theater-in-the-round: see theater.

orders in council, in British government, orders given by the sovereign on the advice of all or some of the members of the privy council, without the prior consent of Parliament. Orders in council, first so named in the 18th cent., are based either on royal prerogative or on statutory authority. The prerogative allows an order in council to be used to ratify a treaty, to declare the end of a state of war, or to appoint civil service commissioners, but as a vehicle of royal power such an order no longer has any utility. Orders in council are authorized by statute in situations where a possible emergency is contemplated in which routine legislative procedure might be too cumbersome. The order is recommended to the sovereign by the government official responsible, and there is generally a provision for subsequent parliamentary ratification. The most important use of this administrative device has been in time of war. The economic blockade of European ports during the Napoleonic Wars was accomplished by means of orders in council, and they were also used in World Wars I and II, particularly in reference to foreign trade and domestic economic regulation. Among possible current uses are the declaration of a state of emergency, the dissolution of government departments and the redistribution of governmental functions, and the issuance of an extradition order. The term is also used in some Commonwealth countries to refer to an order that is signed by the governor-general after recommendation by cabinet or committee, without having been discussed by Parliament.

love-in-a-mist, hardy annual garden plant (Nigella damascena) of the family Ranunculaceae (buttercup family), having finely cut foliage and blue or white flowers surrounded by a cluster of thready bracts. It is also called fennel-flower—as are other plants of the genus—and devil-in-the-bush. The seeds have been used medicinally. Seeds of another species (N. sativa) are called black cumin and have been used in the Old World for seasoning; they are thought to be the fitch of the Bible (Isa. 28.25, 27). True cumin and true fennel are unrelated plants of the parsley family. Love-in-a-mist is classified in the division Magnoliophyta, class Magnoliopsida, order Ranunculales, family Ranunculaceae.

jack-in-the-pulpit: see arum.

in vitro fertilization, technique for conception of a human embryo outside the mother's body. Several ova, or eggs, are removed from the mother's body and placed in special laboratory culture dishes (Petri dishes); sperm from the father are then added, or in many cases a sperm is injected directly into an ovum, a process known as intracytoplasmic sperm injection. If fertilization is successful, a fertilized ovum (or several fertilized ova), after undergoing several cell divisions, is either transferred to the mother's or a surrogate mother's body for normal development in the uterus, or frozen for later implantation. Eggs also can be frozen and fertilized later. In vitro maturation is when the ova are extracted and then matured in a laboratory (instead of in the mother's body) before they are fertilized.

First developed by Patrick C. Steptoe and Robert G. Edwards of Great Britain (where the first "test-tube baby" was born under their care in 1978), the technique was devised for use in cases of infertility when the woman's fallopian tubes are damaged or the man's sperm count is low. It is also used to enable prospective parents with other reproductive problems (e.g., inability to produce eggs, poor sperm quality, or endometriosis) to bear a child, and can be used in conjunction with embryo biopsy, or preimplantation genetic diagnosis, to enable parents to have a child who is free of some inheritable defects or diseases. In embryo donation (also called embryo adoption), frozen embryos that are not needed by the mother are donated for implantation to a woman or couple who are infertile but wish to have, and are capable of bearing, children. The use of in vitro fertilization has resulted in the birth of more than a million babies. Nevertheless, the technique has raised legal, ethical, and religious issues, including concerns regarding legal custody of frozen embryos following divorce and questions regarding the appropriateness of the procedure posed by the Roman Catholic Church and other institutions.

See also artificial insemination; fertilization; reproductive system; surrogate mother.

court system in the United States, judicial branches of the federal and state governments charged with the application and interpretation of the law. The U.S. court system is divided into two administratively separate systems, the federal and the state, each of which is independent of the executive and legislative branches of government. Such a dual court system is a heritage of the colonial period. By the time the U.S. Constitution had first mandated (1789) the establishment of a federal judiciary, each of the original Thirteen Colonies already had its own comprehensive court system based on the English model. Thus, the two systems grew side by side and came to exercise exclusive jurisdiction in some areas and overlapping, or concurrent, jurisdiction in others.

The Federal Court System

Of the two systems, the federal is by far the less complicated. According to Article III of the Constitution, "The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish." In accordance with this directive, the federal judiciary is divided into three main levels.

At the bottom are the federal district courts, which have original jurisdiction in most cases of federal law. Made up of 92 districts, the federal district court system has at least one bench in each of the 50 states, as well as one each in the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. There are from 1 to more than 20 judges in each district, and, as with most federal jurists, district court judges are appointed by the President and serve for life. Cases handled by the federal district courts include those relating to alleged violations of the Constitution or other federal laws, maritime disputes, cases directly involving a state or the federal government, and cases in which foreign governments, citizens of foreign countries, or citizens of two or more different states are involved.

Directly above the district courts are the United States courts of appeals, each superior to one or more district courts. Established by Congress in 1891, the court of appeals system is composed of 11 judicial circuits throughout the 50 states plus one in the District of Columbia. There are from 6 to 27 judges in each circuit. In addition to hearing appeals from their respective district courts, the courts of appeals have original jurisdiction in cases involving a challenge to an order of a federal regulatory agency, such as the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The highest court in the federal system is the Supreme Court of the United States, the only federal court explicitly mandated by the Constitution. Since 1869 it has been composed of one Chief Justice and eight Associate Justices. The Supreme Court sits in Washington, D.C., and has final jurisdiction on all cases that it hears. The high court may review decisions made by the U.S. courts of appeals, and it may also choose to hear appeals from state appellate courts if a constitutional or other federal issue is involved. The Supreme Court has original jurisdiction in a limited number of cases, including those that involve high-ranking diplomats of other nations or those between two U.S. states.

In addition, the federal judiciary maintains a group of courts that handle certain limited types of disputes. Included among such special federal courts are the Court of Federal Claims, which adjudicates monetary claims against the U.S. government, and the Tax Court. Special court judges, unlike those in the three main levels of the federal judiciary, do not serve for life. The U.S. armed forces have courts-martial for cases involving military personnel (see military law).

At the end of the 1990s, controversy had arisen over the response of federal appeals courts to steadily increasing caseloads. Critics charged that the courts were saving few cases for full consideration and were perfunctorily affirming many lower court decisions rather than publishing reasoned opinions; many felt that this practice was eroding confidence in the system and was denying litigants a chance for further review by the Supreme Court. Defenders of the practice responded that it was necessary if speedy resolution of cases were to occur.

State Court Systems

The system of state courts is quite diverse; virtually no two states have identical judiciaries. In general, however, the states, like the federal government, have a hierarchically organized system of general courts along with a group of special courts. The lowest level of state courts, often known generically as the inferior courts, may include any of the following: magistrate court, municipal court, justice of the peace court, police court, traffic court, and county court. Such tribunals, often quite informal, handle only minor civil and criminal cases. More serious offenses are heard in superior court, also known as state district court, circuit court, and by a variety of other names. The superior courts, usually organized by counties, hear appeals from the inferior courts and have original jurisdiction over major civil suits and serious crimes such as grand larceny. It is here that most of the nation's jury trials occur. The highest state court, usually called the appellate court, state court of appeals, or state supreme court, generally hears appeals from the state superior courts and, in some instances, has original jurisdiction over particularly important cases. A number of the larger states, such as New York, also have intermediate appellate courts between the superior courts and the state's highest court. Additionally, a state may have any of a wide variety of special tribunals, usually on the inferior court level, including juvenile court, divorce court, probate court, family court, housing court, and small-claims court. In all, there are more than 1,000 state courts of various types, and their judges, who may be either appointed or elected, handle the overwhelming majority of trials held in the United States each year.

William and Mary in Virginia, College of, mainly at Williamsburg; state supported; coeducational; chartered 1693, opened 1694 by Episcopalians under James Blair. It became a university in 1779. The second oldest institution of higher learning in the United States, it traces its descent from plans for a university of Henrico in 1618, which were put aside after the Native American massacre of 1622. The college was closed when it was occupied (1781) by Revolutionary troops, in the Civil War, and again from 1881 to 1888 for lack of funds (see Ewell, Benjamin Stoddert). Phi Beta Kappa was founded there in 1776, and in 1779 the elective system and the honor system were first introduced. William and Mary established the first school of law in the United States and pioneered also in the teaching of political economy, natural philosophy, and modern history and languages. State aid was introduced in 1888, and the college joined the Virginia educational system in 1906. It became coeducational in 1918 and achieved university status in 1967. The Institute of Early American History and Culture, which publishes the historical periodical The William and Mary Quarterly, is there. The college library houses noted collections relating to Virginian and U.S. history.

Weissenburg in Bayern or Weissenburg, town, Bavaria, S Germany. It is a manufacturing center of Middle Franconia; products include gold and silver lace, processed wood, and metal goods. Weissenburg was founded in the 9th cent. on a Roman site. It became a free imperial city in the mid-14th cent. and passed to Bavaria in 1806. Points of interest in the picturesque town include remains of Roman fortifications and of the town's medieval walls; the late Gothic town hall (1476); and the Carmelite church (15th cent.).

War in the Pacific National Historical Park: see National Parks and Monuments (table).

United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), agency of the United Nations, with headquarters in Amman, Jordan. Established in 1949, it replaced the United Nations Relief for Palestine Refugees in 1950 as the major UN agency dealing with Palestine refugees. By 2003 more than 4 million refugees and their descendents who had been displaced by the various Arab-Israeli Wars were registered with UNRWA, more than 1.3 million of them in UNWRA refugee camps. Originally the agency was charged with the care of the refugees until they could be repatriated, compensated, or resettled; UNRWA has, in fact, found itself faced with the job of housing, feeding, and educating people for long periods of time in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. During this period, it has had the difficult task of dealing with the competing interests of Israel, the Arab states, and the Palestinian movement.

United Brethren in Christ: see Evangelical United Brethren Church.

Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York, nondenominational, coeducational Christian seminary; opened 1836, chartered 1839. Originally Presbyterian, Union Theological Seminary has been free of denominational control since the early 1890s. It shares cooperative educational programs with Columbia Univ., Jewish Theological Seminary of America, General Theological Seminary, and other institutions. The seminary's Burke Library, the preeminent theological library in the Western Hemisphere, contains over 1 million volumes, including a number of special collections, and is part of the Columbia Univ. library system. Union Theological Seminary was a major contributor to the revival of Protestant theology in the 1930s and 1940s; through the work of such distinguished faculty as Paul Tillich and Reinhold Niebuhr it played important roles in the ecumenical movement and the development of Neo-orthodoxy.

Sutton-in-Ashfield, town (1991 pop. 39,536), Nottinghamshire, central England. There are lace and hosiery factories, coal mines, and other industries. The Church of St. Mary Magdalene dates partly from the 12th and 14th cent.

Sumer Is Icumen In [M.E.,=summer has (literally: is) come in], an English rota or round composed c.1250. It is the earliest extant example of canon, of six part music, and of ground bass. Four tenor voices are in canon and two bass voices sing the pes, or ground, also in canon. The secular text is in Wessex dialect, and in the same manuscript source, from Reading Abbey in England, is a Latin text to adapt the tune for church use. The attribution to the monk John of Fornsete, who kept the records of Reading Abbey, is no longer credited.

Sinn Féin [Irish,=we, ourselves], Irish nationalist movement. It had its roots in the Irish cultural revival at the end of the 19th cent. and the growing nationalist disenchantment with the constitutional Home Rule movement. The founder (1900) was Arthur Griffith, who in 1899 established the first of the patriotic journals, The United Irishman, in which he advocated complete national self-reliance. The movement was not, at first, an overtly political one, nor did it advocate violence. Its method was, rather, one of passive resistance to all things English and included an attempted revival of Irish Gaelic.

In 1905, Sinn Féin was organized politically, but until the outbreak of World War I it gained little strength. The British suppression of the Easter Rebellion of 1916 greatly stimulated its growth. In 1917 many of its leaders, released from internment, met to reorganize under the leadership of Eamon De Valera. In the election of 1918, Sinn Féin put up a candidate for every Irish seat in the British Parliament and won 73 seats. To protest British rule over Ireland, the elected members declined to go to Westminster. Instead, they set up an Irish assembly in Dublin, called the Dáil Éireann, which declared Irish independence. The British attempted to suppress terrorists, led by Michael Collins, by a policy of counterterror and sent (1920) a body of military irregulars, popularly known as the Black and Tans, to reestablish order. The populace rallied to Sinn Féin.

In 1921 the British government yielded and began negotiations to establish the Irish Free State. The partition provisions of the resulting treaty did not, however, satisfy the militant wing of Sinn Féin, represented by De Valera, and civil war ensued. Gradually most of the country became reconciled to the new government, and Sinn Féin virtually came to an end when De Valera withdrew from it in 1927 and entered the Dáil.

In 1938 the few remaining intransigents merged with the Irish Republican Army (IRA), becoming the terrorist organization's political arm in advocating unification of Ireland by force. In 1969, along with the IRA, it split into official and provisional wings. The Marxist-oriented official Sinn Féin eventually became the Workers' Party, while the provisional wing continued to support the provisional IRA's use of terrorist activities to achieve unification. Gerry Adams has headed the latter party since 1983. In 1986, Sinn Féin ended its boycott of Ireland's parliament, with members taking seats for the first time since the parliament was established in 1922.

In late 1994, after the IRA and Protestant militias agreed to a cease-fire, efforts were begun to negotiate a settlement of the Northern Ireland issue. However, the peace process was put in jeopardy by renewed violence on the part of the IRA in 1996. Because of this, negotiations begun in June, 1996, did not include Sinn Féin. Following a renewed cease-fire in July, 1997, the group participated in peace talks begun in September of that year.

In 1998, agreement was reached concerning political restructuring in the province that would allow Protestants and Catholics to govern jointly in a democratically elected assembly. Members of Sinn Féin were elected to the assembly and participated in the province's government, but moderate Protestant leaders insisted on IRA disarmament (finally begun in Oct., 2001) as a condition for Sinn Féin's long-term participation in a broad-based government.

In 2002 the arrest of party members on charges of spying for the IRA led Protestants to call for Sinn Féin's ouster from the government, and home rule was suspended. Elections in Nov., 2003, which made Sinn Féin the largest Irish nationalist party in the assembly, did not lead to the reestablishment of home rule. In 2005 senior party members were accused of sanctioning alleged IRA robberies. Later in 2005, charges stemming from the 2002 case were dropped, and one of the accused spies admitted to being a long-time government informant, prompting charges that the spying case was a politically motivated attempt to aid moderate Protestant Unionists. Sinn Féin remained the largest Catholic party after the Mar., 2007, elections, and later that month Ian Paisley, the Democratic Unionist leader, agreed to enter into a power-sharing government with the party.

Seven Churches in Asia, addressed in the preface of the Book of Revelation. They are the churches of Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia (Lydia), and Laodicea (Phrygia). They are in W Asia Minor.

Saint Martin-in-the-Fields, church in London, England, on Trafalgar Square; built 1721-26 by James Gibbs. It has a Corinthian portico and elaborate spire. It is the prototype for many colonial churches in North America.

Reformed Church in the United States: see Evangelical and Reformed Church.

Reformed Church in America, Protestant denomination founded in colonial times by settlers from the Netherlands and formerly known as the Dutch Reformed Church. The Reformed Church in Holland emerged in the 16th cent., after Calvinism gained influence in the northern provinces of the Netherlands. In 1571 a synod held at Emden laid the foundation for the Reformed Church. A liturgy was formulated along Reformation lines, and a modified Presbyterian form of polity was adopted. The Belgic Confession of Faith (1561) and the Heidelberg Catechism (1563) were made the basis of the new church; later, the canons of the Synod of Dort (1619) were added. After 1581, when the northern provinces of the Netherlands declared their independence from Spain, the Reformed Church grew even stronger.

In America, the early Dutch settlers in New Netherland held informal meetings for worship until Jonas Michaelius organized (1628) a congregation in New Amsterdam, called the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church. Four churches in New York City (the Fort Washington Collegiate Church, Middle Collegiate Church, Marble Collegiate Church, and West End Collegiate Church) are descendants of this early activity. Until the English conquest of New Netherland in 1664, the Reformed Church was the established church of the colony. After that, while still owing ecclesiastical allegiance to the classis (i.e., governing body) of Amsterdam in Holland, the church gave civil allegiance to England. However, the church continued to expand.

Permission was given (1747) to form an assembly in America, which in 1754 declared itself independent of the classis of Amsterdam. This American classis secured a charter (1766) for Queens College (now Rutgers Univ.) in New Jersey. The appointment (1784) of John Henry Livingston as professor of theology marked the beginning of the New Brunswick Theological Seminary. In 1792 a formal constitution was adopted; in 1794 the Reformed Church held its first general synod; and in 1867 the present name became the official one.

The church embraces many of the historic colonial churches of New York and New Jersey, the denominational stronghold; fresh immigration from the Netherlands in the mid-19th cent. led to the development of the church in the Midwest. Hope College and Western Theological Seminary were founded in Holland, Mich., and Central College at Pella, Iowa. In 1857 a group of Dutch settlers in Michigan separated from the Reformed Church and organized the Christian Reformed Church; in 1922 that body received most of the American congregation of the Reformed Church of Hungary.

A small part of the Eureka classis, organized in 1910 in South Dakota, continued as the Reformed Church in the United States after the majority of the body merged (1934) into the Evangelical and Reformed Church, which joined (1961) the Congregational Christian Churches to become the United Church of Christ. The Reformed Church in America, which has long been active in the foreign mission field, numbers about 305,000 (1997). Several attempts at unification between the Reformed Church and other Reformed and Presbyterian groups have proved unsuccessful.

Queenborough-in-Sheppey, town (1991 pop. 33,362), on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent, SE England, at the confluence of the Medway and Thames rivers. Radios, furniture, glass, rubber products, and clothing are made in the vicinity, which also has a beach resort. In nearby Sheerness, captured by the Dutch in 1667, were government dockyards built under Charles II; they closed in 1958.

Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), international organization established as the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) in 1973, during the cold war, to promote East-West cooperation. Headquarters are in Prague, Czech Republic. The CSCE's 1975 meeting in Helsinki, Finland, ratified the acts commonly known as the Helsinki Accords, which were signed by every European nation (except Albania, which did so later) and the United States and Canada. The OSCE is responsible for reviewing the implementation of those accords. Since the end of the cold war, it has also aimed to foster peace, prosperity, and justice in Europe. There are now 56 OSCE members, including all European nations, all former republics of the Soviet Union, and the United States and Canada.

The Helsinki Accords held the post-World War II European border arrangements to be permanent, and the signers agreed to respect the human rights and civic freedoms of their citizens, as well as to undertake various forms of international cooperation. Although the nonbinding accords did not have treaty status, they were the first international agreement signed by the Soviet Union to mention the rights of free speech and travel. The human-rights provisions had a significant role in galvanizing Soviet and other Eastern European dissidents in the late 1970s, who organized committees to monitor compliance with the Helsinki Accords. Subsequent conferences have been held in various European cities. At the 1990 Paris summit, leaders of the member nations signed a declaration respecting the territorial integrity of Europe, an act that signaled the end of the cold war; limitations were also placed on the size of conventional forces in Europe. An additional agreement in 1992 and a revised treaty in 1999 placed further limitations on conventional forces.

O'Faoláin, Seán, 1900-1991, Irish writer. The relation of the individual to society was often the theme of his novels and stories. He frequently wrote about Ireland, analyzing the nation's agony in adjusting past history with present reality. O'Faoláin was probably best known for his short stories, collected in such volumes as Midsummer Night Madness (1932), The Man Who Invented Sin (1948), The Heat of the Sun (1966), and The Talking Trees (1971). Among his novels are A Nest of Simple Folk (1933) and Come Back to Erin (1940). His nonfiction works include biographies of De Valera (1933) and Daniel O'Connell (1938) and several studies of Ireland, notably Song of Ireland (1943) and The Irish (1948).

North Africa, campaigns in, series of military contests for control of North Africa during World War II. The desert war started in 1940 and for more than two years thereafter seesawed between NE Libya and NW Egypt. The almost uniformly level terrain along the coast allowed tanks and aircraft to play dominant roles. Temporary success was always won by the side that first was able to build up air and armored strength, but for a long time neither side could achieve decisive victory.

The Italian Campaign

Italy's entrance into World War II (June 10, 1940) made N Africa an active theater in which control of the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean Sea was contested. Fighting began with the rapid Italian occupation of British Somaliland in Aug., 1940. The first of what was to be three Axis drives into Egypt was launched (Sept. 12, 1940) from Libya by Marshal Rodolfo Graziani's Italian forces. By Sept. 17 the Italian drive reached Sidi Barani (c.60 mi/97 km inside Egypt) and then stalled. On Dec. 9, 1940, the British under Gen. Archibald P. Wavell began a surprise counterattack with numerically inferior forces and chased Graziani c.500 mi (805 km) along the coast of Cyrenaica to El Agheila (Feb. 8, 1941).

Rommel's Offensives

The collapse of the Italian army forced Germany to reinforce its ally with the Afrika Korps under Gen. Erwin Rommel. The British had cut their strength in Africa to send troops to Greece, and in April Rommel was able to drive them back to the border of Egypt. The Australian garrison at Tobruk in Libya managed to hold out. Gen. Claude Auchinleck replaced Wavell. With the new British 8th Army, he attacked and pushed Rommel back to El Agheila (Jan., 1942). A German counterattack forced the British to abandon Benghazi. Auchinleck set up a defense line N of Bir Hacheim at El Gazala, c.100 mi (160 km) within Libya. Rommel moved against this line on May 26, 1942. At Knightsbridge (June 13), the British lost 230 out of 300 tanks. Auchinleck retreated c.250 mi (400 km) into Egypt where he dug in along a 35-mi (56-km) line from El Alamein on the coast to the Qattara Depression (an impassable badland), only c.70 mi (112 km) from Alexandria. This time, Tobruk fell on June 21. Both sides now raced to build up strength. Gen. Sir Harold Alexander replaced Auchinleck, and Gen. Bernard L. Montgomery took direct command of the 8th Army. Rommel's attempt to break through failed.

Allied Counterattacks

On Oct. 23, 1942, the greatly reinforced British forces launched their own offensive (for an account of the fighting, see Alamein). To save his forces Rommel began one of the longest sustained retreats in history. Frustrating British attempts to engage him, he abandoned Tripoli, which fell to the British on Jan. 23, 1943. Rommel ended his retreat only when he took up a defensive position along the Mareth Line in S Tunisia.

Meanwhile, American and British forces landed (night of Nov. 7-8, 1942) at Algiers, Oran, and Casablanca, thus occupying the territory to the west of Rommel. Under the command of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Allied forces pushed toward Tunisia. The Germans, however, rushed reinforcements from Italy. Axis forces in Tunisia now faced the British 8th Army in the south, Eisenhower's force on the west, and the Free French in the southwest; but the hilly terrain favored the defense. German counterattacks in Tunisia pushed west through Faid Pass (Feb. 14, 1943) and Kasserine Pass (a week later), from which they were dislodged only after heavy fighting. In the south the Allies forced Rommel from the Mareth Line and moved up the coast to take Sousse in April.

At the beginning of May, the Axis defense crumbled, and on May 7, 1943, the Americans took Bizerta and the British took Tunis. About a quarter of a million Axis soldiers capitulated on May 12. In E Africa the fighting had earlier resulted in complete British victory; by 1942, Italian and British Somaliland, Eritrea, and Ethiopia were reconquered.

Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences: see Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel under Nobel Prize.

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America, cooperative agency of 35 Protestant, Orthodox, and Anglican denominations. Formed in 1950, with headquarters in New York City, the National Council of Churches is the chief instrument of the ecumenical movement in the United States with a combined membership of around 52 million. It is the national counterpart of the World Council of Churches. Not a governing body, it promotes through a number of activities general spiritual welfare and interchurch cooperation. It has four principal divisions: Education, Communication and Discipleship; Church World Service and Witness; Prophetic Justice; and Unity and Relationships. Under the sponsorship of the NCCC the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible was released in 1990 after 15 years of intense work.

Mašin, Draga: see Draga.

Islam in Africa, the development of the Muslim religion on the African continent.

During Muhammad's lifetime a group of Muslims escaped Meccan persecution (615) by fleeing to Ethiopia, where the Negus gave them protection. The spread of Islam in Africa began in the 7th and 8th cent. with the Umayyads, who brought the religion to the Middle East and to the littoral of North Africa. Along the coast of Africa Islam spread among the Berbers, who joined the Muslim community and almost immediately drove north across the Mediterranean into Europe. In Morocco, Muslims founded the city of Fès (808), which soon thereafter gave refuge to Andalusian Muslims fleeing an uprising in Córdoba (see Idrisids). On the east coast of Africa, where Arab mariners had for many years journeyed to trade, Arabs founded permanent colonies on the offshore islands, especially on Zanzibar, in the 9th and 10th cent. From there Arab trade routes into the interior of Africa helped the slow acceptance of Islam and led to the development of Swahili culture and language.

Prior to the 19th cent. the greatest gains made by Islam were in the lands immediately south of the Sahara. The Islamization of W Africa began when the ancient kingdom of Ghana (c.990) extended itself into the Sahara and the Islamic center at Sanhajah. Mansa Musa (1307-32) of Mali was among the first to make Islam the state religion. By the 16th cent. the empire of Mali and its successor-state Songhaj included several Saharan centers of trade and Muslim learning, such as Timbuktu. In the region of the E Sudan, Islamic penetration followed the route of the Nile. By about 1366, Makurra, the more northerly of the two Christian kingdoms of the E Sudan, became Islamic. The other kingdom, Aloa, was captured (c.1504) by the Muslims.

In the 16th cent. the Somali conqueror Ahmad Gran unsuccessfully attempted to convert Ethiopia to Islam. In the late 18th and early 19th cent., Africa, like the rest of the Muslim world, was swept by a wave of religious reform. Militant reformers, such as the Fulani and the followers of Hajj Omar, greatly extended the area over which Islam held sway in W Africa. Usumanu dan Fodio (1809) founded the Sokoto caliphate, which was eventually incorporated under British rule into Nigeria.

The Muslim brotherhoods also gained many new converts (see Sanusi). European colonialists in many cases adopted Muslim law as a unifying administrative structure, rather than the indigenous and often competing tribal customs of their artificially demarcated colonies. Islam in Africa has to varying degrees incorporated tribal and pre-Islamic practices, and the Muslims of Africa have accepted claims of several self-proclaimed Mahdis. In the 20th cent. Islam has gained more converts in Africa than has Christianity, which labors under the burden of identification with European imperialism.

Induráin, Miguel (Miguel Angel Induráin-Larraya), 1964-, Spanish bicycle racer. In a career lasting from 1985 to 1997, he dominated European racing, winning the Tour de France, the sport's best-known competition, five years in row (1991-95), becoming the first to win that many consecutively. Induráin was noted for his leg power and excelled in short time trials; he won the gold medal in the time trial at the 1996 Summer Olympic games.

In, symbol for the element indium.

Gloria in excelsis [Lat.,=glory in the highest], the Angelic Hymn or greater doxology, ancient Christian hymn beginning, according to the Authorized Version, "Glory be to God on high, and on earth, peace, goodwill towards men." An amplification of Luke 2.14, the hymn was of Greek origin and took its place in the Roman Mass about the beginning of the 6th cent. In the Latin Mass it follows the Kyrie.

Gault, in re, case decided in 1967 by the U.S. Supreme Court. Fifteen-year-old Gerald Gault had been found a delinquent by an Arizona juvenile court and sentenced to the state industrial school for up to six years for having made allegedly obscene telephone calls to a female neighbor. Under the juvenile code Gault had been denied notice of the charges, right to counsel, right to confront and cross-examine witnesses, and the privilege against self-incrimination. In overturning the juvenile court's decision the Supreme Court ruled that these rights were fundamental to a fair trial and could not be denied to children. Justice Abe Fortas's opinion noted that although juvenile courts were originally set up to benefit children, the discrepancy between theory and reality required procedural safeguards.

	home	stones	name	tongue
Old	hääm	stää' näs	nä' mä	t&oo͝;ng' gə
Middle	hôm	stô' nəz	nä' mə	t&oo͝;ng' gə
Modern	hōm	stōnz	nām	tŭng

Brethren in Christ: see River Brethren.

Barrow-in-Furness, city (1991 pop. 50,174) and district, Cumbria, NW England, on the tip of the Furness peninsula. The port of Barrow has c.300 acres (121 hectares) of docks, and shipbuilding is an important industry, although much reduced in scale now. Barrow is also one of the principal engineering cities of Britain. There are diesel-engine factories, smelting works, sawmills, flour and paper mills, and industries associated with offshore gas fields. Deposits of iron ore, discovered in the late 19th cent. and responsible for Barrow's growth, have since been depleted. The ruins of the medieval Furness Abbey, England's second largest abbey, are nearby. The district of Barrow includes four adjacent islands.

Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel: see under Nobel Prize; for a table of the winners of the prize, see Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (table).

Year	Recipient(s)
1969	Ragnar Frisch Jan Tinbergen
1970	Paul A. Samuelson
1971	Simon Kuznets
1972	Sir John R. Hicks Kenneth J. Arrow
1973	Wassily Leontief
1974	Gunnar Myrdal Friedrich A. von Hayek
1975	Leonid V. Kantorovich Tjalling C. Koopmans
1976	Milton Friedman
1977	James E. Meade Bertil Ohlin
1978	Herbert A. Simon
1979	Sir Arthur Lewis Theodore W. Schultz
1980	Lawrence R. Klein
1981	James Tobin
1982	George J. Stigler
1983	Gerard Debreu
1984	Richard Stone
1985	Franco Modigliani
1986	James M. Buchanan
1987	Robert M. Solow
1988	Maurice Allais
1989	Trygve Haavelmo
1990	Harry M. Markowitz William F. Sharpe Merton H. Miller
1991	Ronald H. Coase
1992	Gary S. Becker
1993	Robert W. Fogel Douglass C. North
1994	John F. Nash John C. Hasranyi Reinhard Selten
1995	Robert E. Lucas, Jr.
1996	William S. Vickrey James A. Mirrlees
1997	Robert C. Merton Myron S. Scholes
1998	Amartya Sen
1999	Robert A. Mundell
2000	James J. Heckman Daniel L. McFadden
2001	George A. Akerlof A. Michael Spence Joseph E. Stiglitz
2002	Daniel Kahneman Vernon L. Smith
2003	Robert F. Engle Clive W. J. Granger
2004	Finn E. Kydland Edward C. Prescott
2005	Robert J. Aumann Thomas C. Schelling
2006	Edmund S. Phelps

American University in Cairo, at Cairo, Egypt; English language; founded 1919. It has faculties of anthropology, computer science, economics and political science, engineering, English and comparative literature, management, mass communication, psychology, science, and sociology. There is a large adult and continuing education program that offers career training in Arabic-English and Arabic-French translation, as well as business and computer courses. There are also language institutes in Arabic and English and centers for Arabic studies, social research, and desert development.

American Academy in Rome, founded in 1894 as the American School of Architecture in Rome by Charles F. McKim and enlarged in 1897 with the founding of the American Academy in Rome for students of architecture, sculpture, and painting. It was incorporated by act of Congress in 1905. In 1913 its charter was amended to include the American School of Classical Studies in Rome. It annually awards to U.S. citizens competitive fellowships bearing a yearly stipend, a travel allowance, and residence in Rome. Fellowships are granted in architecture, painting, sculpture, music, landscape architecture, and art history.

or glossolalia

Utterances approximating words and speech that are nonetheless generally unintelligible, usually produced during states of trance or delirium. The religious interpretation of the phenomenon is that the speaker is possessed by a supernatural spirit, is in conversation with divine beings, or is the channel of a divine proclamation. Speaking in tongues occurred in ancient Greek religion and is mentioned in the New Testament. According to The Acts of the Apostles, it first occurred among followers of Jesus at Pentecost and reappeared wherever conversion to Christianity occurred. St. Paul claimed to have been adept at it but urged restraint in the practice. Today it is mainly associated with charismatic Protestant movements such as Pentecostalism.

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or arena stage

Theatre in which the stage is located in the centre of the auditorium with the audience seated on all sides. The form evolved from Greek theatre and was used in medieval times. From the 17th century the proscenium stage limited audience seating to the area directly in front of the stage. In the 1930s, plays at Moscow's Realistic Theatre were produced in the round and the arena stage began to gain favour in Europe and the U.S. Its advantages are its informality and the rapport it creates between audience and actors, but it requires actors to turn constantly to address new sections of the audience.

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In Britain, a regulation traditionally issued by the sovereign on the advice of the Privy Council. In modern practice, an order is issued only on the advice of ministers, and the minister in charge of the department concerned with the order's subject matter is responsible to Parliament for its contents. Most orders in council today are issued to implement legislation passed by Parliament.

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North American plant (Arisaema triphyllum) of the arum family, noted for the unusual shape of its flower. One of the best-known perennial wildflowers of late spring in the eastern U.S. and Canada, it grows in wet woodlands and thickets from Nova Scotia to Minnesota and south to Florida and Texas. Three-part leaves on each of two long stalks overshadow the flower, which consists of a conspicuous green- and purple-striped structure called a spathe (“pulpit”) that rises on a separate stalk. The spathe curves in a hood over a club-shaped spadix (“jack”) that, at its base, bears minute flowers. In late summer the plant produces a cluster of brilliant red berries that are poisonous to humans but are eaten by many wild animals.

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or test-tube conception

Procedure, used to overcome infertility, in which eggs are removed from a woman, fertilized with sperm outside the body, and inserted into the uterus of the same or another woman. The first child thus conceived was born in 1978. IVF includes extraction of eggs, collection of sperm, fertilization in culture, and introduction into the uterus at the eight-cell stage. In a successful procedure, the embryo is implanted in the uterine wall, and pregnancy begins. The most common problem is failed implantation. IVF has been a source of moral, ethical, and religious controversy since its development.

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Unit of measure equal to 1/36 yard and since 1959 defined officially as 2.54 cm (see metre). David I of Scotland (circa 1150) defined the inch as the breadth of a man's thumb at the base of the nail; usually the thumb breadths of three men—one small, one medium, and one large—were added and then divided by three. During the reign of England's Edward II, the inch was defined as “three grains of barley, dry and round, placed end to end lengthwise.” At various times it has also been defined as the combined lengths of 12 poppy seeds. Seealso foot; International System of Units; measurement; metric system.

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Metallic chemical element, chemical symbol In, atomic number 49. Of a brilliant, silvery-white lustre, it is so soft that it can be scratched with a fingernail. Its most common isotope, indium-115, is very weakly radioactive, with a half-life measured in billions of years. Like tin, the pure metal emits a high-pitched “cry” when bent, and, like gallium, molten indium wets glass and other surfaces, which makes it valuable for producing seals between glass, metals, quartz, ceramics, and marble. The metal is used in coating high-performance engine bearings and is an ingredient in low-melting-point alloys for sprinkler heads, fire-door links, and fusible plugs. In various combinations with elements such as gallium, phosphorus, and arsenic, it forms compounds having semiconductor properties useful in electronics, including solid-state light-emitting devices. Transparent electrodes made from an oxide of indium and tin are widely employed in liquid crystal displays.

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