Thursday, July 28, 2005

Vâlcea

Also spelled  Vîlcea,   judet (county), south-central Romania. The Transylvanian Alps (Southern Carpathians) and the sub-Carpathians rise above settlement areas in the valleys, and the Olt and Cerna rivers drain southward through the county. Râmnicu Vâlcea (q.v.; the county capital), Babeni, and Berzoi are timber production centres. Chemical factories operate in Govora, and building materials

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Niue

Internally self-governing island state in free association with New Zealand. It is the westernmost of the Cook Islands but is administratively separate from them. Niue lies 1,340 miles (2,156 km) northeast of Auckland and 240 miles (385 km) east of Vava'u, Tonga, in the south-central Pacific. The capital is Alofi. Area 100 square miles (260 square km). Pop. (1994 est.) 2,200.

Saturday, July 23, 2005

Ectoplasm

In occultism, a mysterious, usually light-coloured, viscous substance that is said to exude from the body of a spiritualist medium in trance and may then take the shape of a face, a hand, or a complete body. It is normally visible only in the darkened atmosphere of a séance (q.v.). Ectoplasm is said to be the substance involved in the materialization of spiritual bodies, and

Friday, July 08, 2005

Kerry, John

Kerry wrote The New War: The Web of Crime That Threatens America's Security (1997) and A Call to Service (2003).

Thursday, July 07, 2005

Conditioning

In physiology, a behavioral process whereby a response becomes more frequent or more predictable in a given environment as a result of reinforcement (providing a natural stimulus or reward for the desired response). The history of this concept shows its dependence upon experimental techniques for the study of reflexes. Physiologists in Russia, England, and the

Friday, July 01, 2005

Kindi, Ya'qub Ibn Ishaq As-sabah, Al-

Al-Kindi was born of noble Arabic descent and flourished in Iraq under the caliphs al-Ma'mun (813–833) and al-Mu'tasim (833–842). He concerned himself not only with those philosophical questions that had been treated by the Aristotelian Neoplatonists of Alexandria but also with such miscellaneous subjects