Aleni, Giulio
Aleni entered the Society of Jesus in 1600 and was sent to the Far East. He landed at Macau in 1610 and went to China three years later. During his more than 30 years in China, he adopted that country's dress and manners. He built several churches
Akron
City, seat (1842) of Summit county, northeastern Ohio, U.S. It lies along the Cuyahoga River, 41 miles (66 km) south-southeast of Cleveland. Akron is the centre of a metropolitan area that includes the cities of Cuyahoga Falls, Tallmadge, and Stow and several villages. At 1,200 feet (370 m) above sea level, it was named for its �high place� (Greek: akros) on the watershed between the Mississippi River and
Epistemology, Necessary versus contingent propositions
A proposition is said to be necessary if it holds (is true) under all possible circumstances or conditions. �All husbands are married� is such a proposition. There are no possible or conceivable conditions under which this statement would not be true (on the assumption, of course, that the words �husband� and �married� are taken to mean what they ordinarily mean). In contrast,
Earth, Mountain building
The mid-oceanic ridge system is located along divergent plate boundaries. This system is an undersea
Table Tennis
In 1995 the table tennis world championships returned to China in two senses: they took place in Tianjin, and all seven events were won by China, as they had been in 1981. Thus ended Sweden's domination of the men's team event (in 1989, 1991, and 1993) and the run of European triumphs in the men's singles over the same period. The world champions were: men's singles, Kong Linghui; women's singles, Deng Yaping;
Ansky, S.
Ansky was educated in a Hasidic environment and as a young man was attracted to the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskala) and to the populist doctrines of the Narodniki, a group of socialist revolutionaries. For a time he worked among the peasants and contributed
Chemical Synthesis
Chemists synthesize chemical compounds that occur in nature in order to gain a better understanding of their structures.
Tsuyama
City, Okayama ken (prefecture), Honshu, Japan. It lies along the upper Yoshii River, in the centre of the Tsuyama basin. A castle was built there in 1442. An important post town during the Tokugawa period (1603 - 1867), Tsuyama is still a centre of traditional home industries, producing tabi (socks), sickles, and silk gauze textiles. The remains of the castle and old buildings around it attract
Overweg, Adolf
In 1849 Overweg joined an expedition, headed by the English explorer James
Literature
In the first half of 2001, the Akutagawa Prize, awarded semiannually to the most promising new Japanese writers of fiction, went to Toshiyuki Horie for his story �Kuma no shikiishi� (�The Bear's Pavement,� published in the December 2000 issue of Gunzo), and to Yuichi Seirai for his story �Seisui� (�Holy Water,� from the December 2000 Bungakukai
Lennox, Margaret Douglas, Countess Of
Lady Margaret Douglas was the daughter of Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus, and Margaret Tudor (daughter of King Henry VII of England and widow of King James IV of Scotland), and in 1544 she married Matthew Stewart (1516 - 71), 4th Earl of Lennox. Because of her
Animal Learning, Habituation
A classic example of habituation is the following observation on the snail Helix albolabris. If the snail is moving along a wooden surface, it will immediately withdraw into its shell if the experimenter taps on the surface. It emerges after a pause, only to withdraw again if the tap is repeated. But continued repetition of the same tapping at regular intervals elicits
Loxonema
Genus of extinct gastropods (snails) found as fossils in rocks of Ordovician to Early Carboniferous age (505 to 320 million years ago). Loxonema has a distinctive high-spired, slender shell with fine axial ornamentational lines. A distinct lip is present at the base of the aperture of the main whorl.
Costello, Elvis
The son of musicians, Costello was exposed to a mix of British and American styles - dance-hall pop to modern jazz to the Beatles - from an early age. During the early 1970s he lived in London, recording demos and performing locally while working as a computer
Frances Of Rome, Saint
When she was only 13, Frances' parents married her to Lorenzo de' Ponziani, whose sister-in-law, Vannozza, helped Frances draft a rule of life for the new order. In
Jiddah
Also spelled �Jidda, �Jeddah�, or �Juddah� city and major port in central Hejaz region, western Saudi Arabia. It lies along the Red Sea west of Mecca. The principal importance of Jiddah in history is that it constituted the port of Mecca and was thus the site where the majority of Muslim pilgrims landed who were journeying to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. The city in fact owes its commercial foundations
Integument, Variations among vertebrates
The vertebrates belong to the phylum Chordata and are closely related to a small, fishlike, almost transparent invertebrate called amphioxus. Amphioxus represents chordate integument at its simplest: an epidermis, consisting of one layer of columnar or cuboidal epithelial cells and scattered mucous cells, covered by a thin cuticle, and a thin dermis of soft connective
Ducommun, �lie
After working as a magazine and newspaper editor in Geneva and Bern, Ducommun spent most of his career as general secretary of the Jura-Simplon Railway. His spare time, however, was spent on peace activities. He took an active part in the movement for European
Sanjo
City, Niigata Prefecture (ken), Honshu, Japan, on the delta of the Shinano-gawa (Shinano River). Sanjo was founded as a castle town in the 16th century. It was a river port and post town during the Tokugawa era (1603 - 1867), when the city first became known as a centre of metal tool production. Carpenter tools and household hardware are still produced in more than 2,000 small workshops. Pop. (1980) 85,275.
Gironde
The domination of Bordeaux has hindered the development of an active
Gironde
The domination of Bordeaux has hindered the development of an active
Pierce, Sarah
The school Pierce opened in her home in 1792 was so successful that in 1798 a group of Litchfield citizens presented her with a building to house
Gabon
Roland Pourtier, Le Gabon, 2 vol. (1989), provides an introduction. Institut P�dagogique National (Gabon), G�ographie et cartographie du Gabon (1983), is an illustrated atlas. Two studies of the Mpongwe are Henry Bucher, �The Atlantic Slave Trade and the Gabon Estuary: The Mpongwe to 1860,� in Paul E. Lovejoy (ed.), Africans in Bondage (1986), pp. 137 - 154, and �The Village of Glass and Western Intrusion: An Mpongwe Response to the American and French Presence in the Gabon Estuary: 1842 - 1845,� The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 6(3):363 - 400 (1973). James W. Fernandez, Bwiti: An Ethnography of the Religious Imagination in Africa (1982), examines the most important syncretic cult. Pierre-Claver Maganga-Moussavou, Economic Development - Does Aid Help? (1983; originally published in French, 1982), critiques French economic involvement in independent Gabon. Marc Aicardi de Saint-Paul, Gabon: The Development of a Nation (1989; originally published in French, 1987), discusses economic policies and conditions.
'abbas I
Byname �'Abbas the Great � shah of Persia from 1588 to 1629, who strengthened the Safavid dynasty by expelling Ottoman and Uzbek troops from Persian soil and by creating a standing army. He also made Esfahan the capital of Persia and fostered commerce and the arts, so that Persian artistic achievement reached a high point in his reign.
Permafrost, Soil flow
In areas underlain by an impermeable layer (seasonally frozen ground or perennially frozen ground), the active layer is often saturated with moisture and is quite mobile. The progressive downslope movement of saturated detrital material under the action of gravity and working in conjunction with frost action is called solifluction. This material moves in a
Lancaster, Sir Osbert
Lancaster took his B.A. degree at Lincoln College,
Smendes
Smendes, a native of the delta, probably secured his right to rule though his queen, Tentamon, who was possibly related to the previous dynasty. Though the high priests of Amon held
Gauge
Also spelled �Gage, � in manufacturing and engineering, a device used to determine, either directly or indirectly, whether a dimension is larger or smaller than another dimension that is used as a reference standard. Some devices termed gauges may actually measure the size of the object to be gauged, but most gauges merely indicate whether the dimensions of the test object are sufficiently
Ob River
The Ob, one of western Siberia's principal means of transportation, is navigable for about 190 days of the year on its upper reaches and for 150 on its lower. Both imports and exports are shipped along the river. Most goods are transported to and from it along the northern sea route, which stretches across the Arctic. The Trans-Siberian Railway crosses the Irtysh at Omsk and the
