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artificial intelligence

(Encyclopedia)artificial intelligence (AI), the use of computers to model the behavioral aspects of human reasoning and learning. Research in AI is concentrated in some half-dozen areas. In problem solving, one mus...

nix

(Encyclopedia)nix or nixie, in Germanic mythology, water sprite. The nixes could assume various shapes, most frequently as half human and half fish. They could do favors for humans, particularly in teaching them be...

Triton , in Greek mythology

(Encyclopedia)Triton, in Greek mythology, son of Poseidon. He was a creature of the sea, the upper half of his body being human, the lower fishlike. Later legends speak of many Tritons, sometimes described as ridin...

water power

(Encyclopedia)water power, mechanical energy derived from falling or flowing water, e.g., rivers, streams, and the overflow of dams. The wooden water wheel, long utilized for driving machinery in flour mills and fa...

multiculturalism

(Encyclopedia)multiculturalism or cultural pluralism, a term describing the coexistence of many cultures in a locality, without any one culture dominating the region. By making the broadest range of human differenc...

Manitoba, University of

(Encyclopedia)Manitoba, University of, at Winnipeg, Man., Canada; provincially supported, coeducational; chartered 1877. It has faculties of arts and sciences, graduate studies, law, medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, ...

water table

(Encyclopedia)water table, the top zone of soil and rock in which all voids are saturated with water. The level of the water table varies with topography and climate, and depends on the degree to which the groundwa...

Davidson, Donald Herbert

(Encyclopedia)Davidson, Donald Herbert, 1917–2003, American philosopher, b. Springfield, Mass., grad. Harvard (B.A., 1939; Ph.D., 1949). A student of W. V. Quine, Davidson emerged as one of the major figures in p...

Huxley, Thomas Henry

(Encyclopedia)Huxley, Thomas Henry, 1825–95, English biologist and educator, grad. Charing Cross Hospital, 1845. Huxley gave up his own biological research to become an influential scientific publicist and was th...

Pap test

(Encyclopedia)Pap test, Pap smear, or Papanicolaou test păpˌənēˈkəlou [key], medical procedure used to detect cancer of the uterine cervix (see uterus). A scraping, brushing, or smear, is taken from the surf...