Romanian literature: After World War II: …such significant prose writers as Marin Preda, who, after depicting the life of the peasantry in Moromeƫii (1955; The Morometes), expanded to a wider social panorama and produced a notable political novel, Risipitorii (1962; “The Squanderers”). In the 1960s and ’70s Romanian prose confronted the communist government and addressed the…

predaceous diving beetle, (family Dytiscidae), any of more than 4,000 species of carnivorous, aquatic beetles (insect order Coleoptera) that prey on organisms ranging from other insects to fish larger than themselves. Diving beetles are oval and flat and range in length from 1.5 mm to more than 35

predation, in animal behaviour, the pursuit, capture, and killing of animals for food. Predatory animals may be solitary hunters, like the leopard, or they may be group hunters, like wolves. The senses of predators are adapted in a variety of ways to facilitate hunting behaviour. Visual acuity is

carnivore, animal whose diet consists of other animals. Adaptations for a carnivorous diet include a variety of hunting behaviours and the development of methods for grasping or otherwise immobilizing the prey. Wolves use their teeth for grasping, owls their claws, and bullfrogs their tongues. Some

Arnold Schwarzenegger: …films during this time included Predator (1987), Kindergarten Cop (1990), Total Recall (1990), True Lies (1994), and The 6th Day (2000).

Danny Glover: …To Sleep with Anger (1990), Predator 2 (1990), Bopha! (1993), and Beloved (1998). His numerous and varied later movies included Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums (2001); Saw (2004), a popular horror movie that led to numerous sequels; Dreamgirls (2006), a musical inspired by the girl

plesiosaur: …funkei (known colloquially as “Predator X”), was unearthed in Svalbard in 2009. Its length and weight are estimated at 15 metres (about 50 feet) and 45 tonnes (almost 100,000 pounds), respectively. The jaws of this creature are thought to have produced a bite force of 33,000 psi (pound-force per…

Ice Cube: Solo career: His 1992 release, The Predator, contained the inventive ghetto anthem “It Was a Good Day” as well as the popular hard-driving single “Check Yo Self.” (The songs appeared as a two-part music video as well.) The Predator was Ice Cube’s most commercially successful album; his follow-ups—including, amongst others,…

bird of prey, any bird that pursues other animals for food; it is a famous apex predator (meaning without a natural predator or enemy). Birds of prey are classified in two orders: Falconiformes and Strigiformes. All birds of prey have hook-tipped beaks and sharp curved claws called talons (in

katydid: Physical characteristics: An exception is the predatory bush cricket (Saga pedo; also called the matriarchal katydid), the body of which can grow to about 12 cm (4.7 inches) in length. Although many species are bright green, various color morphs, including pink and yellow, occur naturally and have been reared in captivity.

katydid: Physical characteristics: An exception is the predatory bush cricket (Saga pedo; also called the matriarchal katydid), the body of which can grow to about 12 cm (4.7 inches) in length. Although many species are bright green, various color morphs, including pink and yellow, occur naturally and have been reared in captivity.

barriers to entry: …established firms may participate in predatory pricing by deliberately lowering their prices to prevent new entrants from making a profit. Artificial barriers also arise when a certain industry is protected by government regulations, licenses, or patents.

Predeal Pass, pass, southeastern Romania, connecting the city of Braşov and the Bîrsei Depression to the north with the city of Ploieşti and the Danube Plain to the south, across the Transylvanian Alps (Southern Carpathians). A major natural route followed by road and rail lines, it divides the

Julian Alps: …sections by Predel Pass (Italian: Passo del Predil; 3,793 ft [1,156 m]), over which a road crosses the range. Within the mountains lie many valleys and numerous summer resorts. Winter sports and climbing are popular.

predestination, in Christianity, the doctrine that God has eternally chosen those whom he intends to save. In modern usage, predestination is distinct from both determinism and fatalism and is subject to the free decision of the human moral will, but the doctrine also teaches that salvation is

St. Augustine: Controversial writings: …in De praedestinatione sanctorum (429; The Predestination of the Blessed) and De dono perseverantiae (429; The Gift of Perseverance).

predicable, in logic, something that may be predicated, especially, as listed in Boethius’ Latin version of Porphyry’s Isagoge, one of the five most general kinds of attribution: genus, species, differentia, property, and accident. It is based upon a similar classification set forth by Aristotle in

history of logic: Categorical forms: …a negation (“not”), (5) a predicate. Propositions analyzable in this way were later called categorical propositions and fall into one or another of the following forms:

adjective: Types of adjectives: …it is known as a predicate adjective (The sky is cloudy). In some cases, two or more adjectives are set off with commas or dashes and placed after the noun they modify (The princess, strong and determined, continued her quest) or before the noun (Strong and determined, the princess continued…

predicate calculus, that part of modern formal or symbolic logic which systematically exhibits the logical relations between sentences that hold purely in virtue of the manner in which predicates or noun expressions are distributed through ranges of subjects by means of quantifiers such as “all”

formal logic: Special systems of LPC: A further possible addition, which calls for somewhat fuller explanation, consists of symbols designed to stand for functions. The notion of a function may be sufficiently…

predicate calculus, that part of modern formal or symbolic logic which systematically exhibits the logical relations between sentences that hold purely in virtue of the manner in which predicates or noun expressions are distributed through ranges of subjects by means of quantifiers such as “all”

money laundering: …the criminal proceeds (known as predicate offenses); second, the perpetrator must be able to use the proceeds as if they were of legal origin. In other words, money laundering disguises the criminal origin of financial assets so that they can be freely used.

formal logic: The predicate calculus: …(psi), χ (chi), … as predicate variables (replaceable by predicates), the formula ϕx is used to express the form of the propositions in question. Here x is said to be the argument of ϕ; a predicate (or predicate variable) with only a single argument is said to be a monadic,…

predication, in logic, the attributing of characteristics to a subject to produce a meaningful statement combining verbal and nominal elements. Thus, a characteristic such as “warm” (conventionally symbolized by a capital letter W) may be predicated of some singular subject, for example, a

principles of physical science: Chaos: …have different measures of their “horizon of predictability,” but all chaotic systems share the property that every extra place of decimals in one’s knowledge of the starting point only pushes the horizon a small extra distance away. In practical terms, the horizon of predictability is an impassable barrier. Even if…

artillery: Predicted fire: During World War I it became tactically desirable to bombard an enemy position without alerting him by ranging shots. This brought about the development of “predicted fire.”

automata theory: The automaton and its environment: …equations were derived that minimized prediction error.

probability theory: Conditional expectation and least squares prediction: Prediction is often just one aspect of a “control” problem. For example, in guiding a rocket, measurements of the rocket’s location, velocity, and so on are made almost continuously; at each reading, the rocket’s future course is predicted, and a control is then used to…

scientific modeling: For example, predictive models, such as those employed in weather forecasting or in projecting health outcomes of disease epidemics, generally are based on knowledge and data of phenomena from the past and rely on mathematical analyses of this information to forecast future, hypothetical occurrences of similar phenomena.…

data mining: Predictive modeling: Predictive modeling is used when the goal is to estimate the value of a particular target attribute and there exist sample training data for which values of that attribute are known. An example is classification, which takes a set of data already divided…

psychological testing: Primary characteristics of methods or instruments: Empirical validity (also called statistical or predictive validity) describes how closely scores on a test correspond (correlate) with behaviour as measured in other contexts. Students’ scores on a test of academic aptitude, for example, may be compared with their school grades (a commonly used criterion).…

Johannes Weiss: In 1892 his Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes (“Jesus’ Proclamation of the Kingdom of God”) argued the eschatological view that Jesus Christ’s teachings reflected contemporary hopes for the appearance of an imminent Kingdom of God. Weiss also wrote such popular works as Paulus und Jesus (1909), Jesus…

Carl Gustaf af Leopold: …is probably “Predikaren” (1794; “The Sermonizer”), notable for its cynical portrait of courtiers.

Julian Alps: …sections by Predel Pass (Italian: Passo del Predil; 3,793 ft [1,156 m]), over which a road crosses the range. Within the mountains lie many valleys and numerous summer resorts. Winter sports and climbing are popular.

Russian literature: The 18th century: …1758 Mikhail Lomonosov published “Predisloviye o polze knig tserkovnykh v rossiyskom yazyke” (“Preface on the Use of Church Books in the Russian Language”) in which he classified Russian and Church Slavonic words, assigning their use to three styles, and correlated these styles with appropriate themes, genres, and tones. Thus…

Postojna: …of Postojna is the 16th-century Predjama Castle (an earlier castle was located on the site in the early 13th century), which was built into another cave and houses an extensive archaeological collection. Postojna is home to an important karst research institute. Pop. (2011) 9,183; (2017 est.) 9,423.

Caucasus: …the Greater Caucasus is called Ciscaucasia (Predkavkazye, or “Hither Caucasia”) and that south of it is Transcaucasia (Zakavkazye, or “Farther Caucasia”). The whole region, which has an area of 170,000 square miles (440,000 square km), is nevertheless predominantly mountainous. It extends southward from the lowlands of the Kuma and Manych…

congenital adrenal hyperplasia: Treatment: …with similar properties, such as prednisone; some patients may also require mineralocorticoid treatment.

ancient Egypt: The Predynastic and Early Dynastic periods: The peoples of predynastic Egypt were the successors of the Paleolithic inhabitants of northeastern Africa, who had spread over much of its area; during wet phases they had left remains in regions as inhospitable as the Great Sand…

Sir William Henry Preece was a Welsh electrical engineer who was a major figure in the development and introduction of wireless telegraphy and the telephone in Great Britain. His graduate studies at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, London, under Michael Faraday aroused Preece’s interest in

Warren E. Preece was an American encyclopaedist, general editor of Encyclopædia Britannica in the creation of the 15th edition (1974). Preece was educated at Dartmouth College (B.A., 1943, Phi Beta Kappa) and, after U.S. Army service during World War II, at Columbia University (M.A., 1947). He

Warren E. Preece was an American encyclopaedist, general editor of Encyclopædia Britannica in the creation of the 15th edition (1974). Preece was educated at Dartmouth College (B.A., 1943, Phi Beta Kappa) and, after U.S. Army service during World War II, at Columbia University (M.A., 1947). He

preeclampsia and eclampsia, hypertensive conditions that are induced by pregnancy. Preeclampsia, also called gestational edema-proteinuria-hypertension (GEPH), is an acute toxic condition arising during the second half of the gestation period or in the first week after delivery and generally occurs

preemption, in U.S. history, policy by which first settlers, or “squatters,” on public lands could purchase the property they had improved. Squatters who settled on and improved unsurveyed land were at risk that when the land was surveyed and put up for auction speculators would capture it.

preemptive force, military doctrine whereby a state claims the right to launch an offensive on a potential enemy before that enemy has had the chance to carry out an attack. The advantage of a preemptive strike is that, by being the first to act decisively, a state renders the enemy unable to carry

first strike, attack on an enemy’s nuclear arsenal that effectively prevents retaliation against the attacker. A successful first strike would cripple enemy missiles that are ready to launch and would prevent the opponent from readying others for a counterstrike by targeting the enemy’s nuclear

preen gland, in birds, an organ located on the back near the base of the tail. Paired or in two united halves, it is found in most birds. Absent in ostrich, emu, cassowary, bustard, frogmouth, and a few other birds, the oil gland is best-developed in aquatic species, notably petrels and pelicans,

arachnid: Ecology and habitats: Preening is common among arachnids and consists of cleaning the legs and palps by passing them through the chelicerae. In some species protection and escape from predatory enemies is made possible by the ability of a seized limb to detach from the body.

preestablished harmony, in the philosophy of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716), a postulate to explain the apparent relations of causality among monads (infinitesimal psychophysical entities), where no true causality exists. When a change occurs within a single monad, every other monad in the

Jesus: Preexistence: The statement “I believe” indicated that Christ was deserving of worship and faith and that he was therefore on a level with God. At an early date, possibly as early as the words of Paul in the second chapter of Philippians (verses 6–11), Christian…

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act: Provisions: …no longer deny coverage of preexisting conditions in children, nor could insurance providers put a lifetime limit on payouts. People who were uninsured because of preexisting conditions could get insurance through a temporary high-risk pool. Within six months of the bill’s signing, all existing health plans and any new ones…

prefabrication, the assembly of buildings or their components at a location other than the building site. The method controls construction costs by economizing on time, wages, and materials. Prefabricated units may include doors, stairs, window walls, wall panels, floor panels, roof trusses,

African American literature: Amiri Baraka: …a Beat poet whose collection Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note (1961) consisted largely of apolitical critiques of 1950s conventionality and materialism. By 1968, however, Jones had renamed himself Amiri Baraka and resettled in Harlem, where he became the fiery literary voice of a new Black self-consciousness and social…

dramatic literature: Western theory: …Johnson, who said in his Preface to Shakespeare (1765) that “there is always an appeal open from criticism to nature,” and the German dramatist and critic Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, who in his Hamburgische Dramaturgie (1767–69; Hamburg Dramaturgy) sought to accommodate Shakespeare to a new view of Aristotle. With the classical…

The following text is excerpted from the preface to the first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, which began publication in December 1768 in Edinburgh, Scotland. UTILITY ought to be the principal intention of every publication. Wherever this intention does not plainly appear, neither the books

Harley Granville-Barker: …writing his five series of Prefaces to Shakespeare (1927–48), a contribution to Shakespearean criticism that analyzed the plays from the point of view of a practical playwright with firsthand stage experience.

Samuel Johnson: The Lives of the Poets of Samuel Johnson: Johnson’s last great work, Prefaces, Biographical and Critical, to the Works of the English Poets (conventionally known as The Lives of the Poets), was conceived modestly as short prefatory notices to an edition of English poetry. When Johnson was approached by some London booksellers in 1777 to write what…

China: The rise of monarchy: The prefecture system developed in both Jin and Chu was one innovation. In Jin there were several dozen prefects across the state, each having limited authority and tenure. The Jin prefect was no more than a functionary, in contrast to the feudal practice. Similar local administrative…

prefect, in ancient Rome, any of various high officials or magistrates having different functions. In the early republic, a prefect of the city (praefectus urbi) was appointed by the consuls to act in the consuls’ absence from Rome. The position lost much of its importance temporarily after the

prefect, in France, a high government official, similar to the intendant before the French Revolution. The French prefectoral corps was created in 1800 by Napoleon Bonaparte, who endowed it with great prestige and influence. At that time the prefects were the administrators of the départements;

prefect, in English public (i.e., private, secondary, boarding) schools and in some U.S. private schools, an older student given official charge of the conduct and tutoring of several younger students in his residence hall. The prefectural system goes back to the 14th century; boys eligible to be

Japan: Local government: Japan is divided into 47 prefectures, 43 of which are ken (prefectures proper); of the remainder, Tokyo is a to (metropolitan prefecture), Hokkaido is a dō (district), and Ōsaka and Kyōto are fu (urban prefectures). Prefectures, which are administered by governors and assemblies, vary considerably both in area and in…

Préfecture de Police, one of the three main police forces of France. Controlled by the Ministry of the Interior, it provides the preventive police force for Paris and the Seine département. Its uniformed members, known as gardiens de la paix (“guardians of the peace”), are responsible for traffic

preference, trick-taking card game for three players, widely played throughout eastern Europe, popular in Austria, and regarded since the early 19th century as the national card game of Russia. Preference, descended from ombre, took its name from its order of preference for the trump suit: spades

utility and value: Theories of utility: …to reflect consumer tastes and preferences. “Utility” is a concept that has been used to describe these tastes. As already indicated, the cost-of-production analysis of value given above is incomplete, because cost itself depends on the quantity produced. The cost analysis, moreover, applies only to commodities the production of which…

stock: Preferred stock, or preference shares.: To appeal to investors who wish to be sure of receiving dividends regularly, many companies issue what is called preferred stock, or preference shares. This class of stock has a prior claim to dividends paid by the company and, usually,…

stock: Preferred stock, or preference shares.: To appeal to investors who wish to be sure of receiving dividends regularly, many companies issue what is called preferred stock, or preference shares. This class of stock has a prior claim to dividends paid by the company and, usually,…

consequentialism: According to the “preference utilitarianism” of R.M. Hare (1919–2002), actions are right if they maximize the satisfaction of preferences or desires, no matter what the preferences may be for. Consequentialists also differ over whether each individual action should be judged on the basis of its consequences or whether…

international trade: Forms of integration: The term covers preferential tariffs, free-trade associations, customs unions, common markets, economic unions, and full economic integration. The parties to a system of preferential tariffs levy lower rates of duty on imports from one another than they do on imports from third countries. For example, Great Britain and…

wine: Must treatment: …is renewed interest in the prefermentation heat treatment of red musts to extract colour and deactivate enzymes. This process, when performed rapidly at moderate temperatures and without undue oxidation, may be particularly desirable in the production of red sweet wines, which employs short periods of fermentation on the skins, and…

prefern, any of a group of extinct plants considered transitional between the first land plants, the psilophytes, of the Silurian and Devonian periods (438 to 360 million years ago), and the ferns and seed-ferns that were common land plants later in time. The preferns appeared in Middle Devonian

gender identity: …and other languages of gender-neutral pronouns (they, them, and their) in place of masculine or feminine pronouns (he, she, him, her, his, hers). Such usage, it is argued, enables speakers and writers to avoid attributing a false gender identity to a person based on perceived biological sex. The adoption of…

noise pollution: Noise regulation and mitigation: …the noise criteria (NC) and preferred noise criteria (PNC) curves, which provide limits on the level of noise introduced into the environment. The NC curves, developed in 1957, aim to provide a comfortable working or living environment by specifying the maximum allowable level of noise in octave bands over the…

health insurance: …to the HMO is the preferred provider organization (PPO), also known as a participating provider option, which offers features of traditional fee-for-service insurance plans, such as the ability of patients to choose their own health care providers, but also follows the lower-cost strategies of HMOs. For example, those enrolled in…

stock: Preferred stock, or preference shares.: To appeal to investors who wish to be sure of receiving dividends regularly, many companies issue what is called preferred stock, or preference shares. This class of stock has a prior claim to dividends paid by the company and, usually,…

prefect, in France, a high government official, similar to the intendant before the French Revolution. The French prefectoral corps was created in 1800 by Napoleon Bonaparte, who endowed it with great prestige and influence. At that time the prefects were the administrators of the départements;

steroid: Steroid numbering system and nomenclature: …trivial nomenclature, a number of prefixes are often attached, with locants, to the names of steroids to indicate specific modifications of the structure. In addition to the usual chemical notations for substituent groups replacing hydrogen atoms (e.g., methyl-, chloro-, hydroxy-, oxo-), the following prefixes are commonly used: dehydro- (lacking two…

affix: …three main types of affixes: prefixes, infixes, and suffixes. A prefix occurs at the beginning of a word or stem (sub-mit, pre-determine, un-willing); a suffix at the end (wonder-ful, depend-ent, act-ion); and an infix occurs in the middle. English has no infixes, but they are found in American Indian languages,…

Steve Prefontaine: Death and legacy: …been made about him, including Prefontaine (1997), starring Jared Leto, and Without Limits (1998), which featured Billy Crudup in the lead role. Fire on the Track (1995) is a documentary about Prefontaine’s life.

Steve Prefontaine was a long-distance runner who is often regarded as one of the most important figures in American running, known for both his athletic prowess and celebrity. At his untimely death in 1975, Prefontaine held every American record in races between 2,000 and 10,000 meters. His style,

Steve Prefontaine was a long-distance runner who is often regarded as one of the most important figures in American running, known for both his athletic prowess and celebrity. At his untimely death in 1975, Prefontaine held every American record in races between 2,000 and 10,000 meters. His style,

industrial glass: Glass seals: …are as frits and as preforms. Glass is crushed or ball-milled in order to obtain a fine powder, or frit, which is sieved to sizes of 5 to 100 micrometres and then mixed with a small amount of slurry-making organic volatilizing-type vehicles and binders. Metal powders (often flakes) can be…

biology: The discovery of animalcules: Although that theory of preformation, as it is called, continued to survive for some time longer, Leeuwenhoek initiated its eventual demise.

tree: Tree height growth: …year to some degree (preformers). In these species the number of height growth units for the year is determined to a great extent during the previous year. For example, those of the grand fir (Abies grandis) in the area of Vancouver are preformed in October, so that at spring…

biology: The discovery of animalcules: Although that theory of preformation, as it is called, continued to survive for some time longer, Leeuwenhoek initiated its eventual demise.

lobotomy, surgical procedure in which the nerve pathways in a lobe or lobes of the brain are severed from those in other areas. The procedure was formerly used as a radical therapeutic measure to help grossly disturbed patients with schizophrenia, manic depression and mania (bipolar disorder), and

thunderstorm: Multiple-cell thunderstorms and mesoscale convective systems: …produced by organized multiple-cell storms, squall lines, or a supercell. All of these tend to be associated with a mesoscale disturbance (a weather system of intermediate size, that is, 10 to 1,000 km [6 to 600 miles] in horizontal extent). Multiple-cell storms have several updrafts and downdrafts in close proximity…

human nervous system: The peripheral nervous system: Preganglionic fibers originating from the brain or spinal cord enter motor ganglia, where they synapse on multipolar cell bodies. These postganglionic cells, in turn, send their processes to visceral structures.

human nervous system: The autonomic nervous system: The first set, called preganglionic neurons, originates in the brainstem or the spinal cord, and the second set, called ganglion cells or postganglionic neurons, lies outside the central nervous system in collections of nerve cells called autonomic ganglia. Parasympathetic ganglia tend to lie close to or within the organs…

Fritz Pregl was an Austrian chemist awarded the 1923 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for developing techniques in the microanalysis of organic compounds. Pregl received a medical degree from the University of Graz (1894), where he was associated for most of his professional life with the Medico-Chemical

pregnancy, process and series of changes that take place in a woman’s organs and tissues as a result of a developing fetus. The entire process from fertilization to birth takes an average of 266–270 days, or about nine months. (For pregnancies other than those in humans, see gestation.) A new

abortion, the expulsion of a fetus from the uterus before it has reached the stage of viability (in human beings, usually about the 20th week of gestation). An abortion may occur spontaneously, in which case it is also called a miscarriage, or it may be brought on purposefully, in which case it is

pregnancy test, procedure aimed at determining whether a woman is pregnant. Pregnancy tests are based on a detectable increase in human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) in the blood serum and urine during early pregnancy. HCG is the principal hormone produced by the chorionic layers of the placenta,

hormone: Progestins: …but one important product is pregnanediol; formed mainly in the liver, it appears in part in the urine, where it can be measured to determine the degree of ovarian function.

Bush v. Gore: Background: …punched paper ballots) and “pregnant chads” (paper ballots that were dimpled, but not pierced, during the voting process), as well as “overvotes” (ballots that recorded multiple votes for the same office) and “undervotes” (ballots that recorded no vote for a given office). Also at issue was the so-called butterfly…

Martin Amis: In his novel The Pregnant Widow (2010), Amis examined the sexual revolution of the 1970s and its repercussions on a group of friends who lived through it. The pop culture indictment Lionel Asbo: State of England (2012) chronicles the vicissitudes of a fictional small-time criminal and his upstanding…

human endocrine system: Hormone synthesis: …the conversion of cholesterol into pregnenolone, which occurs in mitochondria (organelles that produce most of the energy used for cellular processes). This conversion is mediated by a cleavage enzyme, the synthesis of which is stimulated in the adrenal glands by corticotropin (adrenocorticotropin, or ACTH) or angiotensin and in the ovaries…

primate: Size in evolutionary perspective: …evolution, the development of a prehensile foot preceded that of a prehensile hand. Vertical-clinging primates such as the tarsiers or small, squirrel-like quadrupeds such as the marmosets—all of which have prehensile feet but not completely prehensile hands—by remaining or becoming small, have avoided the evolutionary pressures that have impinged on…

primate: Size in evolutionary perspective: …foot preceded that of a prehensile hand. Vertical-clinging primates such as the tarsiers or small, squirrel-like quadrupeds such as the marmosets—all of which have prehensile feet but not completely prehensile hands—by remaining or becoming small, have avoided the evolutionary pressures that have impinged on larger primates. A large arboreal primate…