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Nature Worship, Earth

2005-11-17T17:05:00.000-08:00

Although in polytheistic religions the earth is usually represented as a goddess and associated with the god of heaven as her spouse, only rarely is there an elaborate or intensive cult of earth worship. There are in many religions mother goddesses who have elaborate cults and who have assumed the function of fertility for land and man, but they hardly have a chthonic

Hupeh, Industry

2005-10-15T13:00:00.000-07:00

Hupeh's mineral wealth consists chiefly of iron, copper, and phosphorus ores; coal; and gypsum. Some of China's richest and best iron ore is found at Ta-yeh in southeastern Hupeh. The exploitation of this ore and of coking coal from P'ing-hsiang in Kiangsi was the basis for the founding of an ironworks at Han-yang at the end of the 19th century. Ore from Ta-yeh and other mines was

Conservation Law

2005-07-28T10:50:00.000-07:00

Also called Law Of Conservation, any of several principles applied in physics that state that certain physical properties (i.e., measurable quantities) do not change in the course of time within an isolated physical system. In classical physics, laws of this type govern mass, energy, momentum, and electric charge. In particle physics, other conservation laws apply to properties of subatomic particles

Edwin

2005-07-26T16:25:00.000-07:00

The son of King Aelle of Deira, one of the two Northumbrian kingdoms, Edwin fled into exile when Aethelric, king of Bernicia, seized power in Deira in 588 or 590. In 616 King Raedwald of East Anglia defeated and killed Aethelric's

Kara Koyunlu

2005-07-24T05:20:00.000-07:00

The Kara Koyunlu were vassals of the Jalayirid dynasty of Baghdad and Tabriz from about 1375, when the head of their leading tribe, Kara Muhammad Turmush (reigned c. 1375–90), ruled Mosul. The federation secured its independence with the seizure of Tabriz (which became its capital) by Kara Yusuf (reigned 1390–1400; 1406–20). Routed by the

Wage And Salary

2005-07-07T06:45:00.000-07:00

Analyses of economic distribution appear in David Ricardo, Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817, reissued 1981), the classical subsistence theory of wages; Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1 (1886; originally published in German, 1867), also available in many later editions, treating the process of distribution as pure conflict; John Bates Clark, Distribution of Wealth (1899, reissued 1965), the classic work on marginal productivity theory whereby distribution is viewed as a harmonious process in which the factors of production receive as income what they contribute to the product; Frank H. Knight, Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit (1921, reprinted 1985), an analysis of profits viewed as a result of imperfect foresight and as a remuneration for risk-bearing; Joseph Schumpeter, The Theory of Economic Development (1934, reprinted 1987; originally published in German, 1912), an analysis of economic development as a result of the innovations of entrepreneurs motivated by profit; Paul H. Douglas, The Theory of Wages (1934, reissued 1964), marginalist theory based on statistical research which sets forth the famous Cobb–Douglas function; K.J. Arrow et al., “Capital–Labor Substitution and Economic Efficiency,” The Review of Economics and Statistics, 43:225–250 (1961), an econometric study explaining the falling share of capital in the national income by the elasticity of substitution; J.R. Hicks, The Theory of Wages, 2nd ed. (1963, reissued 1973), a sophisticated treatment of marginal productivity theory; and Nicholas Kaldor, “Alternative Theories of Distribution,” in his Essays on Value and Distribution, 2nd ed. (1980), a discussion of various theories from Ricardo to Keynes. Dan Usher, The Economic Prerequisite to Democracy (1981), suggests that democracy requires broad agreement on how an economic system will distribute wealth. Other works in this area are Alan S. Blinder, Toward an Economic Theory of Income Distribution (1974); and Ronald G. Ehrenberg and Robert S. Smith, Modern Labor Economics: Theory and Public Policy, 5th ed. (1994).

Resorcinol

2005-07-05T00:20:00.000-07:00

Also called m-dihydroxybenzene phenolic compound used in the manufacture of resins, plastics, dyes, medicine, and numerous other organic chemical compounds. It is produced in large quantities by sulfonating benzene with fuming sulfuric acid and fusing the resulting benzenedisulfonic acid with caustic soda. Reaction with formaldehyde produces resins used to make rayon and nylon amenable

Tea

2005-06-28T00:35:00.000-07:00

Beverage produced by steeping in freshly boiled water the young leaves and leaf buds of the tea plant, Camellia sinensis. Two principal varieties are used, the small-leaved China plant (C. sinensis sinensis) and the large-leaved Assam plant (C. sinensis assamica). Hybrids of these two varieties are also grown. The leaves may be fermented or left unfermented.

Cariban Languages

2005-06-13T19:05:00.000-07:00

A group of South American Indian languages that were spoken before the Spanish conquest from what is now the Greater Antilles to the central Mato Grosso in Brazil; most of the languages, however, were spoken north of the Amazon River in what is now northern Brazil, the inland areas of the Guianas and Venezuela, and lowland Colombia. West Indian Cariban is extinct, and

Arsenide

2005-06-02T14:15:00.000-07:00

Any member of a rare mineral group consisting of compounds of one or more metals with arsenic (As). The coordination of the metal is almost always octahedral or tetrahedral. In the former case, each metal ion occupies a position within an octahedron composed of six oppositely charged arsenic ions, whereas in the latter each of the metal ions is surrounded by six oppositely

Calendar, Early history

2005-05-31T09:10:00.000-07:00

The oldest system, in many respects the basis of the classical one, is known from texts of about 1000 BC. It divides an approximate solar year of 360 days into 12 lunar months of 27 (according to the early Vedic text Taittiriya Samhita 4.4.10.1–3) or 28 (according to the Atharvaveda, the fourth of the Vedas, 19.7.1.) days. The resulting discrepancy was resolved by the intercalation of a leap month every 60 months. Time

Reproductive System Disease, Inflammatory conditions

2005-05-14T21:50:00.000-07:00

Balanitis, or inflammation of the glans penis, and posthitis, or infection of the prepuce, result from the retention of secretions and bacteria beneath the foreskin and can be prevented with good sexual hygiene. Balanitis can also develop as a complication of certain sexually transmitted diseases. Acute prostatitis, inflammation of the prostate gland, may be caused

S Doradus

2005-03-15T09:51:00.000-08:00

Variable supergiant star in the Large Magellanic Cloud (the latter is one of two galactic companions to the Milky Way Galaxy). S Doradus (and the Large Magellanic Cloud) is visible to viewers in the Southern Hemisphere in the constellation Dorado. It is one of the most luminous stars known, radiating almost 1,000,000 times as much energy as the Sun.

Bach Long Vi

2005-03-14T10:20:00.000-08:00

Island of northern Vietnam in the Gulf of Tonkin, halfway between the mouth of the Red River (Song Hong) near Nam Dinh and the Chinese island of Hainan. The island is a plateau that rises abruptly to 190 ft (58 m) above sea level and is fringed with precipitous cliffs. Fishing resources are abundant in the surrounding gulf of the South China Sea.

Epistemology, Ancient

2005-03-07T11:11:00.000-08:00

An excellent collection on skepticism is Miles Burnyeat (ed.), The Skeptical Tradition (1983). For Greek Skepticism in particular, see Charlotte L. Stough, Greek Skepticism: A Study in Epistemology (1969). The chief epistemological works of Plato are his Meno, Theaetetus, and Republic, especially Books V - VII. The views of Aristotle can be found in On the Soul, Metaphysics, Book IV, ch. 5 and 6, and Posterior Analytics, Book I, ch. 3. The locus classicus for ancient skepticism is R.G. Bury (trans.), Sextus Empiricus, 4 vol. (1933 - 49), in The Loeb Classical Library series. From among the voluminous writings of Augustine, see Against the Academicians, trans. by Mary Patricia Garvey (1942, reissued 1978).

T'u-ti

2005-03-06T21:07:00.000-08:00

Pinyin �Tudi� (Chinese: �Place God�), type of Chinese god whose deification and functions are determined by local residents. The chief characteristic of a T'u-ti is the limitation of his jurisdiction to a single place - e.g., a bridge, a street, a temple, a public building, a private home, or a field. In the case of private homes, the T'u-ti is often identified with the god of riches. In all cases, a T'u-ti

Paleolithic Period

2005-03-05T21:52:00.000-08:00

At sites dating from the Lower Paleolithic Period (about 2,500,000 to 200,000 years ago), simple pebble tools have been found in association with the remains of what may have been the earliest human ancestors. A somewhat more sophisticated Lower Paleolithic tradition,

Abelard, Peter

2005-03-04T17:36:00.000-08:00

The outline of Abelard's career is well known, largely because he described so much of it in his famous Historia calamitatum (�History of My Troubles�). He was born the son of a knight in Brittany south of the Loire River. He sacrificed his inheritance and the prospect of a military career in order to study philosophy, particularly logic, in France. He provoked bitter quarrels

Wagner, Richard

2005-03-03T06:57:00.000-08:00

For the next 15 years Wagner was not to present any further new works. Until 1858 he lived in Z�rich, composing, writing treatises, and conducting (he directed the London Philharmonic concerts in 1855). Having already studied the Siegfried legend and the Norse myths as a possible basis for an opera, and having written an operatic �poem,� Siegfrieds Tod (Siegfried's Death), in which he

Lake, Basins formed by glaciation

2005-03-02T16:40:00.000-08:00

The basin-forming mechanism responsible for the most abundant production of lakes, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere, is glaciation. The Pleistocene glaciers, which seem to have affected every continent, were especially effective in North America, Europe, and Asia. The retreat of ice sheets produced basins through mechanical action and through the damming

Astrakhan

2005-03-01T05:13:00.000-08:00

Formerly �Khadzhi-tarkhan, � city and administrative centre of Astrakhan oblast (province), southwestern Russia. Astrakhan city is situated in the delta of the Volga River, 60 miles (100 km) from the Caspian Sea. It lies on several islands on the left bank of the main, westernmost channel of the Volga. Astrakhan was formerly the capital of a Tatar khanate, a remnant of the Golden Horde, located on the higher

Chelmno

2005-02-28T15:36:00.000-08:00

As the first camp to conduct mass executions of Jews, Chelmno

Encamp

2005-02-27T18:16:00.000-08:00

Village, Andorra, on a headstream of the Riu (river) Valira. Its agricultural economy is supplemented by tourism, especially skiing. Encamp has a broadcasting transmitter of Radio Andorra. Above the village is Engolasters Lake, accessible by cable car. There are facilities for generating hydroelectric power. In the locality is the Pic (peak) des Pessons (9,400 ft [2,865 m]). Pop. (1990) 7,489.

Libya

2005-02-26T22:25:00.000-08:00

Libya's international relations in 1997 were again dominated by the decade-long

Baseball Hall Of Fame

2005-02-25T07:48:00.000-08:00

In full� National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum � museum and honorary society, Cooperstown, New York, U.S. The origins of the hall can be traced to 1935, when plans were first put forward for the 1939 celebration of the supposed centennial of baseball (it was then believed that the American army officer Abner Doubleday had developed the game at Cooperstown in 1839, a story that was later discredited). The first vote for players to be