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mechanism
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
mechanism
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
defence mechanism
exchange rate mechanism
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
different
▪ Such movement may be caused by at least three different mechanisms.
▪ However, different mechanisms appear to be involved in these two acid-base disorders.
▪ In soft-bodied insect larvae, where the appendages are reduced or absent, locomotion occurs through quite different physical mechanisms.
▪ In our model, the cells in the progress zone have their position specified along the two axes by two different mechanisms.
▪ Coupling chromatographic methods based on different separation mechanisms can enhance the separation potential of the individual methods.
▪ Or is development just the accretion of a variety of different mechanisms?
▪ There is also evidence that different mechanisms are involved in residual brightness discrimination.
▪ These antibiotics act by a different mechanism from - and thus complement - the existing drugs.
effective
▪ The most effective proven mechanism to achieve price stability is an independent central bank dedicated to that objective.
▪ It is a subtle but marvelously effective mechanism for steering behavior toward healthy and productive ends.
▪ Deprived of any effective legal mechanism through which to express their discontent, the peasants expressed it instead through rural disturbances.
▪ No effective mechanism was established to link the two groups.
▪ Consequently the saturated zone must be constantly flushed by undersaturated water if dissolution is to be an effective mechanism.
▪ Clapping the hands remains one of the most ancient gestures, bringing into play those eminently effective mechanisms.
formal
▪ In other words, are formal or informal mechanisms of control the major influence?
▪ Is there a formal mechanism for capturing measurements of the process, and is it providing feedback for improvement?
▪ How is it, then, that such findings have not brought about the introduction of a formal corrective mechanism?
▪ Or, can formal mechanisms ever be expected to ensure a successful process of succession?
▪ In short, there was an apparent absence of political will to ensure that formal control mechanisms functioned in practice.
important
▪ During the long post-war boom, argues Aglietta, such flexibility had not been an important regulating mechanism.
▪ This is an important protective mechanism.
▪ But the most pervasive and important mechanism is based on chemical substances called pheromones.
▪ The most important mechanism for achieving such self-consistency is natural selection.
▪ These are by no means the only mechanisms but they are amongst the most important.
▪ Because it is very important, the mechanism of the reduction of a late painful emotion engram must be specifically detailed.
internal
▪ Inflammation is another internal defence mechanism and is a reaction of living tissue to infection, injury and irritants.
▪ Equilibration is the internal mechanism that regulates those processes.
▪ Consideration is also being given to running workshops on the internal quality assurance mechanisms which colleges will be required to develop.
▪ These divergent internal growth mechanisms will be reinforced by the nature of the interaction between the regions.
▪ Immunity is another type of internal defence mechanism usually arising in response to an infection.
▪ However the body has several physical internal mechanisms for combating the adverse external conditions which are an inevitable part of living.
other
▪ The other mechanism involves the effects of heating associated with plate subduction.
▪ In the other two mechanisms, buckminsterfullerene is formed by a combination of specific precursor carbon clusters.
▪ There would be little, if any, need for cell conversations, gradients, and other organizing mechanisms.
▪ There are also other mechanisms for intensifying bands due to formally forbidden transitions, which we do not discuss here.
▪ However, there may be other mechanisms in operation.
▪ Which other mechanisms may be causal?
▪ The secretion of these hormonal peptides, particularly from the colon, is therefore likely to entail other mechanisms.
▪ Usually there will be some redundancy in the system so that other mechanisms can take over.
possible
▪ The prince has suggested two possible constitutional mechanisms to achieve this end.
▪ If deposited there, salt movement and solution-collapse could provide further possible fracturing mechanisms.
▪ There appear to be two possible mechanisms to account for this.
▪ There seemed to be at least two possible mechanisms.
▪ There are, however, other possible mechanisms by which food sensitivities are mediated.
▪ There are several possible mechanisms which may be responsible for this adaptation.
similar
▪ One might expect this because convergent evolution would lead to similar mechanisms to carry out similar functions.
▪ Walkup's argument: Well-planned development can pay for itself, without the burden of impact fees and similar financing mechanisms.
▪ A similar mechanism may perhaps account for the fact that some group-living animals drive sick or injured individuals out of the group.
▪ Defecation syncope has a similar underlying mechanism.
▪ A similar mechanism works in: What is Kristeva's position on gender-positioning in this article?
▪ Living lampreys have a very similar mechanism.
▪ Is the technology forcing similar mechanisms of intervention on to governments with differing ideologies and on to states with differing institutional lay-outs?
▪ It was not possible to vary this, because playback machines had to have a similar gearing mechanism.
various
▪ The paper argues that these various mechanisms now need to be harmonised.
▪ It too can be relaxed by various mechanisms.
▪ Bored soldiers were showing how various mechanisms operated and explaining the rate at which bullets could be discharged.
▪ The ergonomics emphasis will be on the human operator as the navigator moving towards the system objectives supported by various mechanisms.
▪ Control from above was won by the use of various mechanisms.
■ NOUN
control
▪ It is therefore essential that the control mechanisms for each are put in place at the beginning of the design stage.
▪ Teams hold employees to high standards, acting as a more acceptable quality control mechanism than evaluations and orders from the top.
▪ There is now a need for alternative control mechanisms in this new computing environment, one of which is proper personnel controls.
▪ But where are the sensors and the thermostatic control mechanisms?
▪ The traditional budget ensures compliance with the conditions set out in the appropriations; that is, it acts as a control mechanism.
▪ Cell transformation Cancer cells become tumorigenic as a result of multiple independent steps which subvert the normal growth control mechanisms described earlier.
▪ No single control mechanism can ensure efficiency.
▪ The body has to have control mechanisms to regulate all its functions.
defence
▪ When it's cold, the body sets its own range of defence mechanisms in motion.
▪ What appears to be contrary can always be assimilated as evidence of repression, or as a defence mechanism.
▪ Inflammation is another internal defence mechanism and is a reaction of living tissue to infection, injury and irritants.
▪ And if our defence mechanism is impaired, what other dangers may we not be open to?
▪ I note this, and harp on her imperfections, as a defence mechanism.
▪ The ideal candidate will have experience of protein purification and gene cloning and should have an appreciation of plant defence mechanisms.
▪ Where did she get this automatic shutdown defence mechanism?
▪ Everyone's got a defence mechanism.
exchange
▪ Using the generated income for training enables this activity to become an exchange mechanism.
market
▪ This competition can not come through direct market mechanisms.
▪ They prefer market mechanisms to bureaucratic mechanisms.
▪ Here the market mechanism appears to operate in a relatively straight forward way, but there are a number of problems.
▪ Production decisions in the mixed economy are primarily demand-oriented, driven by the market mechanism.
▪ One also needs to be wary of the inequalities that market mechanisms bring in their wake.
▪ The emphasis in this tradition is very much on the limitations of the market mechanism.
▪ Second, that by impeding the market mechanism it may restrict consumer choice.
▪ However, many question over the effectiveness of market mechanisms remain.
price
▪ There are theoretical models which suggest that effective markets depend on legal and institutional factors as well as the operation of the price mechanism.
▪ It is no good telling me that the price mechanism does not work any more.
▪ There are more imaginative regulatory ideas that harness the price mechanism and market forces.
▪ In other words, the price mechanism has not yet been able to form a support for the market.
▪ First, the elimination of exchange rate uncertainty will enhance the efficiency of the price mechanism as a resource allocator.
▪ The reason is that a properly functioning price mechanism performs the function of inputting these values for us.
rate
▪ The obvious parallel is with the reaction to Britain's entry into the exchange rate mechanism 18 months ago.
▪ Our first priority must be to maintain the pound's position within the exchange rate mechanism.
▪ Here we focus on the interest rate mechanism.
▪ Sir Robin said foreign-exchange gains were helped by sterling's departure from the exchange rate mechanism.
▪ Such a move would probably be ruled out even if we were not members of the exchange rate mechanism.
▪ The exchange rate mechanism is a discipline to reduce inflation.
▪ Nigel Lawson rightly wanted to join the exchange rate mechanism two years ago - as did Sir Geoffrey Howe.
survival
▪ It was my own survival mechanism.
■ VERB
allow
▪ An important feature is the QA-approved amendment mechanism to allow changes or additions to be made in the light of experience.
▪ What mechanism allows toadstools -- essentially very soft and squashy items -- to push through two inches of asphalt?
▪ It will produce the hard data needed to analyse resource utilisation and will trigger an alarm mechanism allowing managers to control access.
▪ To make sure that market mechanisms and incentives are allowed to do their job.
▪ Effective community care must provide a mechanism which allows easy and appropriate referral to and from hospital clinics.
▪ By the twentieth edition synthesis had become a well-established mechanism for allowing detailed specification without resorting to exceedingly lengthy schedules.
▪ The free-running ratchet mechanism allow changes of direction to be made with finger and thumb, without releasing the handle.
develop
▪ Once these problems have been identified, we can proceed to develop adequate mechanisms for overcoming them.
▪ The challenge is to develop a mechanism for doing this which does not undermine the role of nation states.
▪ He develops his own personal mechanism for dealing with it.
▪ The Stalinist model, in which the Stakhanovites flourished, failed to develop any sensible control mechanisms, and thus collapsed.
▪ In this situation of permanent threat perceptions developed into defence mechanisms.
▪ Work organizations have yet to develop such coping mechanisms.
ensure
▪ Other mechanisms ensure the appropriate orientation of the insect during flight.
▪ The market has a mechanism for ensuring even that the potential risk of damage to the environment can be costed.
▪ We have long believed the land use planning system is a vital mechanism for ensuring environmental protection and enhancement.
▪ No single control mechanism can ensure efficiency.
▪ We are putting in place new mechanisms to ensure that academic standards are maintained in higher education.
▪ Thus competition is singled out for the first time as the chosen mechanism for ensuring the public interest.
▪ There were, though, no organised mechanisms to ensure that the play performed was the play written.
▪ There is no mechanism which ensures that the benefit will exactly offset the losses for any particular country.
establish
▪ And, lastly, the definition of rules for housework establishes a mechanism whereby the housewife can reward herself for doing it.
▪ Activities i. Establish mechanisms for timely and systematic information exchange between public health agencies of different countries about emerging infectious diseases.
▪ Compacts establish a positive mechanism for communication between disparate groups.
▪ It establishes a mechanism for self management, the reward is personal success.
▪ Zoologists have yet to establish the precise mechanisms behind the camel's fuel economy.
▪ This concept views human society as being equipped with an internal gyroscope which establishes a natural ordering mechanism in society.
provide
▪ But the most important function of the organization is to provide a mechanism for the revision of the scheme.
▪ Audit techniques provide a mechanism both for documenting appropriate patterns of care and for identifying areas in which improvement is necessary.
▪ Compact provides a mechanism for articulating these needs through Partnership between Education and Industry.
▪ The parties can also provide mechanisms for facilitating cooperation and regulating conflict among different parties.
▪ In order to encourage the internal generation a ideas, senior management must provide a clear mechanism for bringing ideas to their attention.
▪ That new system provided a feedback mechanism for each team on the quality of its product.
▪ The disintegration of infected cells provides another mechanism for the release of newly-formed viruses.
▪ He then enclosed it in a transparent box which he provided with a mechanism for straining the specimen in bending.
suggest
▪ The prince has suggested two possible constitutional mechanisms to achieve this end.
▪ What Lednor and Versloot have done is to unify these unrelated chemical curiosities by suggesting one underlying mechanism.
▪ Resistance can be very serious as there is evidence to suggest that the mechanism is cross transferable to antibiotics.
▪ This suggests that the visual mechanisms involved in discrimination performance change after visual cortex ablation.
▪ This suggests that the mechanisms which constrain fetal growth to prevent maternal-fetal disproportion do not effect long term programming of cardiovascular disease.
▪ The aetiology remains unknown, but much circumstantial evidence suggests that immunological mechanisms are involved in the pathogenesis.
understand
▪ In order to understand the mechanisms governing ribosome biosynthesis, it is necessary to elucidate the structure and organization of its components.
▪ But we have to understand the mechanisms they are using in order to help them develop new and more flexible behaviors.
▪ It is difficult to understand the mechanisms of the network as a whole.
▪ Already we have a few examples of the end-product of several stages of processing, although we do not yet understand the mechanisms.
use
▪ The extent to which cells actually use such mechanisms is still being investigated.
▪ The trick is getting a critical mass of corporations and consumers to use electronic mechanisms.
▪ The organization is free to use any available social mechanisms to enforce compliance and ensure its own stability. 5.
▪ He may use more primitive mechanisms to battle back.
▪ The collateral or preliminary fact doctrine was used as their mechanism.
▪ Once evolution had discovered successful ways of constructing organisms it would surely have used those same mechanisms again and again.
▪ The hard-top even uses the same mechanisms and can be attached or removed in a similar time.
▪ Preobrazhensky also wanted to use the market mechanism to extract surplus from the peasants so that state industry could accumulate and grow.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Many schools have a mechanism which allows parents to inspect classroom materials.
▪ the mechanism of the brain
▪ The mechanism that raises the bridge was not working correctly.
▪ The free market system is an imperfect mechanism for achieving full employment.
▪ The garlic press uses a screw mechanism to squeeze out juice and pulp.
▪ The locking mechanism on the car door is broken.
▪ The peace plan includes a mechanism to share power between all four parties.
▪ Unfortunately, the water had damaged the firing mechanism inside the rocket.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ It is quite possible that all three mechanisms might operate.
▪ The company has tested the mechanism on piglets reared by 300 sows on a farm near York.
▪ The Drosophila studies have not solved the memory problem, but they have certainly supplemented our understanding of its biochemical mechanisms.
▪ The guilds were weak and unassertive, functioning mainly as a mechanism for economic regulation.
▪ The parties can also provide mechanisms for facilitating cooperation and regulating conflict among different parties.
▪ The point illustrates the true mechanisms underlying the onset of cancer.
▪ Walkup's argument: Well-planned development can pay for itself, without the burden of impact fees and similar financing mechanisms.
Related phrases:
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Mechanism

Mechanism \Mech"an*ism\, n. [Cf. F. m['e]canisme, L. mechanisma. See Mechanic.]

  1. The arrangement or relation of the parts of a machine; the parts of a machine, taken collectively; the arrangement or relation of the parts of anything as adapted to produce an effect; as, the mechanism of a watch; the mechanism of a sewing machine; the mechanism of a seed pod.

  2. The series of causal relations that operate to produce an effect in any system; as, the mechanism of a chemical reaction.

  3. Mechanical operation or action.

    He acknowledges nothing besides matter and motion; so that all must be performed either by mechanism or accident.
    --Bentley.

  4. (Kinematics) An ideal machine; a combination of movable bodies constituting a machine, but considered only with regard to relative movements.

Related phrases:
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
mechanism

1660s, from Modern Latin mechanismus, from Greek mekhane "machine, instrument" (see machine (n.)).

Wiktionary
mechanism

n. 1 Within a machine or machinery; any mechanical means for the conversion or control of motion, or the transmission or control of power. 2 Any combination of cams, gears, links, belts, chains and logical mechanical elements.

Related phrases:
WordNet
mechanism

  1. n. the atomic process that occurs during a chemical reaction; "he determined unique mechanisms for the photochemical reactions" [syn: chemical mechanism]

  2. the technical aspects of doing something; "a mechanism of social control"; "mechanisms of communication"; "the mechanics of prose style" [syn: mechanics]

  3. a natural object resembling a machine in structure or function; "the mechanism of the ear"; "the mechanism of infection"

  4. (philosophy) the philosophical theory that all phenomena can be explained in terms of physical or biological causes

  5. device consisting of a piece of machinery; has moving parts that perform some function

Related phrases:
Wikipedia
Mechanism

Mechanism may refer to:

  • Mechanism (engineering), rigid bodies connected by joints in order to accomplish a desired force and/or motion transmission
  • Mechanism (biology), explaining how a feature is created
  • Mechanism (philosophy), a theory that all natural phenomena can be explained by physical causes
  • Mechanism (sociology), a theory that all social phenomena can be explained by the existence of a deterministic mechanism
  • Mechanism (band), a death metal band from Canada
Mechanism (sociology)

The term social mechanisms and mechanism-based explanations of social phenomenon originate from the philosophy of science.

The core thinking behind the mechanism approach has been expressed as follows by Elster (1989: 3-4): “To explain an event is to give an account of why it happened. Usually… this takes the form of citing an earlier event as the cause of the event we want to explain…. [But] to cite the cause is not enough: the causal mechanism must also be provided, or at least suggested.”

Existing definitions differ a great deal from one another, but underlying them all is an emphasis on making intelligible the regularities being observed by specifying in detail how they were brought about. The currently most satisfactory discussion of the mechanism concept is found in Machamer, Darden and Craver (2000). Following them, mechanisms can be said to consist of entities (with their properties) and the activities that these entities engage in, either by themselves or in concert with other entities. These activities bring about change, and the type of change brought about depends upon the properties and activities of the entities and the relations between them. A mechanism, thus defined, refers to a constellation of entities and activities that are organized such that they regularly bring about a particular type of outcome, and we explain an observed outcome by referring to the mechanism by which such outcomes are regularly brought about (see also Hedström and Ylikoski 2010).

Mechanism (biology)

In the science of biology, a mechanism is a system of causally interacting parts and processes that produce one or more effects. Scientists explain phenomena by describing mechanisms that could produce the phenomena. For example, natural selection is a mechanism of biological evolution; other mechanisms of evolution include genetic drift, mutation, and gene flow. In ecology, mechanisms such as predation and host-parasite interactions produce change in ecological systems. In practice, no description of a mechanism is ever complete because not all details of the parts and processes of a mechanism are fully known. For example, natural selection is a mechanism of evolution that includes countless, inter-individual interactions with other individuals, components, and processes of the environment in which natural selection operates.

Mechanism (band)

Mechanism is a metal band from Vancouver, British Columbia. Their debut album, Inspired Horrific, combines death metal and progressive metal. It features outstanding technical drumming by Gene Hoglan.

Mechanism (engineering)

A mechanism is a device designed to transform input forces and movement into a desired set of output forces and the movement. Mechanisms generally consist of moving components such as gears and gear trains, belt and chain drives, cam and follower mechanisms, and linkages as well as friction devices such as brakes and clutches, and structural components such as the frame, fasteners, bearings, springs, lubricants and seals, as well as a variety of specialized machine elements such as splines, pins and keys.

The German scientist Reuleaux provides the definition "a machine is a combination of resistant bodies so arranged that by their means the mechanical forces of nature can be compelled to do work accompanied by certain determinate motion." In this context, his use of machine is generally interpreted to mean mechanism.

The combination of force and movement defines power, and a mechanism is designed to manage power in order to achieve a desired set of forces and movement.

A mechanism is usually a piece of a larger process or mechanical system. Sometimes an entire machine may be referred to as a mechanism. Examples are the steering mechanism in a car, or the winding mechanism of a wristwatch. Multiple mechanisms are machines.

Mechanism (philosophy)

Mechanism is the belief that natural wholes (principally living things) are like complicated machines or artifacts, composed of parts lacking any intrinsic relationship to each other. Thus, the source of an apparent thing's activities is not the whole itself, but its parts or an external influence on the parts.

The doctrine of mechanism in philosophy comes in two different flavors. They are both doctrines of metaphysics, but they are different in scope and ambitions: the first is a global doctrine about nature; the second is a local doctrine about humans and their minds, which is hotly contested. For clarity, we might distinguish these two doctrines as universal mechanism and anthropic mechanism.

Related phrases:

Usage examples of "mechanism".

Programs on supersonic reaction initiation, free radical mechanisms, photocatalysis, and selective adsorption would be quietly, even surreptitiously, phased out.

Vaughn loaded the UHF satellite message buoy, roughly the size of a baseball bat, into the aft signal ejector, a small mechanism much like a torpedo tube set into the upper level of the aft compartment.

Structure of the leaves--Sensitiveness of the filaments--Rapid movement of the lobes caused by irritation of the filaments--Glands, their power of secretion--Slow movement caused by the absorption of animal matter--Evidence of absorption from the aggregated condition of the glands--Digestive power of the secretion--Action of chloroform, ether, and hydrocyanic acid--The manner in which insects are captured--Use of the marginal spikes--Kinds of insects captured--The transmission of the motor impulse and mechanism of the movements--Reexpansion of the lobes.

The tabloid future, with its mechanism of a hopeful twist to apocalyptic events, was perhaps not so very remote from our own immediate experience.

Emptiness, and not through a regressive dissolution of dialogical intersubjectivity into atomistic monological states and reductionistic mindless cognitive mechanism, the path the authors all too often stray into.

It was down one of the endlessly dividing data branches growing out of that single muffled reference to the set of synthetic genes that had been derived from the embryonic switching mechanisms of the axolotl and the fearsome dragonfly nymph.

Nonetheless, if in behavioural terms memory is a special case of experience, it is at least worth considering the possibility that the brain mechanisms of memory may be special cases of neural plasticity.

For Berel Jastrow these rotten remains possess all the sad sacred sweetness of the dead: poor cold silent mechanisms, once warm happy creatures sparkling with life, now dumb and motionless without the spark of God in them, but destined one day in His good time to rise again.

So, as Boke suddenly discovered, thorough defense mechanism had been installed.

If anyone could find a way to open the combination, it would be Dana Brye, the man who had devised the mechanism.

Perspective The first category represents a mass communication mechanism for informing the public of crimes being committed.

I shed the curatorial, began to sense the impenetrable mechanism of mystery.

It is to be remarked that the spasm affects the mechanism of the respiratory apparatus, the muscles of mastication and deglutition being only secondarily contracted.

Don noted the turned-down handlebars and double derailleur mechanism first: another ten-speed-or-more machine, perhaps an expensive one.

He struggled with the strange mechanism of his mind which permitted ascension or descension into the strange facets of the universe.