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Agave ... Agerod
Agave
(from the article "Agavaceae") Plants of the genus Agave are important primarily for the fibres obtained from their leaves. Sisal hemp, from A. sisalana, is the most valuable hard fibre. Henequen fibre is obtained from A. fourcroyoides and cantala, or Manila-Maguey fibre, from A. cantala. Some species of Agave contain a sap...Asparagales
Agazzari, Agostino
Italian composer famous for his treatise, Del sonare sopra 'l basso con tutti li stromenti e dell'uso loro nel conserto (1607; "On Playing Upon the Thoroughbass with All the Instruments and Their Use in an Ensemble"), one of the earliest instruction books for performing from the thoroughbass.
Agazzi, Carolina
(from the article "preschool education") In 1892 in Italy, the Agazzi sisters, Rosa and Carolina, initiated a blending of Aporti's infant school and Froebel's kindergarten and produced a prototypical Italian maternal school (scuola materna). In the school the children were induced to become collaborators in the search for the instruments of their own education-seeking realia ...
Agazzi, Rosa
(from the article "preschool education") In 1892 in Italy, the Agazzi sisters, Rosa and Carolina, initiated a blending of Aporti's infant school and Froebel's kindergarten and produced a prototypical Italian maternal school (scuola materna). In the school the children were induced to become collaborators in the search for the instruments of their own education-seeking realia ...
Agbale, Timi
(from the article "Ede") ...(180 km) southwest, and at the intersection of roads from Oshogbo, Ogbomosho, and Ife. Ede is one of the older towns of the Yoruba people. It is traditionally said to have been founded about 1500 by Timi Agbale, a hunter and warlord sent by Alafin (King) Kori of Old Oyo ...
Agboyibo, Yawovi
(from the article "Togo") Area: 56,785 sq km (21,925 sq mi) | Population (2007 est.): 6,585,000 | Capital: Lome | Chief of state: President Faure Gnassingbe | Head of government: Prime Ministers Yawovi Agboyibo and, from December 6, Komlan Mally | BRITANNICA BOOK OF THE YEAR 2007Togo
Agca, Mehmet Ali
(from the article "John Paul II") On May 13, 1981, John Paul was shot and nearly killed by a 23-year-old Turkish man, Mehmet Ali Agca. Meanwhile, the Poles' other spiritual leader, Primate Cardinal Wyszynski, lay dying of cancer. The sudden prospect of losing both men unsettled the Solidarity movement. Although no conspiracy in the assassination attempt ...
age
(from the article "Christianity") By the time the New Testament was written, Jewish apocalyptic writings (symbolic or cryptographic literature portraying God's dramatic intervention in history and catastrophic dramas at the end of a cosmic epoch) had already produced theories of history that reworked Indo-Iranian notions about the ages of the world, influencing Christian views ...
age differentiation
(from the article "Europe, history of") ...began to diversify, and, though inhumation in pits remained the commonest form, it was elaborated in different ways. The position of the body became stretched rather than contracted, and sex and age were not expressed by body position but were reflected through elements such as grave goods or location within ...
age discrimination
(from the article "Law, Crime, and Law Enforcement") ...who were directly subjected to sex discrimination were now protected from retaliatory action by school officials. In Smith v. City of Jackson, the court broadened the scope of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act by ruling 5-3 that proof of intentional discrimination was not necessary to sustain a suit based ...
age distribution
in population studies, the proportionate numbers of persons in successive age categories in a given population. Age distributions differ among countries mainly because of differences in the levels and trends of fertility. A population with persistently high fertility, for instance, has a large proportion of children and a small proportion ... [1 Related Articles]
age grade
(from the article "age set") ...from birth or from a determined age, to a named age set that passed through a series of stages, each of which had a distinctive status or social and political role. Each stage is usually known as an age grade.age set
age of consent
(from the article "family law") In order to satisfy the requirement of a voluntary consent to a marriage, a party must have reached an age at which he or she is able to give meaningful consent, and it is also implied that a person may be legally disqualified on mental grounds from having capacity to ...
Age of Consent Act of 1891
(from the article "India") ...British liberal socioreligious reform therefore came to a halt for more than three decades-essentially from the East India Company's Hindu Widow's Remarriage Act of 1856 to the crown's timid Age of Consent Act of 1891, which merely raised the age of statutory rape for "consenting" Indian brides from 10 years ...
Age of Empires
computer game franchise designed by Ensemble Studios, an American company founded in 1995 and subsequently acquired by the Microsoft Corporation. The original Age of Empires debuted in 1997 to critical acclaim and helped set the bar for the real-time strategy game genre, combining involved play and technical innovations with historical ...
Age of the Princes
(from the article "Ethiopia") Meanwhile, population pressures had mounted among the Oromo, a pastoral people who inhabited the upper basin of the Genale (Jubba) River in what is now southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya. Oromo society was based upon an "age-set" system known as gada, in which all males born into an eight-year generation ...
age set
a formally organized group consisting of every male (or female) of comparable age. In those societies chiefly identified with the practice, a person belonged, either from birth or from a determined age, to a named age set that passed through a series of stages, each of which had a distinctive ... [8 Related Articles]
Age, The
Australian daily newspaper published in Melbourne and widely considered to provide some of the finest news coverage in the country. It has been highly regarded for its dedication to accuracy.
age-area hypothesis
in anthropology, theory holding that the age of culture traits (elements of a culture) may be determined by examining their distribution over a large geographic area. The hypothesis states that widely distributed traits are older than those more narrowly distributed. It is based on the assumption that traits tend to ... [1 Related Articles]
age-earnings profile
(from the article "wage and salary") ...actors will make such investments only if the expected stream of future benefits exceeds the short-term costs associated with acquiring the skills. Such investments therefore affect one's "age-earnings profile," the trajectory of earnings over one's lifetime. Those who leave school early, for example, earn market wages for more years on ...
age-related macular degeneration
(from the article "eye disease") Although inherited retinal degenerations are relatively uncommon, their unusual affects on the retina and the inexorable advance of this diverse group of diseases have stimulated a considerable amount of research in this area. As a result, a large number of genetically determined degenerations of the retina have been described. These ...
age-specific death rate
(from the article "aging") The viability (survival ability) of a population is characterized in two actuarial functions: the survivorship curve (A in Figure 1) and the age-specific death rate, or Gompertz function (B in Figure 1). The relation of such factors as aging characteristics, constitutional vigour, physical factors, diet, and exposure to disease-causing organisms ...
agechi
(from the article "Japan") ...supplies could easily be conveyed to nearby Edo if Edo Bay were blockaded by foreign ships. Plans for the defense of the bay also were formulated. Tadakuni also promulgated a land-requisition (agechi) order to bring daimyo and hatamoto domains surrounding Edo and Osaka under direct bakufu control: the stated object ...
Agee, James
American poet, novelist, and writer for and about motion pictures. One of the most influential American film critics in the 1930s and '40s, he applied rigorous intellectual and aesthetic standards to his reviews, which appeared anonymously in Time and signed in The Nation. [4 Related Articles]
Agee, Philip Burnett Franklin
American government official was stripped of his U.S. citizenship (1979) and marked as an international pariah after publishing Inside the Company: A CIA Diary (1975), which divulged his growing disillusionment with the CIA while serving in the 1960s as an undercover officer for that agency; he also revealed the identities ...
Agee, Tommie Lee
American baseball player (b. Aug. 9, 1942, Mobile, Ala.-d. Jan. 22, 2001, New York, N.Y.), helped lead the New York Mets to a World Series championship in 1969. Agee was the centre fielder for the so-called Miracle Mets during the team's surprising run to the title following years of mediocrity; ...
Ageladas
sculptor said to have been the teacher of Myron, Phidias, and Polyclitus. This tradition testifies to his wide fame but is historically doubtful.
Agelena naevia
(from the article "funnel weaver") ...are notable for their funnel-shaped webs; they are a common group with many species that are distributed worldwide. The webs are built in the grass, under boards and rocks, and among debris. Agelena naevia, a common North American species, varies greatly in size and colour. The body of the male ...
Agen
town, capital of Lot-et-Garonne departement, Aquitaine region, southwestern France. It lies along the Garonne River at the foot of Ermitage Hill (530 feet [162 metres]), northwest of Toulouse. Mentioned by Julius Caesar as Aginnum, capital of the Nitiobriges people, it was captured by the ...
Agena
(from the article "Atlas rocket") ...minutes of operation and a sustainer that operates until orbital velocity is attained. Atlas can lift about 5,800 pounds (2,600 kg) to about a 350-mile (560-kilometre) orbit. Coupled with Agena, the combined Atlas-Agena rocket is used for launching lunar and planetary probes, as well as Earth-orbiting satellites, such as Seasat, ...
Agenais
former province of France, of which Agen was the centre and to which the modern departement of Lot-et-Garonne nearly corresponds. [1 Related Articles]
Agence France-Presse
French cooperative news agency, one of the world's great wire news services. It is based in Paris, where it was founded under its current name in 1944, but its roots go to the Bureau Havas, which was created in 1832 by Charles-Louis Havas, who translated reports from foreign papers and ... [1 Related Articles]
Agence Havas
(from the article "Agence France-Presse") ...Havas, which was created in 1832 by Charles-Louis Havas, who translated reports from foreign papers and distributed them to Paris and provincial newspapers. In 1835 the Bureau Havas became the Agence Havas, the world's first true news agency. Stressing rapid transmission of the news, Agence Havas established the first telegraph ...
agency
in law, the relationship that exists when one person or party (the principal) engages another (the agent) to act for him-e.g., to do his work, to sell his goods, to manage his business. The law of agency thus governs the legal relationship in which the agent deals ... [2 Related Articles]
Agency for National Security Planning
(from the article "Kim Jae Kyu") South Korean military officer and head of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) who, on Oct. 26, 1979, assassinated the South Korean president, Park Chung Hee.role of Park Chung HeePark Chung Hee...freedoms, suppression of the press and opposition parties, and ...
agency shop
(from the article "closed shop") ...within an "escape period" must remain members of the union for the duration of the agreement; otherwise, they will be dismissed from their jobs. Even more open than the union shop is an agency shop: although employees are required to pay funds equal to union dues, they are not required ...
agency theory, financial
in organizational economics, a means of assessing the work being done for a principal (i.e., an employer) by an agent (i.e., an employee). While consistent with the concept of agency traditionally advanced by legal scholars and attorneys, the economic variants of agency theory emphasize the costs and benefits of the ...
Agenda 2010
(from the article "Germany") The domestic landscape was marked by continued voter disenchantment with the Schroder government's reform package, known as Agenda 2010. The reforms had a number of objectives aimed at kick-starting the sluggish economy and reducing the financial burdens imposed by Germany's generous welfare system. Displeasure was registered in a number of ...
Agenda 21
(from the article "United Nations Conference on Environment and Development") ...binding targets for emission reductions, however. The Declaration on Environment and Development, or Rio Declaration, laid down 27 broad, nonbinding principles for environmentally sound development. Agenda 21 outlined global strategies for cleaning up the environment and encouraging environmentally sound development. The Statement of Principles on Forests, aimed at preserving the ...
agenesis
in human physiology, failure of all or part of an organ to develop during embryonic growth. Many forms of agenesis are consistently lethal, as when the entire brain is absent (anencephaly), but agenesis of one of a paired organ may create little disruption of normal function. Agenesis of the kidney, ... [3 Related Articles]
agent
a computer program that performs various actions continuously and autonomously on behalf of an individual or an organization. For example, an agent may archive various computer files or retrieve electronic messages on a regular schedule. Such simple tasks barely begin to tap the potential uses of agents, however. This is ... [1 Related Articles]
agent middleman
(from the article "marketing") Unlike merchant wholesalers, agent middlemen do not take legal ownership of the goods they sell; nor do they generally take physical possession of them. The three principal types of agent middlemen are manufacturers' agents, selling agents, and purchasing agents. Manufacturers' agents, who represent two or more manufacturers' complementary lines on ...
Agent Orange
mixture of herbicides that U.S. military forces sprayed in Vietnam from 1962 to 1971 during the Vietnam War for the dual purpose of defoliating forest areas that might conceal Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces and destroying crops that might feed the enemy. The defoliant, sprayed from low-flying aircraft, consisted ... [5 Related Articles]
agent provocateur
(from the article "Russia") ...by the Maximalists of the Socialist Revolutionary Party against policemen and officials, claimed hundreds of lives in 1905-07. The police felt able to combat it only by infiltrating their agents into the revolutionary parties and particularly into the terrorist detachments of these parties. This use of double agents (or agents ...
Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata
(from the article "news agency") ...the Arab News Agency, which provides news for several states in the Middle East. Others are national newspaper cooperatives, such as the Ritzaus Bureau of Denmark, founded in 1866. A few, like the Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata of Italy, have expanded coverage abroad in a limited degree to supplement their ...
Ageo
city, Saitama ken (prefecture), Honshu, Japan. Ageo lies on the terrace between the Ara River (west) and the Ayase River (east). A former post town between Tokyo and Maebashi, it was connected to Tokyo (25 miles [40 km] southeast) in 1883. Ageo remained the market centre of the neighbouring agricultural ...
ager Campanus
(from the article "ancient Rome") ...land came to be concentrated in fewer hands. One of the punishments meted out to disloyal allies after the Second Punic War was confiscation of all or part of their territories. Most of the ager Campanus and part of the Tarentines' lands-perhaps two million acres in total-became Roman ager publicus ...
ager publicus
(from the article "ancient Rome") ...Punic War was confiscation of all or part of their territories. Most of the ager Campanus and part of the Tarentines' lands-perhaps two million acres in total-became Roman ager publicus (public land), subject to rent. Some of this property remained in the hands of local peoples, but large tracts in ...
ageratum
any of about 45 species of annual herbs making up the genus Ageratum (family Asteraceae), and native to tropical South America. They have toothed, oval leaves that are opposite each other on the stem; compact clusters of blue, pink, lilac, or white flowers; and small, dry fruits.
Ageratum houstonianum
(from the article "ageratum") Dwarf varieties of the common garden ageratum (A. houstonianum) are used as edging plants. Some ageratums are variously known as flossflower and pussy-foot.
Agerod
(from the article "Sweden") ...dates of the thaw. The first traces of human life in Sweden, dating from about 9000 BC, were found at Segebro outside Malmo in the extreme southern reaches of Sweden. Finds from the peat at Agerod in Skane dated to 6500 BC reveal a typical food-gathering culture with tools of ...