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utility, public

(Encyclopedia)utility, public, industry required by law to render adequate service in its field at reasonable prices to all who apply for it. Public utilities frequently operate as monopolies in their market. In th...

labor law

(Encyclopedia)labor law, legislation dealing with human beings in their capacity as workers or wage earners. The Industrial Revolution, by introducing the machine and factory production, greatly expanded the class ...

liberty, in political science

(Encyclopedia)liberty, term used to describe various types of individual freedom, such as religious liberty, political liberty, freedom of speech, right of self-defense, and others. It is also used as a general ter...

garden

(Encyclopedia)garden, land set aside for the cultivation of flowers, herbs, vegetables, or small fruits, for either utility or ornament. Gardens range in size from window boxes and small dooryard plots to the publi...

flight

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Aircraft motions and control surfaces: Yaw, or motion to the left or right, is controlled by the rudder. Pitch, or climbing or dropping, is controlled by the elevators, which move in the same d...

Eastern Question

(Encyclopedia)Eastern Question, term designating the problem of European territory controlled by the decaying Ottoman Empire in the 18th, 19th, and early 20th cent. The Turkish threat to Europe was checked by the H...

Communist party, in China

(Encyclopedia)Communist party, in China, ruling party of the world's most populous nation since 1949 and most important Communist party in the world since the disintegration of the USSR in 1991. After the People'...

Chinese architecture

(Encyclopedia)Chinese architecture, the buildings and other structures created in China from prehistoric times to the present day. Since the late 19th cent. the Chinese have adopted European architectural styles....

ethics

(Encyclopedia)ethics, in philosophy, the study and evaluation of human conduct in the light of moral principles. Moral principles may be viewed either as the standard of conduct that individuals have constructed fo...

petroleum

(Encyclopedia)petroleum, oily, flammable liquid that occurs naturally in deposits, usually beneath the surface of the earth; it is also called crude oil. It consists principally of a mixture of hydrocarbons, with t...

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