Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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integration ... internal rhyme

integration: in mathematics, technique of finding a function g(x) the derivative of which, Dg(x), is equal to a given function f(x). This is indicated by the integral sign "∫," as in ∫f(x), usually called the indefinite integral of the function. (The ...
integrator: instrument for performing the mathematical operation of integration, important for the solution of differential and integral equations and the generation of many mathematical functions.
integument: in biology, network of features that forms the covering of an organism. The integument delimits the body of the organism, separating it from the environment and protecting it from foreign matter. At the same time it gives communication with the ...
Intel Corporation: American manufacturer of semiconductor computer circuits. Besides microprocessors, the company makes microcontrollers (single-chip computers), memory chips, computer modules and boards, network and conferencing products, and parallel supercomputers. Its headquarters are in Santa Clara, California.
intellectual-property law: the legal regulations governing an individual's or an organization's right to control the use or dissemination of ideas or information. Various systems of legal rules exist that empower persons and organizations to exercise such control. Copyright law confers upon the ...
intelligence: in military science, information concerning an enemy or an area. The term is also used for an agency that gathers such information.
intelligence: in government and military operations, evaluated information concerning the strength, activities, and probable courses of action of foreign countries or nonstate actors that are usually, though not always, enemies or opponents. The term also is used to refer to the ...
intelligence: ability to adapt effectively to the environment, either by making a change in oneself or by changing the environment or finding a new one.
intelligence test: series of tasks designed to measure the capacity to make abstractions, to learn, and to deal with novel situations.
intelligent design: argument intended to demonstrate that living organisms were created in more or less their present forms by an "intelligent designer."
Intelsat: organization founded in 1964 by the telecommunication agencies of 18 nations, including the United States, which proposed the organization. Intelsat owns communications satellites and the ground stations from which they are controlled, but the transmitting and receiving apparatus in each ...
intendant: administrative official under the ancien regime in France who served as an agent of the king in each of the provinces, or generalites. From about 1640 until 1789, the intendancies were the chief instrument used to achieve administrative unification and ...
intendente: royal official appointed by the 18th-century kings of the Bourbon dynasty in Spain. Modeled after the French intendants, the intendentes were to serve as instruments of royal centralization and administrative reform but were frequently resisted as conflicting with local privileges. ...
intension and extension: in logic, correlative words that indicate the reference of a term or concept: "intension" indicates the internal content of a term or concept that constitutes its formal definition; and "extension" indicates its range of applicability by naming the particular objects ...
intensive agriculture: in agricultural economics, system of cultivation using large amounts of labour and capital relative to land area. Large amounts of labour and capital are necessary to the application of fertilizer, insecticides, fungicides, and herbicides to growing crops, and capital is ...
intention: (Latin: intentio), in scholastic logic and psychology, a concept used to describe a mode of being or relation. In knowing, the mind is said to "intend" or "tend toward" its object, and a thing as known, or in the knowing ...
intentional fallacy: term used in 20th-century literary criticism to describe the problem inherent in trying to judge a work of art by assuming the intent or purpose of the artist who created it.
intentionality: in modern literary theory, the study of authorial intention in a literary work and its corresponding relevance to textual interpretation. With the ascendancy of New Criticism after World War I, much of the debate on intentionality addressed whether information external ...
intentionality: in phenomenology, the characteristic of consciousness whereby it is conscious of something-i.e., its directedness toward an object.
Inter-American Development Bank: international organization founded in 1959 by 20 governments in North and South America to finance economic and social development in the Western Hemisphere. The largest charter subscribers were Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela, and the United States. Subscribers now include nearly ...
Inter-American Regional Organization of Workers: ,Latin-American labour union federation that was established in 1951 as a regional organization for the Latin-American members of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, which had been founded in 1949 primarily by the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial ...
interactionism: in Cartesian philosophy and the philosophy of mind, those dualistic theories that hold that mind and body, though separate and distinct substances, causally interact. Interactionists assert that a mental event, as when John Doe wills to kick a brick wall, ...
interactive multimedia: any computer-delivered electronic system that allows the user to control, combine, and manipulate different types of media, such as text, sound, video, computer graphics, and animation. Interactive multimedia integrate computer, memory storage, digital (binary) data, telephone, television, and other information ...
intercalation: insertion of days or months into a calendar to bring it into line with the solar year (year of the seasons). One example is the periodic inclusion of leap-year day (February 29) in the Gregorian calendar now in general use. ...
intercolumniation: in architecture, space between columns that supports an arch or an entablature (an assemblage of moldings and bands that forms the lowest horizontal beam of a roof). In Classical architecture and its derivatives, Renaissance and Baroque architecture, intercolumniation was determined ...
intercostalis muscle: in human physiology, any of a series of short muscles that extend between the ribs and serve to draw them together during inspiration and forced expiration or expulsive actions. A set of external and internal intercostalis muscles is found between ...
interdict: in Roman and civil law, a remedy granted by a magistrate on the sole basis of his authority, against a breach of civil law for which there is no stipulated remedy. Interdicts can be provisionary (opening the way for further ...
interest: the price paid for the use of credit or money. It may be expressed either in money terms or as a rate of payment.
interest group: any aggregate of individuals that, on the basis of one or more shared concerns, makes claims upon groups or society in general in order to promote its objectives.
interface: surface separating two phases of matter, each of which may be solid, liquid, or gaseous. An interface is not a geometric surface but a thin layer that has properties differing from those of the bulk material on either side of ...
interference: in physics, the net effect of the combination of two or more wave trains moving on intersecting or coincident paths. The effect is that of the addition of the amplitudes of the individual waves at each point affected by more ...
interference fringe: a bright or dark band caused by beams of light that are in phase or out of phase with one another. Light waves and similar wave propagation, when superimposed, will add their crests if they meet in the same phase ...
interferon: any of several related proteins that are produced by the body's cells as a defensive response to viruses. They are important modulators of the immune response.
interior design: planning and design of man-made spaces, a part of environmental design and closely related to architecture. Although the desire to create a pleasant environment is as old as civilization itself, the field of interior design is relatively new.
Interior Lowlands: the broad, generally flat areas of the central part of the North American continent. The name is used in regional geologic and physiographic descriptions of North America and the conterminous United States. From the tectonic view, the continental Interior Lowlands ...
interior monologue: in dramatic and nondramatic fiction, narrative technique that exhibits the thoughts passing through the minds of the protagonists. These ideas may be either loosely related impressions approaching free association or more rationally structured sequences of thought and emotion. Interior monologues ...
Interlaken: town, Bern canton, central Switzerland. It lies along the Aare River, in the Bernese Highland. Its name is derived from its position on the flat plain (Bodeli), 1,864 feet (568 m) above sea level, between Lakes (inter lacus) Brienz to ...
interleukin: any of a group of naturally occurring proteins that mediate communication between cells. Interleukins regulate cell growth, differentiation, and motility. They are particularly important in stimulating immune responses, such as inflammation.
Interlingua: simplified form of Latin intended for use as an international second language. Interlingua was originally developed in 1903 by the Italian mathematician Giuseppe Peano, but lack of clarity as to what parts of Latin were to be retained and what ...
Interlochen: unincorporated resort village, Grand Traverse county, northwestern Michigan, U.S., located in a fruit-growing region about 10 miles (16 km) south of Traverse City. The village was named for its location between Lake Wahbekaness ("Water Lingers," formerly Duck Lake) and Lake ...
interlocutory decree: generally, a judicial decision that is not final or that deals with a point other than the principal subject matter of the controversy at hand. An interlocutory decree of divorce in the United States or a decree nisi in England, ...
interlude: in theatre, early form of English dramatic entertainment, sometimes considered to be the transition between medieval morality plays and Tudor dramas. Interludes were performed at court or at "great houses" by professional minstrels or amateurs at intervals between some other ...
intermediate vector boson: type of boson associated with the electromagnetic and weak forces in unified form. See W particle.
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty: nuclear-arms-control accord reached by the United States and the Soviet Union in 1987 in which those two nations agreed to eliminate their stocks of intermediate-range and shorter-range (or "medium-range") land-based missiles (which could carry nuclear warheads). It was the first ...
intermetallic compound: any of a class of substances composed of definite proportions of two or more elemental metals, rather than continuously variable proportions (as in solid solutions). The crystal structures and the properties of intermetallic compounds often differ markedly from those of ...
intermezzo: in music and theatre, an entertainment performed between the acts of a play; also a light instrumental composition. In the late 15th and 16th centuries, classical and contemporary plays were performed with intermezzi written by the finest composers of the ...
internal energy: in thermodynamics, the property or state function that defines the energy of a substance in the absence of effects due to capillarity and external electric, magnetic, and other fields. Like any other state function, the value of the energy depends ...
Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization: secret revolutionary society that operated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to make Macedonia an autonomous state but that later became an agent serving Bulgarian interests in Balkan politics.
internal medicine: medical specialty that deals with the diagnosis and medical, as opposed to surgical, treatment of diseases of adults. It is broadly identical with the practice of the physician, as opposed to that of the surgeon. Internal medicine, which deals with ...
internal pair production: electromagnetic process classified as a form of gamma decay. See gamma decay; pair production.
internal rhyme: rhyme between a word within a line and another word either at the end of the same line or within another line, as in the second and fourth lines of the following quatrain from the last stanza of Percy Bysshe ...