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  • Bandaka (people)
    ...practicing shifting cultivation have been present in the Ituri for 2,000 years or more. Most of these peoples, including the Bila, Budu, and Ndaka, speak one of the numerous Bantu languages spoken in sub-Saharan Africa, but others, such as the Mamvu and Lese, speak tonal Central Sudanic dialects. In general, the agriculturalists live in......
  • Bandama River (river, Côte d’Ivoire)
    longest and, commercially, most important river in Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast); with its major tributaries, the Red Bandama (Marahoué) and the Nzi, it drains half of the surface area of the country. It rises as the White Bandama in the northern highlands and flows southward for 497 miles (800 km) to ent...
  • Bandamanna saga (Icelandic saga)
    ...is prosecuted and later put to death. Ölkofra tháttr (the term tháttr is often used for a short story) and Bandamanna saga (“The Confederates’ Saga”) satirize chieftains who fail in their duty to guard the integrity of the law and try to turn other people’s mistakes into ...
  • Bandar (India)
    city, eastern Andhra Pradesh state, southern India. Masulipatam was the first British trading settlement (1611) on the Bay of Bengal. From 1686 to 1759 the city was held by the French and Dutch, until it was finally ceded to the British, who captured the city and fort from the French in 1759. The ruined fort is still a point of interest. The...
  • Bandar ʿAbbās (Iran)
    port city on the Strait of Hormuz, the main maritime outlet for much of southern Iran. It lies on the northern shore of Hormuz Bay opposite the islands of Qeshm, Lārak, and Hormuz. The inhabitants are mainly Arabs and African blacks. The summer climate is oppressively hot and humid, and many inhabitants then move to...
  • Bandar Lampung (Indonesia)
    port city, kotamadya (municipality), and capital of Lampung propinsi (province), Indonesia. It lies at the head of Lampung Bay on the south coast of Sumatra. Bandar Lampung was created in the 1980s from the amalgamation of the former provincial capital, Tanjungkarang, with the port of Telukbetung. The city’s ...
  • Bandar Maharani (Malaysia)
    town and port on the southwestern coast of Peninsular (West) Malaysia. It lies along the strait of Malacca, at the mouth of the Muar River. An old town, it was occupied by the end of the 14th century ad by Parameswara, founder of the Malay kingdom of Malacca (Melaka). Naval battles involving neighbouring sultanates and kingdoms were fought at Muar in 1517, 1615, and 1616. The present...
  • Bandar Penggaram (Malaysia)
    port, Peninsular (West) Malaysia (Malaya), on the Strait of Malacca at the mouth of the Batu Pahat River. It is a fishing town and a distribution centre; and, until the completion of a bridge in 1968, it was a ferry point for road traffic across the river. Sago palms, rubber, coconuts, and fruit are grown ...
  • Bandar Seri Begawan (Brunei)
    capital of Brunei. The city lies along the Brunei River near its mouth on Brunei Bay, an inlet of the South China Sea on the northern coast of the island of Borneo. Bandar Seri Begawan was once predominantly an agricultural trade centre and river port. After suffering extensive damage during World War II, it was largely re...
  • Bandar Sri Aman (Malaysia)
    market town and port, East Malaysia (northwestern Borneo), on the Lupar River. Situated in one of the few major agricultural areas of Sarawak, it is a trade centre for timber, oil palms, rubber, and pepper. Sri Aman has an airstrip and a road link to K...
  • Bandar-e ʿAbbās (Iran)
    port city on the Strait of Hormuz, the main maritime outlet for much of southern Iran. It lies on the northern shore of Hormuz Bay opposite the islands of Qeshm, Lārak, and Hormuz. The inhabitants are mainly Arabs and African blacks. The summer climate is oppressively hot and humid, and many inhabitants then move to...
  • Bandar-e Būshehr (Iran)
    port city, southwestern Iran. It lies near the head of the Persian Gulf at the northern end of a flat and narrow peninsula that is connected with the mainland by tidal marshes. Bandar-e Būshehr rose to prominence during the reign of Nāder Shāh when he established a naval base there in ...
  • Bandaranaike, Anura P. S. D. (Sri Lankan politician)
    Bandaranaike’s children, in the meantime, had become major political figures within the SLFP. Her son, Anura P.S.D. Bandaranaike (b. 1949), was first elected to parliament in 1977 and had become the leader of the SLFP’s right-wing faction by 1984. He was frustrated in his bid to become the party’s leader, however, by his sister Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga (b. 1945), who...
  • Bandaranaike, Chandrika (president of Sri Lanka)
    member of a prominent Sri Lankan political family, who was the first woman to serve as the country’s president (1994–2005)....
  • Bandaranaike, S. W. R. D. (prime minister of Sri Lanka)
    statesman and prime minister of Ceylon (1956–59), whose election marked a significant change in the political history of modern Ceylon....
  • Bandaranaike, Sirimavo R. D. (prime minister of Sri Lanka)
    stateswoman who, upon her party’s victory in the 1960 Ceylon general election, became the world’s first woman prime minister. She left office in 1965 but returned to serve two more terms (1970–77, 1994–2000) as prime minister. The family she founded with her late husband, S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, ro...
  • Bandaranaike, Sirimavo Ratwatte Dias (prime minister of Sri Lanka)
    stateswoman who, upon her party’s victory in the 1960 Ceylon general election, became the world’s first woman prime minister. She left office in 1965 but returned to serve two more terms (1970–77, 1994–2000) as prime minister. The family she founded with her late husband, S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, ro...
  • Bandaranaike, Solomon West Ridgeway Dias (prime minister of Sri Lanka)
    statesman and prime minister of Ceylon (1956–59), whose election marked a significant change in the political history of modern Ceylon....
  • Bande Mātaram (song by Chatterjee)
    ...his voice was that of a prophet; his valiant Hindu heroes aroused their patriotism and pride of race. In him nationalism and Hinduism merged as one; and his creed was epitomized in the song “Bande Mātaram” (“Hail to thee, Mother”)—from his novel Ānandamaṭh—which later became the mantra (“hymn”) and slogan...
  • banded anteater (marsupial)
    (Myrmecobius fasciatus), marsupial mammal of the family Dasyuridae (some authorities classify it as a family in its own right, Myrmecobiidae). It forages by day for termites in forests of southwestern Australia. Formerly widespread across southern Australia, the numbat is now restricted to the southwestern corner of t...
  • banded cat-eyed snake (reptile)
    ...of the New World tropics are superficially similar to Old World cat snakes. Ten species of cat-eyed snakes occur in dry habitats from Mexico to Argentina. The most common species is the banded cat-eyed snake (L. annulata), which is found over the entire range of the genus. These snakes are light brown in colour with dark brown spots or blotches on the......
  • banded coal (coal classification)
    The term coal type is also employed to distinguish between banded coals and nonbanded coals (see table). Banded coals contain varying amounts of vitrinite and opaque material. They include bright coal, which contains more than 80 percent vitrinite, and splint coal, which contains more than 30 percent opaque matter. The nonbanded varieties include boghead coal, which has a high......
  • banded duiker (mammal)
    The term coal type is also employed to distinguish between banded coals and nonbanded coals (see table). Banded coals contain varying amounts of vitrinite and opaque material. They include bright coal, which contains more than 80 percent vitrinite, and splint coal, which contains more than 30 percent opaque matter. The nonbanded varieties include boghead coal, which has a high.........
  • banded gabbroic complex (geology)
    Banded, or layered, gabbroic complexes in which monomineral or bimineral varieties are well developed have been described from Montana, the Bushveld in South Africa, and the island of Skye. There are also gabbro complexes that are locally streaky and inhomogeneous and are not regularly layered, as the large, basinlike intrusion at Sudbury,......
  • banded gecko (reptile)
    Geckos are abundant throughout the warm areas of the world, and at least a few species occur on all continents except Antarctica. The banded gecko (Coleonyx variegatus), the most widespread native North American species, grows to 15 cm (6 inches) and is pinkish to yellowish tan with darker bands and splotches. The tokay gecko (Gekko......
  • banded krait (snake)
    The banded krait (Bungarus fasciatus) of Southeast Asia grows to 2 metres (6.6 feet), and other species commonly reach more than a metre in length. All have bodies that are strongly triangular in cross-section. Some are boldly coloured in bands of black and white or yellow; others are dark-bodied with a brightly......
  • banded linsang (mammal)
    any of three species of long-tailed, catlike mammals belonging to the civet family (Viverridae). The African linsang (Poiana richardsoni), the banded linsang (Prionodon linsang), and the spotted linsang (Prionodon pardicolor) vary in colour, but all resemble......
  • banded mongoose (mammal)
    ...and are terrestrial, although the marsh mongoose (Atilax paludinosus) and a few others are semiaquatic. Some mongooses live alone or in pairs, but others, such as the banded mongoose (Mungos mungo), dwarf mongooses (genus Helogale), and meerkats, live in large groups. Litters usually consist of two to four......
  • banded rattlesnake (reptile)
    The most common species in North America are the timber rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus) of the eastern United States, the prairie rattlesnake (C. viridis) of the western United States, and the eastern and western diamondbacks......
  • banded stilt (bird)
    The banded, or red-breasted, stilt (Cladorhynchus leucocephala), of Australia, is white with brown wings, reddish breast band, and yellowish legs. ...
  • banded tenrec (mammal)
    ...setosus, respectively) have densely spined upperparts and can curl into a protective ball. The lesser hedgehog tenrec weighs up to 250 grams and has a body up to 18 cm long. The streaked tenrec is about the same size; its fur consists of detachable barbed spines and coarse hairs. The common, or tailless, tenrec (Tenrec ecaudatus) is the largest,......
  • banded tiger heron (bird)
    The most primitive herons are the six species of tiger herons (formerly called tiger bitterns), shy, solitary birds with cryptic, often barred, plumage. The lined, or banded, tiger heron (Tigrisoma lineatum), 75 cm (30 inches) long, of central and northern South America, is a well-known example. Another is the Mexican, or bare-throated, tiger heron (T. mexicanum) of Mexico and......
  • banded woolly bear (insect larva)
    ...Isia isabella), emerges in spring and attains a wingspan of 37 to 50 mm (1.5 to 2 inches). Black spots mark its abdomen and yellow wings. The larva, known as the banded woolly bear, is brown in the middle and black at both ends. According to superstition the length of the black ends predicts the severity of the coming winter: the shorter the black ends, the......
  • banded-iron formation (geology)
    chemically precipitated sediment, typically thin bedded or laminated, consisting of 15 percent or more iron of sedimentary origin and layers of chert, chalcedony, jasper, or quartz. Such formations occur on all the continents and usually are older than 1.7 billion years. They also are highly metamorphosed. Most BIFs contain iron oxides—hematite with secondary magnetite, goethite, and limoni...
  • bandeira (Brazilian history)
    Portuguese slave-hunting expedition into the Brazilian interior in the 17th century. The bandeirantes (members of such expeditions) were usually mamelucos (of mixed Indian and Portuguese ancestry) from São Paulo who went in search of profit and adventure as they penetrated into unmapped regions. They thus helped establish Brazil’s claim to the South American interior, beyond ...
  • bandeira (Portuguese guild)
    any of the organized guilds that were founded during the Moorish occupation of Portugal (714–1249) by men who worked in the same craft and who generally lived on the same street in a given city. Each guild selected a patron saint, usually one who had shared its profession, and designed a banner with the saint depicte...
  • Bandeira Filho, Manuel Carneiro de Sousa (Brazilian poet)
    poet who was one of the principal figures in the Brazilian literary movement known as Modernismo....
  • Bandeira, Manuel (Brazilian poet)
    poet who was one of the principal figures in the Brazilian literary movement known as Modernismo....
  • Bandeira Peak (mountain, Brazil)
    peak on the border of Espírito Santo and Minas Gerais estados (states), eastern Brazil. It is part of the Caparaó mountain range and lies about 100 miles (160 km) inland from Vitória city on the Atlantic coast. Until 1962, when ...
  • Bandeira, Pico da (mountain, Brazil)
    peak on the border of Espírito Santo and Minas Gerais estados (states), eastern Brazil. It is part of the Caparaó mountain range and lies about 100 miles (160 km) inland from Vitória city on the Atlantic coast. Until 1962, when ...
  • bandeirante (Brazilian history)
    ...two centuries of Brazilian colonization, little attention was paid to the nearly inaccessible and seemingly unproductive highlands, although parties of explorers, known as bandeirantes, traversed them from time to time, capturing Indians for slaves and searching for precious metals and stones. Some of.....
  • Bandelier, Adolph (American anthropologist)
    Swiss-American anthropologist, historian, and archaeologist who was among the first to study the American Indian cultures of the southwestern United States, Mexico, and Peru-Bolivia. His works, particularly those relating to the Southwest and Peru-Boli...
  • Bandelier National Monument (monument, New Mexico, United States)
    archaeological area and scenic wilderness of the Pajarito Plateau in north-central New Mexico, U.S. It lies along the Rio Grande 20 miles (32 km) west-northwest of Santa Fe. Established in 1916, it occupies an area of 53 square miles (137 square km) and was named for Adolph Bandelier, the Swiss American archaeologist who, ...
  • Bandello, Matteo (Italian author and bishop)
    Italian writer whose Novelle (stories) started a new trend in 16th-century narrative literature and had a wide influence in England, France, and Spain....
  • bandeng (fish)
    (Chanos chanos), silvery marine food fish that is the only living member of the family Chanidae (order Gonorhynchiformes). Fossils of this family date from as far back as the Cretaceous Period (144 to 66.4 million years ago). The milkfish is of...
  • Bandera, Stepan (Ukrainian political leader)
    ...rent by factional strife between the followers of Andry Melnyk, who headed the organization from abroad after the assassination of Konovalets by a Soviet agent in 1938, and the younger supporters of Stepan Bandera with actual experience in the conspiratorial underground. The split became permanent after a congress held in Kraków in February 1940, when the Melnyk and Bandera factions......
  • Banderas, Antonio (Spanish actor)
    Spanish-born film actor whose good looks, sensuality, and emotional range made him a leading international star....
  • Banderas, José Antonio Domínguez (Spanish actor)
    Spanish-born film actor whose good looks, sensuality, and emotional range made him a leading international star....
  • banderilla
    ...the mounted assistants with pike poles who lance the bull in the bullfight’s first act; the banderilleros, the assistants on foot who execute the initial capework and place the barbed darts (banderillas) into the bull in the second act; and of course the matadors, who work the bull and eventually kill it in the bullfight’s final act. Six bulls are usually killed during each corrid...
  • banderillero
    ...a word that harkens back to the days of mounted bullfighters), consist of the picadors, the mounted assistants with pike poles who lance the bull in the bullfight’s first act; the banderilleros, the assistants on foot who execute the initial capework and place the barbed darts (banderillas) into the bull in the second act; and of course the matadors, who work the bull and......
  • Banderoles, Master of the (German artist)
    ...For shading he used slightly diagonal parallel cuts. The Master of the Playing Cards heralds the beginning of a century of great printmakers in Germany. Another significant engraver, the Master of the Banderoles, was named after the ribbon scrolls characteristic of his prints, which are more decorative than those of the Master of the Playing Cards....
  • bandfish
    ...46 species.Superfamily Cepoloidea 1 or 2 included families.Family Cepolidae (bandfishes)Eocene to present. Cepolids are marine, deepwater fishes, basslike, but large mouth is oblique, eyes large, and dorsal and anal fins long, con...
  • bandgap (physics)
    As stated above, the thermal properties of superconductors indicate that there is a gap in the distribution of energy levels available to the electrons, and so a finite amount of energy, designated as delta (Δでるた), must be supplied to an electron to excite it. This energy is maximum (designated Δでるた0) at absolute zero and changes little with increase of temperature until the......
  • bāndhanī work (Indian fabric art)
    Indian tie dyeing, or knot dyeing, in which parts of a silk or cotton cloth are tied tightly with wax thread before the whole cloth is dipped in a dye vat; the threads are afterward untied, the parts so protected being left uncoloured. The technique is used in many part...
  • Bandiagara Escarpment (Mali)
    ...family, but its relationship to other languages of the family, if any, is uncertain. The Dogon number about 600,000, and the majority of them live in the rocky hills, mountains, and plateaus of the Bandiagara Escarpment. They are mainly an agricultural people; their few craftsmen, largely metalworkers and leatherworkers, form distinct castes. They have no centralized system of government but......
  • bandicoot (marsupial)
    any of about 22 species of Australasian marsupial mammals comprising the family Peramelidae. (For Asian rodents of this name, see bandicoot rat.) Bandicoots are 30 to 80 cm (12 to 31 inches) long, including the 10- to 30-centimetre (4- to 12-inch) sparsely haired tail. The body is stout and coarse haired, the muzzle tapered, and the hind limbs longer than the front. The ...
  • bandicoot rat (rodent)
    any of five Asiatic species of rodents closely associated with human populations. The greater bandicoot rat (Bandicota indica) is the largest, weighing 0.5 to 1 kg (1.1 to 2.2 pounds). The shaggy, blackish brown body is 19 to 33 cm (7.5 to 13 inches) long, not including a scantily haired tail of about the same length. Greater ...
  • Bandicota bengalensis (rodent)
    The lesser bandicoot rat (B. bengalensis) and Savile’s bandicoot rat (B. savilei) have dark brown or brownish gray body fur, weigh up to 350 grams, and measure up to 40 cm long including their brown tails. The lesser bandicoot rat is found on the Indian subcontinent, Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon), and Myanmar...
  • Bandicota indica (rodent)
    any of five Asiatic species of rodents closely associated with human populations. The greater bandicoot rat (Bandicota indica) is the largest, weighing 0.5 to 1 kg (1.1 to 2.2 pounds). The shaggy, blackish brown body is 19 to 33 cm (7.5 to 13 inches) long, not including a scantily haired tail of about the same length. Greater bandicoot......
  • Bandicota savilei (rodent)
    The lesser bandicoot rat (B. bengalensis) and Savile’s bandicoot rat (B. savilei) have dark brown or brownish gray body fur, weigh up to 350 grams, and measure up to 40 cm long including their brown tails. The lesser bandicoot rat is found on the Indian subcontinent, Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon), and Myanmar...
  • Bandiera, Attilio (Italian revolutionary)
    The sons of Baron Francesco Bandiera, an admiral in the Austrian navy, Attilio and Emilio themselves became naval officers but were converted to the cause of Italian independence by Mazzini, carrying on correspondence with him and with members of his organization, Giovine Italia (Young Italy). In 1841, while serving in the war with Syria......
  • Bandiera brothers (Italian revolutionaries)
    Italian brothers who were followers of Giuseppe Mazzini and who led an abortive revolt against Austrian rule in Italy. Attilio Bandiera (b. May 24, 1810Venice [Italy]—d. July 23, 1844Cosenza, Kingdom of Naples)...
  • Bandiera, Emilio (Italian revolutionary)
    The sons of Baron Francesco Bandiera, an admiral in the Austrian navy, Attilio and Emilio themselves became naval officers but were converted to the cause of Italian independence by Mazzini, carrying on correspondence with him and with members of his organization, Giovine Italia (Young Italy). In 1841, while serving in the war with Syria......
  • Bandiera nera (work by Tobino)
    ...sergente nella neve [1952; The Sergeant in the Snow]). By contrast, there were humorous recollections of provincial life under fascism—for example, Mario Tobino’s Bandiera nera (1950; “Black Flag”) and Goffredo Parise’s Prete bello (1954; “The Handsome Priest”; Eng. trans. The Priest Among...
  • Bandinelli, Baccio (Italian sculptor)
    Florentine Mannerist sculptor whose Michelangelo-influenced works were favoured by the Medici in the second quarter of the 16th century....
  • Bandinelli, Rolando (pope)
    pope from 1159 to 1181, a vigorous exponent of papal authority, which he defended against challenges by the Holy Roman emperor Frederick Barbarossa and Henry II of England....
  • banding (zoology)
    ...gained through simple, direct field observation (usually aided only by binoculars), some areas of ornithology have benefited greatly from the introduction of such instruments and techniques as bird banding, radar, radio transmitters (telemeters), and high-quality, portable audio equipment....
  • banding (petrology)
    Gneiss is medium- to coarse-grained and may contain abundant quartz and feldspar, which some petrographers regard as essential components. The banding is usually due to the presence of differing proportions of minerals in the various bands; dark and light bands may alternate because of the separation of mafic (dark) and felsic (light) minerals. Banding can also be caused by differing grain......
  • banding pattern (genetics)
    ...character and for evidence of the nonindependent segregation of pairs of characters. The results must be assessed statistically to determine linkage. Individual chromosomes are identified by the banding patterns revealed by different staining techniques. Segments of chromosomes or chromosomes that are aberrant in number and morphology may be precisely identified. Other methods for localizing......
  • Bandini, Domenico (encyclopaedist)
    ...as Suidas was the first such work to be completely arranged alphabetically, but it had no influence on succeeding encyclopaedias, although glossaries, when included, were so arranged. Bandini’s Fons memorabilium universi (“The Source of Noteworthy Facts of the Universe”), though classified, used separate alphabetical orders for more than a quarter ...
  • Bandini, Fernando (Italian author)
    ...Eugenio Montale; the Calabrian Symbolist Lorenzo Calogero, who has been compared to Stéphane Mallarmé, Rainer Marie Rilke, Dino Campana, and Friedrich Hölderlin; experimentalist Fernando Bandini, who was equally at home in Italian and Latin, to say nothing of his ancestral Veneto dialect; and Michele Ranchetti, who between 1938 and 1986 produced a single book of philosophic...
  • Bandırma (Turkey)
    port and town, northwestern Turkey, on the Sea of Marmara. It was used in the 13th century by the Latin crusaders as a base of operation against the Greeks of Asia Minor and was taken by the Ottomans in the next century. Its protected...
  • banditry (theft)
    Armed banditry was on the increase in the northwest. Five persons were kidnapped in early March, three of whom were later found dead. In another incident two doctors and their staff were taken and held for eight days before a ransom was paid. On March 14 the nongovernmental organization Doctors Without Borders suspended their northern......
  • Bandjarmasin (Indonesia)
    kotamadya (municipality) and capital of South Kalimantan propinsi (province), Indonesia. It is situated on Tapas island between the Barito and Martapura rivers on the southern coast of Borneo. The rivers drain the largest plain on Kalimantan. To the east the Meratus Mountains, lac...
  • Bandoeng (Indonesia)
    kotamadya (municipality) and capital of West Java (Jawa Barat) propinsi (province), Indonesia, in the interior of Java on the northern edge of a plateau nearly 2,400 feet (730 metres) above sea level. The city, founded ...
  • Bandol, Jean de (Flemish painter)
    ...1363–1400). This monumental set originally included seven tapestries, each measuring approximately 16.5 feet in height by 80 feet in length (5.03 by 24.38 metres). Based on cartoons drawn by Jean de Bandol of Bruges (flourished 1368–81), the official painter to Charles V, king of France, only 67 of the original 105 scenes have survived. A slightly later series (c. 1385)......
  • Bandon (Ireland)
    town, County Cork, Ireland, 17 miles (27 km) southwest of Cork. Founded in 1608 by Richard Boyle, later Earl of Cork, Bandon was initially populated by English and Scottish settlers. Parts of the original town wall remain; the ruins of a 15th-century castle are nearby. Kilbrogan Church (1610), the first Protestant church built in Ireland, contains the town stocks. Bandon lies in...
  • Bandon, River (river, Ireland)
    river in County Cork, Ireland, flowing in a valley cut in rocks of the Carboniferous period (360 to 286 million years ago) but covered with glacial drift and alluvium. The river rises in the Maughanaclea Hills in western Cork and flows east to a point west of Caha Bridge where it turns south, before turning east again to the southeast of Dunma...
  • bandoneon (musical instrument)
    Accordions are played as both concert and folk instruments. A variant of both the accordion and the concertina is the bandonion, a single- or double-action instrument with square shape and finger buttons, invented by Heinrich Band of Krefeld, Ger., in the mid-1840s. Along with the piano accordion, it is a leading solo instrument in Argentine tango orchestras. For precursors of the free-reed......
  • bandonion (musical instrument)
    Accordions are played as both concert and folk instruments. A variant of both the accordion and the concertina is the bandonion, a single- or double-action instrument with square shape and finger buttons, invented by Heinrich Band of Krefeld, Ger., in the mid-1840s. Along with the piano accordion, it is a leading solo instrument in Argentine tango orchestras. For precursors of the free-reed......
  • bandpass filter (electronics)
    arrangement of electronic components that allows only those electric waves lying within a certain range, or band, of frequencies to pass and blocks all others. The components may be conventional coils and capacitors, or the arrangement may be made up of freely vibrating piezoelectric crystals (crystals that vibrate mechanically at their resonant frequency when excited by an app...
  • bandsaw (tool)
    The vertical bandsaw blade is an endless narrow metal strip, with teeth along one edge, that runs around two large motorized pulleys or wheels that are mounted on a frame so that one is directly above the other. The blade passes through the table on which the work is laid. Blades are available with various sizes of teeth, and on most machines the blade speed can be varied to suit the material......
  • Bandula, Maha (Myanmar general)
    Myanmar general who fought against the British in the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824–26)....
  • Bandundu (Democratic Republic of the Congo)
    city, southwestern Democratic Republic of the Congo, at the junction of the Kwango and Kwilu rivers. It is a river port serving navigation on the Congo River system from Kinshasa (the national capital, 186 miles [300 km] southwest). There are air links to Kinshasa and such eastern centres as Kikwit and Kan...
  • Bandung (Indonesia)
    kotamadya (municipality) and capital of West Java (Jawa Barat) propinsi (province), Indonesia, in the interior of Java on the northern edge of a plateau nearly 2,400 feet (730 metres) above sea level. The city, founded ...
  • Bandung Conference (Asia-Africa [1955])
    a meeting of Asian and African states—organized by Indonesia, Myanmar (Burma), Ceylon (Sri Lanka), India, and Pakistan—which took place April 18–24, 1955, in Bandung, Indonesia. In all, 29 countries representing more than half the world’s population sent delegates....
  • Bandung Institute of Technology (university, Bandung, Indonesia)
    The city’s prestigious Bandung Institute of Technology, which originated as a college of architecture and engineering in the Dutch period, today represents the faculties of mathematics and of the natural and applied sciences of the National University of Indonesia. Also located in Bandung are the Negeri Padyayaran University (1957) and the private Katolik Parahyangan University (1955). Ther...
  • Bandung line (international relations)
    ...which discussed Asian-African issues. His slogan was “Unity with all,” according to the line of peaceful coexistence. This “Bandung line” associated with Zhou gained worldwide attention when he told the delegates there that his government was fully prepared to achieve normal relations with all countries, includin...
  • Bandung Study Club (Indonesian history)
    The defeat of the communist revolt and the earlier decline of Sarekat Islam left the way open for a new nationalist organization, and in 1926 a “general study club” was founded in Bandung, with a newly graduated engineer, Sukarno, as its secretary. The club began to reshape the idea of nationalism in a manner calculated to appeal to Indonesia’s new urban elite. After the failu...
  • bandura (musical instrument)
    a stringed instrument of the psaltery family considered the national musical instrument of Ukraine. It is used chiefly to accompany folk music. The ...
  • Bandura, Albert (American psychologist)
    Canadian-born American psychologist and originator of social cognitive theory who is probably best known for his modeling study on aggression, referred to as the “Bobo doll” experiment, which demonstrated that children can learn behaviours through the observation of adults....
  • bandurria (musical instrument)
    stringed musical instrument of the lute family, with a design derived from the cittern and guitar. The modern bandurria has a small, pear-shaped wooden body, a short neck, and a flat back, with five to seven (but usually six) paired courses of strings that are tuned ...
  • bandwagon effect (social behaviour)
    Critics allege also that election polls create a “bandwagon effect”—that people want to be on the winning side and therefore switch their votes to the candidates whom the polls show to be ahead. They complain that surveys undermine representative democracy, since issues should be decided by elected representatives on the.....
  • bandwidth (electronics)
    in electronics, the range of frequencies occupied by a modulated radio-frequency signal, usually given in hertz (cycles per second) or as a percentage of the radio frequency. For example, an AM (amplitude modulation) broadcasting station operating at 1,000,000 hertz has a bandwidth of 10,000 hertz, or 1 percent (10,000/1,000,000). The term also designates the...
  • bandwidth-limited channel (communications)
    A signal is said to be band-limited or bandwidth-limited if it can be represented by a finite number of harmonics. Engineers limit the bandwidth of signals to enable multiple signals to share the same channel with minimal interference. A key result that pertains to bandwidth-limited signals is Nyquist’s sampling theorem, which states that a signal of bandwidth B can be reconstructed ...
  • bandy (winter sport)
    a game similar to ice hockey. It is played almost exclusively in the Scandinavian countries, the Baltic countries, and Mongolia. A team is composed of from 8 to 11 players who wear skates and use curved sticks to hit a ball. Rink size varies but is characteristically larger than an ice hockey rink (about 100 by 55 m [109 by ...
  • bandy-bandy (snake)
    Australian snake of the cobra family Elapidae, strikingly ringed with black and white or yellowish bands. Adults are about 50–80 cm (20–31 inches) long and are venomous but inoffensive. Five species of Vermicella are recognized....
  • baneberry (plant genus)
    any of about eight species of perennial herbaceous plants constituting the genus Actaea of the buttercup family (Ranunculaceae); they are all native to North Temperate Zone woodlands....
  • Banér, Johan (Swedish military officer)
    Swedish field marshal who was one of the foremost soldiers in the Thirty Years’ War....
  • Banerjea, Sir Surendranath (Indian politician)
    one of the founders of modern India and a proponent of autonomy within the British Commonwealth....

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