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premenstrual syndrome

(Encyclopedia)premenstrual syndrome (PMS), any of various symptoms experienced by women of childbearing age in the days immediately preceding menstruation. It is most common in women in their twenties and thirties....

Colom Caballeros, Álvaro

(Encyclopedia)Colom Caballeros, Álvaro, 1951–, Guatemalan political leader, president of Guatemala (2008–12), b. Guatemala City. An industrial engineer, he became a textile entrepreneur. Entering politics in t...

community chest

(Encyclopedia)community chest, cooperative organization of citizens and social welfare agencies in a city. Also known as a united fund, it has two purposes: to raise funds through an annual campaign for its member ...

Veterans of Foreign Wars

(Encyclopedia)Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), organization created (1899) at Columbus, Ohio, by veterans of the Spanish-American War. It received a charter from Congress in 1936. The organization later admitted vet...

Stone, Richard

(Encyclopedia)Stone, Richard (Sir John Richard Nicholas Stone), 1913–91, British economist, grad. Cambridge, 1935. After working for the British government during World War II, he became (1945) the first director...

Alito, Samuel Anthony, Jr.

(Encyclopedia)Alito, Samuel Anthony, Jr. əlēˈtō [key], 1950–, U.S. government official and judge, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (2006–), b. Trenton, N.J., grad. Pr...

communications satellite

(Encyclopedia)communications satellite artificial satellite that functions as part of a global radio-communications network. Echo 1, the first communications satellite, launched in 1960, was an instrumented inflat...

Bloor, Ella Reeve

(Encyclopedia)Bloor, Ella Reeve, 1862–1951, American radical, popularly known as Mother Bloor, b. Staten Island, N.Y. After an early career in the woman-suffrage and temperance movements she joined the Socialist ...

basketball

(Encyclopedia)basketball, game played generally indoors by two opposing teams of five players each. Basketball was conceived in 1891 by Dr. James Naismith, a physical education instructor at the YMCA college in Spr...

Council for Mutual Economic Assistance

(Encyclopedia)Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON or MEA), international organization active between 1956 and 1991 for the coordination of economic policy among certain nations then under Communist domi...