| | - active crowd
- (from the article "collective behaviour") The active crowd identifies an object or group of objects outside itself and proceeds to act directly upon it or them. It will brook no delay or interference, no discussion of the desirability of acting, and no dissent from its ...
- active detector
- (from the article "radiation measurement") ...is later measured through some type of processing. These so-called passive detectors are widely applied in the routine monitoring of occupational exposures to ionizing radiation. In contrast, in active detectors a signal is produced in real time to indicate the ...
- active ecstasy
- (from the article "shamanism") In active, or wandering, trances the shaman's life functions decrease to an abnormal minimum. The soul of the shaman, it is believed, then leaves his body and seeks one of the world strata. After awakening, he relates his experiences, where ...
- active force
- (from the article "muscle") ...heart muscle cells. In a manner similar to that seen in skeletal muscle, there is a relationship between the muscle length and the isometric force developed. As the muscle length is increased, the active force developed reaches a maximum and ...
- active galactic nucleus
- (from the article "telescope") ...far beyond the Milky Way Galaxy system. These cosmic objects have intense clouds of radio emission that extend hundreds of thousands of light-years away from a central energy source located in an active galactic nucleus (AGN), or quasar. Observations with ...
- active heating
- (from the article "solar heating") In active heating, mechanical means are used to store, collect, and distribute solar energy in buildings in order to provide hot water or space heating. The sunlight falling on a building's collector array is converted to heat, which is transferred ...
- active ice wedge
- (from the article "permafrost") Ice wedges may be classified as active, inactive, and ice-wedge casts. Active ice wedges are those that are actively growing. The wedge may not crack every year, but during many or most years cracking does occur, and an increment of ...
- active immunization
- (from the article "immune system") Active immunization aims to ensure that a sufficient supply of antibodies or T and B cells that react against a potential infectious agent or toxin are present in the body before infection occurs or the toxin is encountered. Once it ...
- active intellect
- (from the article "epistemology") ...says that the intellect, like everything else, must have two parts: something analogous to matter and something analogous to form. The first of these is the passive intellect; the second is active intellect, of which Aristotle speaks tersely. "Intellect in ...
- active layer
- (from the article "permafrost") ...upper surface of permafrost is called the permafrost table. In permafrost areas the surface layer of ground that freezes in the winter (seasonally frozen ground) and thaws in summer is called the active layer. The thickness of the active layer ...
- active region
- (from the article "Sun")
- active site
- (from the article "enzyme") Only a certain region of the enzyme, called the active site, binds to the substrate. The active site is a groove or pocket formed by the folding pattern of the protein. This three-dimensional structure, together with the chemical and electrical ...
- active sonar
- (from the article "sonar") Sonar systems may be divided into three categories. In active sonar systems an acoustic projector generates a sound wave that spreads outward and is reflected back by a target object. A receiver picks up and analyzes the reflected signal and ...
- active transducer
- (from the article "transducer") Electrical transducers may be classified as active or passive. The active transducers generate electric current or voltage directly in response to stimulation. An example is the thermocouple; here, the fact that a current will flow in a continuous circuit of ...
- active transport
- (from the article "biophysics") ...laid the groundwork in this subject; his pupil, Hans Ussing, developed the conceptual means by which the transport of ions (charged atoms) across membranes can be identified. Ussing's definition of active transport made possible an understanding, at the cellular level, ...
- active voice
- (from the article "voice") in grammar, form of a verb indicating the relation between the participants in a narrated event (subject, object) and the event itself. Common distinctions of voice found in languages are those of active, passive, and middle voice. These distinctions may ...
- active-guidance system
- (from the article "rocket and missile system") With active guidance, the missile would track its target by means of emissions that it generated itself. Active guidance was commonly used for terminal homing. Examples were antiship, surface-to-air, and air-to-air missiles that used self-contained radar systems to track their ...
- Activision
- (from the article "electronic game") ...were programmable in the sense that different game cartridges could be inserted into special slots-a technical step that encouraged the separation of game development from hardware design. Activision, founded in 1979 by four former Atari game designers, was the first ...
- Activist Opposition Party
- (from the article "Zilliacus, Konni") ...Chicago in the 1890s. He returned to Russian-controlled Finland and began a career of smuggling revolutionary propaganda and arms from Sweden by sea into Finland. In 1904 he was an organizer of the Activist Opposition Party, an underground revolutionary group; ...
- activity
- (from the article "liquid") ...concentration of a substance may not be an accurate measure of its effectiveness, because of physical and chemical interactions, in which case an effective concentration must be used, called the activity. The activity is given by the product of the ...
- activity
- in radioactive-decay processes, the number of disintegrations per second, or the number of unstable atomic nuclei that decay per second in a given sample. Activity is determined by counting, with the aid of radiation detectors and electronic circuits, the number ... [1 Related Articles]
- activity analysis
- (from the article "economics") ...empirical method of reducing the technical relations between industries to a manageable system of simultaneous equations. A closely related phenomenon was the development of linear programming and activity analysis, which opened up the possibility of applying numerical solutions to industrial ...
- activity coefficient
- in chemistry, the ratio of the chemical activity of any substance to its molar concentration. The measured concentration of a substance may not be an accurate indicator of its chemical effectiveness, as represented by the equation for a particular reaction, ... [3 Related Articles]
- activity rate
- (from the article "labour economics") The employed labour force may be characterized by particular activity rates. An activity rate is the proportion of the whole number in a given age and sex group-for example, females aged 30-34-who work for gain. Among males, activity rates in ...
- activity ratio
- (from the article "business finance") ...ratio and debt as a percentage of total capitalization) are used to make judgments about the advantages to be gained from raising funds by the issuance of bonds (debt) rather than stock. Activity ratios, relating to the turnover of such ...
- activity-based costing
- (from the article "accounting") A third method of cost finding, activity-based costing, is based on the fact that many costs are driven by factors other than product volume. The first task is to identify the activities that drive costs. The next step is to ...
- Acto Adicional of 1834
- amendment to the Brazilian constitution of 1824 that abolished some of that charter's extremely centralist and authoritarian aspects. It was enacted as a concession to federalists and republicans who threatened to sunder the nation.
- actomyosin
- (from the article "protein") ...actin, the molecular weight of which is about 50,000; it forms 12 to 15 percent of the muscle proteins. Actin can exist in two forms-one, G-actin, is globular; the other, F-actin, is fibrous. Actomyosin is a complex molecule formed by ...
- Acton
- (from the article "Ealing") In 1231 Walter de Actune sold land in Acton to St. Paul's Cathedral. In late 1642, after the Battle of Edgehill, defense forces at Acton, Brentford, and Turnham Green (at the present Ealing-Hounslow border) barred the access of Charles I's ...
- Acton, John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, 1st Baron, 8th Baronet
- English Liberal historian and moralist, the first great modern philosopher of resistance to the evil state, whether its form be authoritarian, democratic, or socialist. A comment that he wrote in a letter, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts ...
- Acton, Sir Harold Mario Mitchell
- British writer and connoisseur (b. July 5, 1904, Villa La Pietra, near Florence, Italy--d. Feb. 27, 1994, Villa La Pietra), was "the consummate aesthete of his generation," more admired for his exuberant dilettantism while a student at the University of ...
- Acton, Sir John Francis Edward, 6th Baronet
- commander of the naval forces of Tuscany and then of Naples who as prime minister of Naples allied that kingdom with England and Austria in the period of the French Revolution. [1 Related Articles]
- actor-manager system
- method of theatrical production dominant in England and the U.S. in the 19th century, consisting of a permanent company formed by a leading actor who chose his or her own plays, took a leading role in them, and handled business ... [2 Related Articles]
- Actors Studio, The
- prestigious professional actors' workshop in New York City whose members have been among the most influential performers in American theatre and film since World War II. It is one of the leading centres for the Stanislavsky method of dramatic training. [2 Related Articles]
- Actors' Company
- (from the article "McKellen, Sir Ian") ...won both popular and critical acclaim in his performances as both William Shakespeare's Richard II and Christopher Marlowe's Edward II for the 1969 Edinburgh Festival. In 1971 he cofounded the Actors' Company, a collective of actors who had equal say ...
- Acts of the Apostles, The
- fifth book of the New Testament, a valuable history of the early Christian church. Acts was written in Greek, presumably by the Evangelist Luke, whose gospel concludes where Acts begins, namely, with Christ's Ascension into heaven. Acts was apparently written ... [17 Related Articles]
- actual cash value
- (from the article "insurance") Recovery under homeowner's forms may be on the basis of either full replacement cost or actual cash value (ACV). Under the former, the owner suffers no reduction in loss recovery due to depreciation of the property from its original value. ...
- actual occasion
- (from the article "metaphysics") ...as realism (e.g., that things exist separately within their own surfaces) must be revealed for what they are, namely, abstractions. The basic units of reality are organismic unities, "actual occasions," which are spatial and temporal extensions that cannot be exhaustively ...
- actual sin
- (from the article "sin") Theologians divide sin into "actual" and "original." Actual sin is sin in the ordinary sense of the word and consists of evil acts, whether of thought, word, or deed. Original sin (the term can be misleading) is the morally vitiated ...
- actuality
- (from the article "metaphysics") The key concepts in Aristotelianism are substance, form and matter, potentiality and actuality, and cause. Whatever happens involves some substance or substances; unless there were substances, in the sense of concrete existents, nothing could be real whatsoever. Substances, however, are ...
- actuary
- one who calculates insurance risks and premiums. Actuaries compute the probability of the occurrence of various contingencies of human life, such as birth, marriage, sickness, unemployment, accidents, retirement, and death. They also evaluate the hazards of property damage or loss ...
- actuating device
- (from the article "automation") ...process control system generally includes the following: (1) measurement of important process variables such as temperature, flow rate, and pressure, (2) execution of some optimizing strategy, (3) actuation of such devices as valves, switches, and furnaces that enable the process ...
- actus reus
- (from the article "criminal law") It is generally agreed that the essential ingredients of any crime are (1) a voluntary act or omission (actus reus), accompanied by (2) a certain state of mind (mens rea). An act may be any kind of voluntary human behaviour. ...
- Acuff, Roy
- American vocalist, songwriter, and fiddle player, called the "King of Country Music," who in the mid-1930s reasserted the mournful musical traditions of Southeastern rural whites and became a national radio star on the "Grand Ole Opry" broadcasts. [2 Related Articles]
- Acuff-Rose Publishing Company
- (from the article "Acuff, Roy") In 1942 he organized Acuff-Rose Publishing Company, the first publishing house exclusively for country music, with songwriter Fred Rose. Following an unsuccessful bid for the Tennessee governorship in 1948, Acuff continued to record extensively from the 1950s on, lending authenticity ...
- Aculifera
- (from the article "mollusk") ...Amphineura, the former name for a group made up of the Polyplacophora (chitons) and Aplacophora (caudofoveates and solenogasters) within one subphylum, has been replaced by the more appropriate term Aculifera. All other mollusks are included in the subphylum Conchifera (shell-bearers). ...
- Acuna, Rosario de
- Spanish playwright, essayist, and short-story writer known for her controversial liberal views.
- acupuncture
- ancient Chinese medical technique for relieving pain, curing disease, and improving general health. It was devised before 2500 BC in China and by the late 20th century was used in many other areas of the world. Acupuncture consists of the ... [5 Related Articles]
- Acura NSX
- (from the article "materials science") ...1992 with a limited-edition Jaguar sports car that was virtually all aluminum, including the engine, adhesively bonded chassis, and skin. Somewhat less expensive and in full production were Honda's Acura NSX, containing more than 400 kilograms (900 pounds) of aluminum ...
- acutance
- (from the article "photography, technology of") ...scatter or irradiation within the emulsion (which tends to spread image details) and on the contrast with which the film reproduces fine detail. These effects can be measured physically to give an acutance value, which is preferred to resolving power ...
- acute cystitis
- (from the article "cystitis") Acute, or common, cystitis is caused by bacterial infection, frequently as part of a general urinary tract infection (UTI). The mucous membrane of the bladder becomes swollen and red and bleeds. Small ulcers can develop, the surface layer can shred, ...
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