【正文】 happen if the concentration of acetylcholine in the synaptic cleft is very low. Low synaptic concentrations of acetylcholine can be maintained via a hydrolysis reaction catalyzed by the enzyme acetylcholinesterase. This enzyme hydrolyzes acetylcholine into acetic acid and choline. If acetylcholinesterase activity is inhibited, the synaptic concentration of acetylcholine will remain higher than normal. If this inhibition is irreversible, as in the case of exposure to many nerve gases and some pesticides, sweating, bronchial constriction, convulsions, paralysis, and possibly death can occur. Although irreversible inhibition is dangerous, beneficial effects may be derived from transient (reversible) inhibition. Drugs that inhibit acetylcholinesterase in a reversible manner have been shown to improve memory in some people with Alzheimer39。 also called action painting and the New York school. It was the first important school in American painting to declare its independence from European styles and to influence the development of art abroad. Arshile Gorky first gave impetus to the movement. His paintings, derived at first from the art of Picasso, Mir243。s turbulent yet elegant abstract paintings, which were created by spattering paint on huge canvases placed on the floor, brought abstract expressionism before a hostile public. Willem de Kooning39。 among other major abstract expressionists were such painters as Clyfford Still, Theodoros Stamos, Adolph Gottlieb, Helen Frankenthaler, Lee Krasner, and Esteban Vicente. Abstract expressionism presented a broad range of stylistic diversity within its largely, though not exclusively, nonrepresentational framework. For example, the expressive violence and activity in paintings by de Kooning or Pollock marked the opposite end of the pole from the simple, quiescent images of Mark Rothko. Basic to most abstract expressionist painting were the attention paid to surface qualities, ., qualities of brushstroke and texture。 the adoption of an approach to space in which all parts of the canvas played an equally vital role in the total work。 the glorification of the act of painting itself as a means of visual munication。 technically, the slope m of a straight line is the (trigonometric) tangent of the angle it makes with the xaxis. If the line is parallel to the xaxis, its slope is zero. Two or more lines with equal slopes are parallel to one another. In general, the slope of the line through the points (x1, y1) and (x2, y2) is given by m= (y2y1) / (x2x1). The conic sections are treated in analytic geometry as the curves corresponding to the general quadratic equation ax2+bxy+cy2+dx+ey+f=0, where a, b,?…?, f are constants and a, b, and c are not all zero. In solid analytic geometry the orientation of a straight line is given not by one slope but by its direction cosines, λ, μ, and ν, the cosines of the angles the line makes with the x, y, and zaxes, respectively。Descartes in 1637 and was of fundamental importance in the development of the calculus by Sir Isaac Newton and G. W. Leibniz in the late 17th cent. More recently it has served as the basis for the modern development and exploitation of algebraic geometry. circle, closed plane curve consisting of all points at a given distance from some fixed point, called the center. A circle is a conic section cut by a plane perpendicular to the axis of the cone. The term circle is also used to refer to the region enclosed by the curve, more properly called a circular region. The radius of a circle is any line segment connecting the center and a point on the curve。 a chord through the center is the diameter. A secant is a line of indefinite length intersecting the circle at two points, the segment of it within the circle being a chord. A tangent to a circle is a straight line touching the circle at only one point, the point of contact, or tangency, and is always perpendicular to the radius drawn to this point. A circle is inscribed in a polygon if each side of the polygon is tangent to the circle。 it was finally proved impossible in the late 19th cent. (see geometric problems of antiquity). In modern mathematics the circle is the basis for such theories as inversive geometry and certain nonEuclidean geometries. The circle figures significantly in many cultures. In religion and art it frequently symbolizes heaven, eternity, or the universe.