s policy in the mid-1930s was to support the Communist International (Comintern) in forming a popular front against the rise of fascism in Europe, hegave up the idea of collective security with the West and in August 1939 decided upon an alliance with Nazi Germany. The “Secret Protocols” of the German-SovietNonaggression Pact carved up Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence; the Soviets allowed Germany to invade Poland in exchange for Hitle...

• Albert Einstein I INTRODUCTION Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German-born American physicist and Nobel laureate, best known as the creator of the special and general theories of relativity and for his bold hypothesis concerning the particle nature of light.

  On the basis of the general theory of relativity, Einstein accounted for the previously unexplained variations in the orbital motion of the planets and predicted thebending of starlight in the vicinity of a massive body such as the sun. The confirmation of this latter phenomenon during an eclipse of the sun in 1919 became a mediaevent, and Einstein’s fame spread worldwide. For the rest of his life Einstein devoted considerable time to generalizing his theory even more. His last effort, the unifi...

• Albert Einstein.

  On the basis of the general theory of relativity, Einstein accounted for the previously unexplained variations in the orbital motion of the planets and predicted thebending of starlight in the vicinity of a massive body such as the sun. The confirmation of this latter phenomenon during an eclipse of the sun in 1919 became a mediaevent, and Einstein’s fame spread worldwide. For the rest of his life Einstein devoted considerable time to generalizing his theory even more. His last effort, the unifi...

• Dance I INTRODUCTION Dance Archive Films/BBC Worldwide Americas, Inc.

  features in its dance styles. The ordinary potential of the body can be expanded in dance, usually through long periods of specialized training. In ballet, for example, the dancer exercises to rotate,or turn out, the legs at the hips, making it possible to lift the leg high in an arabesque. In India, some dancers learn to choreograph their eyeballs and eyebrows.Costuming can extend the body's capabilities. Toe or pointe shoes, stilts, and flying harnesses are a few of the artificial aids employe...

• Arab Music I INTRODUCTION Umm Kulthum Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum was revered throughout Egypt, North Africa, and the Near East for her powerful voice and improvisational skill.

  The rhythmic structure of Arab music is similarly complex. Rhythmic patterns have up to 48 beats and typically include several downbeats (called dums ) as well as upbeats (called taks) and silences, or rests. To grasp a rhythmic mode, the listener must hear a relatively long pattern. Moreover, the performers do not simply play the pattern; they elaborate upon and ornament it. Often the pattern is recognizable by the arrangement of downbeats. The Rhythm in Arab Music illustration demonstratesa...

• Brontë: From Jane Eyre - anthology.

  He rang and despatched an invitation to Mrs Fairfax, who soon arrived, knitting-basket in hand. ’Good-evening, madam; I sent to you for a charitable purpose: I have forbidden Adèle to talk to me about her presents, and she is bursting with repletion; have thegoodness to serve her as auditress and interlocutrice: it will be one of the most benevolent acts you ever performed.’ Adèle, indeed, no sooner saw Mrs Fairfax, than she summoned her to her sofa, and there quickly filled her lap with...

• Comparative Anatomy.

  In comparing two species, anatomists have to be careful to differentiate between homologous structures, which are ones that have evolved from a shared ancestor, andanalogous structures, which have developed from different origins. Homologous structures are built on the same underlying plan. A human arm, a bat’s wing, and awhale’s flipper look quite different from the outside, but the bones inside reveal that these limbs all have the same basic structure. Analogous structures, by contrast,often l...

• Smithsonian Institution.

  F Arthur M. Sackler Gallery The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery houses a permanent collection of art from China, South and Southeast Asia, ancient and Islamic Iran, and Japan. Changing exhibitions ofAsian art are drawn from collections in the United States and abroad. The core of the collection was a gift from American research physician and medical publisherArthur M. Sackler. G Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum The Cooper-Hewitt is located in New York City and features examples of historical an...

• Milwaukee - geography.

  acts ranging from alternative rock to country music. During the rest of the summer months, the park is the site of weekend festivals staged by Milwaukee’s majorethnic groups: Italian, Irish, German, African American, Polish, Mexican, Native American, and Asian. The Great Circus Parade, featuring the world’s largest collection ofornate circus wagons, is another staple of Milwaukee’s festival season. The Wisconsin State Fair is held annually in nearby West Allis. V RECREATION The largest single u...

• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart I INTRODUCTION Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, an 18th-century Austrian classical composer and one of the most famous musicians of all time, came from a family of musicians that included his father and sister.

  The opera, Mitridati, rè di Ponto (Mithridates, King of Pontus), was produced in 1770 in Milan under Mozart’s direction with success. Also that year the pope made Mozart a knight of the Order of the Golden Spur. A Salzburg and Germany From 1775 to 1780 Mozart was based mainly in Salzburg working for the archbishop Hieronymous von Colloredo. Although dissatisfied with the low pay and limitedopportunities his employment offered, Mozart composed many works during this period, including his first...

• Pittsburgh - geography.

  College of Allegheny County (1966), with branches in the city and suburbs. Pittsburgh has many outstanding cultural institutions. The Oakland district is where Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh are located. The CarnegieMuseums of Pittsburgh include The Carnegie Museum of Art (including the Scaife Galleries), which holds a distinguished motion-picture and video collection and a uniquestudy of architecture; the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, which displays an extensi...

• Blues I INTRODUCTION Listening to the Blues Blues music comes in a variety of styles and forms, including acoustic blues, electric blues, rock, and jazz.

  recording of “How Many More Years” demonstrate this structure: a. How many more years do I got to let you dog me around?a. How many more years do I got to let you dog me around?b. I just as soon be dead, sleeping six feet in the ground. Each lyric line is typically sung over the first half (first two bars) of a four-bar line. After each lyric line (the “call”), an instrumental response is commonly played, alsoconsisting of approximately two bars. The tension created by the two-bar call-and-res...

• Rhinoceros - biology.

  Male and female rhinos have a similar physical appearance, although male rhinos are usually larger than females, with the size difference varying between species. Inthe wild, some rhinos probably live into their late 40s, and they have survived into their 30s in captivity. IV TYPES OF RHINOCEROSES Until recently, mammalogists divided the rhinoceros family into three subfamilies, each with different characteristics. Scientists now believe that living rhinos belong to asingle subfamily, although...