chemin de fer Vsha-.man-do-'ferV or shimmy Card game in which two or three cards are dealt to up to 12 players, who bet one at a time against each other rather than against the house. The winning hand is the one that comes closer to but does not exceed a count of 9. The game (whose French name means “railroad”) derives from baccarat and has similar rules.
chemistry Science that deals with the properties, composition, and structure of substances (elements and compounds), the reactions and trans¬ formations they undergo, and the energy released or absorbed during those processes. Often called the “central science,” chemistry is concerned with atoms as building blocks (rather than with the subatomic domain; see nuclear physics, quantum mechanics), with everything in the material world,
and with all living things. Branches of chemistry include inorganic (see inorganic compound), organic (see organic compound), physical, and ana¬ lytical (see analysis) chemistry; biochemistry; electrochemistry; and geochem¬ istry. Chemical engineering (applied chemistry) uses the theoretical and experimental information obtained in chemistry to build chemical plants and make useful products.
Chemnitz \'kem-nits\ formerly (1953-90) Karl-Marx-Stadt \ l karl- , marks-,shtat\ City (pop., 2002 est.: 255,800), eastern Germany. It lies along the Chemnitz River southeast of Leipzig. Chemnitz began as a trading place on a salt route to Prague and was chartered in 1143. Ger¬ many’s first spinning mill was operating there in 1800, and the first Ger¬ man locomotive was built there. The city remains an industrial centre.
chemoreception \ l ke-mo-ri- , sep-sh9n\ Sensory process by which organisms respond to external chemical stimuli, by employing special¬ ized cells (chemoreceptors) that convert the stimuli directly or indirectly into nerve impulses. Chemoreceptors that are components of sensory neu¬ rons that directly convert chemical stimuli are called primary receptors. Secondary receptors are not part of neurons but respond to stimulation by inducing activity in an adjacent neuron. Most mammals possess two classes of chemoreceptors: the primary receptors involved in smell and located in the epithelium of the nasal cavity and the secondary receptors involved in taste and located in the tongue’s taste buds. Aquatic animals and terrestrial species with mucus-secreting skins typically possess chemoreceptors all over the body. For many animals, chemoreception is the most important means of receiving information about their surround¬ ing environment. Chemoreception plays roles in finding appropriate food and in reproductive behaviour (see pheromones). It serves additional pur¬ poses in some animals, such as distinguishing members of the same com¬ munity from outsiders.
chemotaxonomy V.ke-mo-tak-'sa-no-meV Method of biological clas¬ sification based on similarities in the structure of certain compounds among the organisms being classified. Advocates argue that, because pro¬ teins are more closely controlled by genes and less subject to natural selection than are anatomical features, they are more reliable indicators of genetic relationships.
chemotherapy V.ke-mo-'ther-o-peV Treatment of diseases, including cancer, with chemicals. Some cancer drugs interfere with cancer-cell divi¬ sion or enzyme processes. However, they have serious side effects, attack¬ ing some healthy cells and reducing resistance to infection. Certain steroids are used to treat breast cancer and prostate cancer, leukemia, and lymphomas. Derivatives of plants such as periwinkle (vincristine, vinblas¬ tine) and yew (taxol) have been found effective against Hodgkin disease, leukemia, and breast cancer.
Chen Duxiu Vchon-'dii-she-'iA or Ch'en Tu-hsiu (b. Oct. 8, 1879, Huaining county, Anhuei province, China—d. May 27, 1942, Jiangjing, near Chongqing) Chinese political and intellectual leader, cofounder of the Chinese Communist Party. As a young man, Chen studied in Japan. In China, he started subversive periodicals that were quickly suppressed by the government. In 1915, after the establishment of the Chinese republic, he created the monthly Qingnian zazhi (“Youth Magazine”), renamed Xin qingnian (“New Youth”), in which he proposed that the youth of China rejuvenate the nation intellectually and culturally; Lu Xun, Hu Shih, and Mao Zedong were all contributors. In 1917 Chen was appointed dean of the School of Letters at Beijing University. In 1919 he was imprisoned briefly for his role in the May Fourth Movement; on his release he became a Marxist. With Li Dazhao he founded the Chinese Communist Party in 1920; he is regarded as “China’s Lenin.” The Communist International had him removed as party leader when the party’s alliance with the Nationalist Party fell apart, and he was expelled from the party in 1929. Arrested in 1932, he spent five years in prison.
Chen Shui-bian (b. Feb. 18, 1951, Tainan county, Taiwan) President of the Republic of China (Taiwan) from 2000. Chen studied law at National Taiwan University and later became one of the island’s leading attorneys. After unsuccessfully defending protesters who opposed the rul¬ ing Nationalist Party, he became linked with the opposition movement, and in the mid-1980s he was jailed on charges of libeling a Nationalist official. He subsequently joined the Democratic Progressive Party and became a prominent member of the movement to establish Taiwan’s inde¬ pendence. He served in Taiwan’s legislature (1989-94) before being elected mayor of Taipei in 1994. Although he did not win reelection in 1998, the loss freed him to run for president in 2000, and he defeated the
© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
384 I Chenab ► Chernobyl accident
Nationalist Party’s candidate, ending that party’s 55-year rule of Taiwan. In 2004 Chen was narrowly reelected, the vote coming one day after he and his running mate. Vice President Annette Lu (Lu Hsiu-lien), were shot and slightly wounded while campaigning in Tainan.
Chenab \ch3-'nab\ River ancient Acesines River, India and Pakistan. Rising in Himachal Pradesh state in the Indian Himalayas, it flows west through southern Jammu and Kashmir state and central Punjab province, Pakistan, to unite with the Jhelum and then flow into the Sutlej, a major tributary of the Indus River. One of the “five rivers” of the Punjab, it is about 600 mi (965 km) long and the source of an extensive canal and irrigation system.
Cheney, Dick in full Richard Bruce Cheney (b. Jan. 30, 1941, Lincoln, Neb., U.S.) U.S. politician, vice president of the U.S. from 2001. Cheney grew up in Casper, Wyo., and received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Wyoming. He became a deputy assistant to Pres. Gerald Ford in 1974 and served as his chief of staff from 1975 to 1977. In 1978 Cheney was elected from Wyoming to a Republican seat in the U.S. House of Representatives; he served six terms. As secretary of defense (1989-93) in the administration of Pres. George Bush, he pre¬ sided over reductions in the military following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Following Bush’s electoral defeat in 1992, Cheney became a fel¬ low at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, and later chairman and chief executive officer of the Halliburton Company, a supplier of technology and services to the oil and gas industries. He was elected vice president on a ticket with George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004.