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Possible definitions for iaims

ahimsa
(Sanskrit: "noninjury") Fundamental ethical virtue of Jainism, also respected in Buddhism and Hinduism. In Jainism ahimsa is the standard by which all actions are judged. It requires a householder observing the small vows (anuvrata) to refrain from killing any animal life. An ascetic observing the great vows (mahavrata) is expected to take the greatest care not to injure any living substance, even unknowingly. To do so interrupts that being's spiritual progress and increases one's own karma, delaying liberation from the cycle of rebirth. In the 20th cent. M. Gandhi extended ahimsa into the political sphere as satyagraha.


AIDS
Fatal transmissible disorder caused by HIV. AIDS, the last stage of HIV infection, is defined by the appearance of potentially lethal opportunistic infections. The first AIDS cases were identified in 1981, HIV was isolated in 1983, and blood tests were developed by 1985. In 2000, more than 35 million people worldwide were living with HIV, and over 15 million had died of AIDS. In the U.S., some 2 million people had been infected with HIV, 800,000 had been diagnosed with AIDS, and 450,000 had died. Sub-Saharan Africa remains the focus of infection, but the number of cases in S. and S.E. Asia and elsewhere continues to mount at an alarming rate as well. An initial acute illness usually resolves within weeks. Infected persons then generally have few or no symptoms for about 10 years. As the immune system deteriorates, they develop diseases such as Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, cytomegalovirus, lymphoma, or Kaposi's sarcoma.


Amis
British writer and critic. The son of K. Amis, he graduated from Oxford Univ. in 1971. He worked for the Times Literary Supplement and the New Statesman before becoming a full-time writer. His works--incl. the novels The Rachel Papers (1973), Money (1984), London Fields (1989), Time's Arrow (1991), The Information (1995), and Night Train (1998), and the short-story collection Heavy Water (1999)--feature inventive word play and often scabrous humor as they satirize the horrors of modern urban life.


caiman
Any member of several species of Central and S. Amer. reptiles of the alligator family. Like the rest of the crocodile order, caimans are amphibious, lizardlike carnivores. They live along the edges of rivers and other bodies of water, and reproduce by laying hard-shelled eggs in nests built and guarded by the female. The largest species is the black caiman (Melanosuchus niger), a potentially dangerous animal with a maximum length of about 15 ft (4.5 m). Average lengths for the other species (genera Caiman and Paleosuchus) are 4-7 ft (1.2-2.1 m).


caisson
In engineering, a type of foundation most commonly used underwater for a bridge, but sometimes used in building construction. It is a large hollow structure that is sunk down through the earth by workers excavating from inside it; ultimately it becomes ...

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