460 résultats pour "lesser"

• Richard Wagner I INTRODUCTION Richard Wagner (1813-1883), German composer, conductor, and essayist, one of the most influential cultural figures of the 19th century.

  May 1864 he was summoned to Munich by the 18-year-old King Ludwig II of Bavaria, who settled Wagner's debts, paid him a generous allowance, and provided himwith housing. Wagner was soon joined in his new home by Cosima von Bülow, Liszt’s daughter and the wife of German conductor and pianist Hans von Bülow. Wagnerand Cosima began a relationship that produced three children before the dissolution of the Bülows' marriage in 1870. Mounting hostility toward Wagner by members ofLudwig’s court resulted...

• Shang Dynasty - History.

  The dynastic ancestors belonged to an elaborate religious pantheon that also included various nature powers and the Shang high god, Di. The higher powers were lessconcerned with the well-being of Shang society than the ancestors were. Di, whose wishes were often hard to determine, could even cause the Shang harm. The naturepowers could occasionally influence the wind, rain, and harvests, but only Di could actually order the weather. For an agricultural society such as the Shang, this wasperhaps...

• Water Pollution.

  Cryptosporidium in the water supply of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, sickened more than 400,000 people and killed more than 100. H Thermal Pollution Water is often drawn from rivers, lakes, or the ocean for use as a coolant in factories and power plants. The water is usually returned to the source warmer than when itwas taken. Even small temperature changes in a body of water can drive away the fish and other species that were originally present, and attract other species in placeof them. Thermal pol...

• Charles Dickens I INTRODUCTION Charles Dickens English author Charles Dickens ranks as one of the most popular writers in the history of world literature.

  Papers of the Pickwick Club (1836-1837; 1837); The Adventures of Oliver Twist (1837-1839; 1838); The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1838-1839; 1839); The Old Curiosity Shop (1840-1841; 1841); Barnaby Rudge (1841); The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-1844; 1844); Dombey and Son (1846-1848; 1848); The Personal History of David Copperfield (1849-1850; 1850); Bleak House (1852-1853; 1853); Hard Times (1854); Little Dorrit (1855-1857; 1857); A Tale of Tw...

• Animal - biology.

  Vertebrates are customarily divided into cold-blooded and warm-blooded animals, but these labels are not very precise. Biologists normally use the terms ectoderm and endoderm to describe temperature regulation more accurately. An ectoderm is an animal whose temperature is dictated by its surroundings, while an endoderm is one that keeps its body at a constant warm temperature by generating internal heat. Reptiles, amphibians, and fish are ectoderms. Although they do not maintain a constant wa...

• Warsaw - geography.

  VI ECONOMY In addition to serving as Poland's leading administrative center, Warsaw is also a center for science, research, and higher education. Since World War II the city'sindustrial base has been developed, with diverse plants producing steel, cars, tractors, and consumer electronics. Warsaw is the second most important industrial regionin Poland (after Katowice in the south). Warsaw, more than anywhere else in the country, has benefited from the boom in construction and commerce that foll...

• Rio de Janeiro (city) - geography.

  were coronated; and Our Lady of Candelária Church, thought by some to be the city’s most beautiful church. Another building of interest is the Imperial Palace, located several blocks west of Santos Dumont Airport. Originally constructed as Brazil’s colonial governor’s capitol in1743, it was converted to the royal palace during the city’s period as an imperial capital. It has recently been restored and now houses a cultural center. Otherimpressive 19th-century palaces include Itamaraty and Catete...

• Computer Memory.

  been created, information can be retrieved but not changed. Newer technologies allow ROMs to be semi-permanent—that is, the information can be changed, but ittakes several seconds to make the change. For example, a FLASH memory acts like a ROM because values remain stored in memory, but the values can be changed. C External Memory External memory can generally be classified as either magnetic or optical, or a combination called magneto-optical. A magnetic storage device, such as a computer'shar...

• Charles Dickens.

  The Old Curiosity Shop broke hearts across Britain and North America when it first appeared. Later readers, however, have found it excessively sentimental, especially the pathos surrounding the death of its child-heroine Little Nell. Dickens’s next two works proved less popular with the public. Barnaby Rudge, Dickens’s first historical novel, revolves around anti-Catholic riots that broke out in London in 1780. The events in Martin Chuzzlewit become a vehicle for the novel’s theme: selfishne...

• Greenhouse Effect.

  addition, humans cut down huge tracts of trees for lumber or to clear land for farming or building. This process, known as deforestation, can both release the carbonstored in trees and significantly reduce the number of trees available to absorb carbon dioxide. As a result of these human activities, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is accumulating faster than Earth’s natural processes can absorb the gas. By analyzing airbubbles trapped in glacier ice that is many centuries old, scientists have d...

• Cognitive Psychology.

  full richness of people’s cognitive experiences. Describing the act of remembering as a process of storage and retrieval, for example, neglects the subjective experienceof remembering. Another criticism is that information-processing theory may not reflect how the brain actually works. Newer models, such as the parallel distributedprocessing model, try to address this criticism by drawing on studies of brain structure and function. Psychologists continue to debate the adequacy of the information...

• Collectibles and Collecting.

  common blond and thus commands a higher price. If there are different variations to a collectible, the least common one is usually worth more. Often there areinteresting stories behind rarities, such as the highly sought-after 1909 Honus Wagner baseball card. At that time tobacco companies manufactured and distributedbaseball cards, and when the antitobacco Wagner complained, his card was pulled from production. Very few copies in good condition have ever been found. C Age Age is often an indic...

• Cheetah - biology.

  animals such as zebras. Unlike most cats, cheetahs hunt during the day, when lions and hyenas that compete with them for prey are less likely to be active. Still,scientists in Tanzania have observed that cheetahs lose 10 to 13 percent of their kills to lions and hyenas. Alerted by the panic of a gazelle herd or by the circling ofvultures, lions and hyenas close in and easily drive the more timid cheetah away from a fresh kill. A cheetah usually stalks prey to within about 10 m (about 33 ft) and...

• Diabetes Mellitus.

  Once diabetes is diagnosed, treatment consists of controlling the amount of glucose in the blood and preventing complications. Depending on the type of diabetes, thiscan be accomplished through regular physical exercise, a carefully controlled diet, and medication. Individuals with Type 1 diabetes must receive insulin, often two to four times a day, to provide the body with the hormone it does not produce. Insulin cannot be takenorally, because it is destroyed in the digestive system. Consequent...

• Political Parties in the United States.

  quickly enabled the Republican Party to overpower the Know-Nothings. Although the Republicans lost their first campaign for the presidency in 1856, they triumphed in1860 with former congressman Abraham Lincoln. The Republican victory resulted in part from the division of the Democratic Party into Northern and Southern factions,each of which ran its own presidential candidate, and in part from their success at attracting Whigs and Know-Nothings who had opposed the Republicans in 1856.During the C...

• Millennium.

  Postmillennialism, also referred to as progressive millennialism, interprets the Bible less literally than premillennialism does. Postmillennialists regard the millennium as a1,000-year reign of Christian ideals that will end with the return of Christ. In this view, the millennium will not start suddenly through an apocalypse, but graduallythrough the efforts of human beings. Postmillennialists believe that through social reform and by upholding Christian ideals, the kingdom of God will be built...

• Radioactivity I INTRODUCTION Marie Curie Working with her husband, Pierre Curie, French physicist Marie Curie discovered the radioactive elements polonium and radium in 1898.

  Rutherford when he allowed an alpha-emitting substance to decay near an evacuated thin-glass vessel. The alpha particles were able to penetrate the glass and werethen trapped in the vessel, and within a few days the presence of elemental helium was demonstrated by use of a spectroscope. Beta particles were subsequentlyshown to be electrons, and gamma rays to consist of electromagnetic radiation of the same nature as X rays but of considerably greater energy. A The Nuclear Hypothesis Rutherford...

• Canadian Parliament.

  government’s legislative program. Members of Commons can also present a motion in response to the Budget Speech, which reviews the government’s economicrecord, taxation, and expenditure plans, and to Supply Motions, which concern budgets for individual departments. If a majority of MPs support a no-confidence motion,the government must resign. Also, if Parliament rejects a significant government proposal, the government is expected to resign and request the governor-general to call an election....

• Primate - biology.

  The primate order includes a handful of species that live entirely on meat (carnivores) and also a few that are strict vegetarians (herbivores), but it is composed chieflyof animals that have varied diets (omnivores). The carnivorous primates are the four species of tarsiers, which live in Southeast Asia. Using their long back legs, thesepocket-sized nocturnal hunters leap on their prey, pinning it down with their hands and then killing it with their needle-sharp teeth. Tarsiers primarily eat in...

• From Uncle Tom's Cabin - anthology.

  the evils of slavery from sketches like these, is not the half that could be told, of the unspeakable whole. In the northern states, these representations may, perhaps, be thought caricatures; in the southern states are witnesses who know their fidelity. What personalknowledge the author has had, of the truth of incidents such as here are related, will appear in its time. It is a comfort to hope, as so many of the world's sorrows and wrongs have, from age to age, been lived down, so a ti...

• Diving (underwater).

  compensator (or control) device (BCD or BC), which the diver wears as a vest. By adding air to the BCD, the diver becomes more buoyant and rises. By releasing air,the diver becomes less buoyant and sinks. With minor adjustments of air, the diver can achieve neutral buoyancy. A third hose attaches to pressure gauges that diversuse to monitor how much air remains in the tank. A fourth hose attaches to a backup breathing device called an alternate air source, or octopus. Divers also wear a belt w...

• Panama Canal - Geography.

  The size of ships using the Panama Canal has steadily increased. About 27 percent of the vessels that use the canal are built to the maximum dimensions that can passthrough it (a category called “Panamax”). This has prompted further widening of Gaillard Cut, so that the larger Panamax vessels may transit safely. However, some ofthe world’s commercial and military ships are too large for the canal. Since the 1940s, new U.S. battleships and aircraft carriers have been built exceeding the canal’sdi...

• Republican Party.

  the reaction to the depression that the Republican Party controlled Congress for only 4 of the 48 years between 1932 and 1980. The Republicans did win the presidencyfour times during that period—in 1952, 1956, 1968, and 1972—when the Democratic Party split or when some unusual combination of circumstances occurred. Fromthe 1930s through the 1970s, however, the Democratic Party was the dominant party in the United States. The response of the Republicans to this new situation was confusion, anger,...

• Marketing.

  Where advertising reaches a mass audience, personal or direct selling focuses on one customer at a time. That kind of individual attention makes direct sellingexpensive, but it also makes it effective. As the costs of personal selling have risen, the utilization of salespeople has changed. Simple transactions are completed byclerks. Salespeople are now used primarily where the products are complex and require detailed explanation, customized application, or careful negotiation over priceand paym...

• Bahrain - country.

  A Religion Almost all Bahrainis and the majority of nonnatives are followers of Islam (Muslims). About 70 percent of all native Bahrainis belong to the Shia branch of Islam, whilethe remainder, including the ruling al-Khalifa clan, are adherents of the Sunni branch. Non-Muslims, including Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, and Jews, account for 15percent of the total population. High unemployment among the Shia population has caused considerable discontent on the part of this group toward the Sunni...

• Supernova - astronomy.

  The term hypernova has been proposed for an extremely massive core-collapse supernova—possibly more than 100 times the mass of the Sun. A hypernova is thought to form a black hole. Just before it explodes, a hypernova may release a huge burst of gamma rays in a jet from the rotating black hole at its center. These jets mayexplain the so-called long gamma-ray bursts detected by astronomers. According to some researchers, massive stars with over 40 solar masses may sometimescollapse directly int...

• Conservation.

  cancers, Hodgkin’s disease and leukemia. Unfortunately, human activities have greatly reduced biodiversity around the world. The 20th century encompasses one of the greatest waves of extinction, orelimination of species, to occur on the planet. The greatest threat to biodiversity is loss of habitat as humans develop land for agriculture, grazing livestock, industry,and habitation. The most drastic damage has occurred in the tropical rain forests, which cover less than seven percent of the Earth’...

• Vladimir Lenin I INTRODUCTION Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924), Russian revolutionary leader and theorist, who presided over the first government of Soviet Russia and then that of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

  with Japan ( see Russo-Japanese War). A string of military defeats and the strains placed on society by the war made for a tense atmosphere in Saint Petersburg, and by the beginning of 1905 various segments of Russian society, including students and liberal members of the nobility, were calling for political reform. When an unarmedcrowd of workers marched to the city’s Winter Palace on January 9 (or January 22, in the Western, or New Style, calendar) to submit a petition to Emperor Nicholas II,s...

• Vladimir Lenin.

  with Japan ( see Russo-Japanese War). A string of military defeats and the strains placed on society by the war made for a tense atmosphere in Saint Petersburg, and by the beginning of 1905 various segments of Russian society, including students and liberal members of the nobility, were calling for political reform. When an unarmedcrowd of workers marched to the city’s Winter Palace on January 9 (or January 22, in the Western, or New Style, calendar) to submit a petition to Emperor Nicholas II,s...

• Vladimir Lenin .

  with Japan ( see Russo-Japanese War). A string of military defeats and the strains placed on society by the war made for a tense atmosphere in Saint Petersburg, and by the beginning of 1905 various segments of Russian society, including students and liberal members of the nobility, were calling for political reform. When an unarmedcrowd of workers marched to the city’s Winter Palace on January 9 (or January 22, in the Western, or New Style, calendar) to submit a petition to Emperor Nicholas II,s...

• Articles of Confederation - U.

  trade, or any other pretence whatever. VIII ARTICLE IV The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different states in this union, the free inhabitants of each of thesestates, paupers, vagabonds and fugitives from Justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several states; and the people ofeach state shall have free ingress and regress to and from any other state, and shall enjoy therein all the...

• Cat Family - biology.

  cats have coats that are mainly brown, yellow, or gray, often with white underbellies. The cubs of many species of cats have spotted coats, which helps hide them ingrass and underbrush from predators. Adult cats that have mainly spotted patterns in their fur include cheetahs, leopards, clouded leopards, jaguars, ocelots, margays, Geoffroy’s cat, and servals. Singlecolor coats are found in lions, pumas, and jaguarundis. Some individuals among leopards and jaguars, and more rarely in other species...

• Azerbaijan - country.

  second most important industrial center after Baku. A Ethnic Groups Azerbaijan, including the autonomous exclave of Naxçivan, is populated mostly by ethnic Azerbaijanis, who are also known as Azeris. The ethnic composition of thecountry changed due to a civil war between the government of Azerbaijan and Armenian secessionists in the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave. Beginning in 1988, when thepeople of Nagorno-Karabakh unilaterally decided to secede from Azerbaijan, nearly the entire Azerbaijani popula...

• Estonia - country.

  protest the expansion of open-pit phosphorite mining in northeastern Estonia. Their success in stopping the expansion prompted further demonstrations as part of thecountry’s independence movement. Since independence Estonia has taken measures to protect the environment. The government has ratified international agreementsto reduce emissions of hazardous wastes and greenhouse gases, as well as to protect biodiversity, wetlands, and endangered species. Estonians cherish thecountryside, and 31 perc...

• Cosmology - astronomy.

  In 1917 American scientist Harlow Shapley measured the distance to several groups of stars known as globular clusters. He measured these distances by using amethod developed in 1912 by American astronomer Henrietta Leavitt. Leavitt’s method relates distance to variations in brightness of Cepheid variables, a class of starsthat vary periodically in brightness. Shapley’s distance measurements showed that the clusters were centered around a point far from the Sun. The arrangement of theclusters was...

• New Orleans - geography.

  D Metropolitan Region The New Orleans metropolitan region covers 8,800 sq km (3,400 sq mi) and includes the counties—known in Louisiana as parishes— of Orleans, Jefferson, Saint Bernard, Saint Charles, Saint John the Baptist, Saint Tammany, Saint James, and Plaquemines. At the center is the city of New Orleans, which is coextensive withOrleans Parish. It has a land area of 468 sq km (181 sq mi). Extending from this base are numerous suburban towns in the surrounding parishes. Metairie, Harahan...

• Ecuador - country.

  F Natural Resources Ecuador’s main mineral wealth is in petroleum. Other mineral resources of the country include gold, silver, copper, lead, and zinc. Forests cover 38.3 percent of thecountry. G Plants and Animals Along the northern part of the Ecuador coast, and within the inner portion of the southern coast, tropical jungles abound. In some places the jungles extend up theslopes of the Andes as wet, mossy forests. Dense forests cover both flanks of the Cordilleras, as well as the Oriente, u...

• War of 1812 - History.

  the thorough training they received in handling guns was far ahead of contemporary British standards. As hostilities loomed, Congress authorized a regular army of 35,000 men, but when the United States officially declared war in June 1812, the actual land force was lessthan 10,000 and nearly half of these soldiers were raw recruits. The existing troops were also widely scattered in small garrisons. The government planned tosupplement this regular force with 50,000 volunteers and 100,000 militiam...

• War of 1812 - U.

  the thorough training they received in handling guns was far ahead of contemporary British standards. As hostilities loomed, Congress authorized a regular army of 35,000 men, but when the United States officially declared war in June 1812, the actual land force was lessthan 10,000 and nearly half of these soldiers were raw recruits. The existing troops were also widely scattered in small garrisons. The government planned tosupplement this regular force with 50,000 volunteers and 100,000 militiam...

• United States Senate.

  providing for military forces, and declaring war. Article I, Section 8, also gives Congress implied powers—to “make all laws which shall be necessary and proper” forcarrying out the enumerated powers, and to investigate and oversee the executive branch. The Senate also has the power to conduct impeachment trials against thepresident, federal judges, and other officials. The Senate can only impeach someone after the House brings charges, however. A two-thirds majority vote of thesenators in the c...

• Adolf Hitler I INTRODUCTION Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), German political and military leader and one of the 20th century's most powerful dictators.

  A Economic Collapse At the end of World War I, the Allies (those countries who had fought against Germany) had demanded that Germany pay reparations—that is, payments for wardamages. The government refused to pay all that was demanded by the Allies. When Germany failed to pay enough, France and Belgium occupied the coal mines in theRuhr industrial area in west central Germany in January 1923. In protest, the German government halted all reparation payments and called for passive resistance by a...

• Adolf Hitler.

  A Economic Collapse At the end of World War I, the Allies (those countries who had fought against Germany) had demanded that Germany pay reparations—that is, payments for wardamages. The government refused to pay all that was demanded by the Allies. When Germany failed to pay enough, France and Belgium occupied the coal mines in theRuhr industrial area in west central Germany in January 1923. In protest, the German government halted all reparation payments and called for passive resistance by a...

• Adolf Hitler .

  A Economic Collapse At the end of World War I, the Allies (those countries who had fought against Germany) had demanded that Germany pay reparations—that is, payments for wardamages. The government refused to pay all that was demanded by the Allies. When Germany failed to pay enough, France and Belgium occupied the coal mines in theRuhr industrial area in west central Germany in January 1923. In protest, the German government halted all reparation payments and called for passive resistance by a...

• Asia - Geography.

  Borneo, the world’s third largest island after Greenland and New Guinea. To the southeast is the Timor Sea separating the Asian island of Timor from the Australiancontinent. The Indian subcontinent is flanked by the Bay of Bengal on the east and the Arabian Sea on the west. The island of Sri Lanka and the much smaller Maldives andNicobar Islands trail away to the south. The Arabian Sea’s Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Black Sea form an arc along the western rim of Asia...

• Asia - History.

  Borneo, the world’s third largest island after Greenland and New Guinea. To the southeast is the Timor Sea separating the Asian island of Timor from the Australiancontinent. The Indian subcontinent is flanked by the Bay of Bengal on the east and the Arabian Sea on the west. The island of Sri Lanka and the much smaller Maldives andNicobar Islands trail away to the south. The Arabian Sea’s Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Black Sea form an arc along the western rim of Asia...

• Television.

  A charge-coupled device (CCD) can be much smaller than a camera tube and is much more durable. As a result, cameras with CCDs are more compact and portablethan those using a camera tube. The image they create is less vulnerable to distortion and is therefore clearer. In a CCD, the light from a scene strikes an array ofphotodiodes arranged on a silicon chip. Photodiodes are devices that conduct electricity when they are struck by light; they send this electricity to tiny capacitors. Thecapacitors...

• Laos - country.

  by the year 2025. About one-quarter of Laos’s people live in mountainous regions. The rest live in upland valleys or on the flood plains of the Mekong and its tributaries.Just over three-quarters of the population live in rural areas, although the proportion of people living in urban areas is steadily increasing. Vientiane is the capital and largest city of Laos. Louangphrabang, the former royal capital, is an increasingly popular tourist destination. Other major cities are theregional capitals...

• China - country.

  North China lies between the Mongolian Steppe on the north and the Yangtze River Basin on the south. It stretches west from the Bo Hai gulf and the Yellow Sea to theeastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau. Administratively, North China includes Beijing and Tianjin municipalities; Shandong and Shanxi provinces; most of Hebei, Henan,and Shaanxi provinces; and portions of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and of Jiangsu, Anhui, and Gansu provinces. Humans have lived in the agriculturally rich region of Nor...

• Christianity.

  history of architecture. See Basilica; Church; Early Christian Art and Architecture;Prayer. C Christian Life The instruction and exhortation of Christian preaching and teaching concern all the themes of doctrine and morals: the love of God and the love of neighbor, the twochief commandments in the ethical message of Jesus (see Matthew 22: 34-40). Application of these commandments to the concrete situations of human life, bothpersonal and social, does not produce a uniformity of moral or polit...

• Native American Architecture I INTRODUCTION Native American Architecture, traditional architecture of the peoples of who lived in North America before Europeans arrived.

  Mound Builders who resided in the area.John Elk III/Bruce Coleman, Inc. Another mound building culture, named Hopewell, also appears to have originated in Ohio but expanded west to Iowa, Kansas, and Oklahoma, south to Louisiana,Mississippi, and Alabama, east to Georgia and the Appalachian Mountains, and north to Wisconsin, Michigan, and lower Ontario in Canada. The Hopewell culture lastedfrom about 200 BC to 400 AD. Hopewell people built large, linear mounds to create enclosures in geometrical...