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  • inertial frame of reference (physics)
    Strictly speaking, Newton’s laws of motion are valid only in a coordinate system at rest with respect to the “fixed” stars. Such a system is known as a Newtonian, or inertial reference, frame. The laws are also valid in any set of rigid axes moving with constant velocity and without rotation relative to the inertial frame; this concept is known as the principle of Newtonian or...
  • inertial guidance system
    electronic system that continuously monitors the position, velocity, and acceleration of a vehicle, usually a submarine, missile, or airplane, and thus provides navigational data or control without need for communicating with a base station....
  • inertial mass (physics)
    Inertial mass is a mass parameter giving the inertial resistance to acceleration of the body when responding to all types of force. Gravitational mass is determined by the strength of the gravitational force experienced by the body when in the gravitational field g. The Eötvös experiments therefore show that the ratio of gravitational and inertial mass is the same for differen...
  • inertial navigator
    electronic system that continuously monitors the position, velocity, and acceleration of a vehicle, usually a submarine, missile, or airplane, and thus provides navigational data or control without need for communicating with a base station....
  • inertial reference frame (physics)
    Strictly speaking, Newton’s laws of motion are valid only in a coordinate system at rest with respect to the “fixed” stars. Such a system is known as a Newtonian, or inertial reference, frame. The laws are also valid in any set of rigid axes moving with constant velocity and without rotation relative to the inertial frame; this concept is known as the principle of Newtonian or...
  • Inertial Upper Stage (spacecraft)
    ...astronauts to the Moon and the battery-powered Lunar Roving Vehicles used in the Apollo 15, 16, and 17 missions. In 1976 it entered the upper-stage-rocket arena when it was selected to develop the Inertial Upper Stage (IUS), a two-stage payload delivery vehicle that can be taken into space by either a space shuttle or a launcher such as the Titan. In 1993 NASA selected Boeing as the prime......
  • inertinite (maceral group)
    The inertinite group makes up 5 to 40 percent of most coals. Their reflectance values are usually the highest in a given sample. The most common inertinite maceral is fusinite, which has a charcoal-like appearance with obvious cell texture. The cells may be either empty or filled with mineral matter, and the cell walls may have been crushed during compaction (bogen texture). Inertinites are......
  • inertness (chemistry)
    In considering the mechanisms of substitution (exchange) reactions, Canadian-born American chemist Henry Taube distinguished between complexes that are labile (reacting completely in about one minute in 0.1 M solution at room temperature [25 °C, or 77 °F]) and those that are inert (under the same conditions, reacting either too slowly to measure or slowly enough to be.....
  • “Inés del alma mía” (novel by Allende)
    ...El Zorro (2005; Zorro) is a retelling of the well-known legend, and Inés del alma mía (2006; Inés of My Soul) tells the fictionalized story of Inés Suárez, the mistress of conquistador Pedro de Valdivia....
  • Inés of My Soul (novel by Allende)
    ...El Zorro (2005; Zorro) is a retelling of the well-known legend, and Inés del alma mía (2006; Inés of My Soul) tells the fictionalized story of Inés Suárez, the mistress of conquistador Pedro de Valdivia....
  • inescutcheon (heraldry)
    ...is an orle gemel, which suggests twins, and it may indeed be described as an orle divided into two narrow orles set closely together. The small shield used as a charge is an inescutcheon and often is used to bear the arms of an heraldic heiress (a daughter of a family of no sons). The quarter occupies one-fourth of the shield; the canton,......
  • inex period (astronomy)
    Two consecutive saros series are separated by the inex, a period of 29 years minus 20 days—that is, 358 synodic months—after which time the new moon has come from one node to the opposite node. A group of inex periods lasts about 23,000 years, with about 70 groups coexisting at any one time, each group comprising an average of 780 eclipses. All other cycles in eclipses are......
  • inexistence (philosophy)
    One of the characteristics of intentionality is what the Scholastics called “inexistence”: a man may be intentionally related to an object that does not exist or to an event that does not occur. Thus, what a man looks for may not exist, and an event that he believes to occur may not occur at all. In contrast with such a nonintentional phenomenon as bumping into something, in which......
  • INF (arms designation)
    ...movement, however, now officially patronized by the British Labour Party, the Greens in West Germany, and Dutch and Belgian social democrats, forced Reagan to link Pershing deployment with intermediate nuclear forces (INF) talks with the U.S.S.R. Reagan tried to seize the moral high ground with his “zero-option” proposal for complete elimination of all such missiles from......
  • INF Treaty (United States-Union of Soviet Socialist Republics [1987])
    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 arms-control treaty to abolish an entire category of weapon system...
  • infallibility decree (Indian history)
    ...of war to Islam and by encouraging Hindus as his principal confidants and policy makers. To legitimize his nonsectarian policies, he issued in 1579 a public edict (maḥẓar) declaring his right to be the supreme arbiter in Muslim religious matters—above the body of Muslim religious scholars and jurists. He had by then also......
  • infallibility, papal (Roman Catholicism)
    in Roman Catholic theology, the doctrine that the pope, acting as supreme teacher and under certain conditions, cannot err when he teaches in matters of faith or morals. As an element of the broader understanding of the infallibility of the church, this doctrine is based on the belief that the church has been entrusted with the teaching mission of Jesus Christ and that, in view of its mandate fro...
  • infamia (law)
    public disgrace or loss of reputation, particularly as a consequence of criminal conviction. In early common law, conviction for an infamous crime resulted in disqualification to testify as a witness. The criterion for considering a crime infamous was whether or not it stamped the offender as untrustworthy. The concept was, therefore, at first limited to so-called crimen falsi, originally ...
  • infamy (law)
    public disgrace or loss of reputation, particularly as a consequence of criminal conviction. In early common law, conviction for an infamous crime resulted in disqualification to testify as a witness. The criterion for considering a crime infamous was whether or not it stamped the offender as untrustworthy. The concept was, therefore, at first limited to so-called crimen falsi, originally ...
  • Infância (work by Ramos)
    Ramos spent most of his life in Palmeira dos Índios, in the northeastern Brazilian state of Alagoas, where he was proprietor of a general store and mayor. His memoirs, Infância (1945; “Childhood”), describe the hazards of his family’s fortunes in the drought-stricken area, his meagre schooling, and the education he pieced together for himself by reading th...
  • infancy
    among humans, the period of life between birth and the acquisition of language approximately one to two years later....
  • Infancy and Human Growth (work by Gesell)
    ...their behaviour; there appeared to be a hereditary scheme for development in the four areas of motor skills, adaptive behaviour, language development, and personal and social skills. In Infancy and Human Growth (1928), he presented a developmental schedule based on this theory, using 195 items of behaviour to evaluate infants of between 3 and 30 months. In 1938 Gesell and Helen......
  • infancy narrative (religion)
    The discourses are preceded by etiological (sources or origins) material of chapters 1–2, in which the birth narrative relates Jesus’ descent (by adoption according to the will of God) through Joseph into the Davidic royal line. Though a virgin birth is mentioned, it is not capitalized upon theologically in Matthew. The story includes a flight into Egypt (recalling a Mosaic tradition...
  • infant (law)
    person below the legal age of majority or adulthood. The age of majority varies in different countries, and even in different jurisdictions within a country. It also differs with the type of activity concerned, such as marrying, purchasing alcohol, or driving an automobile. Twenty-one years is a common division between minors and adults....
  • infant (development)
    person below the legal age of majority or adulthood. The age of majority varies in different countries, and even in different jurisdictions within a country. It also differs with the type of activity concerned, such as marrying, purchasing alcohol, or driving an automobile. Twenty-one years is a common division between minors and adults.......
  • infant betrothal (marriage custom)
    Infant betrothal was common. If arranged before the birth of one or both of the prospective spouses, it was a tentative arrangement subject to later ratification, mainly through continued gift giving to the girl’s parents. In some Aboriginal societies parents of marriageable girls played one man against another, although this was always a potentially dangerous game. Also, there might be a.....
  • infant botulism (pathology)
    ...within a day, although people less severely poisoned may live for a week. Few who reach the stage of severe paralysis survive, although a person who survives the paralysis will recover completely. Infant botulism, which may result from feeding infants honey contaminated with the clostridial spores, exhibits symptoms such as constipation, poor feeding, and a weak cry; children under the age of.....
  • Infant Custody Bill (United Kingdom [1839])
    ...against the prime minister, Lord Melbourne, for seducing his wife. Norton then refused his wife access to their children, and her outcries against this injustice were instrumental in introducing the Infant Custody Bill, which was finally carried in 1839. In 1855 she was again involved in a lawsuit because her husband not only refused to pay her allowance but demanded the proceeds of her books.....
  • infant industry (international trade)
    Advocates of protection often argue that new and growing industries, particularly in less-developed countries, need to be shielded from foreign competition. They contend that costs decline with growth and that some industries must reach a minimum size before they are able to compete with well-established industries abroad. Tariffs can protect the domestic market until the industry becomes......
  • Infant Joy (poem by Blake)
    ...first of the poetical works for which he is chiefly remembered: Songs of Innocence, with 19 poems on 26 prints. The poems are written for children—in Infant Joy only three words have as many as two syllables—and they represent the innocent and the vulnerable, from babies to beetles, protected and fostered by powers beyond their own...
  • infant mortality rate
    ...the population growth rate remained high during this time and later increased after the end of the war. Angola’s birth rate is among the highest in the world; however, so too is the country’s infant mortality rate. Life expectancy is similar to the average for Southern Africa but is among the lowest in the world, and Angola’s population is predominantly young....
  • infant school (education)
    educational division, a supplement to elementary school intended to accommodate children between the ages of four and six years. Originating in the early 19th century, the kindergarten was an outgrowth of the ideas and practices of Robert Owen in Great Britain, J.H. Pestalozzi in Switzerland and his pupil Friedrich Froebel in Germany, who co...
  • infanta (Spanish and Portuguese title)
    the title borne from the 13th century by the children of the Spanish and Portuguese monarchs. The title infante was borne by the sons of the sovereign, and the title infanta was given to the daughters and to the wife of an infante. From the reign of John I of Castile (1379–90) there began the custom of calling the sovereign’s eldest son príncipe (prince) de Asturias...
  • infante (Spanish and Portuguese title)
    the title borne from the 13th century by the children of the Spanish and Portuguese monarchs. The title infante was borne by the sons of the sovereign, and the title infanta was given to the daughters and to the wife of an infante. From the reign of John I of Castile (1379–90) there began the custom of calling the sovereign’s eldest son príncipe (prince) de Asturias...
  • Infante de Antequera, El (king of Aragon)
    king of Aragon from 1412 to 1416, second son of John I of Castile and Eleanor, daughter of Peter IV of Aragon....
  • Infante, Rio de (river, South Africa)
    river in the Cape Midlands, Eastern province, southern South Africa. The Great Fish River has a length of 430 miles (692 km) and a drainage area of 11,900 square miles (30,800 square km). Its main northern tributary, the Great Brak River, rises in 7,000-foot- (2,100-metre-) high mountains 30 miles (48 km) south of the Orange River and northeast of Middelburg. ...
  • infanticide
    the killing of the newborn. It has often been interpreted as a primitive method of birth control and a means of ridding a group of its weak and deformed children; but most societies actively desire children and put them to death (or allow them to die) only under exceptional circumstances. Among the Eskimo, for example, conditions of life were so severe that i...
  • infantile amnesia (psychology)
    ...is associated with the earliest stages of human development: nearly all people lack the ability to retain memories of experiences they had before they were three years old. Known as infantile amnesia, this universal phenomenon implies that the brain systems required to encode and retrieve specific events are not adequately developed to support long-term memory before age three. Another......
  • infantile cortical hyperostosis (pathology)
    a hereditary disease of infants, characterized by swellings of the periosteum (the bone layer where new bone is produced) and the bone cortex of the upper arms, shoulder girdle, and lower jaw. The disease is accompanied by fever and irritability; after a series of periodic exacerbations, it subsides spontaneously....
  • infantile neurosis (psychoanalysis)
    ...and if parental attitudes were neither excessively prohibitive nor excessively stimulating, the stage is passed through harmoniously. In the presence of trauma, however, there occurs an “infantile neurosis” that is an important forerunner of similar reactions during the child’s adult life. The superego, the moral factor that dominates the conscious adult mind, also has its....
  • infantile Refsum disease (pathology)
    ...of peroxisomal functions, affecting the functions of numerous enzymes. Such disorders include Zellweger (cerebrohepatorenal) syndrome, neonatal adrenoleukodystrophy, hyperpipecolic acidemia, and infantile Refsum disease. Patients may have severely decreased muscle tone (hypotonia), cerebral malformations, seizures, and an enlarged liver in infancy. Many develop eye abnormalities, in......
  • infantile strabismus (pathology)
    Strabismus can be present all the time, intermittently, or brought out only by special testing. Congenital, or infantile, strabismus appears in infancy and is presumably due to defects present at birth that are poorly understood. However, given the strong tendency for strabismus to run in families, the causes undoubtedly have some genetic component. While congenital strabismus is more common in......
  • infantry (military force)
    troops who fight on foot, even though transported to the battlefield by horses, ships, aircraft, tanks and other motorized vehicles, skis, or other means. The term applies equally to troops armed with such hand weapons as the spear and sword in ancient times and with automatic rifles and rocket launchers in modern times. As foot soldiers their objective has always been to seize and hold ground an...
  • infantry fighting vehicle (military technology)
    ...bullets, shells, or other projectiles. Armoured vehicles for military use can move either on wheels or on two endless metal chains called tracks. The tank (q.v.) is the principal fighting armoured vehicle. Other military types include armoured personnel carriers, armoured cars, self-propelled guns, tank destroyers, and mobile antiaircraft systems. The classification also includes......
  • Infantry Training (work by Liddell)
    Liddell Hart left studies at Cambridge University when World War I broke out in 1914 and became an officer in the British Army. In 1920 he wrote the Army’s official Infantry Training manual that included his “battle drill” system evolved in 1917 and his so-called “expanding torrent” method of attack, which grew out of infiltration tactics introduced in......
  • Infants of the Spring (work by Thurman)
    ...of Negro Life, also appeared that year. Like his unfinished play Black Cinderella, it dealt with color prejudice within the black community. Thurman is perhaps best known for his novel Infants of the Spring (1932), a satire of what he believed were the overrated creative figures of the Harlem scene. Some reviewers welcomed Thurman’s bold insight, while others vilifie...
  • infarction (pathology)
    death of tissue resulting from a failure of blood supply, commonly due to obstruction of a blood vessel by a blood clot or narrowing of the blood-vessel channel. The dead tissue is called an infarct. Myocardial infarction (heart attack)—death of a section of heart muscle—results from obstruction of a coronary artery; the condit...
  • infauna (marine zoology)
    the assemblage of organisms inhabiting the seafloor. Benthic epifauna live upon the seafloor or upon bottom objects; the so-called infauna live within the sediments of the seafloor. By far the best-studied benthos are the macrobenthos, those forms larger than 1 mm (0.04 inch), which are dominated by polychaete worms, pelecypods, anthozoans, echinoderms, sponges, ascidians, and crustaceans.......
  • infected abortion (medicine)
    ...or longer, the condition is referred to as a missed abortion. Women who lose three or more consecutive pregnancies of less than 20 weeks’ duration are said to suffer from recurrent abortion. An infected abortion is an abortion associated with infection of the genital organs....
  • infection
    ...of bacteria that are adapted to life in those habitats. These organisms are harmless under normal conditions and become dangerous only if they somehow pass across the barriers of the body and cause infection. Some bacteria are adept at invasion of a host and are called pathogens, or disease producers. Some pathogens act at specific parts of the body, such as meningococcal bacteria (Neisseria...
  • infectious bovine keratoconjunctivitis (animal disease)
    an inflammation of the conjunctiva or the cornea of the eye in cattle as the result of an infection; early viral involvement is suspected. Moraxella bovis is usually found in discharge from the affected eye; other bacteria, such as Staphylococcus and Corynebacterium, are also often present. Ultraviolet rays from the sun may play a role in the inflammation; face flies may trans...
  • infectious chorea (pathology)
    a neurological disorder characterized by irregular and involuntary movements of muscle groups in various parts of the body that follow streptococcal infection. The name St. Vitus Dance derives from the late Middle Ages, when persons with the disease attended the chapels of St. Vitus, who was believed to have curative powers. The disorder was first explained by the English physician Thomas Sydenham...
  • infectious disease
    in medicine, a process caused by a microorganism that impairs a person’s health. An infection, by contrast, is the invasion of and replication in the body by any of various microbial agents—including bacteria, viruses, fungi, protozoans, and worms...
  • infectious endocarditis (pathology)
    Traditionally, infective endocarditis has been classified as acute or subacute. Acute infective endocarditis generally is caused by Staphylococcus, Pneumococcus, or Gonococcus bacteria or by fungi. This form of endocarditis develops rapidly, with fever, malaise, and......
  • infectious enteritis (disease)
    viral disease of cats, kittens two to six months old being most susceptible. Highly contagious, it is caused by a parvovirus that is closely related to canine parvovirus type 2. About 3 to 10 days after exposure to the disease, infected kittens cough and sneeze, have running eyes and nose, are feverish, lose their appetites, vomit, and have diarrhea. The number of white cells in the blood drops se...
  • infectious hepatitis (pathology)
    ...diseases caused by these viruses. Hepatitis, for example, is a subacute or chronic disease, with a long latent period, that is caused by at least five viruses with different properties. Hepatitis A is caused by a picornavirus usually transmitted by the fecal-oral route in a manner similar to that of poliovirus. Hepatitis B is caused by a small DNA virus that contains its own DNA polymerase......
  • infectious mononucleosis (pathology)
    infection in humans, caused by the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), whose most common symptoms are fever, general malaise, and sore throat. The disease occurs predominantly in persons from 10 to 35 years old, but it is known to appear at any age. Infection of young children by the EBV usually causes little or no illness, although it does confer immunity against mononucleosis....
  • infectious myxomatosis (animal pathology)
    a highly fatal infectious viral disease of rabbits. It is characterized by fever, swelling of the mucous membranes, and the presence of nodular skin tumours. The disease exists naturally in populations of certain South American rabbits of the genus Sylvilagus and has been introduced into western Europe and Australia as a means of rabbit population control....
  • infectious waste
    Infectious wastes include used bandages, hypodermic needles, and other materials from hospitals or biological research facilities. Radioactive wastes emit ionizing energy that can harm living organisms. Because some radioactive materials can persist in the environment for many thousands of years before fully decaying, there is much concern over the control of these wastes. However, the handling......
  • infective endocarditis (pathology)
    Traditionally, infective endocarditis has been classified as acute or subacute. Acute infective endocarditis generally is caused by Staphylococcus, Pneumococcus, or Gonococcus bacteria or by fungi. This form of endocarditis develops rapidly, with fever, malaise, and......
  • Infelicia (poetry by Menken)
    Traditionally, infective endocarditis has been classified as acute or subacute. Acute infective endocarditis generally is caused by Staphylococcus, Pneumococcus, or Gonococcus bacteria or by fungi. This form of endocarditis develops rapidly, with fever, malaise, and.........
  • inference (statistics)
    in statistics, the process of drawing conclusions about a parameter one is seeking to measure or estimate. Often scientists have many measurements of an object—say, the mass of an electron—and wish to choose the best measure. One principal approach of statistical inference is Bayesian estimation, which incorporates reasonable expectations or prio...
  • inference (reason)
    in logic, derivation of conclusions from given information or premises by any acceptable form of reasoning. Inferences are commonly drawn (1) by deduction, which, by analyzing valid argument forms, draws out the conclusions implicit in their premises, (2) by induction, which argues from many instances to a general statement, (3) by probability, which passes from frequencies within a known domain ...
  • inference engine (computer science)
    In order to accomplish feats of apparent intelligence, an expert system relies on two components: a knowledge base and an inference engine. A knowledge base is an organized collection of facts about the system’s domain. An inference engine interprets and evaluates the facts in the knowledge base in order to provide an answer. Typical tasks for expert systems involve classification, diagnosi...
  • inference form (logic)
    ...each is of the form:(3) Every X is a Y.Some Z’s are X’s.∴ Some Z’s are Y’s.Line (3) above may be called an inference form, and (1) and (2) are then instances of that inference form. The letters—X, Y, and Z—in (3) mark the places into which ex...
  • inference, rules of (logic)
    If, in addition, a formal system in a formal language is introduced, certain syntactic concepts arise—namely, axioms, rules of inference, and theorems. Certain sentences are singled out as axioms. These are (the basic) theorems. Each rule of inference is an inductive clause, stating that, if certain sentences are theorems, then another sentence related to them in a suitable way is also a......
  • inference schema (logic)
    ...each is of the form:(3) Every X is a Y.Some Z’s are X’s.∴ Some Z’s are Y’s.Line (3) above may be called an inference form, and (1) and (2) are then instances of that inference form. The letters—X, Y, and Z—in (3) mark the places into which ex...
  • Inference schemata (logic)
    ...each is of the form:(3) Every X is a Y.Some Z’s are X’s.∴ Some Z’s are Y’s.Line (3) above may be called an inference form, and (1) and (2) are then instances of that inference form. The letters—X, Y, and Z—in (3) mark the places into which ex...
  • inferior alveolar nerve (anatomy)
    ...the ears (auriculotemporal nerve), (3) oral mucosa, the anterior two-thirds of the tongue, gingiva adjacent to the tongue, and the floor of the mouth (lingual nerve), and (4) the mandibular teeth (inferior alveolar nerve). Skin over the lateral and anterior surfaces of the mandible and the lower lip is served by cutaneous branches of the mandibular nerve....
  • inferior colliculus (anatomy)
    ...lemniscus. There they are joined by the fibres from the ventral cochlear nuclei of both sides and from the olivary complex. The lemniscus is a major tract, most of the fibres of which end in the inferior colliculus, the auditory centre of the midbrain, although some fibres may bypass the colliculus and end, together with the fibres from the colliculus, at the next higher level, the medial......
  • inferior conjunction (astronomy)
    ...Sun and the side turned toward the Earth is dark. Inferior planets—those with orbits smaller than the Earth’s (namely, Venus and Mercury)—have two kinds of conjunctions with the Sun. An inferior conjunction occurs when the planet passes approximately between Earth and Sun; if it passes exactly between them, moving across the Sun’s face as seen from Earth, it is said ...
  • inferior court (law)
    Finally, in most jurisdictions there are institutions called, unfortunately and for want of a better term, “inferior” courts. These are often staffed by part-time judges who are not necessarily trained in the law. They handle minor civil cases involving small sums of money, such as bill collections, and minor criminal cases carrying light penalties. In addition to finally disposing.....
  • inferior ganglion of vagus (anatomy)
    ...exits the cranial cavity via the jugular foramen. Within the foramen is the superior ganglion, containing cell bodies of general somatic afferent fibres, and just external to the foramen is the inferior ganglion, containing visceral afferent cells....
  • inferior mesenteric ganglion (physiology)
    ...Thus, the celiac ganglion innervates the stomach, liver, pancreas, and the duodenum, the first part of the small intestine; the superior mesenteric ganglion innervates the small intestine; and the inferior mesenteric ganglion innervates the descending colon, sigmoid colon, rectum, urinary bladder, and sexual organs....
  • inferior salivatory nucleus (physiology)
    ...and palatine glands, while neurons of the submandibular ganglion innervate the submandibular and sublingual salivary glands. A second group of parasympathetic preganglionic neurons belongs to the inferior salivatory nucleus, located in the caudal part of the medullary reticular formation. Neurons of this group send axons out of the medulla in the ninth cranial (glossopharyngeal) nerve and to......
  • inferior vena cava (anatomy)
    The inferior vena cava is formed by the coming together of the two major veins from the legs, the common iliac veins, at the level of the fifth lumbar vertebra, just below the small of the back. Unlike the superior vena cava, it has a substantial number of tributaries between its point of origin and its terminus at the heart. These include the veins that collect blood from the muscles and......
  • inferior vesical artery (anatomy)
    ...of the bladder, and one of its branches (in males) gives off the artery to the ductus deferens, a part of the passageway for sperm. The middle vesical artery supplies the base of the bladder. The inferior vesical artery supplies the inferolateral surfaces of the bladder and assists in supplying the base of the bladder, the lower end of the ureter, and other adjacent structures....
  • inferiority complex (psychology)
    a psychological sense of inferiority that is wholly or partly unconscious. The term has been used by some psychiatrists and psychologists, particularly the followers of the early psychoanalyst Alfred Adler, who held that many neurotic symptoms could be traced to overcompensation for this feeling. The use of the word complex later gained acceptance to denote the grou...
  • Infernal Machine, The (work by Cocteau)
    ...seem today less private and more universal because they have appeared in other works. Also in the early 1930s Cocteau wrote what is usually thought to be his greatest play, La Machine infernale, a treatment of the Oedipus theme that is very much his own. In these two works he moved into closer contact with the great myths of humanity....
  • Infernillo phase (archaeological record)
    ...it is known that it extended into Mexico, where, in the state of Tamaulipas, Desert materials have been found associated with the earliest known cultivated plants in the New World. Here, in the Infernillo phase, it appears that native American squash, peppers, and perhaps beans were being cultivated as early as 6500 bc. At this time, domesticates formed only a small portion of the...
  • Inferno (work by Dante)
    ...structural component of The Divine Comedy is the canto. The poem consists of 100 cantos, which are grouped together into three sections, or canticles, Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. Technically there are 33 cantos in each canticle and one additional canto, contained in the ......
  • infertility (medical disorder)
    the inability of a couple to conceive and reproduce. Infertility is defined as the failure to conceive after one year of regular intercourse without contraception or the inability of a woman to carry a pregnancy to a live birth. Infertility can affect either the male or the female and can result from a number of causes. About 1 in every 10 couples is infertile, or somewhere betw...
  • infestation (pathology)
    The term infestation indicates that animals, including spiny-headed worms (Acanthocephala), roundworms (Nematoda), flatworms (Platyhelminthes), and arthropods such as lice, fleas, mites, and ticks, are present in or on the body of a host. An infestation is not necessarily parasitic. Table 3 includes various infestations....
  • infibulation (surgery)
    ...the prepuce (clitoral hood) is also removed.Excision. Type 2 FGC involves the partial or total removal of the clitoris and the labia minora. It can also include the removal of the labia majora.Infibulation (also called Pharoanic circumcision). The vaginal opening is reduced by removing all or parts of the external genitalia (the clitoris, labia minora, and labia majora) and sewing,......
  • infidelity, marital (sexual behaviour)
    sexual relations between a married person and someone other than the spouse. Written or customary prohibitions or taboos against adultery constitute part of the marriage code of virtually every society. Indeed, adultery seems to be as universal and, in some instances, as common as marriage....
  • infield (baseball)
    Baseball is a contest between two teams of 9 or (if a designated hitter is allowed to take the pitcher’s turn at bat) 10 players each. The field of play is divided into the infield and the outfield. Within the infield is a square area called the diamond, which has four white bases, one on each corner. The bases are 90 feet (27.4 metres) apart....
  • infield fly rule (baseball)
    The infield fly rule protects base runners from the deception of an infielder who may allow an infield fly ball to drop, thus setting up an easy force play. The rule applies only if both first and second are occupied by runners and there are fewer than two out. The batter is automatically out when the rule is invoked....
  • infielder (baseball)
    The infielders form the inner ring of defense. They sometimes catch line drives on the fly, but mainly they pick up ground balls that roll toward the outfield or shoot swiftly across the grass on one or more bounces. When a batted ball strikes the ground, the play becomes a race between the batter running to first and an infielder trying to gain control of the ball and throw it. Like the......
  • infiltrating ductal carcinoma (pathology)
    ...Cancers of these tissues are called lobular carcinomas and ductal carcinomas. Because these tissues are glandular, both cancers are called adenocarcinomas. The most common type of tumour, called infiltrating ductal carcinoma, is a single hard, barely movable lump. This type of tumour accounts for about 70 percent of all cases. Fewer than 15 percent of all cases are lobular carcinomas....
  • infiltration (chemical bonding)
    The siliconization of RBSC is a good example of infiltration, which may be described as any technique of filling in pores by reaction with or deposition from a liquid or vapour. In the case of liquid reaction, the technique is called melt infiltration; in the case of vapour phases, it is called chemical vapour infiltration, or CVI. With infiltration it is possible to begin with woven carbon......
  • infiltration (hydrologic cycle)
    When water from a rainstorm or a period of snowmelt reaches the ground, some or all of it will infiltrate the soil. The rate of infiltration depends on the intensity of the input, the initial moisture condition of the surface soil layer, and the hydraulic characteristics of the soil. Small-scale effects such as the presence of a surface seal of low permeability (due to the rearrangement of......
  • infiltration anesthesia (medicine)
    ...the physiochemical properties of the drug molecules. The drug may be injected subcutaneously around sensory nerve endings, enabling minor procedures such as repair of skin laceration. This is called infiltration anesthesia. Some local anesthetics are applied directly to mucous membranes, such as those of the nose, throat, larynx, and urethra or those of the conjunctiva of the eye. This is calle...
  • infiltration gallery (water supply system)
    ...of an aquifer as a source of groundwater is a function of the porosity of the geologic stratum, or layer, of which it is formed. Water is withdrawn from an aquifer by pumping it out of a well or infiltration gallery. An infiltration gallery typically includes several horizontal perforated pipes radiating outward from the bottom of a large-diameter vertical shaft. Wells are constructed in......
  • infinitary logic
    There are also studies, such as second-order logic and infinitary logics, that develop the model theory of nonelementary logic. Second-order logic contains, in addition to variables that range over individual objects, a second kind of variable ranging over sets of objects so that the model of a second-order sentence or theory also involves, beyond the basic domain, a larger set (called its......
  • infinite being (philosophy)
    ...that divine attributes cannot be negative, but unlike his predecessor his explanation of the difference between the attributes of God and those of created beings centred on the contrast between an infinite being and finite beings. It is through infinitude that God’s essential attributes—wisdom, for instance—differ from the corresponding and otherwise similar attributes foun...
  • infinite descent (mathematics)
    Uncharacteristically, Fermat provided a proof of this last result. He used a technique called infinite descent that was ideal for demonstrating impossibility. The logical strategy assumes that there are whole numbers satisfying the condition in question and then generates smaller whole numbers satisfying it as well. Reapplying the argument over and over, Fermat produced an endless sequence of......
  • infinite dimensional topology (mathematics)
    ...to its topological properties were raised in the first half of the 20th century. Motivated initially by such properties of Hilbert spaces, researchers established a new subfield of topology called infinite dimensional topology in the 1960s and ’70s....
  • infinite game (mathematics)
    ...said to be finite when each player has a finite number of options, the number of players is finite, and the game cannot go on indefinitely. Chess, checkers, poker, and most parlour games are finite. Infinite games are more subtle and will only be touched upon in this article....
  • Infinite Jest (novel by Wallace)
    The memoir vogue did not prevent writers from publishing huge, ambitious novels, including David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest (1996), an encyclopaedic mixture of arcane lore, social fiction, and postmodern irony; Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections (2001, National Book Award), an affecting, scathingly satiric family portrait; and Don DeLillo’s......
  • infinite number (mathematics)
    denotation of the size of an infinite collection of objects. Comparison of certain infinite collections suggests that they have different sizes even though they are all infinite. For example, the sets of integers, rational numbers, and real numbers are all infinite; but each is a subset of the next. Ordering the size of sets according to the subset relation results in too many classifications and ...
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