Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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inosilicate ... integrated circuit

inosilicate: any of a class of inorganic compounds that have structures characterized by silicate tetrahedrons (a central silicon atom surrounded by four oxygen atoms at the corners of a tetrahedron) arranged in chains. Two of the oxygen atoms of each tetrahedron ...
inosinic acid: a compound important in metabolism. It is the ribonucleotide of hypoxanthine and is the first compound formed during the synthesis of purine in organisms. From inosinic acid are derived such important compounds as the purine nucleotides found in nucleic acids ...
inositol: any of several stereoisomeric alcohols similar in molecular structure to the simple carbohydrates. The best known of the inositols is myoinositol, named for its presence in muscle tissue, from which it was first obtained in 1850. Myoinositol is essential for ...
Inoue Enryo: Japanese philosopher and educator who attempted to reinterpret Buddhist concepts so they would be relevant to Western philosophical doctrines. An ardent nationalist, Inoue helped make Buddhism an intellectually acceptable alternative to Western religious doctrines.
Inoue Kaoru: one of the elder statesmen (genro) who ruled Japan during the Meiji period (1868-1912).
Inoue Tetsujiro: Japanese philosopher who opposed Christianity as incompatible with Japanese culture and who worked to preserve traditional Japanese values. At the same time, using Western philosophical methods, he helped to create a systematic history of the theories of Oriental philosophy and ...
Inoue Yasushi: Japanese novelist noted for his historical fiction, notably Tempyo no iraka (1957; The Roof Tile of Tempyo), which depicts the drama of 8th-century Japanese monks traveling to China and bringing back Buddhist texts and other artifacts to Japan.
Inowroclaw: city, Kujawsko-Pomorskie wojewodztwo (province), north-central Poland, in the Kujawy region. First mentioned in 1185 as a trading settlement, Inowroclaw lay on an ancient trade route between southern Europe and the Baltic Sea. It became capital of the ...
input-output analysis: economic analysis developed by the 20th-century Russian-born U.S. economist Wassily W. Leontief, in which the interdependence of an economy's various productive sectors is observed by viewing the product of each industry both as a commodity demanded for final consumption and ...
input/output device: any of various devices (including sensors) used to enter information and instructions into a computer for storage or processing and to deliver the processed data to a human operator or, in some cases, a machine controlled by the computer. Such ...
inquest: judicial inquiry by a group of persons appointed by a court. The most common type is the inquest set up to investigate a death apparently occasioned by unnatural means. Witnesses are examined, and a special jury returns a verdict on ...
Inquisition: in Roman Catholicism, a papal judicial institution that combatted heresy and such things as alchemy, witchcraft, and sorcery and wielded considerable power in medieval and early modern times. The name is derived from the Latin verb inquiro ...
inquisitorial procedure: in law, one of the two methods of exposing evidence in court (the other being the adversary procedure; q.v.). The inquisitorial system is typical of countries that base their legal systems on civil or Roman law.
inro: in Japanese dress, small portable case worn on the girdle. As indicated by the meaning of the word inro ("vessel to hold seals"), these objects, probably originally imported from China, were used as containers for seals. In about the 16th ...
insanity: in criminal law, condition of mental disorder or mental defect that relieves a person of criminal responsibility for his conduct. Tests of insanity used in law are not intended to be scientific definitions of mental disorder; rather, they are expected ...
insect: any member of the class Insecta, the largest class of the phylum Arthropoda, which is itself the largest of the animal phyla. Like all arthropods, the insects have segmented bodies, jointed legs, and, when present, external skeletons (exoskeletons). Insects are ...
insecticide: any toxic substance that is used to kill insects. Such substances are used primarily to control pests that infest cultivated plants or to eliminate disease-carrying insects in specific areas.
insectivore: the common name applied to any of 450 or so species of mammals-comprising hedgehogs, golden moles, "true" moles, "true" shrews, the moonrat, gymnures, solenodons, and tenrecs-that subsist primarily on insects, other arthropods, and earthworms.
inselberg: (from German insel, "island," and berg, "mountain"), isolated hill that stands above well-developed plains and appears not unlike an island rising from the sea. Although the term is usually applied generally, it is sometimes restricted to hills that are formed ...
inselberg: (from German Insel, "island," and Berg, "mountain"), isolated hill that stands above well-developed plains and appears not unlike an island rising from the sea. The early German explorers of southern Africa were impressed by ...
Inside Passage: natural sheltered sea route extending for more than 1,000 miles (1,600 km) from Seattle (Wash., U.S.) northwest to Skagway (Alaska, U.S.). It comprises channels and straits between the mainland and islands (including Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Can., and the Alexander ...
insight: in learning theory, immediate and clear learning or understanding that takes place without overt trial-and-error testing. Insight occurs in human learning when people recognize relationships (or make novel associations between objects or actions) that can help them solve new problems.
insolvency: financial condition in which the total liabilities of an individual or enterprise exceed the total assets so that the claims of creditors cannot be paid. There are essentially two approaches in determining insolvency: insolvency in the equity sense and under ...
insomnia: the inability to sleep adequately. Causes may include poor sleeping conditions, circulatory or brain disorders, a respiratory disorder known as apnea, stress, or other physical or mental disorders. Insomnia is not harmful if it is only occasional; the body is ...
installment credit: in business, credit that is granted on condition of its repayment at regular intervals, or installments, over a specified period of time until paid in full. Installment credit is the means by which most durable goods such as automobiles and ...
instinct: involuntary response by an animal to an external stimulus. The concept has come to refer to complex unlearned behaviour that is recognizable and predictable in at least one sex of a species.
Institut Canadien: literary and scientific society that came into conflict with the Roman Catholic church in 19th-century French Canada. Founded in Montreal on Dec. 17, 1844, it soon became a forum for discussing the problems of the day, maintaining the largest free ...
Institut Geographique National: one of the foremost centres of mapmaking and geographic research in France, specializing in aerial and ground surveys and maps; it is located in Paris. Its origins can be traced to a mapmaking group organized in 1719, the Engineers and ...
Institutes of the Christian Religion: John Calvin's masterpiece, a summary of biblical theology that became the normative statement of the Reformed faith. It was first published in 1536 and was revised and enlarged by Calvin in several editions before the definitive edition was published in ...
institutional economics: school of economics that flourished in the United States during the 1920s and '30s. It viewed the evolution of economic institutions as part of the broader process of cultural development.
Institutional Revolutionary Party: Mexican political party that dominated the country's political institutions from its founding in 1929 until the end of the 20th century. Virtually all important figures in Mexican national and local politics belonged to the party, because the nomination of its ...
instrument landing system: electronic guidance system designed to help airline pilots align their planes with the centre of a landing strip during final approach under conditions of poor visibility. The ground equipment of the ILS consists of two directional transmitters that send out ...
instrumentalism: a philosophy advanced by the American philosopher John Dewey holding that what is most important in a thing or idea is its value as an instrument of action and that the truth of an idea lies in its usefulness. Dewey ...
instrumentals: type of popular music performed without a vocalist, in any of several genres but especially prevalent in rock and roll in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Serving primarily as dance music, rock-and-roll and rhythm-and-blues instrumentals began appearing on the ...
instrumentation: in music, arrangement or composition for instruments. Most authorities make little distinction between the words instrumentation and orchestration. Both deal with musical instruments and their capabilities of producing various timbres or colours. Orchestration is somewhat the narrower term since it ...
instrumentation: in technology, the development and use of precise measuring equipment. Although the sensory organs of the human body can be extremely sensitive and responsive, modern science and technology rely on the development of much more precise measuring and analytical tools ...
Insubres: the most powerful Celtic people of Gallia Cisalpina (Cisalpine Gaul), in northern Italy. Despite their defeat at Clastidium (modern Casteggio) by Roman forces in 222 BC, they continued to be troublesome and aided the Carthaginian general Hannibal in the Second ...
insula: (Latin: "island"), in architecture, block of grouped but separate buildings or a single structure in ancient Rome and Ostia. The insulae were largely tenements providing economically practical housing where land values were high and population dense. Distinct from the domus, ...
Insular script: in calligraphy, any of several hands that developed in the British Isles after the Roman occupation of England and before the Norman Conquest. The foremost achievement of the combined Irish and English book artists, apart from their famous illumination, was ...
insulator: any of various substances that block or retard the flow of electrical or thermal currents.
insulin: hormone that regulates the level of sugar (glucose) in the blood and is produced by the beta cells of the islets of Langerhans in the pancreas. Insulin is secreted when the level of blood glucose rises-as after a meal. When ...
Insull, Samuel: British-born American public utilities magnate whose vast Midwest holding company empire collapsed in the 1930s.
insurance: a system under which the insurer, for a consideration usually agreed upon in advance, promises to reimburse the insured or to render services to the insured in the event that certain accidental occurrences result in losses during a given period. ...
intaglio: in visual arts, one of the four major classes of printmaking techniques, distinguished from the other three methods (relief printing, stenciling, and lithography) by the fact that the ink forming the design is printed only from recessed areas of the ...
intaglio: in sculpture, work in which the design is incised into the block, all lines appearing below the surface; it is thus the opposite of relief sculpture and is sometimes called "hollow relief." When the technique is used in casting, the ...
Intef II: third king of the 11th dynasty (2081-1939 BC) in Egypt, who, during his long reign, successfully warred against the allies of the Heracleopolitans-rulers of Middle and Lower (northern) Egypt composing the 9th and 10th dynasties.
integral: in mathematics, either a numerical value equal to the area under the graph of a function for some interval (definite integral) or a new function the derivative of which is the original function (indefinite integral). These two meanings are related ...
integral equation: in mathematics, equation in which the unknown function to be found lies within an integral sign. An example of an integral equation is
integral transform: mathematical operator that produces a new function f(y) by integrating the product of an existing function F(x) and a so-called kernel function K(x, y) between suitable limits. The process, which is called transformation, is symbolized by the equation f(y) = ...
integraph: mathematical instrument for plotting the integral of a graphically defined function. Two such instruments were invented independently about 1880 by the British physicist Sir Charles Vernon Boys and the Lithuanian mathematician Bruno Abdank Abakanowicz and were later modified and improved ...
integrated circuit: an assembly of electronic components, fabricated as a single unit, in which miniaturized active devices (e.g., transistors and diodes) and passive devices (e.g., capacitors and resistors) and their interconnections are built up on a thin substrate of semiconductor material (typically ...