choral music: Occasional music: In addition to sacred and secular works, a very considerable number of compositions, many of them choral, were written for great occasions of state. These include motets and cantatas based on special texts, suitable for performance in a palace, outdoors on a platform…

occasionalism, version of Cartesian metaphysics that flourished in the last half of the 17th century, in which all interaction between mind and body is mediated by God. It is posited that unextended mind and extended body do not interact directly. The appearance of direct interaction is maintained

Ceres: …Facula and Vinalia Faculae, in Occator crater on Ceres. The bright spots are highly reflective salts left behind when briny water from an underground reservoir percolated upward and evaporated. The water percolated through fractures left behind when the crater formed 20 million years ago. The salty regions have not been…

Italy: Emergence of the second republic: Under its new leader, Achille Occhetto, the Communist Party adopted a more moderate program and, in 1991, even took a new name: the Democratic Party of the Left (Partito Democratico della Sinistra; PDS). In the same year, a small group of die-hard Communists split off to form the Communist…

tatting, process by which a fabric akin to lace is made of thread with a small hand shuttle and the fingers. It was once a widely practiced craft, known in Italy as occhi and in France as la frivolité. The resulting product appears to be quite fragile but is indeed both strong and durable. In

Patrick Blackett: …chamber, he and Italian physicist Giuseppe Occhialini were able to identify the positron that had been discovered by American physicist Carl Anderson with the antiparticle of the electron that had been predicted by English physicist Paul Dirac.

cat’s-eye: Quartz cat’s-eye, the commonest, owes its chatoyancy and grayish green or greenish colour to parallel fibres of asbestos in the quartz. The two may be distinguished by their specific gravities; chrysoberyl is much denser. Crocidolite cat’s-eye (African cat’s-eye), more commonly known as tigereye (or tiger’s-eye),…

Occidental Petroleum Corporation, major American petroleum-producing company. Headquarters are in Los Angeles. Founded in 1920 in Los Angeles, Occidental Petroleum was for many years a small, largely unprofitable driller. It was precisely its bleak prospects that first attracted the attention of

Occidental College, Private liberal-arts college in Los Angeles, founded in 1887. It awards the baccalaureate degree in a number of disciplines as well as a master’s degree in teaching. The curriculum emphasizes interdisciplinary and multicultural studies. Enrollment is about

Occidental Petroleum Corporation, major American petroleum-producing company. Headquarters are in Los Angeles. Founded in 1920 in Los Angeles, Occidental Petroleum was for many years a small, largely unprofitable driller. It was precisely its bleak prospects that first attracted the attention of

mountain: The Andes: …of two parallel ranges, the Cordillera Occidental (or Western Cordillera) and the Cordillera Oriental (or Eastern Cordillera), which surround the high plateau, the Altiplano.

Andes Mountains: …the Cordillera Oriental and the Cordillera Occidental—are characteristic of most of the system. The directional trend of both the cordilleras generally is north-south, but in several places the Cordillera Oriental bulges eastward to form either isolated peninsula-like ranges or such high intermontane plateau regions as the Altiplano (Spanish: “High Plateau”),…

Andes Mountains: Physiography of the Northern Andes: …geologically recent and relatively low Cordillera Occidental, stands a line of 19 volcanoes, 7 of them exceeding 15,000 feet in elevation. The eastern border is the higher and older Cordillera Central, capped by a line of 20 volcanoes; some of these, such as Chimborazu Volcano (20,702 feet), have permanent snowcaps.

Andes Mountains: Physiography of the Central Andes: …along the plateau: the Cordilleras Occidental, Central, and Oriental. In the Cordillera Occidental, at latitude 10° S, the deep, narrow Huaylas Valley separates two ranges, Cordillera Blanca to the east and Cordillera Negra to the west; the Santa River runs between them and cuts Cordillera Negra to drain into the…

Maria Gowen Brooks was an American poet whose work, though admired for a time, represented a florid and grandiose style not greatly appreciated since. Abigail Gowen grew up in a prosperous and cultured family. After the death of her father in 1809, she came under the guardianship of John Brooks, a

occipital, bone forming the back and back part of the base of the cranium, the part of the skull that encloses the brain. It has a large oval opening, the foramen magnum, through which the medulla oblongata passes, linking the spinal cord and brain. The occipital adjoins five of the other seven

human eye: Superior colliculi: …the rabbit, removal of the occipital lobes causes some impairment of vision, but the animal can perform such feats as avoiding obstacles when running and recognizing food by sight. In the monkey, the effects are more serious, but the animal can be trained to discriminate lights of different intensity and…

human eye: Superior colliculi: …the rabbit, removal of the occipital lobes causes some impairment of vision, but the animal can perform such feats as avoiding obstacles when running and recognizing food by sight. In the monkey, the effects are more serious, but the animal can be trained to discriminate lights of different intensity and…

occipital, bone forming the back and back part of the base of the cranium, the part of the skull that encloses the brain. It has a large oval opening, the foramen magnum, through which the medulla oblongata passes, linking the spinal cord and brain. The occipital adjoins five of the other seven

Occitan language, modern name given by linguists to a group of dialects that form a Romance language that was spoken in the early 21st century by about 1,500,000 people in southern France, though many estimates range as low as one-third that number. The UNESCO Red Book lists some of the dialects of

Occitanie, région of southern France created in 2016 by the union of the former régions of Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrénées. It is bounded by the région of Nouvelle-Aquitaine to the west, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes to the north, and Provence–Alpes–Côte d’Azur to the east. Spain and Andorra border

Thomas Hoccleve was an English poet, contemporary and imitator of Chaucer, whose work has little literary merit but much value as social history. What little is known of Hoccleve’s life must be gathered mainly from his works. At age 18 or 19 he obtained a clerkship in the privy seal office in

extratropical cyclone: This action is known as occlusion.

stop: …beginning of the blockage; the hold (occlusion); and the release (explosion), or opening of the air passage again. A stop differs from a fricative (q.v.) in that, with a stop, occlusion is total, rather than partial. Occlusion may occur at various places in the vocal tract from the glottis to…

extratropical cyclone: This action is known as occlusion.

burn: Hospital treatment.: Occlusive dressings, usually combined with topical antibacterial agents, are more commonly used in the treatment of extensive burns. The antibacterial ointment or cream may be applied to the patient or to the gauze. The use of occlusive dressings provides a sterile barrier against airborne infection;…

nervous system disease: Occlusive strokes: Occlusive strokes, those in which a blood vessel supplying a part of the brain is blocked, are divided into four groups: (1) Transient ischemic attacks (TIAs) are the mildest occlusive strokes; symptoms last for minutes or hours. TIAs are usually caused by small…

occult, a term that was originally used in Latin to designate the hidden or unseen properties of things and that, since the 16th century, has also been used to characterize religious traditions that include belief in unseen forces or that otherwise behave in a secretive or mysterious manner.

cancer of unknown primary (CUP), rare condition in which the initial site of cancer development in a patient’s body cannot be identified. In the vast majority of cases, cancer cells share identifiable features in common with the normal cells that make up the tissue in which the cancer initially

ring: …a few lines of verse; occult rings, which functioned as talismans or amulets and were supposed to have magical powers; and poison rings, whose hollow bezels contained a poison for purposes of suicide or homicide. Rings with bezels that opened may also have held sentimental keepsakes in miniature.

occultation, complete obscuration of the light of an astronomical body, most commonly a star, by another astronomical body, such as a planet or a satellite. Hence, a total solar eclipse is the occultation of the Sun by the Moon. By carefully measuring the decrease in the intensity of some stars as

ghaybah, (Arabic: “absence,” or “concealment”), Islāmic doctrine, especially among such Shīʿite sects as the Ithnā ʿAsharīyah, or “Twelvers.” The term refers to the disappearance from view of the 12th and last imam (leader), Muḥammad al-Mahdī al-Ḥujjah, in 878. Ghaybah is applied loosely to anyone

lighthouse: Identification: In another category, “occulting” lights are normally on and momentarily extinguished, with short eclipses interrupting longer periods of light. Analogous to the flashing mode are occulting and group-occulting characters. A special class of light is the isophase, which alternates eclipses and flashes of exactly equal duration.

occultism, a group of esoteric religious traditions emerging primarily from 19th-century Europe. In particular, the term occultism is associated with the ideas of the French Kabbalist and ceremonial magician Éliphas Lévi as well as the various figures, both in France and abroad, who were strongly

property: For instance, “occupancy” is a means of original acquisition when the thing possessed belonged to no one formerly. A thing can also be acquired if someone possesses it for a certain period of time as if he were the owner. This is called “acquisitive prescription” in civil-law…

Edward Albee: In Occupant (2001), Albee imagines the sculptor Louise Nevelson being interviewed after her death. Albee also expanded The Zoo Story into a two-act play, called Peter and Jerry (2004). (The play was retitled At Home at the Zoo in 2009.) The absurdist Me, Myself, & I…

Sesshū was an artist of the Muromachi period, one of the greatest masters of the Japanese art of sumi-e, or monochrome ink painting. Sesshū adapted Chinese models to Japanese artistic ideals and aesthetic sensibilities. He painted landscapes, Zen Buddhist pictures, and screens decorated with

Roman law: The law of property and possession: In terms of occupatio, ownerless things that were susceptible to private ownership (excluding such things as temples) became the property of the first person to take possession of them. This applied to things such as wild animals and islands arising in the sea. In some views, it also…

Count Fleet: Breeding and early years: His only rival was Occupation, a colt whose followers were touting him for juvenile champion honours and as unbeatable after he had come off victories in the Arlington Park (Illinois) Futurity and other races. The showdown between the two was inevitable and was slated for the Washington Park Futurity…

occupation of Japan, (1945–52) military occupation of Japan by the Allied Powers after its defeat in World War II. Theoretically an international occupation, in fact it was carried out almost entirely by U.S. forces under Gen. Douglas MacArthur. During the occupation period, Japanese soldiers and

law of war: Occupation: World War II illustrated that civilians in occupied territory were largely unprotected by the laws of war. In consequence, the fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 provided detailed rules for their protection. A protected person is anyone who, at a given moment and in any…

biomechanics: …biomechanics (in particular orthopedic biomechanics), occupational biomechanics, and sport biomechanics. As an example, sport biomechanics deals with performance improvement and injury prevention in athletes. In occupational biomechanics, biomechanical analysis is used to understand and optimize mechanical interaction of workers with the environment.

cramp: Professional or occupational cramp is a functional spasm affecting certain muscles that are used constantly in a daily occupation. At first there is a gradually increasing difficulty, or clumsiness, in making the movements required for the work at hand. Writers, for example, cannot move the pen or…

occupational disease, any illness associated with a particular occupation or industry. Such diseases result from a variety of biological, chemical, physical, and psychological factors that are present in the work environment or are otherwise encountered in the course of employment. Occupational

vocational education, instruction intended to equip persons for industrial or commercial occupations. It may be obtained either formally in trade schools, technical secondary schools, or in on-the-job training programs or, more informally, by picking up the necessary skills on the job. (Read Arne

technical education, the academic and vocational preparation of students for jobs involving applied science and modern technology. It emphasizes the understanding and practical application of basic principles of science and mathematics, rather than the attainment of proficiency in manual skills

occupational injury, any health problem or bodily damage resulting directly from activities undertaken at the workplace. The occupations which most clearly and often startlingly suffer from high incidence of occupational injuries include military service, construction, nursing, mining, fishing,

occupational medicine, the branch of medicine concerned with the maintenance of health and the prevention and treatment of diseases and accidental injuries in working populations in the workplace. Historically, occupational medicine was limited to the treatment of injuries and diseases occurring to

Thomas Malthus: Malthusian theory: ” These laws limited the mobility of labour, he said, and encouraged fecundity and should be abolished. For the most unfortunate it might be reasonable to establish workhouses—not “comfortable asylums” but places in which “fare should be hard” and “severe distress…find some alleviation.”

industrial-organizational psychology, application of concepts and methods from several subspecialties of the discipline (such as learning, motivation, and social psychology) to business and institutional settings. The study of industrial-organizational (I-O) psychology originated in the United

safety, those activities that seek either to minimize or to eliminate hazardous conditions that can cause bodily injury. Safety precautions fall under two principal headings, occupational safety and public safety. Occupational safety is concerned with risks encountered in areas where people work:

automation: Advantages and disadvantages of automation: In the United States the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSHA) was enacted with the national objective of making work safer and protecting the physical well-being of the worker. OSHA has had the effect of promoting the use of automation and robotics in the factory.

Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), public health agency of the U.S. Department of Labor. Formed in 1970 through the Occupational Safety and Health Act, OSHA is charged with ensuring that employers furnish their employees with a working environment free from recognized health and

gender wage gap: Horizontal or occupational segregation: Horizontal discrimination, also known as occupational segregation, occurs when men and women work in occupational fields that are dominated by people of one gender. Among professional occupations, for example, accountants, architects, and engineers tend to be mostly men, while nurses, social workers, and primary- and secondary-school teachers tend to be…

Germany: Formation of the Federal Republic of Germany: …powers were circumscribed by an Occupation Statute drawn up by the American, British, and French governments in 1949. That document reserved to those powers ultimate authority over such matters as foreign relations, foreign trade, the level of industrial production, and all questions relating to military security. Only with the permission…

sociology: Social stratification: …to measure how individuals attain occupational status, this approach assigned each occupation a socioeconomic score and then measured the distance between sons’ and fathers’ scores, also using the educational achievement of fathers to explain intergenerational mobility. Peter M. Blau and Otis Dudley Duncan used this technique in the study published…

occupational therapy, use of self-care and work and play activities to promote and maintain health, prevent disability, increase independent function, and enhance development. Occupation includes all the activities or tasks that a person performs each day. For example, getting dressed, playing a

employee training, vocational instruction for employed persons. During and after World War II, in-service training by employers became a common practice. The rapid changeover in industry from peace to war led to training schemes for semiskilled workers, for workers transferred to new jobs, and for

Occupy Wall Street (OWS), extended protest against economic inequality and the corruption of corporate law that occurred from September 17 to November 15, 2011, centred in New York City. The demonstration marked the beginning of a new focus on wealth disparity in American politics. The Occupy Wall

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, short story by Ambrose Bierce, published in 1891 in Tales of Soldiers and Civilians, a collection that in 1898 was revised, enlarged, and retitled In the Midst of Life. The narrative concerns the final thoughts of a Southern planter as he is being hanged by Union

epistemology: Occasional and dispositional knowledge: Occurrent knowledge is knowledge of which one is currently aware. If one is working on a problem and suddenly sees the solution, for example, one can be said to have occurrent knowledge of it, because “seeing” the solution involves being aware of or attending to…

obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), type of mental disorder in which an individual experiences obsessions or compulsions or both. Either the obsessive thought or the compulsive act may occur singly, or both may appear in sequence. Obsessions are recurring or persistent thoughts, images, or

Ocean, county, east-central New Jersey, U.S., bounded by the Metedeconk River to the north, the Manasquan River to the northeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. It comprises a coastal lowland area and, in addition to the Metedeconk and Manasquan, is drained by the Toms and Forked rivers. The

Sue Goyette: A new kind of narrative: …Prize, Sue Goyette’s fourth collection, Ocean (2013), presents a new kind of narrative. Like children counting waves before plunging into the changing tides, here the poems have numbers as titles, allowing readers to immerse themselves in the experience of each poem as related in sequence and theme to the one…

ocean, continuous body of salt water that is contained in enormous basins on Earth’s surface. When viewed from space, the predominance of Earth’s oceans is readily apparent. The oceans and their marginal seas cover nearly 71 percent of Earth’s surface, with an average depth of 3,688 metres (12,100

ocean acidification, the worldwide reduction in the pH of seawater as a consequence of the absorption of large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) by the oceans. Ocean acidification is largely the result of loading Earth’s atmosphere with large quantities of CO2, produced by vehicles and industrial and

undersea exploration: Acoustic and satellite sensing: A method known as ocean acoustic tomography, for example, monitors the travel time of sound pulses with an array of echo-sounding systems. In general, the amount of data collected is directly proportional to the product of the number of transmitters and receivers, so that much information on averaged oceanic…

Neil Gaiman: In the ostensibly adult novel The Ocean at the End of the Lane (2013), a man reflects on a series of supernatural traumas sustained during his childhood. One of Gaiman’s most personal works, it was voted Specsavers Book of the Year by readers in the United Kingdom. Gaiman returned to…

ocean basin, any of several vast submarine regions that collectively cover nearly three-quarters of Earth’s surface. Together they contain the overwhelming majority of all water on the planet and have an average depth of almost 4 km (about 2.5 miles). A number of major features of the basins depart

Miami Beach, city, Miami-Dade county, southeastern Florida, U.S. It lies on a barrier island between Biscayne Bay (west) and the Atlantic Ocean (east), just east of Miami. The area was originally inhabited by Tequesta people and later by Seminole people. Until 1912 the site was a mangrove swamp,

Census of Marine Life: Origins and oversight: …were the formation of the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS), a system of databases in which extant knowledge was collected, and the History of Marine Animal Populations (HMAP) project, which endeavoured to survey historical data for indications of human impact on the oceans. A further 14 field projects were established…

subpolar gyre: …area of cyclonic ocean circulation that sits beneath a persistent region of low atmospheric pressure. In contrast to subtropical gyres, the movement of ocean water within the Ekman layer of subpolar gyres forces upwelling and surface water divergence.

Ocean City, resort town, Worcester county, southeastern Maryland, U.S. Ocean City lies along a 10-mile (16-km) barrier beach between a chain of bays (Sinepuxent, Isle of Wight, and Assawoman) and the Atlantic Ocean, 29 miles (47 km) east of Salisbury. It is the state’s largest seaside resort, with

Ocean City, resort, city, Cape May county, southeastern New Jersey, U.S., on a barrier island between Great Egg Harbor (bridged to Somers Point and Longport) and the Atlantic Ocean, 12 miles (19 km) southwest of Atlantic City. Laid out in 1879 by Methodist ministers as a Christian seaside resort,

Great Pacific Garbage Patch: …and 2016 the Dutch-based organization Ocean Cleanup found that the density of the debris in the garbage patch was much greater than expected and that the plastics absorbed pollutants, making them poisonous to marine life. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the best known of several such zones, others of…

ocean current, stream made up of horizontal and vertical components of the circulation system of ocean waters that is produced by gravity, wind friction, and water density variation in different parts of the ocean. Ocean currents are similar to winds in the atmosphere in that they transfer

Antarctica: The surrounding seas: …began in 1985 with the Ocean Drilling Program, using the new drilling vessel JOIDES Resolution to expand earlier Glomar Challenger studies. Studies in the Weddell Sea (1986–87) suggested that surface waters were warm during Late Cretaceous to early Cenozoic time and that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet did

Antarctica: The surrounding seas: …began in 1985 with the Ocean Drilling Program, using the new drilling vessel JOIDES Resolution to expand earlier Glomar Challenger studies. Studies in the Weddell Sea (1986–87) suggested that surface waters were warm during Late Cretaceous to early Cenozoic time and that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet did

marine ecosystem, complex of living organisms in the ocean environment. Marine waters cover two-thirds of the surface of the Earth. In some places the ocean is deeper than Mount Everest is high; for example, the Mariana Trench and the Tonga Trench in the western part of the Pacific Ocean reach

Deepwater Horizon oil spill: Aftermath and impact: …Joint Investigation Team of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) and the U.S. Coast Guard emphasized BP’s ultimate responsibility for the disaster. (BOEMRE had supplanted the Minerals Management Agency, which had regulated drilling before the spill, in June 2010.) The report noted that, although the defective…

undersea exploration, the investigation and description of the ocean waters and the seafloor and of the Earth beneath. Included in the scope of undersea exploration are the physical and chemical properties of seawater, all manner of life in the sea, and the geological and geophysical features of

Billie Eilish: …2015 for the song “Ocean Eyes” and became, in 2020, the youngest person ever to win a Grammy for album of the year, for When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? Her other works include Happier than Ever (2021) and the award-winning song “What Was I Made…

ocean fertilization, untested geoengineering technique designed to increase the uptake of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air by phytoplankton, microscopic plants that reside at or near the surface of the ocean. The premise is that the phytoplankton, after blooming, would die and sink to the ocean

undersea exploration: Exploration of the seafloor and the Earth’s crust: The ocean floor has the same general character as the land areas of the world: mountains, plains, channels, canyons, exposed rocks, and sediment-covered areas. The lack of weathering and erosion in most areas, however, allows geological processes to be seen more clearly on the seafloor than…

Jackson Pollock: Poured works of Jackson Pollock: …Dream, Easter and the Totem, Ocean Greyness, and The Deep, among other works, recapitulate many aspects of his former styles and images. Though his production waned and his health deteriorated after 1953, he did produce important paintings such as White Light (1954) and Scent (1955) in his last years. He…

Banaba, coral and phosphate formation, part of Kiribati, in the west-central Pacific Ocean. It is located 250 miles (400 km) west of the nearest Gilbert Islands and has a circumference of about 6 miles (10 km). Banaba is the location of the highest point in Kiribati, reaching 285 feet (87 metres)

ocean liner, one of the two principal types of merchant ship as classified by operating method; the other is the tramp steamer. A liner operates on a regular schedule of designated ports, carrying whatever cargo and passengers are available on the date of sailing. The first liners were operated in

insurance: Ocean marine insurance: Ocean marine contracts are written to cover four major types of property interest: (1) the vessel or hull, (2) the cargo, (3) the freight revenue to be received by the ship owner, and (4) legal liability for negligence of the shipper or…

churning of the ocean of milk, in Hinduism, one of the central events in the ever-continuing struggle between the devas (gods) and the asuras (demons, or titans). The gods, who had become weakened as a result of a curse by the irascible sage Durvasas, invited the asuras to help them recover the

Somadeva: Tawney, titled The Ocean of Story, was published in 1924–28. Somadeva wrote his monumental work during the two periods of Ananta’s interrupted rule, which ended in 1077.

Ha Jin: Literary works: His volume of army stories, Ocean of Words (1996), received the PEN/Hemingway Award in 1997, and his second book of stories, Under the Red Flag (1997), which tells of life during the Cultural Revolution, won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction.

Richard Diebenkorn: …art and began his famed Ocean Park series. Inspired by the seascape near his Berkeley home, the series best exemplifies Diebenkorn’s ability to represent the passage of time, space, and light through shifting hues, bold lines, and opaque geometrical shapes.

redfish, (Sebastes norvegicus), commercially important food fish of the scorpionfish family, Scorpaenidae (order Scorpaeniformes), found in the North Atlantic Ocean along European and North American coasts. Also known as ocean perch or rosefish in North America and as Norway haddock in Europe, the

World Oceans Day: …the World Ocean Network and The Ocean Project, first celebrated the day along with their network of zoos, aquariums, and environmental groups around the world. After a petitioning drive guided in large part by those two organizations, the General Assembly of the United Nations formally designated World Oceans Day in…

yacht: Transatlantic racing and global circumnavigation: Ocean racing began in 1866 with a match race held under NYYC rules from Sandy Hook, Connecticut, to Cowes, Isle of Wight, by three schooners of 32- to 32.6-metre length: Fleetwing, Vesta, and Henrietta. Henrietta, owned by the American newspaper publisher James Gordon Bennett, won…

ocean ranching, the rearing of fish and shellfish under artificially controlled conditions to restock the sea. See

Ocean Springs, resort city, Jackson county, southeastern Mississippi, U.S., on Biloxi Bay across from Biloxi. It developed around the site of Old Biloxi, where the explorer Pierre Le Moyne d’Iberville established Fort Maurepas in 1699 for France; it was the first permanent European settlement in

Rhode Island, constituent state of the United States of America. It was one of the original 13 states and is one of the six New England states. Rhode Island is bounded to the north and east by Massachusetts, to the south by Rhode Island Sound and Block Island Sound of the Atlantic Ocean, and to the

mola, any of six species of oceanic fishes of the family Molidae. Molas have a distinctive bullet-shaped appearance, with a short body that ends abruptly in a thick rudderlike structure called a clavus just behind the tall triangular dorsal and anal fins. The development of the clavus results from

ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC), form of energy conversion that makes use of the temperature differential between the warm surface waters of the oceans, heated by solar radiation, and the deeper cold waters to generate power in a conventional heat engine. The difference in temperature