• Pozo Colorado (Paraguay)

    Pozo Colorado, town, west-central Paraguay, just south of an economically important forest zone. The town is the centre of the region’s livestock activity and processes a major portion of the country’s beef production. Pozo Colorado is located at the intersection of roads connecting it with the

  • Pozo, Chano (Cuban musician and dancer)

    Latin jazz: …Cuban percussionist, dancer, and composer Chano Pozo. Gillespie and Pozo’s musical synthesis became known as Afro-Cuban jazz or, for a short period, “Cubop.” One of their collaborative efforts produced the 1947 hit “Manteca,” which quickly became a standard of the jazz repertoire.

  • pozo, El (novella by Onetti)

    Juan Carlos Onetti: …the novella El pozo (1939; The Pit), treats the aimless life of a man lost within a city where he is unable to communicate with others. The book’s complex fusion of reality with fantasy and inner experience makes it one of the first distinctively modern Spanish American novels. In the…

  • Pozsgay, Imre (Hungarian politician)

    Hungary: Political reforms: …uprising” (not a “counterrevolution”) was Imre Pozsgay, who, though a member of the Politburo, was already moving away from strict Marxist ideology. He joined forces with a most unlikely partner, Archduke Otto von Habsburg, the oldest son of the last king of Hungary, to sponsor the Pan-European Picnic of August…

  • Pozsony (national capital, Slovakia)

    Bratislava, city, capital of Slovakia. It lies in the extreme southwestern part of the country, along the Danube where that river has cut a gorge in the Little Carpathian Mountains near the meeting point of the frontiers of Slovakia, Austria, and Hungary. Vienna is 35 miles (56 km) west.

  • Poztupimi (Germany)

    Potsdam, city, capital of Brandenburg Land (state), eastern Germany. Lying on the southwest border of Berlin, it is sited where the Nuthe River flows into the Havel River, the confluence becoming a series of lakes. First mentioned in 993 as a Slavic settlement known as Poztupimi, it received its

  • Pozzo di Borgo, Carlo Andrea (Corsican noble)

    Charles-André, Comte Pozzo di Borgo was a Corsican nobleman who entered the Russian diplomatic service and promoted French interests after the Napoleonic Wars in the courts of the Russian emperors Alexander I (reigned 1801–25) and Nicholas I (reigned 1825–55). A native of Corsica, Pozzo favoured

  • Pozzo di Borgo, Charles-André, Comte (Corsican noble)

    Charles-André, Comte Pozzo di Borgo was a Corsican nobleman who entered the Russian diplomatic service and promoted French interests after the Napoleonic Wars in the courts of the Russian emperors Alexander I (reigned 1801–25) and Nicholas I (reigned 1825–55). A native of Corsica, Pozzo favoured

  • Pozzo, Andrea (Italian painter)

    Andrea Mantegna: Years as court painter in Mantua: …such as Giovanni Lanfranco and Andrea Pozzo, utilized a basically identical concept of total illusion dependent upon the location of a hypothetical viewer standing at a single point in the room.

  • Pozzo, Cassiano dal (Italian antiquarian)

    Nicolas Poussin: Beginnings: …the scholar, antiquarian, and collector Cassiano dal Pozzo, who was destined to become his chief Italian patron and one of his closest friends. One year later, Pozzo assisted him in securing the commission for The Martyrdom of St. Erasmus, an altarpiece for St. Peter’s. Poussin’s altarpiece did not meet with…

  • pozzolan (hydraulic cement)

    pozzolana, hydraulic cement perfected by the Romans and still used in some countries, traditionally made by grinding a material of volcanic origin (the pozzolan) with powdered hydrated lime. Roman engineers used two parts by weight of pozzolan mixed with one part of lime to give strength to mortar

  • pozzolana (hydraulic cement)

    pozzolana, hydraulic cement perfected by the Romans and still used in some countries, traditionally made by grinding a material of volcanic origin (the pozzolan) with powdered hydrated lime. Roman engineers used two parts by weight of pozzolan mixed with one part of lime to give strength to mortar

  • pozzolanic cement (cement)

    concrete: …continued to be the primary pozzolanic, or cement-forming, agent until the early 1800s. In 1824 an English inventor, Joseph Aspdin, burned and ground together a mixture of limestone and clay. This mixture, called portland cement, has remained the dominant cementing agent used in concrete production.

  • pozzuolana (hydraulic cement)

    pozzolana, hydraulic cement perfected by the Romans and still used in some countries, traditionally made by grinding a material of volcanic origin (the pozzolan) with powdered hydrated lime. Roman engineers used two parts by weight of pozzolan mixed with one part of lime to give strength to mortar

  • Pozzuoli (Italy)

    Pozzuoli, town and episcopal see, Campania regione, southern Italy. It occupies a promontory that projects into the Gulf of Pozzuoli (an inlet of the Bay of Naples), just west of Naples. The town was founded about 529 bce by Greek emigrants who called it Dicaearchia (City of Justice). Captured by

  • Poʿel ha-Mizraḥi, ha- (Zionist political party)

    Mizraḥi: Younger Orthodox elements founded ha-Poʿel ha-Mizraḥi (the Mizraḥi Worker Party) in 1922. After the creation of Israel in 1948, the Mizraḥi became an influential partner with the Mapai party in coalition governments with the Israel Labour Party, then the country’s largest political party, which could not obtain an absolute…

  • PP (political party, Spain)

    Popular Party, Spanish conservative political party. The Popular Party (PP) traces its origins to the Popular Alliance, a union of seven conservative political parties formed in the 1970s by Manuel Fraga Iribarne, a prominent cabinet member under Spain’s longtime dictator Francisco Franco. In March

  • PP (chemical compound)

    polypropylene, a synthetic resin built up by the polymerization of propylene. One of the important family of polyolefin resins, polypropylene is molded or extruded into many plastic products in which toughness, flexibility, light weight, and heat resistance are required. It is also spun into fibres

  • PPA (Algerian revolutionary movement)

    Ahmed Messali Hadj: …the Parti Populaire Algérien (PPA; Algerian Popular Party), which was suppressed only to reemerge in 1946 as the Mouvement pour le Triomphe des Libertés Démocratiques (MTLD; Movement for the Triumph of Democratic Liberties). His influence, however, declined dramatically in the postwar period. In 1954 he formed the Mouvement National Algérian…

  • PPACA (United States [2010])

    Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), in the United States, health care reform legislation signed into law by U.S. Pres. Barack Obama in March 2010, which included provisions that required most individuals to secure health insurance or pay fines, made coverage easier and less costly

  • PPARγ (biochemistry)

    antidiabetic drug: Oral antidiabetic drugs: …their effects by activating so-called PPARγ (peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma) receptors, which are found primarily in adipose tissue; when activated, PPARγ prompts the transcription (synthesis of RNA from DNA) of genes that regulate glucose and lipid metabolism. Because hepatotoxicity is a major

  • PPBS (economics)

    public administration: Responses to incrementalism: …less successful, technique was the Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System (PPBS), introduced into the U.S. Department of Defense in 1961 and extended to the federal budget in 1965. According to PPBS, the objectives of government programs were to be identified, and then alternative means of achieving these objectives were to…

  • PPD (firearm)

    small arm: The submachine gun: The PPD was fed by a drum-shaped magazine containing 71 7.62-mm cartridges, and it fired at a rate of 900 rounds per minute—far too fast for accuracy. In the United States, John T. Thompson’s submachine gun, chambered for the .45-inch Colt pistol cartridge, was adopted by…

  • PPD (political party, Puerto Rico)

    Puerto Rico: Government: …two leading parties are the Popular Democratic Party, which supports the continuation of commonwealth status, and the New Progressive Party, which favours U.S. statehood. Together these two parties have commanded virtually all the vote in elections since the late 20th century. The Puerto Rican Independence Party, which won one-fifth of…

  • PPFA (American family planning, social service organization)

    Planned Parenthood, American organization that, since its founding in 1942, has worked as an advocate for education and personal liberties in the areas of birth control, family planning, and reproductive health care. Clinics operated by Planned Parenthood provide a range of reproductive health care

  • PPG (chemical compound)

    polyether: Polypropylene glycols are liquids, mostly insoluble in water, used to suppress foaming in industrial processes and for making polyurethane resins, hydraulic fluids, and various other materials.

  • PPG Industries, Inc. (American company)

    PPG Industries, Inc., a leading American and international producer of coatings, flat glass, chemicals, and chemical products. Its headquarters are in Pittsburgh, Pa. The company was incorporated in 1883 as the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company at a time when European producers had a virtual monopoly

  • PPG Paints Arena (arena, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States)

    Pittsburgh: The contemporary city: …ice hockey team, plays at PPG Paints Arena. Popular summertime attractions include riverboat excursions on Pittsburgh’s waterways and Kennywood, an amusement park southeast of the city in West Mifflin.

  • PPI (radar display)

    radar: Displays: …used radar display is the plan position indicator (PPI), which provides a maplike presentation in polar coordinates of range and angle. The display is “dark” except when echo signals are present.

  • PPI (political party, Italy)

    Italian Popular Party, former centrist Italian political party whose several factions were united by their Roman Catholicism and anticommunism. They advocated programs ranging from social reform to the defense of free enterprise. The DC usually dominated Italian politics from World War II until the

  • PPK (president of Peru)

    Pedro Pablo Kuczynski is a Peruvian economist and centrist politician who served as president of Peru (2016–18) but was forced to resign because of his alleged involvement in an influence-peddling scandal. Kuczynski was the son of European immigrants who fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s and settled

  • PPLO (biology)

    life: Sizes of organisms: …smallest free-living cells include the pleuropneumonia-like organisms (PPLOs). Whereas an amoeba has a mass of 5 × 10−7 gram (2 × 10−8 ounce), a PPLO, which cannot be seen without a high-powered electron microscope, weighs 5 × 10−16 gram (2 × 10−15 ounce) and is only about 100 nanometres across.…

  • PPMS (pathology)

    multiple sclerosis: Prevalence and types of multiple sclerosis: (RRMS), secondary-progressive (SPMS), primary-progressive (PPMS), and progressive-relapsing (PRMS). About 80–85 percent of patients are diagnosed initially with RRMS. In this form of the disease, onset is usually gradual, and there are alternating intervals of symptom exacerbation and complete symptom remission. In many patients with RRMS, symptoms may worsen…

  • PPN theory (physics)

    gravity: Field theories of gravitation: …parameters; such formulations are called parameterized post-Newtonian (PPN) theories. There is now considerable experimental and observational evidence for limits to the parameters. So far, no deviation from general relativity has been demonstrated convincingly.

  • PPO (health insurance)

    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…

  • PPO (chemical compound)

    polyether: Polyphenylene oxide resins, such as Noryl, possess great resistance to water and to high temperatures (175°–300° C; 350°–575° F). Penton, a chlorine-containing polyether unaffected by many chemicals, is fabricated into sheets used for lining storage tanks and the like.

  • PPOs, HMOs, HSAs, and more: An intro to medical insurance types

    Trying to get health insurance can feel daunting—especially when all the terms surrounding insurance are an alphabet soup. As you research health insurance options, make sure you understand the jargon and acronyms. Here’s your cheat sheet for different health insurance plan types and the terms that

  • PPP (political party, Indonesia)

    United Development Party, moderate Islamist political party in Indonesia. The PPP was formed in 1973 through the merger of four Islamic groups—the Council of Scholars (Nahdlatul Ulama), the Indonesian Islamic Party (Partai Muslimin Indonesia), the United Islamic Party of Indonesia (Partai Syarikat

  • PPP (political party, Pakistan)

    Nawaz Sharif: Second term as prime minister: …of Zardari and the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), accusing the incumbents of corruption and economic ineptitude.

  • PPP (political party, The Gambia)

    The Gambia: Independence, confederation of Senegambia, and economic troubles: Yet Jawara and the PPP easily won reelection in 1987 and 1992, although opposition parties gained some support in each election.

  • PPP (political party, Thailand)

    Thailand: Thaksin Shinawatra: …backing the ousted prime minister—the People Power Party (PPP)—clearly won the most seats in parliament, which effectively amounted to a popular rejection of the coup. The head of the PPP, Samak Sundaravej, became prime minister.

  • PPP (political party, Guyana)

    Cheddi Jagan: …first modern political party, the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), with himself as its leader. In elections held under the new British-granted constitution of 1953, the PPP won a majority of the seats in the House of Assembly and Jagan became the country’s prime minister. His subsequent program of radical socioeconomic…

  • PPP (economics)

    public-private partnership (PPP), partnership between an agency of the government and the private sector in the delivery of goods or services to the public. Areas of public policy in which public-private partnerships (PPPs) have been implemented include a wide range of social services, public

  • PPP (currency value)

    purchasing power parity (PPP), a measure of the relative value of currencies that compares the prices of purchasing a fixed basket of goods and services in different countries. PPPs can be useful for estimating a more consistent and accurate comparison between different countries’ gross domestic

  • PPPP (political party, Pakistan)

    Benazir Bhutto: Corruption charges and exile: …legally distinct branch called the Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPPP). Legally separate and free from the restrictions brought upon the PPP by Bhutto’s leadership, the PPPP participated in the 2002 elections, in which it proceeded to earn a strong vote. However, Bhutto’s terms for cooperation with the military government—that all…

  • PPR (political party, Poland)

    Poland: Political process: …Poland was governed by the Polish United Workers’ Party (PUWP; Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza), the country’s communist party, which was modeled on the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The postwar government was run as a dual system in which state organs were controlled by parallel organs of the PUWP.…

  • PPR (French company)

    François Pinault: …formed Pinault-Printemps-Redoute in 1994 (renamed PPR in 2005). Working through his holding company, Artémis SA (founded in 1992), he added a wide range of firms. Pinault’s purchase of a nearly 30 percent stake in British auction house Christie’s in 1998 signaled his shift toward expensive brands—and affirmed his interest in…

  • PPS (chemical compound)

    organosulfur compound: Sulfides: Poly(phenylene sulfide) (PPS), a polymeric material derived from diphenyl sulfide, which has been known for more than 100 years, is used in electrical, electronic, and mechanical applications. Polythiophene conductors are of great interest for use in molecular electronic devices. Research has led to the preparation of macrocyclic…

  • PPS (political party, Syria)

    Anṭūn Saʿādah: 16, 1932, Saʿādah founded the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, a secret society that grew from a few students to about 1,000 members by 1935. During the 1930s the party expanded into Syria, Transjordan, and Palestine. Saʿādah had created perhaps the first indigenous Arab youth organization. It stressed discipline, struggle, and…

  • PPS (political party, Poland)

    Józef Piłsudski: Early life and political activities: He joined the newly founded Polish Socialist Party (PPS), of which he soon became a leader. He started a clandestine newspaper, Robotnik (“The Worker”), in Wilno. In July 1899 he married, in a Protestant church, the beautiful Maria Juszkiewicz, the divorced wife of a Polish civil engineer, and moved to…

  • PPSH (political party, Albania)

    Enver Hoxha: …communists helped Hoxha found the Albanian Communist Party (afterward called the Party of Labour). Hoxha became first secretary of the party’s Central Committee and political commissar of the communist-dominated Army of National Liberation. He was prime minister of Albania from its liberation in 1944 until 1954, simultaneously holding the ministry…

  • PPT (political party, Chad)

    Chad: Independence of Chad: …become the leader of the Chad Progressive Party (PPT). An autonomous republic within the French Community was proclaimed in November 1958, and complete independence in the restructured community was attained on Aug. 11, 1960. The country’s stability was endangered by tensions between the Black and often Christian populations of the…

  • PQ (political party, Canada)

    Parti Québécois, provincial Canadian political party founded in 1968 by journalist René Lévesque and other French Canadian separatists in the largely French-speaking province of Quebec. In 1968 Lévesque merged his Mouvement Souveraineté-Association (Sovereignty-Association Movement)—which advocated

  • Pr (chemical element)

    praseodymium (Pr), chemical element, a rare-earth metal of the lanthanide series of the periodic table. Praseodymium is a moderately soft, ductile, and malleable silvery white metal. It rapidly displaces hydrogen from water in diluted acids (except hydrofluoric acid [HF]) and slowly oxidizes in

  • PR (political coalition, Malaysia)

    Malaysia: Malaysia in the 21st century: …coalition of opposition parties—called the People’s Alliance (Pakatan Rakyat; PR)—that gained more than one-third of the seats in Malaysia’s lower house of parliament, even though he still could not run for office. Anwar officially returned to politics later that year, and in October he won a solid victory in a…

  • PR (political party, Italy)

    Italy: Years of crisis: …by Felice Cavallotti and the Radical group in parliament, who in the 1890s strongly denounced bank scandals, tariff protectionism, colonial wars, and the Triple Alliance. The Radicals were a northern, anticlerical, moralistic group that denounced the corruption of the south (Crispi was the first southern prime minister), of the monarchy,…

  • PR (political party, France)

    Republican Party, French political party formed in May 1977 when the former National Foundation of Independent Republicans (Fédération Nationale des Républicains Indépendents)—founded in 1966 by Valéry Giscard d’Estaing—was merged with other small groups. It is conservative in domestic social and

  • PR (political party, Guatemala)

    Guatemala: Political process: …the most continuity are the Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario; PR), which has shifted from left to right in political orientation, the centrist Guatemalan Christian Democratic Party (Partido Democracia Cristiana Guatemalteca; PDCG), and the right-wing National Liberation Movement (Movimiento de Liberación Nacional; MLN). In the slightly more open political atmosphere of…

  • PR (communications)

    public relations, aspect of communications involving the relations between an entity subject to or seeking public attention and the various publics that are or may be interested in it. The entity seeking attention may be a business corporation, an individual politician, a performer or author, a

  • PRA

    nuclear reactor: The Reactor Safety Study of 1972–75: …study involved the application of probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) techniques for the first time on a system as complex as a large nuclear power reactor. Also for the first time, the study compared the risk of a nuclear power plant accident with other events such as natural disasters and human-caused…

  • Pra (Egyptian god)

    Re, in ancient Egyptian religion, god of the sun and creator god. He was believed to travel across the sky in his solar bark and, during the night, to make his passage in another bark through the underworld, where, in order to be born again for the new day, he had to vanquish the evil serpent

  • Pra (river, Ghana)

    Pra, river of southern Ghana. The Pra River rises in the Kwahu Plateau near Mpraeso and flows 150 miles (240 km) southward to enter the Gulf of Guinea (Atlantic Ocean) at Shama. Its main tributaries are the Ofin, Anum, and Birim. Constantly broken by cataracts—especially the Bosomasi Rapids at

  • Prabalingga (Indonesia)

    Probolinggo, city, central East Java (Jawa Timur) propinsi (or provinsi; province), Java, Indonesia. It is located on the southern side of Madura Strait, about 50 miles (80 km) southeast of Surabaya. There is a good harbour for small ships, and the fishing industry is important. Cottage industries

  • Prabang Buddha (sculpture)

    Fa Ngum: …it is believed that the Prabang Buddha image, which served as the kingdom’s palladium and gave Luang Prabang its new name, was brought from Ceylon.

  • prabha painting (East Asian arts)

    Central Asian arts: Sculpture and painting: …fully developed in scrolls, or prabhas (most of them, vertical), on cotton known from the 13th century. These scrolls are of two kinds: one consists of arrays of religious images with a large figure of the main deity in their midst; the other consists of a maṇḍala, the Hindu and…

  • Prabhachandra (Indian philosopher)

    Indian philosophy: The ultralogical period: …Knowledge,” 12th century ce) and Prabhachandra’s Prameyakamalamartanda (“The Sun of the Lotus of the Objects of True Knowledge,” 11th century ce), were written during this period. Under the Chola kings (c. 850–1279) and later in the Vijayanagara kingdom (which, along with Mithila in the north, remained strongholds of Hinduism until…

  • Prabhakara (Indian philosopher)

    Indian philosophy: The logical period: Mimamshakas Kumarila (7th century), Prabhakara (7th–8th centuries), Mandana Mishra (8th century), Shalikanatha (9th century), and Parthasarathi Mishra (10th century) belong to this age. The greatest Indian philosopher of the period, however, was Shankara. All these men defended Brahmanism against the “unorthodox” schools, especially against the criticisms of Buddhism. The…

  • prabhākarī (Buddhism)

    bhūmi: …vimalā (“free from impurities”), (3) prabhākarī (“luminous” with the noble doctrine), (4) arciṣmatī (“brilliant,” the rays of his virtue consuming evil passions and ignorance), (5) sudurjayā (“hard to conquer”), (6) abhimukhī (“turning toward” both transmigration and nirvana), (7) dūraṅgamā (“far-going”), (8) acalā

  • Prabhāsa Patan (temple site, India)

    South Asian arts: Medieval temple architecture: North Indian style of Gujarāt: …and rebuilt, the Somanātha at Prabhāsa Patan was the most famous temple of Gujarāt, its best known structure dating from the time of Kumārapāla (mid-12th century). It has been now dismantled, but a great temple built at the site in recent years testifies to the survival of ancient traditions in…

  • Prabhupāda, Swami (Indian religious leader and author)

    A. C. Bhaktivedanta was an Indian religious leader and author who in 1965 founded the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, commonly known as the Hare Krishna movement. In 1920 Bhaktivedanta completed his B.A. in chemistry at the Scottish Churches’ College in Calcutta; by that time, his

  • Prabhutaratna pagoda (pagoda, Pulguk Temple, South Korea)

    Korean architecture: Unified Silla, or Great Silla, period (668–935): The other pagoda (Tabot’ap) is more elaborate and symbolizes the Prabhutaratna Buddha, or the Buddha of the Past. The arrangement apparently symbolizes the Buddhist legend that, when Shakyamuni preached the Avatamsaka-sutra, the pagoda of Prabhutaratna emerged out of the earth in witness of the greatness and truth of…

  • Praça Bom Jesus (square, Anápolis, Brazil)

    Anápolis: …with attractive squares, such as Praça Bom Jesus, and is the northwestern terminus of railroads leading inland from coastal Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. It has an airport and is also strategically situated on the highway linking Brasília, the national capital, with Goiânia, the state capital, and with São…

  • Prachanda (prime minister of Nepal)

    Prachanda is a Nepali rebel leader and politician who headed the Maoist insurgency that ended Nepal’s monarchy and established the country as a democratic republic. He served as its first prime minister (2008–09) and later was returned to that office (2016–17 and 2022– ). Pushpa Kamal Dahal was

  • Prachanda Path (Nepali communism)

    Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre): …proposed what it called the Prachanda Path, which combined indoctrination of the masses with Marxist, Leninist, and Maoist thought and the creation of military bases in rural areas. The success of the CPN (M) in the villages can be attributed to its ability to deliver a modicum of governance where…

  • Prachim (Thailand)

    Prachin Buri, town, south-central Thailand. Prachin Buri lies along the Bang Pakong River and is a collecting centre for rice and sugar. It also trades in hardwoods and charcoal and is linked to Bangkok, 60 miles (97 km) southwest, by rail. Pop. (2000)

  • Prachin Buri (Thailand)

    Prachin Buri, town, south-central Thailand. Prachin Buri lies along the Bang Pakong River and is a collecting centre for rice and sugar. It also trades in hardwoods and charcoal and is linked to Bangkok, 60 miles (97 km) southwest, by rail. Pop. (2000)

  • Prachin Panth Prakash (work by Ratan Singh Bhangu)

    Sikhism: Devotional and other works: …Bhangu’s Panth Prakash (later termed Prachin Panth Prakash to distinguish it from Gian Singh’s work of the same name), was composed in 1809 and completed in 1841; it is notable for its description and high praise of the Khalsa. The two remaining works are Gian Singh’s Panth Prakash and his…

  • Practica arithmetica et mensurandi singularis (work by Cardano)

    Girolamo Cardano: …lectures, the more important being Practica arithmetica et mensurandi singularis (“Practice of Mathematics and Individual Measurements”). His Ars magna (1545) contained the solution of the cubic equation, for which he was indebted to the Venetian mathematician Niccolò Tartaglia, and also the solution of the quartic equation found by Cardano’s former…

  • Practica della mercatura (medieval trade manual)

    China: Yuan China and the West: …was so important that the Practica della mercatura, a handbook on foreign trade, included the description of trade routes to China.

  • Practica geometriae (work by Fibonacci)

    Fibonacci: Life: …produced a brief work, the Practica geometriae (“Practice of Geometry”), which included eight chapters of theorems based on Euclid’s Elements and On Divisions.

  • Practica musica (work by Gafori)

    tuning and temperament: Temperament: …in 1496 in the treatise Practica musica by the Italian theorist Franchino Gafori, who stated that organists flatten fifths by a small, indefinite amount. This practice tends to spread out the mistuning of the fifth D–A over several fifths, so that all are tolerable although none is perfect. This principle…

  • Practical Agitation (work by Chapman)

    John Jay Chapman: …books—Causes and Consequences (1898) and Practical Agitation (1900). Both stressed his belief that individuals should take a moral stand on issues troubling the nation.

  • Practical Criticism (work by Richards)

    I.A. Richards: …of Literary Criticism (1924) and Practical Criticism (1929), companion volumes that he used to develop his critical method. The latter two were based on experimental pedagogy: Richards would give students poems in which the titles and authors’ names had been removed and then use their responses for further development of…

  • Practical Education (work by Edgeworth and Edgeworth)

    Richard Lovell Edgeworth: Practical Education (1798), written in collaboration with his daughter, was inspired by the French-Swiss moralist Jean-Jacques Rousseau and by Edgeworth’s second wife, Honora. The book argued that children should be given a strong motive to learn and that the pace should be adjusted to the…

  • practical extraction and report language (computer programming language)

    Perl, a cross-platform open-source computer programming language used widely in the commercial and private computing sectors. Perl was a favourite in the late 20th and early 21st centuries among Web developers for its flexible, continually evolving text-processing and problem-solving capabilities.

  • practical Hinduism (religion)

    Hinduism: Practical Hinduism: Practical Hinduism is both a quest to achieve well-being and a set of strategies for locating sources of affliction and removing or appeasing them. Characterized in this way, it has much in common with the popular beliefs and practices of many other religions.…

  • practical joke (comedy)

    humor: Situational humor: …type of humor is the practical joke: pulling away the chair from under the dignitary’s lowered bottom. The victim is perceived first as a person of consequence, then suddenly as an inert body subject to the laws of physics: authority is debunked by gravity, mind by matter; man is degraded…

  • Practical Learning (Korean political philosophy)

    Silhak, (Korean: “Practical Learning”), school of thought that came into existence in the midst of the chaotic conditions of 18th-century Korea, dedicated to a practical approach to statecraft, instead of the blind and uncritical following of Confucian teachings. The Silhak school attacked

  • Practical Magic (film by Dunne [1998])

    Sandra Bullock: Commercial success: …Hope Floats and the comedy Practical Magic; Bullock starred in both movies. That same year her voice was featured in the animated The Prince of Egypt. She returned to familiar territory as an endearing but eccentric lead in the romantic comedy Forces of Nature (1999), opposite Ben Affleck. In 2000…

  • Practical Magic (novel by Hoffman)

    Alice Hoffman: Practical Magic (1995; film 1998) is about two sisters trying to leave behind their family’s tradition of witchcraft. The book was the first in a popular series that included the prequels The Rules of Magic (2017) and Magic Lessons (2020) and the sequel The Book…

  • Practical Methods of Organic Chemistry (work by Gattermann)

    Robert Burns Woodward: Early life and education: …a copy of Ludwig Gattermann’s Practical Methods of Organic Chemistry and requested issues of chemistry journals from Verlag Chemie of Berlin. Later in life he did nothing to discourage a persistent legend that he had performed all the experiments in Gattermann’s book.

  • practical reason (philosophy)

    practical reason, Rational capacity by which (rational) agents guide their conduct. In Immanuel Kant’s moral philosophy, it is defined as the capacity of a rational being to act according to principles (i.e., according to the conception of laws). Unlike the ethical intuitionists (see intuitionism),

  • practical salinity (oceanography)

    seawater: Dissolved inorganic substances: Practical salinity, symbol S, is determined through measurements of the electrical conductivity and temperature of seawater, which are interpreted by an algorithm developed by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Practical salinity, along with temperature, can be used to calculate precisely the…

  • practical syllogism (logic)

    Aristotle: Virtue: …formulation of prescriptions for action—“practical syllogisms,” as Aristotle calls them. A practical syllogism consists of a general recipe for a good life, followed by an accurate description of the agent’s actual circumstances and concluding with a decision about the appropriate action to be carried out.

  • practice (psychology)

    animal learning: Circumstances that produce learning: …claim that learning depends on practice. (An older generation of experimental psychologists would have claimed that it depended on “reinforced” practice.) This definition can be misleading, however, if it causes one to attribute to learning all behavioral changes that follow what appears to be practice. In other words, it is…

  • Practice and Theory of Bolshevism, The (work by Russell)

    Bertrand Russell: …communism, which he expressed in The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism (1920).

  • Practice of Behavior Therapy, The (work by Wolpe)

    mental disorder: Behavioral psychotherapy: …described by Joseph Wolpe in The Practice of Behavior Therapy (1973),

  • Practice of Diplomacy, The (work by Callières)

    François de Callières: …négocier avec les souverains (1716; The Practice of Diplomacy) was considered a model introduction to the subject of diplomacy.

  • Practice of Piety (work by Bayly)

    English literature: Effect of religion and science on early Stuart prose: …by 1640) and Lewis Bayly’s Practice of Piety (1611; some 50 editions followed), two copies of which formed the meagre dowry of preacher and author John Bunyan’s first wife. Puritans preferred sermons in the plain style too, eschewing rhetoric for an austerely edifying treatment of doctrine, though some famous preachers,…

  • Practice of the Presence of God, The (work by Brother Lawrence)

    Christianity: The readjustment: …at the Blessed Sacrament” (The Practice of the Presence of God, chapter 4). Second, the spiritual marriage is a theopathic state: the soul is felt to be in all things the organ or instrument of God. In the unitive life Mme Guyon says that the soul “no longer lives…