feijoa, (Acca sellowiana), small evergreen tree of the myrtle family (Myrtaceae), related to the guava. It is native to southern Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and parts of Argentina and is cultivated in mild dry climates for its sweet fruit. The feijoa was introduced into southern Europe in 1890 and

Grand Canal: The first Accademia Bridge was built in the mid-19th century at the canal’s east end to facilitate foot traffic. It was replaced in 1932 by a wooden bridge that was intended to be temporary, but it was later reinforced with steel to lend it a degree of…

Crusca Academy, Italian literary academy founded in Florence in 1582 for the purpose of purifying Tuscan, the literary language of the Italian Renaissance. Partially through the efforts of its members, the Tuscan dialect, particularly as it had been employed by Petrarch and Boccaccio, became the

Artemisia Gentileschi: Rape, trial, and marriage: …1616 Gentileschi joined Florence’s prestigious Accademia delle Arti del Disegno (Academy of the Arts of Drawing), the first woman to do so. Meanwhile, she gave birth to five children between 1613 and 1618, but only her daughter Prudentia (born in 1617 and named after Gentileschi’s mother) lived into adulthood.

Galleries of the Academy of Venice, museum of art in Venice housing an unrivaled collection of paintings from the Venetian masters of the 13th through 18th century. There are outstanding works by Giovanni Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Rosalba Carriera, and

Akkadian language, extinct Semitic language of the Northern Peripheral group, spoken in Mesopotamia from the 3rd to the 1st millennium bce. Akkadian spread across an area extending from the Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf during the time of Sargon (Akkadian Sharrum-kin) of the Akkad dynasty,

epic: In the ancient Middle East: …2000 bce, is called in Akkadian Enuma elish, after its opening words, meaning “When on high.” Its subject is not heroic but mythological. It recounts events from the beginning of the world to the establishment of the power of Marduk, the great god of Babylon. The outline of a Babylonian…

accara, black-eyed pea fritters that are a common street food in western Africa. They are usually served with a tomato-and-onion hot sauce called kaani. The fritters are made by combining pureed black-eyed peas, onion, salt, and pepper, separating the mixture into small balls, and then frying them

Paul Ricca: …Capone’s successors, Frank Nitti and Tony Accardo. He was the Chicago representative in the formation of the national crime syndicate in 1934, led by Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, and other New York bosses.

Ekron, ancient Canaanite and Philistine city, one of the five cities of the Philistine pentapolis, and currently identified with Tel Miqne (Arabic: Khirbat al-Muqannaʿ), south of the settlement of Mazkeret Batya, central Israel. Although it was allocated to Judah after the Israelite conquest

Pier Paolo Pasolini: …character to his first film, Accattone (1961), and all three works dealt with the lives of thieves, prostitutes, and other denizens of the Roman underworld.

Christian fundamentalism: The late 19th to the mid-20th century: …accepted his position into the American Council of Christian Churches.

heraldry: Early writers: …of Gentrie (1586), Gerard Legh, The Accedens of Armorie (1562), and John Guillim, A Display of Heraldrie (1610), not only perpetuate the nonsensical natural history of olden days but are largely responsible for erroneous beliefs about heraldic charges having definite symbolic meanings and their being granted as rewards for valorous…

R.E.M.: Accelerate (2008), which followed and received great notices, emphasized electric guitars and Stipe’s lustrous baritone while aiming allusive broadsides at the administration of U.S. Pres. George W. Bush. R.E.M. seemed unpleased with the course U.S. politics had taken in the four years since the band…

Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981: The accelerated cost recovery system (ACRS) was introduced by ERTA, which changed the recovery period for depreciation from useful life to an amount determined by the Internal Revenue Service. This allowed businesses to recover expenditures for capital development more quickly. ACRS was modified by the Tax…

income tax: Investment incentives: Accelerated depreciation may take the form of an additional deduction in the first year—an “initial allowance”—or may be spread over several years. Although the increase in early years in depreciation allowances for any one asset will be matched by a reduction in allowances for this…

soil: Rates of soil erosion: …use—a situation referred to as accelerated erosion. Rates of normal soil erosion have been estimated from measurements of sediment transport and accumulation, mass movement on hillslopes, and radioactive carbon dating of landforms. They range from less than 0.02 to more than 10 metric tons per hectare (0.01 to 4.5 tons…

AGP, graphics hardware technology first introduced in 1996 by the American integrated-circuit manufacturer Intel Corporation. AGP used a direct channel to a computer’s CPU (central processing unit) and system memory—unlike PCI (peripheral component interconnect), an earlier graphics card standard

cardiovascular disease: Hypertensive heart disease: …of hypertension occurs, often called malignant hypertension, that results in damage to small blood vessels throughout the body but particularly affecting the heart, brain, and kidneys.

supercomputer: Historical development: …of Energy to fund the Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI). The goal of the project was to achieve by 2004 a computer capable of simulating nuclear tests—a feat requiring a machine capable of executing 100 trillion FLOPS (100 TFLOPS; the fastest extant computer at the time was the Cray T3E,…

electron tube: Klystrons: …of electromagnetic oscillations) is the accelerating potential and is commonly referred to as the beam voltage. This voltage accelerates the DC electron beam to a high velocity before injecting it into the grids of the buncher cavity. The grids of the cavity enable the electrons to pass through, but they…

particle accelerator: Classical cyclotrons: The accelerating voltage is applied by electrodes, called dees from their shape: each is a D-shaped half of a pillbox. The source of the voltage is an oscillator—similar to a radio transmitter—that operates at a frequency equal to the frequency of revolution of the particles in…

acceleration, rate at which velocity changes with time, in terms of both speed and direction. A point or an object moving in a straight line is accelerated if it speeds up or slows down. Motion on a circle is accelerated even if the speed is constant, because the direction is continually changing.

John Maurice Clark: …developed his theory of the acceleration principle—that investment demand can fluctuate severely if consumer demand fluctuations exhaust existing productive capacity. His subsequent study of variations in consumer demand as a source of fluctuations in total demand raised some of the issues later treated by Keynes. A wide-ranging theorist, Clark also…

acceleration stress, physiological changes that occur in the human body in motion as a result of rapid increase of speed. Rapid acceleration and surges in acceleration are felt more critically than are gradual shifts. Pilots are especially subject to the effects of acceleration because of the high

THEMIS: …were given a new mission—Acceleration, Reconnection, Turbulence and Electrodynamics of the Moon’s Interaction with the Sun (ARTEMIS)—to study the space environment near the Moon. On July 20, 2009, the ARTEMIS satellites started on a trajectory by which they would arrive at the second and first Lagrangian points in August…

accelerationism, in political and social theory, a class of ideologies that call for a drastic increase in and expansion of capitalistic growth and technological development to hasten an inevitable collapse of the status quo. British theorist Nick Land, an influential accelerationist thinker,

accelerator, in the rubber industry, any of numerous chemical substances that cause vulcanization (q.v.) of rubber to occur more rapidly or at lower temperatures. Many classes of compounds act as accelerators, the most important being organic materials containing sulfur and nitrogen, especially

mass spectrometry: Accelerator mass spectrometry: The particle accelerators used in nuclear physics can be viewed as mass spectrometers of rather distorted forms, but the three principal elements—the ion source, analyzer, and detector—are always present. L.W. Alvarez and Robert Cornog of the United States first used an

John Maurice Clark: …developed his theory of the acceleration principle—that investment demand can fluctuate severely if consumer demand fluctuations exhaust existing productive capacity. His subsequent study of variations in consumer demand as a source of fluctuations in total demand raised some of the issues later treated by Keynes. A wide-ranging theorist, Clark also…

particle accelerator, any device that produces a beam of fast-moving, electrically charged atomic or subatomic particles. Physicists use accelerators in fundamental research on the structure of nuclei, the nature of nuclear forces, and the properties of nuclei not found in nature, as in the

accelerometer, instrument that measures the rate at which the velocity of an object is changing (i.e., its acceleration). Acceleration cannot be measured directly. An accelerometer, therefore, measures the force exerted by restraints that are placed on a reference mass to hold its position fixed in

accent, in prosody, a rhythmically significant stress on the syllables of a verse, usually at regular intervals. The word accent is often used interchangeably with stress, though some prosodists use accent to mean the emphasis that is determined by the normal meaning of the words while stress is

accent, in music, momentary emphasis on a particular rhythmic or melodic detail; accent may be implied or specifically indicated, either graphically for example, >, —) or verbally (sforzato, abbreviated sfz). In metrically organized music, accents serve to articulate rhythmic groupings, especially

accent, in phonetics, that property of a syllable which makes it stand out in an utterance relative to its neighbouring syllables. The emphasis on the accented syllable relative to the unaccented syllables may be realized through greater length, higher or lower pitch, a changing pitch contour,

garden and landscape design: Accent and contrast: Accent and contrast enliven arrangements that may be so balanced, orderly, and harmonious as to be dull. An accent is an element that differs from everything around it, as silver-gray foliage against dark green conifers, but is limited in quantity in relation…

fallacy: Verbal fallacies: (3) Accent is a counterpart of amphiboly arising when a statement can bear distinct meanings depending on which word is stressed (example: “Men are considered equal.” “Men are considered equal.”). (4) Composition occurs when the premise that the parts of a whole are of a certain…

accentor, (genus Prunella), any of about 13 species of bird in the Old World family Prunellidae (order Passeriformes). They have slender bills and rounded wings, and they frequently hop or move with a peculiar motion that has given them another name, shufflewing. The accentors range in colour from

accentual verse, in prosody, a metrical system based only on the number of stresses or accented syllables in a line of verse. In accentual verse the total number of syllables in a line can vary as long as there are the prescribed number of accents. This system is used in Germanic poetry, including

accentual verse, in prosody, a metrical system based only on the number of stresses or accented syllables in a line of verse. In accentual verse the total number of syllables in a line can vary as long as there are the prescribed number of accents. This system is used in Germanic poetry, including

accentual-syllabic verse, in prosody, the metrical system that is most commonly used in English poetry. It is based on both the number of stresses, or accents, and the number of syllables in each line of verse. A line of iambic pentameter verse, for example, consists of five feet, each of which is

accentual-syllabic verse, in prosody, the metrical system that is most commonly used in English poetry. It is based on both the number of stresses, or accents, and the number of syllables in each line of verse. A line of iambic pentameter verse, for example, consists of five feet, each of which is

Accenture PLC is a global professional services company providing consulting and information technology (IT) services. Headquartered in Dublin, the company is ranked among the Fortune Global 500. At the end of its 2024 fiscal year, it had about 774,000 employees worldwide and reported revenues of

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina: Music of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina: …as Cum ortus fuerit and Accepit Jesus calicem, the latter apparently a favourite of the composer’s—an assumption justified because he is depicted holding a copy of it in a portrait now in the Vatican.

contract: Offer and acceptance: Some of the rules respecting offer and acceptance are designed to operate only when a contrary intention has not been indicated. Thus, in German law an offer cannot be withdrawn by an offeror until the time stipulated in the offer or, if no time…

acceptance, short-term credit instrument consisting of a written order requiring a buyer to pay a specified sum at a given date to the seller, signed by the buyer as an indication of his intention to honour his obligation. Acceptances are used in financing export and import operations and in some

acceptance, short-term credit instrument consisting of a written order requiring a buyer to pay a specified sum at a given date to the seller, signed by the buyer as an indication of his intention to honour his obligation. Acceptances are used in financing export and import operations and in some

acceptance, short-term credit instrument consisting of a written order requiring a buyer to pay a specified sum at a given date to the seller, signed by the buyer as an indication of his intention to honour his obligation. Acceptances are used in financing export and import operations and in some

statistical quality control: Acceptance sampling: Assume that a consumer receives a shipment of parts, called a lot, from a producer. A sample of parts will be taken and the number of defective items counted. If the number of defective items is low, the entire lot will be accepted.…

Blake Lively: Gossip Girl, The Town, and A Simple Favor: …Hill in the teen comedy Accepted (2006), and she was cast opposite Max Minghella in the indie drama Elvis and Anabelle (2007). Also in 2007 she began appearing in the TV series Gossip Girl. The drama, which ran for six seasons, follows a group of conniving teenagers at an elite…

automata theory: Classification of automata: …principal classes are transducers and acceptors. In automata theory, a transducer is an automaton with input and output; any Turing machine for computing a partial recursive function, as previously described, can stand as an example. An acceptor is an automaton without output that, in a special sense, recognizes or accepts…

Compagnia degli Accesi, company that performed commedia dell’arte (improvised popular Italian comedy) in the early 1600s. The name means “the stimulated.” Leadership was provided by Tristano Martinelli (famous for his portrayal of Arlecchino, the mischievous servant) and Pier Maria Cecchini (known

philosophy of mind: What it’s like: …theory of thought being considered, A-consciousness is the concept of some material’s being conscious by virtue of its being accessible to various mental processes, particularly introspection, and P-consciousness consists of the qualitative or phenomenal “feel” of things, which may or may not be so accessible. Indeed, the fact that material…

Maurice Gee: Prowlers to Access Road: …scientist and her brother; and Access Road (2009), which reflects on the fraught history of three siblings who gravitate toward their childhood home in their dotage.

Media access means the opportunity and ability to use media technology for the production, distribution, and reception of mass communication intended for public audiences. In most commercial media renderings and politicians’ pronouncements, media access is restricted to reception of analog or

Roman law: The law of property and possession: Accessio worked in this manner: if an accessory thing belonging to A was joined to a principal one belonging to B, the ownership in the whole went to B. For example, if A’s purple were used to dye B’s cloth, the dyed cloth belonged wholly…

European Union: Creation of the European Economic Community: …to increase efficiency, after the accession of 10 additional countries in 2004 the ECJ was allowed to sit in a “grand chamber” of only 13 judges. Eight impartial advocates-general assist the ECJ by presenting opinions on cases before the court. In 1989 an additional court, the Court of First Instance,…

accessory, in criminal law, a person who becomes equally guilty in the crime of another by knowingly and voluntarily aiding the criminal before or after the crime. An accessory is one kind of accomplice, the other being an abettor, who aids the criminal during the act itself. Common law once

fashion industry: Fashion design and manufacturing: …the manufacture and sale of accessories, such as shoes and handbags, and underwear are closely allied with the fashion industry. As with garments, the production of accessories ranges from very expensive luxury goods to inexpensive mass-produced items. Like apparel manufacturing, accessory production tends to gravitate to low-wage environments. Producers of…

accomplice: An accessory after the fact is often not considered an accomplice but is treated as a separate offender. Such an offender is one who harbours, protects, or assists a person who has already committed an offense or is charged with committing an offense. Usually the offense…

crime: Criminal responsibility: …or by providing information) are accessories before the fact. Usually, the law considers all equally responsible and liable to the same punishment.

fruit: Types of fruits: …the apple or strawberry, an accessory fruit results.

circulatory system: Hearts: …systemic heart, many species have accessory booster hearts at critical points in the circulatory system. Cephalopods have special muscular dilations, the branchial hearts, that pump blood through the capillaries, and insects may have additional ampullar hearts at the points of attachment of many of their appendages.

accessory mineral, any mineral in an igneous rock not essential to the naming of the rock. When it is present in small amounts, as is common, it is called a minor accessory. If the amount is greater or is of special significance, the mineral is called a varietal, or characterizing, accessory and

human nervous system: Accessory nerve (CN XI or 11): The accessory nerve is formed by fibers from the medulla oblongata (known as the cranial root) and by fibers from cervical levels C1–C4 (known as the spinal root). The cranial root originates from the nucleus ambiguus and exits the…

Cornelius Vanderbilt: …the 1849 gold rush, Vanderbilt’s Accessory Transit Company proved a huge success. He quit the business only after his competitors—whom he had nearly ruined—agreed to pay him $40,000 (later it rose to $56,000) a month to abandon his operation.

Guadix, town, Granada provincia (province), in the comunidad autónoma (autonomous community) of Andalusia, southern Spain, northeast of Granada city. The town originated as the Acci of the Romans; its present name was corrupted from the Arabic Wādī-Ash (“River of Life”). Outstanding landmarks

acciaccatura, in music, ornamental note sometimes confused with appoggiatura

Greece: Athens, Thebes, and Corinth: …the way for the Florentine Acciajuoli, lords of Corinth, to take Athens in 1388. The latter then ruled all three regions until their defeat at the hands of the Ottomans in the 1450s.

Niccolò Acciaiuoli was a statesman, soldier, and grand seneschal of Naples who enjoyed a predominant position in the Neapolitan court. Of a prominent and wealthy Florentine family, Acciaiuoli went to Naples in 1331 to direct the family’s banking interests. In 1335 King Robert made him a knight,

Greece: Athens, Thebes, and Corinth: …the way for the Florentine Acciajuoli, lords of Corinth, to take Athens in 1388. The latter then ruled all three regions until their defeat at the hands of the Ottomans in the 1450s.

inflection, in linguistics, the change in the form of a word (in English, usually the addition of endings) to mark such distinctions as tense, person, number, gender, mood, voice, and case. English inflection indicates noun plural (cat, cats), noun case (girl, girl’s, girls’), third person singular

Ezekiel Cheever: …publication by far was his Accidence, a Short Introduction to the Latin Tongue, written at New Haven. Cheever’s Accidence appeared in twenty editions by 1785 and was again republished in 1838. It was regarded as the standard Latin textbook throughout colonial New England.

accident, unexpected event, typically sudden in nature and associated with injury, loss, or harm. Accidents are a common feature of the human experience and result in injury or permanent disability to large numbers of people worldwide every year. Many accidents also involve damage to or loss of

Epicureanism: Criticism and evaluation: …atomistic terms—of Aristotle’s theory of accidents (i.e., of properties that are not essential to the substances in which they occur), inasmuch as an accident, too, as Aristotle himself had stated (Metaphysics I 3), is without a cause. Moreover, a similar view was seriously advanced in the 19th century under the…

New Zealand: Health and welfare: …the establishment of the government-run Accident Compensation Corporation, to which all New Zealanders must pay premiums and which handles claims. The cost of accident compensation is high, which leads to occasional political debate as to the best method of handling the risk of accident.

fallacy: Material fallacies: (2) The converse fallacy of accident argues improperly from a special case to a general rule. Thus, the fact that a certain drug is beneficial to some sick persons does not imply that it is beneficial to all people. (3) The fallacy of irrelevant conclusion is committed…

fallacy: Material fallacies: …Aristotle’s Sophistic Refutations: (1) The fallacy of accident is committed by an argument that applies a general rule to a particular case in which some special circumstance (“accident”) makes the rule inapplicable. The truth that “men are capable of seeing” is no basis for the conclusion that “blind men are…

accidental, in music, sign placed immediately to the left of (or above) a note to show that the note must be changed in pitch. A sharp (♯) raises a note by a semitone; a flat (♭) lowers it by a semitone; a natural (♮) restores it to the original pitch. Double sharps (×) and double flats (♭♭)

bursa: Adventitious, or accidental, bursas arise in soft tissues as a result of repeated subjections to unusual shearing stresses, particularly over bony prominences. Adventitious bursas are not permanent, though they typically form in areas affected by chronic friction, such as the foot. Subcutaneous bursas ordinarily are…

insurance: Group health insurance: Accidental death and dismemberment insurance offers an insured or a beneficiary a lump sum; it is used widely as a form of travel accident insurance.

Aristotle: Form: …to the category of substance, accidental forms correspond to categories other than substance; they are nonsubstantial categories considered as universals. Socrates is wise, for example, may be described as predicating a quality (wise) of a first substance or as predicating an accidental form of a first substance. Aristotle calls such…

David O. Russell: …in 2015 under the title Accidental Love with the fictional “Stephen Greene” credited as director.) Russell’s relationship with Wahlberg that was formed during the making of Three Kings and I Heart Huckabees helped him secure directorial duties for the Wahlberg-starring vehicle The Fighter (2010), the story of a boxer training…

Anne Tyler: …it was made into a film directed by Lawrence Kasdan and starring William Hurt, Kathleen Turner, and Geena Davis. That year Tyler also published Breathing Lessons, which explores a couple’s relationship as they drive to a funeral; it won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1989.

Anne Tyler: Her highly successful novel The Accidental Tourist (1985) examines the life of a recently divorced man who writes travel guides for businessmen. In 1988 it was made into a film directed by Lawrence Kasdan and starring William Hurt, Kathleen Turner, and Geena Davis. That year Tyler also published Breathing…

Luis Batlle Berres: Batlle founded the newspaper Acción in 1948, using it as a vehicle for his political opinions. He also owned the radio station Ariel. His son Jorge Batlle Ibáñez, a prominent Colorado leader, became president of Uruguay in 2000.

Democratic Action (AD), social-democratic political party of Venezuela. Democratic Action was founded in 1936–37 as the National Democratic Party during a period when Venezuela’s government had relaxed its restrictive laws regulating political organizations. By the end of 1937, however, the

Hugo Bánzer Suárez: …the Acción Democrática Nacionalista (ADN; Nationalist Democratic Action), which became one of the country’s most powerful parties. Bánzer ran for president in 1985 and won in the popular vote but lost in the subsequent run-off vote in the country’s Congress. He was successful in his bid for the presidency in…

Doctor Atl: …he founded the radical journal Acción Mundiale in 1916 and became its editor. During that period he became active in the muralist movement along with politically active figures such as José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, and David Alfaro Siqueiros. He was appointed head of Mexico’s Department of Archaeological Monuments in…

Spain: The Second Republic: …Gil Robles, was known as Acción Popular and became the main component of the right-wing electoral grouping, the Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Rights (Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas; CEDA). The left viewed CEDA’s “accidentalism” (the doctrine that forms of government are irrelevant provided the church can fulfill its mission) as…

Manuel Azaña: …organize a liberal republican party, Republican Action (Acción Republicana), in opposition to the dictatorship of General Miguel Primo de Rivera. He was one of the signatories of the Pact of San Sebastián (August 1930), an alliance of republicans, socialists, and the Catalan left that called for the abdication of King…

accipiter, (genus Accipiter), any of approximately 50 species of bird hawks (hawks that prey particularly on other birds) that make up the bird genus Accipiter, the largest genus of birds of prey, in the family Accipitridae. Sometimes accipiters are referred to as the “true” hawks. They have broad

sparrowhawk: The Levant sparrowhawk, or shikra (A. brevipes), is gray above and brown barred white below. It occurs from southeastern Europe throughout most of continental southern Asia and subequatorial Africa. For the small falcon called sparrow hawk in the United States, see kestrel.

hawk: …the New World, and by Cooper’s hawk (A. cooperii), a North American species similar in appearance but larger—to 50 cm (20 inches) long. A long tail and short rounded wings give these fast low-flying birds great maneuverability. They feed on birds and small mammals; of all the New World raptors,…

goshawk: …bird catchers, of which the northern goshawk (Accipiter gentilis) is best known. Originally called “goose hawk,” perhaps because of its size and its finely barred gray plumage, this bird reaches about 60 centimetres (2 feet) in length with a 1.3-m (4.3-ft) wingspread. It has long been used in falconry, where…

sparrowhawk: The African little sparrowhawk (A. minullus), slate gray above with white tail bars, barred white below, inhabits woods of East and South Africa. The Eurasian sparrowhawk (A. nisus), dark gray above and brown barred white below, is a common inhabitant of wooded areas throughout Europe, in…

sparrowhawk: The Eurasian sparrowhawk (A. nisus), dark gray above and brown barred white below, is a common inhabitant of wooded areas throughout Europe, in coastal northwestern Africa, and in temperate to sub-Arctic forests of Asia. The Levant sparrowhawk, or shikra (A. brevipes), is gray above and brown…

hawk: …called accipiters)—are exemplified by the sharp-shinned hawk (A. striatus), a bird with a 30-cm (12-inch) body length, gray above with fine rusty barring below, found through much of the New World, and by Cooper’s hawk (A. cooperii), a North American species similar in appearance but larger—to 50 cm (20 inches)…

falconiform: Reproduction: All members of the family Accipitridae, as well as caracaras, the osprey, and the secretary bird, construct nests, usually of sticks. The Cathartidae and the remaining Falconidae (forest falcons, falconets, and true falcons) do not make nests but use a hollow tree, another bird’s nest, or a scrape on a…

accismus, a form of irony in which a person feigns indifference to or pretends to refuse something he or she desires. The fox’s dismissal of the grapes in Aesop’s fable of the fox and the grapes is an example of accismus. A classic example is that of Caesar’s initial refusal to accept the crown, a